by Mel Gilden
“A bad time for wizards,” Astraea remarked. “Why would any of them want to come here and relive all that?”
The couple that had come in behind us trotted down the stairs, still giggling, and we got out of their way as they hurried into the main room.
“For the same reason people go see World War II pictures—because it’s over and the good guys won. It’s a safe thrill. You can knock any number of times on the front door and give any word for a password, they always let you in. The whole joint is show biz. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”
We walked across the room to a long bar heavily-carved with famous wizards doing famous tricks. The back bar, as carefully lit as a movie set, was crowded with bottles of varying size, shape, and obscurity. We strolled down to the end of the bar where Harold Silverwhite should have been stationed and found a stranger with a frizz of lifeless brown hair that was trying to find a foothold on his noggin.
“Harold’s not here yet,” I told Astraea, then ordered a gin and tonic for myself, and chardonnay for her. I was carrying the glasses to an empty table I had spotted when I saw two men sitting in a corner. It was the handsome Lord Philpot and the pruney Lord Trask, of course. I had not expected to see Lord Trask that evening, but his presence didn’t bother me. They watched me come as I carried the glasses to their table.
“May Ms. Scales and I join you?” I asked.
“Of course,” Lord Philpot said, and gestured to two empty chairs while Lord Trask watched us with something like horror. I could imagine why. Nobody had bothered to tell him that I’d escaped from the basement of Abracadabra House. Maybe nobody knew—I didn’t know how often a frat boy would check.
Astraea and I settled. She sipped her wine while I made introductions all around. The three of them nodded at each other like bobble-head dolls. Philpot took her hand gently in his and over it said he was delighted to meet her. He glanced up at me. “We waited for you last night,” he remarked casually.
I looked at Lord Trask. “Something came up,” I said. “A personal matter.”
Neither of the lords bit on that. “Nice place,” I went on in a conversational tone, glancing around as if I owned it and was thinking of turning it into a parking lot.
Lord Trask grunted and drank from a glass that looked as if it contained ice water but probably did not. He shrank into himself, as wrinkled and unhappy as an old faded paper flower. He wasn’t glad to see me, but he didn’t know that I suspected him of having me abducted. It was to his advantage not to ask questions.
“I was told you wanted to speak to me about Misty Morning,” Lord Philpot said. “I don’t know why. I told you everything I knew in the board room the other day.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “As a courtesy to you,” he said. “Besides, I come here often. It is like spitting in Anna Montaigne’s eye and giving Charles W. McGonigal a hot foot.”
Astraea and I nodded.
“I assume you have an idea,” he went on. “I am curious to hear what it is.”
“You seem to have a lot more confidence in me than Lord Slex does.”
“Perhaps it is because I don’t know you as well.”
I laughed at that, and Astraea smiled.
“What is your idea, Mr. Cronyn?”
“Just that you and Misty were closer than I, and perhaps the other members of the board, were led to believe.”
“This idea comes to you how, Mr. Cronyn?”
“I have to protect my sources, sir.”
“Of course.”
We drank while good times raged around us. A grotesque crone in an evening dress walked through the room on the arm of a beanpole of a man in a coat and tie. They were angry about something. “I’ll get you!” the woman cried and pointed at individuals in the crowd. They laughed at her and made rude remarks. “I’ll get you all! Magic is sinful!” I was reminded unpleasantly of Eddie “The Ender” Tips.
“Go back to Hell where you came from,” Lord Trask cried and threw a wadded-up paper napkin at the women. It fell between the tables far short of its target. The couple didn’t even slow down, and soon went out a side door that said Employees Only.
“Anna Montaigne and Charles W. McGonigal,” Astraea said.
“Appearing nightly,” I explained. “Every forty-five minutes until closing.”
“They don’t get any respect,” Lord Philpot said. “Those of us who suffered through Prohibition with the original cast find the performance quite satisfying.”
“Tell me about your relationship with Misty.”
“There is no law against seeing one’s students socially.”
“No,” I admitted. “But the fact that you neglected to mention your relationship earlier is a little suspicious.”
“It is not suspicious,” Lord Philpot said. “It is only private. Besides, there was no relationship, not in the objectionable sense you mean.”
I nodded as if I believed him. “Were you angry when she dropped you?” I asked suddenly.
“She didn’t—”
I held up one hand. “All right. Was she angry?”
“Neither of us dropped the other. There was no relationship.”
I’d have more luck carving marble with my teeth. I tried a different tack. “Like the other lords, you were sure that Misty had no enemies. Was that your private idea, too?”
“I don’t know who killed her, if that’s what you are asking.”
“Always the same questions,” Lord Trask grumbled, his diction a little loose. Now I was sure the clear liquid in his glass was not water. His statement startled me. Maybe he was right. I seemed to be going in circles. Each of these birds had his own dirty little secret, but neither of them seemed to have much to do with Misty’s murder. I stood up and Astraea rose beside me. “Have a lovely evening,” I said and made a short bow. Astraea and I got away from the table with as much grace as we could.
“Tomorrow morning nothing they say or do will matter,” Astraea said to me softly.
“No?” I raised an eyebrow at her.
“You brought them to Justice. Their fall will be in all the papers.”
“I still think the police—”
“Fear not.”
“What did you actually do?” I asked.
“Encouraged the universe to follow its course.”
“That’s pretty ambiguous.”
By this time we were back at the bar. The depressed little man was gone and in his place was Harold Silverwhite. Tonight he wore a fawn gray Edwardian suit—a little tighter style than was fashionable at the moment, but very natty all the same. A cold beer stood before him sweating on a paper coaster. “Turner, old chum!” he exclaimed. “How nice to see you.” He smiled at Astraea. The smile was genuine and had a lot of heat behind it. I knew Silverwhite well enough to know that he would have smiled the same way if she’d looked like a walrus. “Who is this charming person?” he asked.
I introduced them to each other and they shook hands.
“What can I do for you, old chum?” he asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A DELICATE CONSTITUTION
The joint was filling up, and the bar, which had been half empty when we walked in, had almost every seat filled. In some popular locations people were two and three deep.
“Come join me in my private thinking parlor,” I said, and led them to an strangely empty table in the middle of the room. I thought Philpot and Trask were watching us, but when I smiled in their direction they ignored me.
“Have you heard about the Misty Morning case?” I asked Silverwhite when we were settled.
“Only what I read in the papers, old chum.”
“I don’t think the papers mentioned her latest project—some kind of thickening of the air into lens shapes. I’m told that Ms. Morning called them knots. Each knot sucks things in, even souls, and doesn’t let them out. I don’t think so, anyway. Do you like it so far?”
“Tickety boo, old chum. But so
uls?”
“Maybe you haven’t read in the papers about how Eulalie Tortuga and some other people are suddenly without intelligence or personality—zombies, the paper said.”
“Ah. You believe there is a connection between these zombies and the death of Ms. Morning,” Silverwhite suggested.
“We believe so,” Astraea said.
Astraea and I drank while Silverwhite rocked in his chair a little, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Anything about it on the jungle telegraph?” I asked.
He frowned, considering. “Not a thing. And keeping a project like that quiet would be difficult. There would be rumors, if nothing else. I’m quite interested. Tell on, old chum.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. I have a copy of Ms. Morning’s laboratory log out in the trunk of my car. The only problem is that it’s in code. Nobody can read it.”
“You’ve brought me a challenge, old chum!” Silverwhite said with delight. “My van is here and at your service.”
“Van?” Astraea asked.
“I will personally give you the two-shilling tour,” Silverwhite assured her.
“Hang on, Blackstone,” I said. “Before you begin showing Ms. Scales how to pull rabbits from hats, I have another question. Ever hear of a fellow named Merv Lupinsky? He was a tech writer recently working for PrestoCorp.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know Mr. Lupinsky. Sorry.”
“Ms. Morning had sold some patents to PrestoCorp—her car-of-different-color, for one. I’m thinking she and Mr. Lupinsky might have known each other.”
“They worked together?”
“I have no idea. I was hoping you and your sources would surprise me.”
Silverwhite checked the spelling of the name with me and made a note on his paper coaster. “Anything else?” he asked.
“Just the log,” I said.
“Very well, then,” he said as he stood up, “let us adjourn to the parking lot.”
Getting out of the Magic Vault was a lot simpler than getting in. We merely walked out a door marked EXIT and found ourselves back in the lobby. “Have a bueno evening,” the hostess called gaily as we left.
Outside, the gentle air was a little warmer than the processed stuff inside. It touched us with silky fingers and sent us the sweet perfume of night-blooming flowers. The carhops were gathered around a small lighted sentry box listening to a radio that gave out plenty of static along with the mariachi music. Silverwhite told the carhops we weren’t leaving, just getting items from our cars. We showed our claim tickets and got our keys back, each hooked to a paper tag with the number of the spot where our car was parked.
At the bottom of a long steep driveway we came to the parking lot. Another carhop straightened to attention, hid a cigarette behind his back, and asked if we required assistance. We didn’t and he relaxed.
We found my car and I got the log book. The three of us walked it to Silverwhite’s van, which was parked the next aisle over and down a ways.
He used his keys to open the double back doors, releasing the pent-up smell of chemicals and herbs. The whole inside of the van contained a complete chemical laboratory, with a specialty in magic. It was crowded but neat—it had to be neat to get everything in.
“Wonderful,” Astraea remarked, awed.
“Thanks,” Silverwhite said. “I’ve been a consultant for a long time, and early in my career I never had what I needed when I wanted it, so I designed this van. Over the years I refined the design until I came to the magnificent organization you see before you. There is very little I can do in my laboratory at home that I can’t do in this bit of rolling stock.”
“But he’s just being modest,” I said.
“Wonderful,” Astraea remarked again.
“I have a lot to be modest about, old chum,” Silverwhite said as he climbed up into a space that was just big enough for him, sat facing us on a stool, and pulled a table down in front of him. “Let’s have it,” he said and held out his hand. I gave him the log book.
He conjured up a will o’ the wisp that shined a bright light onto the table top. He inspected the outside of the log, then opened it and inspected that. He turned pages with fingers that were nearly as rakish and elegant as Astraea’s legs, stopping now and then to fire fairy dust from the tip of his index finger at a particular word or phrase. Through it all he hummed selections from The Mikado. It was a performance as much as it was an analysis. I wondered if the performance was for our benefit or his own.
When he’d been through the log once he put it down, stared at it, and drummed on it with those long amazing fingers of his. He rolled backwards into the van on his stool, collecting leaves and bits of bark from shelves as he went. Seconds later he returned and made a tiny bonfire next to the book on the table. He held the log book over the bonfire, allowing the smoke to gather around it like a ball of dirty yarn. Silverwhite waved the smoke away, opened the book again, and frowned at a few pages. By this time he’d stopped humming.
Suddenly he waved his hand over the bonfire, making it disappear, then closed the book and gave it back to me. I’d rarely seen a man more defeated.
“Well?” I asked.
“No charge,” Silverwhite said.
“You weren’t going to charge me anyway,” I said. “You couldn’t read it, could you?”
“No.”
“And that bothers you.”
“You make me sound like a man with a very fragile ego, old chum.” He spoke carefully, like someone walking on a wet floor.
“Nothing like that,” I told him. “It’s just that I know you hate to leave a problem unsolved.”
He inclined his head once.
He was still thinking when he climbed down from his van and locked the doors—considering alternatives, remembering old spells he may not have used in years. “A pleasure to have met you,” he told Astraea.
“And you.” She rested her hand on his wrist. “You are not dead yet,” she said. “Call Turner if something occurs to you.”
He gave her a creaky smile. He was looking at her, but not seeing her. His mind was elsewhere. “Thank you, my dear,” he said.
“Let me know if you learn anything about Merv Lupinsky,” I said.
“All right,” he said. It was just something to say while he shook hands with me. He quickly got into his van and drove away, his engine noise soon lost in the rumble of traffic on Franklin Avenue.
Astraea and I strolled back to my car. I wasn’t feeling very jaunty myself. I’d learned nothing new from Lord Philpot—or from Harold Silverwhite either, for that matter. If Silverwhite couldn’t decode Misty’s log book, maybe nobody could. Of course, the news was not all bad. If Silverwhite couldn’t do it, Dr. Hamish probably couldn’t do it, either.
“I like him,” Astraea said.
“I like him, too,” I replied. “Though he does seem to have a delicate constitution.”
“Like some detectives I know,” she said.
“That’s not nice.”
She smiled. “Just yanking your chain,” she said. Her laughter invited me to laugh along with her.
I had one more thing to do this evening. All might not be lost. “It’s a beautiful night for a drive along the coast,” I said. “Want to come?” I remembered the smell of fresh ocean air that had remained behind when Louie ‘The Mouth’ Stuckler disappeared at the dead end of Misty’s street. Lyda Firebough told me that Louie lived in an abandoned amusement park. Lucky for me there was only one abandoned amusement park within a hundred miles, and that one happened to be in Santa Monica, right on the ocean. Louie might be there.
“I think this is not a casual invitation,” Astraea said.
“No. I’m going to visit Louie ‘The Mouth’ Stuckler.”
“It is a beautiful night,” Astraea said. “I will go with you.”
We got into my car and I drove us west. When we arrived at the beach, the air was cold and the night sky was a swatch of gray corduroy. Orange lights shone down
onto the pier from tall poles, and it was easy enough to find a parking place. Only a few spaces were taken, and those by early-evening smoochers who had no interest in anything but each other.
Astraea and I walked through the cold damp air to a high chain-link fence, each of us happy to be wearing a coat. The freshness of the ocean mixed, as it always does, with the stink of dead fish and seaweed, giving the beach an odor like no other.
We looked through the fence at the dark sinister jumble beyond, and over it at the big block letters, now gray with expired magic dust, that spelled out SNAP: SANTA MONICA NAUTICAL AMUSEMENT PIER, and wondered how we were going to get in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A NICE HOVEL
“I remember this place,” Astraea said, pleased.
“You came here often?” I asked with surprise.
“Once,” she said. “I was curious.”
“I’d think that an amusement park like this would be pretty dull for gods and goddesses. I heard they played chess using real people, mortals, for pieces.”
“Being a god is not always as much fun as you may believe,” Astraea said gravely.
I shrugged. “Few things are,” I said. “I guess this place wasn’t or it would still be in business.”
The fence was bent away from one of the posts where thrill-seekers who’d come before us had snuck inside. We stood silently in the dark, invisible as a couple of black cats in a coal bin, until a crowd of noisy kids had passed at the land end of the pier. I ducked under the fence and stopped a few feet inside behind a fiberglass fish as big as my automobile. A sharp protrusion on the fence had snagged my shirt, ripping it. But I was a he-man and didn’t care. Astraea appeared beside me. In that light I could not tell whether she had walked or arrived magically.
I recited a spell and a will o’ the wisp collected itself out of reflected moonshine and floated before us. In the cold white light I saw six entrances, each blocked by a rickety sawhorse that was no more than a suggestion to keep out.
I chose an entrance, moved a sawhorse, and motioned the will o’ the wisp ahead of us. Like a faithful dog on the scent, it led Astraea and me through a long tunnel decorated with paintings of fanciful sea creatures that once must have been pretty gaudy. At the other end of the tunnel we walked out into an enormous open space that was a Hollywood designer’s idea of a quaint fishing village. A sign that said Admiral Benbow Inn creaked when it swayed. Ragged netting moved in the fresh ocean breeze. The place looked new in the near darkness, but where the will o’ the wisp light touched walls I saw flaking paint, rotting wood, and rusting metal.