by Chris Ewan
Victoria’s eyes swivelled towards the ceiling, as though she could see through the forty or so storeys that separated us from our goal.
‘Please tell me it’s dead easy for us to get to.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think ignorance could be bliss, but I suspect I should really know what we’re up against.’
I retrieved my hands from behind my neck and contemplated my nails, playing the part of a man barely troubled by the obstacles that confront him.
‘Well, for starters, there are just three ways to reach the twins’ office. The most direct route is a private express elevator that only the twins and a handful of staff are entitled to use. In order to operate the elevator, you have to swipe a key card and type in a six-digit code. There are security cameras fitted inside the carriage, and the cameras screen footage to two personal assistants positioned outside the twins’ office.’ I glanced up from my nails. ‘Actually, there are six personal assistants – they work a shift pattern so that two of them are always on duty at any one time.’
‘And the other ways?’
I clicked my teeth. ‘Option B involves the service stairs leading up from the floor below, where a security desk is manned twenty-four-seven and the door is protected by another six-digit code.’
‘Or?’
‘Option C – I start on the roof and get to perform my world-famous cat burglar routine.’
‘Christ.’
‘Only I have vertigo.’
‘Christ.’
‘And I’d need to know how to abseil – which I don’t – and I’d have to be able to break through a triple-pane glass window without making a sound – which I can’t – and it would really help if I could get out the same way and find a plausible escape route – which may involve a helicopter. Oh, and then there’s the challenge of doing it all without being spotted by the thousands of tourists outside this building at any one time, and with the kind of money and equipment we simply don’t have.’
‘We’re not filming Ocean’s Eleven here, Charlie.’
‘More like Ocean’s Two, on a really tight budget. Assuming you’re prepared to help, that is?’
‘Of course I’ll help. You know I’ll do what I can.’
Victoria smoothed her hands over the pillowcase and her brow wrinkled in a way that showed me she was clearly troubled by something. It wasn’t very long before she told me what that something was.
‘Do you really believe that Josh was planning to steal this juice list?’
‘I’m not sure I care. Right now, all I’m bothered about is paying off the Fisher Twins and getting out of Vegas alive.’
‘It bothers me.’
I found myself smiling. ‘That’s because you’re a stickler for tying loose threads together. And I appreciate it when you’re reading one of my manuscripts, but in a situation like this, you have to let some things go.’
‘And what if I don’t want to?’
‘You could sleep on it. You said you were tired, right?’
‘I can’t sleep with all this running around my head, Charlie.’
‘Vic, you should see yourself. I reckon you could sleep through a hurricane about now. In fact, I wouldn’t be altogether surprised if you’re not already asleep and this is just a bad dream. Why don’t you close your eyes and find out?’
She gave me a skewed look, as if her patience was running very thin indeed.
‘If it helps you to relax,’ I went on, ‘we can’t try anything before four o’clock this afternoon. Maurice tells me the Fisher Twins play golf at that time every day. There’s a course on an Indian reservation in the middle of the desert. It’s a half-hour drive from the Strip. So even if they only play nine holes, it should give us enough time.’
‘Will you at least hear me out?’
I gritted my teeth and cradled my forehead, as if someone was twisting a screw inside my brain and I wasn’t entirely thrilled about it.
‘Fine. Go ahead and put doubts in my mind. After all, there’s no sense in making any of this easier on ourselves.’
Victoria curled her lip and drew my attention to the middle finger on her right hand. Then she showed me her other fingers and began counting them off.
‘Point one, why would Josh do it? He already has a show that’s doing very well. The Fifty-Fifty is a prestigious casino and he’s making a lot of money.’
She held onto her index finger, poised to curl it down and move on to her second concern.
‘You want me to answer these one by one, or all at once?’
‘Point two,’ she went on, ignoring me, ‘he’s an illusionist, not a burglar. From what you say, the safe this juice list is stored in is difficult to open.’
‘Not if you have the code.’
She glared at me. ‘Obviously. But Josh wouldn’t have the code because it’s not his safe. So why would anyone think he could get hold of the list?’
‘And point three?’
Victoria closed her hand into a fist and studied her knuckles, as if she was wondering what kind of imprint they might leave on my face.
‘I don’t have a point three,’ she said, stiff-jawed.
‘So what’s with the finger-counting?’
‘Does it matter? Aren’t those two questions enough to be going on with?’
I shrugged, somewhat half-heartedly. And if only I could have summoned another yawn, I would have added that too. Because the truth is, the same concerns had been nibbling away at the back of my mind, and I’d been trying my hardest to ignore them.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘as for your first point, I’d say that you can never underestimate the ego, ambition and greed of a cretin like Josh Masters. Okay, he had a pretty comfortable set-up here, but he wasn’t performing in the main theatre, and he wasn’t the casino’s headline star. So I reckon it was a status thing, not to mention a money thing.’
‘That sounds a little weak, Charlie.’
‘And as for your second point, it could be he does know his way around a safe. Maurice was telling me that Josh has some escapology built into his show. And granted, a lot of magicians use gimmicked cuffs and locks, but if Masters was even halfway serious, he’d have taught himself the basics of lock-picking and safe manipulation. Look at me. As a kid, I was into card tricks, and yes, as time went on, I became more interested in locks, but there’s nothing to say Josh didn’t have a similar background. And a lot of the stuff you see in magic carries over into the work I do. Dexterity, sleight of hand, misdirection.’
‘Even weaker.’
I stood up from my chair and paced the carpet. Pacing the carpet didn’t help a great deal. I moved over to the window and gazed out at the Strip. Traffic was as busy as ever. The sidewalks too. Opposite, the hotel towers of Caesars Palace thrust upwards into the white-blue sky as if a little piece of Benidorm – the worst piece of Benidorm – had been transplanted into the middle of the desert landscape.
‘All right,’ I said, tapping a finger on the window glass. ‘Ask yourself this. Why did he run away in the middle of his show? True, the Fisher Twins knew about his gambling scam, but that’s the kind of thing they could have resolved among themselves. God knows, there are enough stories about Vegas stars indulging in excess.’
‘So what are you suggesting?’
I turned and flattened my back against the window. ‘I’m suggesting that maybe he’d made a real mess of trying to get his hands on the juice list. If he’d screwed up so badly that the twins had found out what he was trying to do, then he had good reason to be scared.’
‘But if that’s the case, wouldn’t they have quizzed us about the list?’
It was a good point, and yet another one I hadn’t been able to reconcile in my mind.
‘All I can think, Vic, is that the twins assumed we were only a part of the gambling fix. Perhaps they believed we were just a distraction. So that’s more misdirection. And then there’s the twins’ sister, of course.’
‘Who?’
I stared quizzically at Victoria. It took me a while to realise that I’d forgotten to fill her in on that particular connection. I must have been more tired than I thought.
‘Caitlin. The dead girl in the bath – it turns out that she was their sister.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I’m afraid so. And when you factor that in, it’s another very good reason why Josh might have felt like he had to run. Hell, she could be the primary reason. Think about it – they worked together, they were friends. What’s to say Josh didn’t tell her what he was planning? What’s to say he didn’t ask her to help him and join him at Magic Land? Say he did, and say she couldn’t handle the idea of her brothers being duped, and so she told them what Josh was up to. That would explain why he killed her. And that would make sense of why he ran.’
I spread my hands against the window glass and waited for Victoria to acknowledge the logic in what I’d just said. She didn’t look entirely convinced. She didn’t appear all that comfortable either. She was squirming on the bed and chewing her lip and contorting her face in a most unseemly manner. Eventually, she patted the space beside her.
‘Sit down a minute.’
‘Eh?’
‘There’s something I need to show you.’
I remained standing. Victoria reached for her handbag and patted the bed once more.
‘Sit down, Charlie.’
Despite my better judgement, I skulked across the room and climbed onto the bed, shuffling backwards until I was sitting with my back resting against the stacked cushions and my knees raised up by my chest. I gripped hold of my shins.
‘Victoria, your voice is sounding funny.’
‘I’m sorry. I meant to tell you this earlier, but then you started to talk about Maurice and the juice list, and . . . well, I forgot.’
‘Forgot what?’
Victoria gave me a searching look, chewing her lip some more, then said, ‘Charlie, are you absolutely certain she was dead? The girl in the bath, I mean.’
‘Of course.’
‘You checked for a pulse?’
I scratched the back of my head. ‘Well, no, not exactly. But there was no need. She wasn’t moving.’
‘Did you touch her?’
‘I didn’t want to, Vic.’
‘So what did you do exactly?’
I sighed and shook my head, as though everything Victoria was asking me was entirely inconsequential.
‘I put my hand in the water and found it was cold. Then I watched her for a while. She didn’t move the whole time I was in the bathroom.’
Victoria smiled glumly and removed the Houdini biography from her handbag. She passed it over to me, saying, ‘Look at the inside cover.’
I did as she said. There was a message written there.
Caitlin. Some inspiration for your new act. Doesn’t hurt to learn from the best. Love always, Josh.
‘Okay, so it was Caitlin’s book. Big deal.’
‘But somebody has made notes throughout the book, Charlie. They’ve also highlighted certain passages. It was annoying me when I was reading it, but it was something I could live with. And then I saw this.’
Victoria flipped through the book until she found a right-hand page with its top corner folded down. It was headed with the words The Domestic Magician. She pointed at a particular passage that had been highlighted in yellow ink. An asterisk had been scrawled beside it in pencil.
I read the highlighted lines and a hollow queasiness began to form in the pit of my stomach. I gulped, and it felt as though I was swallowing gravel. The words swam before my eyes, but there was no denying what they said.
Houdini’s New York home was furnished to accommodate his passion for magic. Extensive shelving housed his numerous reference books, and whole rooms were devoted to his collection of stage props. The crowning glory was his bathroom, where a large, bespoke tub was installed so that Houdini could fill it with ice-cold water and discipline himself to hold his breath for long periods of time, by way of preparation for the rigours of his Chinese Water Torture Cell.
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘Oh boy,’ I said.
‘You think she might not be dead?’ Victoria asked me.
I turned my mind back to the scene in the bathroom. How long had I been inside? A minute? Maybe two? If Caitlin was well-practised at holding her breath, there was every chance she could have lasted that long. It would explain why she hadn’t moved, because staying absolutely still would have helped her to preserve oxygen. And with her head and ears submerged, there was no reason why she would have sensed me standing over her or heard me moving about. True, I’d put my hand in the tub to test the water, but I’d done it away from her feet, and since I was under the impression that she was dead at the time, I’d been really quite delicate.
‘Maurice told me that Caitlin had been working on a new act,’ I said, my voice a little shaky. ‘He said it would be perfect for the Atlantis. I didn’t make the connection at the time. He must have been talking about the water theme.’
‘Wowzer.’ Victoria freed the book from my hands and scanned the passage again for herself. ‘So it sounds like you’re not a suspect in her murder any more.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Though it doesn’t explain why Josh went back to his suite after he disappeared. I mean, if she wasn’t dead, then he didn’t have a body to dispose of.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t go back.’
‘Then where did the key card go?’
I glanced towards the receptacle on the wall near the door to my suite. My own key card was there, enabling the air-con to function.
‘Think about it. If Caitlin was alive, and she was using Josh’s bath to practise holding her breath, then when she was finished she could have taken the card with her.’
‘Oh, I get it. She dries herself, gets dressed, empties the bath, takes the room card, and leaves.’
‘Precisely.’
‘Though it doesn’t fit with your theory about Josh confiding in Caitlin about the juice list, and Caitlin telling her brothers.’
‘It doesn’t?’
‘Come on. She’d hardly be using his suite to practise holding her breath while all that was going on.’
‘Maybe she was really serious about practising.’ I reclaimed the Houdini book from Victoria and fanned the pages. ‘Any other revelations in here?’
‘Not that I found. I checked the other highlighted passages but nothing leaped out at me.’
‘So no mention of how to crack a Schmidt and Co safe?’
‘No mention of juice lists, either.’
‘Typical.’ I lifted the book before my eyes and frowned at it. ‘Call yourself a plot device? One lousy clue, that’s all you’re offering us?’
Victoria barely laughed. Maybe she was too tired. Or maybe I wasn’t quite as funny as I liked to believe.
‘At least we can contact the police now,’ she said.
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, if Caitlin’s not dead, you’re not a potential murder suspect. So we can call them in and avoid getting killed.’
I shook my head. ‘Ricks and the twins have enough evidence to have us arrested for casino theft. Two counts, in your case.’
‘I’d rather that than be killed.’
‘But we don’t know for certain that Caitlin is alive.’
‘Charlie.’
‘What? She looked dead when I saw her, Vic. And yes, maybe we have a possible explanation for that now. But we don’t know for certain one way or the other. It could be she was practising and it went wrong.’
‘So what are you suggesting, exactly?’
I considered our options for a moment. It seemed like there were a couple of things we could do.
‘I think you should look for Caitlin. If she’s alive, she might not be too hard to find. People here at the casino must know her. Someone will be able to tell you where to look.’
‘And what about you?’
‘If Ricks hur
ries up and tells me where I can find the croupier with the one-hand card shuffle, I’ll go and speak to him and see if he can put us in touch with Josh.’
‘And if that doesn’t work?’
‘I’ll steal the juice list.’
‘Just like that.’
I tapped my temple. ‘Positive mental outlook, Vic.’
‘Inspirational. So when do you want me to begin looking for Caitlin?’
I studied her face. The only way she could have looked any sleepier was if an anaesthetist had just jabbed a syringe into her rump and asked her to begin counting down from ten very slowly.
‘Listen, we’re both shattered. I say we take a nap for an hour, then get started. It’ll be much better if you’re thinking straight when you find her.’
‘If I find her. But I suppose getting some rest does make sense. Would you mind if I stayed here? I don’t think I have the energy to get off this bed.’
I told her that was fine.
‘And Charlie, if we get close to the deadline and none of this has worked out, will you promise me we can call the police?’
I locked onto her eyes and held them, nodding as sincerely as I could. ‘If the time comes, we’ll call them. But that’s not going to happen.’
Victoria turned her back on me and reached for a pillow, tugging it beneath her head. She sighed and flexed her toes, wiggling a small hollow in the covers.
‘You know this positive outlook thing . . .’ she said, in a dozy voice.
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I was thinking – at least you have plenty of material for your short story.’
I couldn’t sleep. I tried stretching out and nodding off but it wasn’t happening. I was too wired.
After a good deal of huffing and complaining, I propped myself up on my elbow and looked down at Victoria. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing steadily. One hand was curled on her pillow, barely holding a coil of her hair. Her jaw wasn’t locked, she wasn’t grinding her teeth, and so far as I could tell she was enjoying some respite from it all.
It’s funny how mistaken you can be about somebody. I never would have guessed that Victoria’s father was a crook. The idea that he was a judge had seemed to fit so well with everything I knew about her, that I’d never had any reason to doubt it.