Disappearing Nightly (11 page)

“I know.” I’d never thought he was.

“How much of what you told me in Magnus’s shop was true?”

My heart thudded. “Um, quite a lot of it, actually.”

“What part wasn’t true?”

I looked out my window, feeling both anxious and disappointed. My previous instinct to get away from him as soon as possible had been the smart choice, I realized. So I said, “I live on West Thirty-third Street, between Tenth and Eleventh.”

“What did you leave out of your story?”

“You can just take me home. Forget about dinner. It was a silly idea.”

He put his hand on my arm. I closed my eyes, and my heart pounded even harder.

“You’re a suspect,” he said.

“Suspected of?” My voice was a little breathy.

“Vandalism, at the very least.” He squeezed my arm gently. “What’s going on?”

I was trying to think about something aside from the way his skin felt on my skin, his palm on my bare forearm, the subtle pressure of his fingers.

I swallowed and gave myself a mental shake. I couldn’t be sure how sincere that gentle touch was. Even if he felt something, he certainly knew by now that
I
felt something, and he wanted answers from me. And I doubted anyone could be an effective cop without being a little ruthless. Even with himself. Even with a woman he…

“What’s going on?” I repeated. I gave my confused feelings a solid shove in the direction of anger. “I came to you with two threatening notes. I told you I was scared. Golly Gee is
missing.
You didn’t take any of that seriously!”

He frowned and took his hand away. “Yes, I—”

“But Matilda calls you about vandalism—of a fragile prop in an unguarded theater—and suddenly you’re all over the case!”

“Yes, I am,” he snapped, sounding angry, too. “F
or one thing, there actually
is
a case this time. Breaking and entering, and vandalism.”

“Why am I a suspect?”

“Apart from your bizarre behavior today?”

“I explained—”

“Come off it, Esther. If you knew I was in the shop to question Magnus about the vandalism that Matilda was blaming on you, why’d you come inside? Why’d you stay?”

“I—I—” Improv lessons suddenly weren’t helping so much.

“You’re not an idiot, either.” He didn’t make it sound like a compliment. “You took that risk for a reason. You were there for something else.”

I hoped that a little more truth might help the situation. “Okay, I went to ask Magnus not to return the crystal cage to
Sorcerer!
until someone finds out what happened to Golly. And I went upstairs looking for it to see if it was as damaged as I hoped.” While he studied me in silence, I added, “Anyhow, I thought I
was
avoiding you. I didn’t expect you to find out I was prowling around upstairs.” I shrugged and glared at him. “And I sure didn’t expect you to recognize me.”

“Well, now you know better.”

“I certainly do. I guess I’ll wear a gunny sack the next time we meet, if I don’t want you ogling me!”

“I did
not
og—Well, okay, maybe a little.”

“You did?”

Our eyes met again. “Yeah,” he said. “Very subtly, mind you.”

We both laughed a little in mingled pleasure and embarrassment. Then he looked away.

“Look, Esther,” he said, sounding tired, “if you’re that afraid to get into the prop box, why not just quit the show?”

“I can’t do that! Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a job? I mean, a
real
job—an acting job? I was waiting tables for months before this! And do you know how much harder it would be for me to get another job once word got out that I’d abandoned this show as soon as I stepped into the lead role? Besides, even if quitting would solve
my
problem, it wouldn’t solve
the
problem.”

“It wouldn’t?”

“What if the show doesn’t fold even after losing the female lead and her understudy? What if someone else takes over playing Virtue?” I exclaimed. “What’ll happen to
her
when she performs the act?”

“Oh my God,” he said slowly, looking at me with a dawning expression of amazement. “You did vandalize the cage, didn’t you?”

I blinked, thinking maybe I’d been a tad too truthful. “No.”

He nodded. “You destroyed it thinking you were in danger. Thinking anyone who gets into it is in danger.”

“No!”

“Esther, why destroy the thing? Why not get an expert to examine it? Why not ask Magnus to go through it piece by piece with you to make sure it was safe?”

“I didn’t vandalize it!”

And I hadn’t. I was just an accomplice. One who was currently digging a hole for herself, like a perfect idiot, because I’d briefly wallowed in my attraction to the investigating officer.

“Look, if you vandalized the cage,” Lopez said, “it would be a first offense. You’ve got no priors.”

“How do you know that?”

“Uh, well—”

I gasped. “You’ve been checking up on me!”

He looked exasperated again. “Of course I have! You’re a suspect, Esther.”

“I can’t believe this! You had the nerve to ask me out to dinner while you’re
investigating
me?”

“
You
asked
me.
”

Since he had a point, I changed the subject. “I want to go home now.”

“Listen to me. It’s a first offense, there were no drugs involved…Er, there
were
no drugs involved?”

“Oh, right, I’m an actress, so naturally I must be a drug user!”

“That’s not what I—”

“Also promiscuous, right?”

“Okay, let’s calm down.”

“After all, everybody knows that ‘actress’ is practically synonymous with ‘prostitute’!”

“What?”

“In some languages, it’s even the exact same
word!
”

“A first offense, no drugs, no one got hurt,” he said doggedly, refusing to be distracted (as I’d hoped) by my tirade, “and there were extenuating circumstances. The DA will be lenient. You can plead it out without serving any time.”

“What extenuating circumstances?” I snapped, spooked by the mention of serving time.

“Golly Gee went missing in the middle of the act, Herlihy couldn’t explain what had happened to her, and you were receiving mysterious notes warning you of the same fate if you got into the crystal cage. You’re an artiste, you’re sensitive…It’s going to be fine,” he said soothingly. “I’ll give you the name of a good defense lawyer who’ll make sure you don’t get slapped with anything worse than a little community service.”

“I thought cops hated defense lawyers,” I muttered.

“I do. But they have their uses.”

“Are you charging me?” I demanded.

“Did you save the notes you received? I’ll tell the DA that I saw them, of course. But it would help if…” He frowned. “The notes…”

“What about the notes?” I asked uneasily.

“They were signed M.Z.”

I didn’t like his expression. He seemed to be looking inside himself, suddenly connecting random fa
cts scattered in his head. I decided to try distracting him again.

“You can’t pin this bum rap on me,” I insisted.

For a moment, my attempt seemed to work. “Where do you
get
that kind of dialogue?”

“I’m not guilty, and I’m not confessing to anything.”

But then he said, “M.Z
.
”

“And you can either cease these insulting accusations right now—”

“What made you think of that name for your ‘doctor’?”

I tried not to drop my lines. “Right—right now, or else you can charge me. But since I didn’t
do
anything—”

“Dr. Zadok,” Lopez said. “M.Z.”

“I’m going home.” I unbuckled my seat belt and reached for the door handle.

“What’s going on, Esther?” He stopped me when I tried to exit the car.

“Let me go!”

“Half of this is an act, isn’t it? You’re not silly or skittish. A little eccentric, maybe…”

“I’m leaving now.” I pushed at his restraining arm.

“But not a hysteric,” he said with certainty. “So what aren’t you telling me?”

“Let go.”

“Is someone threatening you? Scaring you?”

“Stop it!”

He put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled my head close to his. “Just tell me that much,” he breathed into my ear, making my hair flutter. “Just tell me if you’re afraid of someone.”

I closed my eyes, breathing hard, my chest pounding.

“Esther.” His breath fanned my neck and my cheek. His dark hair brushed against my temple. “Talk to me.”

“You’re the one I’m afraid of.” I choked out the words, pulling away from him.

I turned the door handle and jumped out of the car. He didn’t stop me this time.

“T
he only thing we’ve done that’s illegal,” I reiterated to Max, “is breaking and entering, and vandalism.”

Yes, indeed, after careful examination of the facts, I was positive those were our “only” prosecutable crimes.

“And given the way we did what we did,” I continued, “it’ll be hard to prove.”

“That’s a relief. I think.” Max tugged a little at his white beard. “I do feel bad about breaking the law. It’s just sometimes unavoidable in the struggle against Evil.”

“Right now, I’m the only one suspected of destroying the crystal cage. I think.” By the time I’d fled Lopez’s car yesterday evening, he’d been highly suspicious of the mysterious Dr. Zadok a.k.a. M.Z., but I didn’t know if he suspected him of
this.
“We want to keep it that way. We want to keep suspicion off you,” I reminded Max. “Right?”

“Oh, Esther, I still don’t feel right about this!”

I had come straight to the shop after leaving Lopez yesterday, and I’d waited impatiently for Max to return with Barclay and Duke. Examination of the Great Hidalgo’s prop box had revealed nothing new to Max, who returned to the bookshop frustrated and puzzled. The Pony Expressive performers all had to abandon their various research posts when it was time to go perform their first show of the night at the club. Barclay and Dixie kept at it for another hour, then called it quits and went out for a nightcap after I told them Max and I had to consult in private. Duke, a little teary eyed with w
orry about Dolly, went back to his hotel after being assured that Barclay would not buy alcohol for Dixie and would escort her back to the Waldorf-Astoria before her midnight curfew.

I hadn’t wanted to alarm the others by talking about the police before I had settled on a plan with Max. Now, after a restless night, I was back in the shop the following morning, reviewing what we’d decided. Or, rather, what
I
had decided and had told him was the plan.

“Max, this is damage control,” I said now. “Yes, it’s extremely inconvenient that Lopez suspects me of vandalizing the cage—but I’m safe.” I hoped I was right about that. “I don’t have keys for those
locks you opened, I don’t know how to pick locks, and I don’t have any experience with a blow torch—or whatever it would have taken to melt the cage if a mundane had destroyed it. And no one can prove otherwise. So Lopez can make me uncomfortable, but he can’t charge me. Because he’s got no real evidence against me.”

I hoped I was right about that, too. Lopez had tried to make the consequences of getting caught sound minor, but I had no intention of going through the rest of my life with a criminal record. I didn’t want to check the box marked “Yes,” on every employment and rental application I filled out, asking if I’d ever been convicted of a crime. And it seemed particularly unfair that I might get stuck with a burden like that as a direct result of, you know, fighting Evil.

Max protested, “But it seems wrong for me to cower behind you—”

“The struggle against Evil will not be served in any way by you also coming under suspicion for what happened that night.”

“That’s true, but—”

“So it will be much better for the disappearees if you just
don’t
come under suspicion,” I said. “Agreed?”

“Um—”

“Good.” If Max got locked up, our problem would seem hopeless instead of just dire.

“But I—”

“Now let’s review, Max. What’s our story about that night?”

He nodded and concentrated. “We left the theater, pretending you were ill so you wouldn’t have to perform the disappearing act. We went to the Waldorf. Then we came here. Later, we went to the Pony Expressive.”

Unfortunately, he was a terrible liar. And he wasn’t improving with practice. He sounded stilted and awkward.

But I said, “Okay. Good.” I looked him over. “Are you all right?”

“I feel a bit light-headed.”

Max was very anxious about the prospect of being questioned by the police. I was anxious about it, too. After yesterday, I was sure that Lopez would soon track him down. So I was trying to prepare him.

Based on the assumption that Lopez would dismiss almost everything Max said as sheer nonsense, I had decided it was best to fabricate nothing, and omit only one fact from any account we gave of our activities—the fact that we had gone back to the theater that night and actually committed the crime in question. I’d rather not have to explain our presence at the Waldorf and the Pony Expressive to Lopez, but I didn’t want Max to get caught in a muddle of lies, which I knew could happen pretty easily. Besides, so many people had seen us at both places that, if this case got any mor
e complicated, it was possible Lopez would learn we’d lied. And that would be a problem. So I figured that the fewer lies we told, the fewer lies we’d have to worry about keeping straight.

The rest of the group started arriving at the shop shortly after noon. (You keep late hours when your research team consists largely of nightclub performers.) By one o’clock, we were ready to convene a meeting to share our findings to date, in what Whoopsy was calling “Project Bookworm.”

“The good news, my friends,” Max announced, “is that I do not believe another disappearance occurred last night!”

Everyone else cheered.

I spoiled things by asking, “Can you be positive?”

“Er, no. But the localized dimensional disturbance, which has by now become both pronounced and familiar, does not seem to have occurred since Sexy Samson disappeared.”

“Do we have any idea why not?” I asked.

“No.”

“Maybe this means there’ll be no more disappearances?” Satsy suggested hopefully.

I wasn’t optimistic. “There were a couple of days of inactivity after Clarisse disappeared and before Dolly vanished.”

“Hmm,” Max said. “Yes, this may just be another lull.”

I grumbled, “Where’s His Royal Highness Hieronymus, Prince of the Cellar? Too busy manufacturing explosions to join the meeting?”

“He went out early this morning,” Max said. “He thinks he may have a lead.”

“What kind of a lead?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

Unfortunately, the rest of Max’s news was negative. Having talked to all of the magicians and examined all the prop boxes by now, he couldn’t spot a common thread.

“We’ll need to do a second interview,” I said. “We need to go into more detail than we have so far. We should gather all four magicians here together.”

“Me, Barclay and Miss Delilah are willing and eager,” said Duke, with a gracious nod of his head to the dusky drag queen. She was wearing a tight red dress and gold hoop earrings, and her makeup was flawless, though her eyes were red. “But how are we going to get Herlihy to sit through another interview, let alone join us here?”

After a brief silence, everyone looked at me. “
I
don’t know,” I said crankily.

“You know him better than anyone else here,” Satsy pointed out.

“But I don’t know him
well,
and I don’t like him.” In fact, my whole mode was cranky today.

“Maybe if I asked him?” Delilah suggested.

I thought it over. I resisted the urge to dwell bitterly on how unfair it was that a drag queen had more power to move straight men than I did, and I acknowledged that, of all of us, Delilah was probably the most likely to sway Joe. Men can rarely resist a sultry beauty with tears in her eyes.
Especially if they haven’t yet realized she’s got a penis under that tight red skirt. There was a certain talk I still hadn’t had with Max. Thinking about it made me even crankier.

“Well?” Delilah prodded gently.

I shook my head. “How would you get past his wife? No way will she let a stranger into the apartment to talk to him now.”

“Then let’s figure out a way to separate them,” said Duke.

“Let’s nab him!” said Barclay. “Or her!”

“Good idea!” said Whoopsy.

“I’ll help,” said Khyber.

“Whoa! Hang on,” I said. “Let’s see if we can think of a less felonious way of getting Joe here for an interview.” No need for
all
of us to wind up under criminal investigation.

“Speaking of interviews…” said Whoopsy. He held up
The Exposé,
a tabloid newspaper that made other tabloids look like serious journalistic endeavors.

I read the front-page headline. “‘Zombies in Manhattan’?” I shrugged. “So what?”

He handed the tabloid to me. “Page three.”

I opened it and read the headline there. “Oh. That’s not good.”

“Well?” Barclay prodded.

“‘Golly, Golly’s Gone!’” I read.

“The press has got a hold of this?” said Max. “Oh dear.”

“How?” Dixie wondered.

“Not just the press, I’m afraid,” said Khyber. “That’s part of my report. Golly Gee’s name is showing up on some conspiracy-theory BBs.”

“BBs?” Max repeated.

“Electronic bulletin boards. Internet gossip.”

“Oh dear,” Max said again.

“So far,” Khyber said, “Golly’s the only one of the victims being mentioned.”

“Makes sense. She’s the most famous one,” I said, skimming the
Exposé
article. “Max, remember the assistant stage manager who talked to you? She talked to these guys, too.”

“So that’s how the story broke!” said Dixie.

I finished skimming the article. “Ironically, they got some of the facts right. I think that may be a first for
The Exposé.
But it sounds so absurd, especially in their prose style, I wouldn’t expect this to get much attention.”

“Even though Golly Gee really is missing?” Satsy said.

“And, her being so famous, that’s bound to be noticed,” Whoopsy added.

“Probably by now,” Barclay said.

“Oh. Good point.” I folded the paper. My hands were dirty now from its cheap ink. “I suppose I might as well take this opportunity to mention that we’re expecting a visit from the police at some point.”

“Fuzz?” Whoopsy leaped to his feet.

“Calm down,” I said. “I’m under suspicion. Ma
x may be under suspicion, too, though we hope to avoid that.”

Max protested, “But Esther—”

“But no one else here has done anything wrong or has any reason to be concerned.”

“I’ll call my lawyers, tell them we may need help,” said Barclay, pulling out his cell phone.

“Good man,” said Duke.

Dixie beamed at Barclay as he stepped away from the table to make his call.

We proceeded with reports. Khyber summarized the history of supposedly mystical disappearances (and reappearances) caused by lightning strikes, violent thunderstorms, thick fog and eclipses. Most of these seemed (to me, at least) to be clear cases of frightened, disoriented people seizing upon a supernatural explanation after a confusing experience. Khyber also summarized a slew of other supposedly mystical disappearances he’d found online that did not involve bad weather. Mostly, I was amazed at how many men turned up naked after a bender and claimed they were the victims of
supernatural events about which they could give no details.

My own team reported that faeries sometimes made people disappear. In fact, Dixie informed the group, there were said to be whole islands in the United Kingdom that faeries had caused to vanish.

Max resisted blaming faeries for our problems, though. “They’re relatively scarce in the New World, and rarely this energetic.”

Satsy asked if there’d been a shower of toads accompanying any of the disappearances. Upon being told that there had not, he said, “Okay, that rules out one theory, so never mind.”

“It’s funny that no horses or cattle have been involved yet,” Dixie said. According to her reading, the mystical movement of livestock was a common phenomenon.

“Otherwise known as rustling,” I muttered.

“It’s possible the disappearees are being transported to a duplicate dimension,” Barclay reported. “In fact, they may not even realize they’ve disappeared.”

Even I found this theory interesting, but discussion of it didn’t get us any closer to solving our problem.

In Hieronymus’s absence, I reported that he had found nothing in the Latin and Greek texts yet, and he thought it was possible that mundanes were responsible for the disappearances. This provoked considerable controversy in the group, and I eventually said, “Look, take it up with him, if you’re that offended. When he gets back from following his lead.” I wondered if it was a mundane lead, and I decided to try to like him a little if he came back today with something more useful than theories about faeries, falling toads and duplicate dimensions.

Whoopsy’s research had produced a list of the most common types of supernatural disappearances. I c
ut Max short when he tried to explain why
supernatural
was the wrong word, and Whoopsy said, “About twenty percent of mystical disappearances are classified as ‘spontaneous total disappearances,’ which means that someone or something vanishes without warning and is never seen again.”

Dixie gasped. Duke looked upset. Barclay made a little noise and checked his watch—perhaps wondering how soon Clarisse Staunton’s parents would be back from Europe. Delilah bit her lip and tears started flowing.

So I said, “Only twenty percent? That’s excellent news! Did you hear that, guys? There’s at least an eighty-percent chance we’re going to get the disappearees back!”

“Well, not really,” said Whoopsy, glancing at his notes.

So much for trying to maintain group morale, I thought.

“For example,” Whoopsy said, “several kinds of disappearances involve corpses.”

“Ah,” said Khyber, nodding. “Since our disappearees were all alive when they vanished, that skews our stats.”

“Why would a corpse go missing?” Dixie wondered.

“What are some of the other kinds of disappearances?” I asked quickly.

“Well, there are disappearances that
are followed almost instantaneously by reappearance at a distant location.”

“Aha!” said Barclay.

“Star Trek,”
said Dixie.

“These disappearances can be willed, or they can be spontaneous. They account for somewhere between thirty and forty-five percent of cases.”

“Why is the margin for error so wide?” Khyber asked, bookkeeper-like.