The Magician's Daughter: A Valentine Hill Mystery

by Judith Janeway

  “Sorry about the hat, but it’s all cool. I got a gig.” He turned to Ashley. “I’m in a band.”

  Ashley looked impressed. With his “I’m in a band” line, his long hair hanging in his eyes, his jeans’ waistband at his crotch, and the natural charm of every narcissist, Jeff easily scored with naïve young women. He’d been persistent in hitting on me too, but I’d repeatedly made it clear I wouldn’t have sex with him.

  “You mean, you used to be in a band,” I said. “You haven’t worked as a musician for a year. Now stop hitting on an underage girl and go away.”

  “I wasn’t hitting on her. Come on, Val, you know you’re the only one for me.”

  “No, I’m the only one who won’t sleep with you.”

  “That’s not it. You have standards. I respect you for that. But it’s all going to change now. It’s like we talked about. I’d get a gig and you’d come with me. But we have to leave like—now.”

  “You talked about it. You never listened when I said I wouldn’t sign on for it. And why would I? Because of you I lost next week’s rent.”

  “Why are you stressing about the rent? You’re not anywhere near broke and you know it.”

  I gritted my teeth. Why had I confided in Jeff about my safety net stash?

  “And,” he added, “you won’t have to pay rent if you come to Berkeley with me.”

  “Berkeley?” Ashley put in.

  “Yeah. And get this—I’ll be playing with Ghoul Food. Can you believe it? They have a gig in a really cool club. And my sister lives in San Francisco, so we can stay with her.”

  “Omigod,” Ashley said. “It’s like karma or something.”

  “What is?” Jeff asked.

  I put out a hand to stop Ashley, but she was swept up in the whole karma thing. “She’s already going to San Francisco to find her mom. And then you get a job there. Wow.”

  “For real?” Jeff asked. “Wait—find your mom? Not your dad?”

  “I have to go to work,” I said.

  Ashley stepped closer. “You don’t know where your dad is either?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about this with either of them.

  “Yeah,” Jeff said. “Her dad’s a magician, too.”

  “Really?” Ashley asked, wide-eyed. “What’s his name?”

  “That’s the problem,” Jeff said. “She doesn’t know.”

  “Then how are you going to find him?” She raised her eyebrows at me.

  “I’m sorry, Ashley,” I wanted to stop the questions, “but I really do have to go to work now.”

  “Valentine, please.” Jeff gave me his best puppy dog in the pound look. “You know I how I feel about you. This is our chance. It’s like she said—karma.”

  “No, Jeff. Karma is you finally getting a gig but not having any money to get there because you didn’t show up for the job you already had.”

  “Babe, don’t do this to me. We’re meant to be. You know we are. Why do you keep fighting it?”

  I narrowed my eyes. He was being way too persistent. Then it hit me. “How were you planning on getting to Berkeley or San Francisco or wherever you’re going?”

  He brightened, apparently taking this as encouragement. “There’s a flight out tonight. I can just make it and be in time for the show. I know you can’t fly, but you can take the bus and meet me there tomorrow.”

  “And who’s buying the tickets?”

  “You front me the money, and I’ll pay you back.” He didn’t blink. “But here’s the deal. I told them I’d make it for tonight’s show, so we got to go.”

  I stared at him. “You expect me to pay your way after you cost me a whole week’s rent? You’re delusional.”

  “You’re not listening. I’ll pay you back. I’m going to make a lot of money. This is my big break. And you’re going to San Francisco anyway, so it’s like we’re meant to be. You know you care about me at least a little. You know how I feel about you.”

  “Sure. You feel like I’m an easy touch, which I’m not. Go hit up someone else for your plane fare.”

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me—to us.”

  I folded my arms. “Will you go away, or do I have to call security?”

  Jeff held my gaze for a few seconds, turned away, then turned back. “I know you don’t really mean it.” He walked away.

  Ashley stared at me. “You’re not breaking up with him, are you? I mean, you’re going to make up, right?”

  I shook my head.

  “But he loves you. Don’t you feel anything for him?”

  “He doesn’t love me. He just can’t face the fact that there’s even one woman in the world who won’t have sex with him.”

  “Why not? He’s hot.”

  “Hot or not, he’s a musician. You know what they call a musician without a girlfriend?”

  Ashley shook her head.

  “Homeless.”

  Ashley cracked a faint grin.

  “Trust me, he was hoping I’d go with him so I’d pay to get us there. Forget about him. You were about to give me Elizabeth’s address?” I held up the paper and pencil again.

  Ashley read out the address from her cell.

  “Thank you so much for this. You don’t know what it means to me. And please don’t tell her or your dad? I want to surprise her.”

  “I won’t. But take down my cell number. Call me when you get to San Francisco.”

  I added Ashley’s phone number. “I really have to go. I’m late for work. Thanks again.”

  “Call me.”

  “I promise that I’ll try. Bye, Ashley.” I hurried through the employee’s entrance and up the stairs to the theater’s backstage. I was late but Eddie was later, so no one knew.

  The problem with being paid under the table is that you have no recourse if your employer stiffs you. I waited until after Eddie gave me my pay post-performance before I told him I was leaving. As I’d expected, he didn’t take it well and vowed he’d never hire me again. An empty threat, since he was an unreliable drunk, who ran through assistants the way he ran through bottles of vodka. But if I got what I needed from Elizabeth, I wouldn’t have to work off-the-books again. I’d be a regular tax-paying citizen at last.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited as I made my way home. I’d been trying to find Elizabeth since Aunt June died. Once I’d even hired a private detective, but he was too expensive and never turned up anything. I jogged up the stairs to the apartment where I rented a room from Diane. As a Vegas showgirl she made much more than I did but rented out rooms because she was forever saving for her next plastic surgery. She always complained about the unfairness of my having breasts almost as big as hers that I didn’t pay for.

  The apartment lay in darkness. Diane and our other roommate were still out doing a late show. Lucky me. My rent was paid through the end of the week. I could leave her a note and not have to explain why I left so suddenly.

  I felt my way through the darkened living room. Diane was hypervigilant about the cost of utilities, so we never turned on unneeded lights. I pressed the light switch in the hallway, started toward my room at the end, and stopped short. My door, my always-padlocked door, stood open. Diane was the only other person who had a key, because she’d insisted “in case of emergencies.”

  I ran into my room and hit the light. My room had been ransacked. Diane would never do such a thing, but Jeff would. He must’ve rushed here and talked Diane into letting him into my room.

  The room was such a mess it took me a few seconds to register the real disaster. My beautiful Chinese wooden inlay box lay in splinters in the middle of my bed. The precious box that Aunt June had given me because it had not one, but two secret compartments. It had taken me five minutes to figure out the clever tricks to open the compartments, and no one else who tried had been
able to open it. I sank to my knees next to the bed and fingered the shattered pieces of wood. To lose this special gift from the one person in the world who’d loved me was crushing, and to lose the two thousand dollars I’d hidden inside the box was almost as unbearable.

  A letter scrawled in Jeff’s handwriting lay on the bed. I snatched it up, my hand shaking with rage. The stupid, worthless jerk. How could he have done this to me? His letter began with an apology but quickly moved on to recrimination. It was all my fault for not believing how much he loved me. So he’d decided to take our destiny into his hands. I could find him and my money at his sister’s house San Francisco. He was “holding it hostage” and would give it all back as soon as I arrived.

  Yeah, right. He’d give it back minus his expenses after I’d had sex with him. The rotten scum. He knew I couldn’t call the cops.

  I closed my eyes to think. I had my night’s pay from Eddie and a few dollars in my pocket. I could probably wangle a ride to San Francisco on a gamblers’ express bus. Then I’d find Elizabeth. After that I’d find Jeff, get what was left of my money, and even though I’d promised Aunt June I wouldn’t get into fights anymore, I was going to punch him in the nose. Twice.

  Chapter Two

  I gazed at the pillared façade of the Pacific Heights apartment building and wiggled my left toes against the comforting thickness of the forty-three dollars I’d stuffed in the bottom of my shoe. Except for three bucks and change in my pocket, it was all I had to my name, thanks to Jeff. The jerk. Once I’d faced Elizabeth, I’d track him down at the address he’d left.

  In spite of the pillars, the building managed not to look pretentious. It wasn’t more than three stories, not new, but with everything in view fresh-painted or polished. Just right for someone trying to pass herself off as ultra-respectable, not to mention well-off.

  I shifted the strap of my duffel to ease the strain on my shoulder and climbed the steps to the front entrance. Hard to believe I’d found Elizabeth at last. Now all I had to do was convince her to tell me the truth for once. That would be harder than finding her, because Elizabeth had never in her life told the truth when she could tell a lie.

  I scanned the printed white name cards lined up in shiny brass holders next to a row of doorbells. The seventh one down said “B. Hull #301.”

  “Are you looking for someone?”

  I turned around. A fiftyish woman in a mauve wool suit and matching shoes fingered her key holder, her eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer. I could tell by the way she eyed my worn jeans, black wool Army Surplus sweater, and ancient duffel bag that she didn’t think I belonged in this upscale San Francisco neighborhood.

  I straightened my shoulders. “I’m Elizabeth Hill’s daughter.” Aunt June’s Rule Number One: Always tell the truth—although Elizabeth would hate me for it.

  A small frown formed a double line between the woman’s carefully drawn eyebrows. I stood still and let her look.

  The woman turned, fitted her key into the front door lock, and spoke over her shoulder. “My goodness, her daughter. She’s so young-looking, you could be taken for sisters.”

  And would be, if Elizabeth had anything to say about it. I followed the woman through the doorway and turned toward the wide carpeted staircase to my right.

  “There’s an elevator down the hall,” the woman said.

  “Thanks, but I prefer the stairs.” Easier to put it that way than to say flat out that I was allergic to elevators. I hitched my duffel so the weight of it rested on my back and headed up the stairs. Two flights of stairs offered a much shorter hike than the trek I’d made up the steep hill of Pacific Avenue to get here, but my breath came in bigger gasps with each step. Now that I’d come this close, I was as scared as the first time I’d gone busking solo. Just a street corner gig, but my legs had felt like cooked spaghetti until I was halfway through my routine.

  I straightened and gripped my duffel strap tighter. I was the Great Valentina. I’d faced jeering kids, drunken hecklers, and apathetic passersby and won them over. I could face Elizabeth. I said it over and over in my head to the rhythm of my steps. Not that it did any good. My knees didn’t believe me.

  I reached the third floor and walked down the wide hallway. Three-oh-one was easy to find because the door stood ajar. It wasn’t like Elizabeth to be so careless. I rapped on the door and tried, without pushing the door any further open, to peek through the gap into the room beyond.

  A man jerked the door open. I jumped back. He had a thick, muscled neck. I’d bet the muscles went all the way up to his buzz cut. He wore a car mechanic’s blue jumpsuit with Dwayne sewn on the left front pocket in red thread. Not at all Elizabeth’s type. Aside from the workingman look, he was younger than she was. Elizabeth had always targeted men in their fifties and sixties.

  I waited for him to say something, but he just stood in the doorway and stared at me with his close-set eyes, so I said, “Hi, Dwayne, is Elizabeth here?” Which, it turned out, was the first of several mistakes I made that morning.

  Dwayne grabbed me by the wrist, jerked me over the threshold and tossed me still clutching my duffel into the middle of the room. “How the fuck you know my name?”

  I rubbed my wrist. I’d been right about the muscles, thick on his arms, shoulders, neck—and between the ears. What had I walked into? A quick scan of the room showed no Elizabeth. I tensed and readied to fake to the left, run to the right and out the still open door, but I hesitated. My second mistake. But I was so close to finally finding Elizabeth I couldn’t make myself run. “Elizabeth?” I called. “You here?”

  “She’s in there.” He gestured toward a doorway. “Getting her coat,” he added with a sneer and kicked the door shut.

  Elizabeth didn’t answer. We stood staring at each other for a long two seconds. In the years I’d served as her accomplice, Elizabeth had never lived in a place with only one exit. Two would serve; three or more was ideal. I could see the thought coming to him. No sudden illumination, but gradually, like a light bulb on a dimmer switch.

  He grabbed my wrist again and dragged me with him to the bedroom doorway. I dug in my heels and tried to hook my duffel on the doorframe. He hauled me after him anyway and in the end it was my shoulder socket that decided I should let him. He pulled me across the empty room and kicked open the door of the bathroom. It slammed against the wall and bounced shut again. Naturally he gave it another, harder kick—with the same result. At least he could be sure she wasn’t hiding behind the door. On the third kick he put his hand out and stopped the door from closing. The bathroom was quite small and Elizabeth wasn’t in it.

  He moved to the bedroom window, still towing me along. He yanked the curtains down, curtain rod and all. We both stared at the fire escape on the other side of the open window.

  “Fucking bitch.” He released my wrist and stuck his head out the window.

  As soon as he let go, I ran. I made it as far as the living room before he caught up with me. He grabbed me by the back of my sweater and hoisted me off my feet. “Where’d she go?”

  The neck of my sweater pressed against my throat like a noose. I pulled at it with my hands. “Can’t breathe,” I gasped.

  He let go of my sweater, and I jolted to the ground. “Now talk,” he said.

  I had to think fast, talk fast, and move faster. “Okay, I’ll talk. I want to talk. I’m glad to talk. I’m looking for Elizabeth, too. She’s hard to find. Hard to pin down. But maybe we could work together?” I edged a quarter step away from him.

  Dwayne stared at me, maybe trying to take in my rapid speech.

  “Yes,” I said, as if he’d agreed with me. “We could work together and find her. She can’t have gone far, right? I mean, I know all about things appearing and disappearing. Like this quarter.” I produced a quarter as if out of thin air. “I mean, it’s there. But then,” I flipped the quarter into the air, and it disappeared.
“It’s gone.”

  Dwayne scowled at the empty air and I edged a little further back. He stood between me and the door, but there was a chance I could get by him, if I could get out of arm’s reach.

  “Then look!” He looked where I pointed. Taking another surreptitious step to the side, I reached up and snatched at the air. “Here it is.” I opened my hand and showed him the quarter. “Elizabeth’s like that, right?” I smiled my best aren’t-we-having-fun smile.

  Dwayne didn’t smile back. Instead he closed the small distance I’d made between us and leaned his face close to mine. “Stop fucking around and tell me where she is.”

  “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I gave each word deliberate weight so they might sink in. “I don’t know where she went.”

  He slapped me. “Don’t lie to me, bitch.”

  “Okay, okay.” I put my hands up, palms outward. I couldn’t stop a goon like Dwayne, but I could buy a few seconds to get past him and out the door. I made direct eye contact and held his gaze. “I’ll tell you the absolute truth. I never lie. I never swear. And, I never hit, unless someone hits me first.” With those last words, I stomped on his instep hard and raised the knee of the other leg toward his groin. It’s a good move because men so instinctively bend forward and cover their privates with their hands. Dwayne did just that, and I gave him the straight arm directly to his solar plexus, the force of my blow amplified by his forward movement. He grunted and froze in his bent-over position, hands still crossed over his crotch. I immediately punched him directly on the nose and ran for the door.

  Dwayne might be mentally slow, but his reflexes were rapid. He grabbed me by the sweater a second time and before I could wriggle out of it and get free, he tossed me to the floor. I screamed as loud as I could. That was my third big mistake, because, as I found out, Dwayne really hated screaming women.