The Arcanum (11 page)

As a child, Morris had also discovered he had an aptitude for strangling cats. Cats frightened him, so he killed them. Hunted them. Yanked their heads so hard, their necks broke. Morris then collected the dead cats under his grandmother’s house, but eventually the smell gave it away. Morris’s nose was blocked from a childhood injury; he couldn’t smell. That was the problem. And it was too bad, because Morris loved his collection. He’d crawl under the house and lie in the cold dirt, petting the cats. They couldn’t run away like this, so Morris could pet them for hours. When his grandmother finally discovered his treasures, there were forty-eight cat bodies melting under the house. That brought him many more blows and considerable trouble with the neighbors. That was the first time he got sent away.

Morris spoke on a monthly basis with a Bellevue intern about “violent urges,” but he kept his job just fine. Morris knew they let him alone because he was the only one who could wrestle down the bad ones. They wriggled just like the cats had. It didn’t matter if Morris accidentally broke one of them, because there were always more coming in off the white trucks. Different faces but the same eyes, the same voices. Nobody ever punched Morris on the head for breaking these. They were not in short supply.

The one down there now with the whiny voice and dark eyes— he was a skinny cat, all bones. It hurt to wrestle with bones; he liked the fat ones better. But the Man with the Blue Eye had told Morris to make sure he broke him good. And it was funny, but Morris wanted to please the Man with the Blue Eye. He didn’t know why. He knew he’d get in trouble like he did with the cat collection, but the Man with the Blue Eye made it seem just fine. And he had promised Morris all kinds of work—the kind he was good at.

Morris glanced at the wad of twenties in his palm, enough to buy plenty of warm buttered rolls. Then he stuffed the wad in his shirt pocket, turned, and lurched into the empty lobby. He headed straight for the stairwell door, snatching a fire ax off the wall as he went.

18

HOUDINI KNELT BEFORE a rusting security door, squinting into a keyhole. “You’ll never learn, will you, Doyle?”

Doyle bristled. “She wants to know what happened to Duvall, just like we all do.”

“They deserved each other, you know,” Houdini scoffed. “Neither one could be trusted.”

“Does your suspicion never tire?”

“We were played for fools once. Never again. I’m sick of this whole business. This one favor and then I’m through.” Houdini fingered dozens of keys on an oversized ring. “I need a double tube. Don’t have it here.”

Doyle frowned. “You need a key? What on earth for?”

Houdini turned around. “Am I expected to dematerialize through it, perhaps?”

“No. I just thought . . . Well, you are Houdini, after all.”

Stung, Houdini stood up and removed his coat, as a man might before a bar brawl. “Hold this, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

Houdini examined the tall, imposing wall before him. They were at the back of the asylum, amidst stinking barrels of trash.

A barred window was the only break in the wall, and it was fifteen feet above the ground. Houdini backed up and spit on his hands. He clapped twice, took four long strides, and then leaped. He looked like a giant cockroach as he scuttled up the wall, gripping the tiny grooves and divots with incredibly strong fingertips. He reached the barred window in seconds.

Houdini gripped the bars and tried to wrench them out. The muscles in his back and shoulders strained, but the bars refused to budge.

He managed to slide open the window by pressing his hand to the glass and lifting. But the problem remained the bars.

It was time for Plan B.

Houdini studied the bars and the space between them, roughly six or seven inches, his eyes making precise measurements. Then he took several long, deep breaths.

Suddenly, he thrust his head between the bars. His shoes scrabbled against the wall for leverage, and were his arms to tire he would choke. By pushing all the breath out of his lungs, he was able to shrink his torso enough to force it between the bars. The process was agony; Houdini grunted from the compression on his bones and the lack of air. His head, his chest, and one arm were through, and he dangled precariously, half in and half out.

Then he forced his other shoulder against the bars, once, twice, three times, and his arm dislocated, giving him all the slack he needed. He wiggled his second arm through. Then all it took were a few snakelike movements before Houdini’s feet vanished through the window.

LOVECRAFT’S HEAD LAY in a puddle of his own urine, his eyes glassy and unblinking. Deep down in the turbulence of his mind, his sanity bobbed and tossed like a toy boat in a hurricane. His panic and dread, coupled with an already fragile mental circuitry, taxed him to the edge of madness. Yet he clung by a thread to reality, his ears attuned to every sound. In the next cell, a lunatic masturbated to the hiss of his own breathy whispers. Somewhere else down the hall, another inmate sobbed into his pillow.

Lovecraft thought of Angell Street and East Providence, his beloved home. He thought of the silence of those streets at two A.M., when he would leave the smothering bleakness of his bedroom in the house he shared with his aunts and taste the chill wetness of the Rhode Island air. Walking that desolate village, Lovecraft would meditate on the stars and their secrets—secrets he would spend a lifetime struggling to decipher. He thought of Mother—her pretty, questioning eyes and her nervous dotings; those small, shaking hands with their bitten, bloody fingernails. His syphilitic father was only a grim ogre lost to precognitive memory, a presence in Lovecraft’s life only as the gibbering terror of his fitful dreams.

Lovecraft blinked. Something had forced his mind back to the present. He listened. There. Nothing. No sound. That was the problem. Even the masturbator had stopped. They were all waiting. It was like a forest when the bugs ceased buzzing. That was how you detected the monsters, when the buzzing stopped.

Lovecraft heard it then. A footstep. Then another. Something heavy. Lovecraft’s mouth opened, but only a hoarse gasp escaped. The footsteps grew closer. Lovecraft’s lip quivered. He was ill prepared for death. And certainly not a violent death, the kind this would surely be. He grit his teeth as the footsteps rang louder, then stopped outside his door.

Keys jangled against each other, and one scraped into the lock. Lovecraft’s eyes widened. The bolt clanged back, and rusted hinges moaned.

Morris stepped inside.

The orderly’s gait was casual, disinterested even. He turned and shut the door, the ax dangling at his side. He sniffed the air and grimaced, snorting something into his mouth then spitting it to the stone floor. Lovecraft flinched, and Morris adjusted his grip on the ax.

Cellular instincts took over as Lovecraft squirmed into the corner and curled into a ball. Every muscle tensed for what he assumed would be several rending, tearing blows.

Morris swung the ax back in a wide arc and Lovecraft screamed.

But the blow never landed.

Morris looked at his empty hands. He turned around.

Houdini held the ax. “I’m sorry. This is yours?” Houdini then whipped the flat end of the ax blade up and under Morris’s jaw. Morris’s head snapped back, and he went spinning into the corner of the cell.

Then Lovecraft giggled. The giggle became a chuckle. Then the chuckle rose to chortles and the chortles to hysterical laughter.

Houdini stood there a moment, watching Lovecraft curl and roll on the ground in a cackling fit. He sighed. “About what I expected.” He snatched Lovecraft off the ground by the straitjacket straps and plopped him on the bed.

Lovecraft continued to laugh, though tears rolled down his cheeks.

Houdini fought quickly with the straps of the jacket. “Nice to see we’re of good cheer.”

OUTSIDE THE ASYLUM, Parks whistled as a curvaceous black woman sauntered toward them, a shawl wrapped over her bare arms and shoulders.

Seamus puffed out his chest. “Y’ain’t workin’, is ya, kitty-cat?”

“Jus’ takin’ a walk, suh. I don’t mean nuthin’.” The woman stopped and placed a foot on the fence, then hiked up her skirt and rubbed her calf. “Mmm, my legs sure is tired.” With a sleepy glance, she took in the men before her. “I sure do like those uniforms y’all is wearin’. I don’t wanna get in trouble, Officers.”

Parks looked at Seamus, knowingly. “There’s prolly a way to avoid any kind of unpleasantness.”

“Who needs the paperwork?” Seamus added.

“On such a cold night?” Parks leered at the woman. “Throw the boys a free warm-up, and we might see to lettin’ ya slide by this time round.”

“I sure don’t wanna go to no jail tonight.” The hooker strolled by Parks and tickled a finger under his bony chin. “Let’s go across the street where the light ain’t so bright, hmm?”

Parks pulled his trousers higher and smirked at Seamus. “Man the fort, buddy.”

Seamus pouted.

“No, no. Bring your friend with you.” The woman smiled at Seamus, sending his pulse soaring. “C’mon, chubby. It’s cold tonight.”

Then she crossed the street ahead of the officers, swinging her hips.

Parks poked Seamus, laughing. “Yeah, c’mon, chubby.”

“Shaddup,” Seamus shot back as he sucked in his gut and followed behind them.

Suddenly, gunshots froze them to the spot. Windows shattered somewhere in the asylum.

Parks’s hand went to his .38.

Seamus freed his pistol and ran toward the gate, dropping the keys to the lock. “I got it!” He fumbled, retrieved the keys, and jabbed them in the padlocks with shaking hands. The locks opened. Parks shoved Seamus aside and kicked open the gates.

Neither of them noticed that the prostitute had vanished, cursing bitterly.

HOUDINI SLAMMED INTO the stairwell door as gunshots pinged off the steel and punctured the glass.

The lobby was occupied by three New York police officers, and an elderly security guard armed with a shotgun. Using the lobby reception desk as cover, they unleashed a hail of bullets against the stairwell door.

Lovecraft was useless, slumped against the wall, giggling into his hand.

“How is this happening?” Houdini demanded rhetorically.

Footsteps thundered behind him. Morris was coming.

Houdini studied the door. He pulled the long pin from the bottom hinge. “Okay . . . yes . . .”

Morris’s shadow fell across the wall.

Houdini yanked the pin from the top hinge. The door jostled. Houdini lifted Lovecraft to his feet by his shirt collar. “Pay attention, you nitwit.”

Tears of amusement rolled down Lovecraft’s cheeks. His mouth was open, but he had no breath left.

“When I tell you, run to the stairwell across the lobby. Don’t stop. Go up. Do you understand?”

Lovecraft did not answer.

“Fine, then. You stay here and get shot, for all I care. But I’m going.” Houdini turned and wrestled the door off its hinges. Bullets pounded into it. “Now,” Houdini cried, and exploded into the lobby, carrying the door.

Houdini flipped across the marble floor, holding the door handle, and it seemed that Lovecraft had enough sense to use it for cover. He ran for the staircase as ordered.

Houdini’s door blocked the bullets. Then he swung the door in the direction of the reception desk.

The guards stopped shooting, waiting for his next move.

In the pause, Houdini charged and leaped onto the desk, ramming the bottom of the door at the policemen’s feet. He then jumped off the desk and seesawed the door so that it knocked the policemen’s guns skyward, causing them to fire at the overhanging chandelier.

The hail of bullets broke the clasp attaching the chandelier to the ceiling, bringing two hundred pounds of glass and steel hurtling down.

The police scattered as Houdini back-flipped to the stairs and sprinted to the second floor. Bullets pinged off the marble banister in counterpoint to the click of Houdini’s shoes.

THE METAL DOOR to the roof buckled and burst open. Houdini shoved Lovecraft forward and leaped gamely up on the ledge. The treetops were too far away for a leap. Thick telephone wires, however, reached from the asylum roof across the fenced grounds to the next pole on Twenty-third Street.

“Oh mercy,” Houdini whispered as he took in the length of the wires. He turned back to Lovecraft, who sat helpless on the ground.

A look back at the fire escape showed several police officers climbing fast. A revolver flashed and cracked. Houdini spun away as a bullet ricocheted off the metal rail.

Mind made up, Houdini launched back across the roof and lifted Lovecraft to his feet. “You will do as I say when I say it,” he hissed. “Understand? No hesitation. We hesitate, we die.”

In his peripheral vision, Houdini saw Morris materialize from the shadows of the staircase, the ax blade propped on his shoulder.

Houdini swatted Lovecraft on the back. “Run to the ledge. Go!” Lovecraft staggered toward the ledge as Houdini ran toward the stairwell door. Morris lurched up the steps, pulling back his arm to swing. Houdini grabbed the steel door and slammed it in Morris’s face as the ax blade plunged through, stopping inches from Houdini’s nose. He backed away quickly, kicking off his shoes. Morris struggled to wrench his ax from the door as Houdini spun around and darted toward the ledge.

He took Lovecraft by the scruff of the neck, wrapped an arm around his stomach, and moved him nearer to the telephone wires.

“Walk,” Houdini growled as he shadowed Lovecraft from behind. “Walk onto the wires. I’ll guide us.” Lovecraft grunted and made a feeble attempt to wriggle free of Houdini’s grasp, but Houdini seized him tighter. “Walk, or I’ll pitch you from this roof myself.”

Morris lumbered toward them, huffing. The ax blade scraped along the gravel.

“No,” Lovecraft wailed as Houdini used his foot and knee to thrust Lovecraft’s foot onto the telephone wire.

“I’ll move you. Relax your body.” Houdini slid Lovecraft’s foot farther out. “Struggle, and you’ll kill us both. Put your feet on mine.”

Morris raised the ax for another blow. The blade crossed the stars, a silhouette against the half-moon.

Houdini craned his neck, paled at Morris’s approach, then nudged them completely onto the wire. “I have you, Howard, I have you.”

Lovecraft whimpered. But the seed of self-preservation still grew somewhere in the crawling thicket of his mind—enough to let him follow Houdini’s orders.

“Good, Howard. Very good. That’s it . . . gently.”

Houdini’s leg nudged Lovecraft’s in a wide circle to touch down on the wire, high above the trees.

“We are not stopping, Howard. Just close your eyes. I do the walking. That’s it. That’s it.”

Houdini and Lovecraft walked farther out, over a hundred feet of concrete. Animal moans trailed from Lovecraft’s lips.

Morris’s ax sunk deep into the telephone wires, spewing fireworks. His heavy rubber gloves insulated him from the shocks.

Two strands of the bundle zipped out from under Houdini and Lovecraft’s feet.

“Mother, Mother,” Lovecraft whimpered.

Houdini bent his knees to try and still the shuddering wires. They were barely a third of the way across. Worse, a cluster of police had gathered by the fence of the asylum in a grassy clearing beyond the ring of birch trees, guns out, waiting for Houdini to enter their range of fire.

Houdini, though, mused upon the usefulness of this stunt in one of his next performances—presuming they survived, of course. Having reachieved balance, he circled left legs around right legs, fusing himself to Lovecraft, holding Lovecraft’s wrists out wide to balance them both. Midnight winds buffeted them. “Very good, Howard. We’re nearly there now. Keep the eyes shut. We’re doing fine.”

Morris swung wildly with the ax. The blade chewed up more strands. Sparks showered the lawn.

Wires fluttered away into the breeze, lazily swinging across the lawn. The police ran to escape the stream of spewing electricity.

“Aaaah! God! Agh!” Lovecraft’s foot stepped off Houdini’s foot and searched for the wires, instead finding air. His body lurched right.

Houdini grabbed Lovecraft’s wrist and leaned his whole body in the opposite direction. They hung there a moment, like some bizarre sculpture of improvised chaos: Lovecraft dangling one way, Houdini the other. Again, Houdini righted their course. But there was less of a path now. Only a few slender wires remained of the original bundle.