Houdini's Last Trick (The Burdens Trilogy) (4 page)

Houdini lifted his leg into the opening, exhaled all of his breath and cocked his head sideways. He then allowed his ribcage to give under the pressure of the ledge. He pushed himself through the tight space, feeling his ribs bending, nearly cracking. Suddenly he popped through, like a cork coming off a champagne bottle.

He found himself in a cramped space between two walls. He lay facedown in a slimy metal trough that declined sharply into darkness.

Before letting go, Houdini looked up. The giant man had ripped his shirt open and revealed a polka dot of bullet holes. Blood dripped down his chest. He picked a bullet out of his skin as if it were an oversized pimple. There was so much muscle on his chest, the bullets didn’t go through. It was as if he were wearing a steel bib.

The giant man grabbed the bar and ripped off a section of the tabletop, wielding it like a massive bat.

“Tommy!” Houdini shouted.

Houdini’s hands slipped and he began to slide headfirst down the trough. The last thing he saw before falling into total darkness was the Atlas-sized man swinging the bar top down onto Cipriano’s head.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

H
OUDINI
SPED
DOWNWARD
into absolute darkness. The trough plummeted into damp, putrid air—he felt as if he were sliding down the throat of a subterranean leviathan.

Without warning, the trough disappeared from under him, and he shot headfirst into nothingness. He braced himself for whatever came next. His face plunged into tepid water as his feet flipped over him, landing him upside-down in a river about waist deep.

Houdini got up and stood a moment in the blackness, breathing hard. He tried to slow his heartbeat, but he couldn’t get the image of Tommy Cipriano out of his mind, his friend’s head smashed to nothing.

Tommy is dead.

Grief exploded inside his chest as guilt crushed him from the outside. His body felt squashed between the two emotions, a thin layer of self as fragile as a flower pressed between two books.

He shook himself to the present. This wasn’t the time for feelings. He centered himself and focused on what was important. Escape.

It was too dark to see, but the echo of his movements told him the sewer was large. The smell was almost too much to bear. It was as if every back alley—filled with rotting garbage and feces—and every sidewalk during a summer heat wave—crowded with filthy, unwashed people—had been concentrated into this one lukewarm stream of water. He stifled a gag.

He heard movement in the water, and felt something swim through his legs behind him. Houdini peered down but it was like trying to see into a barrel of oil. The thing latched onto his belt loop and scuttled up his back before he could stop it. Houdini turned his neck and felt the whiskers of a giant rat brush against his cheek.

A cry escaped Houdini’s lips and he knocked the rodent into the water. He half-ran, half-swam to the edge of the sewer and tried to get as much of his body out of the water as he could. As a child growing up in the tenements, Houdini had woken up to rats sleeping on his chest and nibbling on his toes.

Deep down, I’m still just a frightened boy.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw four holes of light crowded together in the ceiling about twenty yards away. It was a manhole cover. He waded through the sewage, careful not to cut himself on shards of broken bottles. Beneath the manhole was a rusty metal ladder. He climbed it with effort, his sopping clothes weighing him down. The iron cover at the top was heavier than he imagined, and from his precarious position below he wasn’t certain he’d be able to move it.

Inch by inch, Houdini slid the cover off the opening. As soon as it was wide enough to slip through, he hoisted himself up and into the stifling night air. He sat on the lip for a moment, his feet dangling in the hole.

That man was too strong to be normal.

He needed to figure out what to do. If he went to the police, they’d almost certainly chalk the massacre up to warfare between rival gangsters. He could show them the Eye, but they’d confiscate it as evidence. Houdini wanted to be brave, to fight back somehow, but at the moment there seemed to be only one logical solution: run.

He took two steps toward the northwest end of the street and stopped short. There at the corner, silhouetted by a street lamp, stood a misshapen blob. It was covered in long black hair and shambled awkwardly. Houdini couldn’t see where the head or the face was, but he felt certain about one thing: It was watching him.

The dark beast.

A resounding crash came from around the northwest corner of the street. The giant man rounded the corner. The dark beast made a noise, or said a word, and motioned in Houdini’s direction. The giant man saw him.

Houdini turned and ran downtown, away from the hairy creature, away from the giant man. Away from home. His main concern was Bess. If someone wanted to kill him, he needed to get as far away from her as possible.

Dozens of escape options blossomed in Houdini’s mind; half of them landed right in the giant man’s grasp. He saw one thread that led to escape. Running toward the harbor, zigzagging from the Bowery to Little Italy and the Lower East Side, Houdini hoped he could gain some distance and lose the man. He dodged hobos begging for change and hotsy-totsy couples walking to dinner. He ran through the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan and reached the docks. He stopped at the water’s edge.

This was where Pope Benedict had been twenty-four hours earlier—where he had furiously scribbled a note to Houdini just minutes before his death. The sound of the magician’s heart was deafening.

Dark must die.

The thought surfaced unbidden into Houdini’s head, as if he had come across someone else’s sock in his laundry basket. What it meant, he hadn’t a clue. He shook it off.

The Battery was dark and empty, and the sound of waves lapping up against the pillars of the dock was louder than the hum of traffic from the city behind him. He looked into the dark horizon, where the Hudson and East rivers met. He saw lights in the distance, across the water in Jersey City. That was his best chance, if he could get there.

There were only tiny fishing boats tied up in this area. He ran up and down the docks, looking for anyone to ferry him across. He dodged feral cats that were drawn out by the smell of rotten fish. At the end of one dock sat someone petting one of the cats. Houdini ran up, but his shoulders slumped when he saw that the person was too small to be an adult. The child looked up and Houdini recognized her as the girl who had visited him that morning at the Hippodrome.

“You stink,” she said. “What happened?”

“Never mind me,” Houdini said. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping in a posh hotel?”

The girl shook her head fiercely.

“My friends are here.”

Houdini looked through the darkness and saw other street children further down the dock.

“It’s not safe out here,” he said.

“You’re safest with your own kind,” she said.

Houdini felt in his pocket and pulled out the small notebook he used for sketching ideas for his act. He ripped off a piece of paper and scribbled on a dry corner with a pen he always kept on him.

“I need you to do me a favor. Take this note back to the theater and give it to a woman named Bess. She’ll be backstage. Bess.”

The girl stood and took the note. Houdini opened his wallet but it was empty.

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything to tip you with.”

She pocketed the note and eyed him thoughtfully.

“I never did get to punch you.”

Houdini cast a quick glance around.

“Very well.”

He knelt down and braced his stomach, even though he needn’t have. The little girl raised her twig arms and balled up her tiny fists. She punched with all her might. The blow was inconsequential, and under other circumstances Houdini would have rolled around in mock pain to make her laugh. There wasn’t time for that now.

“Good shot,” Houdini said. “Now run as fast as you can. It’s urgent.”

The girl nodded and ran down the docks, into the city. The note told Bess he was in danger, and to go immediately to their small cabin in Vermont. He would write her there.

As he watched the girl disappear between buildings, he saw movement in the park. Out from the trees emerged the giant man, who bounded toward him with all the subtlety of an avalanche.

There was a small motorized boat in front of Houdini.

No time to find a captain.

It was tied to the dock at both the bow and stern with ropes, and secured by a steel chain around the steering wheel. The ropes were tied with a basic cleat hitch, with the tail tied back on the standing end with a rolling hitch. These were basic knots that took Houdini seconds to undo.

“Houdini!” the giant man called ahead.

The magician jumped in the boat. The steel chain around the wheel was secured with a Keystone 3-Lever padlock—an impenetrable lock by most standards but nothing for Harry Handcuff Houdini. He removed one of the picks he always kept up his sleeve and cupped the lock in his hand as he jiggled the pins. He forced his hands to stop shaking; finally the padlock popped open.

Houdini started the engine, and threw the boat into reverse just as the man reached the edge of the dock.

“The Pope was a coward,” the giant man called out as the boat backed away. “He held the power to change the world and he kept it locked in a vault.”

“And what would you do?” Houdini asked.

“I would use it. Power is futile unless it’s used.”

“Maybe,” Houdini shouted as he turned the boat around in the water. “Or maybe the greatest expression of power is restraint.”

He threw the boat into forward and sped at full power toward the lights in the distance, glancing back only to make certain none of those tiny boats would support the giant man’s weight.

As the docks grew small behind him, thousands of options exploded in Houdini’s mind. Places he could go; actions he could take. They felt like sharp little worms burrowing into his brain. He closed his eyes and tried to shake them off. It was too much.

The river was choppy, and water sprayed his face. He focused on his racing heart, and slowed it down with a couple of deep breaths. At least he knew he would make it across the river safely.

But what then?

He could hide in Jersey City. Or take a cab to Newark. Or go all the way to Vermont and wait for Bess. But hiding wouldn’t solve his problem. What he needed was help.

He thought about the girl on the docks.

You’re safest with your own kind.

All of a sudden the answer seemed obvious. Houdini felt in his pocket, and removed the piece of deerskin from the Pope. He stared at it a moment, then scratched out Benedict’s name.

Aside from his own, there was only one other name not crossed out on that list. He knew the man. It wasn’t difficult; the whole world knew of him.

Houdini decided he would go west, to Hollywood. He would track down his old acquaintance, Charlie Chaplin.

I
NTERLUDE
I

J
ANE
STOOD
OFF-STAGE
at the Palace Theater, drinking the cold out of her bones. An unexpected snowstorm had struck St. Paul an hour before show time, and the bitter wind seemed to find its way into every crack of the theater.

The Farmer’s Almanac was predicting a long winter for 1896, and it was only mid-November.

Jane had suffered far worse than this—blizzards on the plains with nothing more than a bear pelt and a bottle of hooch to keep her warm. But these days even the slightest cold chilled her to the core. Her aging body was like a dying fire, incapable of producing heat no matter how many layers she piled on.

The young man on stage had only a handful of spectators, people who seemed more interested in getting warm than getting entertained. He was a magician, performing card tricks and other sleight-of-hand magic that was too intricate for anyone in the audience to appreciate.

When his assistant clamped on a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs behind his back, Jane squinted through her cataracts to watch. His fingers were nimble, and his movements deft. He had the shackles off in only seconds.

“There’s something about him,” Petey said.

Jane nodded her head in agreement.

“Something special,” she said. “But what?”

She tipped the flask to her lips.

“Speed?”

“No,” Petey said.

“The boy’s a little scrawny for strength.”

Petey didn’t say anything. Jane leaned on the rifle that doubled as a cane.

“You know, it’d be a hell of a lot easier if you just told me.”

“But then it wouldn’t be intuition, would it?” Petey said.

“Bah!”

Jane yanked off her hat and swiped it at the air, as if she could hit Petey. She then tugged the hat back on over her thick braid. She hated her hair, but she kept it long so that people didn’t mistake her for a man. Makeup was a foreign concept to her and, besides, no amount of blush would hide her flat nose and square jaw.

The magician finished his act and bowed to a murmur of applause. He walked off-stage toward Jane, his head drooped in disappointment. She cleared her throat and spit, a direct hit on the tip of his shoe. She was as good a shot with her mouth as she was with her rifle.

The magician looked up, and Jane got a first good look at his eyes, blazing with intensity. There was no doubt he was one of them.

“Apologies,” she said, handing him her handkerchief. “I’m an old coot.”

The young man took in her cowboy hat and fringed buckskin jacket.

“You’re Calamity Jane,” he said. “I heard you tell your stories on stage. Is it true your horse was a drunk, and that you shot a man with your eyes closed at a hundred paces?”

Jane gave him a wink.

“Askin’ for truth is like searching for Sasquatch,” she said. “You don’t actually wanna find him. The fun is in the hunt.”

Jane spit again, this time into a teacup she used as a spittoon.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Harry Handcuff Houdini.”

“That mean anything to you, Petey?” Jane asked.

Petey remained silent.

Typical Petey.

He would jabber on all day about things Jane didn’t care a skunk’s tail about, but as soon as she asked him a legitimate question she’d get the silent treatment.

“Sorry, are you talking to me?” Houdini asked.

Jane flicked away the magician’s question with her hand and took another swig from her flask. They stood there a moment, the two of them alone in the dark. On stage, a gawky girl with a neck like an ostrich danced an uninspired tap.

“So what’s your talent?” Jane asked.

“You saw my act,” Houdini said. “I’m a magician. Card tricks and handcuff escapes.”

“Nah,” she said. “What’s your
real
talent? I been put in handcuffs fancy as those. How do you escape them so easily?”

Houdini shifted uncomfortably.

“Tread carefully,” Petey said. “You’ll scare him off.”

“Don’t you tell me what to do,” Jane muttered under her breath.

“It’s just practice,” Houdini said. “Staying limber and daily practice. Why do you ask?”

“I get a sense about people,” Jane said. “It’s a hunch.”

It’s a loudmouthed nudnik in my head.

“Very funny,” Petey said. “You’d be dead ten times over if it weren’t for me.”

It was true. Petey had kept her alive all her years on the Great Plains. Her ability to feel out a bad situation prevented her from getting scalped, hanged, and shot half a dozen times. Petey also told her who could be trusted, which was a list shorter than the number of chambers in her six-shooter.

But the young magician in front of her, he could be trusted. She was sure of it. If only she could get him to trust her.

“Point out the girl,” Petey said.

“See that girl?” Jane asked, nodding to the performer on stage. “I gotta hunch she’s gonna fall flat on her face.”

Jane had been watching the way the girl stumbled around in tap shoes she probably wasn’t used to, and how her routine was sloppy and imprecise. Every time she danced the chorus, she ended up a few inches closer to the front edge of the stage.

“Watch now.”

Sure enough, as the girl rounded into her finale, she threw her hands out and stepped forward, completely missing the stage. She tumbled into the orchestra pit.

Jane erupted into laughter, stamping her rifle on the ground. Houdini looked at her, horrified.

“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud,” Jane said. “She’ll be fine.”

Houdini watched as the young dancer stood in the pit and brushed herself off.

“So that’s my talent,” Jane said. “Now tell me about yours.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Houdini’s temple.

“I’m not sure what you want of me.”

“He’s not ready,” Petey said. “He doesn’t know about the rest of us. He barely knows about himself.”

Jane agreed. He was young, and it was better to let him grow into his talent before she told him more. She forced her face into a cordial smile.

“Well, OK then. It’s a nice trick you got there, sonny. Skip the cards and stick with the escapes. And next time, do a stunt that people in the cheap seats can see too.”

Houdini broke into a relieved smile.

“That’s good advice,” he said. “I should go find my wife. This is a belated honeymoon of sorts. Nice to meet you.”

They shook hands.

“We’ll meet again someday,” Jane said.

Just a hunch.

The magician dashed off.

Jane rummaged through her pockets and found an old deerskin she always kept on her. There were three names on it, including her own at the top. The second one, Crazy Horse, she had scratched out years ago after his death. The third one, that sharp wit she had once met from Missouri, was still alive as far as she knew. The magician was the first new talent she had met in nearly a decade.

Jane removed a fountain pen she had won at a game of poker. It was far too nice for her chicken scratch. She propped the deerskin up against the nearest wall and wrote a fourth name.

Harry Handcuff Houdini.