Carter Beats the Devil (37 page)

“I was . . . walking. Thank you.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Certainly,” she said. “The lake is right there, the bird sanctuary over there, and the Home is”—her hand fluttered in a general direction—“there. And yes, I know there are many dope fiends between here and there.”

Of course. She was too proud to ask for help. “Would you take the escort of a man and a lion back toward the Home?”

“I’m not lost.”

“I know.”

She patted her palm against her collar. Carter wondered what options she was weighing. Finally, she extended her hand. He expected a tentative grip, but there was steel in her fingers. “The problem is, I live at Telegraph and Thirty-Sixth. I can’t ask you to walk all that way with me.”

“We’ll sort it out.” Carter could feel each of her fingers, distinct and strong, on his arm. They seemed to pulse, as if she couldn’t keep still. As they walked, he made several attempts, but could not successfully see her face.

She said, “Do you know about the ghosts?”

“Did you think I was a ghost?”

With great authority, she shook her head. “No.”

“Are you sure you aren’t cold?”

“Just a slight chill.”

Carter draped his jacket around her shoulders.

“You’re too kind, Mr. Carter.”

“It’s nothing.”

“No, you are too kind. If people saw us walking like this, they would think we’re sweethearts.” They walked slowly, while Miss Kyle stroked the fabric of his jacket.

Carter said, “If people already think I killed the President, other gossip lacks a certain amount of scandal.”

Since she didn’t respond, he looked away from her, and focused on the muscles of Baby’s back as he walked, how one shoulder, then the other, rose with each step. Carter could not tell if Miss Kyle ever smiled, but as they walked, her tone had became more inviting to conversation. He had been so misled by her casual feeding of Baby that he still didn’t know what she was like. He decided to listen rather than speak. Perhaps she was more the serious sort.

“I make brooms,” she announced.

“Pardon?”

“Not day and night, but several hours a day. All the girls at the Home. We all make brooms.”

“I have a broom. Perhaps I could get an autograph.” He immediately regretted it. He remembered boyhood attempts, before he learned self-control, at throwing darts and trying to will them toward the target, and knowing, even as they left his hand, that they would go wide. He asked, “Is it much of a life, making brooms?”

“It’s a fine life,” she declared. “I have many acquaintances among the women at the Home. We listen to the gramophone while we work. We are supposed to get a radio. Sometimes the matron reads to us. I make enough money to buy dresses and sweets. When my prefect retires, I could take over her job making cane-back chairs.”

Carter had a cane-back chair, too, but he caught himself before commenting on it. “Is that a promotion?”

“It requires more skill. If I had the patience I should be a necklace maker, but I don’t have the mind for it.” She explained that several of the girls had wonderful brains, and could make fabulously complicated strings of multicolored beads that never clashed, keeping the whole design in their heads while they worked. They were the most clever girls, and all the men were most impressed with them. “The men have it far worse than the women. There is much competition, and all the girls quickly have sweethearts.” She hesitated. “You must have many women who want to become your sweetheart.”

He said, “That sort is identified with ease.”

“This jacket is from London,” she said, so artlessly it sounded like a response. “The weave is different than domestic jackets. Sears says theirs are just like the imports, but you can always tell.” She quickly said, “Not that I spend a great deal of time feeling men’s jackets.”

They continued walking the path between the old oak trees.

“Do you have a gentleman friend, Miss Kyle?”

The dirt path joined the pavement, and Miss Kyle took the opportunity to lengthen her stride. “It’s difficult for girls at the Home. You cannot really go out unless you’re in a man’s company, so it’s . . . to say . . . of a man’s . . . if he knows how to explore the city without getting lost . . .”

Carter said, “I hope he at least got a slap in the face.”

“Who?”

“The man who left you in your predicament.”

“Is this Grand Avenue already?” she asked. “I could catch a taxicab from here.”

“We are close to the avenue,” he admitted, “but taxis tend not to stop for people accompanied by lions.” Baby padded past them, along a stone path that branched away from the one they stood on.

Miss Kyle looked confused. “Has he gone ahead?”

“There’s a fountain. During the day, he’s frightened of the noise, but at night, they turn it off.” Carter paused. “Just listen.”

They listened together, and then came great, sloppy sounds of a huge tongue lapping. Baby stood with his rear legs on the ground, front legs on the fountain’s stone edge, and his face almost kissing the skin of the water. Phoebe Kyle might be smiling, but it was hard to see her in the poor light. He was trying to form an offer without sounding like a masher: to take her to his house—to get his car and drive back to the home.

“Mr. Carter,” she said, “do you follow fashion?”

“I’m not much of a clotheshorse.”

“I mean ladies’ fashions. I hear there’s a new fad for girls, the flapper sort. Knee-painting.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve heard that girls paint pictures of their sweethearts on their knees, and walk around town that way. Is that true?”

“I’m sorry—I don’t look much at ladies’ knees.”

“You’ll have to pay better attention.”

“Miss Kyle?”

“Just tell them you’re allowed on account of a blind girl.”

“Miss Kyle?”

“Phoebe.”

“Phoebe.” He watched Baby ambling toward them, blinking and moving his tongue around his whiskers. “Let’s walk to my garage, and I’ll put Baby away for the night, and then I’ll drive you to your home. Unless that would cause talk.”

“Well. Some parties could benefit from talk.” When they continued walking, she said, “Thank you.”

They took a path paralleling the avenue, a few feet into the woods so that Baby wouldn’t startle other pedestrians. Their conversation was sporadic, and throughout, he could neither get her to reveal information nor be relaxed and gracious himself.

As she surmised, many women wanted to make his acquaintance. Several times since the War, he’d half considered assignations he couldn’t quite explain, with a chorus girl or an heiress, and it always ended badly before it had even begun. He’d concluded that he was quite clumsy when it came to love, and for the past several years had flirted out of politeness, but nothing more.

When they were climbing the final hill that met the base of the public stairs next to One Hilgirt Circle, they stopped to let Baby into the garage entrance, and she said, “You are a suave man, but you are not bubbling.”

Closing and locking the door to Baby’s lair, Carter said, “Wasn’t I bubbling just now?”

“No. No, you tell jokes, but they’re not bubbling. Your voice, your posture, and I suspect your face, too, all suggest you are a suave and sad mahatma, I think. Why is that?”

“Carter! Carter!” Amanda and Amy Chong, the ten-year-old twins who lived next door, were on his stairs, descending in great excitement. It was after nine o’clock, and they were in their nightgowns.

“You’re about to meet some children.” Carter turned to Miss Kyle, quickly, too quickly, colliding with her—she let out a gasp as her glasses slipped off her nose. He caught them in midair. “I have them,” he said.

“Carter!” He was used to hearing his name shrilled from all sides on weekend afternoons, when the neighborhood children wanted him to do tricks. His time in the limelight would last until the bells from the ice cream wagon sounded.

But tonight there were no other children, and the Chongs weren’t asking him to do tricks. They grabbed for his hands, the better to pull him up the staircase. Carter began to say something apologetic to Miss Kyle as she took her spectacles back. And then, before the perfectly round lenses found their place again, he caught a glance of her face in distress, her green eyes wide. He wanted a second glance.

“Carter . . .”

“. . . men came . . . Carter, come on . . .”

“Two fat men . . . come on.”

“. . . see the rope, it’s still hanging, Carter . . .”

He followed the two girls, who ran with their hands holding on to the hems of their nightgowns. When they got to his front door, they simultaneously told their story to him. “. . . just went to bed, and we were looking out the window, looking for Baby . . . over there . . . they didn’t see us . . .”

Carter had excellent home defenses. Otherwise rival magicians might break in to steal his notes (most of which were in a safety deposit box) or his illusions (all of which were dismantled after a tour, the key mechanisms kept under Ledocq’s supervision). Also, society pages inevitably announced Carter’s departures overseas and his triumphant returns, with speculations as to what treasures he had accumulated. Carter knew that if
he
were a burglar, he would read the society pages, and so his houses in San Francisco and Oakland were fortified.

A rope with a frayed end was hanging down in front of his front door. When he looked for them, he found black heel marks, showing one man had ultimately dragged the other away.

“They didn’t get in,” Amanda said.

“I see,” Carter replied. “Did one of the men try to force the door open?”

“Yeah, one of them did, and then . . .”

“And when the trap went off, did the other man have to cut him down?”

“Right . . . and then . . .”

“One of them touched the doorknob. Then what happened?”

Amy said, “Boom!” And she and her sister danced from foot to foot and shook their arms and legs, giggling.

Phoebe Kyle had come up the stairs, and stood near the girls. “Boom?”

Amy sang out, “Everyone knows you don’t touch Carter’s door!”

“Not on a dare!” Amanda added.

“Or else—Boom!” Amy did her little dance. The girls told Carter how the man who touched the door had to be carried away by the other man, and how they hadn’t come back. When they had told the story a few times to each other, and had each gotten an opportunity to say “Boom!” again and perform terpsichorean dramatics and collapse, and had begun to digress about how they were taking swimming lessons, and had already gotten their dolphin badges, Carter thanked them, and gave them each a dime, and they raced off home, to get back into bed before their parents found out.

“Children. So
cheerful
,” Miss Kyle said, as if she’d heard the word used successfully.

“They’re sweet girls. Children are a terrible audience for magicians. It’s very hard to make them look where they’re supposed to. So they also make—”

“Good neighbors?”

“Oh, yes.”

Carter deactivated his defense system and entered his house. He led Miss Kyle to a chair, and then walked from room to room. Everything was the way he’d left it.

When he returned to the foyer, Miss Kyle’s chair was empty—she was standing, her fingertips darting in and around an ornate vase.

“Miss Kyle, I should get you home as soon as possible. You could be in great danger if you stay.”

“Really?” she said, curious and perhaps even delighted.

“I’m serious. You might dislike your life in the Home, but the truth is, there are desperate people in the world.”

She continued to explore the foyer with her hands, then stepped left carefully, following the wall: hands on the table, then on to the shelves in his living room, then to his desk, where she found his telescope. She seemed to linger here.

“It’s pointing upward, I assure you.”

Still, she felt around its base, and on the reeded edge of its eyepiece. “It’s pointing toward the Tribune building.”

“What a remarkable guess,” Carter said, as astonished as if she’d produced a bouquet of flowers. “How—”

“I wasn’t guessing,” she interrupted. “So tell me how you feel about all this.”

“All what?”

“Thugs. Desperate men.”

His heartbeat was at eighty, his breathing was normal. “I feel fine.”

“I see. Mr. Carter, how do you feel about strange men being electrocuted on your doorstep?” Because he was sure he’d just answered that question, he stared at her until she continued, “While you think about it, I’ll look at your books.”

“Good luck.” It came out of his mouth before he’d even considered what he was saying. Miss Kyle turned slowly, very slowly from the bookshelf; it seemed to take an hour and a half for him to see her face. And what a radiant face it was. She was smiling, wonderful red lips parting to show off dazzling white teeth, the first smile she had directed at him.

Then back to the shelves. She picked up and felt and replaced an ivory
letter opener. She had him at sixes and sevens—and without even seeming to pay full attention to him. The letter opener back on the shelf, then fingers darting over and around a set of gimmicked cups. She could be here all night.

And so Carter put his mind to it: besides fine, how did he feel about being pursued by thugs? If he had a new challenge on his hands, it was one for which he was remarkably prepared. He had evaded the Secret Service once, and had just put some idiots down without effort. He knew he had something they wanted—but they couldn’t be sure he had it, for he was outwitting them at every moment in ways they hadn’t even discovered—misdirection! The truth was: he didn’t just feel fine.

“Excuse me,” he said, and then brought two glasses from the kitchen. He passed one to Phoebe, who had pulled out the oldest book on the shelf—incunabula—spells the Inquisition suspected were used to conjure up demons.

“What on earth is this binding made of ?”

He took it from her. “Human skin. Listen carefully. I would like to toast something.”

She smelled the glass. “Oh, water. I can drink water, I suppose. What sort of thing are we toasting?”

“The unknown.”

She considered this, and then held out her glass. He gently tapped his against it.