If we really had the power to see so deeply into a crowd of strangers, we would be the ones performing up on the stage.
On the other hand, Duncan claimed to be doing that very thing when he was “reading” an audience. Could he really do that, Shane wondered, without any sort of stage trickery? If so, was that why the man seemed to have no idea that his request to Randall was so unusual?
Or was it that Duncan was not willing to trust his own “abilities”—not with his own life on the line—and that Randall and Shane were there to compensate for skills that the great Master Mesmerist did not really have?
No answer was likely to appear before the evening’s performance got started. The theatre was quickly filling up. Shane felt countless impressions beginning to overwhelm him. The sheer number of people presented a crushing burden on observational skills that he had never employed on a scale so large as this.
He soon he forgot about everything else, lost in the sensation of walking into a strong headwind formed by countless impressions.
“Ten minutes, Mr. Duncan!” came the cheerful voice of the stage manager through the locked dressing room door.
“Thank you!” J.D. called back, according to standard backstage protocol. With that, he was now duly warned of the impending curtain time, and management had heard his confirmation. That would satisfy them for the moment.
The dressing room had no window, so with the door shut and bolted, nobody could see him pacing before the open dressing room closet with the dead female occupant slumped at the bottom.
He had only been unconscious for a minute or less, and even though he woke up blissfully ignorant of what it was that had scared him in the first place, that moment of innocence vanished as soon as he opened his eyes. He found himself staring directly at the young woman’s blue and gray body.
At that moment, J.D. saw all his self-imposed rules about avoiding the elixir before a show going out the dressing room’s nonexistent window. He went for his makeup kit and saw with relief that it had not been violated.
There was no way to know why this girl was in here taking his powder. But she had obviously experimented with too much of it and died as a result. He seized the opportunity to jolt his own mind beyond the shock of the situation, using the magic of the elixir.
Dr. Alzheimer had been kind to J.D. after the diagnosis. He connected him with one of the chemical engineers who worked on developing the new substance, abbreviated MDMA, then got him his large supply. He showed him how to use it to hold off the disease’s symptoms, to keep his memory working longer and to burn through the fog—but all of it was predicated upon the repeated warning that too much elixir could stop the heart. Stop it cold.
Since his own heart was not stopped by the renewed sight of the body—as it easily could have been—he figured that he was strong enough to justify prescribing a double dose for himself, show or no show. He needed a clear head. He needed to either run from this horror or think a whole series of very smart and clearheaded things to do in response to this. As it was, shock had fogged his brain so terribly that he could scarcely remain in the moment and form some sort of a plan, without an extra boost.
Still the clock, he knew too well, would not stop ticking. An audience was coming. Some were already there.
He spooned the elixir directly into his mouth while he resumed pacing. Clarity. He needed clarity. He needed to know what happened, but even more than that, he needed to know what in the hell to do with a dead body in the closet at ten minutes before curtain time.
The elixir’s effects came on quickly because he was already scared, with his heart thumping away. Or was it the expectation? The old magic of expectation.
He could already feel his thoughts clearing a bit. His memory felt strong enough, and his brain did not seem to be locking up on him the way it sometimes could, stiffening like arthritic legs. He took a few deep breaths and asked himself, Is there a way to deal with this? Is there?
He made himself look at her. Beautiful once, now ash gray of skin and sunken in her features. How long had she been dead? He touched her flesh; no sign of rigor mortis. This was supposed to tell him something, but he could not recall what it was. That question fell into the what-happened category, anyway. He needed to focus on what to do.
“Five minutes, Mr. Duncan!” came the warning call through his closed and bolted door.
“Thank you!” He threw back the expected reply in a strong voice. Confident. Ready for a fine performance. Absolutely nothing that you would find troubling in here, folks.
That bought him five more minutes. Good, then. They were all still with him, so far. Management believed that he was just seeking out his solitude in the final minutes before the show. Why worry? He was in his dressing room, right where he was supposed to be, was he not? He had answered his time calls from the stage manager with energy that was appropriately cheerful and alert. Everything in good shape so far—eh, folks?
He realized that the elixir was already bringing him the magic of sustained optimism, in spite of the lack of any justification for it. Yes, there was a mysterious dead girl in his dressing room closet with his secret powder spread across her mouth and nose. But looking on the bright side, he had almost five minutes to go before showtime, and so far nobody knew a thing.
He breathed deeply, enjoying the feeling of getting too much oxygen to the brain, and breathed even deeper. This was more like it. This was getting to be very, very interesting, now. Dead girl. His powder. Why?
Just an accident on the part of someone who was too curious for her own good? Someone who found out about the elixir and just had to try it?
Who could say what she thought she was taking? He moved close to her and studied her face. She was dressed nicely enough, like a working girl in a store or an office. Her clothing was badly rumpled, missing buttons, torn in a couple of spots. What did that mean? Did it happen to her while she was still alive, or was it somehow done only after death?
She must have died here, hiding like this. Maybe she heard someone coming after she got into his supply. Then of course it hit him.
His supply traveled with him, and he had not arrived until late that afternoon. She did not make her way into the closet while J.D. was in the theatre, which meant that she was already in there when he arrived.
Meaning that if she had the elixir, she brought it in with her. Meaning also that she was the one who broke in, the last time!
Of course! J.D. was jubilant! Mystery solved! Somehow, she had found the elixir the last time. She took some away with her after robbing him, but she liked it and returned for more today. She took the last of her own while she waited for him to arrive, waited in the closet after sneaking into the theatre, and hadn’t realized that she was taking too much.
Her heart gave out under the sheer power of her dose, just as the chemist had warned J.D. that it could do. “Anybody,” the man had emphasized to him. “Anybody’s heart will stop, with too much. It does not matter if you are young and healthy.”
And as if to underscore the point, there was a cautionary tale played out, right there on the floor.
“Two minutes, Mr. Duncan!” came the stage manager’s voice. “Overture starting up!”
“Yes indeed!” J.D. hollered back, but accidentally put far too much energy into it, like a man shouting across a mountain canyon. He clapped his hand over his mouth, but it was too late to bring it back. Oh well, bigger fish to fry.
Moving fast now, he pulled his empty costume trunk from the corner, flung it open, set it down, bent to the girl’s body, picked it up, surprisingly soft, not stiff, wadded her into the trunk, folded her arms inside, closed the lid, clamped the lock shut, and pocketed the key.
“Dum, dah-dah-DUM-dah DUM!” He hummed at the top of his voice, along with the orchestra’s rousing notes of the overture’s conclusion.
“Mr. Duncan, sir, please! Time!” Now the voice sounded concerned.
But this time, J.D. flung open the door and offered his be
st smile to the waiting, fidgety stage manager.
“Yes indeed! Time to thrill and amaze!”
He hurried across the backstage area and into the offstage wings, leaving the mystery girl safely locked inside his costume trunk for the duration of his performance. Whatever her story might happen to be, she was not under any circumstances going to stow away in his life and bring him down in some terrible scandal.
Did he not have enough troubles? His afflicted brain was rotting out from underneath him. It was all happening just the way that the doctor had warned him. At first, the elixir gave him a slight advantage, made his performances godlike. Later, it only brought him up to his own standard.
The jumping shadows appeared, pulling at his peripheral vision, and he knew that the faces of the audience were again going to look as if they were painted onto balloons. But at least he had already worked under the influence of a heavy dose once before, and gotten away with it.
This time he only had to repeat that success and go home. Take the trunk somewhere and get rid of it, of course, but then go home. Because if he allowed himself to touch the horror of that girl’s death for one second, his skin would stick to it like a tongue on a frozen pump handle.
His battleground was the stage. As long as his memory held up well enough for him to line up the right setups with the right triggers, he could coast through this one and take his bows—then go deal with the loaded costume trunk somewhere at the edge of town and hide until he figured out what to do.
It struck him that the elixir was really straightening out the old negative attitude. He felt a brief pang of guilt over his earlier lack of appreciation. Now as he reentered his familiar performance world and prepared to step out into the concentrated spotlight beam, he decided that everything was looking pretty good, all in all.
Suddenly, he felt as if he could not launch into the show quickly enough. He remembered that the folks out there were friends. All of them, friends, out there in the house and looking up at him. Each one of them had doubts about his powers, and yet was also ready to be amazed, hungry for the state of head-smacking disbelief.
Duncan knew why. If he confirmed their belief in unseen things, in powers that some people called magical, then by implication all their other intangible beliefs might also prove just as true.
When he demonstrated invisible mind control over perfect strangers, these poor sophisticates were lifted from the humdrum existence of a doubting Thomas and stepped, if only for a moment, onto the grassy turf of faith that was proved true, right there before their own eyes.
Out there on the stage once again, with the exquisite tingles of the concentrated spotlight beam ricocheting around inside of him, he could practically feel the thick leather reins draped through his fists. He had control. He clearly felt it. He was squarely in command of his faculties, and ready to drive this audience like a wagon team. They would find out where the open road took them all, together.
INTERMISSION
THE PACIFIC MAJESTIC THEATRE—SAN FRANCISCO’S FINEST
NEITHER VIGNETTE NOR MISS FRESHELL felt like venturing into the lobby’s pressing intermission crowd, so they kept to their seats. Vignette would have been content to spend the whole time watching the people making their way in and out of the theatre, but once their row of seats was otherwise empty, Miss Freshell leaned close to her. She spoke in a soft and very private voice.
Vignette could smell the powder on her skin.
“I don’t know about you, but I think that I’ve seen a change in Randall since you agreed to work with us at the Ladies’ Hospitality League. I think he’s relieved.”
Vignette’s head whipped around toward her. “Relieved over what? That I’m getting stuck with a bunch of wax mannequins posing as nice married ladies? Or is he just relieved that you’ll leave him alone about it now?”
“No need to bite my head off. I am simply convinced that this is the best thing for the family.”
“The family?” Vignette glared at her for a moment, rejecting a whole list of responses, and finally settled for saying, “Why?”
“I told you, I like for Randall to be happy.”
“Yes of course,” Vignette replied, her voice rising a bit too high. “Especially since Shane and I don’t give a damn about him. We don’t care whether he is happy or not, do we?”
“That is certainly not what I meant, dear.”
“Vignette.”
“…What?”
“It’s ‘Vignette.’ Not ‘dear.’”
“I see. You prefer blunt conversation.”
“I prefer honest conversation. If you’re such a big writer, why is honest conversation so difficult for you?”
“You are being too personal, Vignette. I cannot help but note that you have consistently been that way since Randall and I met.”
“That was only a few weeks ago, Miss Freshell. A few weeks.”
“And?”
“And now we need you to monitor whether or not we’re doing our best to make Randall happy?” Vignette leaned in close and fixed Miss Freshell’s eyes in her gaze.
“Lady, just tell me, one woman to another: Who the hell are you?”
She would not have been particularly surprised by a slap across the face, but she was still unprepared for the reaction she got. Miss Freshell’s veneer of benign affability melted off her like a thin layer of wax under a flame. The visage that it revealed was hard and cold. The eyes were made of flint.
“I’m the one who will be taking Randall back to New York City once the exposition is over, as soon as we are married.”
“He’s never mentioned that.”
“He doesn’t know.”
Vignette barked a sarcastic laugh. “Well, that was honest!”
“I thought honesty was your calling card, dear.”
“All right, what if he refuses to leave San Francisco?”
“I don’t believe he will.”
“No, tell me. What if he won’t go to New York? Do you still want him then?”
Vignette noticed that Miss Freshell stared at her as if she were a piece of three-day-old fish while she considered her reply. She finally spoke in measured tones.
“Here is what we’re going to do, dear. We’re going to tolerate each other for the next ten months while I am writing and promoting this book, and until the exposition is over. Then we will say a fond farewell when I take Randall and the new book back to civilization.”
“If you’re willing to be honest, or blunt, or whatever you want to call it, why don’t you tell Randall that you have these plans all worked out for him?”
“I intend to, so don’t bother threatening to tell him yourself.” Miss Freshell shifted on her, again. This version was poisonously sweet. “Vignette Nightingale. Both names are made up, correct?”
“Vignette. Just Vignette.”
“What, not Nightingale, as well?” Freshell smirked. “You two don’t look like brother and sister to me. No resemblance at all.”
“Don’t pretend that you know anything about us!”
“I don’t need to. The point is that we are women. We understand illusion as an essential tool of life. A touch of makeup, a good corset. Illusion lubricates our way.”
“Please. You sound like one of the Ladies’ Hospitality League.”
“I am one of them. You know that.”
“Do you have to sound like it?”
“And most of them already know what you are still waiting to find out—that in a world dominated by men and their brutality, we of the fairer sex must protect each other. Illusion is the main thing that protects all of us. Illusion is also something you understand, dear, in your own way. And just as well as the rest of us.”
“You haven’t said anything about your feelings for him.”
“Romantic love? Like the plays they put on here?”
“You see something wrong with that?”
“Nothing that most of the women performing those plays don’t already know.”
“I am not following you at all.”
Miss Freshell’s face took on an expression that managed to be sour and sultry at the same time. “They understand the particular comfort that a woman frequently finds with another female. They enjoy the ironic fact that society allows us to walk, hand in hand, touch, laugh, flirt, even lie down together, and accepts it all as harmless.”
“It’s not?”
“It is,” she laughed. “Of course it is! But not in the way that the men think. It’s harmless because there’s nothing wrong with getting comfort where you can. Especially under their noses.”
“Under the men’s noses…”
“That’s it,” she fairly sang. “It’s been harmless for centuries, Vignette.”
She laid her hand directly over Vignette’s. “And it will be harmless for Randall, as well.”
Vignette’s stomach slowly dropped while she absorbed that, but before she could come up with any sort of reply, a large man and his wife came back to reclaim their seats and needed to step across them. That squashed the conversation.
Miss Janine Freshell, who had lost at that moment all chance of outliving the title “The Eastern Whore,” gave Vignette’s hand one final pat. She then pulled her legs in to allow the couple to pass. Vignette did likewise. The wife passed first, and Vignette watched the Eastern Whore flash an utterly charming smile at the husband when he sidled by. Some old married man.
He smiled back at the Eastern Whore, surprised by the intensity of her gaze, then managed to make himself look away. Of course he failed to stop himself from looking back. He was snagged by her illusion—as if that fat old man was a nineteen-year-old buck and Miss Janine Freshell was spread out naked before him—as if maybe the two of them would meet up out back and run off somewhere together. Vignette watched the flickers of fantasy cross his face, just as if the Eastern Whore had loaded the moving pictures into a nickelodeon.
The Hidden Man Page 10