Disappearing Nightly (5 page)

“But she wasn’t there,” he concluded.

Hearing nothing new or useful, I looked at Max. “How did you find out about this?”

“I felt the disturbance in the fabric of this dimension,” he mumbled without looking up, “so I cast runes in search of its source.”

“Uh, Max—”

“However he found out, we were sure glad to see Maximillian,” the Cowboy said. “No one else seems able to help us.”

“Certainly not the cops,” I grumbled, thinking of Lopez.

“This is a realm in which the forces of law and order are helpless,” Max said.

“What do you make of all this, Dr. Zadok?” Dixie asked.

Max looked around at all of us. “The
question is, why?”

I shook my head. “No, surely the question is,
how?
”

“Some form of black magic, I suspect,” Max replied.

“Black magic?” I repeated.

“Hmm. Teleportation. Or transmutation? Clearly an unorthodox method, in any event.”

“Max,” I said.

He stroked his beard. “Apparently the props—the boxes and cages—are necessary. Are they cursed?”

“Cursed?” the Cowboy repeated.

“Max,”
I said, getting to my feet.

“Are they specially designed to be windows to the other side? And how are the victims selected? How many are needed? How many more will there be?”

Dixie gasped. Duke went pale. I decided we’d made enough of an impression on our hosts for one evening.

“Thanks so much for your time,” I said, yanking Max to his feet. “We’ll be in touch. And don’t worry. We’ll find out what happened to Dolly if it’s the last thing I do. Coming Max?”

“What is this mumbo jumbo about black magic and the other side?” I demanded as we walked down the street.

“I’m just speculating, I’m afraid. None of the usual signs of demonic possession, shapeshifting or infernal evocation seem to apply. Of course, I suppose time travel is a theoretical possibility, but it would seem to be involuntary and highly problematic in this case. No, for the time being, my theory—”

“Is crazy!”

“Hmm. Do you have a theory?”

“Not on the tip of my tongue,” I said. “But I’ll think of one.”

“Very well. In the meantime, there are two things we must accomplish tonight.”

“What?”

“If Mr. Herlihy’s crystal cage is cursed—”

“Oh, for—”

“Then we must destroy it.”

I stopped, surprised. “Destroy it?”

“We can’t risk another woman getting into it. Surely you can see that?”

I didn’t know what to make of all this, but Max was right. We couldn’t let someone who didn’t know the truth—whatever it was—risk getting into that cage.

“Okay, agreed,” I said. “And the other thing?”

“We must determine the source of the latest disappearance.”

“The latest?” I felt cold seep through me. “But I thought Dolly the Dancing Cowgirl was the latest—”

“That was
last
night,” he said. “I didn’t want to alarm Dixie and Cowboy Duke, but while we were in consultation with them this evening, I sensed it again. Unmistakable by now.” He nodded. “A localized dimensional disturbance. Someone else has disappeared.”

Max refused to get into a taxi again. Instead, we walked to the Plaza Hotel at the edge of the park and hired a horse and carriage. I’d never been in one of those things because they’re outrageously expensive.

To my surprise, all the carriage drivers lined up across the street from the Plaza seemed to know Max.

“Yo! Doc Zadok! Whaddaya say?”

“Hey, Doc! What do you hear from the spirit world?”

“Good evening,” Max said, taking off his fedora and shaking hands.

“Can I give you a lift, Dr. Zadok?”

“Hey, you boys get back in line! I’m first. Right over here, Dr. Zadok. Let me help you into my carriage, miss.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the beefy hand offered to me. Now
this
guy could lift ice cream-loving nymphs overhead all night long and not feel the strain.

“Thank you, Ralph.” Max clambered in beside me.

Ralph climbed up to the driver’s seat. “You want I should take you home, Dr. Zadok?”

“No, we’re going to the theater actually. The New—
oof!
”

“Just drop us off at Greenwich and Sixth,” I said.

“Okay.” Ralph flicked the reins and we were off.

“You idiot,” I whispered to Max. “If we’re going to break into the building and sabotage valuable equipment, the last thing we need to do is announce our presence to half of Christopher Street by pulling up at the front door in a horse-drawn carriage.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think. It’s so seldom that I break the law.”

“Oh, really? How about the night you broke into the theater to slip that newspaper clipping under my dressing room door?”

“That was an emergency,” he pointed out. “Anyhow, I didn’t damage anything.”

“How did you get in, anyway? ‘Transmutation’ again, I suppose?”

“No. I only transmute in dire circumstances. It’s much harder than it looks, you know.”

“I believe that. I’ve seen Joe and Magic Magnus do it, and even Golly and I do a version of it when Virtue appears at the end of Act Two, but you did it in my dressing room. How?”

“Well, the principles of thaumaturgy rely largely upon the powers of the mind. Naturally, some technical ability is called for.”

I sighed. He sounded like Joe. “Never mind. How are we going to get in tonight? I’m no lock-picker.”

He frowned. “It shouldn’t present too much of a problem.”

Since he apparently wasn’t going to elaborate, I said, “I gather you travel this way—horse and carriage—fairly often?”

“It’s the only civilized way to get around town.”

“You don’t like elevators, you don’t like cabs.” He had also refused to take a bus or subway train when I suggested it. “Do you have some kind of phobia?”

“I just can’t get used to modern transportation,” he said. “Speed kills.”

We rode the rest of the way in silence. I wrestled with the Mystery of the Vanishing Ladies, unwilling to succumb to Max’s mutterings about cu
rses and black magic. Could Golly, Dolly and Clarisse have vanished voluntarily? Since coincidence seemed astronomically unlikely, that would mean they had planned this together. That seemed equally farfetched. How would they have met in the first place? A magicians’ convention?

No, I decided. Even if Dolly, the Texan mistress of a multimillionaire condom cowboy, had met an uptown society girl like Clarisse at such a function, I doubted Golly Gee had ever attended anything like that. Before meeting Joe a couple of months ago, she couldn’t even
spell
the word
magician.
(And wherever she was now, she probably still couldn’t). Besides, Dolly had only arrived in New York yesterday, and according to Duke, it was her first time here.

And what about the magicians? Duke reported experiencing a strange sensation during the vanishing; like Joe and Barclay, he knew Dolly was gone before it became apparent to anyone else. There had been no press coverage of the Urban Cowboys affair. Clarisse’s disappearance was so far the only one that had appeared in the news—and, as far as I knew, even that had received only the brief paragraph Max had sent me. If the magicians were somehow responsible, they weren’t doing it for publicity. Quite the opposite, in fact; Joe couldn’t bear the merest mention of Golly’s disappearan
ce, Barclay was terrified his father would find out, and Duke just wanted Dolly back.

Of course, that could be mere pretense. Pe
rhaps the magicians had found a brilliant way to murder their assistants? No, that didn’t make sense. There was no need to go through elaborate rituals in front of an audience just to kill someone.

Did the three women have any enemies? Hard to say. I gathered Lopez thought
I
might be Golly’s enemy. Barclay had mentioned Clarisse had a bitter enemy, some society girl. And Dolly? Who knew? Maybe Dixie knew Dolly was sleeping with Duke and hated her for it.

Did the magicians have enemies? Aha! Now, that was a good question. Certainly their lives were being disrupted by these strange events. Indeed, if we couldn’t find out what happened to the women, the men’s lives might even be ruined.

The carriage finally pulled to a stop outside a coffee shop on Sixth Avenue. I was relieved to get out; I didn’t think we’d made many new friends by taking up a whole lane at our speed. My eyes bulged when Max paid the driver. Like I said, horse-drawn carriages aren’t cheap. Whoever Maximillian Zadok was, he evidently had plenty of money.

I was still wearing Virtue’s costume, which was gaudy enough to draw a few curious glances even here in the West Village. I brushed some flaking glitter off my flowing skirts and sighed, wishing I had thought to grab my clothes before fleeing the theater. The last thing I wanted right now was to attract attention or be memorable.

At my insistence, Max and I approached the New View Venue indirectly, by walking down West Tenth Street and creeping up behind it. Along the way, I suggested, “Perhaps we should sit down with the magicians involved. All together, I mean.”

“Good idea,” Max agreed.

“They may have a common enemy.”

“That would make things considerably easier.” He frowned. “On the other hand, they may simply have different enemies who are all clients of the same sorcerer.”

“Uh-huh.” I had no idea how to respond to such bizarre comments. Nonetheless, I couldn’t deny that Max was the only person in New York who had discovered and made the connection among all three disappearances. Undecided about how to handle him, I followed him to the stage door of the New View Venue.

Luckily for us, the theater didn’t employ an all-night security guard, and Matilda was too cheap to hire one to guard Joe’s equipment. But that didn’t mean that breaking in would be easy. Not only were the double doors locked, they were bound together by a heavy chain with a sturdy padlock.

“All right, Dr. Zadok,” I said as I examined the lock, “I’m stumped. Any suggestions?”

“Stand back.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Open it.”

Wondering what he intended, I backed away. “Can you pick locks?”

“Not exactly.”

He took several deep breaths with his eyes closed, as if preparing for meditation, then assumed a prayerful posture with his head bowed, palms pressed together and fingertips brushing his lips. He muttered something I couldn’t understand, then opened his eyes and stared fiercely at the lock. Moving his hands, he made a sharp turning motion with his wrists.

The padlock snapped open as if someone had inserted a key and turned it. I stopped breathing.

Max spread his arms in a graceful waving motion. The chain slithered like a snake, unraveling itself to fall away from the doors and lie on the ground. Max pulled his arms toward himself, and the doors opened outward, welcoming us.

My blood chilled and my eyes watered. Max took my arm.

“You’re shaking,” he said in surprise.

“Wh-wh-wh-”

“Where do they keep the crystal cage?”

“Prop room.” My legs wobbled as I led the way.

The door was locked, of course. Max opened it with a wave of his hand. I thought I was going to be sick. Blank-minded with shock, I followed him into the room.

“This is it?” he asked, examining the cage.

I nodded mutely, staring at him.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual about it. Still, there could be a protective anti-divinative shield around it. I have heard of such things.”

I sat down quite suddenly. The floor was cold.

Max breathed, muttered and gestured some more. Nothing happened. He looked embarrassed. “Fire is my weakest element,” he confessed. “I’ll try again.”

He did. This time, the glass sides of the cage seemed to melt and curl in on themselves. By the time he was done, the prop was a charred tragedy of twisted glass and metal.

“Oh, that was rather good.” He sounded pleased. “Shall we go?”

“Wait.” My voice was weak. “Max, who
are
you?”

T
here are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy, Shakespeare tells us…and I know better than to argue with a playwright.

This observation about the strangeness of the cosmos is offered by Hamlet to his friend Horatio, who has trouble believing that the ghost of Hamlet’s father is haunting Elsinore. Now I understood exactly how Horatio must have felt upon seeing the specter with his own eyes.

I gibbered incoherently as we walked to Max’s place, which he decided should be our next stop. To say I was shocked by what I had seen would be rather like saying that World War Two was violent. I was incoherent (but highly verbal) with stunned disbelief. I kept blinking my eyes as hard as possible, then looking at Max to see if he was still there,
strolling beside me. Several times, I stopped on the sidewalk and vigorously shook my head at odd angles, as if this would clear it—or else cause evidence of sudden madness to fall out of my ears.

Max murmured something about people staring, then added, “Of course, they may just be staring because you’ve got those glittery birds on your head.”

Apart from that comment, he was silent while we walked and I mumbled. So I finally said to him, with a sense of outrage I couldn’t explain, “Why don’t you
say
something?”

“I’ve learned through experience that it’s best to let this period of unpleasant surprise pass into acceptance before trying to converse rationally.”

“You’ve learned? Through experience? Unpleasant surprise?” My tone was shrill, but I was in no condition to control it. “This happens
often?
”

“In fact, no. I try not to involve mundanes in my work—”

“Mundanes?
Mundanes?
”

“—for this very reason.”

“
What
reason? What? What!”

“A certain agitation overwhelms most people upon being exposed to the multidimensional truths of a complex cosmos.”

I seized his throat and throttled him.

“Esther, please! No violence!” he wheezed.

I realized what I was doing. “Oh! Sorry!” I backed off, hands raised in apology. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’
t mean to…What are…?” I felt dizzy and staggered a little.

“Breathe,” he instructed, “breathe.”

“Huh? Oh, right.” I inhaled and exhaled a few times. “Max, I don’t understand—”

“I think it would be best to provide you with a chair and a soothing beverage before we chat about this.”

“Chat,” I repeated.

“While I don’t mean this as a criticism, your agitation is attracting some attention to us—even in this neighborhood, where flamboyant behavior is not unknown. And given that we’re dealing with a treacherous problem—”

“What…what treacherous—?”

“The disappearing women,” he reminded me gently.

“Oh, right!” Another wave of dizziness.

“Keep breathing.”

“The disappearing…yes.” I’d forgotten about them.

“So far, widespread panic has been avoided,” Max said, “and it would certainly be best to keep it that way. So we should be discreet in public.”

“Uh-huh.” I looked around in bewilderment. We were on a street that was quiet by Manhattan standards. It was lined by elegant town houses, most of them from the nineteenth century. “There are trees here,” I said, my shocked mind focusing on something manageable. Ahead of us I saw a church with gardens that looked vaguely familiar. “Is that…um?”

“St. Luke’s in the Fields,” Max said.

“St. Luke’s…” I glanced around me, concentrating on facts I could actually assimilate. “We’re still in the West Village.”

“Yes!” He sounded pleased, as if I were a bright pupil correctly answering a difficult question.

We had, in fact, come very little distance from the New View Venue, which was barely two blocks away. “This is close to the theater,” I said vaguely.

“Yes. That’s why I was alerted to, uh…these events by Miss Gee’s, um…unfortunate experience.” He kept looking around warily, as if expecting the street’s few other pedestrians to eavesdrop on us.

“Huh?”

“I mean to say…” We overtook two well-dressed men holding hands while walking a bull terrier. They were engaged in an animated debate about investment strategies and they didn’t pay any attention to us. Max lowered his voice. “I live just around this corner. So it was due to the proximity of your musical play that I first noticed the phenomenon that concerns us.” He steered me past the gay couple and into a mews that, even in the dark, looked charming and prosperous.

“You mean, because Golly’s, er, unfortunate experience occurred so close to you? To your home?”

“Yes.” Seeing there were no people in this little court, he continued. “An expenditure of power great enough to make someone disappear
involuntarily could not help but attract my attention when it occurred that close to me. Especially since there is, as near as I can ascertain, no attempt to disguise these disturbances with wards or cloaks.”

“Why not?” I asked, though I didn’t really understand what he was saying.

He shrugged. “Arrogance? A need for haste? Ignorance of my presence here? Insufficient power or skill?”

“Speaking of your presence here—”

“So I immediately hastened out in search of the source of the disturbance.”

“And you found us?”

“Actually,” he admitted, “I saw the police cars parked outside the New View Venue and realized that this was unlikely to be mere coincidence.”

“So you lurked?”

“I made discreet inquiries,” he said with dignity. “Avoiding unnecessary contact with the police, of course.”

“That was wise.” If Lopez had heard Max talking, he might have felt obliged to take him to a psychiatric hospital.

Max continued. “A young lady with a great deal of facial piercing who was loitering outside to enjoy some tobacco told me what had happened.”

Recognizing our assistant stage manager from this description, I said, “And the game was afoot.”

“Oh!” Max smiled in pleased surprise. “Are you a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work?”

“Not particularly.”

“I am. Though it cannot be denied that some of the ideas he adopted in his personal life were most peculiar.” Max shook his head. “Séances, spirit guides, channeling…Really, the nonsense that some people are gullible enough to believe!”

My head was whirling. “Max…”

“Here we are.”

We stopped in front of an old, ivy-covered town house. A big window on the ground floor displayed many books. The lettering across the window read “Zadok’s Rare and Used Books.”

“You’re a bookseller?” I said in confusion.

“It’s a sideline. Mostly to avoid unconscionable persecution by the Internal Revenue Service.”

“Visible means of support?” I guessed.

“It seemed best to assume a profession they could easily categorize. My predecessor lacked such a ruse, and they hounded him until he was obliged to abandon his duty here and flee the country.”

“There’s Evil, and then there’s
Evil.
”

“Indeed.” He put his hand on the door, pushed it open and gestured for me to enter.

“Don’t you lock your door?” The shop was obviously not open for business this late.

“It is locked,” he said, as I brushed past him. “But since I kept losing my keys, it seemed sensible to cast a spell so that it’s always open to me.”

I turned around as the door closed behind
him. “Okay, that’s it! That’s
it.
Who
are
you? Casting spells, melting the crystal cage, sensing Golly’s disappearance from two blocks away, breaking into the theater tonight without even touching anything, dragon’s blood, curses, black magic—”

“Some
aqua vitae,
perhaps?” Max suggested with a concerned frown as my voice grew shrill again.

I took a breath. “Yes.” Another breath. “Yes. That’s a good idea.” If ever there was a night when strong drink seemed advisable, surely this was it.

Max turned on the overhead lights, then started rummaging around in a massive, dark, very old-looking, wooden cupboard. It was about six feet tall and at least that wide, and had a profusion of drawers and doors. Not finding what he wanted in the first two cabinet doors he opened, he tried another, higher up. A bunch of papers, a box of candles and some feathers fell on his head.

“Oh dear,” he said, “I really should tidy up one of these days.” He closed that cabinet and tried another. Flames burst forth from this one, and a roar that sounded like the wailing of the damned emerged from its interior. Max slammed the door shut and muttered, “God’s teeth, not
again.
”

I had meanwhile retreated halfway across the shop. “Max, what
is
the—”

“No, no, don’t despair,” he said cheerfully. “I know I’ve got some brandy here somewhere. I just can’t quite remember where…Aha!” H
e triumphantly held up a crystal decanter containing glowing amber liquid. Literally glowing.

I said, “Um, I don’t think—”

“I’ll just find some glasses, and then we can…”

“Should you really keep a thing like that right here in the shop?” I asked warily. “Where, you know, unsuspecting customers might fiddle with it?”

Apparently not understanding what I meant, he glanced over his shoulder at me. I gestured to the cupboard and its contents. “Oh, no need to worry,” Max said. “It’s enchanted. Only I can open it. Well, Hieronymus will be able to open it, too, if he ever manages to say the incantation right. Poor boy. It’s not his fault, of course…”

“Hieronymus?”

“My assistant.”

As Max continued rifling through the cupboard, I backed a little farther away from it, feeling I’d had enough shocks for one night. I looked around, shivering with reaction, and noticed despite my jangled nerves that the bookshop was, in fact, quite charming. It had well-worn hardwood floors and a broad-beamed ceiling. The walls were painted dusty rose and lined with bookcases. Indeed, row after row of bookcases filled most of the shop, their symmetrical lines broken up by a comfortable-looking seating area, as well as a small refreshments stand where (I gathered from the sign written in Max’
s by-now familiar hand) customers could help themselves to coff
ee, tea, cookies…and snuff. I wondered if there was much demand for the snuff. There was also a large, somewhat careworn walnut table with books, papers, an abacus, writing implements and other paraphernalia on it.

While Max muttered, rummaged around, and then broke something that sounded like one of the glasses he’d been searching for, I browsed a little. I don’t know much about collectibles, but some of these books looked valuable to me. A number of them were bound in leather and seemed extremely old, and many of the titles were in Latin. Other bookcases were filled with mass-produced contemporary books.

“Come, Esther, let’s sit,” Max said, now carrying a slightly tarnished silver tray that bore the brandy decanter and a couple of mismatched glasses.

I followed him over to two prettily-upholstered easy chairs next to a fireplace, sat down and accepted the glass of glowing spirits he handed to me. I sniffed my
aqua vitae,
studied its fluctuating light and asked, “Are you sure this is safe to drink?”

“Perfectly safe. Oh! Unless you’re Lithuanian? You don’t
look
Lithuanian, but I would be the first to admit—”

“No, I’m not Lithuanian.”

“In that case, it’s perfectly safe.” He paused before taking a sip. “I’m not Lithuanian, either.”

I couldn’t place his faint accent, so I asked, “Whe
re are you from?” I set down my brandy and started untangling my hair from Virtue’s headdress so I could finally take it off.

“I’m originally from a village near Prague,” Max said. “But that was long ago. After my father died, having left me a small inheritance, I went to Vienna to pursue my education.”

“Did you ever go back home?” I removed the headdress with a relieved sigh, set it down on the side table and combed my fingers through my hair.

“No, I never did. My father was my only family. After Vienna, I went to England, and, well, one gets so busy…” After a moment, he said, “Do try the brandy, Esther. You still look pale.”

I closed my eyes, took a gulp, and felt the brandy burn its way down to my stomach, spreading a fiery sensation that, after about half a minute, turned into a soothing glow.

Then I heard a muffled explosion, felt heat and sensed light dancing against my closed lids. My eyes flew open and I jumped a little when I saw a fire burning merrily in the fireplace while Max, still seated comfortably, sipped his brandy.

I swallowed, glancing nervously between him and the fire. “Did you…did you…is that magic?”

He seemed faintly puzzled as he waved a hand holding a remote. “No, I’ve switched it on.”

I looked at the fire again and realized how regularly and quietly the flames danced
between the artistically shaped pieces of fake firewood. “Oh.” I swallowed some more brandy. “A gas fireplace.”

“Yes. It’s so convenient! None of the tedium of trying to get a fire built, none of the mess to clean up. I had it installed this winter and am so pleased I went to the expense!”

“But…you can…” I gestured feebly. “You don’t need…”

Max shook his head, looking modest. “Oh, as I think I already mentioned, fire is my weakest element. Besides, any unnecessary expenditure of my power is to be avoided.”

“It is? Are there…moral consequences? Philosophical objections? Rules?”

“No.” He seemed surprised at these suggestions. “It’s just very tiring.”

“Oh.”

I sought a coherent way to pose the questions tumbling through my head. “But how do you…
do
that sort of thing? Unlocking the doors of the theater, destroying the crystal cage…That’s, um, magic?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“So how do you do it?”

“A lot of study, training and practice.” Max smiled bashfully and added, “And, of course, one must have an inherent gift.”

“So it’s a special talent? It isn’t something that just anyone can learn to do?”

“Goodness, no!” He looked a little s
hocked at the suggestion. “Few people are born with the necessary gifts. And even fewer feel a call to rigorously pursue their gifts in service of a sacred duty.”