Carter Beats the Devil (22 page)

Houdini gripped the cage’s bars. “Carter, walking off won’t get me to raise my price. In fact, I think seven hundred fifty makes a fine offer, too.”

“You might be interested in this, Houdini.”

“In what?”

Carter explained that there was a mystery he’d just solved: every night, as Mysterioso crouched in this cage, in his lion skin, behind his false wall, the lion, just on the other side of the cage, was made to roar.

Houdini chuckled, “Not much of a mystery, Carter, either a voice or visual command—”

“It’s not.”

“Or it’s . . .” Houdini stood back, comparing the two sides of the cage. “Good heavens,” he muttered. He looked under the cage. He looked back at Carter, mouth forming words, color coming to his face. Then Houdini turned away, shouting at the stagehands, “Get him loose! Get Mysterioso loose right now!”

Then, Annabelle noticed it herself. “There’s something different about this side. Hey, there’s rubber on this side. The floor of the other side is iron—”

Amazingly, Annabelle had an eye even keener than Carter’s, and found, now that she knew what she was looking for, that two sets of wires were sticking out through the floor. All one had to do was touch one set of wires to the other, and—

Annabelle said, “He shocks Baby. He shocks him. Every single goddamned night. That son of a bitch!”

She shot out of the cage while Carter added it up: the lion was pacing because he knew that when he was rolled onstage, he would be shocked, and tonight, he thought his torture was being prolonged.

Mysterioso, finally freed, now wobbled to his feet, rubbing his bleeding wrists. The dozen workers onstage had put their backs to him the way schoolchildren ignore the dunce the teacher has punished. Houdini, a full head shorter than he, reached up to his lapels and shook him.

“This is the end of you, Mysterioso! Do you hear me!” Houdini had more to say—when dressing someone down, Houdini always had more to say—and Carter was amazed to hear what it was. With a blunt force French accent, Houdini intoned: “‘Puisque toutes les créatures sont—’” but got no further; a red-headed blur ripped Mysterioso from his grasp and pinned him onto the stage.

“Coward!” Annabelle shouted, righting herself, pinning Mysterioso’s arms down with her knees. “Coward!” She punched his face, knocking his head from side to side, alternating blows with her left and right fists, then changing to open-handed slaps.

Carter stood near Houdini, each of them poised to stop her, but neither quite willing to intervene.

“Coward!” she cried again. She grabbed his ears and banged his head against the floorboards.

From a distance, Houdini called out to Mysterioso, “Yes, you’re a coward. You’ve broken a cardinal rule, you may no longer perform as a magician, I’m having you barred from the Society of American Magicians,” and continued in that vein. Carter had never heard another magician refer to Keyes’s rules as cardinal, but now wasn’t the time to ask about it.

Carter approached Annabelle. “Annabelle,” he whispered.

She looked up with Mysterioso’s head still in her hands. Her green and gold eyes were awake with anger. Then she stood, kicking a toe against Mysterioso. “He’s alive,” she said, sounding disappointed. She shook her right hand out, and sucked on a finger. “I need some ice.” And she walked away, breathing hard.

“Well, she’s spirited,” Houdini declared, as soon as she had left the stage. “Is she your sweetheart?”

“No.” As Carter said it, he felt regret. “When men get fresh, she tends to punch them.”

“I see. Have you been punched?”

“No.”

Houdini clapped him on the back. “Good man! If you can keep the drinking under control, you’ll be a fine magician until you’re a hundred and one. Now, Carter, about Blackmail—”

“I can’t sell it outright.” Aware that it didn’t pay to rankle Houdini, Carter continued. “I’m flattered, of course.”

Houdini smiled grimly. “One doesn’t get offers every day from Houdini.”

“But without an income in the future,” he said carefully, “it’s my only asset and I should consider licensing it instead. If I had five or six or seven magicians using it—”

“Five or six with enemies?” Houdini’s eyebrows arched.

“It could become the new trend in magic. It could become quite common, Houdini.”

“That’s a
terrible
idea,” Houdini said, grimacing as if he’d just tasted spoiled milk. Carter, who had concocted a full-scale plan by now, was gazing over Houdini’s shoulder. Houdini turned and saw that Carter was looking at the lion, who, as if satisfied by the sight of Mysterioso’s beating, now sat quietly, tip of tongue sticking out, his paws between the bars of the cage. Houdini looked at the stage. He looked at the lion again. He looked at Carter, who was regarding the props remaining onstage with proprietary interest, and Carter thought as loudly as he could:
Make me the headliner. Let me do the job I was born for.

Houdini said, “I see. I see. Yes. Perhaps I can help you. But tell me honestly—we will work something out on this Blackmail illusion? You’ll be fair about it?”

Carter nodded.

“So then. Where are you from?” Houdini asked. The question sounded innocuous and sly at the same time; it wasn’t what he actually wished to discuss.

“San Francisco.”

“I see. And is your mother still with us?”

“She is.”

Houdini took in a great breath. “
Is she a wonderful woman?”

Carter responded forcefully: “Oh, yes.”

“And you love her?”

“I love her. She gets hooked on the latest fashions in psychology, but—” Carter paused. Houdini obviously hadn’t been after a critique.

“Can you swear an oath by your sainted mother to be loyal to me?”

“Of course.”

“Swear it, then.” Houdini took Carter’s hands between his. “Swear loyalty to me in your mother’s name.”

The conversation had turned bizarre, but this was not altogether surprising. Houdini, Carter had long heard rumors, was fixated on such oaths among magicians; Carter felt dizzy with pride—he was worthy of an oath. “I swear on my mother’s, on my mother’s life—”

“Good! Excellent!”

“—loyalty to Houdini.” Carter finished.

Houdini broke their grip. “Have you had your supper yet?”

Carter shook his head.

“Let’s go find Albee. He knows the best restaurants in San Francisco.”

CHAPTER 14

Back in the dressing room, Carter introduced Houdini to his parents, to James and Tom. Houdini took special care with Mrs. Carter, praising her for raising such a fine young man. Mr. Carter asked once, and only once, about what would happen next season. Carter was prepared to tell him that they would need to wait and see, but Houdini said, “I will make Charles Carter the next headliner—all he needs is to follow my lead!” With that, Houdini turned on his heel, beckoning Carter over his shoulder, and striding masterfully out of the dressing room.

Carter looked behind him. His family was ecstatic, James and Tom exchanging “can-you-top-that” type comments, his parents holding hands. He’d never seen them excited like this before, and his
career
had certainly never caused them this kind of reaction. The sight was thrilling and yet oddly melancholy, like it promised him some kind of loss. But he didn’t know why. “Dad,” Carter said.

“I know.” His father nodded. “Go on with him.”

He had so much to say. He wanted to describe how hard he had worked to engineer an escape from an ordinary life. But Houdini came back in, looking cross. “Where are you, Carter? We have an appointment.”

They left together, Carter nodding as Houdini outlined their strategy, but inwardly wondering if by winning, he’d left his parents, particularly his father, behind somehow.

At dinner—Wallach’s, on Hyde and Ellis, the French restaurant with duck à l’orange so fine homesick Parisians were known to weep after one bite—Carter declined Albee’s offer to have his kard-and-koin contract reinstated for the three weeks of the tour. Instead, he expressed an interest in the legitimate theatre and shared his ideas for an evening-length performance. He said, as if he needn’t explain further, that as the son of a rich man, he could get funding for a show immediately. Houdini asked if perhaps there might be some compromise: Carter would agree to play
for Albee for the remainder of the tour, but in Mysterioso’s place, testing out a selection of illusions before moving up. Carter expressed his uncertainty—after all, there was the matter of having been fired earlier in the evening. With a wave of his hand, Albee said that had been entirely Murdoch’s decision. He, Albee, hadn’t known a thing about it. Albee added that he was thinking of backing other kinds of shows, as it seemed the nickelodeon was eating into vaudeville’s profits.

This led to an animated discussion of the merits of the picture show; the consensus among them was that even if it were just a passing fancy, a wise man should investigate purchasing a theatre or two, perhaps even producing entertainment for them. Within moments, Houdini had an oral agreement that Albee would finance a half dozen shorts featuring Houdini, in exchange for a percentage of the profits.

When Carter sensed that he had lost their attention, he declared that, anyway, there had to be other magicians on the circuit who were skilled and imaginative enough to take over the headliner act. Houdini confessed that he didn’t know of any. He added that in fact, the legitimate theatre had taken all of them—if Albee didn’t do something to keep Carter around, vaudeville would lose its best chance for wholesome, high-class mystery.

“You think he’s that good?” Albee asked.

Houdini sent an eagle’s gaze across the table. “Albee, it takes me a heartbeat to know if a man is poor, fair, or in the middle somewhere. Our Mr. Carter—is—” His eyes lit up. “Yes, Carter is
great
.”

At the end of dinner, Houdini had sewn up Carter’s Blackmail act, Albee had extracted a reluctant promise from Carter to headline for a year, and Carter had been granted a salary of a thousand dollars a week—the sum Albee paid most first-time headliners—from which he had to pay his staff.

“Is that the time?” Houdini asked, pushing away from the table. “I must go and call Bess, tell her about defeating that scoundrel Mystico, and so forth.”

“Mysteri—” Carter coughed into his palm. “Yes, thank you for defeating Mystico. May I have a word?”

Carter walked Houdini from the back room of Wallach’s through the great oak front door and to the sidewalk, where they shook hands. Carter said, “Houdini, I wanted to ask you—”

“Yes?” Houdini flailed his arm toward a taxi.

“Puisque toutes les créatures sont au fond des frères . . .” Carter let his voice trail off. “Ottawa Keyes was the first magic authority I ever read.”

Houdini had no visible reaction to this—he continued to wave for
cabs. With a beep of its horn, a taxi finally cut across traffic toward the curb. “You know,” Houdini said, “I’ve researched it—Keyes stole every one of those rules of his.”

“Oh,” Carter said, sinking.

“But they’re good rules, they’re good rules.” Houdini had one hand on the door of the taxi; the other he directed toward Carter, not to shake, but as if pointing him out in a crowd. “Carter, you
are
loyal to me, aren’t you?”

That again? “I’m as loyal as—”

“Yes, yes. You can break many rules in that book and still be a great conjurer. I, for instance,” Houdini paused; Carter was sure he would admit to never ironing his silks. “I find that pretending to show fear is most effective. And I’d argue if you were to take your last bow with others onstage—”

“Hey, Mack, you getting in the cab?” the driver yelled.

Houdini looked hurt. Carter exclaimed, “Excuse me—this is
Houdini
.”

“Oh.” The driver thought about it, and turned on the meter.

Houdini gestured at Carter again. “I could add a great many rules myself. But tonight highlights an excellent rule: one should always treat one’s animals well. All else will follow. Good night.”

They shook hands yet again, and Houdini settled into the cab. As it pulled away from the curb, Carter waved, and Houdini rolled the window down, yelling, “And remember—from now on, you’re Carter the Great!”

. . .

Back in the restaurant, Albee had Carter sign a napkin—they would have proper contracts drawn up tomorrow—and then Carter made a list of all his new responsibilities. He had a messenger (he now had access to the Keith-Orpheum messenger service) run to the Ferry building, where the troupe was housed, to alert them to a special 8
A
.
M
. meeting to discuss the show. There were a thousand other details to deal with, but for now, his mood remained happy disbelief.

Monsieur Wallach gave Albee his beaver hat and Carter his derby, and the two men ambled outside, where Albee patted his flat belly with pleasure. Albee was a salty man, with tufts of hair in his ears, and a completely bald head that he had his manicurist rub with rosewater twice a day, to stimulate the mind. Carter watched him reach into his pocket and pull out a square leather jewel box, which he hefted as if to assure himself he wanted to hand it over. Decision made, he passed it to Carter. “Open it,” Albee said.

Inside the box, an Edward Koehn watch sat like a metal on a velvet
cushion. The hunting case, which bore the enameled masks of comedy and tragedy, was machine-turned eighteen-karat gold, with a frosted texture that reminded Carter of a fine dessert.

“It’s from Geneva,” Albee said. “Geneva, Switzerland.” Before Carter could touch it, Albee had used his short fingers to pull it out, pop open the back, and reveal the works, which all but hummed under their exhibition backing. He turned the watch back and forth so its innards sparkled. “Thirty-one sapphires,” he said. “It’s a minute repeater.”

Carter nodded. “So it chimes?”

“Does it chime?” he chuckled. “Even the
hammers
are jeweled. The bells sound like angels playing them.”

“I’m overwhelmed,” Carter said, for he had never seen so fine a watch.

“Look at the dial,” Albee continued. His smile went boyish and proud.