Carter Beats the Devil (3 page)

Griffin said, “Good morning. Charles Carter?”

“Yes?”

“Agents Griffin and Starling of the Secret Service.” Griffin handed Carter his badge. Carter held it in his left hand. Griffin pointed at Carter’s right hand, which was still extended backward, keeping the door shut. “Are you concealing anyone or anything inside?”

“I’m just trying to keep the cat from getting out.”

“Okay. We’d like to ask you some questions about events of August second.”

“Certainly.”

“May we come in?”

Carter frowned. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Griffin looked toward Starling, who gave a nod; obviously, they had caught the magician up to no good. Griffin continued, “Mr. Carter, please step aside.”

Carter ushered the agents past him.

Carter’s foyer led to a three-bedroom pied-á-terre with fireplaces in the parlor and dining room. Since he had collected curios and Orientalia from every corner of the globe during his five world tours, it was a room where—save for one pressing detail—the eye hardly knew what to consider first. There were aboriginal sculptures, magic rain sticks from Sumatra, geodes on dusty silver stands, and more of the same, but, most important, Griffin put his hand on the butt of his pistol, for he saw, sitting on a large Persian rug that covered most of the front room, an enormous African lion. The lion’s shoulders were dropping to the floor, ready
to pounce. Griffin touched Starling’s shoulder, and Starling, too, stared at it without saying a word. Griffin could see its stomach flutter as it breathed, its tail thumping against the carpet.

“I said I didn’t want to let the cat out,” Carter said.

Griffin swallowed. “Does that thing bite?”

“Well,” Carter said thoughtfully, “if he does, go limp. It’s less fun for him that way, and he’ll drop you sooner or later.”

“Mr. Carter,” Starling said in his slow Kentucky drawl, “I would appreciate you locking your pet in a side room for just a few minutes.”

“Certainly. Baby, come.” Carter whistled between his teeth, clicked his tongue, and Baby reluctantly looked away from the agents and followed his master out of the room.

“Jesus wept,” Griffin sighed. He straightened his tie. “Why does everything have to be so difficult?”

“There are other occupations, Mr. Griffin.”

A moment later, Carter returned, a silk robe around his shoulders. “May I offer you something to drink?”

Starling asked, “Are you going to make it yourself?”

Carter’s pale blue eyes flickered, and then, tightening the cinch around his robe, he bowed. “Yes, Mr. Starling, I’ve had to squeeze my own oranges for the last few days.”

Griffin looked back and forth between them with confusion.

Carter continued, “Bishop has always wanted to see Greece. He sketches, you know. Landmarks and such.”

Griffin tried to catch Starling’s eye. Bishop? Bishop who? Once again, Griffin had been passed by.

Starling looked for a good spot to sit on a seven-foot leather couch that was occupied by open volumes of the 1911
Encyclopædia Brittanica.
“Mr. Griffin, please make a note: it’s Alexander Bishop, Carter’s servant, who’s on the boat.” Then, to Carter, “The chinchilla coat was a nice touch.”

“He’s always liked it. I am quite serious, would you like refreshments?”

“No, thank you, sir.”

“But you, Mr. Griffin, I’m sure you’re game for a muffin or two.” Carter gestured grandly toward the kitchen as if eggs, bacon, and a raft of toast might dance out on his command. Griffin glared at him.

Starling, looking as comfortable as if he’d been sitting on fine leather couches for years, glanced at his notepad. “Mr. Carter, did you speak to the late President alone on the night of his death?”

“I did.”

Starling asked, “What did you talk about?”

“Before the performance, we met backstage with the Secret Service in attendance, and then alone for, what, five minutes perhaps. I described the various illusions. He wanted to be in the final act. That was all.”

“How was his demeanor?”

“He seemed depressed at first.”

“Did you ask what was wrong?”

“In my years on tour I’ve learned that with the powerful, it’s wise not to ask such questions.”

“Was there anything at all unusual about your conversation?”

“Only that . . . I’m unsure how to describe it, but his mood was weary. Yet, when I told him his duties onstage would involve being torn to pieces and fed to wild animals, he brightened considerably.” Carter shook his head. “That defies reason, don’t you think?”

Starling cleared his throat. “Actually, sir, the President had been under some stress.”

“For a stocky man, he seemed fragile.”

Starling looked past Carter, to an
ukiyo-e
woodcut of a Kabuki player. “Did he happen to mention a woman named Nan Britton?”

“He did not.”

“A woman named Carrie Phillips?”

“He did not.”

“Did he mention anyone else?”

Carter looked to the ceiling. “He mentioned my elephant, approvingly, his dogs, also approvingly, my lion, with some lesser approval, and though we covered the animal kingdom, I believe that no one human was mentioned.” Carter smiled like a child finishing a piano recital.

Griffin snarled, “Look, Carter, this might be a game to you, but the President’s death is a matter of national security.”

“How did the President die, exactly?”

A glance between the agents, then Starling spoke. “The cause is undetermined. Three physicians say brain apoplexy, but no autopsy was performed.”

Carter asked, “Why not?”

Griffin said, “We’re asking the questions here. It might have something to do with an exhausted man being forced to do acrobatics up and down a rope all night long.”

Carter’s face cleared. “Mr. Griffin, this
isn’t
a game to me. I’m able to make a living because I don’t explain how my effects are performed. But
if it helps you: from the moment the President left the card table, his stunts were performed by one of my men in disguise. The President hid until after I gave Baby the signal to play dead. There was no exertion on the President’s part, and I had nothing to do with his death, I assure you.”

“Then why’d you run away, Carter?” asked Griffin.

“But, as you know, I didn’t. The feint with the
Hercules
was to keep the general public from stringing me up. I thought the Secret Service would find me. And so you have,” he concluded warmly, like they’d made him proud. “Is there more to this interrogation?”

“We’ll tell you when it’s over, pal.” Griffin squinted menacingly at Carter, but saw that Starling was already folding up his notebook. “Okay,” Griffin said, deflating, “it’s over.” He pointed at Carter. “Keep yourself available. We might have more questions.”

Carter nodded, as if admitting that into every life a little rain must fall, which made Griffin want to pop him one.

Carter showed the two agents to the door. Griffin began to take the stairs back down. When he got to the first landing, he heard, behind him, the Colonel asking if he wouldn’t mind waiting. Griffin paused. He looked back up fifty or so feet of staircase, where his superior and the suspect stood and watched him in turn. He patted his hand against the railing, feeling the vibrations pinging back and forth, and then, resigning himself to a life out of earshot, he looked at the view of the lake.

At first, Starling said nothing to Carter. He simply let a few moments play out in silence. “I wish I knew more about gardens.”

There were flowers in tiered planters on either side of the stairs, and trellises of jasmine and honeysuckle. Carter indicated a few stalks that were growing almost as high as his fingertips. “This is Thai basil, and that was supposed to be cilantro, but it’s turned to coriander. Whenever I’m overseas, I pick up a few herbs. It makes my cook happy.”

“The photograph in your drawing room, is that your wife?”

“She was my wife. I’m a widower.” He said this flatly.

“I’m sorry.” Starling massaged a mint leaf and brought his fingertips to his nose, closing his eyes.

Carter spoke. “Was the President in trouble?”

“That depends,” Starling said, opening his eyes again. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Carter shrugged. “I had but five minutes with the President.” He watched a pelican fly in a lazy circle by the lake. “Being a magician is an
odd thing. I’ve met presidents, kings, prime ministers, and a few despots. Most of them want to know how I do my tricks, or to show me a card trick they learned, as a child, and I have to smile and say, ‘Oh, how nice.’ Still, it’s not a bad profession if you can get away from all the bickering among your peers about who created what illusion.”

Starling had very small eyes. When they fixed on something, a person, for instance, it was like positioning two steel ball bearings. “I see. You put on a thrilling show yourself, sir.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, I’m just an admirer here, and I hope this question isn’t rude, but have I seen some of those tricks before?”

“Those effects? Not the way I do them, no.”

“So you are the creator of all of those tricks.”

Carter found something interesting to look at, over Colonel Starling’s shoulder: a very, very large sunflower.

Starling continued: “Because Thurston—I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Thurston—does that trick with the ropes as well. Doesn’t he? And I saw Goldin several years ago, and he had two Hindu yoga men, as well. Is there any part of your act—”

“No, there isn’t,” Carter replied briskly. “The fact of the matter is, Colonel Starling, there are few illusions that are truly original. It’s a matter of presentation.”

Starling said nothing; saying nothing often led to gold.

“In other words, I didn’t invent sugar or flour, but I bake a mean apple pie.”

“So you’re just as respected in the business for the quality of your presentation as the magicians who actually
create
illusions,” Starling said sincerely, as if looking for confirmation.

Carter folded his arms, and a smile spread to his eyes, which twinkled. “At some point this stopped being about President Harding.”

“My fault. I’m intrigued by all forms of misdirection.” Starling reached into his vest pocket, then withdrew his business card, which he looked at for a moment before handing to Carter. “If you think of anything else—”

“I’ll call you.”

Starling joined Griffin. They walked several steps before Starling turned around. “Oh, Mr. Carter?”

“Yes?”

“Did the President say anything about a secret?”

“A secret? What sort of secret?”

“A few people told us that in his last weeks, the late President asked them . . .” Starling opened a notepad, and read, “‘What would you do if you knew an awful secret?’”

Carter blinked. His eyes flashed in excitement. “How dramatic. What on earth could that be?”

“We’ll find out. Thank you.”

Carter watched them walk all the way down the stairs to their cab, which had waited for them. A half mile away, the pelican above the lake had been joined by a half dozen others. The day was turning out calm and fair, giving Carter a perfect excuse to visit his friend Borax, or to stroll in the park, or to take coffee and dessert at one of the Italian cafés downtown. For now, he watched the Secret Service agents depart, their cab lurching down Grand Avenue in traffic. There were a dozen houses under construction in Adams Point, and so Carter watched the cab alongside panel trucks owned by carpenters and plumbers and bricklayers until it turned a corner and vanished.

And then he tore Starling’s card into pieces and scattered them across the stairs.

. . .

With age, the world falls into two camps: those who have seen much of the world, and those who have seen
too
much. Charles Carter was a young man, just thirty-five, but at some point after his wife’s death, he had seen too much. Every six months or so he tried to retire, a futile gesture, as he knew nothing except how to be a magician. But a magician who has lost the spark of life is not a careful magician, and is not a magician for long. Ledocq had chastised him so often Carter could do the lectures himself, including digressions in French and Yiddish. “Make a commitment, Charlie. Go with life or go with death, but quit the kvetching. Don’t keep us all in suspense.”

Sometimes, Carter walked in the military cemetery in the Presidio. After the Spanish-American War, if a soldier were a suicide, his tombstone was engraved with an angel whose face was tucked under his left wing. But in less enlightened times, there was no headstone: suicides were simply buried facedown.

Six nights a week, sometimes twice a night, Carter gave the illusion of cheating death. The great irony, in his eyes, was that he did not wish to cheat it. He spent the occasional hour imagining himself facedown for eternity. Since the war, he had learned how to recognize a whole class of
comrades, men who had seen too much: even at parties, they had a certain hollowing around the eyes, as if a glance in the mirror would show them only a fool having a good time. The most telling trait was the attempted smile, a smile aware of being borrowed.

An hour before the final Curran Theatre show, he had been supervising the final placement of the props, smiling his half smile when called upon to be friendly. Suddenly a retinue of Secret Service agents appeared, all exceptionally clean-looking young men in a uniform Carter committed to memory: deep blue wool jackets, black trousers, and highly polished shoes, a human shell around President Harding.

The President was still beloved by most of the country. Word had only just begun to trickle down from Washington that the administration was in trouble. Harding had made no secret of his intent to hire people whom he liked. And he liked people who flattered him. He innocently told the Washington press corps, “I’m glad I’m not a woman. I’d always be pregnant, for I cannot say no.”

Though significantly overweight, with a high stomach that seemed to pressure his breastbone, Harding was still an impressive man, olive-skinned and with wiry grey hair, caterpillar eyebrows, and the sculpted nose of a Roman senator. Yet in a glance, shrewd men noted his legendary weak nature: his several chins, too-wet mouth, and his gentle, eager eyes. More than one person who saw him during his last week on earth commented on his apparent deterioration. Even if they did not know of the extraordinary pressure he was under, they could see it reflected in his slack-skinned complexion.