Magic Mansion (44 page)

John leaned through the opening, and Ricardo did too. Their lips met. The fleeting kiss felt like adrenaline. “Is that true, what you told Marlene?” Ricardo asked. “You know what you’re doing?”

John allowed a nearly imperceptible smile to show. “Only in terms of the straight jacket.”

Ricardo leaned forward and kissed him once more, and whispered, “I love you, John,” and then an airhorn sounded. He treated John to a parting saucy smirk, and ducked back into his own stall.

John felt briefly thankful he wasn’t hooked up to a heart monitor as the curtains fell, and four monstrous hourglass shapes filled his field of vision. No doubt his pulse would have set the alarm bells ringing.

Jibs zoomed and handhelds swarmed, gathering the reactions of the contestants as eagerly as children claw candy from one another beneath a broken piñata. John struggled to make sense of what he was seeing—hourglasses, large enough to hold a magician in the empty upper compartment. In the second compartment, sand. And beyond them, huge machines, diesel engines rumbling low.

They meant to enclose the magicians in the hourglasses—and flip them over. With
sand
pouring down?

In straitjackets.

Maybe Marlene’s concern was, for once, justified.
 

“Greetings, Final Four,” Monty said from a decked-out platform across the yard. John only heard him through a speaker mounted in his stall. “Each of you have spent the week traveling back in time, working on your fantastic new routines. But as you all know, time only runs one way…and that’s forward. As you also know, time has a tendency…to
run out
when it’s least convenient.

“Harry Houdini’s time ran out on Halloween morning, 1926, from a ruptured appendix he sustained following a blow to the stomach. But we trust none of you have taken a punch to the gut recently?”

John shook his head. Who wrote the patter for this show, anyway? He was certainly glad he didn’t need to deliver it.

“We’ll have medics standing by anyway, just in case. Because you’re going to duplicate Houdini’s infamous stunt, the Suspended Straitjacket Escape. Only you won’t be hanging from a crane, like the great Houdini. Instead, you’ll be dangling inside these hourglasses, facing off against not only each other, but…the Sands of Time.”

John was familiar enough with sand. Usually it was wet, saline sand, riddled with mud and bottle caps and weeds and jetsam. But one thing he knew for sure: sand was heavy.

“Escaping the hourglass will take skill, determination…and luck. Once your competitors strap you into your straitjackets and lock you inside the glass chamber, the countdown begins. You’ll be turned upside down, and the sand will flow. Your first task will be to free yourself from the straitjacket and get upright, since you’ll be needing your hands…to unlock the exit in the hourglass wall. The key? There are several of them…distributed throughout the sand. The first magician to open that glass door and step out on the platform will win…not only a quarter million dollars, but a fabulous four-month world tour, complete with shows in all the great cities Houdini played, including London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Moscow.”

John was fairly certain the heart monitor, had he been wearing it, would have made a very undignified noise…because as far as he could tell, his heart had just stopped. Four
months
? That was a full season. A third of a year. How could he deal with being away from Ricardo for four months when he could hardly imagine being torn from him for a single night?

If Ricardo won, of course he would want John to come along. But John would need to get back to work right away, to take full advantage of whatever gigs his time on the show might generate. If John won the quarter million, there was no question he’d be willing to pay for Ricardo to accompany him. Ricardo was young, his career was just beginning, and his romance with John would generate as much buzz as a string of performances for him. It would be like all the trips John had taken with Casey—only he’d be working this time, not lolling around in the sun. And he’d have Ricardo by his side.

That was it, then. John had to win.

The four eliminated contestants appeared from behind a curtain to a flourish of dry ice, which didn’t look particularly imposing in the bright afternoon sunlight. Despite the lack of working theatrics, they looked plenty threatening to the Final Four.
 

There was no elegant way to get them up on the platform. The cameras would need to cut from the reveal—maybe for a commercial break—to their appearance, standing behind the Final Four, with the straitjackets in their hands. Ken Barron was the first to climb the platform. He was in good shape, unlike Chip, and he’d been allowed to wear more sensible shoes than the ladies. “Good to see you,” he told John, and shook his hand while the other magicians struggled up the scaffolding. His grasp was firm and dry. The costume was flattering. Hawkish nose, high widow’s peaks—Ken’s face lent itself to the melodrama. His calm demeanor was reassuring as well. Better to have all the melodrama going on in Ken’s costume, rather than in his head.

He saw John assessing him, and said, “You’re miked, aren’t you?”

John nodded.

“That’s fine. Just listen. When I heard you’d done so well on the Boardwalk Challenge, I was disappointed. Not for you, but for me. Because you were the magician I really wanted to be paired up with. Ricardo and Kevin…their styles and mine just don’t mesh. Their acts are too modern. And if I ended up with Jia Lee—let’s just say there’s no way I wouldn’t come out looking like a creep for tying her up too tight. This challenge is too physical for her. You ever hung upside down?” John shrugged. “Then you know what it takes to curl up with only the strength of your quads and abs to get yourself turned around. What’s the choice? Kick free of the gravity boots and fall on your head?”

Images of Ricardo being wheeled out in a neck brace with a broken spine flashed through John’s mind, and a chill seized him. No, he told himself firmly. Ricardo was in fabulous shape. He wouldn’t just flop out of the boots and hurt himself. He’d curl up and right his body properly.

But the capacity for an accident now seemed ridiculously huge.

“You know how to work your way out of a jacket?” Ken asked. “Dominant arm on top, pinch out some slack?”

John nodded again.

“Okay. Good. I figured you would. Just promise you’ll do one thing for me.”

Down on the ground, Iain yelled through his bullhorn, “Okay, people. Places.”

“Struggle,” Ken whispered. “I mean,
really
struggle. Make us both look good.”

John nodded, wondering at the hope that maybe his European sojourn with Ricardo might indeed kick off their relationship…and then a stunt tech approached with an armload of gear, and there was no more time for what-ifs.

In addition to the straitjacket they would shortly don, each magician was fitted with a helmet, goggles, and respirator. No wonder they’d let the contestants provide their own wardrobe for this final stunt. The viewers would hardly be able to see past all the gear. Iain’s voice came through a radio monitor in the stunt helmet. “Testing. Test test. Can everybody hear me?”

“I hear you,” John replied. He couldn’t hear whether the other magicians did or not. Iain’s was the only voice that fed through his monitor.

“Okay,” Iain said. “This is a one-shot stunt—no do-overs. Meaning, if you cry uncle, you’re disqualified, you lose, and that’s that. Understand?”

John gave a thumbs-up.

“There’s an hour’s worth of sand in there. If it all pours out, it’ll be waist-high, so there’ll be no problem keeping on top of it. In all likelihood, one of you will unlock your door before then. It took our stunt coordinator fifteen minutes—and we even added more keys after that, just to make sure no one would get buried too deep. But if does take all of you longer than an hour to locate a key, don’t worry. There’s plenty of ventilation. It’ll just turn into a dig-off at that point. Any questions?” There was a pause, and then Iain said, “There’s thirty keys total in every hourglass, but you only need one. They’re all the same. Anything else?” Another pause while another magician presumably asked something. “The gravity boots are fastened with heavy duty hook-and-loop tape. You need to tear out of them.”

“Who can hear us?” John asked.

“I can hear you. Monty can. And so can everyone at the soundboard. Chances are, unless you’re talking to Monty, we won’t use much of your audio in the final cut—in our test run it sounded like a bunch of breathing—but we will want some, so keep the pottymouth to a minimum. That means you, Kazan.”

Beneath all his gear, Kevin postured.

“Everybody ready? Okay, we’re rolling. Action.”

Chapter 39

SANDS OF TIME

“It’s time for Magic Mansion’s final challenge,” Monty said with requisite flair and drama, “where our top four magicians compete for the chance of a lifetime—a European tour, and a quarter million dollars. Not only are they facing one another. They’re also going up against…the Sands of Time. Each magician chose one of the eliminated contestants to strap them in—so let’s get to it. Magicians, hold out your arms. It’s time for your straitjackets.”

John held out his arms, and Ken wrapped the canvas garment around his front and pulled the sleeves over his hands. The expression on Ken’s face was startlingly intense, and he dressed John with plenty of brisk yanks and tugs…though all the pulling in the world at this point wouldn’t affect the final fit of the straitjacket, not until the buckles were fastened. However, it would look extreme.

“These are regulation straitjackets,” Monty said, “just like Houdini would have used.”

Unlikely. These weren’t nineteenth-century period straitjackets—they were new. But they were the same as the one John had practiced with, and that’s what mattered. He grabbed some slack in the right armpit with his left hand, crossed his dominant arm over the top, and inhaled deeply to make himself bigger.

He needn’t have been so cautious. Casey had been twice as fastidious about strapping him in firmly, although Ken Barron made a much bigger show with all his yanking, pulling and grunting. The only one louder than Ken…was Sue.

She forced the straps on Kevin Kazan’s straitjacket so tight, she was flushed and gasping with the effort.

“Yo, take it easy, girl,” Kevin said, voice muffled by the respirator, as she tightened the strap that came up between his legs. “I’m gonna lose a nut.”

“Too bad. You picked me so I couldn’t work with Ricardo—and now you’ve got me.”

Plenty of John’s friends threw around the word “karma,” but he’d never seen it materialize quite so instantly as it did for Kevin. As far as John was concerned, it couldn’t happen to a better person.

“All snug, Magicians?” Monty said. “Then step into your hourglasses.”

The hourglasses might look convincing from afar, but up close, they were a bizarre combination of steel and plexi. The sand compartments were octagonal, with the flat sheets of safety glass held to a frame by brackets and bolts. The more utilitarian parts were hidden from the camera by a decorative trim painted garishly in red and gold. From John’s vantage point, however, the interior of the hourglass looked like a giant cluster of hardware.

The structure that joined the two hourglass halves was an elaborately-rigged piece of equipment. L-brackets held a central disc in place that divided one half of the hourglass from the other. Openings in the disc would control the flow of the sand. Gravity boots were affixed in the center, so sand would pour down all around the upended magician. No doubt the visual effect would be stunning. Still, John’s anxiety was screaming for him to opt out of the challenge, to stay on this side of the plexi and let the other magicians put their fate in the stunt coordinator’s hands. But Ricardo was one of those magicians, and if Ricardo was going through with it, so would he. If there was any spite to be drawn, it made the most sense to give it more targets upon which to expend itself.

John stepped carefully into the glass enclosure and lined up his feet with the gravity boot cuffs. A stunt tech strapped him in firmly. He looked at Ricardo. A stunt tech was strapping him in, too. Everything would be fine. The techs knew what they were doing. Ricardo gave John a small nod. Wrapped and strapped in yards of canvas and padding, it was the only thing he could really do—other than relaying a message to him through the soundboard. But no, he’d told John how he felt before the stunt. It was enough. John nodded back.
 

The glass door clicked shut behind John, and his eardrums flexed. While the hourglass might have been ventilated, John still felt like a firefly in a mason jar. Sweat broke out on his forehead and back suddenly, as if it had been waiting for the signal of that click to spring forth. John reminded himself he wasn’t claustrophobic. And within the hour, hopefully less, someone would win or lose the competition. At that point he would be free—and not just of the giant bug jar. Really and truly free.

“Ready, kids?” Iain said through the monitor. “Everyone secure?”

John tested his feet. They weren’t going anywhere, though his straitjacket had plenty of slack. “Ready.”

“Four magicians,” Monty said, “one prize. Who will free themselves from the diabolical Sands of Time and claim it? We’ll find out, in three…two…one!”

An airhorn blasted, and the hourglass rumbled as the diesel rigs behind them roared to life. Not only was the height disorienting—the top half of the hourglass stood over eight feet off the ground—but the closeness of the air with the sun beating through the safety glass and the way the sound reverberated through it were stifling. And then, John felt himself tip sideways.

He took a deep breath and told himself everything was fine, perfectly fine, even as he was turned upside down and all his blood rushed down to his head. No big deal. People hung from gravity boots all the time to stretch their backs…though they didn’t have hundreds of pounds of sand now pressing down on them from overhead. The stunt had been tested. There was no way for the sand to rush down through the narrow valves fast enough to bury him before he had a chance to slip his straitjacket and get out of the gravity boots.