The Hidden Man (10 page)

Moments like this reminded Blackburn why he had remained a bachelor for so long. He walked along in a busy silence until they found an inexpensive café and turned to go inside.

J.D. always arrived at the theatre well ahead of showtime, taking advantage of the enforced privacy backstage to maximize his concentration, do his exercises, and make sure that his makeup was perfectly applied. Tonight’s special preopening show was enough of an occasion to make it worth spending a good part of the late afternoon at the theatre.

All proceeded as normal, for quite a while. He sat at his makeup table applying darkener to his temples and warming up his voice. The silence backstage was the perfect backdrop for his imagination. He prepared himself by visualizing that night’s two-hour extravaganza. Naturally, he would dither away the first half by calling up volunteers and having them do the usual tricks, while he covertly worked his suggestions into the audience.

That interaction with the individual audience members would serve its true purpose of ferreting out the ones that struck him as ready to play along. Out of those, he was usually right about half the time. And it was they who served as the capstone of his show, at the end—when he triggered them and watched their reactions convert a theatre filled with sophisticates into a gaggle of delighted children.

His mental rehearsal was in full swing when he decided to go ahead and get dressed, even though he still had an hour and a half until the house opened. The sensations of being made up and dressed in his stage clothes always helped to heighten his readiness and, these days, seemed to help clear his thinking. He stood up and stepped over to his dressing room closet.

His performance clothing had been delivered and placed there for him, early in the day. J.D. opened the door and looked at the suit rack to select the evening’s jacket. It was not an unpleasant chore, something of a ritual. A few languorous moments drifted by. Style being a showman’s first statement, the choice was not without meaning. Sometimes a pattern to aid in eye-dazzling the folks, sometimes a bold black for mystery. He was already in cake…cake up…caked makeup. His makeup was already on, that is, meaning that from now on, every little choice he made was a part of that evening’s sow. Not
sow,
as a farmer sows a field, rather
show. Show,
was what his inner voice was trying to say: every little choice he made was part of that evening’s
show.

Something tickled at his lower peripheral vision. It was just a flicker, but enough to drop his gaze down to the floor and land it squarely onto the young woman’s body.

She must have been beautiful once, but was now quite obviously deceased. She was wadded into a ball, with her arms wrapped around her bended legs, as if she had been packed into a box. There was no smell of decomposition, at least not enough to overpower the strong scent of greasepaint and the various stage makeup products.

It finally hit him. Time froze. J.D. was a beached fish gasping for air. He stared at the sight before him and felt a rushing sound fill his hearing. It rose and fell in time with his pulse.

He found his knees shaking and felt them losing the strength to stand. Instinctively, he grabbed on to the doorjamb for support. His balance reeled away, and with a flood of alarm he realized that he was an inch away from passing out.

He dropped to his knees and lowered his head. He had been to this point often enough to know what to do: Suck air in and blow it out, fast and hard.

J.D. kept his eyes jammed shut and stabilized himself enough to remain conscious. But when he opened them again and found himself staring directly at one of the dead girl’s feet, a second wave of shock swept through him.

The shock intensified while he forced himself to look upward, all the way to her face. She had powder around her mouth and nose. It looked just like his secret elixir.

The resulting tableaux was perfect. Its message was conveyed with clarity, bright and shiny as a well-lit marquee. And the message told him that this scene was precisely the same as it would be if this unfortunate woman had a noose tied around her neck—with the rest of the rope coiling its way directly back to him.

Panic hit him like a drop through the gallows. His body reacted before his mind could, and it threw itself into a frantic backward crab-walk, blindly repulsed, not thinking at all. He traveled away from the girl, straight across the floor and directly into the opposite wall with the back of his head. The awful impact was rock hard, through his skull, his teeth, his skeleton. This time, when the sensation of falling snatched him away from the world, he was powerless to stop it.

J.D. crumpled to the floor and slumped against the wall, unable to do anything more than make involuntary twitching movements while he tried to remain connected to himself. Inside, he danced on the deck of a violently rolling ship. One second…two…possibly three…but then his muscles went limp, all balance eluded him, and he fainted dead away.

THAT EVENING

THE PACIFIC MAJESTIC THEATRE—SAN FRANCISCO’S FINEST

A
T TWENTY-ONE
, S
HANE
Nightingale had never felt burdened by an overactive sex drive. Under the right circumstances, free from his usual self-haunting, he could view a woman’s beauty and charm with the animal purity of a lustful desire. But he was fortunate among most men because sexual longing did not drive his days. What there was of it could be self-corrected effectively enough, on the occasional basis.

Thus while he steered Randall through the early arrivals to rendezvous with Vignette and Miss Freshell, he reminded himself that he had no real idea of what level of urge drove Randall’s manhood. A fellow so obviously virile might require the presence of a woman at some point in his life. He might feel that it is something he simply has to have, in order to live. Shane could only assume that something like that was driving Randall now.

In that vein, he encouraged Randall’s best behavior in matters regarding Miss Freshell, in spite of other choices that he might prefer to see Randall make. Even though she lived at her hotel and never stayed for the night, she was still at the house often enough to feel like a boarder. Randall had never become seriously involved with a woman in the years that Shane had known him, so there was nothing for comparison.

And so Shane never said a word to him about his reservations about her, because he owed his life to Randall Blackburn in ways that Blackburn himself would never know. Starting with the day nine years ago when Blackburn inadvertently drove away Shane’s deadly tormentor.

Randall had never wanted anything except for Shane to thrive. Nearly everything that Shane knew about being a good and decent man, he had learned from him. Therefore, if Randall needed this powdered creature in his life, that was it. Shane could never do anything to spoil whatever happiness Miss Freshell might bring.

So he made sure that Randall intersected with Vignette and Miss Freshell, who arrived as scheduled in the theatre lobby. At Shane’s prompting, Randall had already picked up their tickets. Miss Freshell was greeted by her fiancé before the show so that she did not have to go stand in the will-call line, and was personally escorted to her seat, along with Vignette, by both men together.

Miss Freshell beamed so brightly with pleasure at this treatment that Randall finally grasped the concept. His eyes widened and a smile crossed his face. He glanced at Shane and wiggled his eyebrows. Shane snorted back a repressed laugh.

When the two women reached their seats, Shane and Blackburn dropped them there to wait for the show to begin while the men began their duties for Duncan.

Shane resumed his place at the front of the house, discreetly looking back up the aisles and studying the audience members while they filed in. Randall was at the back wall, watching from behind.

Shane was so grateful for the chance to be of use to Randall, to work at his side, that he would gladly accompany him on any duty at all. Nevertheless, they were saddled with a completely unreasonable goal for this performance. He could understand the frustration that Randall had to be feeling, in spite of doing a good job of hiding it. Randall had been abandoned to this assignment by an angry boss, and now was under orders from this Mr. Duncan, a man whose judgment might be reasonable or might not. As for that moment, their job was nothing more difficult than to look out for anybody who might want to do harm to Duncan, by whatever means, at any point during the night. That was all.

Is that man over there raising a cigar, or does he have a derringer in his hand? What is under that lady’s tall hat?

Shane’s biggest challenge in this was that he could all too easily imagine such outbursts of personal violence, and the many reasons for them, coming from practically anybody. He had found that so far in his life, the passing of nine years since the Nightingale murders had done nothing to dim their impact upon him.

If we really had the power to see so deeply into a crowd of strangers, we would be the ones performing up on the stage.

On the other hand, Duncan claimed to be doing that very thing when he was “reading” an audience. Could he really do that, Shane wondered, without any sort of stage trickery? If so, was that why the man seemed to have no idea that his request to Randall was so unusual?

Or was it that Duncan was not willing to trust his own “abilities”—not with his own life on the line—and that Randall and Shane were there to compensate for skills that the great Master Mesmerist did not really have?

No answer was likely to appear before the evening’s performance got started. The theatre was quickly filling up. Shane felt countless impressions beginning to overwhelm him. The sheer number of people presented a crushing burden on observational skills that he had never employed on a scale so large as this.

He soon he forgot about everything else, lost in the sensation of walking into a strong headwind formed by countless impressions.

“Ten minutes, Mr. Duncan!” came the cheerful voice of the stage manager through the locked dressing room door.

“Thank you!” J.D. called back, according to standard backstage protocol. With that, he was now duly warned of the impending curtain time, and management had heard his confirmation. That would satisfy them for the moment.

The dressing room had no window, so with the door shut and bolted, nobody could see him pacing before the open dressing room closet with the dead female occupant slumped at the bottom.

He had only been unconscious for a minute or less, and even though he woke up blissfully ignorant of what it was that had scared him in the first place, that moment of innocence vanished as soon as he opened his eyes. He found himself staring directly at the young woman’s blue and gray body.

At that moment, J.D. saw all his self-imposed rules about avoiding the elixir before a show going out the dressing room’s nonexistent window. He went for his makeup kit and saw with relief that it had not been violated.

There was no way to know why this girl was in here taking his powder. But she had obviously experimented with too much of it and died as a result. He seized the opportunity to jolt his own mind beyond the shock of the situation, using the magic of the elixir.

Dr. Alzheimer had been kind to J.D. after the diagnosis. He connected him with one of the chemical engineers who worked on developing the new substance, abbreviated MDMA, then got him his large supply. He showed him how to use it to hold off the disease’s symptoms, to keep his memory working longer and to burn through the fog—but all of it was predicated upon the repeated warning that too much elixir could stop the heart. Stop it cold.

Since his own heart was not stopped by the renewed sight of the body—as it easily could have been—he figured that he was strong enough to justify prescribing a double dose for himself, show or no show. He needed a clear head. He needed to either run from this horror or think a whole series of very smart and clearheaded things to do in response to this. As it was, shock had fogged his brain so terribly that he could scarcely remain in the moment and form some sort of a plan, without an extra boost.

Still the clock, he knew too well, would not stop ticking. An audience was coming. Some were already there.

He spooned the elixir directly into his mouth while he resumed pacing. Clarity. He needed clarity. He needed to know what happened, but even more than that, he needed to know what in the hell to do with a dead body in the closet at ten minutes before curtain time.

The elixir’s effects came on quickly because he was already scared, with his heart thumping away. Or was it the expectation? The old magic of expectation.

He could already feel his thoughts clearing a bit. His memory felt strong enough, and his brain did not seem to be locking up on him the way it sometimes could, stiffening like arthritic legs. He took a few deep breaths and asked himself,
Is there a way to deal with this? Is there?

He made himself look at her. Beautiful once, now ash gray of skin and sunken in her features. How long had she been dead? He touched her flesh; no sign of rigor mortis. This was supposed to tell him something, but he could not recall what it was. That question fell into the what-happened category, anyway. He needed to focus on what to
do.

“Five minutes, Mr. Duncan!” came the warning call through his closed and bolted door.

“Thank you!” He threw back the expected reply in a strong voice. Confident. Ready for a fine performance. Absolutely nothing that you would find troubling in here, folks.

That bought him five more minutes. Good, then. They were all still with him, so far. Management believed that he was just seeking out his solitude in the final minutes before the show. Why worry? He was in his dressing room, right where he was supposed to be, was he not? He had answered his time calls from the stage manager with energy that was appropriately cheerful and alert. Everything in good shape so far—eh, folks?

He realized that the elixir was already bringing him the magic of sustained optimism, in spite of the lack of any justification for it. Yes, there was a mysterious dead girl in his dressing room closet with his secret powder spread across her mouth and nose. But looking on the bright side, he had almost five minutes to go before showtime, and so far nobody knew a thing.

He breathed deeply, enjoying the feeling of getting too much oxygen to the brain, and breathed even deeper. This was more like it. This was getting to be very, very interesting, now. Dead girl. His powder. Why?

Just an accident on the part of someone who was too curious for her own good? Someone who found out about the elixir and just had to try it?

Who could say what she thought she was taking? He moved close to her and studied her face. She was dressed nicely enough, like a working girl in a store or an office. Her clothing was badly rumpled, missing buttons, torn in a couple of spots. What did that mean? Did it happen to her while she was still alive, or was it somehow done only after death?

She must have died here, hiding like this. Maybe she heard someone coming after she got into his supply. Then of course it hit him.

His supply traveled with him, and he had not arrived until late that afternoon. She did not make her way into the closet while J.D. was in the theatre, which meant that she was already in there when he arrived.

Meaning that if she had the elixir, she brought it in with her. Meaning also that she was the one who broke in, the last time!

Of course! J.D. was jubilant! Mystery solved! Somehow, she had found the elixir the last time. She took some away with her after robbing him, but she liked it and returned for more today. She took the last of her own while she waited for him to arrive, waited in the closet after sneaking into the theatre, and hadn’t realized that she was taking too much.

Her heart gave out under the sheer power of her dose, just as the chemist had warned J.D. that it could do. “Anybody,” the man had emphasized to him. “Anybody’s heart will stop, with too much. It does not matter if you are young and healthy.”

And as if to underscore the point, there was a cautionary tale played out, right there on the floor.

“Two minutes, Mr. Duncan!” came the stage manager’s voice. “Overture starting up!”

“Yes indeed!” J.D. hollered back, but accidentally put far too much energy into it, like a man shouting across a mountain canyon. He clapped his hand over his mouth, but it was too late to bring it back.
Oh well, bigger fish to fry.

Moving fast now, he pulled his empty costume trunk from the corner, flung it open, set it down, bent to the girl’s body, picked it up, surprisingly soft, not stiff, wadded her into the trunk, folded her arms inside, closed the lid, clamped the lock shut, and pocketed the key.

“Dum, dah-dah-DUM-dah DUM!” He hummed at the top of his voice, along with the orchestra’s rousing notes of the overture’s conclusion.

“Mr. Duncan, sir, please!
Time!
” Now the voice sounded concerned.

But this time, J.D. flung open the door and offered his best smile to the waiting, fidgety stage manager.

“Yes indeed! Time to thrill and amaze!”

He hurried across the backstage area and into the offstage wings, leaving the mystery girl safely locked inside his costume trunk for the duration of his performance. Whatever her story might happen to be, she was not under any circumstances going to stow away in his life and bring him down in some terrible scandal.

Did he not have enough troubles? His afflicted brain was rotting out from underneath him. It was all happening just the way that the doctor had warned him. At first, the elixir gave him a slight advantage, made his performances godlike. Later, it only brought him up to his own standard.

The jumping shadows appeared, pulling at his peripheral vision, and he knew that the faces of the audience were again going to look as if they were painted onto balloons. But at least he had already worked under the influence of a heavy dose once before, and gotten away with it.