Tightrope

by Amanda Quick

  That should have been reassuring. She probably did not have to fear a second attacker tonight. But it also meant that the monster who had giggled in anticipation of watching her fly to her death was still alive.

  Chapter 2

  Amalie knew that something had gone very wrong when the robot named Futuro carried the suitcase onto the stage. It was a small thing, really; just something about Dr. Norman Pickwell’s expression.

  Pickwell stood at the podium on the other side of the stage. He was in his late forties, with a neatly trimmed beard and a pair of gold spectacles. He had just ordered the mechanical man to carry the suitcase behind the curtain, leave it there, and return to the stage with a tea tray.

  No one else in the theater seemed to notice the startled expression that flashed across Pickwell’s face when Futuro reappeared with the suitcase instead of the tray. But Amalie had spent a good portion of her life performing dangerous stunts in front of an audience. It was a career in which the smallest miscalculation in midair spelled disaster. Her intuition had been honed to a razor-sharp edge.

  A moment ago Pickwell had been lecturing the audience on the wonders of the future, when most labor would be done by robots. Now he was distinctly nervous.

  He recovered quickly.

  “Futuro, put down the suitcase and pick up the vase of flowers that is on the bench,” he commanded.

  Amalie glanced at her aunt Hazel, who was sitting beside her. Hazel was watching the demonstration with rapt attention. She did not appear to have noticed anything strange about what was happening onstage. She was clearly captivated.

  The robot was humanoid in shape, with a surprisingly sleek aluminum body. It did not look like one of the blocky, clunky images on the cover of Thrilling Wonder Stories or Popular Mechanics. The head resembled an ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s death mask.

  Hidden motors whirred and hummed as Futuro obeyed Pickwell’s new orders. Flashlight-sized eyes glittering with an eerie blue light, the robot clomped across the stage and set the suitcase on the bench.

  Futuro appeared to deliberate for a moment before it picked up the vase of flowers in two metal hands.

  Dr. Pickwell seemed somewhat relieved but Amalie thought the inventor still looked uneasy.

  “As you can see,” Pickwell said to the audience, “Futuro is capable of carrying out many of the tasks one expects of a well-trained butler. My invention is only the first of what I predict will be an unlimited number of mechanical men. In the future, robots will free humankind from the dangerous work now performed by humans in mines, shipyards, and factories.”

  A man in the front row leaped to his feet. “You mean the damned machines will take our jobs. How is the average working man going to make a living if robots take over?”

  A murmur of disapproval rippled across the theater. The Palace was a fashionable venue in the very fashionable town of Burning Cove. The audience was composed primarily of people who had purchased tickets because they wanted to be amazed and astonished and, above all, entertained. Most of the men wore evening jackets. The women were in glamorous cocktail dresses and heels. Amalie suspected that very few of those occupying the red velvet seats had ever worked in a mine or a shipyard or a factory.

  Tickets for the demonstration of Futuro had been expensive and hard to come by. The only reason she and Hazel were there was because the inventor had graciously provided them with passes. Dr. Pickwell was staying at their newly opened bed-and-breakfast. Pickwell was, in fact, the first and, so far, the only guest at the Hidden Beach Inn.

  Earlier, Amalie had been interested to see that a number of the town’s movers and shakers were in the audience, including Oliver Ward, the owner of Burning Cove’s biggest hotel. His wife, Irene, the crime beat reporter for the Burning Cove Herald, sat next to him. She had a notebook and pencil in hand. Oliver’s uncle, Chester Ward, said to be an inventor in his own right, had accompanied them. Chester, with his unkempt gray hair and spectacles, looked rather like a mad scientist in a horror movie. He was watching the demonstration with a mix of fascination and, Amalie sensed, deep suspicion.

  Luther Pell, the owner of the town’s hottest nightclub, the Paradise, occupied a seat in the second row. Pell was not alone. Two people had accompanied him to the theater. Amalie assumed that the sophisticated woman in the stylish gown next to him was Raina Kirk, Burning Cove’s only private investigator. Word around town was that Miss Kirk and Luther Pell were romantically linked.

  The man in the seat on the other side of Pell was a stranger. Amalie was not surprised that neither she nor Hazel recognized him. They were new in town themselves. There were a lot of people they did not know. But there had been enough curious and speculative glances from the crowd to indicate that the stranger was not one of the locals.

  The fact that he appeared to be an acquaintance of Pell’s automatically made him interesting, and quite possibly dangerous. Luther Pell, after all, was rumored to have mob connections. If that was true, it was a good bet that any friend of his had links to the criminal underworld.

  “There is no need to fear robots,” Dr. Pickwell declared. It was clear that the suggestion that robots would displace workers annoyed him. He raised his voice to be heard above the murmurs of the crowd. “I urge you to consider that these machines could take the place of soldiers. Wars of the future will be fought with robots, not human beings. Think of the lives that will be saved.”

  “You’re mad,” someone else shouted. “You want to create robots that can kill? What if these machines of yours decide to turn on their creators and try to destroy us?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Pickwell snapped. “Robots are nothing more than mechanical devices. Fundamentally, they are no different than the cars we drive or the radios that we use to get our news.”

  “Futuro looks mighty dangerous to me,” the man in the front row called.

  “Nonsense,” Pickwell said. “Allow me to demonstrate how useful Futuro can be. Futuro, what is the forecast for tomorrow?”

  The robot answered in a scratchy, hollow voice. “There will be fog in the morning but by noon the day will turn warm and sunny. No rain is expected.”

  Pickwell faced his audience. “Think about how useful it would be to have Futuro in your home at your beck and call. It won’t be long before there will be robots that can cook and clean and do the laundry.”

  But the crowd was no longer paying any attention to Pickwell, because Futuro had once again lurched into motion.

  “What’s that thing doing?” Hazel whispered.

  “I have no idea,” Amalie said.

  They watched along with everyone else as the robot opened the suitcase that it had just placed on the bench. Pickwell finally realized that he had lost the attention of the crowd. He turned away from the podium to see what was going on at the bench.

  Futuro reached into the suitcase and took out a gun.

  There was a collective gasp from the audience.

  “No,” Pickwell shouted. “Futuro, I command you to put down the gun.”

  The robot pulled the trigger. Twice. The shots boomed throughout the theater.

  Pickwell jerked under the impact of the bullets. He opened his mouth to cry out but he could not speak. He collapsed onto his back.

  Futuro calmly clanked offstage, disappearing behind the curtain.

  Stunned, Amalie stared at the unmoving figure on the stage. It was a trick, she thought. It had to be some sort of bizarre charade designed to shock the audience.

  Most of the crowd evidently believed the same thing. The majority of the people in the seats did not move. They appeared stunned.

  But not everyone was frozen in shock. Amalie glimpsed motion out of the corner of her eye. When she turned to look, she saw that Luther Pell and the stranger who had accompanied him to the theater had left their seats and were making their way to the stage steps. They were moving
fast, almost as if they had been anticipating trouble.

  When they reached the stage, they were joined by Oliver Ward, who had managed to move with surprising speed, considering that he had a noticeable limp and was obliged to use a cane. His wife, Irene, was not far behind. She had her notebook in one hand.

  Luther Pell and the stranger vanished behind the curtain. Ward crouched beside Pickwell and unfastened the inventor’s tuxedo jacket to expose a blood-soaked white shirt.

  The theater manager had evidently been watching the demonstration from the last row. He rushed down the center aisle toward the stage.

  “Is there a doctor in the house?” he shouted.

  Amalie saw a middle-aged man in the center section make his way quickly down the aisle.

  “I’m a doctor,” he said in a loud voice. “Call an ambulance.”

  The manager disappeared through a side door, presumably in search of a telephone.

  Onstage, Ward was using both hands to try to stanch the bleeding. The doctor arrived and quickly took charge.

  Luther Pell reappeared from behind the curtain. He looked at Oliver Ward and shook his head. Ward looked grim.

  The stranger finally emerged from behind the curtain. He was in the act of reaching inside his white evening jacket. Amalie caught a glimpse of something metallic just before the elegantly tailored coat fell neatly back into place.

  It took her a couple of seconds to comprehend what she had just seen. Then understanding struck. Like any self-respecting mobster, Luther Pell’s friend from out of town had come to the theater armed with a gun.

  Chapter 3

  “This is a disaster,” Hazel announced. “We are ruined. Utterly destroyed. We can’t possibly survive such a catastrophe.”

  “We will figure it out,” Amalie said. “We have to figure it out.”

  “No,” Hazel wailed, “we’re finished. Mark my words, by tomorrow morning everyone in town will be saying this place really is cursed. We can’t survive rumors like that.”

  She strode across the grandly furnished front room of the villa and came to a halt at the black lacquer liquor cabinet. Seizing a bottle of brandy, she yanked out the stopper and splashed a liberal amount of the contents into a glass. She downed a fortifying swallow and surveyed the surroundings.

  “Damn,” she said. “It all seemed so perfect.”

  When it came to high drama, Amalie reflected, no Hollywood actress could outshine Hazel Vaughn. She had once been a star attraction in the Ramsey Circus, one of the Fabulous Flying Vaughns. She had dazzled crowds with her daring tricks. She was middle-aged now but she still knew how to command an audience.

  Amalie eyed the brandy and decided that she needed some, too. She pushed herself up out of the massive leather sofa and went to the liquor cabinet. Hoisting the bottle, she poured herself a stiff shot.

  “You know what they say about something that seems too good to be true,” she said.

  “If we had the cash, I’d get a lawyer and sue the real estate agent who sold us this place.”

  “Well, we don’t have the money and I doubt if we would win anyway.” Amalie contemplated the big room. “It really is ideal for the kind of inn I imagined.”

  In spite of the looming disaster, she loved the mansion. She still could not believe that she owned such an amazing dream house. The large villa on Ocean View Lane looked as if it had been made to order for a Hollywood movie, a film set in the sun-splashed Mediterranean. With its spacious, high-ceilinged rooms, massive stone fireplace, richly paneled walls, and beautiful tile work, it was a grand example of the Spanish colonial revival style. Crowned with a parapet roof clad in red tiles, the house rose three stories above the spacious walled grounds.

  The gardens were lush and green. Orange and grapefruit trees perfumed the air. A shady grape arbor provided a delightful retreat. At the rear of the house a glass-and-iron conservatory and a broad patio made a beautiful setting in which to serve breakfast and tea to guests.

  The two floors above the ground floor had been designed to accommodate a large number of houseguests for a Hollywood mogul who had planned to entertain on a lavish scale.

  An expansive view of the sparkling Pacific Ocean and easy access to a secluded beach completed the gracious scene.

  Perfect, Amalie thought. Except for the stupid curse.

  “The agent should have warned you about the history of this villa,” Hazel said. “If you had known that a famous Hollywood psychic jumped off the roof a few months ago, you would never have gone through with the purchase.”

  “You’re wrong, Hazel.” Amalie took a sip of brandy and simultaneously put up a hand, palm out. “I would have bought it regardless. I couldn’t turn down such an incredible bargain.”

  She had sunk the full amount of the small inheritance she had received in the wake of her parents’ deaths into the villa. She had to make the inn successful.

  “The only reason the owner was willing to sell so cheap was because he knew full well he couldn’t get much for it, not after that psychic, Madam Zolanda, jumped off the roof,” Hazel said.

  “In time, people will forget about the psychic who died here.”

  “Maybe,” Hazel allowed. “But now that our first paying guest has been murdered by his own robot in front of a packed theater, we will never be able to attract customers.”

  Amalie squared her shoulders. “We have no choice but to figure out how to turn a profit. We will find a way to make the Hidden Beach a premier place to stay in Burning Cove.”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “Not at the moment, but I’m sure something will come to me.” Amalie swallowed some more brandy and set the glass down. “Meanwhile, I’m going to go upstairs and take a look around Pickwell’s room.”

  “It’s after midnight,” Hazel said. “We can pack up his things tomorrow. There’s no rush.”

  “I think we can expect a visit from the police first thing in the morning,” Amalie said. “I want to examine the room before they show up.”

  Hazel stared at her. “The police?”

  “If Pickwell does not survive, his death will officially become a homicide.”

  “Homicide by robot.” Hazel shuddered. “Gives a person the creeps, it does. It was like a scene out of a horror movie.”

  Amalie thought about that for a beat. “Yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

  “I will never forget what happened onstage tonight. I still can’t believe that machine murdered its inventor.”

  “I find it hard to believe, too,” Amalie said.

  She went behind the polished wooden bar that she and Hazel had decided to use as a front desk and opened the door to the small office that had once served as a coat closet. She took a key down off a brass hook.

  “What do you expect to find?” Hazel asked.

  “I have no idea.” Amalie crossed the lobby to the grand staircase. She paused, one hand on an ornate newel post, and looked back at Hazel. “But that scene onstage tonight has been bothering me.”

  “I’m sure it bothered everyone.” Hazel narrowed her eyes. “What, in particular, has you worried? Besides the fact that we will probably be bankrupt within the month, I mean.”

  “You said it yourself—the murder was like a scene out of a horror movie.”

  Hazel had been about to pour herself some more brandy. She hesitated. “Meaning?”

  “Movies are elaborate illusions designed to fool an audience. Maybe we should not believe everything we thought we saw onstage tonight.”

  “Huh.” Hazel appeared intrigued. “Do you think Dr. Pickwell faked his own murder?”

  Amalie thought about the grim expressions she had seen on the faces of Oliver Ward and Luther Pell. Then she remembered the stranger who had worn a shoulder holster under his evening jacket.

  “I am almost positive that Pickwell was shot with real
bullets tonight,” she said. “But I am not so sure that the robot is to blame.”

  “How can you say that? We saw that thing shoot Pickwell.”

  “Maybe we saw what we were meant to see. Think about it, Hazel. You and I both know how easy it is to fool an audience.”

  “True. But that blood looked real.”

  “I agree.”

  Hazel pursed her lips. “Don’t you think it was strange that those two mob guys, Pell and his friend, were the first to rush down to the stage?”

  “Oliver Ward and his wife headed for the stage, too.”

  “Sure, but Irene Ward is a crime reporter. It makes sense that she would want the story and that her husband would want to keep an eye on her. There was no way to know if that robot would come back and shoot some more people. But why did Pell and that stranger get involved?”

  “I have no idea,” Amalie said.

  Hazel heaved a sigh and sank into one of the oversized chairs. She gazed morosely into the unlit fireplace.

  “I suppose this means we’re going to get stiffed on the room rent,” she said. “Can’t collect from a dead man.”

  “We don’t know for sure that Pickwell is dead,” Amalie said, trying to stay optimistic. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Take your time. It’s not like we’ve got a villa full of paying guests to look after.”

  Amalie went quickly up the staircase. All things considered, it had been a very odd evening. She did not want to admit it, but Hazel might be right. Perhaps the disaster at the Palace tonight would hurt future business.

  When she reached the landing, she turned and went down the hall. She and Hazel had made certain to give Pickwell the best suite in the villa.

  Make that the second-best suite.

  Strictly speaking, number six wasn’t the most luxurious room in the mansion. That title belonged to the suite that had been used by Madam Zolanda, and after one quick look, Amalie and Hazel had decided not to rent it out to guests. The psychic’s belongings—her colorful wardrobe, her personal effects, jewelry, costumes, and shoes—were still there.