The Spirit Cabinet (20 page)

Next up, a television actor. Rudolfo knew he was a television actor because Samson greeted the approach of television stars with excitement, pulling forward and straining his bejewelled lead. The television actors often found this disquieting, as this one did, stopping dead in his tracks and flinching spastically, his hands flying like little birds in a hurricane, trying to protect all vital organs, body parts and hair. “No worries,” Rudolfo said. “Samson won’t bite.” Which, indeed, he wouldn’t. Samson had only bitten a human being once. Since that day he had been gentle and civilized, or so he fancied, although Samson knew at the bottom of his pale heart that he was simply cowardly and pitiful.

The television actor—who had no one with him, which was a little odd; most of these boys usually came equipped with a woman so as to throw particularly stupid
Personality
magazine reporters off the trail—came forward and shook first Rudolfo’s hand, then Jurgen’s. “I’m still shaking,” the television actor whispered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Jurgen kissed the boy on the cheek. This kiss was alarming, of course, but still not as unsettling as the grin Jurgen was dealing out. Surely this would have been a good moment for his Sorceror’s look, where he set his jaw firmly, affecting the whole of his head, squaring up the corners. The flashbulb popped and the television actor withdrew.

It was at this point, as a Supreme Court judge and his wife
drew near, that Rudolfo noticed the odd man lurking in the corner. Security surely wouldn’t have let such a bizarre creature into the dressing room. Jurgen and Rudolfo often received death threats or menacing statements, invariably cryptic because they’d been written by idiots.
DIE
,
SPONG OF STAN
was one that had puzzled them for weeks. Miranda had solved that one, suggesting that the message meant “spawn” (“spong” because that’s what the moron thought the word was) “of Satan” (the dimwit forgetting that important “a” in the passion of the moment).

When the aged Supreme Court judge took his hand and made it tremble in consort with his own, Rudolfo merely muttered,
“Danke, ja,”
keeping his eye on the odd creature who was suddenly drawing nearer. He was wrapped in tulle and muslin; his arms popped free of the diaphanous material naked and pale, tinged with newborn blueness. His head was bald, almost blindingly so, except for a topknot, a plume of pure white in the centre of his pate.

The politician’s wife kissed Rudolfo on the cheek, pleading for the return of his attention. She clutched his hand between hers and moved it absentmindedly across her body. “Tell me a secret, Rudolfo,” she whispered. The woman was far younger than her husband, but then again, everybody was far younger than her husband, who was wattled and melting, his only distinguishing feature being a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. Rudolfo remembered that he had a stock response to this demand,
tell me a secret
, one he’d paid some young television writer four hundred dollars for, but it would not come to mind. The judge’s wife pressed the back of his hand to her breast. Rudolfo smiled and then gasped, because the odd man suddenly loomed not two feet away. The creature had three eyes.

An explosion of light blinded Rudolfo. He heard the soft whirring sound of the Polaroid camera spitting out the image. Miranda handed it to the judge. “Here you go,” she said.

Rudolfo blinked frantically until he could see again, and was alarmed to find Jurgen in conversation with the creature. Rudolfo saw now that the centre eye was unmoving, the colours not quite right. This third eye was a tattoo, although to Rudolfo this seemed odder than actually owning one. One of the creature’s thin arms suddenly disappeared within his folds and wraps. Rudolfo was suddenly filled with dread, at least, the dread that filled him always suddenly came to a boil. But the creature’s arm reappeared, not with a weapon but with a piece of paper.
Parchment
might be a better word; it was yellowed, the edges browned; it seemed as though one could see the individual wood chips that comprised it.

Jurgen took up his pen, a large felt-tip, aimed it at the piece of parchment and signed his name. The creature was some sort of bizarre autograph hound. Rudolfo reached out both hands, one going for Jurgen’s pen, one for the piece of paper. Both were suddenly gone, and he was groping through emptiness. There was a flash of light, but of a different magnitude than the previous ones, much brighter and somehow pulsating, as though the light came from a star that was going supernova.

And in that instant, the creature’s face appeared in front of Rudolfo, and he saw that the two eyes, the real eyes on either side of the tattoo, were silver and empty of iris and pupil.

When his own eyes cleared (although tiny mites of light swam across his field of vision for days afterward) the creature had vanished and Jurgen was pulling on his arm, saying, “Let’s go home.”

As they entered
das Haus
, Rudolfo yawned and reached his hands heavenward. He clasped them together over his head and twisted his body languidly. “Okay, chief. Maybe is time for bed.”

Jurgen smiled, nodded his head. “Okay, chief.”

Rudolfo happily headed off toward the bedroom and had
gone quite some distance, all the way to the Tiki-Tiki Room, when he noticed that Jurgen was not following. He whirled around and bolted back down the hallway. He turned left and descended a flight of stairs, turned right as he landed at the bottom and then raced along the darkened passage. He first heard the boulder rumbling, then could see a patch of light growing small, evaporating. When he reached the Grotto, there was just a sliver of space remaining between the wall and the rock. Through it, Rudolfo saw Jurgen standing in the centre of the circle of ancient books, his arms held high—not in triumph, more in mute announcement, the same way Rudolfo often spread his arms to tell
die Tiere
, “Here I am. Here I am, home.”

Rudolfo spun around and kicked at the wall, although what he actually ended up kicking was the snout of an alarmed and deeply wounded Samson. Rudolfo immediately sank to his knees and pulled the cat’s head to his breast. “Sorry, Sammy,” he whispered, “it’s just that …” He couldn’t say what. But ever since he’d met Jurgen, all those many years ago, being alone left him bitter and confused.

Jurgen said, “The two of hearts,” all those years ago. Rudolfo winked and whispered, “Good trick.”

“Come back to my dressing room,” said the magician, his face relaxing into a smile. “That’s where I keep my smokes.”

“Yeah, okay,” shrugged Rudolfo, and he followed the magician through the writhing shadows. As they neared a long bar at the far end, a rail-thin figure suddenly flew off a bar stool, shrieking like a giant bird. “Hey, Magic Man!” screamed this being. “What have you got there?”

Again, Rudolfo felt the warming sensation of recognition. Here was a collection of bones held together by the thinnest skin, a translucent wrapping that glowed with the blue of disease. On top of the figure’s head was a magnificent headdress, blond curls
so ornate that it seemed likely that animals with quite an evolved social order made their home in it. Its dress—adorned with clownish polka dots—was very short, and every movement raised it above the limits of modesty, although only shadow was revealed.

The magician planted his feet and said, “Miss Joe, this is—”

“Rudolfo.” Rudolfo reached up and moved the woolen watch cap around on his smooth skull, which he hoped passed for good manners.

“Jurgen and Rudolfo,” mused Miss Joe, leaning forward suddenly and kissing both men on the cheek.

They continued on to the dressing room, which was actually a broom closet. It was not a broom closet that had been pressed into service as a dressing room, it was a fully functional broom closet, filled with brooms and mops and a huge metal pail. The magician’s gear was shoved in there, including some empty cages.

The magician reached out and picked up a pack of cigarettes from a little shelf piled with sponges and rags. He shook them so that three or four poked their filters out of the opening, pointing them at Rudolfo. “Smoke?”

Rudolfo merely shook his head. He was tempted to caution the magician about the habit, but that would have reminded him of General Bosco, who was violently opposed to any bad habit he himself did not actually have.

The magician shrugged and lit a cigarette, sticking it between his lips so that the smoke greatly increased the fluttering of his eyelids. He put his hands behind his back and produced the two doves, placing them into a cage. They stepped onto the perch and immediately sank their heads out of sight.

“Your birds are sick,” Rudolfo noted.

“Hmm.” The magician took off his jacket now, loosened his tie, undid the button at his thick neck. “Doves are pretty sickly,” he noted. “I have to buy new birds every two weeks.”

“The birds die every two weeks?”

The magician shrugged again and continued unbuttoning his shirt. Rudolfo suspected he’d misjudged the situation. Here, apparently, was a take-charge kind of guy, eagerly wrestling out of his clothes. But then he saw that the magician’s upper body was heavily bandaged—no, not bandaged. There were thick pieces of duct tape stuck to his body, from which dangled thin wires, springs and strings. The magician began to remove these, grimacing stoically. When done that, he gestured vaguely with a downward motion. “I’ve got something in my pants.”

“Hmmm?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Jurgen’s manners were impeccable, which meant that for Rudolfo they were incomprehensible. He tilted his head. “You have something in your pants?”

“Something big.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“So if you wouldn’t mind turning around.”

“Oh!” Rudolfo spun about. A square of sheet metal was hanging on the wall serving as a sort of mirror, although the image it reflected was warped and indistinct. Rudolfo watched the magician work at the zipper and buttons of his trousers, letting them tumble to his knees. He was wearing boxer shorts, which he shimmied down onto his hips. The magician pulled out something white and furry, set it down upon the ground and then pulled up his pants. “Okay.”

Rudolfo turned around and saw a small rabbit sitting on the floor, its hind legs quivering. Rudolfo bent over and scooped up the animal, pressing it to his breast. The creature had rancid bunny breath and was emitting irregular little puffs of putrid air. “Let me guess,” said Rudolfo. “You leave the rabbit in this little room, where it’s cold and dry, except for when you perform, when you stick it down your pants, where it’s warm and, um, moist. Right?”

The magician butted his cigarette, pulled out a comb and started rearranging his locks. “Right.”

“Why don’t you just step on it?”

The comb paused mid-flight, little strands of golden hair clinging to it. “What?”

“It would be much easier to simply step on its head and crush out all its brains. Easier on you, easier on the rabbit.”

The magician processed this sentence, and it seemed to take him quite a while. He set his jaw with furious concentration and trained his eyes on Rudolfo. The dark eyelids moved up and down like pistons; the comb remained frozen in the air. After many moments, he asked, quietly, “That’s bad for the bunny?”

Rudolfo pulled off his watch cap and nestled the rabbit into its woolen warmth. It was only when he looked up and saw the magician staring at him, startled, that Rudolfo realized what he’d done. “It’s a sickness,” he said calmly. “I have no hair anywhere on my body.”

The magician—who was either very kind or thick as pudding—said, “My uncle Fritz, he’s got hair in his
ears
.”

Rudolfo smiled, placing his thumb upon the rabbit’s head and rubbing gently. “I had hair until I was ten,” he began, and he didn’t stop speaking for a long time.

Preston worked Monday evenings, when other Shows were dark. On a good night, he might get as many as fifty people inside the George Theater. Midway through his act he would descend into the seats, a deck of cards clenched in his fat hand. He would ask that the house lights be put on. They would be, after a long moment’s delay, Mrs. Antoinette Kingsley complying only grudgingly, as she didn’t feel the flipping of electric switches was part of her job description.

On this night—like all nights—Preston raised the cards into the air and said, “This is just an ordinary deck of cards. They aren’t rigged or gaffed. They’re not strippers. They’re not marked. It’s not a Svengali deck. Just an ordinary pack of blue-backed Bees. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Probably half the people in here are magicians. So let’s just have these cards checked by—”

Preston glanced around at the small crowd, his brow only slightly lifted, his eyes struggling upwards. His attention was caught, his head stopping so abruptly that upper vertebrae gave
forth audible cracks. “Oh, hey,” he muttered. “I guess we could have this deck checked out by the world-famous Kaz.”

Kaz sat in an aisle seat, sunk low, his long legs stretched out in front. His bony hands were laced over his chest, his chin nestled on his clavicle. When his name was mentioned, the audience erupted into applause. Kaz—very atypically—did not respond, other than making a tiny grimace, as if the sound hurt his ears. He merely extended a hand, turning up the palm to receive the cards.