Carter Beats the Devil

by Glen David Gold

  “Oh, you startled me,” she said, hands jumping to her chest.

  “I’m sorry, Miss—”

  “I was just reading a dreadful article about a nanny. A man kept calling her to ask if she’d checked the children.”

  “Yeah, I read that.”

  Miss White accepted the blue Special Collections card from Griffin. “You know, I believe the very same thing was reported last year, only it was in Atlanta, Georgia.” She put her hand to her mouth. “I wonder if it’s the same man.”

  Griffin shrugged. “It’s a pretty unusual m.o.”

  “Modus operandi.” Miss White closed her eyes. “Mr. Griffin, it’s such a pleasure to hear you speak.”

  Griffin quickly said, “Can you tell me what’s in the special collections?”

  She stood upright, like she’d been called to the head of the class, explaining that when recording the lives of prominent San Francisco families, the library used discretion. “There are so many things in the paper that you don’t want just anyone to come gawk at. Now let’s see,” she said. “1914.” As she peeled back a blanket that was covering a locked file cabinet, she repeated the date to herself. “I’ve seen Carter a dozen times. He’s such a wonderful man. I wonder if I saw him in 1914.”

  “He was exhibiting some kind of cannon from Japan.”

  She sighed. “The Phantom War Gun.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

  Miss White set her mouth in a silent O, and she began searching through her folders. She was so quiet that Griffin wondered what was wrong.

  “Does that mean something to you?”

  “Well, yes.” And she looked at Griffin with her bright eyes, eyes suddenly shiny with welled-up tears. “Such a tragedy. Poor Mr. Carter.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “It doesn’t work yet,” sighed Ledocq.

  “I’m certain that it does.” Carter watched the stage, where eight men were busy polishing brass hinges, touching up props with paint, and arranging mirrors with scientific precision. The cannon, such as it was, lay in a half dozen pieces.

  “Carter. Postpone. Just for a week.”

  “No,” Carter said with a pleasant smile.

  “When you get so sure of yourself, I could kill you.” Ledocq squinted at his pocket watch. He had recently reached the age where people began to describe him as vigorous. Carter had met him in England a year before, spiriting him away from quiet days at Maskelyne & Devant and promising him a second childhood. “Charlie, the sun goes down in an hour. I don’t know how much longer I can work on it.”

  “It’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  “I trust you, I just don’t trust that furshlugginer hunk of junk over there.” He scratched his nose, leaving behind a grey smear of grease.

  The show was divided into three acts: First was “The Artist’s Model,” in which Carter painted a portrait of a beautiful woman that came to life and fought off thieves who clubbed Carter over the head. After an interlude where she—for of course, she was Annabelle—played piano and the stage was struck, Carter launched into the second act, “Cornucopia,” which he called a salute to American bounty. He poured from an inexhaustible blue glass bottle any drink requested by the audience—beer, Coca-Cola, water, apple juice—and then, from an empty teak cube three feet to a side, suspended in the middle of the stage and lavishly painted with fleurs-de-lis, he produced flowers, balloons, doves, and a girl dressed in red, white, and blue, holding sparklers. The third act was “The Phantom War Gun,” which did not work, and the show would start in two hours.

  Carter might have considered substituting another illusion tonight, even though he’d advertised and sold out the house based on this one. There was, however, a complication: both the Great Leon, in Philadelphia, and P. T. Selbit, in London, had their own versions of the same effect, and would have them onstage within the week. Each magician was friendly enough with the other to confirm he’d come up with his idea independently, but each was also competitive enough to want his illusion unveiled first.

  All week, Ledocq had argued that Carter could wait: Leon fired a woman through a steel wall, and Selbit had a woman walk through a brick wall. Their methods were completely different than the Phantom War Gun. But Carter knew the public’s mind: the first magician to pass a girl through a wall would be the winner. Carter had developed a taste for winning.

  “What’s wrong with it now?” Carter asked.

  “What isn’t wrong with it?” They approached the equipment, which Carter had designed with a few sketches on a tablecloth, and which Ledocq had spent eight months forcing to conform to the laws of physics. The gimmick, when finished, had mechanics that were ingenious but not quite ingenious enough.

  If it ever worked, it would follow Carter’s description in his patent application: “A committee is called onstage to inspect the brick wall. They sign two sheets of paper, 30” x 30”, and one is pasted to each side of the wall. The woman is lowered into the cannon, which is brought within a foot of the wall. There is an explosive concussion, and the woman is hurled out of the cannon. She passes through the wall. She lands in a safety net on the other side of the wall. The committee is called to examine the wall again. It is solid. Both of their sheets of paper, however, have been ripped by the force of the human cannonball.”

  All week, gunny sacks sixty-four inches long, filled with 122 pounds of sand, had been lowered into the gun and shot through the wall and into the net. Based on the experiments, the angle of the cannon’s mouth had been altered five degrees, and the net raised six feet, and the eight-pound snap-release claws that held the net to its frame had been replaced with eighteen-pounders, for stability and strength. And all week, Toots Becker, American high-diving champion, had been waiting in her hotel room for her turn in the cannon. Sarah Annabelle Carter had never been interested in this part of the show. Being the artist’s model was sweet, beating the tar out of thieves was great fun, but she would under no circumstances come out of the Cornucopia box or be fired out of a cannon.

  At Carter’s request, stagehands began to assemble the cannon for a dry run. Carter asked Ledocq, “Is it a matter of safety?”

  “Vibration.”

  Carter clapped his hands three times; the entire theatre fell silent. “Thank you. We’ll be testing the cannon in two minutes.” At once, his workers set their tasks aside and took places in the house: some in the front row, some at the edges of the farthest rows.

  As Carter ran through his patter, verbatim but without inflection, the sack of sand was lowered into the cannon, and a “committee” of his men signed sheets of paper, which were pasted on either side of the wall. The actual committee would be civilians; for the show tonight, Carter had invited four professors of engineering from the University of California to examine the wall. As his own men retired to their positions, Carter spied his wife standing in the wings. She wore a new hat, a shopping bag in each hand. When Carter made eye contact with her, she crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue; he continued his patter as if nothing had happened.

  A dummy instrument panel glowed beside the cannon, and a single band of electric current trembled between two tall filaments. “Because of the great forces about to be unleashed, I advise you men to stand back. On the count of three—no, hold!” Carter stopped his patter. He turned to Ledocq. “Can we station two committee members upstage? That way they can see we aren’t rolling the wall toward the backdrop.”

  Ledocq agreed it was a good idea. Carter had them repositioned, and started his patter from the top. “On the count of three, this brave woman will be fired through the wall.” The barrel of the cannon was lowered, and, as the assembly wheeled forward so that the mouth of the cannon was just a foot from the wall, Carter was distressed to see tremendous shudders coming from the wall itself. “Hold!” He approached the footlights, and, knowing the answer, he called, “How does that look?”

  “It’s . . . it’s not too bad,” said a young stagehand in the middle of the house. Carter made a m
ental note never to ask him that question again.

  “It wouldn’t fool a four-year-old,” said Ledocq. “A brick wall. A solid brick wall, moving. ‘Momma, why is the solid brick wall moving?’ ‘I don’t know, sweetie, but I’m sure it’s not because there’s a motor inside.’”

  After a moment of silence, Carter sighed, “Oy vey.”

  Pressing his palm to his forehead, he continued, “Fine. Gentlemen, back the cannon up to position one. Ledocq, will anything keep the wall from moving?”

  “Sure. If you and I stood there and held it in place, it wouldn’t move. But other than that, I need a week to get more juice out of a smaller motor or make the wall a little bigger.”

  Carter brought out a half dollar and started walking it across the back of his fingers. Ledocq had seen Carter think before; he knew not to say anything. A moment later, there were two quarters flipping end over end, little silver tumblers, crossing Carter’s hand. Then they froze. “I am an idiot,” Carter hissed. “The answer is right in front of us. We’ll make the marks do our work for us. The committee holds it in place.”

  Ledocq nodded for three seconds. “You’re worth every penny I pay you, Charlie.”

  “Places!” It would take two minutes to take the sack out of the cannon and reload it. Carter walked toward his wife, speaking aloud, “To prove to yourselves that there is no optical illusion involved, sirs, I ask that you stand on all sides of the wall, holding it in place, et cetera.”

  “Et cetera,” Annabelle said.

  “That would take up less time, wouldn’t it?” Carter made a generous wave to the theatre. “‘Ladies and Gentlemen—et cetera. Good night.’”

  “So, who’s your wife?” Annabelle asked, pushing down the brim of her hat so it nearly obscured her eyes.

  Carter put his hand to his chin. “The most beautiful—”

  “Uh-uh. Nope.”

  “The strongest, fastest, smartest . . .”

  But Annabelle was shaking her head, her hat’s absurdly huge feather wiggling in his face, for each of these guesses. Finally, she said, as if it were obvious, “The most resourceful woman you ever met.”

  “How was I supposed to guess that?”

  “Because I found out you got company tonight. Kellar.”

  “No! He hasn’t set foot out of Los Angeles for years.”

  “He heard something about some nut that impressed him.” Annabelle took off her hat and handed it to Carter. “Capwell’s,” she said. “I figure I deserved something with a giant, foolish feather.”

  Carter tickled his palm with the feather. He didn’t know whether to be happy or frightened. Kellar, a very cordial man, had made Thurston his successor, and since then had shown little interest in magic. Was the Phantom War Gun that good an illusion? “Are you going to tell me how you found out?”

  Annabelle took her hat back. “You are so lucky you know me it’s frightening.”

  There was a whistle from across the stage. Ledocq, pointing at his watch.

  “My man has to get to temple. Can you stay?”

  “Hey,” Annabelle said quietly. She brought her lips to Carter’s ear. “What if you drop that chump Toots Becker for tonight? She’s a tart if you ask me.”

  “Are you proposing that I fire a sack of sand through a brick wall?”

  “No, I’ll go for a ride.” She took two steps onto the stage and jumped up, pawing for the safety net. “But only once. Kellar’s here. It looks fun and I figure I wouldn’t mind doing it one time before I retire from this racket.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Only if it’s safe.”

  “Of course it’s safe.” Carter ushered her two steps back, to the wings.

  “A lot of men would tell their wives that.”

  “Yes, I wouldn’t trust me if I were you.” Carter whistled. “Ledocq! We need to change the bag.”

  . . .

  Annabelle was sixty-nine inches tall, and proportionately heavier than Toots Becker. There wasn’t quite time to make up a new bag, but weight was a more important variable than height, so another twenty-five pounds of ballast was added as Carter consulted with the script girl for revisions to the committee business.

  “Places!” Carter was thinking about Harry Kellar, the magician’s magician. Houdini was better known to the outside world, but Kellar! Before he retired, all Kellar had going for him was fifty years of performing a seemingly endless array of tricks with either the simplest or most complex equipment, and an unmatched understanding of the audience’s need to be mystified.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, five men died in bringing this terrifying weapon to the United States for our edification.” The committee was inspecting the wall and finding it solid. Then they were signing the sheets of paper which Carter’s aides were pasting to the wall. “This remarkable young lady will follow a trajectory into history.” As the bag was lowered into the cannon, Carter considered the word trajectory. He was twenty-five years old, the youngest magician ever to tour the world with an evening-length show. But this illusion, the Phantom War Gun, when he used it tonight, could—could—catapult him into a new category entirely, one of the top three or four magicians in the world. At age twenty-five. “Hold!” he cried. Everyone onstage froze. “Positions! Is everyone exactly where they should be?” From all around, behind him, below him, in the seats of the house, calls of “clear!” from people he could or couldn’t see. The committee was holding the wall. The sack of sand was in the cannon. The cannon was aimed at the wall. “Committee—could you feel the wall vibrating?”

  A chorus of nos in response. And then a final no from Ledocq, who had been drifting around the stage, looking for angles from which some audience member might be disappointed; at that moment, he’d been touching the wall. “It just feels like shaking from the cannon rolling forward.”

  Carter checked his watch, then looked to the wings, where Annabelle was watching and smoking. The beauty of this illusion was that the person set into flight was passive, absolutely safe, needing only a child’s gymnastic skills to complete it unharmed. But there was the matter of size and weight—what if she missed the net entirely? Best to use the sack now, test carefully.

  “Ready! Set!” He cleared his throat. “Action!” Then: “With a simple twist of these dials,” he declared, “this woman is reduced to a stream of electrons, neutrons, protons, and is beamed like X rays through solid matter. More power! More power!” Backstage, stagehands shook pieces of tin, and a violin bow was drawn across a saw to give the eerie sound of scientific equipment overloading. “Three!” The lights came down to bright spots on the cannon, the wall, the net. “Two!” In the orchestra, a snare drum rattled furiously. “One! Let the infernal device roar!”

  A magnesium flare ignited, simulating a fuse, and, offstage, a shotgun blank round was fired simultaneously with the sack of sand being launched, thrown by the tension of retracting shock cords out of the mouth of the cannon, accelerating instantly to a velocity of 140 feet per second, tearing through the first sheet of paper, passing through the space now opened in the wall, then tearing through the second sheet of paper, landing almost soundlessly in the canvas netting, which gave in its frame to a surprising extent, bowing toward the floorboards. It worked, Carter thought, and What will Kellar think? and Will it work twice? all in the space of time it took for the force of the falling sack to rip one of the six support braces from the net’s frame. The metal brace—fist-shaped, eighteen pounds of steel—swung like a pendulum and on the upswing made an audible crack as it hit Annabelle squarely in the forehead.

  Her head snapped back; her arms flew up and she fell backward to the stage.

  “Annabelle!” For one second, Carter wasn’t quite worried except for the dumb wonder of how she could go onstage tonight. And then, a feeling like he’d never known: like the earth in motion under his heels, like he wasn’t walking but tripping. “No!” He ran to her, sickened and skidding, the stage was miles wide, and he fell by her side. Her skirts were twist
ed, arms and legs twisted. The broken brim of her hat was smashed under her head. There was no blood. Her eyes were closed. He hoped that the impact hadn’t been as bad as it looked, he hoped it was a trick, but when he touched her cheek he felt nauseous. He could feel her blood rushing up from primal, buried places, blood flooding places it wasn’t supposed to go, filling in pools and pressing up under her skin. It was swelling, darkening. He reached out, about to cradle her head. But if her neck were broken, was that the right thing to do? He was helpless. He was yelling “No!” and realized he’d been yelling it repeatedly. Then, because he didn’t know what to do, he yelled, “Help!”

  The shout was feeble. Darkness. Blurs. He was on his knees, asking again and again, with diminishing voice, for help. Ledocq was by his side, yelling for people to call a doctor at once. People moved around. They were above him, around him, he wasn’t sure where. Misery welled up in the pit of his throat—he could feel it taking him over as he hunched down, whispering into her ear, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  There were a half dozen articles about that terrible night. Griffin read them all, then got up from his chair and walked a full circuit of the empty reference room, sat back down and read them again. He wrote “June 1914, Annabelle (wife) dies.” It was hard to read between the lines, to suss out what had actually happened. Drumming his fingers on the hard hat that rested on the table before him, he sent his pen to the word dies and hesitated for several seconds before adding, just below it, “murdered?” and then he turned the page.

  An insurance adjuster’s report. He began to read it.

  CHAPTER 5

  In 1915, the world was treated to a sense of acceleration. Spools of electric, telegraph, and telephone wire were uncoiling faster than the eye could follow, and the chirps, dots, dashes, and shouted conversations were all inescapably about the War. Land, air, and ocean speed records were broken weekly and the most popular conjurer, suddenly, was Horace Goldin, who performed a new trick every minute he was onstage. When Carter returned to stage a scant two months after Sarah Annabelle’s funeral, he latched on to Goldin as an inspiration.