Spiced to Death (27 page)

At Yaruba Da’s recommendation, I eventually settled for some pickled fish to start. I followed it with a bowl of Doro Wat, the famous chicken stew of Ethiopia. It was served with an
in-jeera,
the Ethiopian pancake which is a little like a tortilla. Next came Skudahkharis, one of the staple dishes of Somalia, consisting of lamb and rice and superbly spiced. It was accompanied by
maharagwe,
spiced red beans in coconut milk, and
fufu,
boiled yams from Ghana.

It was a delicious and unique meal and when Yaruba Da rejoined me, I told him so.

“I am very pleased that you enjoyed it,” he murmured. “And now, if I may ask—what is the situation with the Ko Feng?”

“First, I must thank you for coming to our rescue at the sale,” I said.

“It was nothing.”

“It was very timely.”

“My size is often an embarrassment,” he said with a smile. “But there are times when it is very helpful. That was one of those times.”

He eyed me for a moment. “I heard of that sale and was intrigued,” he said. “It was an interesting experience. I don’t know who the organizers were but they have an unscrupulous approach. I am sure that many of the goods on sale were stolen property.”

“Yes, I’m sure they were.”

“It was logical, therefore, that you should think it possible that Ko Feng might be there too.”

“After seeing the place, I doubted it,” I said.” Ko Feng can demand a very high price and it would have no place alongside cans of stolen ham. Still, it was worth a try.”

“And it was feasible that the same people running the sale might also be the people who had stolen the Ko Feng,” he said thoughtfully.

“Possible,” I agreed. Then I added, “Have you been offered any Ko Feng?”

“Just before it was stolen, I had a talk with a man who hinted he might be able to get me some. But then I saw him at the sale and asked him again. He told me he was no longer in a position to do so.”

“You saw him at the sale?”

“Yes.”

It was a long shot but I had little to lose. “Was it Tom Eck?”

He inclined his head. “You know him?”

“A little.” I was thinking it might not mean a thing. As a broker, Eck might have been hopeful of marketing some Ko Feng before but now, since the theft, he was no longer able to do so.

“If you do recover it, I would very much like to obtain some,” he told me earnestly. “It could be instrumental in improving my business here, which, as you see, is in need of it.”

“If I’m in a position to help you, I will,” I told him. “A word of advice however …”

He leaned forward expectantly. “Yes?”

“You may hear of Ko Feng being offered, or it may be offered to you directly. Be very careful. Substitute material—not Ko Feng—is out on the market. I wouldn’t want you to be deceived.”

“How could I be sure it was genuine?” he asked seriously. “Perhaps you could assist me in deciding?”

“I’d be glad to.”

He insisted I try some Liberian gingerbread, made from plantains, and it was excellent. He watched me eat it, seemingly deep in thought. He raised his head as if he had made a decision and his large black face confronted me.

“I appreciate your offer to help,” he said in his deep, resonant voice. “And as a token of my goodwill, allow me to tell you that you need not be concerned about any more attacks.”

I wasn’t expecting that at all. I stared at him, astonished.

“You were responsible for those?”

“No, of course not,” he said with an emphatic shake of his head. “But I was aware of them.”

“And who was responsible?” I asked angrily.

“You need not worry. There will be no more of them—and you were never in any danger,” he added hastily. “There was never any intention of harming you—only frightening you. A small group thought you had been implicated in the theft of the Ko Feng and wanted to scare you into selling it to them.”

“You have nice friends,” I said bitterly.

“Not friends, merely business acquaintances.” He seemed relieved that he had got his confession off his chest. I pushed for one more admission.

“Other restaurant owners, you mean.”

He shrugged. It was agreement enough and it cleared the air a lot. A few of the hotheads, probably inflamed by Lennie Rifkin, had decided to put a scare into me. They’d hired someone—or had they? Rifkin … The more I thought of that phony accent and the bizarre get-up with the black clothes and the beard, the more it sounded like his style. He didn’t like me anyway and probably enjoyed playing the part.

Yaruba Da ordered mint tea.

“No African meal can end without it,” he told me.

“Why do you say there will be no more attempts?” I asked. “How do you know that?”

“One or two others and I objected to such terrorist tactics. Not all Africans are barbarians.”

The tea came and we sipped it amicably. The drumbeat melody faded away and after a moment of jungle silence, there was the hideous howling of jackals. I was reminded of Lennie Rifkin again …

G
ABRIELLA HAD PHONED ME
while I was still at breakfast to say that she was picking me up. She was driving a dark blue Isuzu four-door sedan this time—a definite step up from the battered jalopy of our earlier adventure. She looked delightful in a crisp light brown suit with cream-colored buttons. I congratulated her on her new disguise and she gave me a shriveling look.

“The girl of a thousand—well, not faces exactly …” I said.

“It’s not hazardous duty today.”

“That means you’re not packing?”

“We say ‘carrying’ these days. Oh yes, I have my protection with me.”

“It’s as well hidden as it was when we went to church.”

“It’s here this time.” She tapped a raffia bag that lay on the seat between us.

“You didn’t carry one at all the other day. A bag, I mean.”

“In that area there’s a risk of bag-snatching. Didn’t want to chance that.”

“So today’s a no-risk day? Good. Where are we going?”

“We’re going to see an old friend of my father’s.”

“A
paesano?”

“Yes.”

“He knows something?”

“He knows a lot—a lot of very surprising information.”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

She laughed that delightfully intimate laugh. “You’ll see. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Even though it was past the morning commuter hours, it was still rush hour as far as the traffic was concerned. It seemed like it was always rush hour in Manhattan. We went south down Columbus Avenue, which turned into Ninth, past all sorts of restaurants, bars and shops, then we turned west on Forty-third Street. There was a fire station, a used-car dealer, and Gabriella pulled into a metered parking place almost in front of a theater.

“Too early for a matinee, isn’t it?” I asked but she gave me an enigmatic smile.

Large free-standing letters proclaimed
THE MAGIC MUSIC HALL
and there were posters on both sides of the entrance. One showed a man, resplendent in a scarlet Chinese robe and a long black pigtail. A globe behind him was crowned with frothy clouds and silvery flashes of lightning darted past him. Another showed a girl in tights inside a glass cage which was suspended above an audience. They were all staring up in amazement as a man in an elegant tuxedo and top hat fired a pistol at the cage.
THE WONDER SHOW OF THE UNIVERSE
said the poster in an utter abandonment of modesty.

“You’re sure we’re in the right place?”

“I’m sure,” Gabriella said and led the way to a side door beyond the main entrance. She pressed a bell and a wizened old man opened the door.

“Monty’s expecting us.”

The old man nodded and opened the door. We went in.

The narrow passage had been recently repainted, though the floor still had some ancient linoleum and boards that creaked as we walked. The old man was sprightly despite his years and led us at a brisk pace down to the end and through a lounge, also recently decorated. We went through double swinging doors and a heavy curtain and into the theater.

It’s a shame that television and the cinema have dimmed the appeal of the live theater. There is no greater thrill in entertainment than seeing live actors on the stage. This building had obviously been popular as a theater fifty and more years ago and I wondered what great names had paraded across that now dark and curtained stage.

“Vivien Leigh was in
A Streetcar Named Desire
here,” said a croaky voice. “Olsen and Johnson ran nearly a year with
Hellzapoppin.
Helen Hayes was in
Mary of Scotland
on that stage. Orson Welles, Katherine Cornell, Paul Robeson, Lunt and Fontanne—they all played here.”

While he was speaking, we had turned to find a dumpy little man behind us. Gabriella gave him a big hug and he laughed with delight and lifted her off the ground. He had a round pudding face, crinkled and seamed, and his faded gray eyes had clearly seen a lot of tragedy. It was a happy face, though, and its owner obviously enjoyed life even while it buffeted him.

“This is Monty” said Gabriella as she introduced us. “Christened Bernardo Montefalcone but no one except his mother has ever called him anything but Monty.”

“You like the theater, eh? I can tell from the way you look at the stage.” He had a very definite Italian accent.

“Love it,” I told him. “I live in London where I have plenty of opportunities to see good theater.”

“London!” His face lit up. “Hey, I spent five years there. We had this show that …”

He was an irrepressible raconteur and had known theater people all over the world. Loud noises from backstage interrupted him after Gabriella had made one unsuccessful attempt.

“Listen!” he said to us. “I just gotta check through this one act, then we can talk. Come and siddown and watch.” He led us down the center aisle and installed us in the second row, then slipped out though a nearby exit. The footlights came on and then that most emotional of moments in the theater when the curtains parted.

Music filled the auditorium. It had an insistent drumbeat that had a familiar ring. There was a clattering of hoofbeats and a horse and rider came prancing onto the front of the stage. The rider was an Indian chief in full regalia, a splendid war bonnet on his head, a quiver of arrows on his back and a bow in his hand. They made a spectacular tableau against the black velvet drapery. The familiarity of the music was now clear—it was the music heard in a hundred Western movies.

The horse was a magnificent palomino with a mane of flowing silvery hair. The saddle was studded with silver and the horse had silver bands around its ankles. It stepped high, throwing up its head. We were so close that we could plainly see the whites of its glittering eyes.

Center stage was an inclined ramp, climbing six feet to a large horizontal platform supported by two trestles. The rider urged his mount up the ramp and onto the platform where the horse stopped, quite composed. Stagehands ran on and carried away the ramp.

Horse and rider stood there and the music switched tempo, more mysterious now but still with that throbbing beat.

From above, a curtain pole descended, supported by a chain at either end. It stopped above and in front of the Indian chief and his horse. He reached up and pulled down a bright blue shade from the roller on the curtain pole. Both horse and rider were now hidden from view.

Indian war whoops sounded. The music faded, then a slow drumroll started. The curtain pole rose taking the blue shade with it. Gabriella gave a gasp of astonishment. Horse and rider had disappeared. The platform was empty.

The stage curtains closed. Gabriella and I clapped as enthusiastically as school kids.

“That’s impossible!” Gabriella gasped.

“They couldn’t have gone down,” I said. “Only those trestles support the platform. They couldn’t have got off the platform in any direction—it’s too high. How on earth did he do it?”

“Absolutely impossible,” came Monty’s voice from behind us. He chuckled.

“Monty,” Gabriella demanded. “Tell us how you did it.”

“Illusion.” He was still grinning with satisfaction. “It went real well. We’ve been practicing all week. I’d like to knock two more seconds off, though; then it’s okay.”

“No, come on, Monty, we have to know,” Gabriella coaxed.

He settled into a seat behind us. “No. Let’s talk about your problem. The way you outlined it over the phone—”

“Monty, I’ll never speak to you again if you don’t tell us.” Gabriella was firm.

“Suddenly, I realize why we’re here,” I said to her.

“You didn’t know?” Monty laughed. “Hey, Gaby, you didn’t tell him why you brought him here but you want me to tell you the secret of the Vanishing Indian!” He laughed again.

“And don’t call me Gaby! You know I hate it.” She turned to me. “It was that remark you made about Houdini. Well, it started me thinking. Monty knows as much about magic as Houdini did—”

“Except he was a better showman,” Monty said.

“Monty has devised tricks for all the greats,” Gabriella continued. “Maskelyne, Blackstone, Flip Hallema, David Copperfield—all of them.”

“Blackstone,” Monty said. “We might start with him when we look at your problem. He did the Vanishing Automobile, the Vanishing Horse—that’s the one you just saw”—he broke into a reminiscent laugh—“and the Vanishing Camel—now that was a show and a half. That camel never did want to work as part of the team. It hated show business. It gave us the hardest time every performance. Then it died—on stage already!”

“So I thought, Why don’t we get Monty to tell us how
he
would do it? Maybe the thief used the same technique—or something like it.”

“Sure,” said Monty.

“But first,” Gabriella said sternly. “The trick we just saw. How did you do it?”

“Promise not to tell?” His pudgy face was jovial. He was a man who got a lot of enjoyment out of life and people.

“Yes,” Gabriella said promptly.

“Lighting. The stage seems brightly lit but all the illumination comes from the front and the footlights. All the overhead lights are turned off and you’ll notice that the entire stage is curtained with black velvet. Between the two chains that hold up the pole and the blue shade is another black velvet curtain. It’s invisible to the audience and they can’t distinguish it from the curtains behind. As soon as the shade comes down, hiding the horse and rider, a harness drops down and the two of them are hoisted up.”