Carter Beats the Devil (36 page)

An hour later, Charles Forbes, a man known to perspire under pressure, burst into the room already talking, saying that it was his poor memory and bookkeeping that made it appear he had defrauded the Veterans Bureau. The Duchess said, quietly, that he had already shown his forgetfulness this very day, as he’d forgotten to tell her how sorry he was that her Warren—who had known every effort he’d made in his bookkeeping—was no longer among the living. With that, Forbes fell silent, mopped his brow, and took the Duchess’s hand. “Thank you,” he said.

Last was Harry Daugherty, who was intoxicated. He truly missed Warren, he said, like a brother, and with him gone, who was left on Earth to dispel all the ugly rumors about selling liquor permits to bootleggers, and taking kickbacks for fixing trials, and about the Post Office confiscating checks sent through the mail to Democratic opposition campaigns, and he went on at such length that finally the Duchess stopped him. “Harry,” she said bluntly, raising up her veil, “Warren is dead. You’re still Attorney General. The man overseeing you is Mr. Coolidge.” With that, she dropped her veil back into place, and Daugherty brightened like a man who has just discovered he’s in love.

And so it went, all conspirators great and small realizing that the only man with a conscience was no longer about to spill the beans. The Duchess went back to her duties, and when she was finished with her
fires, she left the White House with blisters on her hands, never to return.

Paddock’s Storage House, a block-long facility abutting the waste disposal incinerator in Marion, Ohio, had over two hundred rental units, the largest of which—thirty thousand square feet—was paid for in perpetuity by a trust set up early in Harding’s political career. When federal investigators finally were issued a subpoena to enter the unit, it was completely empty.

The Alexandria warehouse had contained at least four thousand boxes ten feet long, a foot wide, a foot deep, each tightly packed with documents. When the National Archives called for documents pertaining to the political and personal life of Warren G. Harding, they received two boxes, with generous space for more boxes, should they appear.

CHAPTER 7

When the sun had been down for an hour and the street lamps had come to life, Carter took the winding circular stairs from his living quarters to his garage. There was just enough space between the Pierce-Arrow and the Bentley for Baby to pass between them, stopping, as he always did, to sniff at the wheels for interesting smells. And then master and cat walked onto the streets of Oakland.

Carter walked Baby without a leash. There was no real point to having one. Instead, he used voice commands to keep the lion in sight. They had walked together for twelve years, all over the world, in cities and villages, on seashores and over mountain trails. In the last two years, Baby had increasingly preferred to stroll, and sit, and listen to the wind coming through the woods rather than stalk squirrels or race after shadows. He was almost thirteen, his mane was thinning, and he had lost nearly seventy pounds. He had an arthritic hip. As Carter watched him negotiate the narrow stairway down to the park, he considered that the performance with President Harding might have been Baby’s last.

Carter lived near the entrance to Lakeside Park, which surrounded Lake Merritt. This small smudge on the map was the pitiful evidence that Oakland had once tried to compete against Central Park and Golden Gate Park in the City Beautiful movement. Its maintenance budget resulted in a seedy and unkempt wilderness of overgrown trees and cracked paths interrupted by bandshells and pergolas that, even upon their
dedication, looked to have been discarded by other cites. Further, it was said to be haunted, so there were few visitors after dusk except robbers and dope addicts. In short, it was a perfect place to walk Baby.

Baby trotted between the two weathered stone lions that flanked the entrance, paying them no attention (though Carter was always hoping for some kind of recognition). Instead, Baby was intent, as ever, on trotting to the lake’s nearest lip and peering over the edge, opening his jaws slightly to better smell the night herons who flocked on the water, far out of reach. A breeze caught the water, and ripples played against the reflection of thousands of tiny outdoor lights that hung between the street lamps, making what the Chamber of Commerce called the Necklace of Lights. The kidney shape of Lake Merritt was outlined like a theatre marquee. It provided a small amount of illumination and, perhaps, safety, for the lights, now celebrated as yet another way that would surely make Oakland a landmark city, had originally been installed because of complaints about the ghosts.

Carter, who’d never seen a ghost, nonetheless found the idea of them wonderful. Who wouldn’t want to see a ghost? Whenever he visited the park at night, he saw nothing. On weekend afternoons, he detoured through its rambles on his way to the ferry, watching the boaters, the Sunday painters, the wild and frantic children, and he thought how odd it was that the same joyful places, minus sunlight, became frightening.

Which brought him back to the ghosts, as his first fresh idea in nine years was a type of highly realistic spirit manifestation. Twenty-five minutes of his recent show, “The Levitation of Madame Zorah,” had involved a séance with disembodied moans, a rapping spirit hand, and the floating medium who made predictions and answered the audience’s intimate questions about loved ones on “the other side.” Carter had never been comfortable with this act, but all of his peers presented such illusions—they were popular. He insisted that his programs also include the disclaimer that he would provide five thousand dollars in gold to the person who could produce a genuine spiritual effect that he himself could not replicate.

He hoped this would show that his spiritualism was just a gag and yet, inevitably, each performance resulted in several letters reaching Carter’s hotel, desperately worded petitions to bring a loved one back from the grave. On some days, these letters depressed Carter—their authors were never clever—but on others they simply broke his heart.

He sympathized. There was a thin line between pulling rabbits out of hats and turning water into wine. And when one dealt in wonders, the temptation to pretend divinity, especially when people so
wanted
divinity,
was extreme. Even
Scientific American
was beginning to evaluate the machines spirit mediums used in hopes of advancing realms of knowledge. As the world now had odorless gasses that ate away flesh and molds that prevented disease, why not a device to speak with the dead? No one really knew what was possible anymore, and further, whether the means to a given miracle were technical or a mystery. Carter had noted how strictly physical explanations, like X rays showing the skeleton within, were ultimately a disappointment. What the public wanted was to marvel twice, once at what they’d seen, and then again at how progress, in which they had faith, could still be trumped by the hand of God.

How could his new effect be as spectacular as he imagined, and yet not be cruel to the believers in his audience? He would throw out all the trappings of spiritualism—the tambourines, the moans, the ectoplasm—and simplify. Capture a ghost onstage, show it off, make it answer questions, dismiss it into the ether. Ledocq and James would help him make it real.

He and Baby walked through the pergola, toward the bird sanctuary. At this time of night, most of the herons and geese were nesting on the offshore islands, and the rest would scatter when Baby’s scent was in the air. Baby had never caught an animal in his life, and Carter was sure that he’d have no idea what to do with a captured goose. Still, he liked to chase and to pounce sometimes, to remind the birds that he was a lion.

Is the ghost here?
Carter said to himself, pointing stage right, and imagining a quick manifestation within a crystal ball,
or here?
Stage left, the ghost transporting into another crystal, instantly. The idea of it promising answers to those in need troubled him. Perhaps he wouldn’t call it a ghost, but an imp. A pixie. Or what? Now, doubt erupted from fertile ground. The same doubt he’d had since the days of Blackmail: was this an admirable illusion?

Baby trotted ahead. His body went rigid, golden teardrop at the end of his tail flicking, and he was off like a shot, disappearing into the undergrowth.

Carter clicked his tongue disapprovingly. He could hear the crunch of breaking twigs. If somewhere in those three hundred pounds Baby had an ounce of catlike grace, it was unapparent. He whistled, and the sounds stopped. The lion did not return.

Baby had left the shoreline and gone deeper into the park. No feral animals there. If Baby were after a robber, his master would not mind—and might even enjoy it a little. He stood silently by the edge of the lake, peering in toward the woods, hoping for a sound to give Baby’s game away. There was a brief outline of the lion as he ducked, belly to the ground,
out of one bush and into another. But where was he going? The necklace of lights was not bright enough to see clearly. A quick gust of wind jangled the lights and brought the smell of guano and creosote, and in horror, Carter saw, outlined under a street lamp, the wide hat and slender figure of a solitary woman sitting on a park bench. Baby was hunting her.

There was no time for Carter to cry out; in less than a second, Baby had vaulted the back of the bench, and landed with a thud, paws outstretched, back arched, teeth bared. Carter ran toward the scene with his heart in his mouth, reciting all the things he’d said to street urchins in London and customs officers at the Port of San Francisco: Baby was just playing, Carter would say. He couldn’t hurt a fly.

Then he saw something that stopped him dead: the woman was passing Baby a bite from her sandwich.

The lion took the meat and lapped it up noisily. The woman tugged out another strip of meat, unimpressed that a lion was nuzzling the ground by her ankles.

With Carter a dozen yards behind her, the woman said, loudly, over her shoulder, “I hope it’s all right that I feed him roast beef.”

After clearing the rocks from his throat, he answered, “Yes. Yes, he likes roast beef.” What a cool customer.

“Good. I am wondering what sort of dog he is, exactly.”

Carter laughed. A
very
cool customer. “He’s a schnauzer.”

“You’re teasing me,” she said. She had a clear voice, enunciation like a schoolteacher. As Carter drew close, he could see that she wore a simple wool dress that was out of fashion by many years, and too lightweight for evening wear. Her back was to him. She had faced him for just a second. He had the impression of sizable red lips and a flash of eyeglasses. Her age, her complexion, her hair color were masked by the huge brim of her hat. She seemed completely out of place. “I happen to know that schnauzers are much smaller. What’s his name?”

“Baby.”

“And what kind of a dog is he?”

“All right, if he isn’t a schnauzer, then he’s a lion.”

“Now I know you’re teasing me,” she said, tossing another piece of roast beef to Baby, who gulped it down.

“He’s not a mountain lion, either. He’s a lion from Africa.”

She said nothing, and Carter was disappointed. When she held out the next piece of roast beef, and Baby advanced toward it, she slowly pulled it out of reach, making Baby pass by her. She ran her hands from his mane to the bulb of hair at the end of his tail.

“My God!” she shrieked, stumbling from the bench and turning, and there, under the lights, Carter saw her face, now a bloodless white, her lips obscured as she brought both hands to her mouth. She was shaking. Her glasses were painted black, matte black, across both lenses.

“Oh,” he said without thinking, “you’re blind.”

“It’s a lion!” she cried.

“I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I thought—please, don’t worry. He’s tame.”

“You have a
lion
!”

“Please don’t be scared. He won’t hurt you. I think he only came after you because he smelled your roast beef.” Carter glanced at Baby, who was now snuffling at the wax paper. “You’re safe. But he’s eaten your sandwich.”

She walked backwards until she touched the street lamp, and she grasped at it with both hands.

“My name is Charles Carter. I’m a magician,” he said, in the soothing voice he used on volunteers onstage. “I live nearby and I walk my lion when it’s dark so we don’t run into people. I’m sorry we frightened you. He and I will be on our way.” He clicked his tongue. Baby reluctantly came to his heel. Carter touched his fingers to the brim of his hat, etiquette perhaps idiotic when leaving a blind woman, but he was thrown off, and he needed to leave.

He was only a few feet away when the woman said, “The suave and bubbling mahatma.”

“Excuse me?”

“The paper called you the ‘suave and bubbling mahatma.’”

“Oh, yes.” He frowned, “They should have said ‘suave and lion-owning mahatma.’”

She folded her arms across her stomach, shivering still, and remaining several paces away from Carter. “Maybe.” She added, “Did they leave anything out? Black widow spiders?”

“I’ve had a few assistants who could have moonlighted as black widow spiders.”

“What about your friends?”

“Excuse me?”

“I think there are several men in the woods near us.”

Carter turned toward the maze of trees and bushes. “If there are men in the woods, they are no one’s friends.” He wasn’t about to leave a blind woman alone with unseen muggers. Still, he didn’t understand why she wouldn’t ask for his help.

“And this is the lion that ate President Harding?”

“He’s still full.” No reaction from her, not even a smile. Torn between teasing her and being helpful, he added, “He never really ate the President, you know. It was a trick.”

“There were rumors.”

“I know.”

She drew a deep sigh, arms still crossed. She seemed capable of arctic silence.

“I apologize for not making your acquaintance.”

“My name is Phoebe Kyle.”

“What brings you to Lakeside Park, Miss Kyle?”