The Hidden Man (13 page)

THE FOLLOWING DAY

B
Y THE TIME THAT
next morning rolled toward noon, the dead space behind the fake cliff was becoming too creepy even for the nondescript man. Once the girl was gone and he was alone there again, the place lost its meaning to him. And now the emptiness was a constant reminder that every hour spent alone in there was an hour wasted by not accomplishing his mission.

By this point, the nondescript man had whittled his life down to a picture of simplicity. Work, eat, sleep, hide. Lay low, avoid people, stalk Duncan just as a big game hunter stalks a man-eating lion. He was unstoppable in this mission, because he did not care if he died in carrying it out. He had a hard time trying to picture life after the mission anyway.

The broken pipe or whatever it was under the floor of the Hall of Science was doing nothing to improve things; there was now a decidedly wet feeling to the mortar flooring. It seeped in from below, rising so evenly that he could not tell anything about its source.

Mold was beginning to show on the underside of the rock outcropping. Like everything else, the “rock outcropping” was made out of a gluelike mortar that was smeared and shaped over wooden forms and support beams. The mold seemed to find the substance to be an inviting home.

He knew, along with most of the workers and none of the public, that this mortar over wooden supports formed every cubic yard of the exposition’s brand-new architecture. There were only a few rare exceptions, such as the Oregon State Pavilion, a copy of the ancient Greek Parthenon built entirely out of Oregon logs. Otherwise, pavilion after pavilion was wood and glue, stretched and painted to look like anything you want it to be. It was the same with nearly all the architecture built upon this brand-new land.

The brand-new land was also brand-new landfill, composed of the city’s rubble from the Great Earthquake and fires, just nine years earlier. That disaster had struck a city that was brand-new itself, at the time that it crumbled under the earthquake’s powers. Thus even though the pulverized newness beneath every visitor at the exposition was beautifully masked, the essence of failed newness was everywhere.

Instinct alone had compelled him to hole up in that dank, dark place while the same events that he wanted to read about in the newspaper today played themselves out. It did not matter that he could not explain his reasoning about why he did not check into a rooming house or maybe even splurge on a decent hotel room for a night or two, to make himself comfortable while certain events unfolded. He only knew that the idea of handling things in that luxuriant way would have given him a superstitious feeling, a feeling that he would tempt Fate if he dared to make himself so comfortable while he was on his mission.

Suffering alone in the darkness was a time-honored way of petitioning the Lord to grant your wishes. Perhaps he had overdone it by hiding in the dead space? Buyer’s remorse flashed through him; he would have loved to get those hours back. Especially since he had already established that the Lord was known to be an unreliable partner, prone to absenteeism.

When he could stand it no more in the dead space, he told himself that enough time had passed for the day’s newspapers to have the story. Perhaps he could venture out?

Why not? he had to ask. He sneaked out the concealed door and quickly stepped away from the fake cliff and fake vegetation. None of the people milling around looked in his direction, and he was out of the display area in no time.

Even a man on a mission could excuse a short break for some coffee, maybe eggs and toast, and of course, most of all, a good morning paper to read. He only wound up at The Sea Mist restaurant because he had followed Duncan there, that last time. Otherwise he would not have been aware of the place. He had done very little exploring around the city, even though he arrived in San Francisco nearly two months before Duncan himself.

He had made his way to the port city as soon as Duncan’s booking for the exposition was set. Once he arrived, he assumed the life of an ordinary workingman. That existence consisted mostly of labor.

But he was a patient warrior. Waiting was simply part of his mission. Waiting and blending in and establishing a genuine presence. It worked in unpredictable ways. He had no idea that his desire to give orders instead of take them would get him promoted to crew chief, back when he signed on to the vast construction team. And he could not have known that the promotion would ultimately present him with the opportunity of this hidden place.

All he knew was that it felt right to be forever pressing forward with things, with everything, as long they somehow pushed him toward Duncan. Meanwhile, the communal shower and the workers’ laundry allowed him to remain clean enough to pass in polite company. He understood the value of a generally presentable personage when traveling incognito.

And so while he walked out of the fairgrounds and into the city, the Sea Mist restaurant seemed as good a place as any to break his long fast. He would do so in the disguise of a simple workingman, while reading all about the delectable details of Duncan’s surprise encounter with the well-planted body of Revenge girl.

He bought a paper at a newsstand when he neared the restaurant, but forced himself to proceed on into the establishment without reading any of it, not even the headlines. When the waiter came to take his order, he recognized the dark-haired young man—the same fellow who had walked away from the restaurant the other day with J.D. and that big police type. He clearly recalled the three of them leaving the place together.

He could still see their image, walking down the sidewalk: the dark-haired young waiter, reed thin; the police type, dangerous looking; and the great Master Mesmerist himself. Three friends, out on the town. A last walk.

So for now, he carefully kept his attitude neutral while he dealt with the young waiter. There was no point in drawing attention, and for him, hiding in plain sight was effortless. Most of the time it was a far greater challenge to make himself remembered.

Still, the nondescript man slipped into his most opaque bubble and willed the waiter to serve him without remembering his face. Like a snake that sees in the dark, he sensed the lack of energy in the waiter’s eyes. He could feel that he was passing beneath the young man’s attention.

He felt the tantalizing pull of the news article in every fiber of himself. Still, his discipline was such that it was only after he was comfortable in the cozy restaurant and safe inside his protective bubble of anonymity that he opened the paper and greeted the day’s news about Duncan’s big pre–Opening Night show, less than twenty-four hours earlier.

Shane hardly noticed his first customer for that day’s lunch shift: single fellow, big man. In his thoughts, Shane was absorbed in the question of why Vignette was so compelled to take risks. The most she had ever been able to tell him about it was that she did it when she felt suffocated to the point that she was going to tear her own skin off unless she did something outrageous. Something that would break through and let her breathe.

He was still daydreaming and putting on a fresh pot of coffee when his sole customer jumped up from the table, moving so sharply that he might have been choking on his complimentary bread.

The motion caught Shane’s attention. The man did not utter a word, but his eyes suddenly bugged out while he stared at the newspaper that he was holding. He slowly stood up. It was only after a moment that he seemed to wake up. He abruptly looked around, then sat back down again, making a little show out of refolding the paper in an imitation of calmness.

Shane could see that the man’s breath was heaving while he held the edge of the table with both hands. His eyes rapidly darted around without pausing, seeking something that they did not seem to find.

It all registered in Shane’s attention, but did not seem to mean much. The man might have been reacting to some outrageous political article. Or maybe he had just found out that he lost a big bet on a horse race.

Then, when Mr. Duncan came in and called Shane over to one of the back booths, the customer’s astonished gaze moved from the newspaper article to Duncan’s face. Shane hardly noticed; Duncan was already a local celebrity. He could tell that the customer was fighting the urge to stare. Most civilized people would do the same thing. He gave it no more notice than that, and forgot about the man.

“Sit down,” Duncan instructed him from his seat in the booth.

“We’re not supposed to sit down on the job, Mr. Duncan.”

Duncan took a deep breath while he rubbed his hand all over his face. He looked up at Shane with a brief smile, then grabbed Shane’s upper arm and pulled him into the booth.

“I persuaded the police to rig your home with a telephone so that I could communicate with Detective Blackburn, but no one answers today. They answer, I think, but they don’t speak.”

“I was out this morning.”

“Someone else, then. They pick up the line, then nothing.”

“I can ask.”

“Good. That’s not why I’m here. This is too dangerous to put over an open telephone line, anyway. You know that the telephone operators can listen right in on those calls, don’t you? Any time that they want to! Think about that!”

“I’ve only used a telephone a few times, so far. There’s nothing for me to—”

“All right, listen.” Duncan dropped his voice level and fixed his eyes on him. “I’m telling you this in person because no one else is supposed to know. For tonight’s opening, I am going to hire two of the stagehands. They’re going to do their regular jobs, but also watch everything the whole time. Backstage. I’ll tell them they can earn a big bonus if they find something. You know. Whoever’s doing this.”

“Doing what, Mr. Duncan?”

Duncan appeared to consider whether he might answer, but then his face clouded. “Nothing. I mean, whoever it is who might want to take some sort of deadly action.”

Shane leaned across the table and nearly whispered, “Sir, it’s very plain that you’ve got something on your mind that you are not telling us.”

“Mr. Nightingale, please don’t bother to—”

“I respect a man’s right to privacy, Mr. Duncan, but I’ve got to tell you that you give me the distinct impression of a man who knows something that could help us to do the
very thing
that you want us to do. But for some strange reason, you choose not to tell us.”

Duncan’s face formed a heavy smile.

“I am sorry if it appears that way, Mr. Nightingale.”

Shane just looked at him.

“At any rate, nobody else is to know this: You and the detective will cover the audience, and my men will cover the backstage area, for each show.”

“All right, Mr. Duncan,” Shane said, rising. “I’ll tell him.”

“I’ll be performing tonight at the Palace of Fine Arts, four fifteen-minute shows in a row, with ten minutes between each one. You’ll need to watch all four audiences, going in and coming out.”

“With only ten minutes to clear the area and bring in more people?”

“It’s a small venue, seats a hundred and fifty. They set up the chairs, build the whole set out of curtains and rods and poles. You could clear everything out in ten minutes, people included. My men will keep everyone away, backstage.”

“Good enough. I’ll make sure we’re both there by eight-thirty, if that’s all right.”

“Yes, but tell him in person!” Duncan insisted. “Not on the telephone!”

“From me to him.” Shane gave him a wave, just to move the older man along, then headed off to the kitchen in hopes that Duncan would leave. The thought of hiding out for a while by helping out the dish jockeys with the rinsing and washing seemed pretty good.

Duncan looked different today. He had lost the electrical glow in his eyes. He seemed about four inches smaller and twenty pounds lighter. There was a deep fatigue about him that Shane had not seen in him before. He got the impression of the man as a half-filled balloon, and wondered how he planned to give four opening-night performances that evening, even if the shows were short.

In the showman’s depleted state, he painfully reminded Shane of himself, back in the Nightingale house. Shane had reached that same beaten-down point when he finally crawled out from his hiding place in the kitchen pantry and struggled to his feet among the bodies, in a house that would soon go up in flames.

Everything inside him would resist any hint of moving in that direction again. If necessary, his legs would stand and run in the other direction, even while he was sleeping.

HOURS LATER

BACK AT THE FAIRGROUNDS

T
HE NONDESCRIPT MAN USED UP
the last of the fading afternoon light in a fast hike around the exposition grounds while anger and disbelief rotated through his brain. The Divine conspiracy against him was obviously increasing its reach, because the newspaper had said nothing—
nothing!
—about a missing person report for a young woman her age.

That much might have been tolerable, if it were only that much. It had not been long since she had disappeared, and who knew what kind of family she came from? (Maybe they were concerned people, but then, maybe not. Fair enough.) But the real stab in the heart was that the paper also said
nothing
about Duncan, other than to provide a pleasant little review of his performance.

To judge from the cursed news article, all that happened at the theatre was a nice little family show. Absolutely nothing suspicious in old J.D.’s dressing room, no sirree. According to the review, nothing whatsoever threw the Great Mesmerist off his game. A lovely time was had by all.

Except for a certain nondescript man who knew for a fact that there was a dead body in Duncan’s closet all through the show. It was simply not believable that one, the stagehands; two, the star himself; and three, the cleaning crew,
all
somehow missed that tiny detail backstage.

He wanted to scream. He needed to scream, just the way that Revenge girl had: into a nice tight gag that would hold in all the sound. With no such release possible, he pressed on with his walk-and-mutter all around the exposition grounds.

He even hiked all the way up and down the Zone, twice. The sixteen-block strip of amusements and rides greeted visitors at the front gate and led them into the main fairgrounds. He could move around the Zone unchallenged, since his work pass hung on a string around his neck, right out where anybody could see it. A workingman. People left him alone. Once, a confused delivery boy tried to stop him to ask directions, but he pretended not to hear and kept on walking.

Visitors brushed by him in a thin but steady flow. Their eyes were completely out of focus when it came to recognizing potential danger from someone like him. The feel of their excitement was nearly contagious. These early visitors were additionally eager for the coming opening ceremony, beginning as soon as darkness fell. The president of the United States himself would be turning on the electric power to the fairgrounds,
all the way from Washington, D.C.!

Rumors of fakery abounded throughout the city. It was obvious that no such thing was possible. People who knew of no other form of municipal power except natural gas speculated that the light switch must be located somewhere on the fairgrounds, and that the president was simply in on the joke by agreeing to keep up the illusion for the national prestige.

Otherwise think of the waste! Think of the waste!

The rumormongers pictured the entire flow of electrical energy being directed around the country from the generators, to Washington, and then back to San Francisco, the way that a flow of gas would be—instead of being activated by one remotely powered switch.

Others found both possibilities intriguing. Either the feat was impossible and represented an international hoax, or it was real, against apparent logic. If so, it would only prove itself to be another of the miracles of science that marked these soaring times.

The public’s anticipation and excitement made them beautiful. They sometimes displayed happiness to the extent that he physically hungered for the chance to crush it in his bare hands.

If he could spot one who was beautiful enough to be worth the risk of capturing, then the very act of snatching her and getting her back to the dead space would be nearly as good as anything that came afterward. He could easily vent enough of his rage through the victim’s fear and pain that he would be able to survive another day to continue his actual mission. Duncan’s uncanny luck or whatever it was could not last, and thus it could not prevent the inevitable. The mission remained.

He had just reached the top end of the Zone for the third time and was about to turn around again when he noticed a single-story pavilion, the “Ladies’ Hospitality League Center.”

No one noticed that the nondescript man paused to observe the people who were wandering in and out of the place. Some of them emerged carrying little souvenir mugs filled with steaming cider. He smelled the hot cinnamon when one young couple strolled by, happily sipping away.

Disgust overwhelmed him. Unmannered pigs, stuffing themselves. He took a good look around. As quickly as that, the visitors were not beautiful anymore. Some of them needed a good mud hole to roll in. He felt such a compelling need to crush the complacency out of one of them, just the right one of them, that it became a sharp pain under his ribs.

He turned again toward the Ladies’ Hospitality League. An interesting place. There ladies were charged with the job of showing hospitality, meaning that they were likely to be less standoffish than regular women. In a place like that, his lack of an appearance would not count against him; it was their job to notice him.

One would be enough, as long as she was the right one.

He moved toward the door in an utterly nondescript fashion. There was no sense in dropping the cloak until it was time to get one of the hospitality ladies to see him. Not that the cloak always came off when he wanted it to, but that was something else.

Blackburn stopped at the door to Vignette’s room. She was seated atop the bed with her shoes off, reading her new hardback copy of
Huckleberry Finn.
He tapped lightly on the doorsill.

“Is that the one that came in the mail last week?”

“Yep. They send a different one every month unless I write and tell them to stop.”

“I’ve read that one. The character of Huck reminds me of you.”

“He what?”

“Well, in spirit, I mean. Some people have to bust out from the way that things are in their lives.”

She searched for a response, but every suggestion her brain provided was sticky and complex and did nothing to move the awkward moment along. The best she could come up with was “Well, you’re about to go?”

He laughed. “Yeah. I’m meeting Shane at the restaurant, maybe take him somewhere for dinner before we have to show up at the fairgrounds.”

“She said that there’s going to be all sorts of food there. They give it away.”

“That’s it, then. We’re just doing an hour or two with Duncan at the Palace of Fine Arts, then I guess we’ll come on home. Want me to stop by the Hospitality League on the way out?”

“No, we might be gone already. They close up at ten o’clock. I’ll just…” she sighed. “I’ll see you guys back here.”

Blackburn grinned. “You
might
enjoy meeting those women, you know.”

She offered a wan smile. He chuckled and walked over to her, pecked her on the cheek, then headed for the door.

“One thing, though,” he added. “Don’t say anything to Miss Freshell, but I can’t stop feeling interested in exactly how the department found out about you. Curiosity, I guess. I just called the Fairmont Hotel on the telephone, how about that? I left a message with the bell captain to post on her door after she leaves. I want her to meet me in the restaurant there after the park closes tonight. So I’ll be home late.”

“Why keep it a secret from her until she gets back?”

“Old habits, I guess.”

“What habits?”

“Well, not that it means…in this case…You don’t want to give people too much time to think things over before you talk to them. If you can avoid it.”

“Mmm. But that really applies more to your detective work than your personal life. Yes?”

“Old habits.”

“It’s about me, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s about her and me, and you.”

“All right. Good. But it’s still pretty late for a social visit.”

“This one’s overdue. Anyway, Mr. Duncan tells me that he tried to place a call to this number here, today. He thought someone answered but wouldn’t say anything.”

“I don’t like the things. A bell tells you what to do. Just because a bell rings, you have to stop and pick up the telephone receiver and talk to whoever wants to call you and interrupt what you’re doing.”

“You answered it, then?”

“I picked it up. What are you supposed to say when you pick it up? Nobody told me. I’ve seen people use them and yell things like ‘Ahoy!’ and ‘Yoo-hoo!’ They sound like idiots.”

“Just say ‘hello.’ Or say your name, that’s good enough.”

“Anytime the damn thing rings? I have to stop and take messages from just anybody who happens to—”

“No, Vignette! You can ignore it. Just don’t pick up the receiver and say nothing and then hang up again. All right?”

“I was hoping they could take a hint.”

“Vignette.”

“All right.”

“And be cooperative with Miss Freshell. Treat her with respect.”

“Randall, I promise you, I realize that she is your fiancée. I never allow myself to forget it.”

“My God, do this for me, Vignette! It matters. It matters, or I wouldn’t ask.”

She paused, then sighed. “All right, Daddy,” she replied with an impish grin. “But just because you asked me so nice.”

“Good, then,” he smiled and turned to go. “Last thing…”

“Don’t call you ‘Daddy’?”

“Thank you.”