Magician's Fire (9 page)

The wind was affecting the rope too, making it quiver, and it bounced slightly with every step. Harry's heart pounded and the palms of his hands, flung out on either side of him, were damp with sweat. He tried to think of nothing but his feet, edging along the rope step by step, and he kept leaning slightly into the wind, letting it support him…

With no warning, it changed direction.

Harry's arms flailed. Desperately, he tried to right himself as he tilted off the rope, unable to regain his balance. The wind spiraled around him with its noises of the far-below street, and Harry watched his arms blur through the air, felt his heart hammer inside his chest, and then, just in time, shot out a trembling leg.

The shift of weight tilted him back, just a little. He re-angled his arms, and that helped too. The wind buffeted, his clothes flapped, the rope shuddered. He was balanced again, but only just. His legs were weak and trembling, and his face clenched as tight as a fist
.
Concentrate. Think of nothing but the rope. And yet, even as Harry tried to do just that, he couldn't help noticing something out of the corner of his eye.

A window in a nearby building. It was level with him, ten stories up. Someone was watching him from it. A face. White hair, white eyebrows, a pair of staring eyes. A pale-suited figure, two hands resting neatly on the windowsill. Whoever he was, he was watching Harry, and something made Harry start turning his head to take in this figure properly, to see him more clearly.

The wind blew. Harry's arms sprang out on either side, but he was tilting off the rope again. His arms swirled, his heart pounded, his hands snatched at the empty air as he fought to pull himself back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the pale-suited figure had vanished from the window.

Leaving nothing but dark, empty glass.

Harry had only glimpsed his observer. But the observer himself had seen Harry plainly. Even now, as he stepped back up to the window, he continued to study the boy who, for some reason, was teetering on a rope stretched between two buildings, nearly ten stories up in the air.

About eleven years old. A street boy, from the look of him. A shoeshiner, given certain dark blotches on his clothes and face which the observer had spotted, even at this distance.

The man stood at the window. His suit was elegantly tailored, its cloth cream. Neatly manicured fingers rested on the polished windowsill, then rose to fetch a pen and a small leather notebook from their owner's pockets.

The boy had regained his balance. For the second time, he had nearly fallen, but his quick, nimble body had righted itself, and he was wobbling onward, making his way once more along the quivering rope. The man observed this and made a quick sketch of the two buildings and the rope. Next to it, the pen dotted out several lines of complicated numerical code, along with another symbol, a very curious one indeed.

At first, it was just a circle. But the steel nib shaded inside it, until it was black with ink. Further up the pen's length, a finger twitched, flicking a tiny button. A hiss, as white mist leaked out of the pen's nib. The mist thickened and drifted away.

Burned into the black circle, the white shape of a bird.

The boy had gone now. Only the rope remained. But the notes had been made. The man closed the leather book, revealing on its cover another white bird shape. He slid it back into his pocket with the pen.

One hand waved, dispersing any lingering traces of mist. Another lifted a telephone from the desk and dialed a number.

The telephone's earpiece buzzed. A voice in a language that wasn't English muttered through the crackles.

“It is possible,” the man said, “that we have discovered a candidate.”

Harry toppled onto the roof. He clung to a chimney stack, shaking all over. His body was weak, his heart still pounded, and when he lifted his hands from the chimney's brickwork, he saw they had left behind the shape of his palms and fingers in sweat. But he had made it back to the hotel, where he was sure the secret behind Herbie's disappearance would lie. Steadied by the thought, he set off across the roof, weaving past more chimney stacks toward the hatch he had spotted from the other side

Not even locked. Why would it be when there was no reason to think anyone could get onto a ten-story-high roof? But the door to Room 760 would be locked, that was for sure. Harry pulled the hatch open, slid down the ladder inside, and arrived at the top of a stairwell. Clattering down it, he peered around in his usual way for any stray bits of metal—a nail, a pin, anything at all useful.

Nothing in the stairwell, but as he reached the seventh floor and slid down a corridor, he saw a row of framed paintings on the wall. He stopped, lifted one down, and plucked the nail out of the plaster.
A
pick
. Hurrying on, he prepared to inspect the lock on Zell's door and bend the nail into the right shape. But then he reached the corner, peered around it, and saw that he didn't need a lock pick after all.

The door to Room 760 was open. Next to it stood a cart of fresh linen, and two maids were hurrying into the room with fresh sheets. Harry tossed the nail away and ducked under a table by the wall. Watching from under the tablecloth, he waited until the maids' backs were turned. He glided through the door and rolled under the bed…

…straight into a peacock feather, an umbrella, and a pair of dark-lensed spectacles.

“Harry? I don't believe it! What are you doing here?”

“I came down from the roof…
Ow
!
”

“Didn't Arthur find you? Didn't he tell you that we already had a plan?”

“Well, I…
mmmp
f
!
”

Billie was squashed under the bed. The springs above were close to her head, her silk dress and bonnet and umbrella were bulky, and her elbow had ended up in Harry's mouth, making it hard for him to speak. Another hand was right in front of his face, holding up a little slip of paper.

“Well, you better not interfere! This plan's working just dandy, and I'm not having you wreck it!” She pushed the bit of paper closer. “This is the seventh-floor linen-changing rotation. Artie got it by sweet-talking one of the maids who works here, so we knew I could just slip in here, nice and easy. 'Course, I had to get up here quick, but that was no trouble, 'cause it took no time at all to check in. Whenever they asked me questions, I just answered in Spanish, which is what they speak down Peru way, and Artie gave me a few phrases to remember.”

The Princess Moldo spectacles, made in Lima itself, tilted on her nose. “So I get my key, I go up to my room, I walk straight on past it, and come up here instead. Pretty impressive, huh? So don't you try to interfere, you hear me?”

The elbow left Harry's mouth. But he wasn't sure what to say anyway. Point by point, Billie had removed any possible questions he might have had about Arthur's and her plan, which he could see really was a very good one.

“So how did you get in? You better not have been spotted!” Billie hissed.

“I…I came down from the roof,” he said. “Threw a rope from the building next door. It was like the trick we did in the park, Billie…”

“You tightroped here?”

“Yes—ten stories up! It'll work for getting out too, I think, as long as Artie follows his instructions—”

“Artie? Instructions? So you
did
see him!”

Harry stopped talking as instantly as if the elbow had blocked his mouth again. But the Princess Moldo spectacles were even closer now. He was glad their lenses were so dark, because he sensed the eyes behind would be staring at him in a very unfriendly way indeed.

“You saw him! So he
would
have told you about our plan!”

“Yes but…”

“He told you, and you decided to come anyway. You ignored him!”

“I know…” Harry winced. “Except—”

“Typical! Can't you see how he's going to feel about that? With that father of his—
grrmp
f
!
”

The maids had hurried over to the bed, so Billie had been forced to swallow her words. But her face was still right in front of Harry's, those dark lenses glinting. He tried to wriggle away, but the bed wasn't wide enough, so the two of them were stuck there, unable to move, unable to speak, their noses less than an inch apart. For nearly a minute, they stayed like that, while the maids changed the sheets above and delicately dusted nearby ornaments. But at last, the maids left, shutting the door behind them, and Harry scrambled out.

“I'm sorry…I…”

“What's gotten into you, Harry?” Billie scrambled out too. “Running off all the time! Never listening to a word me and Artie say!”

“Herbie's been kidnapped! I can't just stand around—”

“Think me and Artie don't know that? We want to help Herbie too!”

“So let's rescue him!”

“That's what we are
doing
! That's what the Princess Moldo plan is all about, not that you've noticed. You know, Harry, when I met you and Artie, I thought you were the best friends I'd found since New Orleans.” The glasses trembled and their lenses flashed. “Well, I was right about Artie—not so sure about you! All you care about is thinking up plans of your own like this tightroping business… Supposed to be impressed, am I?”

“It got me in here, didn't it?”

“But you don't
need
to be here! That's what I'm saying!”

“Of course I need to be here! Herbie's my friend.”

“He's our friend too!
We're meant to be doing this together. We're a team, aren't we? Oh, confound it!”

Harry ducked. Billie had hurled her silk umbrella straight at him, and he managed to dodge it, but only just. It smashed into the mantelpiece, splintering several of the ornaments the maids had so carefully dusted, and then flew off at an angle, thudding into a chair. Porcelain fragments fell from the mantelpiece, rocked on the floor, and went still.

“Billie?”

He swung around. Billie's arms were crossed, and those Princess Moldo glasses glared. But even worse, for the first time Harry could remember, Billie seemed to have nothing more to say. She just stood there, wobbling a bit on her heightened shoes, the peacock feathers on her bonnet sticking out at odd angles. Then she flopped down into the nearest chair.

“Confound it, I say!”

Harry turned and took in the hurled umbrella and the smashed porcelain. He thought about Arthur, back on the fire escape.
Enough
of
that
in
my
life
already
… Harry could hear those words as if they were echoing around him, and he winced again. “Listen, Billie. I'm sorry—”

He broke off when he saw the briefcase.

“Oh, no you don't, Harry! That's
mine
!”

It stood by a desk on the other side of the room. Boris Zell's briefcase, the same one that Harry had seen on the bulky magician's knee, the one with the telltale wisp of smoke. Harry was already gripping its handle. But Billie's hand was gripping it too, her Princess Moldo spectacles just an inch away from his nose again.

“I saw it first!” she sputtered.

“But—”

“Saw it the second I got in here!”

“Well, I saw it before that! Last night in the theater! Remember?”

Harry couldn't let go. If anything would reveal the truth about what had happened to Herbie, it would be the contents of that briefcase.
Later
on, I'll sort things out with Billie, and with Arthur too
, he decided. For now, the briefcase was what mattered, and nothing else. He tried to tug it free, and tugged harder and harder still, and then wondered, too late, if that was a good idea.

“Watch out!”

He stumbled back. The briefcase had split open. A monkey skull, two candlesticks, and a heavy book tumbled onto the floor. But he wasn't worried about those. He watched as a corked jar of purple powder spun out of the briefcase, slammed onto the floor, and cracked. A flash of light, the room thundered, and he was thrown straight into a wall.

Purple smoke everywhere. Harry tasted the chemicals in his mouth again. He heard the sound of tinkling glass and knew the window had blown out. At least he had ended up in a more comfortable position this time, sliding down onto the hotel room's rug rather than crashing into the sidewalk. Struggling up, he groped through the fumes, among which he made out Billie's face, along with a finger pointing at him.

“Now look what you've gone and done!”

“You should have just let me open it carefully!”

“Why? I'm the one who's investigating this hotel room! Me—Princess Moldo, I mean.”

“Well, at least I was right about Zell.” Harry knelt over the shattered remains of the jar. “He's behind the explosion in Herbie's dressing room. We know that for sure now.”

“Don't know too much else though.” Billie peered through the plumes of smoke. “So Boris explodes something in the dressing room—but how'd he get in there? How'd he get out again, dragging Herbie? No one saw nobody go in or out, remember?”

It was true. Harry sniffed the smoke. That was all it was—smoke. Billie was right. It told him nothing. Zell had kidnapped Herbie, and Harry knew the magician's motive, thanks to the telegram from Chicago. But how had he done it? That was the true mystery, and the smoke, still drifting around him, revealed nothing about it.

The plumes swirled. And the smoke
did
reveal something. Harry flinched, and the smoke he had sniffed flew out of his nostrils in two little clouds. Across the room, Billie was looking alarmed too.

There right in front of them, materializing out of the smoke, was Boris Zell.