The Spirit Cabinet (11 page)

“Lois Sweet,” whispered Lois Sweet.

“And where you from?”

“Fort Dix, New Jersey.”

Jurgen produced a deck of cards and executed a couple of flourishes. This was his speciality as far as cards went, turning the deck into a fan that encircled his hand evenly and perfectly, or stretching out the packet until the cards in the middle seemed suspended in nothingness. He stared into Lois Sweet’s eyes as he did this. “Okay, tell you what we going to do, Lois.”

“Hoo boy!” sang out Rudolfo, although he was supposed to wait until after Jurgen’s next statement.

“You going to name one card, okay? You just say name out loud.”

“Six of spades.”

Jurgen abruptly tossed the cards into the air. As they fluttered and turned he stabbed his hand upwards. The swarm of cards disappeared, fifty-one of them tumbling to the stage. Jurgen held the fifty-second between his thick fingers. He showed the face first to the audience—who roared appreciatively at the sight of the six of spades—and then he showed it to Lois.

“My goodness,” she said. She covered her heart with both hands.

“Stick,” muttered Preston.

“Okay, Lois,” said Jurgen, producing a thick-tipped felt pen, “we going to sign this for you.” Jurgen scrawled a hasty version of his name on the face of the card and then flipped the ducat
and the pen to his partner. Rudolfo somewhat laboriously produced his signature. Then both men leaned forward and kissed Lois on her cheeks. “Thanks for coming up …” began Jurgen, and then he and Rudolfo finished with their eerie simultaneity, “… for Up Close and Personal!”

They clapped their hands and darkness and smoke claimed the stage. Preston recognized the new music, an ululation that filled the auditorium; it was Mendelssohn’s
Italian Symphony
, formerly spritely, now manic. Rudolfo and Jurgen both executed balletic leaps, but their leaps had no apex; both continued upwards until they were gone from sight.

Miranda rushed onto the stage, dressed in some handkerchiefs. She twirled and gyrated, dislodging these tiny draperies, flashing patches of naked skin. Preston squirmed in his seat and tugged the material away from his crotch to give himself a bit more room. Jurgen and Rudolfo now reappeared—their costumes seriously abbreviated, tiny bathing suits and silver boots with curled toes—pushing a huge cage. As Jurgen unlocked the door, Rudolfo pounded on the iron bars with his hands, demonstrating their solidity. Miranda climbed into the cage (shifting her hips suddenly to the left, she relocated a couple of handkerchiefs and gave Preston a breathtaking view of flawless buttock) and then Jurgen and Rudolfo encircled the cage with velvet drapery. The cage was no sooner enclosed than the drapery was tugged away, and there, in Miranda’s stead, stood Samson.

“There’s an old chestnut for you,” said Preston.

“Excuse me,” snarled the old woman from Winnipeg. “I am trying to enjoy the show.”

“Sorry.”

“You might be insane,” noted the woman. “Some of the things you say make no sense.
Stick
, for instance. Why did you say
stick?
”

“You know what?” said Preston. “I
am
insane.”

“Thought so!”

The audience gasped as one, and Preston saw that the cornball transformation he had just witnessed was but preamble to a more ambitious illusion. Miranda floated in the air. The handkerchiefs clung to her like seaweed to a lovesick suicide. Miranda hovered above Jurgen and Rudolfo, who both reached up and laid hands upon her—Jurgen taking hold of her head, Rudolfo her feet—and spun her like a helicopter blade. Miranda rotated, airborne, toward the back of the stage, gaining altitude as she went, and came to rest atop the gleaming silver pyramid. Jurgen and Rudolfo pranced over and spun Miranda once more. The point of the pyramid lay just at the small of Miranda’s back and as she turned she settled upon it. The audience—including Preston—sucked in their collective breath, because Miranda continued spinning, unaffected by the laws of physics, and the point of the pyramid drove itself into her back. She was soon turning so quickly that she was just a blur of white linen (spackled by luminous fleshtones) and then the pyramid’s point appeared above her middle, driven cleanly through her perfect body.

As Jurgen stepped forward to receive applause, Rudolfo began to corral and run animals. They appeared from anywhere and everywhere. There were clouds of butterflies, swallowtails and luna moths. There were gangs of African greys and forpus parrotlets. Then came the small mammals—sugar gliders, tenrecs, chinchillas—and finally the big cats, of which the biggest was Samson. Samson went to the front of the stage and allowed his wobbly front legs to buckle, crashing his forequarters onto the stage with a thud. This was his version of a deep bow, and as soon as he’d taken it, Rudolfo and Jurgen came to stand on either side.

Miranda was nowhere to be seen.

The applause was deafening, and Preston joined in with gusto. He even stuck fingers in his mouth and managed a whistle that wet the backs of many heads.

But Kaz (thought Preston) had made a valid point at the auction with his chimps/brain surgery comment. Most of what Jurgen and Rudolfo did was ancient stuff, variations on things created by venerables like Anderson (the Wonderful Wizard of the North), the American Philadelphia, Professor Pinetti and
L’Escamoteur Philippe
. Or else it was little stuff blown up to ridiculous proportions, like the silver ball. Most guys could afford a
tiny
silver ball with a false flap inside, where they could produce or unproduce a ring or something, but only Jurgen and Rudolfo could afford one twelve feet in diameter.

Preston rose from his seat, knocking the little tray that held the drink he’d barely touched. The drink tumbled; Preston rather absentmindedly aimed a finger. The drink slowed, stopped, then reversed, disappearing as it neared Preston’s puffy hand.

“Stop that,” snapped the elderly woman from Winnipeg, clearly annoyed.

“Sorry.”

Still, reflected Preston, it was an impressive show. It had a choreographed austerity that people obviously responded to. In terms of sheer stagecraft—the needles of light, the bastardized music, the costume changes, the exotic animals—it was a pretty good show. But (Preston moved slowly toward the exit, engulfed in a sea of doughy, elderly people) sheer stagecraft is sheer shit. Jurgen and Rudolfo didn’t have a shred of talent between them. Miranda was the magus on that stage. She was the one who slipped unseen into small shadowy places, who appeared suddenly bathed in light, who was impaled upon a pyramid, sacrificed to the small gods of showbiz. And Samson was impressive. The big cat must have crunched himself up pretty good to get into some of the secret places. That silver ball, for example, could only have a hidden compartment of a couple of cubic feet. And come to think of it—Preston snapped his fingers and, as he was now wandering through the wasteland of the Casino, a half-dressed
woman materialized with a tray full of drinks—Samson must have been responsible for the animation of some of the geometric shapes. The bleak shining monoliths and pyramids had moved toward the front of the stage without obvious propulsion. They were then moved around by the boys, and usually yielded up the albino leopard. Preston chuckled. That was clever stuff, a good way to move props
and
sneak the load on stage. Get the load itself to do it.

Preston had only worked with animals once, long ago, as the fifteen-year-old “Presto.” He did a few things with birds, although they often disappointed him. They rarely, once produced from nothingness, flew upwards with exaltation. They more usually crashed to the ground (made as awkward as dodos by domestication) and pecked around, searching for breadcrumbs. Presto had also worked with a rabbit, until that sad day when—entertaining at Courtney Bell’s sixth birthday party—he pulled out a beast that had been claimed by disease. Blood trickled out of the floppy ears. The pink eyes were glazed. Courtney was never the same.

One of the giant doormen pulled open a huge glass door and Preston obediently wandered outside. He peered upwards, trying to see the night sky, wanting to see the stars coalescing into constellations. But, of course, the heavens were obscured by the neon radiance of Las Vegas.

His father, Preston the Magnificent, had worked with animals. Also briefly. He’d had a few exotic birds, an iguana (he claimed it was a miniature dragon and made the thing seem to exhale huge licks of flame) and a tiny dwarf pony. The last was an attempt to inject humour into his act, which was otherwise characterized by dour propriety. Toward the end of his set, Preston the Magnificent would clear his throat and massage his Adam’s apple gingerly. “I’m getting a little hoarse,” he’d declare. Then quickly he’d step aside and the dwarf pony would be standing
there. “Aha!” Preston the Magnificent would shout. “A little horse!” Preston had once counselled his father that there was no need to hit the gag twice, but his father never listened to him.

For the most part, his father had found the animals intractable and insalubrious. Preston remembered very well coming home from school one day and finding the backyard littered with the corpses of exotic birds. The lizard hanging from a tree branch. The little pony had been shot through the head. Preston the Magnificent lay by the pool, stark naked, lost in drunken oblivion.