Carter Beats the Devil (38 page)
“To the unknown.” She sipped from her glass. “And how, Mr. Carter, do you feel about the unknown?”
“I feel very, very good about it.”
When he said that, she extended her glass again, for a second toast.
Man cannot survive by bread and water alone, but bread and water and
hate
? It was time for afternoon prayers in Cairo, and the mosque across the street from the Ezbekieh Theatre broadcast the call from a newly installed gramophone, with speakers situated on the second story. There was one bitter man waiting outside the theatre for Bechara Hemaidan, the promoter. The man hated the sun-baked day and the shrill singing of Arabic.
Until prayers were over, he could not see Hemaidan, so he looked at the plain lobby cards that were mounted in the dusty old windows. “Prescott!” The cards were printed in two colors, red and blue, and were not illustrated because the man who called himself Prescott could no longer afford it. They did not say he was a magician because he was convinced he could not risk being found, even here, eight thousand miles from nowhere.
He smoked. He wore a new fedora and a cream-colored silk suit with a bow tie. His head was shaved every morning and every evening, and he bleached his Vandyke blond. He wore two types of cologne, one for morning, one for evening. Even so, with the wind beginning to pick up, he could smell the stench of human excrement, and he winced as a small dust devil in the street collapsed nearby, sending detritus tumbling toward him. He ducked into an alcove behind the ticket taker’s booth to protect the $100 python-skin shoes that he had taken from an unlucky man in Rhodesia.
He noted with disdain the waxed canvas dropcloths that were pitched over the top stories of the unfinished office buildings on either side of the mosque. A stagehand had explained all the incomplete buildings to him, in the formal-sounding market English spoken among Arab entertainers. When the construction boom had hit Cairo, the government levied a property tax on completed buildings—only completed buildings—so in the downtown area, four out of five structures stood with bare girders, unfinished walls, entire stories naked to the elements.
Presently, the prayers ended, and there was silence on the street and then the people of the city began to spill out again into the scorching sunlight. The shade over Hemaidan’s window rustled and spun up on its roller.
Prescott rapped on the frosted glass immediately. He was here to extend his run for another two weeks.
Hemaidan, short and thick around the middle, showed no sign of emotion when he let Prescott into his office. Seeing what Prescott cradled in his arms, he murmured, knowing the answer already, “Would you leave your animal outside?”
“I think not.” Prescott found and sat in one of the two leather chairs on the visitors’ side of Hemaidan’s desk. Like promoters’ offices around the world, this one was deliberately shabby, decorated with posters of long-forgotten acts and furnished with hand-me-downs from defunct productions that could not finish out their contracts. The message sent was that Hemaidan had no money to spare, and furthermore would not hesitate to take your livelihood should you fail him.
Hemaidan eased into his own chair, making eye contact with the dog that shivered in Prescott’s lap. “You are lucky I understand the pleasure pets bring to their owners.”
“Handsome is not a pet,” Prescott said. When he showed no signs of elaborating, Hemaidan cleared his throat and continued.
“We need to discuss this note you have passed on to me. I’m afraid that what you have asked for is not possible.”
Prescott blinked. It was standard procedure to be put through torture, to be told you were not needed, before the real offer was on the table. He stroked his dog’s back and haunches.
But then Hemaidan told him something he hadn’t expected. “I have booked a new act into the theatre beginning tomorrow night. It is a man and a woman. Acrobats and comedians.”
“And the attraction of their act?”
“My brother-in-law in Carthage wrote me about them. The man acts drunkenly and the woman throws many, many dishes at him. The crowds find it hilarious.”
“Of course.” Prescott looked at his nails. They were perfect. His voice, while always smooth, like a woodwind, became more consonant, as he added, “But you still have an obligation to me that you’ll be no doubt fulfilling.”
“What obligation is that?”
“Payment for the next week, as that is how long I had been scheduled to perform.”
Hemaidan folded his hands over his belly. “Your contract says you are on a night-to-night basis, and can be fired at my discretion, immediately. It is quite standard. I’m allowing you an extra twenty-four hours because I feel sorry for you.”
Prescott fixed Hemaidan with eyes that, for only one second, widened. “My goodness. Sorry for me. That’s generous, Mr. Hemaidan. Why, may I ask, are you sorry for me?”
“Your show is a mess. I’m not even sure it’s magic. I do not understand it. Your audience does not understand it.”
“Perhaps you should be finding a better class of audience.”
“I do not think so. You perform tricks, if that’s what they are, that make no sense. You talk to invisible people. I thought it would be spiritualism when I booked you, but it seems to be invisible people.” Hemaidan leaned forward and, with his hands, described the shape of a hat. “And when you take a man’s hat from the audience and put the milk and the eggs and the flour into it—you’re supposed to make a cake.
What kind of magic is it when you leave that mess, and slap it back onto his head?”
“It’s the magic of teaching people not to trust anyone.”
“I do not find this amusing, Mr. Prescott. You have several interesting tricks. I would even write you a letter of introduction referring to them. Like the card throwing. Throwing a playing card through a candle, and then an orange, and then bamboo—that is impressive. But this is a family theatre and I do not like when you abuse that mannequin.”
“It’s not a mannequin. It’s a dummy.”
“It makes people confused to see you yelling at it and pretending to dash its brains out on the stage. It is not family entertainment when you saw it in half. No one cares to see such a weird thing. Here.” Hemaidan reached behind him and brought Prescott’s dummy onto his desk, its limbs scattershot, its outfit of evening clothes in disarray. Prescott made no move to take it. Instead, he scratched his dog behind the ears and regarded the dirty black yarn that was the dummy’s hair, the faded blue buttons that were its eyes, and he smiled with the air of a man who has heard he is about to be crowned king.
“You should cancel your comedians,” Prescott said. “Once word of mouth spreads about my act, your theatre will be overflowing with crowds as they did in Tangiers.”
“You haven’t sold out one of the performances. The last two days, I’ve been begging all of my wife’s relatives to come, but none of them want to anymore.” Hemaidan halted here, and then, by speaking again, made a mistake. “You know, you have a stage presence and those few good tricks. You just need to study more, follow the important magicians—”
“Important—I’m sorry. I interrupted you. Which magicians are important?”
Hemaidan looked toward the low ceiling of his office. “You’ve heard of them. Houdini. Thurston. Nicola. My brother-in-law saw Carter the Great last year, and said he was marvelous.” He nodded with enthusiasm.
Prescott said, “Your brother-in-law, he certainly has all the luck in the family.”
“I’m sorry I cannot book you for another night, Prescott, but be a good fellow and get your things. My men have already put them together backstage.” Hemaidan looked down at his desk and began to shuffle papers around.
Prescott, holding Handsome tightly, stood but did not leave.
“I suggest on your way out you leave me your card.”
Prescott said, “Excuse me?”
Hemaidan looked up. “Leave me your card.”
“As you wish.”
. . .
There was no taxi to meet Olian and Bugeau, the acrobatic husband and wife, when they arrived at the train station that evening. Their contract had stipulated there would be a taxi, and its absence triggered an argument. They bickered as they loaded their luggage into a cab, which they paid for out of their own grouch bag, and went to the Ezbekieh Theatre, where their pounding on the promoter’s door went unanswered.
It wasn’t until the stage manager appeared that the door was unlocked, and that was how Bechara Hemaidan’s body was found. He had not died easily; chairs and bookshelves were knocked over, playing cards were scattered across the floor, blood was everywhere. Someone had slashed his throat and his wrists and had stabbed him dozens of times in the stomach.
The police were unable to identify the murder weapon, as none was apparent, and the wounds were inconsistent with either a sharp knife, like a stiletto, a blunt one like an ice pick, or a triangular shape, like a bayonet. As the body was examined, and scores of wounds were uncovered, the task of counting the punctures seemed impossible. But then, suddenly, before the count had even begun, the Chief Inspector said, with authority, “There are fifty-two wounds.”
The roomful of police murmured in response. The Chief’s hunches were often correct, but how had he determined this?
In reply, he gently tugged an obstruction out of the slash across Hemaidan’s throat: it was an ace of spades.
“You’ve gotta be kidding, Sam.”
“I kid you not. I saw him. With my own eyes.”
Tuesday morning, Secret Service agents sat at a corner booth in the Automat on Market and Seventh. The Service’s numbers in San Francisco had diminished, and of the Eight Righteous Men, there were but four left locally—three in the booth, one in line to get food—all junior, all cut from the same blond cloth. Their names were Hollis, Stutz, Samuelson, and O’Brien, the latter nursing a broken nose and a black eye that beefsteak had been unable to address. Since their superiors were
eating lunch at the press club, they felt free to smoke cigarettes, and to use poor grammar.
“What did he look like?” Stutz asked.
Samuelson, who was a ladies’ man, withheld what he was about to say, as Hollis was returning from the cashier. Hollis, cowlicked, face still red from his twice-weekly shave, was the youngest agent assigned to the San Francisco office, and his tray was crowded with everyone’s pie and coffee. “Turn it over, Hollis,” said Samuelson. “Pie in the morning.”
“What’d I miss? You gents were just laughing.”
“Sam here saw a damned mermaid this morning.” O’Brien spoke gingerly because of the beating Griffin had administered.
Samuelson shook his head. “I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that.” Samuelson had learned the knack of telling stories, leaving out key details that begged for questions.
Hollis pulled up a chair. “What was it you saw?”
Samuelson said, “I was walking through the Presidio about five this morning, and I was just about at the Marina Green when I saw, in the bay—”
“Hold on.” Stutz poked Samuelson’s arm. “You haven’t told us why you were out at five
A
.
M
. in the morning.”
“I was just . . . taking in the bounty of nature.”
“I bet you were,” Stutz cried. “Who was she?”
“What did you see in the bay?” asked Hollis.
Samuelson gave him an annoyed look.
O’Brien grinned. “You were in the Presidio all night, weren’t you? The Major’s daughter. Right?”
Samuelson blew smoke toward the table as the others chimed in with encouragement. “All I’m saying is you gents should take the trouble to get to know this fair city a little better.”
Stutz prompted: “A bit of nocturnal surveillance, Sam?”
“Men, men, men,” Samuelson clicked his tongue. “A gentleman never tells these sorts of things. The important thing is, five
A
.
M
. in the morning, and what do I see in the bay but Senior Officer Jack Griffin?” The others laughed, so Samuelson continued. “Jack Griffin, Grumpy Griffin, swimming. In the bay at five
A
.
M
. in the morning.”
“Stinking up the bay,” O’Brien muttered.
“Now, O’Brien”—Samuelson grinned—“you did your best.”
Stutz said, “I wonder what he was doing in there?”
O’Brien said, “I bet he was drunk.”
“Did he look happy?” Stutz asked.
“Well, you know how he looks,” Samuelson said, which caused more laughter.
“Maybe he was getting ready for his calisthenics,” Hollis said, taking another bite of pie. More merriment followed, and Hollis looked up. “What?”
Stutz said, “That’s rich. Really rich.”
O’Brien added, “And then maybe putting on his skirt to go ice skating.”
“No, really,” Hollis said. “Because I saw him doing calisthenics at six yesterday.”
“Where was he doing calisthenics? What was he doing?” Stutz growled. “High kicks?”
“Yes, there were some high kicks involved, actually.” Hollis spoke as if accuracy might count toward popularity. “He did sprints and stretches. And I saw him do twenty-five chin-ups and a hundred push-ups. I left while he was doing sit-ups.”
“And where exactly was this?” No one noted the frost in Samuelson’s voice.
“The Green, around six yesterday morning.”
Stutz whistled. “That’s not the Griffin I’ve heard about.”
Samuelson said, “Well, beating the bejesus out of O’Brien here must make him feel ten feet tall.”
Teasing O’Brien was an excellent sport, with Stutz and Samuelson taking turns as the matador. When they were done, they considered aloud—now that they noticed it—the change in Griffin’s demeanor. Then, with a squint, Stutz said, “Hollis. What were you doing on the green at six o’clock in the morning?”
Hollis blushed. He brought his napkin to his mouth. “Well, nothing. It’s just that there’s this girl.” And the rest of his comments throughout lunch were covered by gales of laughter and increasingly jealous comments from Samuelson.
Early Tuesday morning, Carter walked down Lake Shore Avenue. He couldn’t remember having seen better weather in poor old Oakland: the air smelled fresh and sweet like someone nearby was baking bread. On the lake were tight flocks of coots, and in the grass nearby, Canadian
geese and canvasbacks and egrets pecking at seeds. Carter crossed the avenue to see them better. It was a long walk to the ferry, but today it felt invigorating. It was a day when, had he been a singing type of man, he would have burst into song.