by John Gaspard
“With my compliments,” Harry said.
“Sir, you are too kind by half,” Clive said as he took the bag. “You have made my day, nay, my week. I shall delight in your largess and sing your praises to all and sundry.” Harry walked him to the door, nodding and smiling.
“Thank you kindly, Mr. Marks,” Clive continued as Harry opened the door for him, “For this lovely illusion, as well as the ideas and insight you have provided.” He held up his small reporter’s notebook, placing it with care in his front breast pocket, giving it a pat once it slid snugly into place. “You’ve offered some true food for thought, and I assure you I will masticate it thoroughly as I continue to digest your wisdom.”
“Happy to help,” Harry said, smiling as he held the door open a tad wider.
Clive tipped his hat to me. “Eli, good to see you again.” And with that, he nearly skipped out of the store. Harry swung the door shut behind him, giving it an extra push until he heard the satisfying snick of the latch.
“Good lord, what a tiresome putz,” he sighed as he headed back across the store toward me.
“Really?” I said. “It looked to me like the two of you were getting along swimmingly.”
“A magician is an actor playing the part of a magician,” Harry said, quoting a favorite phrase from the famous French magician, Robert Houdin. “And never more so than around the tedious Mr. Albans.”
“So, what information did you give him that got him so excited?” I asked as Harry passed me. He picked up my iPad off the counter.
“Oh, Buster, I just verified some generalities he had misconstrued,” he said with a long sigh. “By the way, your iPad needs charging. I’m going to make some tea. Would you like some?”
Not waiting for my answer, he parted the red velvet curtain that separates the front of the store from the back and disappeared into our workroom.
I watched him withdraw and then started rummaging around behind the counter to see where the charger cord for the iPad had gone, wondering why the battery had run down so quickly.
* * *
“An irrational fear is just as terrifying as a real fear. To your brain, they are one and the same.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I read that in a fortune cookie once.”
Dr. Bakke produced his first sigh in our session, undoubtedly inspired by my glib response and also by the sad realization there would likely be many more sighs to come.
“I think you know what I mean.”
“I do,” I said. “Half of my brain knew the fear was irrational and the other half was too busy being scared to death.”
“My recommendation had been to only go up two or three floors at most.”
“Tell that to the reunion committee. They clearly had other ideas.”
“Did the breathing exercises have any impact?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “To be honest, I’m not sure how much actual breathing I was doing.”
“So, you made it up to the ballroom—forty floors in a glass elevator.”
“Do we have to discuss this?” I asked, feeling a bit queasy and weak-kneed at the memory.
“Maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t that the primary reason for your visits here, to talk about this?”
Now it was my turn to sigh. “Yes, I suppose you have a point.”
“And then you were able to come down forty stories, also in a glass elevator.”
“Coming down was easier.”
Dr. Bakke looked up from his pad. “And why do you think that was? The addition of alcohol?”
“Could be,” I agreed. “I also had a beautiful woman holding my hand and singing Christmas carols.”
“Christmas carols?”
I nodded. “It helped to take my mind off things.”
He cocked his head to one side. “That’s interesting. Which do you think had the greater impact: the beautiful woman holding your hand…or the Christmas carol?”
“I’m not sure. As my Uncle Harry is fond of saying, it’s probably a horse a piece.” I could tell from his blank expression that Dr. Bakke didn’t have a relative who peppered him with such folksy kernels of wisdom, so I added, “You know, six of one, half dozen of another.”
Dr. Bakke nodded and made another note. “It would be interesting,” he said almost to himself, “to run a controlled experiment and put you under those same conditions twice—once with just the beautiful woman and once with only the Christmas carol option.” He glanced over at me and I think he could register from my expression that experiments were not currently on my bucket list.
He made a note. “Well, if it turns out immersion therapy doesn’t work, there are several other options we can pursue with your therapy,” he said. “I think you’re a good candidate for EMDR. And I also think you’d be a good subject for hypnotism.” He stopped. “Why are you smirking?”
“Hypnotism,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s a thing in my family. A prejudice against hypnotism, I guess you’d call it.”
“A bad experience?”
“Sort of,” I said. “My uncle had a bad experience and if he found out I was involved in hypnotism in any way, he would, well I don’t know what the technical term is, but he would have a cow.”
Dr. Bakke consulted his notes. “This would be Uncle Harry, the performer?”
“Yes, he’s a magician,” I said.
“And he had a bad experience with hypnotism?”
“Actually, it was with a hypnotist. His name was Oracle the Hypnotist. He and Harry shared the bill on several tours through the Midwest. This was years and years ago.”
Dr. Bakke sat back, waiting for me to continue.
“Anyway, Oracle had this assistant, this girl he worked with. A really pretty girl and Uncle Harry was a young guy and he was, I think the term he used was, he was sweet on her. They had met at a party one of the performers had thrown and Harry thought they really hit it off. So he asked Oracle about her and Oracle said, ‘Oh, no, Harry, she doesn’t like you. She told me so. She doesn’t like magicians and she doesn’t like you.’
“So Harry was sort of devastated by this, and Oracle said to him, ‘Harry, if you want, I could hypnotize her so that she likes you.’ Well, Harry wasn’t a big believer in hypnotism, but she was a pretty girl, so he said, ‘Sure, go ahead.’”
I could tell Dr. Bakke was caught up in the story. He’d set his pen down and was leaning forward. He nodded for me to continue.
“So the next day, Oracle tells Harry he hypnotized her. Harry summons all his courage and goes up to her and asks her out. Well, she’s delighted. ‘Oh, that would be wonderful,’ she says, ‘thank you, Harry, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me out.’ On and on like that.
“Anyway, so they go out, have a great time, and they start dating. Then Harry finds out from one of the stagehands that the girl had asked Oracle to fix her up with Harry. Turns out, Oracle had made up the whole thing about her not liking Harry and hypnotizing her. It was all a prank. When Harry found that out, he was furious, but what could he do? I mean, in the end, he got the girl, but he was always irked Oracle had tricked him, and as a consequence, he’s had issues with hypnotists ever since.
“And the best part of the story,” I added, “is he ended up marrying the girl and they were together for over fifty years.”
“Charming story,” Dr. Bakke said, but before he could continue I cut in.
“And there’s more,” I said. “Harry made the mistake of telling her, my Aunt Alice, the whole thing—about his conversation with Oracle and how he was tricked by him and how annoyed he was. And Alice never let him forget it. Sometimes, if anyone ever snapped their fingers around her, she would sit up, suddenly startled, and say, ‘Where am I? Who are you? I was just talking to Oracle and now where am I?’ It drove Harry wild.”
I smiled at the memory of Aunt Alice’s litt
le act and realized I hadn’t thought about that story since she had died. “Anyway,” I said, “let’s leave hypnotism as a last resort.”
“Not a problem,” Dr. Bakke said, and then I think he noticed the change in my expression. “What’s wrong?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said as I tried to put the feelings into words. “I just suddenly got sad.”
“Because of the story about your Aunt Alice?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Because I just realized that I won’t share a memory like that with Megan—something we laugh about for fifty years. And part of me sort of thought we would.”
We were quiet for a few moments, and then Dr. Bakke softly cleared his throat before speaking. “I know you believe your experience last fall—the murders, being a prime suspect, and the dangerous situations you were in—were stressful,” he said slowly. “But I’m wondering if this separation with Megan, which she calls a ‘break,’ but that you’re registering more as a breakup—might actually be a greater stressor.”
I thought it over. “It may well be,” I admitted. “And her showing up the other night and then disappearing again certainly isn’t reducing that stress.”
“No it’s not. And I think stress—like that, as well as what you experienced last fall—is what’s behind these attacks. So, if you don’t mind, let’s spend a few minutes talking about you and Megan.”
“Okay,” I began, and before I knew it, my hour was up.
Chapter 10
As I left my appointment with Dr. Bakke, I checked messages on my phone and was surprised (pleasantly, I’ll admit) to discover I had a phone message from Trish.
“Hi, Eli. It’s Trish, Trish Lasalle, you know, formerly Trish Henry. You know, from high school? Oh, this isn’t going well, is it?” She sighed, sniffled and then continued. “Well, charging forward, I was just calling to say I’m sure you’ve heard about Dylan.”
This was followed by a long pause and for a moment I thought the message had cut off, then I heard a deep intake of breath and Trish continued.
“Oh, dear, I’m such a mess. Anyway, Eli, I’m really a bit lost right now and was just wondering if you were free to talk? Coffee or something, I don’t know. Maybe tonight? Anyway, I’m bad at this. Call me when you get this. Or something.” Another long pause. “Thanks. Bye.”
I listened to the message again and then dialed her number.
“Hello, this is Trish,” she said in a surprisingly upbeat tone when the phone was answered.
“Hi, Trish. This is Eli, um, Eli Marks returning your call,” I stumbled, only to be surprised to hear her talking right over me.
“—so at the sound of the tone, oh, you know how this works. Leave a message. Thanks.” This was followed by a delighted laugh, which was then followed by a familiar beep.
The contrast between the weepy woman who had left me a message and the upbeat, vivacious woman who had recorded the greeting was not lost on me. The message I ultimately left was not emotional as the one she had left me, nor was it particularly one of my better efforts. I hemmed for a while, then hawed for a bit, finally combining the two into a barely coherent response. The gist of the message was I was happy to hear from her, was sorry to hear about Dylan, and yes, I would love to get together and chat but I was busy that evening. My rambling then took a sudden left turn as a thought occurred to me.
“Of course, now that I think of it, you may want to join us. Jake and I are going to an event, a performance I guess you’d call it, and then to drinks afterward. You could stop by for one or both, whatever works for you.”
I continued jabbering in this fashion, surprised I hadn’t been cut off by a message time limit. I remembered to give her the address and time for the show and then signed off in as upbeat a fashion as I could muster.
“So, anyway, I hope you’re doing okay and if you want to stop by, it would be great to see you again.” I took what was probably the first pause in my lengthy message, and then delivered a stellar closing line. “Um, that’s all, I guess. Bye.”
I hit the END button on my phone with such angst and self-loathing I would not have been surprised to find an actual indentation in the device when I pulled my hand anyway. Upon inspection, no such crevice was in evidence.
“I’m scared to death.”
“Then don’t go on. There is no requirement you go on.”
“I mean, I’m shaking. Actually trembling. Look at my hand.”
I dutifully looked at Jake’s hand. In the dim light, I detected a faint if noticeable tremor.
“I haven’t had stage fright like this since, since being in The Music Man back in junior high,” he continued in a hushed, stuttering whisper. “I did Winthrop’s first scene and entirely forgot to lisp. Everything I said came out in a British accent. I looked like an idiot.”
I suppressed a smile, remembering that performance, where it appeared as if a cast member from The Importance of Being Earnest had wandered into Gary, Indiana to sing excitedly about The Wells Fargo Wagon in a clipped, crisp British dialect.
We were seated in the back row of The Parkway Theater, the movie house next door to our magic shop. I had spent a good deal of my youth sitting in the dark in this theater, consuming a healthy mix of classic films as well as more recent box office successes. Whatever raw movie trivia expertise I possessed could be traced to my time in this cavernous dark room.
While it still did an active business as a traditional movie house, The Parkway had incorporated a live element into its repertoire, showcasing stand-up and sketch comedy on its stage on a semi-regular basis. When that had proved successful, the ownership then instituted the First Thursday series several years back, which embraced what some might call the vaudeville arts. On the first Thursday of every month, performers were invited to sign up for a time slot to hone or sharpen their variety skills. The stage saw a wide range of participants, from burlesque to crooners to shadow puppets. And, of course, magicians.
In fact, for the last several months, Uncle Harry’s pals in the Minneapolis Mystics had virtually taken over the First Thursday line-up, which offered them a great opportunity to dust off their acts for a new generation of appreciative audience members.
Currently on-stage were ventriloquist Gene Westlake and his acerbic puppet, Kenny. Dressed as an ersatz cowboy, Kenny was a surprisingly mean-spirited character, the exact opposite of his master, who couldn’t have been a sweeter man. Gene had been grudgingly admitted to the Minneapolis Mystics forty years before, over the objections of some members who had bitterly complained, “If we let the ventriloquists in, what’s next? Jugglers?”
Over the years, Gene had always been a source of support and encouragement to me in my career, while Kenny offered a seemingly endless tirade of insults that hit closer to home than I cared for. He was particularly hard on me when I was starting out and some of his comments about my act still carried a bit of a sting. It was that classic conundrum of liking one member of a couple and merely tolerating the other half.
Gene and Kenny finished up, as they always did, with a singing musical duet, demonstrating Gene’s amazing skill. He appeared to harmonize with the puppet and he didn’t use the tricks other, lesser ventriloquists employed, such as resorting to playing a pre-recorded track.
The secret, as he had explained to me years before, was he had mastered the art of Tuvan throat singing, traveling all the way to Siberia to take lessons from a Tuvan monk. That style of singing allowed one person to sing and sound like two people, which was perfect for Gene’s act, although he went further than many people might have gone to learn the skill.
Gene and Kenny left the stage to a warm round of applause from the small but enthusiastic crowd and the emcee wasted no time introducing the next act: card maven Max Monarch. Max’s theme song, Shuffle Off to Buffalo, played while he made his way slowly onto the stage. His careful navigation of the wo
bbly steps suggested a man who, if not used to falling, was aware of the implications if he did.
“I should just go take my name off the sign-up list,” Jake whispered.
“That is certainly an option,” I suggested.
“Why is this making me so nervous?” he hissed. “I mean, I’ve presented at the Emmys for God’s sake.”
“Wasn’t it at the daytime Emmys, though?”
“The level of pressure is exactly the same.”
Before I could respond, Max launched into his act.
Any indication Max might be beyond his prime vanished with his first series of card tricks, which involved summoning two audience members onto the stage and giving each a deck of cards to handle. Under Max’s patient instruction, he produced some remarkable effects, culminating with selected cards appearing in each of the subject’s various coat pockets. The demonstration, which maybe ran five minutes, so flummoxed Jake he spent most of it quietly moaning and shaking his head as he sunk lower and lower into his seat.
“How is he doing that?” he mumbled again and again. “I know how these things are done, I’ve studied this. How is he doing it?” He looked up at me accusingly. “You know, don’t you?”
I hesitated, then nodded. He glared up at me. “And you’re not going to tell me, are you?” I shook my head, giving him my best Mona Lisa smirk.
“Bastard,” he grumbled. “Well, there’s no way I’m going to try to follow that. I’m taking my name off the list.”
He stood up to head over to the emcee, who was in charge of assigning performance slots from people who had signed up on the list. I watched him snake his way down the row, craning my neck around to see if Trish had shown up and taken a seat in the back. I didn’t spot her in the small crowd. Jake made his way down the aisle to the emcee’s position, just to the left of the stage. However, while making this short journey, Jake had clearly stopped listening to Max and was unaware he had just asked for a volunteer.