Disappearing Nightly (17 page)

“I can find out.”

“I’d rather you didn’t. Max would rather you didn’t. Even your lieutenant, I gather, would rather you didn’t.”

He ignored that. “Who’s the fifth?”

“We don’t know.”

“Esther.”

“No, we really don’t know. We’re just sure it’s happened.”

“What makes you sure?”

I sighed, knowing what he’d think. “There’s been another localized disturbance in the fabric of this dimension.”

“I see.”

“Max can sense these things.” It sounded silly when I said it to Lopez, even though I knew it was true.

“But you can’t sense it?”

“No.”

He thought it over. “Okay, let’s focus on the part of the problem that matters. You really believe these people have vanished—in an unusual sense, shall we say?”

“Yes.”

“You and Max really want to find them?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe my looking into it can help,” he said reasonably.

“But you don’t believe what we believe,” I said.

“So what? Is that going to matter to the vanished ladies—?”

“They’re not all ladies.”

“Now is that nice?” he admonished.

“I mean, Samson’s a man.”

“And
I
mean, if they’re really missing, will it matter to them what I believe, if I can find them? Or help you find them?”

“I don’t think you
can
find them,” I said honestly. “I think what you believe—or don’t believe—will stop you.”

“To be perfectly honest,” he said, “I never believed in transubstantiation, but that didn’t stop me from being a pretty good altar boy.”

“
You
were an altar boy?”

“And I’m not positive that marijuana and prostitution should be illegal, but that’s never stopped me from being a good cop.”

“Speaking of being a cop…” I felt a little Evil stir in me as I smiled. “Whoopsy Daisy says—”

“Whoopsy Daisy?”

“Seymour Barinsky,” I clarified. “He told me last night that you looked very sexy in uniform.”

“How flattering.”

“And Khyber Pass thinks you’re hot. He has a thing for uniforms. He says if you’d wear yours, he’d do you in a New York minute.”

“In his dreams.” Our eyes held as we grinned at each other. After a moment, he said, “I don’t mean this to sound critical—”

“
Now
what?”

“Why is your face all dirty?”

“Oh.
The Exposé.
You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to wash off that damn ink.”

“
You
read
The Exposé?
”

“Not habitually. There was a story about Golly’s disappearance in it yesterday.”

“Anything accurate?”

“More than you’d expect.” I scrubbed at my face, then ran a hand over my tangled hair. “I really need a shower.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“You’re getting better at the not-flirting thing.”

He grinned. “I could join you.”

“You haven’t even taken me out for dinner yet. Showers are
way
out of your league.” Getting more serious, I said, “Look, I know I can’t stop you from pursuing this business—”

“That’s right, you can’t.”

“Though I’m guessing your boss can stop you—and probably will, if you put much time into it.”

“That’s right, too,” he admitted.

“But I wish you’d trust us.”

“And I wish you’d stay away from Max.”

We stared at each other, both realizing this was as far as negotiations were going to get today—or perhaps at all.

My cell phone rang. I excused myself and rose to answer it. A moment later, I said, “Hi, Mom. No. Yes. I know. Okay.” I put my hand over the receiver. “This is going to be a long call.”

He took the hint. “I should go.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“Okay.” I watched him head for the door. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“My pleasure. Next time, I’ll bring more coffee.”

I was letting a sexy, employed, straight, single man whom I really liked leave my apartment with a brief wave and no plans for a date. It was just barely possible, I mused, that I wasn’t running my life as well as I might.

After I heard his footsteps going down the stairs in the hall, I said, “Okay, Khyber, he’s gone.”

Upon realizing I wasn’t alone, when I’d said “Hi, Mom,” Khyber had immediately guessed who my company was.

“Did he spend the night there?” Khyber asked with interest.

“No! Even
I
didn’t spend the night here. He brought me breakfast, that’s all.”

“Did he grill you?”

“A little. But it’s okay.” I omitted mentioning that I’d told Lopez about Samson and Dolly. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t have picked up that trail on his own, anyhow.

“He’s hot,” Khyber said with reluctant approval. “Have you seen him with his clothes off yet?”

“No!”

“Or in his uniform?”

“Why did you call?”

“I’ve found last night’s victims.”

“
You
found them?” I said in surprise.

“Yeah. Lots of online chatter. Are you decent? Dr. Zadok told me to stop by your place in a cab and bring you with me. He’s already on his way there.”

“Where?”

“To meet Garry Goudini. Last night, one of his assistants vanished during the act. So did his white Bengal tiger.”

“T
hings have gone wrong before, of course,” Garry Goudini admitted, gazing out over Times Square from the window of his hotel suite. “You’ve got to expect that in this business. For example, there was that time I was levitating a Toyota onstage. It was supposed to go up eight feet in the air. Well, it got to about four feet, then fell. With a big crash.” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “If it had gotten up to eight feet, I’d have been standing under it when it fell. My God, man, I could have been
killed
that night!”

Khyber and I exchanged glances as Goudini took another gulp of his whiskey and soda. This was the magician’s second drink since we’d arrived barely fifteen minutes ago.

Max said, “How dreadful for you, Mr. Goudini. Now, about last night—”

“Then there was the time I tried to make a girl disappear as she dived from a high platform down through a ball of fire,” Goudini said. “Well, she simply hit the ground with a thud one night in Vegas. It was so embarrassing.”

“Did she survive?” Khyber asked in appalled fascination.

“Hmm?” Goudini looked over his shoulder at us. “Oh, yes. The hospital bills nearly killed
me,
though.” He took another sip of his drink, then drew some more smoke into his lungs.

Goudini’s thick, wavy, black hair, with its faint streaks of gray at the temples, looked as if it was made of patent leather and wouldn’t get ruffled by a stiff wind. His deep, even-all-over tan had the faintest orange tinge to it. His eyebrows were shaped into dramatic arches, and he wore a touch of eyeliner. He was clad in black leather pants, and a black silk shirt that he left unbuttoned halfway down his hairy, slightly orange chest.

According to Khyber, who’d done the research online and briefed me on the way here, Goudini had done very well in Vegas for a few years, about a decade ago, but gradually got squeezed out of the limelight by other acts. He hadn’t given a performance anywhere in at least two years; last night’s gig, the opening night of a pre-tour, one-week appearance in Manhattan, was intended to launch his comeback. He’d been rehearsing the new act for several months at his home outside the city.

Max tried again. “About last night, Mr. Goudini…”

But Goudini launched into a rambling reminiscence of yet another onstage mishap, this one involving a water tank in which he’d nearly drowned. I started feeling glad that the man
I
was interested in these days was in a nice, safe profession like police work.

“I nearly died that night,” Goudini said, concluding his anecdote about being chained up underwater. “So it’s not as if I’m not used to surprises onstage. It’s not as if I lack experience in dealing with emergencies before a live audience.”

“Of course not,” Max said soothingly.

“But what happened last night…My
God,
man! I’ve never experienced anything like that!” Goudini finished his drink. “I panicked. I admit it.
Anyone
would have panicked, and no one can tell me differently.” He went to the wet bar and started mixing yet another whiskey and soda. “You’re sure no one else wants one?”

“No, thanks,” we said, almost in unison.

According to Khyber, with the failure of the disappearing act, Goudini’s performance had bombed so badly last night that magic buffs were talking about it on BBs all night and all morning. The chatter had been easy to trace when Khyber got up today and started checking the sites he’d been monitoring in recent days.

“It was a shattering experience,” Goudini told us.

I was so recently out of the shower that m
y hair was still damp, and my face was probably still pink from the determined scrubbing I’d given it. Max looked as weary as I felt, but his expression was intent as he extracted the details of last night’s disappearance from Goudini.

The magician’s account was similar to the others we’d heard, except that it was
bigger! better! bolder!
His prop box was an enormous tiger cage with shiny silver bars, and it levitated fifteen feet above the stage while music blared and lights danced. The cage filled with smoke, there was a momentary blackout of the whole theater, a few flashes of thunder and lightning—

“Lightning?” Khyber asked, recalling his research.

“Simulated,” Goudini clarified.

—followed by some sinister twirling effects of the cage, and a sudden, heart-lurching drop as the apparatus fell to the stage with a crash as if to release the deadly tiger inside—

“Poor thing,” Khyber murmured. “Was it scared?”

—to prey upon the magician and his audience.

“Then the lights come up, the smoke clears and the tiger has been replaced by a beautiful girl, who steps out of the cage and takes a bow with me.” Goudini gave another shudder. “Except, of course, that things went wrong last night. Very wrong.”

“We’ll need to examine that cage,” Max said.

Goudini gave a little cry of despair. “How can I go on with the show this afternoon?”

“This afternoon?” I repeated.

“Saturday matinee,” Khyber said.

It was Saturday, I realized. Golly had vanished one week ago. I fought off a sudden, gloomy fear that our quest was hopeless and we’d never find the disappearees—whose numbers were certainly increasing faster than clues were accumulating.

Goudini was agitated enough to run his hands through his hair. I was right—it didn’t move at all. “What am I going to do without her?” he wondered brokenly.

“Don’t you worry, Mr. Goudini,” said Khyber. “We’ll find her.”

“Yes,” I agreed firmly, stiffening my resolve. “We’re going to find…I’m sorry, what’s her name?”

“Alice.”

“Alice,” I repeated. “Can we get a description?”

“Of Alice? Well, she’s nine years old,” Goudini said.

I blinked. “What?”

“A white Bengal tiger. Average size for an adult female. And she has a scar on her nose from getting caught in some brambles as a cub.”

“Oh,” I said. “Alice is the tiger. Right. Gotcha. What’s the young lady’s name?”

“Hmm?”

“The woman who disappeared?” I prodded.

“Oh. Sarah Campbell.”

I started to inquire about Sarah’s mood and attitude last night, but Goudini interrupted me. “You really think you can get my tiger back for me?”

“We certainly hope so,” said Max.

“We also hope to find your beautiful assistant,” I said tersely.

“Hmm? Oh! Right. Well, that’s good,” Goudini said. “But Alice is the irreplaceable part of the act. I’ll do anything—I mean,
anything
—to get my tiger back!”

“I see.”

“It isn’t just that tigers are so expensive,” Goudini explained, as if fearing I might think him mercenary. “They’re also incredibly difficult to train.”

“I totally believe that, Garry,” I said.

“I’ve got two grown cubs of Alice’s,” he said, “but they’re just set dressing. They sit in cages on either side of the stage, looking fierce and pretty. They’ve never taken after their mother, they’re really of no use in the act.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I must get Alice back!”

“Roger that,” I said, rising to my feet. “Max, shall we examine the cage?”

“Yes, but I think perhaps we should question Mr. Goudini a bit more.”

That was no doubt a wise suggestion, but I thought there was a good chance I’d clobber Goudini if I spent much more time with him. I wondered if he’d even be talking to us about the disappearance at all if Alice was safe now and Sarah Campbell had vanished alone.

However, we needed Goudini’s cooperation. So, in order to avoid alienating him (by, you know, clobbering him), I suggested that I interview members of his performance team while Max continued talking with the magician. Max approved of this time-saving plan, and so I spent the rest of the afternoon tracking them down and questioning them.

All of them wanted Alice back. And, oh, yeah, Sarah, too.

Back at the bookshop, I wrote the names of the two latest victims on the display board,
Alice the Tiger
and
Sarah Campbell.

“The human body,” Lysander was saying to Satsy, “like virtually everything else in the cosmos, consists of more empty space than it does of solid matter. Therefore, the puzzling thing is not really that something can be made to vanish, but rather that things don’t vanish more often.”

Satsy said, “That’s such clever reasoning!”

“No, no, merely the result of years of arduous study.”

I gave up staring at the display board and went to the refreshments stand in search of sustenance. There was a mini fridge there. Max kept little pints of milk in it, to go with the coffee and tea he provided for his customers. I’d stored last night’s Thai leftovers in there. When I opened the door now in search of a meal, though, I discovered the food had disappeared.

“Of course,” I muttered.

The Chinese leftovers from Thursday night had also disappeared. Our research team ate too much, I thought bitterly.

“Vultures,” I muttered.

Preferring to starve in a sulky mood rather than go back out onto the streets in search of food when I was so tired, I sat down at the research table with a sigh. I picked up a copy of John Aubrey’s
Miscellanies
and opened it to the chapter entitled “Transportation by an Invisible Power.” Within minutes, my head hurt. Seventeenth-century English prose isn’t exactly light reading.

Satsy was perusing Colin Parsons’s
Encounters With the Unknown.
There was a stack of books at his feet, under the table, but he’d already declined my offer to help him go through those. Lysander was working his way through an ancient-looking grimoire in a language I didn’t recognize. According to what Max had told me, a grimoire was sort of a manual on ritual magic, both “good” and “evil”—which were concepts, I gathered, grimoire authors cared about less than they cared about simply how to get the job done.

I looked up as Max and Khyber entered the shop. After a quick greeting, Khyber set up his laptop, using Max’s telephone line to get online, while Max explained that they’d learned nothing particularly useful from interviewing Goudini or examining the magician’s tiger cage.

“I gather Goudini didn’t feel like coming back here with you and hitting the books?” I said cynically.

“He’s busy finishing his matinee performance,” Max said.

“Without his big finale of the tiger and the girl swapping places in the levitating cage?” I asked.

“The show must go on.” Khyber noticed our scant numbers and asked, “Where is everyone?”

“Whoopsy and Delilah are at the public library again,” I said. “Hieronymus is down in the cellar. Of course.”

“I should check on him,” said Max. “He was looking rather haggard when I left this morning. I think the poor boy’s been working too hard.”

“Yeah,
that
sounds likely,” I grumbled.

Satsy said, “Barclay and Dixie are rehearsing.”

“Oh, that’s right—tonight’s performance!” Max said.

“Barclay’s big break,” Satsy said. “And what with so much of yesterday being devoted to police interrogation, he had no time to rehearse, so they’ve got a lot of work to do today if they want to be ready by showtime.”

“Is Duke with them?” Khyber asked.

Satsy nodded. “He ducked out a while ago with apologies. Dixie phoned in, said she and Barclay would need some help loading his props into his van and setting up at the cabaret.”

“It must be a more elaborate act than I pictured.” I set aside John Aubrey’s book and t
he undisciplined spelling that always seems to characterize prose of that era.

“Well, Barclay’s worked awfully hard lately, from the sound of it,” Satsy said. “Devoted himself to study and practice. All to arrive at this big day!”

“Yes.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “He told me. When we met.” What had he said? The act was getting better, all his hard work was paying off.

“I’d really like to go to Barclay’s show tonight,” Khyber said.

“Me, too,” said Satsy. “But we have to do our own show, girlfriend.”

“But maybe Delilah should go,” Khyber said. “It might cheer her up.”

Delilah at the Pony Expressive was like a widow holding vigil. Maybe it
would
be good for her to go somewhere else tonight.

I said, “I could take her to the Magic Cabaret.”

“Good idea,” Khyber said. “We should suggest it to her.”

“Where
is
the Magic Cabaret?” I asked.

We all looked at one another and realized none of us knew. Khyber tried looking it up online but didn’t find it.

“We’ll call Barclay and ask.” I glanced at the clock and decided there was no rush.

“Maybe I’ll come to the show, too,” Max said.

Lysander said repressively, “Don’t you think an early night might be wise, for a change?”

I made an involuntary sound of longing. “An early night does sound good.”

But I supposed I couldn’t just go home and go to bed, much as I’d have liked to. Barclay probably needed some moral support, and Delilah certainly needed a distraction. They were having a very difficult week, too, after all. Barclay almost had to cancel his longed-for debut at the Magic Cabaret, and Samson and Delilah’s brand-new act had resulted in disaster.

I frowned.

Garry Goudini’s comeback was in dire straits…

Something clicked in my head, like the numbers on the lock of a bicycle chain tumbling into place and giving that faint snap as the chain sags and slips away. Something had fallen into place, but I didn’t know what. I was so tired, and so confused by now.

“So are you going to go, Esther?” Satsy asked me.

“Hmm?”

“Esther?”

“Shh, she’s got that look on her face,” Khyber said.

Barclay had been upset, like Goudini, about losing the disappearing act from his routine. It was his best illusion, his big achievement. Goudini’s, too. Barclay and his big break, Goudini and his comeback…Joe Herlihy, hoping to propel
Sorcerer!
to Broadway…

Was ambition what united the magicians? Was
that
the common factor?

But Duke was an amateur who had denied any
expectation of turning pro. Still, the night we met, Dixie said he’d been working on the act, trying to improve it….