Magician's Fire (8 page)

Harry leaped off the streetcar and landed on the sidewalk. The ride across Manhattan had blown most of the garbage smell out of his clothes, but he checked himself in a nearby grocer's window anyway and flicked a final potato peeling from behind his ear. Then he headed for the Wesley Jones Theater, his shoeshine box clutched under his arm.

Equipment. That was why he had come to this place, but it was also an opportunity to find out some useful information. After all, this was where Herbie's kidnapping had taken place. Swinging his shoeshine box off his shoulder, Harry set it up by the stage door and waited for the theater folk to drift in from the surrounding streets—Bruno the Strongman, the pearl-diving ladies, the Cossack dancers. Then he noticed someone standing next to him. It was Arnold, the gangly, wide-eyed stage manager with the weak left leg.

“Shoe shine, sir?” Harry peered up. “Just four cents, that's half price. It'd be an honor, sir, to shine the shoes of someone who works at the Wesley Jones Theater—it's my favorite theater in New York, sir.”

A nice bit of patter. He could generally rely on getting himself a job, and the patter seemed to have done the trick on Arnold, although he didn't seem very happy about it. Sadly, the stage manager lifted his good leg and dumped the shoe on the end of it onto Harry's box.

“Yeah, I'll have a shoe shine.” Arnold sighed. “Anything to make things look better on a day like today! D'you hear what happened here last night, shoeshine boy?”

“I did, sir.” Harry rubbed in a blob of polish. “Poor Herbie Lemster…”

“Of course you've heard it! All of New York's talking about it!” Arnold rubbed at his eyes. “A mystery, that's what they're saying. But it's more than a mystery to us. It's a catastrophe! The most awful thing that's taken place at this theater! How could it happen? To one of our very own, shoeshine boy?”

What a state Arnold was in. The bruise he had suffered falling down the stairs was still on his forehead, dark and sore looking, but that was nothing compared to the sadness of his expression. His large eyes shone with tears, one of which splashed onto the shoe Harry was polishing, messing up the shine. Harry wiped it away and repolished the leather. Then he heard another voice, and looking around, he saw a face that was gloomier still.

“Terrible! Just terrible!”

It was Wesley Jones. The plump theater owner had just stumbled out of a horse-drawn cab. His pink hat was battered, his clothes were crumpled, and his plump body seemed to have crumpled too, his face sagging, dark bags under his eyes, and his skin drained to a sickly white. He glanced at Harry but hardly seemed to take him in as he kept talking to his stage manager.

“What can have become of him, Arnold? I haven't been able to sleep all night!”

“No one knows nothin', Mr. Jones.” Arnold shook his head and pointed down at Harry. “You should treat yourself to a shoe shine too, Mr. Jones. This boy charges just four cents. Might cheer you up.”

“Nothing could do that!” Wesley Jones tugged out a handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. “Still, only four cents, you say? To do my shoes?”

“Sure.” Harry finished Arnold's toecaps with a flourish.

“Done. Come on up to my office and do my shoes, then.” Wesley tossed Harry four cents, turned, and trod sadly into the theater. “All twenty pairs of them.”

Twenty
pairs? All for just four cents?
Still, at least he had been invited into the theater. Harry's eyes flicked around as Wesley Jones led him through the gloomy backstage area, up a rickety staircase, and along various corridors. What a ramshackle building it was. In particular, the plumbing seemed completely chaotic, with countless pipes winding along the walls, taps and dials jutting off from them. Everywhere he looked, he could see pipes, many of them wobbling with the sheer pressure of the water inside, a few even sprouting leaks, but he reminded himself that he was hardly here to carry out a plumbing check.

Polish
Wesley's shoes, perhaps do a bit more chatting, and slink off for the equipment
. Harry followed Wesley all the way to his office, a surprisingly well-kept room with wallpaper that more or less clung to the wall, a plush rug, and a mantelpiece with various framed photographs on it. And, of course, there were Wesley's shoes, a whole rack of them in a cupboard. The plump theater owner collapsed into a chair by the desk, and Harry started work, unscrewing polish cans, fluttering cloths, and plunging into the conversation.

“So, hasn't anyone discovered
anything
about—”

“About poor Herbie? Nothing at all!” Wesley sank even further into his chair, his arms trailing over the sides. “The police were here late into the night. Detectives too. They worked the whole building over, bottom to top. But they ain't discovered a thing!” His face sagged, his eyes wet and mournful. “People say it's a trick gone wrong. They say it's dark forces. They say it's all kind of stuff. But what have they actually found out? Nothing!”

“Nothing, Mr. Jones?” Harry kept polishing.

“Not a darn thing!” One of Wesley's hands pounded the arm of his chair, while the other fluttered a handkerchief over his face, collecting the tears from his eyes. “All we've got is one thundering explosion, one storm of purple smoke, an intruder that no one actually saw, and some yelled-out words that no one understands. It's terrible, shoeshine boy. Just terrible!”

No
information
whatsoever
. Harry tried to make out his reflection in the shoe he was polishing, which, for some reason, remained murky no matter how hard he rubbed. Perhaps he should tell Wesley what
he
knew? The distressed theater owner would almost certainly want to hear Harry's discovery about Herbie being kidnapped for his tricks—wouldn't he?

Possibly
, thought Harry, polishing on. But, like the police, the theater owner was hardly going to take the word of a kid, particularly not a scruffy shoeshine boy reduced to cleaning twenty pairs of shoes for four cents. Like the police, at best Wesley would probably just make a few inquiries at the Hotel Crosby, and that would only alert Zell with disastrous results.

“What do you think, Arnold?” Wesley swung toward the office door, through which the stage manager had entered, his left leg dragging behind him. In his hands, he carried a tray with a teapot and cups on it, along with, curiously, a leather bag with a wrench protruding from it. “Who could be behind this horrible deed? Who'd want to harm Herbie? He hadn't an enemy in the world.”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Jones! I never heard of no one not liking the guy, and I can't imagine it neither. He really was one gentle fella…”

The tea tray rattled in Arnold's wobbly grip, and he nearly dropped it, the leather bag also slithering out of his grasp. It was up to Harry, lightning quick, to leap across the rug and catch the teapot, the cups, and the saucers before they hit the rug. He just managed to grab the bag too, which he saw was full of all kinds of wrenches and other tools. Meanwhile, Wesley rose from his chair and lowered the unsteady Arnold into it in his place.

“Forgive my stage manager! He was so very fond of poor Herbie. Mind you, you're fond of all our fine company, aren't you, Arnold?” Wesley nodded at his stage manager's weakened leg. “He used to be a performer himself, a trapeze artist, until his unfortunate injury. So he knows how delicate performers can be, how carefully they must be looked after. You attend to their every need, do you not, Arnold?”

“That I do, Mr. Jones.” Arnold lifted a feeble hand toward the bag of tools, which Harry gave him. “Was just about to do that plumbing job, sir.”

“Ah yes, the plumbing.” Wesley flung an arm at one of the theater's many wobbling pipes, which snaked across the office's ceiling. “We are attempting to install running water in every performer's dressing room. We prize our performers, so no effort shall be spared on their behalf. And none of them is prized more greatly than—”

“Than poor Herbie Lemster!” Arnold stared at the rug.

“Indeed!” Wesley tottered to the mantelpiece and the row of framed photographs which, Harry could now see, were of the theater's performers—Bruno the Strongman, the juggling acrobats, and the rest. “Why, I count him as one of my dearest friends. He has worked happily at this theater for no less than ten years.”

A plump hand grabbed one of the framed photographs and held it aloft. Staring out of it, Herbie's face was wan and wrinkled. “He just did occasional appearances for me at first, but as our acquaintance grew, he did more and more until, in the end, he asked to become one of my regular acts, performing every night at the theater that I am proud to say he considers his true home.”

“His home, nice and cozy.” Arnold sadly contemplated a wrench.

“Yet it is his home no longer. Because he has disappeared.
Disappeare
d
!
” Wesley held up the photograph, looked at Harry, and looked back at the picture again. “I don't suppose you polish picture frames, do you?”

Harry had just finished the shoes. He was about to protest that he had no silver polish, but Wesley had already fetched a small can out of a drawer and tossed it to him. For the next ten minutes, Harry polished the frame, the odd green polish making his skin itch. Herbie's face stared up at him, wrinkled, mysterious, and offering no help whatsoever.
But
the
mystery
will
be
solved
, Harry decided, placing the photograph back on the mantelpiece.

He made his way down through the theater. Wesley and Arnold had left him alone to do the polishing task, and Harry knew it would be easy to slink off unnoticed, but he decided to visit the other performers.
Maybe
they'll be more helpful
. Visiting their dressing rooms, he offered to shine their shoes and tried to ask a few questions. In the corner of each room, a sink gurgled mournfully, the result of Arnold's plumbing work, Harry deduced.

Not a scrap, not a snippet. The performers had no information for him. Still quivering with the shock of what had happened, they would be in an even worse state if they knew Herbie's possible fate, that he was probably being held captive by Boris Zell and forced to give up his tricks.
Good
thing
I'm on the case,
thought Harry as he slid out of the final dressing room and headed off toward his main task, the gathering of equipment.

Creeping down to the murky backstage area, he sought the place where he had sheltered the previous night after being swept in with the crowd. The wooden seaweed stood there, but he also made out several coils of rope hanging on the nearby wall, some with iron hooks on the end.
Perfect
. Harry chose the best rope, more than forty feet long, along with a medium-sized hook, and stuffed them under his jacket.

“Lost, shoeshine boy?”

It was Arnold. He was staring at Harry from a little way off in the backstage gloom. Harry wriggled, and the bulge in his jacket slid around the back. He walked toward the stage manager, his shoeshine box swinging from his hand.

“Took a wrong turn. Couldn't see where I was going.” It was believable enough since the backstage area was very dark. “Sorry about that, Mr. Stage Manager.”

Arnold said nothing. Wrapped up in mournful thoughts about Herbie, he also was clearly having more trouble with the theater's plumbing. His shirtsleeves were soaked with water, and he had a wrench clutched in each hand. Silently, the limping figure led Harry to the stage door. Harry hurried out, but he must have accidentally knocked the stage manager off balance, because Arnold swayed and then steadied himself by gripping Harry's shoulder with a surprisingly fast, strong hand.

“Thanks for dropping by, shoeshine boy.”

Another wobble. But Arnold steadied himself, and the hand let go. Harry offered a smile and hurried away from the theater.

The coil of rope and the hook were tucked neatly inside his jacket.

Harry stopped off at the West Side docks, a favorite spot for practicing his tricks, quiet except for the lapping of the Hudson and the horns of passing ships. Among the warehouses and cranes, he spent nearly half an hour with the rope and hook, swinging them, spinning them, sending them flying. The trick was hard in all sorts of ways, and the way it needed to be set up was no exception.

Patiently, he perfected the throw, judging the flick of his wrist and jerking back his arm at exactly the right moment. By the time it worked, his arms and fingers ached from the practice.
Herbie's depending on it
, he thought, and the pain vanished as he ran off, weaving through the crowds, cabs, and horses at double speed, back toward the looming Hotel Crosby.

Billie and Arthur were right—there was no way on earth he could walk, sneak, or crawl back into that hotel. But walking, sneaking, or crawling wasn't what he had in mind. Tall though the drab hotel was, even taller buildings stood nearby, including the one across the street from it, an office building of some kind. A fire escape ran up that building's side, its rickety iron girders no more than twenty feet away from the hotel. Fixing his gaze on a spot about two-thirds of the way up the fire escape, Harry walked even faster, the coiled rope and hook dangling from his hand.

“Harry? Where have you been?”

Arthur was running toward him through the crowd. He had a slightly unusual look, his tie sticking out, his hair in a mess, his face flushed pink.
What's he been doing?
Looking around, Harry saw no sign of Billie and wondered what she was doing too. But then he spotted a clock over a nearby shop and knew there was no time for that. It had been nearly two hours since he had last been at the hotel, and Boris Zell could have been getting up to all manner of things. It was time to begin.

“I've been practicing, Artie!” He held up the rope. “Look!”

Odd
. Usually, Arthur reacted to news of a new trick with interest, his eyes widening, sometimes his mouth falling wide open. But that wasn't happening now. Arthur just blinked at the rope, his face turning a little pinker, even red.
Maybe
I
just
need
to
explain
it
a
bit
more
, Harry thought as he sprang toward the fire escape that ran up the side of the building near the hotel.

“Harry!” Arthur called after him. “Wait! I've got something to tell you… Me and Billie, we've…”

“Everyone at Hotel Crosby will be looking for me, Artie.” Harry clanged up the iron stairs. “But that doesn't mean they'll be looking
up
—true?”

“Looking up? What do you mean?”

Harry sprinted upward, nearly ten stories, until he was level with the Hotel Crosby's roof. Pulling the rope off his shoulder, he twirled it, narrowed his eyes, and threw it. His arm ached from the practice, but it had definitely been worth it, because the hook at the rope's end soared neatly across the twenty-foot gap. It clanged against the railing that ran around the Hotel Crosby roof, looped around, and caught hold. Harry hauled at the rope until it was iron tight.
Artie'll understand the trick now
. From farther down the fire escape, he heard footsteps, and he turned to greet his even more red-faced friend, who was struggling up the last flight of steps toward him.

“The tightrope trick! Remember? Billie strung the rope between two trees! I walked across it and wriggled my hands free of twenty-five knots at the same time.”

“Harry…listen…” Arthur was out of breath. “Please, I…”

“If I can walk a tightrope while doing that, I can easily walk one with my hands free! I know it's higher up, but as long I stay on the rope, who cares how high it is?” Harry tore off his boots, tied the laces, and hung them around his neck. His bare feet flexed, ready for the walk. “So once I'm across, I just jump onto the roof and get into the hotel from there—”

“Harry!” Arthur had reached the fire escape landing and seen the taut rope. His face turned redder still, and he sputtered the words breathlessly out. “Why aren't you listening to me? We're a team, remember? Me, Billie, and—”

“I know we're a team! Just let me finish, Artie! So I go down into Room 760 and get in. I discover everything I can, then I run back up to the roof. I just need you to guard the rope, Artie—Artie?”

He had explained it all fairly clearly. Yes, he had been talking very fast, but surely the trick was plain to see. Particularly when he was actually balanced on the railing, one foot on the rope, the breeze from the street curling up around him. But Arthur still wasn't reacting in the usual way. He was just standing there, staring at the rope with that troubled look on his reddened face. Then he swung around, stomped over to the other side of the fire escape, and peered down.
Makes
no
sense
at
all
, thought Harry.

Unless
…

“Where's Billie?”

“At last! Paying attention to me! There she is—down there!”

“What?”

“If you'd only listened, you'd already know. You see, you don't need to break into the hotel.”

“Don't need to?” Harry looked down at the quivering rope. “But I'm almost there already—”

“So's Billie.” Arthur shot an arm down at the street. “Look—right down there!”

Harry jumped down from the rope and leaped to the other side of the fire escape. And it was, he had to admit it, pretty astonishing.

Billie was walking up the hotel's front steps. But he wouldn't have recognized her if she hadn't been pointed out. An elegant silk gown swept down from her shoulders, peacock feathers sprouted from a bonnet, and most impressively, a large pair of wire-framed, dark-lensed spectacles wobbled on her nose, giving her a mysterious air. She was also several inches taller, and Harry glimpsed, just under the hem of the silk dress, some wooden blocks attached to the bottom of her boots. No wonder she was swaying slightly as she twirled a dainty umbrella and headed up toward those revolving hotel doors.

“Wha—What is she doing, Artie?”

“It's all based on the Atlantic City Laundry Caper.”

“The what?” Vaguely, he remembered the words. “But—”

“It's a pretty simple business, really. I think you're going to like it, now that you're actually listening,” said Arthur, swinging around. He put an arm around Harry, and a smile was back on his face. “So, back on the road, Billie rolled into Atlantic City, out of cash. She needed to get a job quick, so she tried to get one at a laundry, a fancy one for ladies and gents and their fancy clothes. The owner said she'd have to prove herself by washing a load of his stinky stockings and shirts, which she did and did it perfectly too.

“But the owner didn't give her the job and didn't pay her for washing the socks and shirts either! Just rolled around laughing, saying he'd never in a month of Sundays have a ‘dirty hobo kid from New Orleans' messing up his fancy clean laundry! Big mistake. Billie grabbed a few bits and pieces off a laundry line and disguised herself as the servant of some rich lady who'd just arrived in town and—”

“But…how…” Harry tried to take it all in.

“I'm getting to that! She stuck blocks of wood under her shoes to make herself taller, pulled a bonnet over her face, and counted on the thick laundry steam to stop anyone from looking too closely. Clever, eh?” Arthur chuckled. “She just turned up at the door, asked the maids who worked there about placing a large order on behalf of her mistress for washing household linen. While they were fetching the owner, she slipped in, vanished into the steam, and tipped seventeen boxes of washing powder into one of the vats. Bubbles everywhere. That owner got himself a fancy clean laundry all right—took nearly two days to rinse the place out! Pretty good, don't you think?” Arthur pointed back down at the hotel steps. “And it's come in pretty handy for this Herbie business too, I'd say.”

Billie was at the top of the steps now, bulked-up shoes, silk dress, and all. She was mumbling to the doorman, while making various grand gestures with the umbrella. And whatever she was saying, it seemed to work, because the doorman stood aside, and the elaborately disguised street girl swept through the revolving doors. The doors spun behind her, and Arthur nodded with a small, precise action.

“But this disguise—I don't see how it works.” Harry stared at the still-spinning doors. “It's one thing to pretend to be a servant, but what's she pretending to be now?”

“That's mainly down to me.” Another tweak of his tie. “I remembered reading that particular hotels are often popular with particular professions—word spreads, you see. So I said to myself, if this Boris Zell uses the Hotel Crosby, maybe other magicians do too. I ran back to the library and did some research, checked through old newspapers and hotel guides, and it turns out I was right. Magicians, illusionists, men of the theater—they've been using the Crosby for years.

“So would they be surprised if someone a bit exotic and theatrically dressed turned up—I don't think so.” He was speaking quickly now. “The more exotic the better, probably. Billie and I had a quick think, and with the help of a few more books, we invented a whole new magician for her to be—Princess Moldo. That's who she's going to check in as!”

“Princess Moldo?” Harry had no idea what to say.

“The famous illusionist from Peru. I've been running around like mad ever since, finding out a few other things, buying the bits of costume, the dress, the umbrella—and not forgetting those dark spectacles.” He pointed back down toward where Billie had been, wearing those glittering frames. “Do you know they actually come from Peru? From Lima? Found them in an antique shop—the Princess Moldo spectacles, I'm calling them.”

“But costume, spectacles, umbrellas—it must have cost a fortune…” Harry butted in.

“A fair bit, yes, but my allowance covered it.” Arthur tapped his wallet inside his jacket. “What else am I going to spend my money on, apart from my friends? Us and our plans, Harry, that's all that matters.” Briefly, that troubled look returned. “To me, anyway…”

It
might
just
work
. Harry was still taking in a lot of what Arthur had said, but clearly this scheme was a good one, and so far it had worked. But would it continue to succeed? Getting through the door disguised as a Peruvian illusionist was clever. There was no question about that. But how exactly was Billie going to break into Room 760 itself? What about checking in at the hotel reception desk, which would need forms filled in and questions answered, during which time her disguise could easily be detected? All risky…

“Harry? What are you doing?”

“I'm going in too.” Harry was back on the rail. “Like I said, I'm almost there anyway.”

“But Billie and me… We're the ones who are doing this!”

“Why can't we carry out my plan too?” One foot edged out on the rope. “Doubles our chances in case something goes wrong. Herbie's been kidnapped, Artie! Zell could be doing all sorts of stuff to him, and he won't stop until he gets the secrets to Herbie's tricks and—”

“I know all that!” Arthur's face was red again, bright red. “Look, the whole Princess Moldo plan depends on the hotel staff not suspecting a thing! If you burst in there and get caught, then—”

“I'm not going to get caught, am I? Just guard the rope, Artie!”

“I don't need to! Just like you don't need to do this trick of yours!”

“I'll be back soon!”

“Harry! You're not listening to me again!”

“This is all for Herbie! That's what matters!”

“Of course it's about Herbie! Why else do you think me and Billie thought up our—”

“Remember the rope!”

“Harry!
Stop acting like you don't want anything to do with me! I've got enough of that in my life already!”

Harry swung around and saw his friend's face. He had never seen it look quite like that before. It was trembling all over. Artie's hand was trembling too, as it reached into his pocket and tore out a letter, the letter to the school, the one Harry had helped snatch just a few hours ago.

“Next thing, you'll want to send me 452 miles away too! You won't have to listen to me then! Is that what you want? Is it? Is it—”

“Whoa!”

Harry had lost his balance. He recovered it the only way he could, by swinging his foot right around and planting it on the rope out over the street. He was balanced again, but he had also started the walk, and he couldn't stop. He had to keep walking, walking out over the street.
Perhaps
that's for the best
. The echoes of Artie's words were still shuddering around him, making his face burn.

He had no idea how to reply.
Perhaps
this
way
I
don't have to—at least until I've thought of something to say
. His face still pulsing with heat, he angled his arms, steadied his legs, and bit his lip.
Need
to
concentrate
on
the
rope
walk
, he told himself—because it was turning out to be harder, much harder, than the one in the park.

The breeze sweeping up from the street was surprisingly powerful, full of the distant sounds of the street below. Harry glanced down, and his heart throbbed as he made out the tiny shapes of people, horses, cabs. The breeze flapped through his clothes, buffeting him about, and each time he lifted a foot from the rope he had to adjust his position, leaning into the gusts so that they wouldn't blow him off.
Completely
different
from
the
park
.