Disappearing Nightly (15 page)

“Look, I don’t mean to be judgmental,” Magnus said, “but I must ask—are you all insane?”

“You are the only person we’ve come across who had access to all the prop boxes,” I said testily.

“All of them?” He frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Um…” I looked at Max. He looked at Barclay.

“No, I’m asking seriously,” Magnus said. “If it’s true, if you found an evidence trail leading to me, then I want to know about it. Because that cop—Lopez?—will find it, too. He seems like a thorough son of a bitch. And forewarned is forearmed. I don’t want to get arrested for something I didn’t do.” He looked upward for a moment and added, “I also don’t want to get arrested for what I
am
doing. Are we clear on that?”

“You mean…” I frowned. “You want to cooperate with our investigation?”

“‘Want’ would be a wild exaggeration,” he said. “But I have decided to cooperate, in order to serve my own interests—i.e., avoiding nasty surprises from the cops. So, how many vanishing boxes are involved. Four, you said?”

“Five, as of tonight,” Max replied. “But we don’t yet know who the fifth victim is.”

“Well, Joe and Barclay got their boxes from me, we all know that,” Magnus said. “Give me the names of the other two magicians.”

He’d never heard of Duke Dempsey or Darling Delilah. Duke’s rhinestone-studded horse and Deli
lah’s little Philistine temple sounded unfamiliar to him—though he’d like to see them sometime, he said with professional interest.

“You’re bluffing,” I said, trying to sound cop-like. “Hoping to get rid of us.”

“Esther, I am decidedly
eager
to get rid of you. But what would be the point of my bluffing, when you’re certainly going to ask your friends if they know me?”

“Oh. Right.”

“And they’re going to tell you they
don’t
know me. I’m not the, er, evil perpetrator you’re looking for, folks.” Seeing our dejected postures, he sighed. “Look, if you can give me some more details about the disappearances, maybe I can figure out how it was done.”

Max shook his head. “It wasn’t done your way, young man. It was done my way.”

“It looks like we’ve wasted an evening,” I said morosely.

“And I’m going to waste tomorrow morning cleaning up the mess you’ve made of my place,” Magnus grumbled.

“Serves you right,” I said. “Those hokey booby-traps.”

He grinned. “And you only had time to stumble into a couple of them.”

My cell phone rang. I glanced at the time—nearly two o’clock in the morning—and realized who must be calling. “Hello?”

“Esther, it’s Satsy. I’ve just come out onto the street for a few minutes to check my call log. You were trying to reach me a few hours ago?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “It’s been a busy night. We’ll swing by the club and make a report.” So much for going straight home and to bed, I thought.

“We’ll be here.”

“Time to go,” Max said. He settled his hat on his head. We all did the same, including Lysander.

Magnus looked at our hats and asked, “Is there some kind of dress code in your group?”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” I said to him.

“And why is your face all dirty, Esther?”

I brushed self-consciously at my cheek. Ink wasn’t easy to wash off. “I won’t tell anyone you’re smuggling illegal aliens into the country—”

“Persecuted magic acts,” he corrected me.

“—if you don’t tell Matilda the crystal cage is ready until
I
tell you it’s okay to do so. Agreed?”

“I can’t stall her forever,” he warned me.

“I know. But I need a little more time. And you don’t want to
do
time. So do we have a deal?”

He sighed and nodded. “We have a deal.”

So one problem was solved, at least. However, by now, it seemed like an awfully small problem.

I
t seemed I had only just fallen asleep—in a post-dawn, headlong crash into my mattress—when my doorbell rang. The loud, bone-jarring buzz made my whole body do an improbable leap straight up into the air. I landed facedown on my bed and contemplated staying there. Forever.

Predictably, though, the buzzer disturbed me again a minute later. I groaned and heaved myself out of bed. As I headed for the bedroom door, staggering with exhaustion and pain—last night’s adventures at the magic shop had taken their toll on my body—I caught a glimpse of myself in the dresser mirror and flinched.

I was a sight that would send small children fleeing in terror. My hair was matted. There was a red scrunchy so thoroughly woven into the tangles that I didn’t even bother trying to get it out. I was stil
l wearing yesterday’s clothes, navy blue sweatpants and a gray T-shirt. The shirt was stained with the glass of red wine I’d spilled on myself during our war council at the Pony Expressive around three o’clock in the morning. There was a big, dark bruise on my arm, from last night’s tumble down Magnus’s stairs; I could feel other bruises elsewhere, hidden beneath my wrinkled, dirty clothing. My face was pale and still liberally smeared with tabloid ink. My eyes were bloodshot, puffy, and had dark circles under them. I looked like some hideous hag from the bizarre drawings reproduced in Max’
s occult books.

The buzzer made me jump again. I stumbled toward the intercom next to my front door and pressed the button to open the downstairs door for my visitor. Anything to make the infernal buzzing of my doorbell stop—
now.
Only as I staggered toward the coffeepot in the kitchen did it occur to me that I should have used the intercom to demand the identity of my visitor before letting him into the building.

“It would be just my luck to be the victim of a random homicide now,” I muttered, searching vaguely for coffee.

There was a knock at the front door. I groaned again and stumbled back over to it, dazed and confused. I opened the front door without remembering to ask who was there.

Lopez took one long look at me, then said, “Yeah, I didn’t really figure you for a morning person.”

I stared at him in blank-minded stupefaction.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

There was a bag in his arms. I smelled something seductive. “Is that coffee?” I croaked.

He nodded. “And bagels. I brought breakfast.”

“You can come in.” Turning away from the door I shuffled over to my kitchen table, where I slumped into a chair and closed my eyes. I heard the front door close and footsteps approach me. Then there were rustling noises right next to me, and I realized Lopez was unpacking the coffee and food.

“Plates?” he said.

I opened my eyes and squinted up at him. “Huh?”

“Do you have plates?”

I stared at him. “Plates.” I repeated the word slowly, waiting for it to register meaning in my brain.

His lips twitched. “Have some coffee, Esther.”

I accepted the foam cup he pressed into my hand, closed my eyes again and took a grateful gulp of the hot liquid. Then I wrinkled my face in distaste and said, without opening my eyes, “I take it with milk.”

“Okay.”

I felt him remove the cup from my hands. The refrigerator clicked open softly, there was a little shuffling and a pouring sound, and then my cup was placed back in my hands. I raised it to my lips, gulped again, and said, “That’s better.”

After another gulp, I opened my eyes and s
aw Lopez rummaging around in my kitchen cupboards. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for—Ah, here we go.” He came back to the table with two plates, then went back to searching my kitchen. He returned to the table again a moment later with knives and napkins. He unpacked the bagels and some cream cheese.

“Okay,” I mumbled, gazing at the offerings with my dry, aching eyes. “That’s fine. You can go now.”

“Actually, I was thinking of joining you.”

“Huh?”

He sat down, put a bagel on his plate and picked up the other cup of coffee.

I said, “No, I need that.” Before he could raise his coffee to his lips, I took it away from him and cradled it against the stained fabric covering my chest.

“No, no, please don’t stand on ceremony,” he said. “Help yourself.”

“Why are you bothering me at the crack of dawn?” I demanded.

“It’s after ten o’clock.”

“I didn’t get to bed until…” I shook my head. “I don’t know. But it wasn’t long ago, I know that much.”

“What kept you up so late?”

Breaking and entering, followed by the discovery of illegal aliens whose presence here I have conspired to keep secret, followed by a long postmortem with two wizards, a cowboy and some drag queens.

“Uh…” I blinked, afraid for a moment I’d
spoken aloud. However, I could tell from Lopez’s expression that I hadn’t. Besides, my tongue wasn’t yet working well enough to say that much.

Late last night—well, early this morning—Duke and Delilah had both confirmed, as Magnus predicted, that they’d never met or dealt with the red-haired illusions expert. By dawn, Max still had no idea who had disappeared last night, and we’d all agreed that none of us would be of any use unless we got a little rest. I was due back at the bookshop around noon today; I’d been planning to sleep until 11:45, then brush my teeth, run outside and catch a cab.

Now I glowered at Lopez, thinking I could have slept another ninety minutes if he hadn’t come here and bothered me.

“You were saying?” he prodded.

“Huh?”

“What were you doing last night that kept you up so late?” Lopez was watching me intently.

“Um…”

“Fighting Evil, by any chance?”

My heart sank as I suddenly remembered everything
else
that had happened yesterday. “Oh.”

“Esther…” He paused. “Uh, are you hungover?”

“No, just exhausted, demoralized and in more than a little pain.”

“Pain?” He glanced at the big bruise on my arm. “Did someone hurt you?”

I tried to pull my sleeve over the bruise,
then stopped when I realized that just increased his interest in it. “It was an accident. Someone fell on me, then I fell and…” I shrugged. “Big accident. Clumsy.”

“In the bookshop?”

My brain was still working slowly. I just stared at him, wondering what to say.

“Esther?”

“Thanks for the coffee,” I mumbled, realizing I needed to pull myself together and make sure I edited my comments appropriately.

After a moment, he sat back, evidently deciding to let the subject drop. For the moment, anyhow. He nodded to the coffee and said, “You’re welcome. It’s the least I can do if I’m going to call on a woman unannounced in the morning.”

“Do you do this for all the female suspects that you wake up from a sound sleep?” I grumbled.

There was a pause before he said, “Actually, I’m off duty right now.”

“Oh, really?” I was skeptical that this was purely a social call.

“Just wanted to talk,” he said, spreading cream cheese on his bagel. “You and me. Off the record.”

“
That’s
what looks different about you today,” I said, as the caffeine infiltrated a few brain cells. So far, I’d seen him only in his detective clothes—neat, slightly conservative suits that looked budget-conscious but well-made. Today he wore jeans, a denim jacket and a nice T-shirt that nearly matched t
he blue, blue color of his dark-lashed eyes. “You’re not dressed for work.”

“I don’t go on duty until four o’clock.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Have some food,” he suggested. “You seem a little cranky.”

“I’ve had three hours of sleep. I think.”

“I’m relieved.” He glanced at me. “That you’re not
always
like this in the morning, I mean. Uh, you’re not, are you?”

“Humph.” I bit into my bagel.

He looked around. The kitchen had almost enough room for a sit-down table big enough for four people. The kitchen (and the table) flowed into the living room, the two rooms being partially separated by a counter. The bathroom was off the living room, which was moderate in size, and there was a door at the other end of the room leading onto a very small balcony. It overlooked a claustrophobic space between four close-together buildings and offered no privacy, but it was nonetheless a balcony.

“This is a good apartment,” Lopez said, with a New York resident’s standard interest in living spaces.

“Uh-huh.”

He leaned way back in his chair so he could look down the hallway. “You have
two
bedrooms?” It was clear that this astonishing fact momentarily drove all other thoughts from his mind.

“Yes.”

“No roommate?”

“No.”

“
Two
bedrooms?”

“You cannot have one of them,” I said firmly.

“How can you afford two bedrooms?” When I gave him a chilly look, he added, “I just mean, I don’t know anyone living alone who can afford two bedrooms in Manhattan.”

I sighed and loosened up a little. “Yeah, it’s a great apartment. I’m really lucky.” It was old and shabby, there was a mold problem in the bathroom, and it certainly wasn’t the swankiest neighborhood in the city—though it was safer than most people supposed, and almost everyone who lived on my street was a longtime resident who knew most of the other neighbors by name. The landlord responded to repair requests in geological time, the window-unit air conditioners were unreliable in summer, and the heating system was unpredictable in winter. But by New York standards, this was a great apartm
ent—especially at the rent I was paying. And it was a real luxury for a struggling actress to have this much space to herself.

I poured milk into Lopez’s coffee and started drinking it. Then I said, “It’s rent controlled. I moved in here with two other girls when I first came to New York—the back bedroom’s tiny, barely big enough for just one person. Anyhow, there was a series of roommates over the next few years, and then finally
, I was getting enough work that I decided to stop collecting new roommates when the last two left the city.” I shrugged. “I figured I could cover rent by myself, and I was more than ready to live alone by then.”

“If
Sorcerer!
doesn’t reopen, can you still cover rent by yourself?”

“You’re great company in the morning, too,” I said sourly.

“When the crystal cage is repaired, will you go on with the show?”

“When did
that
become police business?”

Off the record or not, he was on the job again. “Esther, just tell me straight up. Do you really believe the stuff that Max Zadok was spouting in my house yesterday?”

“He went to your house?” I said, puzzled.

“My precinct house,” Lopez amended.

“You tell
me
something straight up,” I said. “Are you satisfied that he’s no threat to—” I stopped when I heard an unfamiliar jingle. “What’s that?”

“Excuse me.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew his cell phone, then frowned when he read the caller ID. “I’d better answer it. She’ll just keep calling every twenty minutes if I don’t. I’m sorry, Esther. This won’t take long.”

He flipped open his phone and, with a look of long-suffering patience, said, “Hi, Mom.”

I snorted into my coffee and smirked at his warning glare.

“Yeah. Uh-huh. No. No.” After a moment, he said, “Let’s try this again.
No.
I said no. Have you gone deaf? Mom…” He winced and pulled the phone away from his ear, then covered the receiver with his hand and said to me, “You would be amazed at the number of friends my mom has who have single daughters living in the city. All of them, it would seem, in such desperate need of a date that they have authorized our mothers to act as matchmakers.”

“Surely not.”

“Yeah, I don’t really think so, either, but my mom keeps swearing it’s so. I’m guessing her Confessor knows the truth, though. Lucky for her, lying’s only a venial sin.”

I guessed, “Your mom is where your blue eyes come from?”

He nodded. “Bridget Eileen Donovan.”

“And your Dad?”

“From Cuba. Came over when he was young.”

And was, no doubt, the source of Lopez’s exotic good looks, I thought, aware of the crisp black hair brushing his collar and the smooth, dark skin of his throat.

He put the phone back to his ear. “Yes, Mom, I’m still here. No, I can’t. No.” He listened. “There
is
a good reason.” In response to her next question, he said, “Because I’ve met someone I like.”

Our eyes locked. I suddenly wished I didn’t look like such a hag today.

“No,” he said into the phone, “I’m not lying just to get rid of you. Uh-huh. Yes, she’s female. No, not married. Yes, still in her childbearing years.”

I choked on my coffee.

“Well, I haven’t looked
everywhere
yet, but I haven’t noticed any excessive piercing.” He listened for a moment. “Pretty?” His gaze ran over me. “Well, sometimes.”

I glared at him.

He grinned and added, “In her way.”

I drank more coffee, pretending to ignore him.

“No, I think she’s Jewish.” When I continued ignoring him, he poked my calf with his foot. “Right?” I nodded and he said, “Yeah, Jewish. No, she won’t convert. Yes, I’m sure. No, I don’t want Father Devaney to give her a call.” After another moment, he said, “No, we haven’t talked about how we’ll raise the children. Or the wedding…Actually, no. No. No, not that, either…Well, because we haven’t been on a date yet. No, I’m not sure we will.”

He held the phone away from his ear again while his mother squawked. Then he said to her, “Because I suspect she’s crazy, and I’m a little afraid that she’s committed a felony. And you can see how that would be a conflict of interest for me.” In response to his loving mother’s next question, he said, “No, no, nothing quite as bad as homicide or armed robbery.” He glanced up and asked me, “Er, I’m right about that, aren’t I?”

“I’d like you to go away now,” I said sincerely.

“In fact, Mom, I’m trying to have breakfast with her right now, so if you’ll just…No, I did not spend the night with her.”