In the showman’s depleted state, he painfully reminded Shane of himself, back in the Nightingale house. Shane had reached that same beaten-down point when he finally crawled out from his hiding place in the kitchen pantry and struggled to his feet among the bodies, in a house that would soon go up in flames.
Everything inside him would resist any hint of moving in that direction again. If necessary, his legs would stand and run in the other direction, even while he was sleeping.
HOURS LATER
BACK AT THE FAIRGROUNDS
THE NONDESCRIPT MAN USED UP the last of the fading afternoon light in a fast hike around the exposition grounds while anger and disbelief rotated through his brain. The Divine conspiracy against him was obviously increasing its reach, because the newspaper had said nothing—nothing!—about a missing person report for a young woman her age.
That much might have been tolerable, if it were only that much. It had not been long since she had disappeared, and who knew what kind of family she came from? (Maybe they were concerned people, but then, maybe not. Fair enough.) But the real stab in the heart was that the paper also said nothing about Duncan, other than to provide a pleasant little review of his performance.
To judge from the cursed news article, all that happened at the theatre was a nice little family show. Absolutely nothing suspicious in old J.D.’s dressing room, no sirree. According to the review, nothing whatsoever threw the Great Mesmerist off his game. A lovely time was had by all.
Except for a certain nondescript man who knew for a fact that there was a dead body in Duncan’s closet all through the show. It was simply not believable that one, the stagehands; two, the star himself; and three, the cleaning crew, all somehow missed that tiny detail backstage.
He wanted to scream. He needed to scream, just the way that Revenge girl had: into a nice tight gag that would hold in all the sound. With no such release possible, he pressed on with his walk-and-mutter all around the exposition grounds.
He even hiked all the way up and down the Zone, twice. The sixteen-block strip of amusements and rides greeted visitors at the front gate and led them into the main fairgrounds. He could move around the Zone unchallenged, since his work pass hung on a string around his neck, right out where anybody could see it. A workingman. People left him alone. Once, a confused delivery boy tried to stop him to ask directions, but he pretended not to hear and kept on walking.
Visitors brushed by him in a thin but steady flow. Their eyes were completely out of focus when it came to recognizing potential danger from someone like him. The feel of their excitement was nearly contagious. These early visitors were additionally eager for the coming opening ceremony, beginning as soon as darkness fell. The president of the United States himself would be turning on the electric power to the fairgrounds, all the way from Washington, D.C.!
Rumors of fakery abounded throughout the city. It was obvious that no such thing was possible. People who knew of no other form of municipal power except natural gas speculated that the light switch must be located somewhere on the fairgrounds, and that the president was simply in on the joke by agreeing to keep up the illusion for the national prestige.
Otherwise think of the waste! Think of the waste!
The rumormongers pictured the entire flow of electrical energy being directed around the country from the generators, to Washington, and then back to San Francisco, the way that a flow of gas would be—instead of being activated by one remotely powered switch.
Others found both possibilities intriguing. Either the feat was impossible and represented an international hoax, or it was real, against apparent logic. If so, it would only prove itself to be another of the miracles of science that marked these soaring times.
The public’s anticipation and excitement made them beautiful. They sometimes displayed happiness to the extent that he physically hungered for the chance to crush it in his bare hands.
If he could spot one who was beautiful enough to be worth the risk of capturing, then the very act of snatching her and getting her back to the dead space would be nearly as good as anything that came afterward. He could easily vent enough of his rage through the victim’s fear and pain that he would be able to survive another day to continue his actual mission. Duncan’s uncanny luck or whatever it was could not last, and thus it could not prevent the inevitable. The mission remained.
He had just reached the top end of the Zone for the third time and was about to turn around again when he noticed a single-story pavilion, the “Ladies’ Hospitality League Center.”
No one noticed that the nondescript man paused to observe the people who were wandering in and out of the place. Some of them emerged carrying little souvenir mugs filled with steaming cider. He smelled the hot cinnamon when one young couple strolled by, happily sipping away.
Disgust overwhelmed him. Unmannered pigs, stuffing themselves. He took a good look around. As quickly as that, the visitors were not beautiful anymore. Some of them needed a good mud hole to roll in. He felt such a compelling need to crush the complacency out of one of them, just the right one of them, that it became a sharp pain under his ribs.
He turned again toward the Ladies’ Hospitality League. An interesting place. There ladies were charged with the job of showing hospitality, meaning that they were likely to be less standoffish than regular women. In a place like that, his lack of an appearance would not count against him; it was their job to notice him.
One would be enough, as long as she was the right one.
He moved toward the door in an utterly nondescript fashion. There was no sense in dropping the cloak until it was time to get one of the hospitality ladies to see him. Not that the cloak always came off when he wanted it to, but that was something else.
Blackburn stopped at the door to Vignette’s room. She was seated atop the bed with her shoes off, reading her new hardback copy of Huckleberry Finn. He tapped lightly on the doorsill.
“Is that the one that came in the mail last week?”
“Yep. They send a different one every month unless I write and tell them to stop.”
“I’ve read that one. The character of Huck reminds me of you.”
“He what?”
“Well, in spirit, I mean. Some people have to bust out from the way that things are in their lives.”
She searched for a response, but every suggestion her brain provided was sticky and complex and did nothing to move the awkward moment along. The best she could come up with was “Well, you’re about to go?”
He laughed. “Yeah. I’m meeting Shane at the restaurant, maybe take him somewhere for dinner before we have to show up at the fairgrounds.”
“She said that there’s going to be all sorts of food there. They give it away.”
“That’s it, then. We’re just doing an hour or two with Duncan at the Palace of Fine Arts, then I guess we’ll come on home. Want me to stop by the Hospitality League on the way out?”
“No, we might be gone already. They close up at ten o’clock. I’ll just…” she sighed. “I’ll see you guys back here.”
Blackburn grinned. “You might enjoy meeting those women, you know.”
She offered a wan smile. He chuckled and walked over to her, pecked her on the cheek, then headed for the door.
“One thing, though,” he added. “Don’t say anything to Miss Freshell, but I can’t stop feeling interested in exactly how the department found out about you. Curiosity, I guess. I just called the Fairmont Hotel on the telephone, how about that? I left a message with the bell captain to post on her door after she leaves. I want her to meet me in the restaurant there after the park closes tonight. So I’ll be home late.”
“Why keep it a secret from her until she gets back?”
“Old habits, I guess.”
“What habits?”
“Well, not that it means…in this case…You don’t want to give people too much time to think things over before you talk to them. If you can avoid it.”
&nb
sp; “Mmm. But that really applies more to your detective work than your personal life. Yes?”
“Old habits.”
“It’s about me, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s about her and me, and you.”
“All right. Good. But it’s still pretty late for a social visit.”
“This one’s overdue. Anyway, Mr. Duncan tells me that he tried to place a call to this number here, today. He thought someone answered but wouldn’t say anything.”
“I don’t like the things. A bell tells you what to do. Just because a bell rings, you have to stop and pick up the telephone receiver and talk to whoever wants to call you and interrupt what you’re doing.”
“You answered it, then?”
“I picked it up. What are you supposed to say when you pick it up? Nobody told me. I’ve seen people use them and yell things like ‘Ahoy!’ and ‘Yoo-hoo!’ They sound like idiots.”
“Just say ‘hello.’ Or say your name, that’s good enough.”
“Anytime the damn thing rings? I have to stop and take messages from just anybody who happens to—”
“No, Vignette! You can ignore it. Just don’t pick up the receiver and say nothing and then hang up again. All right?”
“I was hoping they could take a hint.”
“Vignette.”
“All right.”
“And be cooperative with Miss Freshell. Treat her with respect.”
“Randall, I promise you, I realize that she is your fiancée. I never allow myself to forget it.”
“My God, do this for me, Vignette! It matters. It matters, or I wouldn’t ask.”
She paused, then sighed. “All right, Daddy,” she replied with an impish grin. “But just because you asked me so nice.”
“Good, then,” he smiled and turned to go. “Last thing…”
“Don’t call you ‘Daddy’?”
“Thank you.”
OPENING NIGHT FEBRUARY 20TH, 1915
THE PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION
THE GRAND OPENING OF the Panama-Pacific International Exposition went splendidly well for the city of San Francisco, whether the American president helped to fake the impossible chore of turning on the lights from Washington, D.C., or not. Either way, it was safe to assume that not one person who wandered the six hundred and twenty-five acres of newly made land and manufactured wonders had ever seen anything like it.
The Remington Rand company had a giant typewriter, twenty-five feet high, that actually typed the day’s headlines. The Tower of Jewels glittered with hundreds of thousands of individually hung glass gems that vibrated in their mountings with the wind. Hidden controls operated automatic fountains in beautiful patterns of water sculpture. And everywhere, brand-new electric lights, an unknown phenomenon to many visitors, illuminated everything better than daylight, just as soon as the sun went down.
The visitors were confronted with and overwhelmed by the world’s first modern theme park. The entire fairground glowed like some sort of enchanted fairyland filled with themed architecture. While the beguiled families strolled along in a state of awe, it tended to be only the breadwinners who noticed that the entire exhibition was a complex machine that efficiently caused all of a person’s cash to disappear.
Over in the northwestern corner of the grounds, the elaborately designed Palace of Fine Arts and its reflecting lagoon were set up for James “J.D.” Duncan’s series of brief, intimate shows. These performances consisted entirely of personal hypnotic treatments, “plumbing work” as he called it, on the essential energy flow of the individual audience members.
Since he did not remember to hire anyone to watch his backstage area as he had told Blackburn that he intended to do, he now paced amid the temporary curtained “backstage” without any protection at all. Only the fact that he had forgotten the matter altogether kept him from being alarmed over it.
Shane and Blackburn kept watch on the crowds, coming and going. Occasionally, their eyes met and they shook their heads, acknowledging that neither one knew what they were supposed to be looking for.
Vignette quickly discovered that the work of the Ladies’ Hospitality League in their pavilion at the top of the Zone was the hardest “easy” work she had ever attempted. After Miss Freshell arrived with Vignette in tow, there was a flurry of chirpy introductions among the members, pleasant ladies who ranged in age from a couple who were younger than she was, right up through old great-grandmothers who were there with two or three generations of family women, all working together.
The names and faces came at her so fast that she went into a smile-and-nod mode, to get herself past the moment without offending anyone. After that, the job seemed to mostly consist of wandering around the pavilion and passing out cider or snacks to anyone who wandered in. Each lady was to engage them in pleasant conversation, as if it were somehow any of their business how these people got there, why they came, and how many relatives they brought along to the exposition with them.
To Vignette, these women all appeared to have taken on some sort of military commitment to bombard every hapless wanderer who stumbled into the place with more food and affection than they had ever experienced.
According to Miss Freshell, the lesson had been learned at the Chicago World’s Fair, years before—people, it seemed, were even more inclined than they might naturally be to send plenty of glowing reports home about a visit to a place, when the people at that place gave them tons of free cider and muffins, reliable directions, and an overabundance of cheerful attitude. So said one of the ladies, anyway.
And so for nearly four hours, she was in character as an enthusiastic volunteer, entirely because Randall asked it of her. The look in his eyes and the tone of his voice when he made the request were like nothing she had ever seen in him before. It nearly stopped her on the spot and forced her to blurt out a question about it. She managed to keep quiet, but the effect remained. She was going to do this thing. She was going to find some way to make it work, even though some dark part of her heart throbbed with the fear that, with her crammed into this place, things could not turn out well.
In the meantime, the Ladies’ Hospitality League position was the same as a regular job, in most ways. The grim fact was that it was the same as a regular job in all the ways that mattered. Every attempt at a job that she had ever put herself through, back when she still attempted such things, turned out badly in the end, and the end never took long in coming.
She knew that the part Randall found most troubling was that she was never fired for incompetence or carelessness. She was fired because people simply did not like having her around. She got the message. She even understood their point of view on that, since she was usually the one who felt repelled first. The problem was that she had never been able to put the reasons for the thing into words for him or for anyone else.
It was never the job, it was the role. Always the damned role. To her experience, any one of the few jobs that a woman was allowed to do was either something that was stupidly simple and repetitious, or was a position of direct servitude under some male boss. Meaning that she could either choose to be slowly strangled by the dreadful boredom of a repetitious job in some factory, or she could be the unofficial concubine/secretary of some executive, which would require a daily mantle of subservience to all things male.
There was also retail sales work, of course, which required the ability to suffer fools gladly in the constant flow of presumptuous, demanding, cigar-smoke-blowing men who found it baffling that you do not live to serve their whims.
She tried twice, in her late teens, and only got into a fistfight with the merchant marine that first time. The second time she had the wisdom to turn around and walk out of the store and never go back when the manager passed behind her so closely that he deliberately rubbed his stiffened member across her buttocks.
If she had been holding a sharp object, Vignette knew without a doubt that she would have shoved it into his groin. She knew that a prison cell w
ould kill her, so she was grateful to have been empty-handed in that moment.
It had always struck her as odd that factory work and clerical work both caused the same reaction in her. In both environments, she quickly developed a suffocated feeling, one so strong that she could not ignore it. When things reached that state she was a goner, as far as the job was concerned. All somebody had to do was shout at her, or grab at her, or, worst of all, sneer at her in some condescending way, and that was it. She had given up punching people for a long time now, and usually managed to get out without spewing much verbal anger. Sometimes, though, some sorry bastard thought that he was going to put one over on her for no other reason than that she was there alone. Then she had to let it out.
She restrained her urges to fly into him and tear at his throat by allowing herself the wonderful luxury of hurling such a forceful, venomous tirade into his face that he was certain to have never heard any other woman talk to him in such a way, except perhaps his unmannered whore of a mother.
Oh, the looks on their faces. Sometimes the cigar smokers actually had the thing dangling freely off of the lower lip, stuck there by a little spit and tobacco juice, just because their mouths were open so wide. Few of them ever gathered their wits enough to match her verbal onslaught.
Vignette’s favorite moment of every job was when she was quitting because some man pushed her so far that her anger was perfectly justified. She realized that she was taking a physical risk by allowing herself to explode on some snarling male animal, but the act itself reminded her that she was still alive. She was still Vignette, a living soul, not just a collection of forced behavior and the brunt of endless disrespect from others. And if a man felt the need to use her for some kind of verbal punching bag, then the opportunity to throw sheer wildness into his face was one she would not ignore.
The Hidden Man Page 13