Saving Houdini

by Michael Redhill

  “And maybe, right now, we’d be stopping someone from punching your precious Houdini!”

  Their fellow inmates tried as best they could not to notice them. Some glanced their way once or twice, heads down, as if shyly, but Dash knew they were afraid. He’d read some of Charles Dickens in school. He knew what happened to kids in orphanages and foster homes who got out of hand. They caught the side of a cane. And apparently, it really hurt. Maybe as much as a rail bull’s truncheon.

  “Keep your voice down, okay, Walt? We don’t need to get into any more trouble.”

  “Just let ’em try to shut me up! I’m a citizen, you know! I’ll give ’em holy heck!”

  At the word holy, many heads jerked down between shoulder blades. Dash put his hand on Walt’s arm and Walt looked at it like he was going to eat it. Dash removed his hand.

  “Maybe history doesn’t want to be changed,” Dash said.

  “So what.”

  “So maybe this was always going to happen.”

  “SO WHAT.”

  “So it’s not my fault.”

  In the afternoon, it was calisthenics. Walt glared at him the entire time they did stride jumps in the yard. The entire time, his head sideways, staring at Dash with wrath. He was a hothead, thought Dash, counting to a hundred. It was catechism in the afternoon (Walt: eyes wide open, staring ahead, arms tensed, ready to kill), and then more gruel in the evening (Walt: dripping glops of horror back onto his plate, not eating, silent). Bedtime was seven o’clock!

  They’d missed the whole day. For all Dash knew, maybe they’d already missed their chance, and Houdini was getting ready for his evening show with a deep, spreading pain in his belly. From—he would be thinking—a punch.

  They were given hard toothbrushes to clean their teeth with. They lined up with the other boys to use one of the three sinks in the bathroom. The line was silent as the boys shuffled forward. As they got closer, Dash heard Walt behind him, laughing.

  “Hey,” he was saying to someone, “what are you in for?”

  Dash turned around. Walt was talking to the kid behind him. The kid’s face was a terrified blank.

  “Steal a horse?” asked Walt. “What about you?”

  The kid standing behind the kid with the stone face put his fingers to his lips.

  “Me ‘n’ Dashiel here—he’s from the future, so he’s already broken a whole bunch of laws, like lawsa nature—but I attacked a policeman. Got us in a stir, boys! But don’t worry. Dash’s got a plan—right, Dash?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Dash, quietly.

  “He’s got a space car from TWO THOUSAND an’ eleven. Gonna zap it here, pick us up, take us out for steaks during the Roman Empire, then we’re gonna visit Golgotha for hot milk before we go to bed on the moon in umpty-million and four.”

  There was stomping in the hall. One of the Andrés swung down the line, his big hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Who is speaking?” he rasped in a murderous voice.

  “OH!” said Walt. “You’re just in time, sir. My friend and I would like to have our car brought round. We’re not going to stay at Hotel Slop-de-Poop any longer.”

  The man’s hand darted out and grabbed Walt by the ear. “You will come with me now,” he said, pulling him out of the line.

  Walt grimaced in pain. “This is no way to treat a guest,” he said, and the man tugged harder.

  “Sir!” cried Dash. “He doesn’t mean—” but he didn’t get the rest of the sentence out before he felt the man’s other hand clamp down on his ear.

  “Misery loves company.” André pulled them both away.

  Not a soul in the line looked up as they went past, nor did anyone speak a word.

  The man yanked them down the long, cold hall. They had to stay bent over and keep up a good pace to ensure their ears stayed attached to their heads. He said nothing to them until they arrived at a set of stairs, which he all but pitched them down. “Go,” he said.

  They went. Three flights to a darkened hallway. It got colder.

  They heard stirring in the darkness.

  He pushed them along and they felt the wall to their right. Dash’s hand slipped into an opening.

  “In there,” said one of the Andrés, and they went into a small room with no light at all and heard a door close.

  Then footsteps receding.

  Then silence.

  “Happy now?” said Dash into the darkness.

  “Delighted. I noticed your pal Houdini didn’t try to get us out.”

  “I’m sure he and Sol are looking for us. We disappeared.”

  “Ha.” Walt gave a humourless wheeze. “Maybe they think we skipped back to 1809.”

  “Someone will come.” Dash looked over at his frightened friend. “Nothing’s going to happen to us, Walt. But you know what this means, don’t you? Houdini has no one to protect him!”

  18

  The night passed in agonizing slowness. In the near-dark—a candle lit the hallway to the cells—Walt’s silence was terrible to Dash. He knew how frightened Walt was now, because anyone would have been frightened. Dee Dee’s cold seemed to be really getting to him as well. He sniffled and shivered in the corner. Dash felt fear crawl up and down his back and then to his stomach, like an eel was winding its way around his insides. All night long, they’d fall asleep only to come awake with sudden awareness and glance around, scared to move their heads.

  One of the times Dash awoke he found Walt asleep with his eyes open. He was staring into space, and his mouth was agape. His breathing was raspy. Walt’s face looked dead and it filled Dash with a feeling so powerful he thought he might be sick. He looked away and tried to close his eyes again, but he felt Walt staring at some space beyond the bars that Dash, too, could see.

  How convincing was Walt’s dream? he wondered. Some people knew they were dreaming, but Dash wasn’t one of them.

  Dash heard a soft scuffling in the hallway. The entrance to the cell was the size of a large cupboard door, but from where he was sitting, Dash could see out into the hallway that led to the stairs. Someone was coming down. More than one person.

  “Come on, then,” said a British-accented voice.

  More candles were lit on the way, and the hallway opened with light. It was larger than Dash had thought. In fact, it was a room. There was a bar along one of the walls, and as a man came forward lighting candles, people flowed in behind him. Men and women, many of them dressed in jeans! And T-shirts!

  A neon light flickered to life against the wall behind the bar. It said HARRY’S.

  People were talking and laughing. They began to seat themselves and hold up their hands for waiters and barmen. It was full of life in there.

  A man with a black beard came to the cell door. “Get out of there!” he said.

  Dash pushed open the door. It hadn’t been locked. He stepped out.

  As soon as he did, a woman jumped up and rushed to him from one of the tables, where she’d been eating nachos with her friends. “Harry!” she cried out, coming to him with widespread arms. Nachos? “Thank God you’re here. We were worried about you! Worried to death!” She gathered him up in her arms.

  “I’m not Harry,” he said.

  “What?” she said angrily. “Then what are you doing here?”

  And his eyes flew open and the candle was out. He heard Walt’s wet breathing in the darkness. The world was completely empty.

  Dash had no idea what time it was. It seemed hours had passed since they’d been brought what was called “breakfast.” It had to be at least noon.

  It had begun to feel that maybe they would be stuck here until Walt’s parents came and got them—as they eventually, inevitably would—but how long would that take? It was hard to imagine that both Jacobson and Houdini would have abandoned them.

  Surely the punch had already occurred and the two men had bigger problems to deal with. Dash felt his spirits ebb. Walter wouldn’t talk to him at all, and anyway, what was there to talk about? Nothing had
worked out as planned. And if Houdini got out of Montreal without so much as considering if he would help Blumenthal, then Dash was going to be stuck in 1926. And Houdini was going to die, as he always had, on Halloween.

  “Lunch,” said Walter listlessly. “Lucky us.”

  There were footsteps coming down the stairs. “I’m not hungry either,” Dash said.

  But it was Mrs. Alphonsine. “I know two very lucky boys,” she said. “Your father has come to get you,” she said. Walt jumped up. “What are you doing?” she said to Dash.

  “I guess I’m sitting here.”

  “You think he’s only taking Master Gibson here? I should think not. Get up. He’s agreed to take you both.”

  Thank god, thought Dash, and he felt weary with relief.

  “I’m in a bucketa water now,” Walt said. He looked pale in the light.

  Mrs. Alphonsine stood on the other side of the cramped, open doorway and leaned down to beckon them out.

  She herded them up the stairs and into the high, stone antechamber at the front of the foster home. Then down another hallway, this one panelled in a deep red wood, to an office with her name on the door. She pushed the door open and let them in.

  “My boys! My poor boys!” cried Herman Blumenthal, opening his arms wide.

  Six miles away, in the heart of the city, in the dressing room of the Princess Theatre, Harry Houdini was sitting for a drawing. The artist, a student named Sam Smilovitz, was drawing him in pencil as he lay back on the divan, reading his mail and chatting with his guests, who included another student, Jack Price, and a man named Gordon Whitehead. Whitehead was pontificating on a method he claimed to have invented for vanishing birds. Houdini listened patiently.

  His mail had arrived at the hotel desk that morning. Requests for autographs, catalogues, bills for equipment and repairs, bills for advertising. He wasn’t really listening to Whitehead. There was always a blowhard nearby regaling him with tales of his own feats. Had Mr. Whitehead dangled upside down from a chain over the streets of Chicago while in a straitjacket? And escaped from it? He had a feeling Mr. Whitehead might need a straitjacket, but the venue for his performance wouldn’t be outdoors in front of a crowd of thousands.

  But now something he said caught Houdini’s attention. Whitehead was standing behind the divan talking about his own strength. How he could bend an inch-wide iron bar between his two hands. Jack Price was sitting beside the man he called “Smiley” and looking at the developing sketch.

  Whitehead was going on. “Is it true, Harry, that you can withstand a blow to your abdomen without sustaining any injury at all?”

  “Well,” said Houdini, but he stopped speaking when he saw Jack Price’s face go white.

  Whitehead came forward in what seemed to be slow motion, but before Houdini could even begin to imagine what was going on, the man had dealt him a hard blow. It struck him with great force directly below his ribs, driving him back down into the cushions and knocking the air out of him. A wave of pain bloomed behind his eyes and flooded his body. But Whitehead did not stop. He punched Houdini again on the right side and then the left side of his belly, both terrible clouts that were audible to everyone in the room. The students were immediately on their feet, clutching at Whitehead, pulling him away.

  “That will do,” said Houdini, standing. He gestured to Smiley and Jack Price to release Gordon Whitehead. His belly felt bruised, but he stood tall and showed no sign of the pain he felt. This was his public, like them or not. “That was an excellent attempt, Gordon, and I admire your vanish technique. I will have to keep my wits about me as the younger generation learns their craft.”

  “I am impressed myself,” said Whitehead. “You can really take a punch.” He offered to shake hands, and Houdini did.

  19

  Mrs. Alphonsine delivered a brief lecture on the natural evils of young boys, and how responsible fathers keep track of them. Then she said someone would return with their things and she went out in a cloud of righteousness.

  Then Walt punched Herman Blumenthal in the stomach.

  “OOF,” grunted Blumenthal, taking a couple of steps backwards.

  “Now you come?” said Walt.

  “I wasn’t ready for that,” said the magician, holding his gut.

  “Don’t hit him again!” Dash rushed over to Blumenthal and took him by the forearm. “How did you find us?”

  “I got in last night,” he said. “Found Houdini’s hotel this morning. A waiter told me you were goin’ down to the theatre … so I went. You weren’t there.”

  “No kidding,” said Walt.

  “Was Houdini there?” asked Dash.

  “I didn’t see him.” Blumenthal stood up straight, breathing again. “I guess I deserved that,” he said to Walt. “Truce, though! No punching a guy in the stomach when he’s not expectin’ it. An uncle a’ mine took a haymaker in the liver and he passed away!”

  Dash and Walt exchanged a look.

  “Okay, truce,” said Dash.

  Walt looked like he was going to be hard about it, but then he muttered, “Fine,” and said, “I’m not mad anymore. I just wanna get out of here. And I was expecting my dad!”

  “You’ll see your dad soon enough,” Blumenthal reassured him.

  “You didn’t say how you found us,” Dash said.

  “I met Houdini’s manager. He was out of his mind with worry.”

  “How come he didn’t come looking for us then?”

  “He knew you were here. But they wouldn’t release you to him. Only to a parent.”

  Walt guffawed. “And they believed you were my dad?”

  “No,” said Blumenthal. “But they believed I was his.” He looked at Dash.

  Dash looked away. It was a little embarrassing.

  “You coulda’ believed me sooner!” Dash said.

  “Who says I believe you? I figured out how to do the trick. I’m gonna sell it to Houdini.”

  “What?”

  “He came all this way for fifty bucks, Dash.”

  “Don’t sell him the trick.” Dash said. “Promise me.”

  “You like me poor? You liked me at the Century, huh? You think that’s where I belong?”

  “Look, Mr. Blumenthal—this is your trick. You have to perform it!”

  “He’s just in it for the money!” shouted Walter.

  “Shut up!” Dash rounded on him. “I’m tryna talk to Mr. Blumenthal. Please,” he said, imploring the man. “Just ask for his help. I bet he’ll give it. This is your trick.”

  “What if I sell it to him, but I reserve the right to premiere it? That doesn’t change anything for you.”

  Walter had started laughing. “This is the guy who’s gonna save you, eh?”

  Dash ignored him. He kept his eyes clamped on Blumenthal’s. “Don’t sell him the trick,” he said. If you do, it might never get performed. And I’ll be stuck here forever.

  “What’s wrong with here, kid?”

  “AND—you’ll never be famous and no one will want you and you’ll never have a magic family—”

  “OK!” said Blumenthal. “I won’t sell him the trick!” He looked at the two boys. “What? You wanna stay here a bit longer? Let’s go!”

  Sol Jacobson was standing in front of the magician’s door at the Prince of Wales like a guard. When they approached, he looked both relieved and annoyed. “I thought you were putting them on a train,” he said to Blumenthal.

  “I didn’t say when.” He chucked his chin at the door to room 501. “Is Mr. Houdini home?”

  “He’s resting.”

  “When will he not be resting, then?”

  “I am unable to provide that information, Mr. Blumenthal.”

  Herman Blumenthal closed one eye. “Everything okay, Mr. Jacobson?”

  “Can we please go in?” said Dash. “Please? There’s a threat against Houdini’s life!”

  “Yes, we met the threat,” said Jacobson, advancing and lowering his voice. “Its name was Whitehead. I don
’t suppose any of you three know the fisticuffal Mr. Whitehead, do you?”

  “No,” said Blumenthal. “Who is Mr. Whitehead?”

  So it had already happened. “He punched Houdini,” said Dash glumly.

  “Exactly,” said Sol Jacobson. “And how would you know that?”

  “How would I know it?” Dash shouted, and Jacobson started and stepped backwards. “How would I know it? Because I’m from the future, you stubborn old donkey!” His fists were clenched at his sides. “Well, is he okay at least?”

  Small droplets of sweat had formed on Jacobson’s upper lip. “Yes,” he said quietly. “He’s all right.”

  The door opened. Houdini was standing in it with a black housecoat cinched around his waist. “Sol,” he said. “What is all the shouting about— Oh, hello, boys! You made it out! What a bother! You must come in and fortify yourselves. Come on, Sol, let them in.”

  Sol stood aside looking disenchanted, and Houdini brought them in and made them sit on the divan.

  “You, I don’t know,” Houdini said to Blumenthal, and the other magician extended his hand with a kind of shyness that Dash was surprised to see.

  “Herman Blumenthal, Mr. Houdini.”

  “Harry,” whispered Walt. “Just call him Harry.”

  “Ah, the Blumenthal! Well, come in.”

  “If you need your rest—”

  “Nonsense. Sol, let’s get these boys something hot and something sweet, and Mr. Blumenthal something in the way of beefsteak and …?”

  “A glassa tomato juice.”

  Sol went to the telephone to order up some supplies. He was not a happy man. Dash had seen a flash of fear in his eye.

  Houdini settled into a chair.

  “Are you okay?” Dash asked him.

  “Am I okay? You two went missing!”

  “We got in the wrong car. But you were attacked!”

  “Oh, old fusspot told you, did he?” He looked over at Sol and rolled his eyes at him. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” said Jacobson. “Now you have a broken ankle and a gut-ache. I always tell you, Harry, not everyone is a well-wisher!”