Eyes began to shift within the company. Small murmurs. Intrigue was always welcome on opening night.
“Act three, the opening.” He directed all attention to the stage left apron, where he would begin that act by announcing he was the greatest conjurer the world had ever known. “Now, traditionally, we’ve had the Devil appear onstage in a puff of brimstone. There’s a new device that will allow me to summon him in a crystal ball. I’ve been a bit vague with you about how that works. Well, this afternoon, I need to pay a visit to an office safe, and I need a volunteer upon whom I can rely. The qualifications are simply keeping the eyes and ears open. Hands, please?”
Because they loved Carter, and adventure, and because some of them were crooked, all of them—from Madame Cleo to taciturn Willie—extended their hands, straight up.
“Thank you,” Carter said. “I’m honestly touched. Carlo, thank you, you’re my man. Please come with me.”
There was a crash from the edge of the stage. All eyes looked there; even Ledocq looked up from his crossword. James had knocked over the table, shattering the water pitcher.
“Are you all right, James?”
“I’m excellent, Charles,” James called from that great distance. “And yourself?” He began to pick up shards of glass.
Carlo, looking woozy with pleasure, joined Carter at center stage. Carter patted him on the shoulder. “Excellent. Everyone, please remain on call throughout the day. We’ll only have time to rehearse the sticky parts before curtain.”
He made a baroque wave at them, a sultan’s au revoir, and the group disbanded. The last to depart was Ledocq, ambling away with the newspaper held out before him, his pen to his lips. James tried to catch his eye, but Ledocq walked into the shadows, exclaiming “Ah, b-a-u-b-l-e! Six letters!” as he disappeared. Carter, James, and Carlo were left together.
“Carlo.” Carter looked directly into his immense brown eyes. “Do you have an automobile?”
“Yes.” He smoothed his hair. “Well, I can get one from my girl.”
“Go and get it, and change into street clothes. I’ll pack the kit. Meet me back here in thirty minutes. Ciao!” Carter slapped him vigorously on the back.
When the stage doors closed, they sent echoes across the theatre. Carter and James were alone. “So, dinner at your flat at four?”
“Are you fully insane?” James yelled.
“Come with me, my voice is tired.”
They walked to the dressing area, where Carter filled a kettle with water and James began speaking quickly.
“Why bring Carlo into this? I thought you and Ledocq had been talking to Philo for weeks now. I thought he’d told you everything.”
Carter played with the gas flame under the kettle, running his finger through it a few times. “Philo hasn’t told us much.”
“Secretive?”
“No, worse. He comes to the workshop, and he and I talk about this and that, or he and Ledocq talk about physics, and he’s fine for a moment, but when we ask him to think about his invention, he goes south. It’s hard to see him like that. I’ve been feeling just grand, and I’ve got more new illusions than I know what to do with, and I’d hoped that some of that would rub off on him.”
James considered the complex mass of machinery he’d seen demonstrated unsuccessfully at Berkeley, and he looked at his watch. “Given that it’s all been destroyed . . .”
“Oh, things aren’t that grim. Ledocq saw the plans that night at his house. And he saw the demonstration, and from that he was able to piece together everything. What we’re missing is how you make the flat-end vacuum tube, where the image goes. The description in Borax’s safe includes that information.”
James looked at his watch again, confirming there were only hours left before the performance. “Why leave it there for so long?”
“If we have weasels in the company, the moment anything showed up, the thugs would just snatch it back again. Borax isn’t doing anything with it—he’s used to waiting people out for years. So why not leave it there?” He threw tea strainers into two cups.
“Hmmph.” The idea of keeping the illusion safe by leaving it in enemy territory had a certain elegance. Nonetheless, James was angry, and he remembered why: “Weren’t we concerned that Carlo is a weasel? The very people you want to avoid are being notified.”
“You know, in the center of downtown, two weeks ago, I put up a twenty-four-sheet poster of myself holding a television box in my hand. I expect that alerted all necessary authorities quite effectively. Tea?”
“Oh, dear God, you don’t actually have a brain, do you, it’s more a filigreed spiderweb, with little chambers in it where trained monkeys play the pipe organ.”
But when James was finished with that, he saw Carter wasn’t wearing his battle face. Instead, he sank to the dressing room chair with a sigh. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m maintaining a great many things right now, and . . . are you sure you don’t want tea? I seem to have poured two cups. And we are having dinner together at four, correct? Something nice and quiet?”
James nodded. He took a cup quietly, and when he’d had a moment to control his breath, he blew puffs of steam across the cup’s mouth.
Carter winced. “This is an awful chair.” He stood and thumped on the seat. “I think it was designed by Germans. It needs a pillow.”
“Please go on.”
He sat on the makeup table, cradling his teacup. “So, Ledocq says when he has the plans, it should take him a few minutes to make a flat-end tube, and there’s the annealing process and it should have an hour or so to cool before we use it, or,” he continued, dismissively, “it catches fire. My point is—”
“Excuse me—”
“My point is, at first, I’d wanted to use the television box for a spirit cabinet, but I don’t know, I’ve had a sea change. I’m tired of spirit gags. Television is much more interesting than that. So I thought of using it all night long, for various effects. But that quite overdoes it—people would get used to it. So instead, I’ve been inspired lately, positively swimming in it,” he snapped his fingers in quick rhythm, “one after the other, creating illusions for tonight.”
“Yes, there are some interesting effects.”
“So, television—we’ll build up to it. Use it to summon the Devil. I can’t think of a better way to make Philo’s case.”
James, who’d been thinking about evading thugs, felt like he’d been following the wrong ace. “Make Philo’s case.”
“It should cheer him up.”
“A public demonstration,” James said, and it was like he’d lifted a blanket off his head. “Yes. Right, yes. One that works. But Carlo will rat you out—the army will send someone.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“James, you weren’t drugged and thrown into the estuary. Let Carlo report to them. It’s my theatre. I can handle them.” Carter folded his hands around the steaming hot cup and opened them to show it, contents and all, had vanished. In its place was a dove, which flew from his palms and fluttered around the dressing room until it perched on a coatrack. James looked at the dove, which was grooming under its wing, then back to his brother, who was sipping the tea that had apparently never left his hands.
James knew reasoning with him wouldn’t work. He’d long ago resigned himself to his brother, and his brother’s magic, being a bit unknowable. “All right then. Take care when you’re with Carlo.” He placed his teacup and saucer on the drain board.
“I have very specific plans for Carlo.” Carter glanced at the coatrack. “You might want to fetch your hat.”
“Thank you.”
As James took his hat, careful not to startle the dove standing over it, he looked at his brother as if trying to see him for the first time. He had a faint memory of being about seven years old, and Charlie seeming like a great hero. But details were scarce, not exactly retrievable—as they dimmed, he was left with a feeling of respect that he couldn’t quite place. “I d
o believe you’ll be okay,” he said, “but still, do take care.”
. . .
The Orpheum box office opened at noon. What had been Murdoch’s office in 1911 was now a deep storage area for props. His famed window, from which he could see how far the line extended, was nailed shut and covered with two-by-fours.
The line for the opening night of Carter’s show was healthy, but not outstanding. A few pedestrians stood and read the publicity blowups that rested on easels by the sidewalk. The afternoon papers contained a charming article hinting at how wonderful this favorite son’s new effects were, so James, who stood outside the Orpheum smoking a series of cigarettes and counting heads, prayed there would be a second wave later.
When the line had been served, James glanced up and down the block until he began to look like he was awaiting a crowd—always a fatal posture for an artist’s manager. Stubbing out his final cigarette, he returned to the theatre.
The girl inside the ticket booth, whose peripheral vision was excellent, noted his disappearance and returned to reading her Movie Herald Weekly, in which Rod La Rocque had a few choice words for Valentino.
The sun blotted out all at once, so she looked up. A huge man, bald, stood before her, looking at the easels, the posters, the woman herself, as if visiting an impoverished country.
“One ticket in the orchestra, please, for the magic show,” he said, his tone implying it was anything but a magic show.
“Eight dollars, please.”
“Eight . . . dollars. My word, this must be some kind of magic show, then. Young lady, spare my eight dollars, and please look on the comp list. I should be taken care of.”
“Okey-dokey. Whose guest are you?”
“Mr. Carlo Roody.”
She flipped through some sheets of onionskin, yawning. “He doesn’t have a guest list. Anyone else?”
He stared at her so long she wondered if he might never leave, and she’d have to start reading her magazine again with him still staring at her. “The cheapest ticket, then.”
“Third gallery. It’s fifty cents tonight.”
“Oh, a bargain.” He flicked five dimes at her.
She removed the bundle of 3C tickets and passed one to the man. “Doors open at seven-thirty and the show is promptly at eight. And—you know, no animals are allowed?”
“Pardon?”
For a moment, she thought she’d seen him cradling a tiny dog, but now, clearly, he held nothing. She said, “Um,” and then, in a drone, her line: “Please don’t reveal any details of the third act, when Carter beats the Devil.”
The bald man clicked his heels together. “I am your servant,” he said.
CHAPTER 3
Carlo’s girl had a sleek and well-maintained 1923 Cadillac speedster, or rather, her husband did. Its body was a deep blue that spoke of endless coats of polish, which the servants applied without complaining, for the owner traveled frequently, the odometer was easy to disconnect, and Sunset Beach was an easy destination.
Carter complimented the car’s smooth suspension and handling twice on their way to Arbor Villa. Each time, Carlo said, “Yeah, it’s a good breezer.”
Throughout the trip, Carlo silently wondered what Carter suspected. A magician depended on deception, Carlo reasoned, and so being a snitch was just playing the game. It worked rather the same way he had borrowed the speedster. It was an easygoing philosophy, one that would serve him relatively well in the several hours he had left to live.
They arrived at the top of Fourth Avenue and pulled up on the shoulder of the road. Carter put his leather satchel over his shoulder and patted it, he explained, “for luck.” The rest of their journey would be on foot. Borax’s house, as they walked toward it, was never exactly silent; in addition to the birds and the howling of his many dogs, the mansion seemed to have audible noises of decay.
“This is the man’s home? It’s not that big,” Carlo whispered. He and Carter were a hundred yards away, on an old service road.
“It’s two o’clock. Borax is at church and has taken his household staff with him. We have the place to ourselves for at least the next forty-five minutes but still, we’ll approach without letting the cottages come into view. Someone or other might have stayed behind. Come here for a moment.” Carter leaned against a palm tree and dug through his jacket pocket. “How do these look to you?”
Carlo took the eight pages of onionskin from Carter. They were filled with diagrams and equations heavy with Greek equations. “Hey! It says ‘television.’ You already have the plans.”
“Thank you, excellent.” Carter tucked them into his satchel.
Carlo had but one expression of admiration—it was to turn out his lower lip and frown as if thinking carefully. He put it to use now, as Carter began to walk up the road again. Substituting fake plans. Clever, clever.
Carter took them off the beaten path, over tangled roots of teak trees that came from Kalimantan. No matter how deep the stack of dry brush he stepped through, the magician made almost no sound, and once, after avoiding a noisy patch of leaves, he turned and smiled when Carlo avoided it, too.
Their bushwhacking took them to an obscure corner of the west wing of Arbor Villa, where the date nut palms threw the house into perpetual shade. Neighborhood children had long ago broken most of the windows here. Carter glanced at likely places to enter and selected the remains of a bay window across which a moldering Navajo blanket was stretched. It was held in place with a few tacks, which popped out of the wood with a single, hard tug.
When they were inside, and their eyes had adjusted to the dimness—Borax was in no position to leave the electric lights on when he left the house—they listened for domestic noises. There were none, save the distant peacocks, whose calls made the atmosphere feel more desolate. They stood in a little-used parlor, floors covered with threadbare Turkish rugs, walls lined with books and paintings of sailing ships at sea. It smelled like mildew.
Carlo shook his head. “A rich man should have better locks.”
“Shhh.”
“Where’s the safe?”
Carter put his finger to his lips, then indicated that Carlo should follow exactly in his footsteps. They left the room—the door stood half open—and went into a musty hallway flanked by alcoves where suits of armor stood, their poleaxes looking ready to fall on passersby. This walk made Carlo nervous, as their path traversed so many similar-looking rooms and hallways he began to wonder if perhaps Carter was in fact looking for a safe at all. Perhaps he had a darker motive, a plan to confound poor Carlo here, perhaps even do away with him. Each time Carter’s hand disappeared into his jacket, Carlo’s throat tightened, relaxing only when he saw it was a pocket watch being consulted.
Finally, they stood in an ill-lit parlor—was it a different room than the one they’d broken into?—and Carter approached a bookcase. He extended his hand, then looked over his shoulder, concerned, “Be a sport, Carlo, and tell me there’s no one at the window.”
Carlo’s head jerked to the window, which was covered by an entirely different design of blanket, and saw nothing. He looked back at his boss. “Naw, there’s a blanket—” In the moment he’d looked away, Carter had sprung the bookcase away from the wall, revealing a small, grey room with portland cement walls.
“Oh . . . I missed that,” Carlo moaned. “You didn’t show me how that happened.”
“That’s a pity, Carlo. Come with me.”
Inside, the tall grey walls were saved from feeling oppressive only by high windows and friendly mementos that Borax had decorated with: photographs of friends, plaques of recognition from the City of Oakland, amateurish-looking oil paintings of birds and flowers and children.
“We have about twenty-five minutes,” Carter said. Inside these thick walls, he spoke in close to a normal voice. “I’m going to concern myself with opening the safe. Your job is to keep your ears open for anyone returning early.”
They pulled the bookshelf on its track to within an inch of closi
ng. Carlo stood braced against it, watching and listening, but also watching Carter, as he’d never seen anyone crack a safe before. He’d heard stories. When would Carter sandpaper down his fingertips?
Carter ran his palms across the embossed metal door, murmuring to himself, “‘Puerorum spectatorum operatque studio,’” adding, “Incantations,” though he had actually been reciting an old Thacher fight song.
Borax’s wall safe, a Schlage 1917 top-of-the-line model, was flush to the wall, sunk into the cement. Carter dragged two stools over in front of it, dropping his work bag down on the first, and himself down on the second. He unzipped the bag and gracefully pulled out not a stethoscope, as Carlo had anticipated, but a wine bottle.
“How do you open a safe with a wine bottle?”
Carter withdrew a corkscrew. He uncorked the bottle, and let it stand on the stool. Next, he took out a small bundle of newspaper, which he tore open to reveal a wineglass. He gently placed the glass next to the bottle and folded his arms. “Red wine needs eight minutes to breathe,” he said, glancing at his fingernails. “Borax showed me this hiding place several times. He was very proud of it.” He reached out with his right hand and twisted the wall safe’s dial freely. Rather than watching this motion—he looked like a child spinning a top—his flat blue eyes locked on Carlo. “He never let me close enough to see what combination he was entering, and I suppose the idea was that without that particular piece of information, he’d be safe.” On that word, Carter brought down the lever, and popped the door, which made a hydraulic gasp as it opened. Carlo looked at him with his lower lip flexed outward.
Carter poured himself a glass of wine and frowned at his watch. “I’d hoped that would take six more minutes, but—” He half-saluted with the glass, ready to drink, then his eyes flicked toward the open safe. It took him a moment to form the words, and when they came out, they were terrible: “You miserable bastard.”
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