The Illusionist's Apprentice

by Kristy Cambron

  “Of course I told him. Last month, and the month before that, when the stage lights went out midshow. But our proprietor lets every complaint fall on deaf ears.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing of substance these days. Just yells at the performers and then slinks away again to find his bottle.” Tulley covered a yelp as the match burned down and singed his fingertips. “Ah, there it is.”

  She heard him flicking a switch back and forth. The lights primed, flashed weakly, then hummed and lit up the hall in both directions, tiny rows of bulbs illuminating an outline of the floor.

  Wren sighed, taking in the sight of the hall. Deplorable would be a kind description for what they’d found themselves in.

  Maybe it would have been better to keep the lights off . . .

  “Good. That’ll do for now.” She turned to take in her first full look at Tulley.

  The half-moons under his eyes and creased brow told tales of the last few weeks. His shirt was hastily tucked. Bow tie crooked up on one side. And the mature brown-and-gray hair that had always been parted with such care was mussed now, curling down against his forehead in a haphazard frenzy.

  Like the theater halls, the wiring, and the dancers, he was clearly exhausted.

  “I’d ask what’s so important that you’d call me away from Beacon Hill at this time of night, but by the looks of things, I can guess.”

  “Believe me, Wren, if we had anyone else to bother with the day-to-day operations, we would have. I waited as long as I could to tell you. Even if you are a silent owner, you have the right to know, despite what Josiah wants.”

  She read indecision in his eyes. Whatever he was skirting around telling her, it couldn’t be good or he’d have just come out with it. “What is it?”

  “We’ve got enough cash on the books to last out the month, but not much longer. I hate to tell you this . . .” He paused and sighed deep. Bravery needed, apparently. “But we’re going to have to close. Unless, that is, you’ve got a miracle up your sleeve.”

  “I can procure a number of things from my sleeve. I’m not sure a miracle would be one of them.” Wren leaned her cane against the wall and laid her hat on a stray chair nearby, then spotted the bucket and mop she’d kicked over. She went on talking as she righted them and began tidying up the nearest corner.

  “Is it really that bad?”

  “It’s been a slow fade for years, Wren. But I don’t need to tell you that.”

  A survey of the hall told her the laundry and pest problems were the least of their worries. Wren looked up, finding water damage to the ceiling. Water dripped somewhere behind her—probably plumbing that was about to go. And with faulty wiring, the theater was a hazard no matter how you spelled it.

  For the safety of everyone involved, maybe the best thing to do was to close. It broke her heart to think of it, but what else was there to do?

  “Why is no one watching this door?”

  “I have no one to post here. After the last gent quit, Josiah refused to hire anyone else.”

  “We need to get someone here pronto.” She looked out to the alley again, then slid over to pull the door closed tight.

  “I’m tending backstage while trying to take tickets at the front door, managing the deliveries, organizing the crew onstage. I tell you, if I had anywhere else to go, I’d be there right now. But the people here depend on me to see this through. I won’t leave in the midst of a crisis. Once we right these wrongs, however, I’m afraid I’ll be packing my suitcase with everyone else.”

  Tulley wasn’t angry, though he had every right to be. The honesty in his words, the obvious care in his voice, and the effort to keep everyone else going—they were all evident.

  Wren saw the sparkle and swish of a brunette woman in a dancer’s costume slip around the corner carrying an armful of programs.

  “Cleo? Is that you?”

  The woman turned, her exotic face softening, obviously cheered to hear Wren’s voice. “My dear, Wren. You have returned,” she said, the Cajun French accent tingeing her words even as she slowed, breathing deep as though winded. She smiled in the depths of smoke-blue eyes, a reprieve evident. Her slight readjustment shifted the stack of programs in her arms.

  “Tulley and I will manage the programs.”

  “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that.” Cleo wasted no time in hoisting them over to Tulley.

  Wren nodded. That was good enough for her. “Fine. Tulley, I’m putting you in charge of the front door tonight. I’ll personally double your pay for the added inconvenience. Agreed?”

  “Well, of course he agrees,” Cleo cut in and tilted her head down to adjust the costume cinching at her waist. “We all will. Might as well have someone who has authority around here. The rest of the girls are threatening to walk out.”

  Wren sighed, now fully bathed in the Castleton’s troubles.

  Once upon a time, it had been one of the most prestigious theaters in vaudeville. An icon in Scollay Square once, owned by her mother’s family. But the passage of two decades was all it took for everything to fall into rot. The truth of the matter was without Wren, the Castleton would die. And she knew, deep down, that if the theater died, one of the last remaining memories of her mother would too.

  It was a legacy in Boston’s theater district no longer.

  “Let’s fix what we can control now and worry about tomorrow then, okay? I’m more concerned about the riffraff who will try to walk in with no one posted at the door.” Wren swiped her cane from its perch against the wall. “Look, I’ll handle Josiah, alright? Just please get someone to watch this door, preferably not a young chap fresh from the schoolhouse. We need someone reliable to man this post. I thought I caught sight of someone lurking around as I crossed into the alley, and that means thieves have their eye on this door as a weak spot. We don’t have much any thief would want to steal at this point, but I’d like to at least ensure the safety of everyone backstage.”

  Wren checked her watch. Already quarter to eight. “Is there a set starting at the top of the hour?”

  Cleo nodded. “The Mermaid show.”

  “Fine. You’re the most experienced onstage. You go ahead and direct the newer girls through the rest of the show, at least until we can figure things out. Do you have a pianist?”

  Tulley scoffed. “I wish. He quit last week too. Was lured over to Keith’s Theatre by some nonsense about running water and electricity. I tried to tell him such things were a fantasy in theater life, but he didn’t seem to buy that. Especially not when Keith is scooping up our paying customers like fish in a barrel. I’ve got one of the gents from the comedy duo doubling up to play.”

  Wren nodded, her heart weighted like a stone in her chest. She surveyed the squalor around them. Off in the distance, a muted melody drifted from the main hall as the hum of patrons chattered to find their seats.

  Doubling up acts on the already exhausted players? She couldn’t have that.

  “Go on, Cleo.” She nudged her on with a brush of the shoulder. “I’ll stop by the backstage dressing rooms and reassure the rest of the girls before showtime. And then I’ll find someone to play piano for the remaining acts. Agreed?”

  “Anything for you, boss lady,” she said with a wink and slipped around the corner.

  Wren made sure the footsteps died away before she asked, “Where is he? Josiah. Is he still here?”

  Tulley drew in a deep breath, shifting the stack of programs into one arm so he could straighten his uniform with a tug to the bottom of his vest. “Passed out on the cot in the back office.” Shades of genuine sympathy settled on his face.

  “He’s been drinking again . . . ,” Wren whispered, more to herself than the manager before her.

  “Never stopped, to my knowledge. Josiah now keeps the VIP rooms stocked—even with corn whiskey if he has to. He’s taken to keeping glass vials of it in the hollowed-out legs of the upholstered chairs, just in case the coppers bust in. But the few customer
s we have left know they can come here and he’ll have it. So we’re still selling tickets, at least until we all get hauled downtown by the Prohibition Unit.”

  “You knew about this?”

  His nod was heavy with regret. “Yes. And we’ve tried, but no one can seem to stay on top of where he gets it or where he chooses to hide it. The chair legs were a new one. I came upon it by accident when I moved the furniture around to put a bucket down for a roof leak. I haven’t done anything about it because I wanted to tell you first.”

  Wren sighed. “Fine. I’ll handle that too. I’ll check on him and be back out in a few minutes. Have someone make a pot of strong coffee and bring it back in ten minutes, okay?”

  Tulley nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself. It was as if he already knew what she’d say and do. He reached over for a lantern hanging from the shepherd’s hook on the wall.

  “Take this at least, in case the lights go out again. Can’t have you falling down on the job. We’d all be lost without you, Wren. I hope you know that.”

  She nodded, feeling weak and forced into accepting praise she didn’t deserve. “I haven’t saved anything yet.”

  If Wren had any true gumption, she’d stand up to Josiah. She’d give the man a piece of her mind and a stiff clip to the chin, if that’s what it took to knock some sense into him. Someone should make him realize what he was doing to the people working for him, what he was doing to the theater that had belonged to his late wife’s family. But he was past hope. Seeing any shades of redemption, she feared, was a dream long dead.

  Tulley may have held out hope that Josiah would pull some measure of character to the surface. But Wren knew better. No one was to know that Josiah Charles was Wren Lockhart’s father—and that’s the way it would stay—but he’d still never change, not until he was cold in his grave.

  Wren took the lantern in hand with a soft “thank you,” curling her fingers around the handle. She held it at her side, looking down the hall toward her father’s tiny back office.

  “Wren?”

  She turned at the sound of Tulley’s voice, feeling the weight of the Castleton’s world bearing down upon her shoulders. “Yes?”

  He offered a forced but supportive smile. “Happy New Year.”

  Josiah thrashed about like a roaring lion the instant the gush of icy water splashed over the cot. Wren had deposited her walking stick and hat on the desk and rolled her sleeves to the elbows. She stood back in the doorway of the tiny back office, bucket in hand, ready in the event he decided to charge and needed a second wave to cool him off.

  A black costume boot lay on the ground at his feet. He swiped at the makeshift weapon, ready to throw. “Who’d dare wake a man in such a state!”

  “You’re not going to throw that and you know it.”

  Josiah eyed her behind heavy lids.

  Wren stood firm as she clicked the door closed behind her, making sure she erased every emotion from her face. He squinted for long seconds, then as recognition seeped in, he lowered the makeshift weapon with a thud to the floor.

  Grumbling, he ran a hand through the scratchy gray beard at his chin. “What are you doing here?”

  Wren stood tall, eyeing him, refusing to back down no matter how her father attempted to play her. She crossed the room, eased the top of the boot from his still clenched fist, then set it on the floor behind them. “Tulley sent for me.”

  “Then he’s fired,” he growled, gravel rumbling in his throat with each syllable.

  Wren slammed the bucket to the floor and pulled a stool over to the side of the cot. She leaned down until she was eye to eye with her father. “You can’t fire him. Not when we’re about to close down and he’ll be out of a job anyway. Look at this place. It’s crumbling around you. Tulley is the only one keeping you going. I’d say if anything, you owe him your right arm for putting up with such misery at your expense.”

  “He’s paid well for his services.”

  “Tulley’s paid a pittance for what he does. And I am through standing idly by while you abuse his loyalty. Either take the money I’ve offered and make the necessary repairs, or close down for good. Those are your options.” Wren shook her head in disgust.

  The man before her was a shell of a graying, bitter man who chose to drown his sorrows in anything that came his way, Prohibition laws or not. It was the oddest thing for Wren to be questioned by a federal agent that morning, only to find herself in the presence of a bootlegger mere hours later.

  Beads of water dripped off the tips of his hair and trailed down his nose as he stared back, derision burning in his eyes. She was Wren Lockhart to him now, the illusionist he couldn’t help but despise for the measure of success she’d managed to find without him—or perhaps despite him.

  He took in her trousers and gentleman’s boots. “Your mother would weep if she could see what you’ve become.”

  Wren didn’t miss a beat. “I’m sure she would, knowing what’s happened since she’s been gone.”

  Josiah turned away, squeezing his eyes shut from the sight of her. “You have contracts to appear in your own list of theaters, don’t you? The ones your famous magician friend favored? But now he’s in his grave, you think you can crawl back here and order us around? Just because you and that sister of yours share ownership of this rat-infested mausoleum.”

  “Don’t bring anyone else into this. It’s about you.”

  “And you don’t know anything about the happenings here.”

  She ignored the barb, dropping her voice low. “I know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation knows who I am. And if the agent who visited me this morning knows who Jennifer Charles is, I can guarantee he’ll find my father if he wants to. It won’t take them long to dredge up an old case locked in a police desk drawer somewhere and start asking some tough questions about the Charles family. I’m not confident you’d be ready to answer them. If we want to protect Charlotte, we have to work together.

  “So if I were you”—she offered him a swatch of linen—“I’d get sober and wash some of that dirt from your face before the authorities get here, because I can promise you they’re not likely to leave you alone. And if they turn over your chairs to find one drop of alcohol, they’ll lock you up without batting an eyelash. I’m through cleaning up your messes.”

  “A man is dead, and the Stapleton friend of yours is behind bars for doing it. It’s all over the street. Seems like the coppers have enough on their hands without coming after a washed-up entertainer like me, especially when they could come after a toffee-nosed vaude like you.”

  “Stapleton is no friend of mine.” She shook her head. “This Victor Peale is in the grave and I’m sorry for it, but he bargained with the wrong people and now there’s nothing more to be done. We have to think of the living, not the dead.”

  “That’s rather callous, even for you. It wasn’t one of your onstage tricks that killed him, was it?”

  Though she fought never to show it, hatred simmered somewhere deep within Wren at the part she had to play. She was one woman onstage, but someone else entirely in the back halls of the Castleton. There she couldn’t hide her past. It was staring her in the face like an unforgiving beast, ready to strike at the weakest parts of her heart.

  “You know better than to ask if I’d share a stage with a man like Horace Stapleton.”

  “Then why did the FBI question you?”

  Wren gave quick thought to the image of Agent Matthews’s scrap of paper. She seriously doubted anyone else had the vault of their past cracked open as hers had most recently been—and all because of a name she thought had been long buried.

  Someone wanted that past dredged up again. Trouble was, she didn’t know who.

  “I imagine they’re doing a sweep by interviewing any entertainers who’ve crossed paths with Stapleton in the past. But it doesn’t matter now.” She dismissed the worry that had been building in her midsection all day. “I’ll handle the FBI. You just manage your theater and care for the
people in it. That’s all I ask.”

  “You don’t want much, do you?” Josiah rubbed a palm over his brow, smearing the line of dirt and sweat in the crease across his forehead. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It had gone silent, likely ages ago. “What time is it?”

  “It’s late. Too late for changing anything now.” She nodded to the desktop in the corner. A stack of clothing was piled next to her walking stick and top hat. “Outside of your shirt. I left a clean one over there, along with one of Tulley’s vests. Put them on. And I’ll have some strong coffee sent back.”

  Josiah swayed on the side of the cot and nearly fell back down, bracing his arm against the wooden frame. He brushed a hand over the days’ growth of whiskers at his chin and coughed, the rumble taking over his chest. “I won’t take your money.” Though weak and hungover, he was adamant, coughing out the vow. “Not a single penny. I’d rather starve.”

  “I’m under contract at the Bijou through July, then I set sail for Europe. I’ll be gone for a late-summer tour. That’s a long time to have to go without food.”

  “Are you going to manage your uncle’s estate?” He tried to bait her with the reminder that his own brother’s fortune had been left solely in Wren’s care.

  She ignored it. “I have business, yes, but it doesn’t concern anyone else.”

  “And what about your sister?” Spittle dropped off his bottom lip.

  Oh no you don’t. You’re not changing the subject to go down that road now . . .

  “Please do not pretend to have an interest in her now. We’re talking about the Castleton. By the time I return I expect you will have cleaned up this mess or closed and boarded the front doors. It’s your choice, but you will make one. And if you resist, I’ll go to the authorities and turn you in myself. Don’t make the error of believing that’s an empty threat.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to contend with the FBI while you’re gone.”

  “I already told you—let me worry about them. It may be resolved already.” Wren stood, dismissing the threat of Agent Matthews’s interest in her past. “But if it’s not, I have more than one trick up my sleeve. And I’ll use every one of them to make the past disappear.”