The Spirit Cabinet

by Paul Quarrington

  Preston went through the door of his apartment and descended into the theatre.

  The George had been built in 1917, during a brief boom. Badgered out of the sands by the obdurate Helen Stewart—widowed on account of a duel in which her husband Archibald had been forced to defend her honour—Las Vegas was a random stop on the tracks being laid along the Mormon Trail. The George Theater lay in the heart of Block 16, the haunt of faro players and horny railway workers. It had been erected by a theatrical Englishman, Ivor Thicknesse, who was surely suffering from heatstroke, the skin on his pate perpetually blistered by the merciless sun. Thicknesse opened the George with a production of Hamlet, taking the lead himself, spinning about the stage in a state of advanced delirium. He managed to put on quite a few shows, even persuading some of the prominent thespians of the day—George Arliss, Edmund Breece, Lumsden Hare—that the George in “Ragtown” represented a fruitful and gratifying stop on any transcontinental tour. Thicknesse himself always took a part, at least he did until an audience member, caught up in the duel taking place before him, shot Thicknesse’s Tybalt in the back of the head.

  The theatre was then clapboarded and tarpapered, and it lay unused until Preston the Magnificent, Jr., bought it, refurbished it and started presenting his little entertainments in its hall. It seemed a very odd thing to do; Preston was rumoured to have a problem with strong drink.

  The stairs snaked and curled, connecting the loges and the small auditorium below. Preston was forced to take hold of the banister, to place his feet with precision on the uneven, wobbly risers. The lamplight was dampened by the dust on the glass. It wasn’t that Preston was lazy about housekeeping duties, but he liked the idea of dust so much he was loathe to wipe and feather it away. Dust was mostly human skin, Preston had heard, and in this unhygienic manner Ivor Thicknesse was still prowling about the George, his brains boiled by the heat.

  In the tiny foyer was the small glass booth that contained, ordinarily, the pinch-faced Mrs. Antoinette Kingsley, who would make change and issue tickets with sober, churlish industry. Preston removed from his pocket a piece of paper (it was actually a Kleenex). He reached through the cut-out and fished around on Mrs. Kingsley’s desktop until he located the stub of a pencil. Then he wrote the words SHOW CANCELLED—TAKE A RAINCHECK on the Kleenex, licked a corner and stuck it up.

  He carefully locked the big theatre doors behind him with a massive, old-fashioned key, a heart wrought at one end, the works merely three truncated fingers. In Las Vegas, a town full of crooks and magicians, this precaution was more than useless. There were guys, Preston knew, who could undo the lock without even touching it. But he enjoyed old locks and old keys, so he worked the loud, clunky mechanism, whistling all the while, and when he was done he paused to look at his poster.

  PRESTON THE MAGNIFICENT, JR., large letters proclaimed, although the man in the poster looked not much like the Preston we know. The man in the poster was slim and clear-eyed. He held his hands in an awkward manner, the fingers spread wide. They were empty, but the poster made one imagine that they had been full of things just the moment before, or would be the moment after—all manner of things, coins and cards and radiant doves. In the poster, Preston was wearing one of his father’s capes, long, black and embroidered with a design of lightning flashes. Preston no longer wore that cape. In fact, he had no idea where it was. That thought made him chuckle a bit, because the cape was certainly left loaded, a collapsible wand tucked into the hem, along with the thin metal rod that controlled the flying ball. If anyone found it, his father would be exposed for the cheap cozening thimblerigger he was.

  As far as Preston was concerned, his father had only ever performed one worthwile stunt. It had taken place in Cleveland, where Preston the Magnificent was giving a Saturday afternoon matinee. Preston could imagine his father standing on stage, unreasonably rigid (so that his huge, sculpted hairdo would not be knocked askew), announcing each illusion in an English that no one else spoke or understood. “Yea,” his father might say, sometimes even adding the verily, “Wither comes this luminiferous orb? It cometh out of a mystic vacuity!”

  So there he was, Preston the Magnificent, prestidigitating for all his worth, when the manager appeared in the wings making frantic hisses and come-hither motions with his index finger. Preston the Magnificent ignored him for a good long while, upset by this lack of breeding and manners, but finally and reluctantly he asked the audience’s indulgence and went to see what was up.

  “Fire,” whispered the manager. Only then did Preston the Magnificent notice the smoke, the flame that was licking the edges of the scrim.

  The story, as reported by the newspapers and repeated at chintzy conjurors’ conventions, had it that Preston the Magnificent didn’t hesitate at all, merely wheeled about and walked to his mark, stuck a finger into the air and began to speak. His son didn’t buy that, exactly. He imagined that his father opened and closed his mouth wordlessly a few times, that his face coloured with anger. The idea of anything interrupting a show would make him apoplectic. So Preston the Magnificent probably swore at the fire (he used several childish words in place of curses, things like fizz and pigwart) and then spent long moments realigning and adjusting his clothing, feeling sullied by this proximity to vulgarity. Preston the Magnificent then turned and marched to the centre of the stage, raised the tiny pale finger and began to speak. “Laddies and lassies,” he said, “the next miracle is the globally celebrated and much ballyhooed Hindu Rope Trick. I, alone in the Occident, possess the arcanum of this wonder, having learnt it firsthand from a Cingalese swami. But, hear me, why should I perform this chef-d’oeuvre inside this theatre, opening the doors for accusations of subterfuge and chicanery, insinuations of thin wire attached to the lighting grids holding up the rope?” (Preston, when he heard the speech repeated verbatim, knew just how angry and upset his father had been, because he had blown the effect right there.) “Instead, I shall perform the deed upon the boulevard without! If you therefore stand and effect an egress in an orderly fashion—the youngsters in the last row should go first, then the penultimate, etcetera—you will see a miracle that shall go down into the vaults of historical annals!” And the children did leave calmly, and were all outside when the theatre popped into full conflagration. Preston the Magnificent lost everything, from big apparatus down to his little bag of coin effects, but such was the publicity that he was booked for about seven years afterwards—largely for children’s matinees—and it took him no time to reassemble an act.

  When Preston arrived at the Abraxas Hotel, his clothes were soaked through with sweat; he was puffy and hacking up sputum. Although the bus stopped right outside the huge gates (bare-breasted angels were sculpted above, blowing on long bugles and plucking at lyres), it was a long way to the front door. He’d paused by the fountain, twice as a matter of fact, to scoop out a palmful of water and splash it across his brow.

  Preston grew up in Las Vegas—insomuch as Las Vegas is a geographical entity, insomuch as Preston ever grew up—and he had struck a truce with the city’s oddities and peccadilloes. But the Abraxas Hotel had always disturbed him. It was themed by the notion of fairy tales; the hotel itself was castlelike, circumvallated by jagged, dark towers. Old women with warts and beaked noses were hired to scamper through the hallways, laughing hideously. There were knights in armour, complete with visors and codpieces. There were children trailed by goats, old men with thick spectacles and nightdresses. Preston knew none of the referents. His father had never told him a fairy story, and his mother had only told him one, the story of a young girl whose life was destroyed by a powerful and cruel wizard.

  Preston waved off the oversized and disfigured doormen, throwing silver dollars into cavernous palms. (He produced the coins out of thin air, but the doormen were all too jaded to notice.)

  Preston wandered through the endless Casino. Along the way, women offered him snacks, women with wide, empty eyes and voluptuous bodies. Preston paused long enough to toss
three or four coins into a slot machine. He was rewarded with a handful of money, enough, he hoped, to get him a ticket into the Theatre.

  A ticket cost ninety-three dollars. Preston wondered how they’d arrived at that figure. All he could think was that the hotel accountants were into numerology; “ninety-three” was both pleasing and potent. As luck would have it, when he unclenched his fist and allowed the coins to dribble forth, they totalled ninety-four seventy-five, leaving him busfare home. Preston grunted with vague satisfaction and went to claim a seat.

  The place resembled a lecture hall, the tiers heavily raked, the chairs small and hard. There were even, between the seats, small trays that could be pulled up and folded down. These were to support the drinks that cost an average of twelve dollars each. Preston, who no longer drank liquor, certainly not at twelve dollars a pop, produced his own glass and placed it gently down.

  Beside him, an elderly woman pulled out a cigarette and lit it with trembling hands. She was from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was a huge Jurgen and Rudolfo fan. She thought Jurgen was the most attractive man she’d ever seen; every illusion he performed made her flutter internally.

  Preston aimed his forefinger at the empty glass and it filled with a dark liquid. Ice fell out of the air, even a slice of lime, and when the semi-clad girl came to take his drink order, she was surprised to see Preston already sipping peacefully.

  Darkness fell with a thud. This then was broken by lines of light, threading quickly through the room as though taking a head count.

  The music began, enormous and assaultive, a legion of Roman soldiers sticking the air with lances and pikes. Most of the people in the audience removed their hearing aids. Preston, denied this option, plugged his ears with napkins and hoped this would stop the blood from trickling down and staining his shirt collar.

  The music was familiar and unsettling, like an old friend troubled by mental problems. Or in this case, Preston thought, like an old friend who’d become a furry, slobbering geek.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” came a huge and beautiful voice, a voice such as God would have if He’d gone to community college and studied Radio Arts, “the Abraxas Hotel is proud to present the greatest show on earth … Jurgen and Rudolfo!”

  Preston sat forward in his seat and shoved his fat hands under his thighs. The Siegfried Idyll, he realized suddenly. Buried underneath the prehistoric frequencies of the music was the fragile piece that Richard Wagner had written for his wife on her birthday. When Cosima awoke that morning, Preston remembered reading, nineteen musicians were sitting on her front steps. Her husband conducted them tenderly, his eyes half-closed, his mouth half-open. Now here the thing was, pumped up and snarling as though in the throes of ‘roid-age. Preston had to physically tug at the grey skin of his jowls in order to fashion a more profound scowl than the one he typically wore.

  The stage filled with acrid grey smoke. Jurgen and Rudolfo appeared suddenly, each caught in his own spotlight. For a long moment they did nothing, merely stood upon the stage, their hands on their hips, staring into the audience. Their costumes were of the same design—skin-tight jumpsuits, high leather boots—but Jurgen’s was black and Rudolfo’s white. The audience burst into applause—the old woman beside Preston clapped so furiously that she was winded within seconds—but the two stood there without response. Then they brought their hands up, pounded their palms together—these actions exact and simultaneous—and extended forefingers at the crowd. They smiled now, briefly, and got down to business.

  The stage—about the same dimensions as a football field—became even more illuminated. There were huge geometric shapes arranged upon it, all rendered out of gleaming, pebbled aluminum. There was a metallic cube, an eight-foot pyramid, a ring with a wall three feet high, a few monoliths and a huge globe, perhaps twelve feet in diameter. The globe rolled forward now, as if of its own volition. Jurgen and Rudolfo corralled it, shoving it playfully back and forth, until they and the sphere achieved the centre of the stage. They placed their hands upon the globe and caused it to spin; the pebbled aluminum exploded the light and sprayed it throughout the auditorium. Jurgen stopped the ball abruptly and pointed to a small latch on its smooth surface. Rudolfo, standing on the other side, pointed to another. Each worked one of these, then together they lifted the top half of the sphere, hinged at the back, to reveal the emptiness inside.

  Miranda arrived onstage now, dressed in what appeared to be cellophane. Many of the men in the audience dribbled rum and coke onto their shirt fronts. Miranda smiled at the crowd and then climbed into the silver ball. Jurgen and Rudolfo relatched it, spun it around, rolled it toward the front of the stage. Then they both took a step away from the orb and stared at each other, deeply, as though forgetting what they should do next. They clapped their hands—again with improbable synchronicity—and ripped open the latches.

  Samson leapt out of the silver ball, howling fiercely.

  Jurgen and Rudolfo looked inside the ball and then turned to express their astonishment to the audience, because there was no sign of Miranda.

  The crowd erupted in applause, and Preston joined in eagerly. What he found most impressive was the cost of the gimmick itself, the huge aluminum ball, maybe a hundred thou right there. There was a hidden compartment, of course, and what hid it was a third piece of aluminum, tooled painstakingly to reflect exactly the inside of the half-circle above it. When the globe was flipped, this piece would move, freeing whatever was hidden there (a huge albino leopard, in this case) and allowing something new (the miraculous Miranda) to take its place.

  The old woman from Winnipeg shook her head, so awestruck by what she’d witnessed that her first inclination was to disbelieve that it had happened at all.

  Samson bent his head low and forced his front legs to bend. He was taking a bow, although it had the look of undignified servility. Then the big white cat turned and trotted offstage.

  Jurgen and Rudolfo each placed their hands on the silver ball and made it go around in a circle, trotting beside it so that they each disappeared from view, momentarily, over and over again. Finally the globe was revolving at a furious clip (light attacked from all directions and was repulsed with luminous savagery) and neither Jurgen nor Rudolfo was anywhere to be seen.

  The huge silver ball abruptly rolled toward the back of the stage and was swallowed up by the shadow. Jurgen and Rudolfo appeared, their hands cocked on to their hips. In a few seconds, the boys had managed to change costumes, to actually exchange costumes. Jurgen was now wrapped in a white bodysuit, Rudolfo was black-clad.

  The lights began to dim and a black velvet curtain descended from above, separating the apron of the stage. Preston grunted with satisfaction, causing alarm to the elderly woman from Winnipeg. Pretty clever, Preston thought, as Jurgen stepped forward, his arms raised, his lids pulled apart, his dark eyes glowing like hot coals. What Preston appreciated most about the costume reversal was the way its true purpose was masked by another. Which is to say, people would assume that the switch was made so that Jurgen would stand out, for this was clearly a kind of solo or aria. From his raised hands came animals, first the small doves and Bengalese finches, then larger birds, rose-breasted cockatoos, and then raptors and giant carrion-eaters. But—more importantly in terms of the act—Rudolfo’s new outfit of black made him part of the darkness. Rudolfo had merely pulled on a hood, tugged gloves over his hands and was busily feeding his partner the animals. That old Black Magic.

  Preston appreciated that sort of thing. Like Houdini’s chains. The chains were always part of Houdini’s submersion escapes; his hands would be tied, his ankles bound, and finally a mantle of locks and chains would be draped across his shoulders. They looked as though they would make the stunt more hazardous, the escape more complicated. What they really did, of course, was quickly pull Houdini down to the bottom of the river or pool, so that his rather pedestrian little tricks could not be observed.

  Miranda ran onstage, this time dressed in tiny triangular piece
s of material that covered all the important bits and her navel. Preston found himself consumed by a fantasy concerning Miranda’s navel when all of a sudden there was a huge explosion. He looked back at Jurgen and saw that he had produced, as a grand finale, two young cheetahs. He held them high in the air, by their scruffs. Preston burst into applause, not because of the illusion, but rather for the classic bit of misdirection. The way Miranda was dressed, the cheetahs could have been led onstage by an usher wielding a flashlight.

  The stage went black, there was a sudden needle of light and in its centre stood Rudolfo, newly costumed. Preston was becoming awfully impressed with these costume switches. It took him much longer to even get his fat fingers on the zipper tug-tag. Mind you, Rudolfo was not wearing that many clothes, just a pair of tights that clung to his legs. His upper body was naked and oiled, his muscles so large and defined that he looked like an animated anatomical chart. The light bounced off his body with as much spectrum-smashing violence as it had bounced off the aluminum globe.

  Jurgen suddenly descended from above—a clumsy bit of stagecraft that nonetheless earned a storm of applause—and spread his arms wide. He, too, was shirtless. Jurgen’s muscles, especially those in the upper arm, were, if anything, bigger than his partner’s. And, unlike Rudolfo’s purely decorative bulges, Jurgen’s seemed actually servicable, the accoutrements of an athlete.

  This time the silver cube moved forward. Even though it looked about five feet by five, Jurgen picked it up and showed it to be without bottom and empty. This action made his nipples pop and flutter (which sent the old woman from Winnipeg groping for her drink). Meanwhile, Rudolfo and Miranda were hauling the thick silver ring forward. Jurgen placed his cube inside the ring; Rudolfo stood the ring on its end and showed it to be empty. They then replaced it around the cube. Jurgen and Rudolfo looked at each other, their faces frozen into practised half-smiles, and clapped their hands hard. Samson came out of the cube, lazily vaulting over the aluminum perimeter.