Nevermore (8 page)

“Dear fellow …” Nonplussed by this extraordinary behavior, Sir Arthur sputtered in Colonel Blimpish protest, even as his keen medical eye observed the needle’s passage to be completely bloodless. “No more, I beg you.”

“Harry, dear …” Beatrice Houdini stood in the doorway of her husband’s office. “We don’t want our dinner to get cold.”

“Coming, Mrs. Houdini.” The magician picked up his shoes. “Just showing Sir Arthur some of the tricks of the trade.”

The other dinner guests were the magician’s attorney, Bernard Ernst, and his brooding, overweight wife. They engaged in immediate shoptalk. Conan Doyle deduced very quickly that Theo “Dash” Weiss also performed as a magician, using the stage name “Hardeen.” He toured on the rival Pantages Circuit with an act so similar it incorporated Houdini’s famous milk-can escape, which his brother no longer performed. The Weiss boys joked about cornering the market in the escape business. Hardeen’s success discouraged any serious rivals. Strictly a family enterprise.

“When we bought this house twenty years ago, there were almost no Negroes living in Harlem,” Bess Houdini told Lady Jean. “This was a nice German neighborhood back then. Still is, really. The colored live mainly above 125
^th
Street. Of course, there’s an Irish section up here, too. And Italians on the East Side.”

“The bottom dropped out of the upper Harlem real estate market in ‘ought-five,” Houdini interjected. “Speculators built too many new apartments, especially around 135th Street. Wanted to recoup their losses, natch. Fill up those vacancies. So, they started renting to Negroes. Cheap crooks’re getting one twenty-five a month for places that used to go for forty bucks.”

“It wasn’t something you really noticed until after the war,” sighed Bessie. “That was when you really started to see the change. Used to be such a quiet residential place.”

The conversation turned to the subject of the movies, something they all had in common. A film version of Sir Arthur’s novel
The Lost World
had recently been produced in Chicago with spectacular special effects footage depicting ancient dinosaurs. Houdini, veteran of a serial made in Yonkers and two Hollywood films, had started his own motion picture company in New York a couple years before. Another family enterprise. Dash took time out from his career and pitched in. Houdini was president as well as writer, producer, director, and star. Two new films were released. Both did poorly at the box office.

“I quite enjoyed
The Man from Beyond
” commented Sir Arthur. “The escape from the brink of Niagara Falls was spot on.”

“Maybe so,” Dash fixed his brother with a cocky smile, “but
Haldane
was strictly from hunger.”

Houdini ignored any implied challenge. “I shoulda done the Egyptian picture instead …
Mistero di Osiris
—” Suddenly brought up short, the magician cocked his head as if hearing a faraway sound, drifting away into thought. Everyone waited for him to finish speaking and the conversation dwindled, inhibited by his distraction.

Conan Doyle cast about for a way out of the embarrassing silence. A framed photograph of an early flying machine hung on the opposite wall. The box-kite tail was emblazoned with the name HOUDINI in bold capitals. “Using aircraft for advertising.” Sir Arthur indicated the picture with a nod of his head. “Pure twentieth-century thought. I, for one, applaud it.”

“That was my own machine,” Houdini said. “A Voison. Santos Dumont design. Had a British E.N.V. 60.80 horsepower petrol engine.”

“By Jove, I didn’t know you were an aeronaut to boot.” Sir Arthur’s enthusiasm infected his grin.

“I was the first man to make a successful airplane flight on the Australian continent. March 16, 1910.”

Sir Arthur kept his grin in place. How absurd to speak in headlines like some demented town crier. Wouldn’t the celebrated Dr. Freud have a field day analyzing this man’s ego?

Houdini pointed to a bronze plaque on the opposite wall next to the photograph: a winged globe in relief. “The Aerial League of Australia awarded me that trophy. I was touring down under. Next to shut. “

“Beg your pardon… . Next to what?”

“ ‘Next to shut’ is the featured turn on a vaudeville bill,” Dash interjected. “Shut is closing.”

The magician firmed his jaw, still posing in the cockpit. “Shipped the Voison from Germany with all my gear. Put a mechanic on the payroll, too.”

“Do you still fly?” inquired Lady Jean.

“Took a spin in a Stinson four years ago. Out west making
The Grim Game.
”

“Amazing aerial photography in that.” Sir Arthur positively beamed. “Your leap between two aeroplanes while handcuffed is the most reckless feat of daring I have ever witnessed.”

“The midair collision was unplanned. Turned out to be a lucky accident. Willat kept the camera running in the third plane and we worked the footage into the story.”

Sir Arthur, entranced with the memory of viewing this daring moment at the cinema, stared up past the ceiling. “The way they spiraled down through the sky, locked together, like giant insects spent at the climax of their nuptial flight.” Everyone around the table smiled at the daring sexual allusion so discreetly phrased. “You were fortunate no one was injured.”

Houdini nodded in agreement. “The planes separated mere moments before crash-landing.” The magician made no mention of the piano wire safety harness, or of the double who made the jump that day. Houdini had watched on the ground, his arm in a sling, having fractured his left wrist in a three-foot fall during a jailbreak sequence filmed the day before. This was a closely guarded secret. Always best never to let the truth get in the way of legend.

Bernard Ernst patted the leather cigar case jutting from his breast pocket with affectionate anticipation. “Houdini was quick to gauge the import of moving pictures,” he said. “Why, if he was to have done that plane jump stunt before an audience, the most he could hope to draw is ten, maybe twenty thousand. On film, millions get to see him.”

“So, where were the millions for
Haldane of the Secret Service?”
Houdini made a face of mock nausea. “I’m all through with pictures. Maybe they are the future. I know all the vaude houses are showing two-reelers as part of the bill these days.”

“Vaudeville is dying,” Mrs. Ernst said. “That’s the pity of it.”

“What can you do about it?” The magician shrugged. “Mourning the past is a waste of time. Far better to prepare for the future. When my touring contract is over next year, I plan on putting together a full evening show and playing nothing but legitimate theaters. Thurston’s been working that side of the street pretty successfully for fifteen years now.”

“Perhaps this is an impossible question to answer …” Lady Jean’s melodious voice captivated everyone at the table. “But … I’d be interested to know what you consider your most difficult escape.”

Houdini’s expression suggested pensive cogitation. How the man thrives on attention, thought Conan Doyle, shifting his gaze to his wife’s lovely smile.

The magician ignored the servants clearing the table. “I will merely repeat what an old friend once said to me. For two and one-half years, starting when I was fourteen, I worked as an assistant necktie cutter for H. Richter’s Sons. Five-oh-two Broadway. Twelve hours a day. I cut linings only. Assistants were not permitted to handle the better goods. It was then I first practiced card sleights and other tricks.

“Years later, after making a name for myself as a magician, I returned to Richter’s cutting floor on a sentimental visit. My old partner came up to me and said: ‘You know the greatest escape you ever made? It was escaping from this necktie factory.’”

Everyone laughed, including the Ernsts, who presumably had heard the story often before. Bernard Ernst laughed loudest of all. Conan Doyle watched Houdini’s broad smile, pleased to note this pompous, heroic man also had a sense of humor.

Coffee and dessert were served in the drawing room. The gentlemen had permission to smoke. Sir Arthur stuffed his pipe as Ernst warmed a cigar over a candle flame. Houdini posed by the fireplace. “I have prepared a test for Sir Arthur,” he said, picking a schoolboy’s slate off the mantel. “Please examine this.” He handed the slate to the knight.

Conan Doyle drew on his pipe, turning the slate over and over. “Appears to be exactly what it is.”

“You’ll notice two holes bored in the corners of the wooden frame.” The magician produced twin lengths of brass wire with S-hooks wound onto either end. Hooking one into each hole, he handed the wires to Sir Arthur. “Hang these anywhere you see fit, so that the slate dangles freely in space.”

Conan Doyle rose and hooked one wire over the top of a picture frame. The other, he attached to the spine of a large book on a shelf standing opposite. The slate swung in the middle of the room.

Houdini used his coffee spoon to stir the contents of a small bowl. “White ink,” he said. “You may taste it if you wish.”

“I’ll accept your word as a gentleman.”

The magician took four small cork balls from his pocket and placed them in a line in front of the bowl. “Pick one at random and cut it in half.”

Conan Doyle selected the left-hand ball. It was about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. He sliced it in half with his penknife. Pure cork throughout.

Houdini dropped the other three in the bowl of ink, stirring them with the spoon until all were evenly coated. “We’ll let these soak for a while. Sir Arthur…? Have you a bit of paper and a pencil about your person?”

Conan Doyle pulled his notebook from an inside jacket pocket. “Always carry the tools of the trade.” He slapped the small leather-bound volume against the palm of his hand.

“I would like you to leave this house. Walk as far as you wish in any direction. Once you are satisfied you are alone and unobserved, write some phrase or quote on a piece of paper. Then, fold it, put it back into your pocket, and return here. We promise not to drink all the coffee.”

Sir Arthur felt exhilarated as he walked east on 113th Street. He loved games of every sort. Delighted in mystery. His pipe glowed red as a demon’s eye with each excited puff. He turned uptown on Seventh Avenue and paused beside the B. S. Moss Regent Theater on the corner of 116th. Tearing a leaf free from his notebook, he wrote down words from the Old Testament that popped randomly into his head: “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin …”

The knight was back in the Houdini parlor before ten minutes had elapsed. Everyone stared at him. He felt in their curiosity his own isolation; guardian of the secret message.

“You have done as I have instructed?” asked the magician.

“Yes.”

“Good. I have devised this test, Sir Arthur, to teach you what can be done in the realm of the miraculous by means of pure trickery. The illusion you’re about to see is one to which I’ve dedicated a great deal of thought, working on it, off and on, all winter. I assure you, it’s accomplished entirely through natural means. I want you to remember this demonstration and be careful in the future when endorsing phenomena as bona fide supernatural just because you are unable to explain them.

“Your wife and the others will swear nothing has been touched in here.” The magician handed the knight a spoon. “Please, choose one of the three remaining balls.”

Sir Arthur scooped the middle ball out of the bowl, cupping his free hand beneath the dripping white ink.

Houdini stepped aside and pointed at the hanging slate. “Carry it over and hold the spoon against the left-hand side.”

Sir Arthur did as he was told. He lifted the spoon to the black stone surface and the wet, white cork ball stuck to it by some inexplicable power. Houdini held himself erect, fierce as a falcon. Like a trained snail, the ball commenced to roll across the vertical face of the slate, leaving a cursive white trail behind.

Sir Arthur held his breath. The gravity-defying ball appeared to spell out words as it rolled. The knight pulled on his spectacles, just to be sure. The stark white letters blazed across the slate as the ball dropped free to the carpet:

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN

S
ERGEANT
J
AMES
P
ATRICK
H
EEGAN
knew he had no cause for complaint. Ever since transferring downtown to headquarters he didn’t have to do a blessed thing all day long. A precinct desk assignment had been soft duty, but at least the department expected him to keep his ass in the chair. Not to mention occasional paperwork. In exile downtown, he felt completely useless.

The second or third day, Lieutenant Bremmer motioned him aside in the hall. “Listen, Sarge,” he said. “I don’t really care why you’re here. I know it’s politics. Some other bullshit. I don’t want it to be my problem. Far as I’m concerned, you don’t exist. You hear me?”

“Every word.”

“I’m cutting you a lot of slack, Heegan. Just don’t rub my nose in it.”

The sergeant punched in and pulled his shift, stayed reasonably sober, and kept his uniform buttoned; aside from that, no one gave a damn what he did. As the weeks drifted by, he got better at brewing coffee. The younger detectives treated him like some kind of comic strip flatfoot. He didn’t mind, accepting their teasing as a form of shorthand affection. Occasionally, he’d go out on call with them to break the monotony, but for the most part he just sat around and read the papers.

Heegan hunched inconspicuously over a late edition folded flat before him at an empty desk in the squad room, looking for all the world like a man engrossed in an official homicide report. The publication schedules of the morning and afternoon newspapers conveniently divided his day. He logged quite a few hours in local luncheonettes and coffee shops, but as the lieutenant requested, didn’t rub the department’s nose in it.

Sergeant Heegan discovered a way out of his malaise one morning while reading the
New York American.
As always, he started with the sports section. Beneath the comic strip “Bringing Up Father” he read a humorous Damon Runyon poem about spring training. Heegan had smiled at Jiggs and Maggie but the poem made him laugh out loud. Runyon’s byline dominated the page. Along with “Runyon’s Rhymes” and his daily column, “Says Damon Runyon … ,” there was also an article on the state boxing commission.