You Might As Well Die (16 page)

Benchley wondered if this was what Ernie MacGuffin had really wanted. Certainly, MacGuffin had desired popularity and admiration. But from
these
people? Benchley shrugged his shoulders, unable to make sense of it.

The man behind the registration desk asked, “Your name, sir?”

“Robert—”

Lucy elbowed him in the ribs, and Benchley remembered.

“Did I say Robert? How silly of me. That was my mother’s name. The name is Michael Finnegan,” he said, with an attempt at an Irish lilt.

Lucy gave him a warning look. But the man behind the desk nodded deferentially. “Here you are, sir.”

The man handed Benchley a small card with the letter
N
on it.

“What’s this?” Benchley asked. “Where’s the paddle?”

“No paddles, sir. We’ve modernized.”

“I’d say you’ve miniaturized.” He held up the card. “I gather I’m supposed to bid with this?”

“No, sir.” The man looked deferential again. “It’s a totally modern bidding system. All state-of-the-art electronic devices now. You simply push a button.”

Benchley inspected the card carefully for a button. He saw nothing but the letter
N
, printed in black ink.

“I beg your pardon, sir.” The man behind the desk spoke helpfully, pointing in the direction over Benchley’s shoulder. “Behind you, you’ll see a number of bidding devices within the gallery. Yours is marked with the letter
N
. It’s over there—near the back, on the right side. Once the auction begins, you simply push the green button on the device to bid on an item you desire. The auctioneer will acknowledge you by your letter. Discreet, yet much more effective than the antiquated paddle method.”

“How so?”

The man smiled. “Now there’s no question whether a bidder is making a bid—or swatting a fly. That was sometimes a problem with the former paddle system.” The man waited expectantly for a laugh. Benchley didn’t. The man nodded, the smile gone. “Good luck, Mr. Finnegan. And happy bidding.”

“Likewise,” Benchley said, letting Lucy drag him away.

Benchley stopped short. Making a beeline toward them was a handsome, self-assured, middle-aged man with a jaw like the prow of a ship.
Oh dear,
thought Benchley.

“Here comes Horace Liveright,” he whispered to Lucy. “He’s a big-shot publisher in the book world. But
don’t
mention his kidney infection.”

Lucy frowned and muttered, “Why in the world would I mention—”

“Bob!” Liveright smiled and extended a manly hand to Benchley. “How’s things, old boy?”

Benchley decided to copy the man’s collegial gregariousness. “Oh, Horace, old bean. How are you, old kid. Old kidney bean.”

Liveright looked puzzled. Perhaps even perturbed. “Just fine, Bob. How are you? How’s
Vanity Fair
?”

“Not blad,” Benchley said merrily, still shaking Liveright’s hand. “I mean, not bladder. I mean, you know how things go from bad to bladder—I mean, from bladder to worse.”

“Sure.” Liveright detached his hand from Benchley’s, nodded at Lucy and strode away, shaking his head.

“That went just swell,” Lucy said.

“At least you didn’t mention his kidney infection,” Benchley said, mopping his perspiring brow with his handkerchief. “Well-done.”

“Don’t look now,” Lucy muttered. “It’s the heat.”

Benchley lowered his handkerchief to see Captain Church of the New York Police Department hobbling by. Church had a wooden peg leg below his right knee. He had his pants leg cuffed as if to display it.

Benchley stiffened at the sight of him, which caught the police captain’s attention.

Church turned toward him. “Mr. Benchley, is that you?”

“Ha, you’ve got me pegged.” Benchley cut his laugh short and quickly added, “What brings you here, Captain? A police investigation?”

Captain Church ignored this. He scrutinized Lucy. “Miss Goosey?”

“No, no, no,” Benchley interjected, and tried to stand between the policeman and the former stripper. “This is a foreign lady. A duchess, in fact. Duchess County.”

“Duchess
County
?” Church asked. “The same as Dutchess County, the municipality along the Hudson River?”

“Ha!” Benchley had his handkerchief in hand again, patting his profusely sweating brow. “Did I say Duchess County? Silly me. I meant, this is Countess Dutchie. From the Netherlands.”

But Benchley knew this wouldn’t wash. Church folded his arms, looking skeptical and insulted. Benchley couldn’t stand up to cross-examination. He silently hoped for a flood or an earthquake or some other natural disaster to suddenly occur and get him out of this sticky situation. But Church merely took out a notepad and pencil from his inside jacket pocket. He turned and walked away, carefully jotting down something as he glanced over his shoulder at Benchley and Lucy.

“He’s not an art lover,” Benchley said. “He must be here for a reason.”

Lucy sighed. “Let’s find our seats.”

Making their way through the swelling crowd, Benchley halted once more. “Not another one!”

“Now who?” Lucy said.

“See that dapper, silver-haired gent over there? That’s my boss, Frank Crowninshield. He knows I’m not supposed to be here. The lovable old dear assigned me to go to see Houdini tonight.”

“He’s not looking this way,” Lucy said. “He hasn’t seen us yet. Come on.”

She grabbed Benchley’s hand and they hustled through the well-to-do attendees, moving toward the back of the auditorium. They found the bidding device marked
N
and sat in the chairs placed before it. Benchley picked up his auction catalog and held it up directly in front of his face, trying to hide behind it.

He found himself staring at a startlingly lifelike painting of a young nude woman. A platinum blond young nude woman, to be exact. It was Mistress Viola.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Benchley quickly turned the page.

 

Houdini balled his hands into fists and planted them on his hips. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what all this is about. Now, come sit down and explain yourself.”

He turned and strode into the makeup room, pointing Dorothy toward one of the makeup chairs. He looked about and spotted a champagne bottle chilling in a silver bucket filled with ice. He grabbed it and deftly popped the cork. It bounced off the vanity mirror, cracking the glass.

“Here.” He held out a glass. “Have a drink.”

She stared at the shattered mirror. “That just earned you seven years’ bad luck.”

“I don’t believe in such superstitious curses.”

She took the glass he offered and drank a big gulp.

“Curses!” she cried. “What is this?”

“Sparkling white grape juice.” He sipped from a glass. “Not alcoholic. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” She set the glass down on the crowded makeup counter. “You don’t need to be a mind reader to guess what I think.”

“Sorry.” He found a metal pitcher and poured her a glass of cold water. “Now, curses aside, what is all this about?”

She explained about Ernie MacGuffin and how he had committed suicide. She explained about Ernie’s lawyer, Snath, who was at that very moment selling a pile of what might be forged paintings—so many paintings that MacGuffin couldn’t possibly have painted them all himself. She explained how Mistress Viola, who claimed she never knew Ernie, held séances at which she very convincingly spoke with Ernie’s voice and answered questions only he could answer.

“So you debunk these things,” she said. “How would you like to debunk this one?”

The excited gleam of a hunter came into Houdini’s keen eyes. “Off the top of my head, I can think of three ways this Mistress Viola is performing this trick. I wonder which one it is—or if she’s come up with a new one altogether.”

“So you think she’s a fraud?”

“I prefer to see her with my own eyes. But from what you’ve told me, I suspect she is.”

“Oh, you’ll get an eyeful.” Dorothy was relieved. “So you’ll go to the séance with me?”

Houdini rubbed his hands together. “I will indeed. Let’s get dressed.”

“Get dressed?”

Houdini checked his pocket watch. “It’s nearly eleven thirty. You say the séance starts at midnight? We don’t have much time to prepare.”

“Prepare? Prepare for what?” She hopped out of the makeup chair. “Let’s just go.”

“But we need disguises.” He pulled on a heavy old coat and looked at himself standing stoop shouldered before the mirror. Satisfied, he reached into a box and found a small iron gray wig. He wrestled it onto his wide head, smoothed it down and instantly looked twenty years older. He picked up a makeup pencil and expertly exaggerated the lines at the sides of his eyes and mouth, giving his hard, marble-like features the sagging and imperfect appearance of old age. Then he donned thick spectacles with heavy black frames. In a few moments, he had transformed himself from a stocky, virile man to a slouching, doddering, elderly geezer.

He turned to her excitedly. “Now you.”

“Nothing doing.” She backed away. “Why in heaven’s name do we need disguises? She’s already seen what I look like.”

Houdini frowned. “And you gave her your real name?”

“Well, no.” Dorothy had given Viola the name Becky Sharp, the female protagonist of the book
Vanity Fair
by William Makepeace Thackeray.

Houdini smiled. “So you instinctively gave her a false name? You did not want to taint your reputation as a journalist by associating your real name with such a dubious enterprise as a séance. Isn’t that right?”

Well, that was partly right. She liked this Houdini guy. He appeared to be earnest and cheerful, but he was really just as cynical and suspicious as she was. She shrugged. “All right. What’s my disguise?”

He turned and she followed him out of the makeup room, down a hallway and into an enormous costume room, which was stocked with racks and racks of dazzling clothes, costumes and circus outfits. He moved along the racks and pulled out a pair of baggy knickerbocker shorts, a dingy argyle sweater, a rough canvas jacket and a floppy, tweed newsboy’s cap.

“You want me to be a golf caddy?”

He handed her the clothes. She took them but didn’t put them on.

“Well,” he said impatiently. “Get dressed.”

She looked apprehensively at the boy’s clothes, then looked around the large room.

“Go on,” Houdini insisted, standing before her.

She looked askance at him. “Don’t you think it’s time we talk about the elephant in the room?”

“What do you mean?”

“That elephant! Right there,” she said, pointing to Jenny, the five-ton elephant slouched in the corner.

“Never mind her,” Houdini said. “She’s as tame as a house cat. She has the run of the place.”

“Still,” Dorothy said, “it’s awkward to take my clothes off in front of another girl if we haven’t been properly introduced.”

Houdini directed Dorothy to a small changing room and waited outside. He continued talking as she put the clothes on.

“What distinguishes a magician from a medium?” he asked. He didn’t wait for her to make a smart-aleck answer. “A magician is but an actor playing the part of a magician. A fraudulent medium is the same. The only difference is that people expect to be tricked by a magician.”

“Sure,” she said. “The fun is in wondering how it was done.”

“Exactly! There really is no magic in our magic. It’s purely art and entertainment. The only magic, should you want to call it that, comes from the art of the presenter. But phony mediums dress themselves in religious robes, pretending that their tricks are real. So, unlike the magician, their trickery is deceitful and reprehensible.”

She stepped out of the changing room and looked at herself in a floor-to-ceiling mirror. She was no longer a petite young woman. She looked like an adolescent boy—any one of the city’s countless newspaper boys or errand runners.

Houdini appeared behind her, speaking in a mumbling old man’s voice. “You’re now my assistant, my footman, my manservant.”

“I’ve been a man’s servant before, but never like this.” She spoke to his reflection in the mirror. “Don’t you find it odd that we’re being deceptive to reveal another’s deception ? Is the irony lost on you?”

“Not at all,” he said, resuming his usual voice. “I know all about deception. But, unlike these phony mediums, we’re not out to steal another man’s money. Just the opposite.” He leaned over her shoulder, as if whispering a secret in her ear. “It takes a flimflammer to catch a flimflammer.”

B
enchley slouched in his seat, peeking over the auction catalog. He switched between looking out for Crowninshield and suspiciously eyeing the bidding device—a polished wooden and brass box on an iron pedestal. Seated next to him, Lucy scanned the legal mumbo jumbo in the back pages of the catalog.

“Look at this.” She pointed to the dense page of fine print. “It’s a disclaimer of authenticity.”

“A what?” Benchley was barely paying attention.

“They don’t guarantee that what they sell is authentic. That means they won’t even stand by their own goods. A pawnshop in Harlem is more trustworthy than this fancy Fifth Avenue auction house.”

Benchley was simply relieved she was no longer discussing nudes. Anything was better than that.

A smooth voice came over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. We will now begin the evening with an explanation of the newly installed, and very modern, bidding device in front of you.”

Benchley looked at the device warily.

The voice continued. “The old-fashioned bidding paddles have been replaced with this state-of-the-art pushbutton system. Be aware that very few disputes have ever occurred in our sixty-year history here at Piddle Brothers Auctioneers. To prevent disputes in the future, the decision was made to modernize to this novel electronic system, which eliminates the possibility of human error entirely.”