Carter Beats the Devil (28 page)

“For President Coolidge, sir?”

“Indirectly, indirectly,” which was a way of saying no. “We need a background check on Charles Carter, the magician that Harding met on the night of his death.”

“Will I be trying to locate him, sir?”

“On that damned boat? No. Colonel Starling thinks Carter might actually be hiding out in one of the other local properties he owns. He’s narrowing down the possibilities.”

Griffin bit down on his disappointment. “The President died of natural causes, sir.”

“Yes.”

“So Charles Carter is not considered a suspect?”

“No. But since he’s fled, he’s considered a security risk. He’s probably just a publicity nut, but we need to know, for our own peace of mind, that he’s clean.”

Wheeler said more, but Griffin only half listened, bowing out when Wheeler dismissed him.

The assignment, as he thought about it, was probably important, but the reasons given struck him as bogus. In short, he smelled a rat. Which was okay, because Griffin had begun to like the smell of rats.

In the hallway, Griffin looked at his notes, where he read the name that was supposed to unravel Carter’s past: Olive White, of the San Francisco Public Library newspaper morgue. Another job for him that required sitting in a room and flipping papers. He found a pay phone and called her number. A woman, friendly to the point of near frenzy, told him the library was officially closed for renovations, but as long as he didn’t mind a little dust and noise, he could literally have the library to himself beginning at, say, two o’clock? He told her that would be fine.

He found an Automat on Geary, away from the crowds, and bought a newspaper that was filled with terrible things. An actress he’d never heard of had taken dope and driven her car into a tree. Sometimes he was amazed there were any actresses left. And there was a frightening article at the
bottom of the front page that Griffin read three times: a nanny in Boston had just put her young charges to bed when the telephone rang, and a spectral voice asked her if she’d checked the children. She received the same call three times in total, “Have you checked the children?” and then, terrified, she called the police, who told her the phantom caller was in her very household! Agents of the law kicked in the door in the nick of time: a huge man was about to chop the babies up with an ax. Everyone was safe now, and the parents were giving the nanny a week of paid vacation. Griffin shook his head. Just when he’d thought he’d heard everything, something new and terrible came along to raise the hairs on the back of his neck.

Right below that article was another: federal narcotics agents in Chicago had confessed to stealing thousands of pounds of cocaine during raids, and selling it back to dope fiends on the streets. Griffin wasn’t surprised and he felt sick at his own cynicism.

President Harding had died, somehow. Griffin had heard the following causes: heart attack, bad fish, brain apoplexy, even, and this had been said in surprisingly jovial whispers, that Mrs. Harding, tired of Nan Britton and all the others, had poisoned him. According to Griffin’s notes, Harding had muttered in the last weeks of his life about a scandal that would tear the country apart. But Griffin had heard of so many scandals in the past year: fake oil leases; border agents running guns to Abd-el-Krim in exchange for gin; the Reds’ plans to infiltrate the American Legion; the Jews and their banking conspiracy; senators taking kickbacks from bootleggers; moneys diverted from the post office and the veterans’ fund. Which of them was Harding talking about? In Washington, scandals had always been like mosquito bites—sometimes you had a couple, sometimes dozens. But they had never been fatal.

The rules were changing. Griffin watched the men and women ambling past the Automat, and he wondered what was happening to the world. O’Brien trying to kick him where it counted. Some fiend threatening children with an ax. And murdering the President? Maybe drawing a line now was just an invitation to cross it.

It was close to two o’clock, and he was suddenly aware of the onions in the meat loaf he’d eaten. He had in his breast pocket a tin of German peppermints, “PEZ—for the relief of toothache, tobacco breath, and fatigue,” and as he left the Automat, he sucked on one, concerned whether it was the right thing to do. PEZ had shipped a crate of peppermints to every military camp and Secret Service office,
gratis
, explaining it in an accompanying pamphlet as “our way to new friend making.” The company added that “if soldiers and police put our product to use, the rest of
America will show for us much respect.” So there were boxes of PEZ everywhere, but they made Griffin, who knew nothing was free, uneasy. If Wilson had still been President, he would have ordered the candy shipped back to Germany. Everything, when you scratched the surface, could end up being a conspiracy, maybe malicious, maybe just to turn a profit.

At the library door, he showed his credentials to the guard, who gave him a hard hat and pointed him to the stairs. The newspaper morgue was on the fourth floor. Its swinging oak doors had been taken off their hinges, and Griffin had to pass under scaffolding underlit by arc lamps to enter. The room was huge and drafty, mostly in darkness, with sunlight hitting the drop cloths on the worn concrete floor. Because the city was installing skylights, large panels of the roof were missing; Looking up, Griffin could see, among exposed wiring and cracked moldings, blue sky. It was lunchtime, the workers were gone, and for a moment, Griffin thought he was completely alone.

“Mr. Griffin?” An energetic voice called him from a gloomy spot in the corner of the room. “Is that you?”

“Mrs. White?” As his eyes adjusted, Griffin could see a woman behind an oak table piled high with newspapers, among vague and bulky fixtures covered with protective sheeting. She was a tall woman, and as she walked quickly around her table, Griffin noted the contrast of her porch dress and her galoshes.

“It’s Miss,” she said, and because her hand was extended, Griffin shook it. “I’m so happy to help you, Agent Griffin.” Her eyes were bright and welcoming. “What kind of case are you working on? Or should I ask? Would you like a drink of water?”

“I’m just doing a background check, that’s all, ma’am.”

“Miss.” Miss White hurried away, gesturing that Griffin should follow. “Isn’t this construction dreadful?” As she talked, her hands moved like excitable pets. “They were supposed to be done six months ago and we’re lucky it hasn’t rained lately, though the weatherman says it might anytime, and that would spoil all those nice August weddings coming up. You should see the announcements. Don’t you hate it when they say ‘bridges and grooms’ by accident? It always makes me laugh.” And she laughed, gay and clipped. “So. Agent Griffin. You being a Secret Service agent, you must be very observant. What have you observed about
me
?” She looked over her shoulder, beaming at him. “Are you wondering about my galoshes?”

Before Griffin could answer, Miss White explained that she didn’t want to get her good shoes dirty during the renovations. He’d guessed
that, but didn’t get a chance to say it: she had more to tell him about what an honor it was for her to serve the Service, as it were, and how her father had fought the Spanish. And how she had already noticed so many things about Griffin, no wedding ring, but surely such a handsome man had once had a wife, but it wasn’t her business to ask, now was it? The walk to the clipping file was just a matter of yards, but by the time Miss White had set Griffin up at a study carrel, he felt dizzy. He was better at handling criminals than a helpful citizen.

“Thank you for your help, Miss White.” Griffin nodded at her civilly, but she didn’t move.

“I’ll leave you alone, but I do have one little question.” Her eyes were on the ceiling, then on him. “Agent Griffin, do you carry a gun?”

“Yes, Miss White, I do.”

Her face erupted into a terrific smile. Then she turned on the heel of one galosh, and strode away, humming a tune Griffin didn’t recognize. Finally alone, Griffin rubbed the bridge of his nose, clearing his mind. On the study table was a large bound journal labeled “Carter, Charles, 1888–” Griffin adjusted his hard hat. The first clipping, wheat pasted onto stiff brown paper, was from the September 12, 1912
Examiner
:

CARTER THE GENIUS CAPTIVATES,
PROMISES TO ENTERTAIN, DELIGHT

In an exclusive interview with the
Examiner,
favorite son Charles Carter, the magician who at age twenty-three has already been seen by tens of thousands in the four corners of the globe, reveals that there are still places that the ever-inquisitive microscopes and theodolites of scientists have neither examined nor explained. Carter tells his wide-eyed audience of a moment in Ceylon where his life itself was imperiled. “I had just performed my act for the sultan, and in exchange for my method of levitation, his vizier taught me the secret of running a knife through my body without causing me harm. I’m of course sworn to secrecy on the topic, but it involves hypnotism. One of the sultan’s underlings, a rascal who’d been after the secret himself for years, came after me with a loaded pistol. If it weren’t for my friend Baby and the quick thinking of my assistant, Annabelle, I wouldn’t be here today.” In fact, “The Sultan and the Sorcerer,” the final act of his current show, now playing for a two-week run at the Majestic, re-creates this incident for the benefit of—

Griffin frowned as he scanned the rest of the article. He wrote “Ceylon. Hypnotism. Confederates: Annabelle.” The next article was from January 14, 1913.

LAST PERFORMANCE OF SPECTACULAR ILLUSION
CARTER RETREATS TO WIZARD’S DEN

Charles Carter has announced that near the town of Grindu, in the Carpathian Mountains, the mage from whom he learned all of his occult arts lies near death. Carter must travel 8,000 miles to his side, bringing the plans for “The Sultan and the Sorcerer,” the spectacular illusion that ends his program, so that the great master may be burned with them. “Thus the show will never be performed again, and I positively must leave next Thursday.”

The next clipping, just a squib one sentence long, was dated a week later, “Carter the Mysterious magic show at Fox is extended three more weeks.” Griffin, wondering why so many people paid money to be fooled, wrote “Grindu. Carpathian Mountains.” Something about that struck him as suspicious.

The following item was concrete enough: an application to Sacramento to start a charitable organization for retired performing animals. There was a folder of supporting documentation: a deed, transatlantic cables, and some documents written in spaghetti script with bizarre wax seals. Where was this organization, anyway?

In the folder was a letter written on the stationery of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

10/1/13

My Dear James:

We are off to Japan next (I have an idea for a Japanese cannon illusion, by the way). I know you wanted me to bring you something ornate from Siam. How about a Rococo kind of story? It sounds like something from a pitch book, but it’s true, I swear!

Another hand—though it was bold, Griffin recognized it as feminine—added, “And I’m here to make sure he tells it right.”

With various asides, the letter described how Carter had performed “The Sultan and the Sorcerer” for two nights at the Chetachuk Showcase in Bangkok. Afterward, Rama VI, Vajiravudh, the King of Siam, had
invited him and Annabelle for an informal performance at his weekend palace and there, at the banquet table, Carter had performed the “Royal Mystery,” in the style of Robert-Houdin. Carter wrote, “At a French royal command performance, Robert-Houdin vanished a bundle of handkerchiefs, giving his King, Louis the Something or Other, three choices of where they should reappear. The first problem for me was that the King of Siam doesn’t wear a handkerchief.”

Annabelle added, “No, the first problem for Charlie is that they don’t allow women at the banquet table, so while he was eating his franks and beans with royalty, they exiled me with the rest of the dames, their loss.”

Carter reported that he’d borrowed the wristwatch, a Hamilton, of which the King was most proud. He’d put it inside a smoked glass jar, had the King tap it for extra magical power, and revealed it had vanished. “Applause, applause, along with glaring from Rama VI, who understandably felt I’d helped myself to his watch.” Carter passed out slips of paper and had everyone at the table write places, anywhere in the country, they wanted the watch to reappear. He shuffled them, and had the King choose three.

The King, whom Carter liked, for he was a man who truly enjoyed magic, moved slowly. He tried to behave in a canny manner as he read the first suggestion: under his chair (“Too easy for you, I think!”); then the second, the end of the fruit seller’s boat at the Proha marketplace. Finally, after fixing Carter with an intelligent eye for the longest time, the King chose the third location, under the reclining Buddha in the garden about a half mile away. He sent his men to dig.

While a string quartet played Bach, and pastries were served, the King and Carter talked pleasantly, the King looking at his guest for signs of stress or concern (“but did I show them? Well, yes I did”). Finally, the men returned with a box so heavy it took two of them to lift it. It was sealed by an impressive-looking wax stamp. Prying it open, they found not only the watch, but an ancient note written in archaic Thai script. It was quite crabby, but it generally approved of the methods used by the foreigner Charles Carter.

The King was so pleased, he gave Carter an island. It was called Koh Pheung Thawng, in the Andaman Sea, at the end of an archipelago known best for its rocky cliffs and leeward beaches.

Carter wrote James that he had no reason to be suspicious of the honor; however, a day later, he was presented with a tax bill, and learned that Thurston had already given up and leased
his
island back to the King.