The Linking Rings

by John Gaspard

  “Given your experience, you have picked an interesting career path,” I suggested.

  “We go where life takes us,” he said, still glaring at Baxter across the room.

  I heard him mumble something indecipherable as he skulked away to adjust the thermostat, add cashews to the nut bowls, or simply ignore Baxter’s requests in the privacy of his office.

  Harry was still upstairs rehearsing, so I spent the next forty-five minutes wandering the room, watching magicians as they ran through routines and sought advice and counsel from their peers. From time to time I tossed in a thought or a comment. Once it became apparent this interloping American had a pretty solid handle on the basics of magic, folks starting coming up to me to ask questions they might have been too shy to address to Laurence Baxter, Hector Hechizo, or any of the other high-profile magicians who moved in and out of the room.

  I helped one young lad with his top change, using many of the same words—although with a warmer tone— that the legendary Dai Vernon had used on me the one time I met him at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles. At the time, I was about the same age as the kid I was currently assisting.

  “The thing about the top change,” I said as I quickly demonstrated it, “is that it’s a ballsy move which often requires more guts than actual skill. You just have to dive in and do it. Plus, if you’re able to distract them with a larger move while you do it, they don’t even notice the smaller move.”

  I did it for him twice more and then offered tweaks while he demonstrated it back to me. By this time a small group had formed around us, consisting of magicians from about twelve to twenty, running the geeky gamut from “just a little” to “oh my, yes very.”

  Satisfied he had the understanding he needed, the kid with the top change question turned away and was replaced by another young magician who lamented he was having trouble with audience management.

  “For this trick, they’re supposed to hold two cards facedown,” he said, the level of distress obvious in his tone. “But they keep turning the cards over and revealing them before I want them to.”

  “That’s a tricky one,” I agreed, taking the two cards from him and holding them facedown between my thumb and forefinger, just as the audience member would do at that point in the trick. I went through the phases of the illusion in my mind, forming a response to his question. However, before I could get the words out, another voice took over.

  “Oh, luv, it’s all in the eyes. You can control their every move with your eyes and just the slightest touch.”

  I looked over to discover the female magician I had seen here on my first night had stepped in and was taking over. She wasn’t dressed for a performance, but her attire still had a vaguely steampunk Victorian vibe to it. Big hair, big eyes, and a big smile. Before I could pull her name from my memory, she did it for me.

  “Angelika,” she said with a broad smile. “We met the other night. Mind if I weigh in with my two pence worth?”

  I nodded my acquiescence, but she was already moving full speed ahead.

  “So, you want them to keep the cards—and their hand—down until you’re ready, right?” she asked the kid who had posed the question. He seemed a bit bowled over by the force of her personality, but he had enough wits about him to nod his head in agreement.

  “Piece of cake,” she said, suddenly turning to me. Since I was still holding the two cards, I unexpectedly took on the role of the audience member in this demonstration. “Once they have the cards in position, just place two fingers lightly on the back of their hand.”

  She did just that, barely touching the back of my hand with two fingers. I looked up and saw she was staring right into my eyes.

  “Look ‘em in the eyes, smile, and while you do that, gently push down on their hand. Doesn’t take much pressure, just enough to make them lose the desire to hold the hand up.”

  She did exactly that to me, and I had to admit it killed any inclination on my part to lift the hand up. The move was subtle but effective.

  “Once you’ve done that, you’re good to go,” she said to the kid, then turned back to me. “You don’t want to hold your hand up until I tell you to now, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed, looking down at my hand holding the two cards. While I still had complete control of the hand, the idea of lifting it up—and revealing the cards—was nowhere in my mind.

  “Brilliant,” the kid said with a big smile, snatching the cards from my hand as he and his friends scampered off to try out what they’d just learned. Angelika watched them go.

  “Were we ever that young?” she said wistfully.

  “If I was, I have no memory of it,” I agreed.

  “Silly gits,” she said, then she pivoted and turned her full attention to me. “So you’re Harry Marks’ nephew, right? Sorry, had no idea when I met you the other night. Harry’s a bit of a legend, don’t you think?”

  “Depends on when you ask me,” I said. “Somedays yes, somedays no.

  She nodded in understanding. “Family, you gotta love ‘em,” she agreed.

  “No, but Harry’s great. He’s always been very supportive, and I’ve been exceedingly lucky to have him as a mentor.”

  She took two small steps toward a nearby wall and leaned on it expertly, producing a pack of gum from seemingly out of nowhere. She offered me a piece. I wasn’t sure if the offer was genuine or if I was being pulled into an impromptu trick, so I shook my head.

  “No thanks.”

  “What was the best advice he ever gave you?” she asked as she unwrapped a piece and popped it into her mouth.

  I thought about this. Several nuggets of wisdom floated across my consciousness, and then one jumped forward.

  “I was young—in my twenties. I’d been working for a while, but Harry had never really seen my act, you know, in front of an audience. So I invited him to a gig I thought would show off my best stuff. He brought my Aunt Alice. I did the show, got a great response, and we all went out to eat afterwards.”

  I smiled at the memory, which was so strong I could actually remember the smell of the steak I ordered and every other detail, down to the color of the wallpaper at Axel’s—a local restaurant we always saved for special occasions. And the popovers, I could smell the popovers.

  “Aunt Alice cooed about how much she loved it,” I continued, “about how well I did, how proud my parents would have been. You know, on and on. Harry, however, was abnormally quiet. So I finally had to ask him, ‘So, Harry, what’d you think?’

  “Harry thought about this for a long moment—a way-too-long moment, it felt like. And then he said, ‘Eli, tonight I saw a wonderful magician perform. Talented, skillful, in all ways delightful. But I never saw you up there. I never saw Eli. I saw a generic magician—dexterous, yes. Funny—you bet. But I think you’re doing your audience a disservice not to let them see Eli while you’re up there. Because, in my humble opinion, I think Eli’s pretty terrific.’”

  I smiled at the memory. We stood quietly for a few moments as young magicians jostled past us, talking and laughing.

  “You’re a lucky one,” Angelika said, clearly not getting the same joy out of the story I did. “Imagine being a lass, in your early twenties, and telling your mum you’re leaving school to become a full-time magician. That got me an earful, I can tell you.”

  “No daughter of mine, that sort of thing?” I suggested.

  “Throw in plenty of profanity and you’re halfway there, luv,” she agreed. “Of course, on the plus side, the magic community welcomed me with open arms...” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “A woman’s place is in the box?” I offered.

  “I’ve heard that one and more, believe me.” She crumbled up the gum wrapper and tossed it into a nearby waste can. “It was a bit of a tussle, believe me. This profession has historically put women in boxes. And then cut them in half.”


  “Or thirds. Or quarters. Or thirteen pieces,” I added, thinking of Davis De Vries’ Baker’s Dozen illusion. “And I’m guessing you didn’t want to take the less-satisfying path of becoming a magician’s assistant?”

  “A box jumper? Not on your life, mate. My mind was set. My mum, of course, wanted me to stay in school, follow in her footsteps, and be a nurse or some such thing.” She shuddered at the thought.

  “Not for you?”

  She shook her head. “I gave it a go, but in the end I couldn’t stomach the idea the rest of my life would consist of emptying bedpans and yanking out catheters.”

  I involuntarily winced at her use of the word “yanking” in conjunction with the word “catheter,” but I nodded in understanding. “The heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of,” I said, just a little too sagely.

  “Well,” she smirked, “aren’t we just the little fortune cookie message generator today?”

  “I don’t know who said it,” I said, trying to cover my tracks. “But it felt appropriate.”

  “Pascal said it, mate, and when he said it, he at least had enough class to say it in French,” she replied, clearly enjoying watching me squirm. “And you only quoted the first half, Yoda. He went on to say, ‘We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.’”

  “You clearly know that one by heart,” I said.

  “You live it, you learn it, that’s my motto,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  She had put me on the spot, and all I could think of was “No shirt, no shoes, no service,” which hardly seemed appropriate.

  “I’m not sure I have one,” I admitted.

  She stepped closer to me, a little closer than I might have expected. “Every man needs a motto,” she said with a wink. “You oughta get yourself one, luv.”

  She reached up and gave my nose the slightest of tweaks, laughed, and stepped away, quickly disappearing into the crowd. I leaned against the wall she had been using for support, feeling a sudden and surprising need for it. Once I got settled, I turned to see Henry McHugh standing next to me. He had apparently been waiting patiently for my conversation with Angelika to conclude. He still sported his trusty trilby.

  “Are you all right, my boy?” he said with concern. “You look a touch wobbly.”

  I straightened up quickly, if not convincingly. “We were talking about mottos,” I said by way of explanation. “She wanted to know mine, but I couldn’t come up with one. But I just remembered a saying my Aunt Alice used all the time that would have been the perfect response.”

  McHugh smiled at the mention of my late Aunt. “Ah, the divine Alice. What pearl of wisdom did she gift you with?”

  “She said, ‘If you don’t want to slip—’” I began, but McHugh was ahead of me.

  “If you don’t want to slip, don’t visit slippery places,” he said, finishing a piece of advice I had heard from Alice on way too many occasions, each time due to my own errant behavior.

  “Wise words, my boy,” McHugh said as we both turned and watched Angelika flirt her way across the room, catching the eye of nearly every man as she moved past. “Wise words indeed.”

  Chapter 12

  I quickly learned McHugh had not turned up simply to act as my personal Jiminy Cricket during my encounter with Angelika, as indispensable as his presence might have been. He had come to talk to Harry and let him know the British police were ready to have their longer interview with him, and in McHugh’s opinion, sooner would be better than later.

  “Look, I know you’re anxious to head back home,” McHugh told Harry once we’d tracked him down in the auditorium. He had finished his technical rehearsal and was packing his gear into its worn but solid traveling cases. “So the sooner you talk with them, the sooner they will no longer need to talk with you, as it were.”

  “I’m still stunned by all of this,” Harry said as he locked one of the cases. “First Oskar, then Borys. But, of course, I will talk to them. When do they want to see me?”

  “Now,” McHugh said, glancing down at his watch. “And I told them I’d be happy to act as your escort.”

  This sudden change in plan required a quick call to Megan, who had intended to meet us for lunch at The Tate, which Harry had earlier recommended for its fine view of the London skyline. When she was informed Harry and I were headed back to the police station, she was eager to join us there. I suggested that some other activity—virtually any other activity—would prove to be a more interesting and worthwhile way to spend her afternoon.

  “Well, I can always spend some more time in the greenhouse. Plus, Roxanne did say something about shopping at some place called Neal’s Yard,” Megan said. She tried to sound like this option was a poor second to spending the afternoon in a dreary police station, but she wasn’t quite pulling it off, so I tossed her the life preserver she needed.

  “I think I remember McHugh saying that was a great place,” I lied. “Why don’t you go check it out, and we can both go back there later if you think I’d like it.”

  This plan was agreeable to her, so we decided to reconnect at dinner, with the hopes of getting our romantic London getaway at least partly back on track.

  “What did I say was a great place?” McHugh asked as I pocketed my phone.

  “Neal’s Yard, but I made that up so Megan wouldn’t feel obligated to spend her afternoon waiting with us during Harry’s interview,” I explained. We had made our way down the vertiginous spiral staircase and headed out The Magic Circle’s front door.

  “Oh, but she’ll love Neal’s Yard,” McHugh said as we hit the street. “If she likes tea, there’s a shop just down from Neal’s Yard which I can recommend to her without hesitation. They offer a stunning selection of teas, and not just from India and the West Indies and China but from locales where you’d never expect to find tea at all, let alone outstanding tea, but believe me...”

  He was still telling me about the shop and its varieties of tea long after we’d flagged down a taxi and began our short ride to the police station.

  Somehow Laurence Baxter had gotten wind of Harry’s impromptu police interview and had arranged for his solicitor, Simon Wexler-Smith, to be waiting for us when we arrived. The large man was once again decked out nattily in a three-piece pinstripe suit. With his white walrus mustache, drooping eyes, and dense, silvery eyebrows, he looked the perfect cliché of a British attorney of a certain age.

  Harry waved off the need for an attorney to accompany him into the interview, clearly annoyed at the idea of needing any assistance. However, a few quiet but determined words from McHugh seemed to turn the tide, and a few minutes later Harry and Wexler-Smith started to make their way down a long hall. At the far end of the corridor, Harry turned and gave me a short, upbeat wave before he was swallowed into a distant conference room.

  McHugh and I settled ourselves into the lobby’s hard plastic chairs. I checked my watch, forgot what it read, and immediately had to check it again. That was as good an indication of my current mental state as any. Two murders and Harry as a key suspect was not what I had signed on for when I offered to accompany my uncle to London. I had been hoping for a nice week abroad with my girlfriend, and yet once again, I found myself within the bowels of a police station.

  McHugh smiled over at me. “Don’t get too concerned about the timing, my boy. Might take ten minutes, might take two hours,” he said. “And we can’t draw conclusions from either end of that spectrum. There are wheels within wheels. New evidence, old evidence, it all plays a role.”

  “New evidence?” I said, perking up at the notion. “Have you heard anything?”

  “I’ve heard many, many things, barely a fraction of it useful,” he said, folding the newspaper he had started to read. He looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “They’ve produced a more thorough forensics report on the unique chair that so effectively placed a kni
fe in the back of your Mr. Korhonen.”

  “What did they learn?”

  “They learned how little they actually know, sad to say,” he said. “They believe the device may have been oiled recently, but they also pointed out it could actually have been years. Not too helpful, that.”

  “They can’t tell something as simple as a recent oiling?” It seemed like a pretty straightforward deduction to me, but I realized I had no idea how you would actually determine such a thing.

  “Back in the day,” McHugh said slowly, “I had occasion to escort a prisoner of some reputation to a dental appointment, of all things. Not sure why, but I pulled the short straw, and there I was, cooling my heels while a bright young hygienist cleaned the devil’s teeth. While in the course of her exam, she asked the fellow—as I gather she inquired of all her patients—just how long it had been since he had last given his teeth a thorough flossing.”

  McHugh, who had been gazing across the room at nothing in particular while recounting this, turned to me.

  “He was a bit of a smart aleck, this one, and so he turned the question back on her. ‘How long do you think it’s been, luv?’” McHugh shook his head. “Poor thing, bad enough she has to clean the teeth of this hooligan, now she has to play Ask Me Another? She hemmed and hawed, finally saying she thought it might have been six months, perhaps at most a year. The fellow looked as ecstatic as a man serving a long and well-deserved sentence can look. He said, ‘Wrong, ducky. It’s been twenty-seven years, if it’s been a day.’”

  McHugh punctuated this last sentence with a quick slap of his folded newspaper against his knee, shaking his head at the memory, before opening the paper and returning to his reading. I waited a few moments, not sure if I had missed a key element of the story or perhaps suffered a quick bout of short-term amnesia.

  “So, you were saying about the forensics and the chair and then...flossing?” I offered tentatively.

  McHugh snapped back from his reading, once again folding the newspaper. “Yes, of course, the chair,” he said quickly. “The point is, even the experts never really know about these things. That chair could have been sitting patiently for years and years, like a rusty mousetrap just waiting for the right person to sit on it at the wrong time.