by David Khalaf
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BESS WALKED IN with a tray of tea.
“Shut the door!”
It was too late for any of them to make a break for it down the hall. The dressing room had no windows and no other exits. It was little more than an oversized broom closet. There would be no escape.
Houdini scanned the room frantically, for what he didn’t know. A weapon? Something to call for help? There was nothing; only some stage makeup, an assortment of handcuffs and picks, and the wardrobe that held his costumes.
The wardrobe.
He hoisted the child up and put him in Pickford’s arms.
“We have to hide you.”
Bess closed her eyes silently for a moment.
“Atlas,” she said.
Houdini nodded. He opened the wardrobe and lifted all of the clothes off the hangers, lying the stack over the back of a chair.
“He wants the Eye, but he’ll hurt you both if he sees you. And the boy…”
If being around the boy had such an effect on his talent, Houdini could only wonder what he might do for the others.
“Whatever you do,” he told Pickford, “You can’t let him have the boy. Hide him. Send him far away. Whatever you have to do.”
He felt for a hidden latch at the back of the wardrobe. It was a trick piece that he used to have in his show, but it was broken and he hadn’t gotten around to fixing it.
“Get in!” he said.
He stuffed all three of them in the shallow space designed for only one person. When he tried to close the false back, it popped open again. The latch was faulty and the door tended to swing open of its own accord. Bess leaned out.
“Harry!”
Her eyes glowed with fear. He didn’t want to know what she had seen down her own threads of possibility.
“Two kisses, darling,” she said. “One for now and one for later.”
Houdini leaned in and kissed his wife fiercely.
“I’ll wait,” she said. “For my second kiss.”
“You’ll get it,” Houdini said. “I promise.”
In this life or the next.
There was a knock at the door of the dressing room.
“Coming!” Houdini said.
He was about to shut it again when he had a thought. He pulled the Eye off from around his neck and hung it on Pickford’s.
“Hide it well, and tell no one. Not your husband, not Chaplin. No one. The fewer who know the better.”
Down every thread of possibility, he had seen Atlas get the Eye. By giving it to Pickford, it left his future. He couldn’t tell what would happen to it from that point on.
“Get Mrs. Pickford out of here and call the police,” he told Bess.
There was a pounding at the door this time.
“Just changing my trousers!”
He took one last look at Bess, then the boy. Staring at those brooding eyes, a thought struck him.
“Destiny!” he whispered. “He’s my reason for being in Hollywood. I know it!”
He shut the panel and replaced the clothes, praying the latch held.
The dressing room door burst off its hinges, and Houdini ducked to avoid the flying door. There, at the entrance, stood Atlas. It felt like déjà vu.
“I don’t have it,” Houdini said.
The man ducked and angled his torso to fit through the doorway. When he stood, his body filled the space. He looked around as if the Eye would be lying about somewhere.
“Where is it, then?”
“After our encounter, I wanted nothing to do with it,” Houdini said. “I threw it into the Hudson River.”
“Hmm.”
The giant man picked through objects on the vanity, touching Bess’s make-up brushes with a gentleness that belied his size.
Houdini saw movement in the doorway. From behind Atlas, the dark beast scurried into the room. For the first time Houdini got a good look at it. It wasn’t a monster, but a person—someone either very small or hunched over. The person was wearing a cloak and hood made of long, dark, luxurious hair—human hair.
“Check his jacket,” Atlas said.
A white, bony hand appeared from the folds of the hairy cloak and began to rifle through the jacket lying on the chair. Atlas approached Houdini and felt his pants pockets. He ripped the top button of Houdini’s shirt to see if the Eye was around his neck.
“If you did throw it away,” Atlas said, “Then there would be no reason for me to chase you down.”
“Exactly,” Houdini said.
“Then there would be no reason for you to live on the run, which is what you have been doing for the past year. We only caught up to you this time because you stayed an extra day.”
He grabbed Houdini by the throat, his entire hand nearly wrapping around the magician’s neck, and lifted him off the ground.
“You must have the Eye. A man hides only when he has something to hide.”
He squeezed.
“Don’t kill him,” a whisper of a voice said. It came from the person in the cloak. “Not yet. Here.”
The shriveled white hand held up Pickford’s letter from yesterday. Atlas took the note and read it.
“Perhaps she has it, then,” the beast said.
“Who is she?” Atlas asked.
Houdini decided that he wouldn’t say another word for fear of slipping up and giving Pickford away. Atlas had never seen them together in Hollywood; there was nothing publicly linking them together. She would be safe, if only she and the boy could get out of the room.
I have to create a distraction.
Houdini removed the longest pick from his sleeve and stabbed at the giant man’s face. It was a futile effort. Atlas flicked the magician aside like a twig. Houdini flew against the vanity mirror, shattering it into pieces. The shelf below it collapsed under Houdini’s weight, and he fell to the floor. There were cuts on his face and his wrist felt broken.
Houdini saw that Bess’s jewelry box had tumbled open. There, scattered about the floor with inexpensive earrings, barrettes, and necklaces, was the Ring of the Fisherman. Houdini covered it with his left hand as he rolled over, and with his other hand covered a plain gold chain much like the one that held the Eye. He kept them pinched in the palms of his hand as he stood. To others, it would look as if he held nothing.
Atlas closed his hands into boulder-sized fists.
A gasp escaped from the wardrobe. Houdini coughed to cover it, but Atlas cocked his head. Houdini had to distract him.
“Tell me, Mr. Atlas, what’s your legacy going to be?”
Atlas walked over to the wardrobe and looked behind it.
“What?”
“Once you have the Eye, and use it however you intend—what are you hoping to leave to the world?”
Atlas peered inside. Houdini prayed to anyone who would listen that the latch would stay shut.
Don’t move, my son. Don’t say a word.
The giant man rummaged through the clothes until he came to the back wall. He looked at it a moment, then threw the door shut.
“I’ll leave a lesson,” Atlas said. “Strip away a man’s fancy clothes, his money, his titles and connections, and at our very core, we have only our strength to rely on. Humanity’s true leaders are the strong.”
There was a creaking sound from the wardrobe. Atlas looked back, and stepped toward it again.
Everything I love is in that wooden box.
“Atlas!” Houdini said.
He held up a loose fist and let the gold chain dangle out of it. Misdirection at its simplest.
“If you want the Eye, you’ll have to wait until my show is over. You’ve never seen my disappearing act, have you?”
Houdini slipped on the Ring of the Fisherman. Atlas’s big brows furrowed in confusion as he tried to zero in on the magician’s location.
The dark beast was blocking the doorway, so Houdini thrust it aside. The tiny being was so light and fragile it went tumbling over and smashed into the wall. The magician then darted out
of the room, making loud footsteps as he ran.
Houdini didn’t need to look behind him to see if Atlas was following. The thunder of footsteps and the explosion of breaking walls was evidence enough.