Nevermore (21 page)

“Hey,” Vickery called, after several moments passed without a question. “Learned all you need…?”

His only answer was continued quiet. “I told you what you wanted to know,” he shouted, “so get me the hell out of here!”

Silence enclosed him like a preview of eternity. His anger returned in full volcanic intensity. He raged inside the casket, roaring at the top of his lungs in a single sustained wordless protest like some wild jungle beast giving voice to an ancient wrath. Insane with fury, he beat his fists against the coffin lid and kicked his feet in stiff-legged frenzy.

The violence of his renewed outburst set the ornate coffin swaying upon the paired sawhorses, a precarious perch at best. The sudden motion upset a delicate equilibrium. Wobbly wooden legs proved insufficient for the task of supporting such weight. The sawhorses shifted and slid, causing the casket to topple. It fell to the floor on its side with a loud crash.

Jarred from the force of the impact, Vickery pushed against the stubborn lid. Well beyond reason now, shouting and kicking, cursing furiously, he tore at the padded satin lining like a savage animal, ripping through the cloth with his nails until his fingers raked against solid metal.

If anger and blind hatred had been enough to sustain him, he might well have clawed his way to freedom, for he kept at it until his fingertips were torn and bloody, stopping only when the flesh rubbed away to the bone.

H
ARRY
H
OUDINI LAY SOBBING
on his mother’s bed. Curled like a fetus, he clutched her framed photograph to his breast, the wrinkled brocade bedspread beneath him darkly splotched with tear stains. If they cared to listen, the servants in the kitchen downstairs could hear the pathetic strangled groans lamenting through the spacious house on 113th Street. The staff had been instructed earlier not to receive any callers.

The magician’s wife had gone out for the day with three girlhood friends from Brooklyn. These middle-aged matrons had known her since way back when she was a soubrette appearing as one of the Floral Sisters, a Coney Island song-and-dance act. Whenever they wanted to tease, her friends called her not Bessie, nor Beatrice, but Wilhelmina, the actual given name she had abandoned so long ago. They determined this to be a Wilhelmina day, a carefree time of laughter and teasing. First, a morning spent shopping, then lunch at Child’s, followed by a matinee. Harry’s recent grim mood, him brooding around the house for weeks with a scowl on his face, made it a pleasure for her to be out from under the prevailing gloom.

Bess remained in the dark as to the true nature of her husband’s despair. Unlike all of life’s other problems that he discussed so freely with her, he told her nothing about his current troubles. Only in the shadows of his mother’s candlelit third-floor bedroom could Houdini find any solace. Spending time alone there was not unusual and at first he made no excuse for sneaking off to rest his head on the pillow beside Cecilia Weiss’s photograph. His secret shame felt so enormous, rotting within him like a cancer. The sessions in his mother’s room became more and more frequent, until he found himself pretending to work on research in his crowded study, only to close the door and tiptoe back down the hall to Mama’s bedchamber.

“I’ve sinned… . I’ve sinned… . I’ve sinned … ,” the magician sobbed, clasping the photo-studio portrait to his heart. “I’m a bad boy, Mama.’ … A bad, bad boy …” Houdini lay blubbering on the narrow bed in his private confessional, desperate to cleanse his troubled soul of guilt.

“Mr. Houdini…? Excuse me, sir.” Lee, the houseboy, stood shyly in the open doorway.

The magician peered up from the shadow-cloaked bed.

“What is it?” he barked hoarsely. “Whaddya want now?”

“So sorry to disturb. A gentleman downstairs wishes to see you.”

“Darn it all, Lee. I told you no visitors.”

“Yes, sir, I know, but—”

“I don’t care who it is. No means no! Not even President Harding is welcome here today.”

“No president, Mr. Houdini. It is a policeman.”

“What?” Houdini sat on the edge of his mother’s bed. “What in Sam Hill does he want?”

“He says very important to talk to you. He is a lieutenant, sir.” The young man in the white housecoat looked shyly down at the floor.

Houdini forced a grim smile onto his face. “A lieutenant, you say, Lee?” He walked unsteadily out of the darkened room. “I guess that means he’s not here about some parking violation.”

Lt. Frederick Bremmer stood in the downstairs front parlor engrossed in a large eighteenth-century engraving of a mountebank performing the cups and balls. “Lieutenant…?” Ever the showman, Houdini put aside his melancholy and bounded energetically into the room.

The two men shook hands. The detective, who prided himself on his strength, marveled at the power of the magician’s grip. “Fred Bremmer, homicide,” he announced, rasping like a cupful of gravel in a coffee grinder. “Been a fan of .yours for years, Mr. Houdini, since I was a rookie. Remember the time you escaped from the Tombs back in ‘ought-six. There’re plenty of jailbirds wish they knew how you pulled off that trick.”

“Too bad you weren’t around six years later. Could’ve used a fan on the force then.”

“Yeah? What was the problem?”

“Oh, I had an underwater packing case escape planned to publicize my opening at Hammerstein’s Roof Garden. I’d done bridge jumps and jailbreaks before, but this was to be a first. The stunt was set for a pier on the East River. We were just setting up when a bunch of New York’s finest roared in like the Keystone Kops and shut me down. Had to hire a tug to haul me out into the harbor where the long arm of the law don’t reach.”

Bremmer chuckled. “I remember that all right. You carried a pack of reporters along for the ride, so I guess you got plenty of press out of it.”

“No complaints, Lieutenant. I ran for eight weeks at the Roof Garden. Packed ‘em in every night.”

“I’ll bet you did. But, don’t be thinking the law’s got short arms in this town. We just reached right up into your front parlor.”

“Boys in blue’re always welcome here.” Houdini gestured toward the best chair in the room, indicating that the lieutenant should take a seat. When Bremmer did so, the magician perched on the overstuffed arm of a nearby couch. “Say, you want something to drink? Did Lee offer you anything?”

“You mean the Chink?”

“He’s from Siam.” Houdini no longer smiled.

“Whatever… . Yeah, he offered some tea. Not exactly my favorite beverage.”

“Well, we run a dry household, Officer, and that’s not just a line I hand out only to the law. How about coffee or some fresh-squeezed orange juice?”

Bulldog Bremmer shook his head. He looked as out of place in the chintz-covered easy chair as a toad on a slice of lemon meringue pie. “This ain’t exactly a social call, Mr. Houdini.” The lieutenant felt uncomfortable with the seating arrangements. He didn’t like the magician looming over him from the arm of the couch; his authority felt diminished by occupying the inferior position. “It’s more in the line of a murder investigation,” he said, getting to his feet.

“Murder…?”

Now the subject looked up at him. Much more to the lieutenant’s liking. One thing he knew backwards and forwards was how to conduct a proper interrogation. “I guess you must’ve heard about these so-called Poe killings?”

Houdini endeavored to keep any trace of scorn out of his voice when he said, “Mary Rogers was a member of my company.”

“What can you tell me about James L. Vickery?”

“You’ve found him?”

“Not yet. That’s why I’m here. What do you know about it?”

“Jim’s my second assistant. We’ve been pretty busy the past couple of weeks, getting ready for our summer tour. It’s two tours, actually. A short one here in the east, then ten weeks out west. This means plenty of long days for the crew, so when Emma—that’s Mrs. Vickery—when she called the other day to say Jim hadn’t been home that night, at first I didn’t think anything of it. Figured Jim’d been working late and just camped out on a cot in the shop.”

“Your men do that often? Sleep in the shop?”

“Not often. Sometimes. In this instance, I had it wrong. When my first assistant, Jim Collins, checked over at the shop yesterday morning there was no one there. The place was locked up tight. The other Jim remained behind when the crew knocked off. Last they saw of him. Collins said it looked like he’d finished his work and closed up for the night.”

“How many have keys to your shop?”

“Just me and the Jims.”

“Come again?”

“Collins and Vickery. Both named Jim. So, when we couldn’t find Jim the next morning, I told Emma to call the police.”

“Officially, this is still missing persons.” Lieutenant Bremmer toyed with his watch fob, a bronze medallion advertising the Stutz Motor Car Company. “I wouldn’t even’ve known about it, except for a pal of mine over there gave me a call when he made the connection with Mary Rogers. Not everyone in the department’s got shit for brains.”

Houdini, who never used profanity, made a slight face of displeasure. “Don’t sell your own side short,” he said.

“Never do. But you know how it goes. Most get by just doing their job and marking time. Going the extra distance is something special.” The lieutenant deliberately cultivated a confidential manner, a technique developed over years of dealing with liars and hard cases. When he asked the tough questions they almost always came out of left field. He gave the magician a knowing wink. “So,” he said, “your man Vickery? Did he fool around?”

“What?” Houdini didn’t get it.

“I know he’s married, a regular upstanding guy and solid citizen. Just wondering if he liked to get a little extra piece of tail on the side.”

The magician felt stabbed straight to the heart and his pained expression showed it. To cover up, he assumed an earnest display of self-righteous indignation. “Just because a man is in show business, Lieutenant, it doesn’t mean he’s a two-timing louse.”

“I was thinking about this Mary Rogers. I understand she was some kind of looker.”

“All the women in my troupe are the bee’s knees. It hardly makes sense to hire ugly ones.”

“Vickery ever flirt with any of ‘em?”

“Jim is a fun-loving guy. Likes to joke around. So, if you’ve heard any stories about him cracking wise to the ladies, talk is as far as it went. I’ll swear to that, but you know how some people have to gossip.”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“In my experience, when someone gets gossiped about he usually deserves it.”

Houdini jumped to his feet. “What’ve you heard about Jim Vickery?”

“Relax. I ain’t heard nothing. Not yet anyway. I was hoping you might fill me in. Tell me about your assistant and this Mary Rogers.”

The magician’s anger boiled. “There’s nothing to tell. Jim was a loyal husband.”

“Was…?”

“Stop putting words in my mouth!” Houdini sagged onto the couch like a fighter exhausted between rounds. “A better man than Jim Vickery hasn’t been born.”

“What about Mary Rogers?”

“I hardly knew her. She was hired for our Palace run. Two weeks in April. What I remember most was she was sloppy about her work. Missed her cues. Always forgetting parts of her costume. I had pretty much decided not to include her in the company for the summer tours.”

“You were gonna give her the sack?”

“She wasn’t on the payroll after the Palace. I didn’t need to can her. Just wasn’t going to ask her back.”

Bulldog Bremmer leaned over the dejected magician. “Because you caught her at some kind of hanky-panky?”

Houdini’s voice betrayed his utter emotional weariness. “Because she wasn’t any good,” he droned. “I already told you that.”

“Vickery ever have any special dealings with her?”

“Jim’s my second assistant. A swell guy. Helps run the rehearsals, looks after the costumes and props, handles transport and travel arrangement, designs new equipment, fills in onstage when needed. The list of his duties is a mile long. Any ‘dealings’ he might have had with Mary Rogers were strictly business.”

Lieutenant Bremmer shrugged. “Okay. I’m sold. He’s aces far as I’m concerned. Everything’s jake. Except one of your people’s been murdered and another turns up missing, and me, I feel like I’m getting the runaround.”

Houdini’s fierce eyes blinked, blunted by sadness. “Lieutenant,” he said, “I pray to God nothing’s happened to Jim Vickery. If I knew anything more, I’d tell you. Anything at all to help.”

“Fine.” Bremmer pulled a calling card from a compartment in his billfold. He handed it to the magician. “Here’s how to get in touch with me. In case something comes up.” Houdini stared silently at the cheaply printed card. “No need to see me to the door,” the lieutenant said, leaving the room. “I know the way out.”

Houdini listened to the glass in the entrance rattle as the front door slammed with somewhat more force than necessary. Why hadn’t he mentioned Ingrid Esp to the detective? Who was he trying to protect?

S
IR
A
RTHUR
C
ONAN
D
OYLE
stood on the curb of Pennsylvania Avenue watching a parade. The lure of martial band music had proved irresistible to the subject of an empire fond of public spectacle and he followed a gathering crowd across the Mall, toward what he assumed would be the sort of regimental pomp and circumstance so dear to English hearts. Instead, he found a procession more bizarre than anything encountered in a lifetime of exotic travel. In ranks straight as the trolley tracks, twenty thousand hooded members of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan marched with military precision, their white robes flapping like acres of laundry hung out to dry.

The Capitol dome towered above legions of small-town druggists and accountants, lawyers and dentists, community leaders, church-goers, a battalion of family men parading toward the White House dressed like spooks. In place of the torches used to set flaming crosses alight, they carried American flags, the bold stripes and bright stars fluttering past peaked, dunce-cap hoods.