The Miser's Dream

by John Gaspard

  “Did you know the projectionist? I think his name was Tyler.”

  Harry sat down and considered. “We were on a nodding acquaintance, I would say,” he finally said. “I know he’s worked there for years, but I couldn’t tell you a thing about the poor devil. You?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I could have picked him out of a crowd,” I said.

  “Say, speaking of crowds, and on a more upbeat note, how was the turnout for Quinton Moon’s show last night?”

  I shrugged. “Good, I suppose. I didn’t see any empty seats, but it’s hard to tell how many more that room could have held,” I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as I could.

  “Marvelous show, wasn’t it?” Harry continued, stirring his coffee so the dark brown liquid transitioned into a milky gray. “Didn’t you love it?”

  I shrugged again and picked at my toast. Harry leaned across the table. “Are you saying that was not one of the finest magic shows you have ever seen in your entire life?” he said, his voice rising to an incredulous pitch. “Are you seriously saying that? How can you be saying that?”

  “I’m not actually saying anything,” I snapped. “But you’re talking so much, you can’t tell.”

  Harry leaned back in his chair and studied me closely. “Do I sense a visit by the green-eyed monster, envy?” he said quietly. “Is that who has landed at our breakfast table this morning?”

  “No,” I lied. “I thought he was fine. A nice show. A very nice show.”

  “Nice? Can you damn him with any fainter praise than nice?”

  “I don’t know what the big deal is,” I sputtered. “It was a good show, very competent, the audience loved it, what do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing,” Harry said quietly. “You’ve already said volumes.”

  Mercifully, my phone chose that moment to beep, signaling the arrival of a text. I pulled it out and gave it a quick look. “It’s my agent. She has work for me. I should go call her.”

  “By all means,” Harry said. “Leave your dishes, I’ll straighten up. You go call your agent. About your work.” He spit out the last three words with a biting precision and then got up and began to clear the table. I took my phone and headed to the door, happy to have an excuse to leave.

  Even though I stormed out of Harry’s apartment trying to give the impression I had places to go and things to do, as it turned out, I did have at least one place to go. A quick call to my agent revealed the sudden and abrupt need for a substitute magician at a children’s magic show. The details were fuzzy, but apparently the scheduled performer had backed out at the last minute, leaving a frantic parent with a room full of kids and no promised and desperately needed child-friendly entertainment.

  I am no fan of children’s magic shows, because in my hands they generally end up being less about entertainment and more about crowd control. Some magicians can handle the kids with ease and aplomb. For me, it quickly degenerates into a hostage situation, with me as the unwilling victim. However, I wanted to put some distance between myself and Harry, and I really did have nothing else to do that morning. I packed the car and was on the road in less than twenty minutes.

  Due to the hurried nature of the request, my agent had failed to supply me with a demographic profile of the group. Not knowing the age range of the audience meant I had to bring not just a few things but virtually everything. I needed to be prepared for any contingency, because experience has taught me a trick that will delight an eight-year-old will completely baffle a five-year-old, sometimes to the point of tears. And then, a trick a five-year-old finds completely enthralling, a ten-year-old will think is the stupidest thing he’s ever seen and will be quick to proclaim that, often at great volume. And God help you if the room is full of teenagers.

  Consequently, I had over-packed and was ready, I felt, for any eventuality.

  I was wrong.

  I would have been wise to spend the drive time thinking about what I was going to do for my forty-five-minute act which was twenty-five minutes away. Instead, I spent the trip fuming about how quickly Harry had seen through my feelings about Quinton Moon’s performance. The fact was, it was the most astonishing magic show I had ever seen. But something inside made it impossible for me to admit that, at least in front of Harry.

  Because this flurry of negative thoughts and self-doubt had clouded my brain, I think I could be excused for not noticing the red flags of danger as they appeared, one right after another.

  The first indicator something was amiss was the complete lack of cars in the parking lot at the party’s location, Pirate Pete’s Pizza Peninsula. With a kid’s birthday party in progress, the lot normally would have been filled to overflowing with SUVs and minivans, but there were only a handful of cars dotting the large space.

  I encountered the second red flag when I entered the building, passing a prominent and hastily scrawled “Closed for Private Event” sign which hung crookedly on the door. What was striking was the volume, or actually lack of volume, that I experienced when I walked into the entertainment complex. Pirate Pete’s consists of a ridiculously large video game arcade, a bowling alley, indoor putt-putt, a performance stage and outsized dining area. Noise levels—including the sound effects from all the video games, the rumble from the bowling alley, the screaming of kids and constant thumping of bass-heavy music—usually combine to create a wall of sound as you walk into the place. However, on this day, I was greeted by blessed, eerie silence.

  The third red flag was actually more of a red fire hydrant: a short, muscled bullet of a man I’d come to know only as Harpo. With his short-cropped red hair and imposing stance, he was the first human—to use the term loosely—I encountered as I entered the building. My heart sank when I saw him, because the appearance of Harpo was a clear harbinger I was once again going to come face to face with—

  “Ah, there he is, the man of the hour! Welcome, Mandrake, welcome.”

  I followed the sound of the thin, reedy voice, finally spotting its thinner, reedier owner.

  Mr. Lime was seated on a chair in the large and empty dining area, looking like a pale, skeletal waif set adrift in a sea of colorful tables. I forced a smile onto my face and headed toward him, fording the large sandbox area which acted as a moat of sorts between the play zone and the food area. If I had been crossing an authentic moat to do battle with an actual dragon, I think I would have felt better about my odds.

  “Welcome to my version of a surprise party,” he said with a too-wide smile, making his tight white skin seem even tighter and whiter.

  “The surprise being, there is no party?”

  “Exactly.” He gestured to a chair across the table from him and I sat reluctantly, like a child forced into an impromptu meeting in the principal’s office. Assuming, of course, the principal was a grinning, aging sociopath.

  Our paths had crossed three times earlier that year and I still knew nothing about the man, not even his real name. In addition to his criminal activities, which he only alluded to, he was a rabid movie fan. At our first meeting, he proposed the name Harry Lime as a plausible substitute for the real thing. The charming but immoral Orson Wells character from The Third Man had seemed a reasonable analog, and from that point on he had become Mr. Lime in all of our brief but terrifying encounters.

  His delight in assigning movie nicknames was applied without prejudice to all comers. His silent bodyguard, houseboy, chauffeur or whatever the hell he was, had been given the name Harpo as a nod to the great silent comedian. And I was dubbed Mandrake, in honor of the comic strip magician of the same name.

  “I’m glad your schedule was free this morning,” Mr. Lime said. “Can Harpo get you a soft drink of some kind? They have one of those machines which appear to offer hundreds of selections. I myself,” he continued, gesturing to the bright plastic cup in front of him, “am happily partaking of a Diet Vanilla Cherry Coke, of all
things.”

  To prove his point, he picked up the cup and took a sip from the colorful straw. His skin was so translucent, I swear I could see the dark liquid through his cheeks as it moved out of the straw and into his mouth. He looked just as old as he had when I first met him several months back, and that was really, really old. Thin strands of white hair covered his pale scalp, and his head balanced atop his wiry shoulders like a ghoulish bobble head.

  “This is a unique place to meet,” I said by way of a conversational icebreaker.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he said, taking the comment more as a compliment than intended. “I thought a birthday party would be a good ruse, and this seemed as likely a place as any. In fact, I think technically I own this establishment,” he added as he looked around the large space, as if for the first time. “But I suspect that would be very hard to prove.”

  “By design?”

  “Exactly.”

  Feeling more cocky than I had any right to, I pressed the question. “Mr. Lime, what exactly do you do? I mean, for a living. We’ve never discussed that.”

  “I’m not sure I understand the question,” he said without a hint of sarcasm.

  His apparent naiveté stumped me for a second. “All right,” I said, searching for another way into my query. “For example, when you fill out your income tax form, what do you list as an occupation?”

  This produced a gruesomely large smile, during which he bared all of his large, yellow teeth. “Income tax form? You are a funny young man, Mandrake. You really are.”

  He laughed a ragged, phlegmy laugh and then took another long sip from his soda cup. The straw made a slurping sound as it sucked up the remaining liquid and in an instant Harpo was at his side, replacing the empty cup with a full one and then disappearing as quickly as he had appeared. Mr. Lime seemed to take no notice of any of this and focused his attention entirely on me.

  “I understand you had a bit of an occurrence last night,” he began.

  For a brief instant, I thought he too was going to launch into a lecture about what a freaking great magician Quinton Moon was. But then I realized he was referring to the murder at the movie theater. Oddly enough, that felt like a much more comfortable conversation topic.

  “I suppose I did,” I said. “It’s not every day you look out your window and see a dead body.”

  For some reason this produced another slight smile on Mr. Lime’s thin lips. “No, I imagine for you that is a rare incident. But as you’ve doubtless assumed, that’s what I’ve brought you here today to discuss. If you don’t mind?”

  Never in the complete history of time has a question been more rhetorical. “Sure,” I said while nodding agreeably. “It’s your party.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.” He took another sip of his Diet Vanilla Cherry Coke. “Walk me through what happened. What you saw, what you did, what you said.” He gestured expansively with one hand while gripping the soda cup with the other.

  I sat back in my chair and began. Just as I had done with Harry an hour before, I recounted the key moments of the previous evening: discovering the body, calling the police, watching them break into the projection booth, and the tableau they found when the door was finally removed.

  When I finished, Mr. Lime looked off into a corner of the room and smiled thoughtfully. He clucked his tongue. “It looks as if our friend the projectionist got himself into a bit of a situation.”

  “Did you know Tyler?” I wasn’t sure if the floor was open for questions, but Mr. Lime turned and once again smiled his toothy death mask at me.

  “We had an oblique connection, yes,” he said. “But I should point out, while I have no actual correlation to the man’s death, I do have an interest in it. Let’s call it something more than curiosity.”

  He leaned toward me, resting his weight on his arms as they rested on the table.

  I couldn’t see his limbs through his black suit coat, but if they were as bony and frail as the rest of him, I worried for a moment his arms might give way under the strain.

  “There were two film canisters on the floor?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Open?”

  I nodded. “Open and, apparently, empty.”

  “Tell me again what was written on them.”

  “Each had a white label stuck on it,” I said carefully. “With handwriting on each of them. One was labeled ‘LAM #1,’ and the other was labeled ‘LAM #2.’”

  He looked at me for a long moment and then leaned back in his chair. He picked up his cup and took another long, thoughtful slurp through the straw. “That is fascinating,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “So very fascinating.”

  He didn’t seem poised to share why it was so fascinating, and I decided not to pursue it. I was weighing my next question, but before I could present it he snapped out of his reverie.

  “Okay, Mandrake, let’s do this. Why don’t you do me a trick and then I’ll lay out my plan, such as it is.”

  I was startled by his sudden change in mood and energy. “Do a trick?” I repeated.

  He nodded with enthusiasm. “Yes, I believe it is traditional for magicians at birthday parties to perform tricks. That is still the custom, am I right?”

  I couldn’t help but agree, but the sudden request put me momentarily on the spot. I had left all my gear in the car, planning to come in and determine the age range I was dealing with first. Consequently I had nothing on me I could use for an impromptu trick. At the same time, I knew in my gut if I went out to the car now, my fight or flight impulse would switch to flight and I’d be halfway to Canada before I knew it. And as I looked across the table at Mr. Lime, I recognized there was no way that could end well for me. He was as deadly as he was old, if that makes any sense.

  I quickly surveyed the space to see what was available and was thrilled to spot several small tin buckets in the sandbox moat which circled the eating area. One of those would be perfect for a quick rendition of The Miser’s Dream. Plus, having just seen Quinton Moon perform an exquisite version of the effect last night, I realized this would be an ideal opportunity to see if I could emulate his approach to the trick on the fly.

  I walked over and grabbed one of the cleaner buckets, stopped by the change machine to get some coins, and headed back to Mr. Lime, who was leaning forward in keen anticipation. Say what you will about him, the scary old guy was a great audience for magic.

  Many magicians perform The Miser’s Dream to music, but Quinton had done it in complete silence, which only intensified the magic. Currently the only sound in the room was coming from the refrigeration units behind the counter and a slight, persistent wheezing from Mr. Lime.

  I began the routine as I remembered Quinton doing it, reaching up to the empty space in front of me and attempting, again and again, to pull a coin out of the air. On the third try it appeared between my fingers and I held the coin over the bucket, letting it drop with a resounding clink onto the bottom.

  While there are countless variations on it, the basic premise for The Miser’s Dream is just what I demonstrated: pulling coins out of thin air (or from behind someone’s ear or out of their nose) and dropping these coins, one after another, into a tin bucket or other similar container. The bucket fills up magically with all these coins, just as a miser might dream, and then at the end you reveal…

  You can go a lot of different ways at that point. In most versions, you do a final move of some kind and call it a day. But Quinton created a different and striking ending: He poured out all the coins, scooped them into his hands and immediately poured them back into the bucket. Then, with a final flourish, he turned the bucket over and only one coin tumbled out. He picked it up and held it up in the air. A moment later it vanished, leaving him exactly in the same position in which he started.

  Quinton’s rendition was truly a thing of beauty and as dramatic a piece
of magic as I had ever seen. Since I was familiar with all the moves he made—with the notable exception of the disappearance of all the coins at the end, about which I didn’t have a clue—it felt like a simple process of recreating each of the steps and in so doing, recreating the routine. Simple in theory, but the further I got into the routine, the more I realized there was clearly something missing. I was successfully completing all the steps in the same sequence he had performed them, but something felt imperceptibly off. I plowed ahead gamely, but when I noticed Mr. Lime suppress a yawn, I felt the routine nearly collapse around me.

  I made it through to the conclusion and improvised a quick ending, producing an oversized coin from behind his ear, a hoary cliché, but it was all I could think of. I stood back and waited for his applause. And I waited.

  The room was deathly silent, with the only sound coming from the compressors in the kitchen. Mr. Lime had stopped his gentle wheezing and before I had glanced over at him, I wished as deeply as I could that he had left at some point during the routine.

  Sadly, he was still seated across from me and he looked no happier than I felt.

  “So,” he said finally, after I had set the bucket down on the table. “That happened.”

  “Sorry you didn’t enjoy it.”

  He shrugged ineffectually. “Perhaps it’s my age. Do children appreciate that trick?”

  “Some do,” I said. “Children are notoriously harsh critics.”

  “Yes, so I’ve heard. One of the myriads of reasons I never had any.” He moved the bucket aside on the table and gestured for me to sit again.

  “Mandrake, about the murder of our projectionist friend,” he said, his voice taking on a tone just above a whisper. “I believe I have some information and insight which might be of value to the law enforcement community. If I may bend your ear for just a few more minutes, I will share with you an offer I would like you to extend to them.”