Houdini's Last Trick (The Burdens Trilogy) (13 page)

The blast that followed reminded Houdini of the news reels he had seen showing bombs dropping during the Great War. There was a rush of wind as water and shrapnel exploded against the ground. The ground shook as if the moon had crashed into the Earth.

“Harry, drive!” Chaplin said.

Houdini was so entranced by the havoc he barely saw the tidal wave rushing toward them. He turned the truck away from the site of impact and drove, but the water caught up to them and swept the truck up off the ground. Houdini lost all control of the vehicle and soon they were spinning in a circle at the whim of the water.

The ride lasted only half a minute as the water spread and dissipated. They found themselves turned forward again just as the last wave of water lapped against one of the guard posts at the rear exit. A guard stood inside, petrified as the truck glided toward him. Houdini pressed the brake, but the car slowed of its own volition, its front bumper tapping gently against the guard post.

Houdini and Chaplin hopped out of the truck into ankle-deep water. The guard watched them, dumbstruck.

“One of your toilets overflowed,” Chaplin said. “You should check that out.”

Houdini helped Bess out of the truck and the three sloshed past the guard and out of MGM Studios. They broke into a full run as soon as they hit the sidewalk.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

“A
RE
YOU
SURE
you want to do this?”

Houdini nodded. There was no time to waste.

“That water tower fell right on him,” Chaplin said. “If the impact didn’t kill him, he surely drowned.”

Houdini opened the door to the black Tin Lizzie parked in Chaplin’s circular driveway. His mansion cast a shadow over them, hiding a low-hanging moon in the west.

“The one thing I’m learning is not to underestimate any of us,” Houdini said. “Including Atlas. And even if he is gone, we don’t know what has happened to that little beast.”

“His furry sidekick gives me the willies,” Chaplin said. “Whatever it is.”

Houdini got in and slammed the car door. In the dead quiet of Beverly Hills, it sounded loud enough to wake the entire city. Bess was already in the car, silent since they left the backlot.

“And you’re sure about the Eye?” Chaplin asked.

Houdini felt for it under his shirt. It was becoming a habit.

“I’ll hold onto it until we figure out what to do with it. Or until you find someone who can destroy it. You’ll promise to look?”

Chaplin winked and flashed a smile.

“I’ll talk to Mary and Doug after things have cooled down.”

According to Pope Benedict, the Eye couldn’t be destroyed—not by normal means, at least. But there were other great talents out there in the world; Houdini wondered if one of them might have the skill to unmake it.

The magician had pressed his friend for help on their car ride back to Chaplin’s mansion. Under the ruse of scouting for new actors and film locations, Chaplin agreed to use United Artists as a front to hunt for other Burdens. Between Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks, they had both access and funds unparalleled by anyone in the world. If anyone had a shot at finding the others, it was United Artists.

Houdini and Chaplin embraced.

“Good to see you, old friend,” Chaplin said.

Houdini turned the ignition and the car sputtered to life, but not without a fight. It was Chaplin’s first purchase after coming to Hollywood, an old jalopy Houdini doubted would make it over the state line.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Houdini,” Chaplin said, leaning into the car and gently kissing her cheek. “Your husband, he loves you more than magic.”

Bess’s mouth twitched but she said nothing.

The two drove in silence. After a number of confusing turns, they found themselves headed east out of the city on the National Old Trails Road. For the first few hours it was a well-paved road with two lanes in each direction. At some point in the night it became one lane, and as the sun rose in front of them, they found themselves on a gravel road somewhere between Barstow and Needles.

Still Bess didn’t speak. The towns grew smaller, the gas stations less frequent, and sometime after the state line, the road became dirt. The potholes became too much for the Tin Lizzie, and during the late afternoon the car limped, wheezed and finally died within a mile of Flagstaff.

During the hot and dusty walk into town, Houdini tried to speak to his wife.

“If I could only explain—”

She held up her hand. He fell silent.

Houdini might have tried to follow all of the potential threads of conversation, to find the one that would truly convey the spellbinding pull of Pickford’s beauty, to fully express the depth of his regret and shame. But now his wife could also follow all of the threads of possibility to counter his approach. There would be no end to it. Bess wanted him silent, so he would stay silent.

In Flagstaff, they caught a train bound for the East Coast, and spent their hours in uncomfortable silence. In Dallas, Bess picked up a newspaper and read about Houdini’s stunt at the Egyptian Theatre—the one he hadn’t yet told her about. She gave him a long, disapproving stare. Houdini was happy she looked at him at all.

Also in the newspaper was a report about the destruction at the MGM backlot. Louis B. Mayer had called it a freak accident; the damage was attributed to a faulty leg of the water tower, which had collapsed and destroyed a number of sets. A security guard had been killed.

The rest of the trip was a blur. They got off in New Orleans, then took a train northeast toward Atlanta, Charlotte, Philadelphia, New York.

Manhattan. Home.

Once they got off the train at Grand Central, the past couple of weeks sloughed off the magician like a dry, old skin. The Houdinis took the subway to Harlem, and walked the final block to their brownstone. Houdini entered their home first, just to be safe, but everything appeared to be in order.

While Bess showered, Houdini bought groceries and prepared their favorite dish, chicken paprikash with spätzle. He had cut up the dough for the dumplings, and was checking the water to see if it was hot enough when Bess entered the kitchen, her hair still wet.

She took his hand.

“Where’s my kiss?” she asked.

“Your kiss?”

“When you left here two weeks ago you promised two kisses. One for then and one for now. I’m collecting on the second one.”

“But aren’t you furious with me?”

“There will be plenty of time for hurt feelings, for arguments, for accusations of betrayal,” she said. “But not today. Today we are home, and we are safe, and I couldn’t be any happier.”

Houdini pulled her in tight and kissed her like he’d never kissed anyone before. There were beauties out there in the world, but none of them compared to Bess. Bess was his.

“Go,” she said. “Clean up and I’ll finish supper.”

Houdini turned but stopped in the doorway.

“You’re feeling better, then?”

“I’m learning to control your gift,” she said. “To balance the internal and the external. Your talent, it really is magic.”

“You know I don’t believe in the supernatural.”

“Maybe it’s not supernatural,” Bess said. “Maybe it’s simply natural. The way I see it, your gift, and the gifts of the others, are what we all should be, and it’s the rest of humanity that has fallen short.”

Houdini thought his wife even more insightful than himself.

“We should go into hiding for a while,” Houdini said. “And I think we should give up magic. For our safety.”

Bess approached him and held a wooden spoon under his chin, wielding it like a knife.

“We will not hide from the world,” she said. “You have a gift, and we will protect it at all costs—except at the cost of not using it.”

She patted him lightly on the cheek with the spoon.

“We will continue your magic, you and I. Even if it kills us.”

Houdini was never more proud of his wife, and never more frightened for her safety.

When he went upstairs, he found their luggage from the trip laid out on the bed, including the newspaper they had picked up in Dallas. What concerned him about the story of the MGM backlot was not what the article said, but what it didn’t.

There was no mention of a giant man, alive or dead.

I
NTERLUDE
II

C
ALAMITY
J
ANE
POURED
a tumbler four fingers high of Gilbert & Parsons Hygienic Whiskey, and thrust it into Harry Houdini’s hand.

“I only drink whiskey,” she said. “Hard liquor for a hard life.”

Jane would bet a gold nugget that there was more alcohol in that one glass than the magician had consumed in his entire twenty-six years of life. Houdini brought the glass to his nose, gave it a whiff, and suppressed a gag.

“You better work on your tolerance, boy,” Jane said. “You may need it some day.”

“I can’t see what for,” Houdini said.

Jane poured herself a glass, downed it, then poured herself another.

“You drink too much,” Petey told her.

Jane ignored the voice in her head and set to loading the rifle on her cot. When she finished, she set it on her lap, pointed at the small wooden door at the front of the train car.

She shared a car with both the cook and the seamstress of Buffalo Bill's Wild West. It was cramped and cluttered, but the colorful blankets Jane had hung for privacy gave it the intimate feel of a child’s play fortress.

Houdini, who was sitting in the only chair, forced himself to take a sip of the whiskey. By his expression it looked as if he’d just swallowed gasoline, which wasn’t too far from the truth. Gilbert & Parsons was what you bought for quantity, not quality.

As the sun set south of Cheyenne, Jane adjusted the flame of the kerosene lamp with her arthritic fingers. She looked out across the flat plains on which she had grown up. This stretch of track was thirty miles from the closest town, and the isolation made her uneasy.

“Four years ago I asked you what your real talent was,” Jane said. “You remember?”

The two hadn’t seen each other since their short encounter in Minnesota. Houdini was still on the vaudeville circuit, but from what Jane heard he had dropped the cards from his act and was gaining a reputation for his dramatic escapes.

She had seen his name on the marquee across the street from the Wild West show. It was a small theater, but Houdini was the headlining act.

He nodded.

“I remember.”

“Well?” she asked. “Are you just a great magician, or is there something more?”

He stared into his glass. There was a thoughtfulness in his expression that had been absent a few years ago.

“I spend long hours thinking,” he said. “About magic, life, all sorts of things. The longer I sit the more aware I become of myself. My heartbeat, my breathing, the functions of my body. And then, it’s as if I can see myself from the outside.”

“It’s your Burden,” Jane said. “Your unique gift, and your unique challenge.”

“And you,” Houdini said, “you said you get hunches. About what?”

Jane looked out the window and took in the hard-packed land along the tracks. Her eyes weren’t good, but patches of grass along the tracks appeared to be flattened, as if horses had been there.

“All sorts of stuff,” she said. “Mostly danger.”

Houdini looked up at her, his eyes blazing.

“It’s been getting stronger.”

Jane nodded and twisted uncomfortably on the edge of her cot. Her sciatica was worse every day.

“Petey used to be an occasional whisper,” she said. “Now he damn near runs my life.”

“Petey?”

Jane pointed to her head. She didn’t try to explain Petey to anyone, but she didn’t bother to hide him anymore, either. Her intuition had become sharper as the years went on, which meant that Petey became more talkative. It had gotten to where he almost never shut up anymore.

“I listen to Petey whether I’m keen to or not,” she said. “I don’t have much choice.”

The train chugged along rhythmically, the slow heartbeat of a mighty beast. They’d reach Denver by noon the next day, perform two nights of shows plus a matinee at the local vaudeville theaters, then turn right back around for Wyoming, all in under seventy-two hours. It was a grueling schedule on Jane’s broken-down body.

Out the small window, she could see a knoll up ahead, the only change in landscape for miles around.

“Ask him my question,” Petey said.

Jane hocked a mouthful of mucus into a spittoon she kept by her cot.

“Of course I’ll ask him!” she said to the air. “Why do you think I brought him here? And before you lay into me, Imma drink as much as I want.”

Whiskey was the only thing that would shut Petey up. She knew it would kill her sooner rather than later, but it was worth the few minutes of silence.

Houdini sipped his drink in an effort to ignore whatever argument Jane appeared to be having with herself.

“Petey wanted me to ask you a question,” Jane said. “What’s on your gravestone?”

It was a nonsense inquiry, even to Jane herself. But when Petey was insistent about something, it was best to give him what he wanted.

“My gravestone?” Houdini asked. “I don’t know, and I hope not to for some time. Why do you, er, why does
he
ask?”

“I dunno,” Jane said. “Just a hunch, I s’pose.”

It sounded like a riddle, sleight-of-hand for the mind. Petey had become increasingly inscrutable, as if he didn’t even trust Jane.

“I imagine my gravestone will have my name,” Houdini said. “And below that, perhaps it will say ‘The Greatest Magician on Earth.’”

Jane shrugged.

“I reckon it might.”

She saw little brown specks appear on top of the knoll, like fleas on the back of a dog—except these fleas grew larger as they charged the train. Jane yawned.

“You don’t seem impressed,” Houdini said.

“I think there’s more to you than that,” Jane said. “I get a sense about you. Petey does too.”

Houdini was a showman, but Jane could tell he took little pleasure in the attention. He performed for the love of magic itself. There was something pure in his motivations, something virtuous about the man himself.

“Tell him what I told you about magic,” Petey said.

Jane grimaced and brushed him off. She became aware of hooting and hollering from somewhere nearby.

“Tell him.”

“Petey wants me to tell you that magic is important, but it isn’t the meaning you’re looking for. Magic is the means. Remember that. Magic isn’t the meaning, it’s the means.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Houdini said.

Petey started to explain but Jane downed the rest of her glass. It was enough to confuse him and shut him up.

“Think of it like this,” Jane said. “Magic is a train. It will get you places. But the destination is never the train itself.”

“Then what is my destination?” Houdini asked.

The car door burst open and a filthy man, eyes wild with fear and excitement, pointed his gun at the magician. Jane pulled the trigger on the rifle that was already aimed at his chest. The crack of her firearm bounced off the walls, drowning out the screams of the cook and seamstress in the back half of the car. The man staggered from the impact, hit the wall behind him, and died before his body hit the floor.

“You must protect your talent, and cultivate it,” she said, casually popping the bullet casing out of the rifle. “Use it, but don’t boast about it. Men would kill for talent like yours. Don’t you ever let them.”

Houdini had his hands over his head, cowering into his seat. Eventually the magician mustered the courage to look up. He took in the dead man, a six-shooter in one hand and a burlap sack in the other.

“Train robbers?”

Jane nodded. It was the reason she had invited Houdini for a drink when she heard he had hitched a ride on the train. A city slicker like him, clean cut in a nice suit, would get fleeced by a gang of outlaws, and probably killed. Jane had a hunch it was her duty to protect the young magician, even if she didn’t quite know why.

“Maybe you should give some more thought to that gravestone,” Jane said. “You never know when you’re going to need it.”

Houdini couldn’t tear his eyes away from the robber.

“And you?” he asked, his voice still shaky. “What will yours say?”

“That’s easy,” she said. “It’ll say, ‘Here lies Calamity Jane. Most of her stories were hogwash, but the best ones were true.’”

She drank straight from the bottle.

“I reckon I’ve lived enough stories to make myself a legend,” she said. “I got a hunch you’ll have your share of stories too. Maybe next time we meet you’ll have some to tell me.”

“I’d like that,” Houdini said.

“You’ll never see him again,” Petey said. “You’ll be dead. I told you, you drink too much.”

Jane paused. A smile broke out across her face. She let out a long, rasping laugh before erupting into a painful fit of coughing.

“Are you all right?” Houdini asked.

Jane took another swig from her bottle and knocked hard on the side of her head, right on the spot where that incessant voice lived.

“I’ve never been better.”