Nevermore (27 page)

Much further uptown, another al fresco meeting had been planned for that afternoon. Harry Houdini sat on a green-painted bench in the garden mall extending down the center of Park Avenue. A cobbled pedestrian walkway divided the grassy islands, connecting ovals in the middle of each block where benches were arranged. A single lane of traffic ran along either side. Houdini faced west, into the sun, watching taxis race downtown.

After parting from Dapper Dave Conrad, the magician telephoned Isis at her home, arranging a rendezvous in an hour’s time. She suggested he drop by for tea, but he decided against taking chances. No more private séances and cloakroom encounters. He wanted to get together in the open without any furtive hanky-panky.

She, of course, was late. The magician managed a grim smile at his own annoyance. Considering the woman might well be a maniacal killer, it seemed a bit silly to worry about her tardiness. He tried to imagine Isis in the act of murder; driving an axe into Violette Speers’s skull; costumed as a gorilla, carrying Ingrid Esp down a midnight street. The graphic mental pictures came all too easily.

“Penny for your thoughts …”

Jolted from his homicidal reveries by the unexpected sound of her voice, Houdini gasped with surprise. “Do you always sneak up on people like that?”

“There was no sneaking.” Isis smiled slyly. “You just weren’t paying attention.” She sat next to him on the bench, so close their shoulders touched. “I missed you,” she said, tracing a familiar finger along the crease in his trousers.

Houdini got abruptly to his feet. “If we’re to have this conference, I must insist you keep your hands to yourself.”

Isis made an exaggerated show of sliding to the opposite side of the bench. “Please, sit back down. I won’t bite. Honest.” She watched him settle as far from her as possible. “After all, you were the one who called me.”

“Yes, but not with any romantic intentions, I assure you.”

“Romance is not an attribute I would ever make the mistake of associating with you, my elusive Osiris.”

Houdini looked puzzled, unsure of his feelings. If she didn’t want him, why had her pursuit been so ardent? “Well,” he said, primly folding his hands on his knee. “Fine. It seemed to me we needed to have a talk, especially in light of your recent allegations.”

“Am I accused of not telling the truth?”

“What makes you so sure I’m the father?”

Isis smiled. “A woman knows these things. Although you’ve been unchivalrous enough to suggest promiscuity, I’ve been with no other man this past year but you. We can always let a judge decide.”

“No. There’s no need for something like that.” Any inquiry would immediately become public knowledge and Houdini dreaded the adverse publicity. “For the sake of argument, let’s say I believe you. What is it you want from me?”

“Not a thing. I’ve already gotten everything I need.”

“Everything…?”

“Separated from Osiris, Isis is incomplete. So, she sets out in search of him. I found you. Life comes full circle. I am fulfilled. Whole at last.”

A numb outrage blunted the magician’s self-righteous piety at this unexpected rejection. He felt violated. Outmaneuvered. “What about me?” he blurted. “Don’t I count for anything?”

Isis rose and looked him straight in the eye, her schoolgirl features hardening into an ageless indignation. “Quite honestly, Mr. Houdini,” she said. “I no longer give a damn if you live or die!”

U
PSTAIRS IN THEIR SUITE
, the Conan Doyle children sat on the carpet around a Ouija board. Drawn drapes shut out the midday Colorado glare. After the glories of Hollywood, such enticements as the Mile-High City had to offer lacked a certain luster. Only the roller-coaster at Elitch’s Gardens provided sufficient temptation, and Sir Arthur had put a ban on further trips to the amusement park until the weekend. Making contact with the spirit world seemed a better adventure than roaming the streets of downtown Denver. They had already gone exploring for cowboys and red Indians, sadly encountering only businessmen, just like anywhere.

Denis, Malcolm, and Billy all believed in spiritual survival after death. Ghost stories did not frighten them. Although the Ouija was much more than a game, it still seemed mountains of fun. They knelt together on three sides of the board, with Billy in the middle, gently resting their fingertips on the triangular three-legged pointer. As the oldest, Denis assigned himself the task of recording any spirit contact. Several sheets of hotel stationery and a pencil lay on the carpet beside him.

“Are there spirits present?” Malcolm asked, without a trace of boyish irony. All three children concentrated very hard on clearing their minds of extraneous thought. They wanted to be open transmitters for visitors from the other side.

“Keen!” enthused Billy when her fingers started tingling.

Almost imperceptibly, the tripodal pointer began to tremble. The vibrations grew stronger and the little platform took on an independent life, pulling inexorably across the arcing alphabet, sweeping back and forth before coming to a resolute stop above an ornate letter.

“P!” shouted Malcolm.

Downstairs, in the soaring golden onyx lobby of the Brown Palace Hotel, Houdini and Conan Doyle sat in wing chairs, facing one another over a tea table. Sir Arthur sipped legal sherry. A local physician on the chamber of commerce wrote him a prescription for it. Nerve tonic. The magician had tea. He wore a black mourning band on his right sleeve.

Since the death of popular president Warren G. Harding from cerebral apoplexy in San Francisco five days before, the nation had plunged into a collective sorrow. Flags fluttering in patriotic Independence Day profusion only a month ago drooped at pathetic half-mast. Across the country, bereaved citizens dressed in black in spite of the summer heat. Theaters closed everywhere as a show of respect.

The Orpheum in Denver, where Houdini topped the bill, remained dark for a perfunctory single night. The magician, an intensely patriotic man, instructed his company to wear signs of mourning onstage at every performance. Most other acts followed suit. Viewing the program, this gesture deeply touched Sir Arthur, bringing back memories of his own personal grief amidst the national mourning for Edward VII.

Conan Doyle, together with his wife and children, had been Houdini’s guests at the previous night’s performance.

Visiting backstage afterwards, there had been no opportunity for private conversation. The magician gave Billy a box of chocolates and Jean a pretty bouquet of violets.

They chatted for a few somber minutes about the national tragedy. Houdini mentioned he’d spent fifteen minutes with President Harding a year ago, recalling the vigor of his appearance. Shocking to contemplate how a simple case of ptomaine poisoning led, in just a week’s time, to such fatal conclusions. Human existence seemed pitifully fragile when life and death hung on a balance as trivial as a meal of dubious crabmeat. A somber silence precluded any further conversation and the two men soon parted, planning to meet again the next afternoon.

The second encounter began with some awkwardness, owing to Sir Arthur’s embarrassment over a story in the morning Denver
Express:
Doyle Defies Houdini; Offers to Bring Back Dead. He felt once again manipulated by the press. Clearly, they had put words in his mouth. A damned awkward business after all his sanctimony.

Houdini brushed aside the knight’s apologies. The magician hadn’t seen the papers. As a master manipulator of journalism’s propensity to exaggerate, he knew all too well how an innocent remark might be misquoted.

Sir Arthur looked remarkably fit. His tour had been the most successful since the final lectures of Mark Twain. Everywhere he traveled, he felt buoyed anew by the great affection the American public showed for him. In contrast, Houdini appeared pinched and drawn with worry. He carried the weight of weary sadness.

“It’s been what…?” Sir Arthur pondered aloud, lighting his pipe. “Seven weeks since you discovered Vickery’s murder?”

“Almost eight.”

“Hmmm… . Twice the time as that between any of the other killings. And you were for the most part away from New York during the same period.”

“Supports your theory that I’m the prime target.” Houdini rested his elbows on his knees, cradling his chin on upturned palms.

“At the very least, it doesn’t dispute it …” Sir Arthur puffed in silence. “Perhaps the atrocities have simply ceased; inexplicably, like the Ripper.”

“I doubt it.” Gloom clouded the magician’s features. “I did a little poking around two weeks ago, between tours. I have testimony that Violette Speers attended a séance at the home of Opal Crosby Fletcher.”

“Pure circumstance.”

“There’s more. She sent me a copy of Poe while I was showing in Hoboken.”

Sir Arthur leaned forward, eagerness brightening his blue eyes. “Think she’s toying with you or merely exercising a remarkable gift?”

“Gift…?”

“Clairvoyance, old man.”

“You know I don’t buy it. Bess and I worked a mentalist act in our circus days. All the great ‘mind readers’ use trickery. You’ll never believe that, so I’m not gonna argue the point. I’m not interested in exposing Isis as a fake medium.”

“Might that not be because you know her abilities to be genuine?”

“I know plenty about her abilities. In fact, I know a whole lot about little Miss Isis.” Houdini caught his breath. Mustn’t let a burst of temper reveal too much. “I’ve been … conducting a … a … an undercover investigation.” Even as he said it, he knew it sounded absurd.

“Father!”

Malcolm’s voice, calling out high above, saved the magician from the knight’s quizzical eyes. Sir Arthur glanced up into a huge atrium. The lobby of the Brown Palace rose eight stories to a stained glass ceiling the size of a rugby field. Houdini peered upward at the surrounding vortex of filigreed cast-iron balconies. Hard to tell from which tier the sound had come.

“Over here, Father!” Denis called this time. All three children waved from the sixth-floor railing. The eldest boy held a paper glider, folded from a sheet of hotel stationery. “Here it comes,” he cried, launching the glider out into open space.

Sir Arthur watched the lazy downward spiral. “The children are having a séance,” he told the magician. “Said they’d send me details of any contact.”

The glider turned over the tops of the potted palms. Sir Arthur crossed the lobby to intercept it. Houdini followed him.

“A message from a ghost,” announced the knight, snatching the drifting glider from overhead. The magician stood beside him as he unfolded the intricate origami. Together they read the message. It consisted of a single syllable: Poe.

Tucked between the matching stoops of twin brownstones, the entrance to the Zebra Club on West Forty-eighth Street sported a black-and-white canvas awning stretching to the curb. In the evenings, a uniformed doorman strutted between the polished brass poles. He knew the regulars on sight, greeting them cheerfully; one of the things Damon Runyon liked best about the place.

The reporter was also quite fond of Leon Fishkin, the jovial proprietor, known as “Smiley” to the racetrack crowd who congregated at his speakeasy. A born handicapper, he could always be counted on for the inside dope. On slow nights, Runyon sat with the rotund little man by the hour, listening to his comic tales of bookies and touts.

The Zebra Club had a floor show, and a certain long-legged, brunette songbird in the chorus was the main reason Damon Runyon spent so much time in Smiley’s joint. A handsome, dapper Irishman, with a similar eye for showgirls, lounged beside him tonight. Decked out in evening clothes and patent leather shoes, state senator James J. Walker wore the look of success easily. The talk along Broadway was that he planned to challenge Mayor John F. Hylan in the next election.

The reporter took a keen interest in his friend’s political career, judging its course with the jaded eye of a lifelong newspaperman. From the press perspective, Runyon remarked, it was a damn shame Walker had been handed Kid Dropper’s killer, a losing proposition bound to see a lot of local coverage.

“Wrong call.” Jimmy Walker sipped champagne. “This thing’s going to make me shine.”

“Having a client go to the chair never looks too good in the papers, Jimmy.”

“Relax, pal. I’m going to win this one.”

“Win…? You’ve got a self-confessed killer who’s made a point of repeating his story to anyone who’ll listen.”

“Look. I know it’s water-tight. Saving Louis Cohen’s life will be a win.”

“How you gonna do that?” Damon Runyon lit up a Sweet Cap. “Pay somebody off?”

Senator Walker grinned. “You know I don’t do business that way. This will be a courtroom victory. I plan to obtain a verdict of second-degree homicide.”

“You and what magic wand?”

“If I reveal my strategy to you now, it is with the understanding you won’t use any of it until after the trial.”

Damon Runyon nodded, at the same time flicking his earlobe with his forefinger. “On the Eire …” He used an underworld expression warning of possible eavesdroppers.

Walker refilled his glass, pushing the empty bottle neck-first into the ice-filled bucket. “Here’s the law,” he said. “Unless the murder is proven, it is impossible to convict for first-degree murder, even with a signed confession.”

“So, how do you figure to disprove the murder?”

“There’s no need to ‘disprove’ anything. I merely have to introduce the shadow of a doubt.”

Runyon grinned. “Shade on, McJames …”

“You remember Willemse, the bull-necked captain in charge of the prisoner…? Well, he was in the cab with Dropper, an eyewitness to his untimely end. After the dust settled, he went back in an alley and shot a hole through his straw skimmer. Then he bragged to all the boys about his close brush with death.”

“I like it,” Damon Runyon said.

“You’re going to love it.” The elegant politician signaled a waiter, a turn of his hand ordering another bottle of bubbly. “All witnesses agree Cohen fired three shots. That many spent shells were found in his revolver. Three bullets were recovered from the cab. One came out of the roof; one out of the floor. The third was in Kid Dropper. My client’s a terrible shot. Even at close range. No better than one in three. Terrible shot.”