The Hidden Man (3 page)

“Now you’re starting to get it, Detective! You are going to be my messenger to your ‘daughter,’ who wouldn’t be trying such nonsense if
you
had raised her right. And for the next year, the frustrations will go home with you every night.”

“Sir, any personal grievance you feel toward her is—”

“
You
will pay on her behalf, every day, and at night when you go home, I believe that you will eventually make
her
pay. Isn’t that perfect? It will appear to her as if she got away with her little game, just because the department wants to avoid publicity. But she will eventually feel the consequences. And you have been elected to bring them back to her.”

“Captain. You were deliberately goading me over my family.”

The captain spurted another short and nasty laugh. “What the hell do you do over in that house of yours? And what have you been telling those young people? Who told her it was all right to behave that way?”

“Does she know the game is over?”

“
You
are going to tell her it’s over. And also that she will never show up around a precinct house in this city again, or we will arrest her on every horseshit charge that the boys in booking can dream up. Beyond that, let her think she’s getting away with this, if you want to indulge her. Personally, I think she ought to have to sleep out on the porch for a few months.”

“I don’t treat her like that.”

“That much is obvious. Possibly the main problem. So you go right ahead and give her a pat on the back for fooling the department. I’m gonna bet that after you spend a couple weeks following around some stage performer, you’ll be filling her life with the kind of misery she deserves.”

“But she didn’t do any harm, right? She didn’t damage anything?”

“Goddamn it, Blackburn, the department’s reputation is something! We don’t need to have it tarnished.”

“I’m sure she’d be willing to offer an apology,” Blackburn said, not at all certain that Vignette would do any such thing.

“Here’s what you do,” Merced countered. “As soon as the show ends, report to Mr. Duncan and remain with him until he dismisses you tonight. He’ll give you your schedule for the rest of the week.”

“Sir, there’s got to be a better way to—”

“
I’m
not going to be the one to punish her, Detective.” Captain Merced fired up a large wooden match. He put a fresh cigar in his mouth and lit it, then tossed the match to the floor and ground it out with his heel. He finally permitted all his outrage and contempt to flash out in a feral grin.

“You are.” This time he exhaled a thick cloud that filled the alcove. He left it behind him when he walked out.

Blackburn stood motionless, stunned. He refused to allow himself to react.
If you begin moving—a single move—your legs will take over, and in ten seconds you will catch him and your hands will be around his throat.

He was helpless against his protective instincts toward Shane and Vignette. The sound of anyone speaking a word against either of them cut him to the bone. Now it was clear that Merced had showed up tonight already determined to pull this trick, whether Blackburn had been stupid enough to let the captain bait him or not.

In which case, Blackburn realized that he probably could have gotten away with punching the little gnome, as long as it didn’t leave a mark. Maybe in the stomach.

He stood for a few more seconds, fearing that Merced might pop back into the alcove to dig in one last word. But when Blackburn finally allowed himself to step outside, the hallway was empty.

He sighed. This news about Vignette was too much. There was more here than he could sort out anytime soon. He had to push her out of his thoughts until he could get home and find out what had actually happened.

Until then, he would have to deliberately keep himself busy with the job at hand. The first thing to do after the show would be to take issue with the lauded personage of James “J.D.” Duncan about this job as a grown man’s nanny.

In a burst of optimism, he wondered whether he might meet with this Duncan fellow and simply convince him that a homicide detective was not really the optimum choice for an entertainer’s personal body guard. After all, there was no reason for a stranger to request Blackburn, specifically. Maybe the man just wanted to be assured that he would be coddled by somebody who was really good at it, and since he had the city forces on his side, he requested a detective. With a little luck, the man might be made to understand that this was an improper use of Blackburn’s skills.

One thing at a time.

And then, if he could do a solid job of unraveling this ball of knots with Duncan, perhaps he might clear his head enough to go home and deal with Vignette. He tried to visualize himself asking her what the hell happened over at the cop school, and doing it some way that would not cause her to react by folding herself up into a silent box. She was capable of staying there for days, for weeks.

One thing at a time.

The most important thing was to avoid chasing down Captain Merced and throttling the arrogant bastard for casting such contempt onto Blackburn’s family. He was incredulous that the man would think that just because Blackburn was thrown into a ridiculous assignment, he would react by doing Merced’s dirty work for him, that he would blame Vignette for the miserable duty and take out his job frustrations on her.

One thing at a time.

He made a conscious effort to bolster himself with a deep breath, then headed downstairs to look for an usher to show him backstage. There, he could grab this Duncan fellow as soon as he finished his performance, and calmly—oh, so calmly—set him straight.

ALSO SIMULTANEOUSLY

THE PACIFIC MAJESTIC THEATRE—SAN FRANCISCO’S FINEST

T
HE TALL YOUNG MAN OF
twenty-one with the dark hair and slight build stood in the darkness along the side wall of the theatre. His position was down close to the front of the stage, and he stared up at James “J.D.” Duncan with a smile of fascination.

Shane Nightingale had spent the first few minutes of the show feeling too worried over what might be going on with Randall upstairs to be able to pay much attention to the stage show. But then at some early point, this Duncan fellow abruptly stopped his stage patter and took a long pause…before stepping to the front. It was odd enough to grab Shane’s attention.

From there, Duncan began to speak over the footlights and out to the audience. He moved his penetrating gaze over them all, as if each and every one of them was a beloved member of his closest family. That increased Shane’s attention right away; until that moment, the showman had struck Shane as being reluctant even to look at the audience. And from that moment onward, Shane’s interest was rewarded. The entire performance somehow tilted off center.

It was a subtle shift, but something suddenly felt dangerously out of place to Shane. The sensation was so potent that it rattled his body with a shiver.

Duncan had captured Shane’s attention by this point. The showman owned it altogether once he opened his mouth.

“My dear ladies—my gentle men: I must reveal to you the absolute truth!”

The legendary mesmerist held up his hands, palms out: a liar no more.

“I have just this instant realized that the best way to honor the forthcoming opening day of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is for me to cease this common performance of things. Hah—‘things.’ Things anyone will be able to see throughout the exposition. Not unworthy things, to be sure. Nonetheless, matters perhaps best left to another day. The healing sessions? Well and good, but not tonight. The large-scale demonstrations? I am always eager to do them, but they too must wait. Because I understand that what
this
august gathering truly deserves tonight, truly cries out for tonight in the depths of your spirits, is to
See the Veil Lifted!
Look behind the ordinary illusions and learn how to work with them yourselves!

The audience released a collective gasp of delight and a roll of excited applause. He waited for them to get it all out before he continued.

“Tonight, I will not merely open up the energy that resides inside us all; I will show you how to do it yourselves! Not to eat a fish, but to catch a fish! This audience deserves a
one time only
opportunity to witness
secret exercises
such as I
personally perform
prior to my greatest and most challenging undertakings in the Mesmeric Arts!”

Another roll of thrilled applause rose up from the house. Shane felt waves of anticipation run through the theatre like a sudden strong breeze. He had to stop himself from laughing out loud. Here was this James Duncan, who for all the world struck Shane as a glorified carnival act, yet he was being revered by an audience of the city’s top social register—all on nothing more than the combination of advance publicity and strange onstage behavior.

Whenever Shane glanced over at the faces of the audience, it was plain that the man up there on the stage was doing a thorough job of getting away with all of it. But then, for the next several minutes, Duncan did little more than make odd singing and breathing noises while demonstrating all sorts of stretching exercises. He seemed to be flexible and was capable of some unusual contortions, which he repeatedly invited the audience to remember and copy in the privacy of their own homes. From their beaming faces and nodding heads, the audience gave Shane the impression that later at home, yes indeed, they would all be sticking their heads under at least one leg.

But before long, Shane found himself feeling troubled that Duncan’s “explanations” for his bizarre physicality did not seem to connect to anything. All Shane heard were what sounded like the products of an ungoverned stream of consciousness.

Nevertheless, whenever he turned back to look at the faces in the house, every one of them watched Duncan, enraptured. They all appeared to be convinced that they were truly learning “secrets of the universe” and demonstrations of mesmerism.

Meanwhile, Duncan was up there, sweating like a fever victim, wild-eyed, face flushed. The inside of his upper lip continually stuck to his top front teeth, while he talked in what seemed to be a long stream of instructions: how to make this particular move, or how to breathe in this particular pattern, in order to create some particular effect in his secret work.

Shane could not suppress a wide grin. This evening was turning out to be a lot more fun than he had expected. While the audience listened to Duncan’s ranting, each person was clearly hearing his or her own variations of “inspirational” content.

Shane doubted that any two members of the audience would tell the same story about what they “learned” at this special presentation, but they were all primed to go home satisfied. He had never seen a clearer example of crowd hypnosis. Even though Duncan claimed that he was giving up his planned demonstrations of group hypnosis in order to reveal his methods and exercises, the audience was unwittingly acting along in perfect group hypnosis itself, supplying their own meanings to his jumbled patter. Duncan had them mesmerized, after all.

Shane could hardly believe his luck. All he had expected to do was accompany Blackburn to the theatre, then join him for whatever remained of the show. He had seen the posters plastered around the city in recent days, and had a vague idea of what James Duncan’s show would be like, but he never expected to be treated to such a potent demonstration of one man’s mental control over a large crowd of strangers.

He could only stare in admiring wonder. In the slow years since Shane’s terrible final night in the Nightingale house, he had managed to develop enough of a social veneer that he could function in most adult environments, if for short periods of time. But no matter how well he did it, he was never more than a visiting stranger, anywhere he went. He marveled at the amount of power that someone like James Duncan could hold in such abundance, when Shane himself had so little.

However, he also could not help wondering if that man up on the stage had the faintest inkling of what he was actually talking about. Duncan was continuing to rattle through his thoughts on all sorts of arcane subjects—always behaving as if he were formulating deep pronouncements. But at no point did he ever actually come out and say much of anything.

Shane had never seen anybody do this so well, or imagined anyone being so blatant about it. It reminded him of watching one of the martial arts masters down in Chinatown; everything was mixed into a flurry of spinning and thrusting. False starts, digressions, interjections—the man never paused long enough for any of it to settle. He blew past meaning through sheer emotional power. The intensity of his delivery was especially remarkable; he reminded Shane of a man pleading for his life.

Shane may have been ignorant of Duncan’s method, but he loved observing his skill and he was enthralled by the showman’s rambling double-talk. He decided that if Randall didn’t show up by the time Duncan’s show ended, he would just wait around for him backstage and look for an excuse to meet Duncan early.

Meanwhile, he felt like a field biologist who has just discovered an entirely new species. In his experience, anyone who could be so open and friendly and smooth in front of a crowd usually turned out to be quiet and withdrawn in private company, even somewhat cranky. But with the level of onstage energy that Duncan possessed, who could predict how high his flame would burn, offstage?

After witnessing James Duncan’s public persona and watching him herd a crowd of sophisticates with fancy invisible whips, Shane was eager to observe the man himself. Possibly even learn something that would allow him to experience more of his own social strengths and fewer of his weaknesses.