The Last Illusion Read online

  I tried to remember where the Cairo Pavilion had been, then did remember—along a street called the Bowery, after the well-known thoroughfare in the city. It was a shady kind of place with legitimate amusements side by side with girlie shows, bars, and dance halls. I was propelled along with the crowd, my hand firmly on my purse because the place was notorious for pickpockets, and came to the Arabian arch that led to the Cairo Pavilion. I recalled that the fire-eater had stood outside it, luring in the crowds, and to my surprise, there he was.

  “Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!” a voice was shouting through a bull horn. “All the wonders of the mystic East—ride a real camel, take a forbidden peek inside a harem . . .”

  The man who had been introduced in the theater as Abdullah ran a firebrand along his bare arm, making a passing girl scream and grab on to the young man she was with. The fire-eater glanced in her direction, then he spotted me and his dark eyes flashed recognition.

  “Hello,” he said. “Didn’t expect to find you here. You with somebody?”

  I was surprised to find he spoke with a New York accent. I didn’t like to admit that I was there alone. “I’m supposed to be meeting some friends,” I said, “but I don’t know how I’m going to find them in this crowd.”

  “I get a break in a few minutes,” he said. “Stay around and I’ll buy you a soda.”

  “All right.”

  This was working wonderfully—maybe too well to be true. Daniel had told me over and over that a good detective never goes anywhere alone and never without telling someone where he is going. I, with a detective agency of one, had to work alone all the time and consequently had gotten myself into too many difficult situations—including one in this very place. But I couldn’t pass up a chance to interview someone who had appeared on the scene right before Houdini’s act went wrong, and a soda fountain, in the middle of a crowd could hardly be classed as dangerous, could it?

  I waited out of the sun beside a shooting gallery, watching young men trying their hardest to impress their lady friends by shooting down a row of ducks. The crowd surged past me—working girls from the factories, courting couples, families with excited children—all making the most of a day out of the heat and oppression of the city. But the waiting also gave me time to think. My own memories of this place were so tinged with horror and regret that I began to wish I had never come here. In fact I was just deciding that I was acting stupidly and should go home when Abdullah appeared from the Cairo Pavilion and came to join me.

  “So your name is Molly, is it?” he said as we walked down the Bowery together. “I heard the announcer say it.”

  “That’s right. And is yours really Abdullah?”

  He laughed. “That’s just for this act. It’s really Mike. I’m Irish like you. My parents came over in the great famine.”

  “Irish?” I looked at his bronzed torso, then I noticed that his eyes were that alarming blue of the so-called Black Irish, just like Daniel’s, in fact.

  He laughed again. “You’d be surprised what a little walnut juice will do and I usually spend my spare time sunning myself on the beach, to keep up appearances.”

  “So what are you doing still working here?” I asked. “I thought you’d have left this place when you were hired by a real vaudeville house. Surely that was a lucky break for you, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m not stupid enough to give up my job here, especially Saturdays and Sundays when we get the crowds. I do quite well for myself. I’m not just paid to perform, you know. I’m also supposed to keep an eye out for the wrong types. The boss don’t want no one who might cause trouble, you understand. And sometimes I’m needed as a bodyguard.”

  “A bodyguard for whom?”

  “Ah, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?” He grinned and gave me a wink. “Let’s just say that not all the things that go on around here are as wholesome as watching a belly dancer or petting a camel.”

  “Criminal activities, you mean?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” he said with exaggerated innocence. “All the bosses around here are as pure as the driven snow.” Then he laughed again. “So tell me about yourself. How long have you been in the business?”

  “Not long,” I said. “In fact I’m not really a performer at all. I’m a friend of Bess Houdini. She asked me to take her place until she’s well enough to come back.”

  “So what do you do the rest of the time, when you’re not performing?”

  “Whatever I can get,” I said. “It’s not that easy for someone arriving from Ireland, as you know yourself. I was a chorus girl a few months ago. I worked in a sweatshop once.”

  “So this is a big break for you too,” he said.

  We reached the soda fountain and went inside. He ordered me an iced sarsaparilla and assisted me onto the high stool at the counter. I noticed that his hands lingered a little too long on my waist.

  “So tell me about the fire-eating and sword swallowing,” I said. “Aren’t they terribly dangerous?”

  “Only if someone gives me a push at the wrong moment,” he said. “On the whole it’s no more dangerous than the things those illusionists do.”

  “That’s right if this week is anything to go by,” I said. “You heard about what happened to Lily, then.”

  “Lily? The girl who got cut up with the saw? Of course I did. It’s because of her that I’m here.”

  “You knew her?”

  “No, I mean they needed an act to fill in at the last minute, didn’t they?”

  “And how did they come to hire you?”

  “Let’s just say I’m a friend of a friend. Somebody owed somebody a favor.”

  “Lucky for you,” I said. “So will you just be filling in for this week and then going back to your old job?”

  He shrugged. “Depends,” he said.

  “On what?”

  “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?” He leaned toward me and touched the tip of my nose in a rather too intimate gesture. “Aren’t young ladies supposed to be coy and demure?”

  “If you’re also Irish you’ll know that we’re seldom coy and demure,” I said and he laughed.

  “I like a girl with fire and spirit; in fact I like you, Molly. So how about going out for a little late supper with me after the show tonight?”

  Now I really was in a dilemma. Obviously Daniel would be furious if I went out to supper with another man, and it might not be prudent to go out alone with someone who had been regarding me with something close to a lecherous leer—and might also work for a boss with criminal connections. On the other hand it would be a great opportunity to encourage my fire-eating companion to let an indiscretion or two slip from his lips.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, giving him a coy smile. And I decided to take another risk. “Tell me, do you know a man they call Risey?”

  “Risey? Everyone knows him. He’s an institution around here. How did you hear the name?”

  “Someone at the theater told me that he’d challenged Houdini once, several years ago, and he’d been a sore loser. I just remembered it when I realized it had taken place on Coney Island. He’s an important man around here, is that right?”

  “Used to be. I’d say his glory days are over. He owns a theater farther down the Bowery.”

  “So did you ever perform in his theater?”

  He laughed. “Hardly. It’s a girlie show. I don’t dance the cancan.”

  I laughed with him.

  “Oh, I get it,” he said.

  I froze, then he continued. “You’re looking for someone to hire you when Houdini goes back to Europe, aren’t you? You’re not the type who’d work for Risey. You’re too—nice. His girls do more than dance the cancan, if you get my meaning.”

  “I only asked because I heard someone at the theater say that Risey was one to carry a grudge and the accident with the Houdinis’ trunk might be Risey’s way of getting even.”

  Mike shrugged. “Risey’s way of getting even would be to send a c
ouple of his guys to wait for you in a dark alley with brass knuckles on,” he said. “He ain’t known for his subtlety.”

  He drained his glass and got up. “I gotta go. There would be hell to pay if I show up late. See you at the show tonight then, and afterward, who knows?”

  He rested his hand on mine briefly, then hurried out, leaving me not much the wiser but definitely in a predicament. From the easy way he reacted to my suggestion, I was fairly sure that he hadn’t been sent by Risey, but he’d admitted he got the job because someone owed somebody a favor, and he admitted to being a bodyguard to his boss who might or might not be involved in criminal activities. Which brought me back to my former theory that the whole thing somehow involved a gang of whom Houdini had fallen foul.

  I arrived back home looking rather the worse for wear, having been squashed into a train and then a trolley with a sticky, dirty mass of humanity. I’d have loved a cool drink, a bath, and a rest, but I had only time for a quick wash and a snack before I headed back to the theater. It was the last night at Miner’s. On Tuesday Houdini opened in a new theater in Brooklyn with new acts on the bill. And then a few days later he sailed back to Europe—out of reach of any kind of gang protection racket. Out of reach of rival illusionists. So far I had picked up no clue as to who might want to do him harm. I certainly got the feeling that he knew more than he was willing to tell either Bess or me and if he was not going to divulge any details, then I didn’t see how I could help him.

  I arrived at the theater and went up to change my clothes in the dressing area they had let me use. It was usually intended for chorus girls when the normal vaudeville acts performed. At the moment I was the only occupant. It was cold and cheerless, with a long counter at which the girls sat to put on their makeup. As I sat alone at that counter, dabbing circles of rouge onto my cheeks, an uneasy feeling crept over me. I was alone in this bleak and bare room and I felt what Bess had described—a feeling of wanting to look over my shoulder. A feeling of danger nearby. I told myself I was being stupid, but I got up and went down the hall to tap on Houdini’s door.

  “It’s the lovely Molly,” he said.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” I said, “but I’d like to finish my makeup in here. The light is terrible in that room.”

  “Of course, come on in. I must say that the transformation is not at all bad.” He eyed me appraisingly and I thought of Bess’s remark about not trusting him with other women. Maybe I was asking for trouble being alone in a dressing room with him.

  “No, the dressmaker worked wonders, didn’t he?” I pulled up the stool to the dressing table and started to apply the stick of Carmine 2 to my lips before this conversation could continue. But he confirmed my thoughts by saying, “Bess is coming to watch the show tonight. She wants to see how her replacement is doing.”

  “Is she well enough to be out at night like this?”

  “My brother Dash is bringing her in a cab. They’ll be in the stage box.”

  “That will make me extra nervous,” I said. “Bess will notice every little thing that I do wrong.”

  “Don’t be silly. She’ll be delighted that you were able to take her place. After all, you’re doing this for Bess, aren’t you?” Then he added, “We’re both doing this for her. She’s the one who believed I was in danger.”

  “And you don’t? After what happened?”

  “I suppose I have to, don’t I? But it wasn’t I who was almost killed, it was my wife.”

  “A warning to you, do you think?” I asked.

  “A warning?” I could see from his face that he was considering this. Then he shook his head. “Oh, but that’s ridiculous.”

  I turned from the mirror to face him. “Look, Mr. Houdini—Harry—you’ve hired me to find out who wishes you harm and yet I have the feeling there are things you are not willing to share with me. How can I help you?”

  “I don’t believe you can,” he said. “You must realize that I’m only doing this to pacify my wife. What could a young girl like you do to protect me from the sort of man who might wish me harm?”

  “I can’t answer that until you tell me what sort of man that might be,” I said. There was a silence so I turned to him again. “I think you suspect who it is, don’t you?”

  “Not really,” he said.

  I waited. There was a long silence as he stared at his hands, then he looked up and gave me an easy smile. “After tomorrow this should all be behind us,” he said with an airy wave of his hand.

  “Tomorrow? What is happening tomorrow?

  “I’m taking a little trip. Then at least I will have done my part. The rest isn’t up to me.”

  “Your part in what?”

  “A little extra job, shall we say.”

  He paused in front of the mirror and smoothed a wayward dark strand of hair into place.

  “What kind of extra job?”

  “I really can’t tell you anymore. But just be assured that by the time we open on Tuesday your only task will be to assist with my illusions, until Bess feels confident enough to come back.”

  I wrestled with smoothing my own wayward hair into a sleek chignon then stuck a dozen hairpins in savagely. I couldn’t think how I was going to get any more information out of him and it annoyed me to know he had only agreed to my presence to pacify a hysterical wife. But if he knew who was out to harm him, why wasn’t he doing anything about it?

  “You really can trust me, you know,” I said.

  “Maybe I can, but as I said, I think tomorrow will put all this behind us. And I am still not convinced that I am actually in any danger.”

  “I don’t believe that. Bess has been really worried about you. She says you’ve been unusually tense and worried, getting up in the middle of the night to scribble things down on paper.”

  “Bess reads too much into things,” he said. “An illusionist’s head is always full of the ultimate illusion, the one that can’t be done.”

  “And have you come up with that?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And would anybody kill to steal it from you?”

  He paused in his pacing. “The problem is that the adversary may have many faces,” he said. I thought it was an odd thing to say.

  Makeup was completed. We went over signals once more in the dressing room while the other illusionists performed, then the callboy summoned us down to the stage. Houdini squatted in the shadows backstage and examined the trunk, checking and double-checking the locks. He flexed his fingers, he went through his deck of cards, he rotated his shoulders in a sickening display of double-jointedness, as the announcer began to present us.

  The band struck up our music. I stepped out onstage, conscious that critical eyes would be watching me from the stage box. I tried not to look in that direction. I thought I heard a gasp. Maybe Bess wasn’t expecting my costume to be so alluring. Houdini was announced and swept out onto the stage. He went through the same patter as the night before about the Irish and their sixth sense and how lucky he was to have me filling in for Bess. Then he acknowledged her in the box and she stood to a nice round of applause. The card tricks went well, but maybe that Irish sixth sense was working—I was so tense I could hardly breathe. And it was not just stage fright either. Then two men were selected from the audience and the hood was placed over my head. I identified a comb, a train ticket, and a locket with a lock of hair inside it. I was feeling rather pleased with myself.

  “I’m holding up an object belonging to a good-looking young man,” Houdini said. “At least it belongs to him at this moment. So quickly, Molly. Can you picture it?”

  “It’s round,” I said, picking up his signals. “Is it a ring?”

  There was applause and I removed the hood.

  “Here’s the ring back, sir,” Houdini said. “I suspect you don’t intend to wear it yourself. It’s a little small for your fingers.”

  “No, it was intended for someone else,” the man said. I took a step forward to peer into the darkness. Because I r
ecognized that voice. It was Daniel.

  I don’t know how I managed to get through the rest of the act. I’m sure I didn’t drift across the stage with grace as we went through the handcuff challenges. All I could think of was what I was going to say when I had to face Daniel. That, and the fact that he had a ring in his pocket, which he might or might not give me after what he had witnessed tonight.

  Then at last came the trunk illusion. I went to retrieve it from the wings. A stagehand helped me carry it into position. Houdini removed his jacket and hung it up. Men were invited up onto the stage to inspect the trunk, try the locks, and then to bind Houdini hand and foot. When he was trussed up like a chicken, the bag was pulled up over him and drawn closed. Then he was placed in the trunk and the locks were snapped shut. I wheeled out the cabinet from the wings, displayed that it consisted of nothing more than a three-sided frame, covered with fabric, then turned it to conceal the trunk from the audience. The drumroll started. I crossed the stage to take up my position near the watching men on the opposite side of the stage, to divert eyes from the trunk until the right moment.

  The previous night Houdini had popped out of the trunk almost before I had time to cross the stage. Tonight I turned, gestured toward the trunk, stood, and waited. I was conscious of the drumroll increasing in volume and intensity. He’s stringing it out to heighten the suspense, I thought, remembering how I had held my breath during the moments of drama when I had been in the audience. Always keep them surprised, he had told me.

  I heard the announcer reminding the audience that there was only enough air in that trunk for someone to survive for a few minutes, and someone struggling to free himself from bonds within the thick fabric of that bag would use up the air all that faster. A minute had to have passed. Two minutes. Three. I could sense the restlessness in the crowd. I glanced across at Mr. Irving, standing to the side of the stage. He too was looking worried. But this was Houdini. It was reputed he could hold his breath longer than any other human being. He had supernatural powers. He was in league with the devil.