The Magician's Daughter

by Judith Janeway

  “So you went and asked him nicely to give it to you?”

  “Not me. I know a couple of guys who owe me a favor. They had a little talk with him for me.”

  “What guys?”

  “Just some guys.”

  “You mean goons, don’t you?”

  “No. If I meant goons, I would’ve said goons.”

  “No way would what’s-his-name Jerry hand the money over just because someone asked him nicely. He’s a bully. Didn’t you see Jeff’s sister?”

  “I’m telling you the truth. They talked to him. He’d already spent some of it, but they convinced him he should replace what he’d taken. Had him write a little note, because I knew you’d make a fuss getting your money back if it wasn’t all on the up and up.”

  “What’s your definition of ‘talking to him’?”

  Rico held up his right hand. “I swear, no bozos were harmed in the taking of this money.” He grinned, pleased with his joke.

  I stared. The grin transformed him. He was already plenty good-looking, but didn’t need to be, because he was a natural charmer, his grin an irresistible invitation to join in and be included in the fun. How had I missed it? I put my hand up to my forehead, like you do when the sun’s too bright. Or when you have a headache.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nancy said you were harmless. Mike disagreed with her. I’m with Mike.”

  “Hey, if this is about last night, I swear I never laid a hand on you. Well, okay there was hand at one point, but only one hand, and like I told you, it was your idea.”

  I lowered my own hand and met his gaze straight on. “Who are you?”

  “What do you mean? I’m Rico. Your taxi driver from yesterday.”

  “Taxi cab drivers don’t wear handmade Italian shoes.”

  Without missing a beat, he said, “You noticed those? Aren’t they something? Check them out.” He tried to lift his foot to show it to me, frowning with the effort. The steering wheel blocked him from fully displaying his shoe. He gave up trying to show it off. “I got these from a guy I know. He deals in clothing and stuff. Big discounts. You know what these will cost you if you buy them retail?”

  He was so plausible. “You know a lot of guys,” I said dryly.

  “I guess I do.”

  “It’s a lot of connections.” I leaned on the last word.

  “You implying something?”

  I ignored his question. “So what’s the deal with the money? I pay you a finder’s fee?”

  “No!” he exploded. He jerked his head away and stared out his side window. After a few moments, he turned back to face me. “Okay, it’s good that you’re suspicious. Except I have to say, I don’t know why you’re suspicious of me, but you’ll take drugs when you don’t even know what they are.”

  “I had good reason to trust the person who gave those pills to me.”

  “And I haven’t given you good enough reason to trust me? I found you a place to stay. I took care of you when you were drugged up and freaking out. I got your money…”

  “Hold it. Back up a minute. What do you mean I was freaking out?”

  “I told you before. You were crying—well, not crying exactly, but like crying. You’d say, ‘No, no, I’ll be good.’ Or you’d call ‘Aunt June,’ over and over again. So I came in and tried to wake you up, but you just grabbed my hand and held on. That was the only thing that’d keep you quiet.”

  So that accounted for my dream. It was so vivid. I’d felt like Aunt June was really right there with me. Holding my hand the way she did in those first months after I came to stay with her. But it was Rico all along. “How embarrassing.” I said the words out loud without meaning to.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. Drugs affect people all kinds of ways. Besides the drugs, someone’d worked you over pretty good. Right?”

  “I’m not going to tell you about that, so quit hinting.”

  “Okay, okay. I don’t want to know. So there’s your money. No strings. I swear. So where do you want to go? Airport? Bus station?”

  “Police station.”

  It was his turn to stare at me. “You sure? You have your money. You have no reason to stay around here, do you? Maybe get beat up again?”

  “I have a reason. Besides, the police have my gear.”

  “Your gear?”

  “My duffle bag and all my worldly possessions.”

  “How’d the cops…?” At a look from me, he stopped mid-question. “I know. None of my business. What if I drive you there?”

  “Only if you take me as a regular fare this time. You know I’m good for it.” I shook my bag of money.

  “I’ll need my keys back.”

  “Right,” I said. I dug them out of my pocket and handed them over.

  He started the engine, but instead of putting the car in gear, he looked over at me. “Does your gear include a cell phone?”

  “Jeff had my cell phone, too. That’s okay. I’ll get one once I’m busking again.”

  “Maybe you’ll need it before then. Like, if someone put you in a situation where you needed to call 911. Or a cab. Whatever. Anyway, look in the glove compartment.”

  I opened the glove compartment. A cell phone and a pack of cigarettes fell out. I caught them both before they hit the floor. I moved to put the cigarettes back in, but Rico reached for them. “You shouldn’t smoke so much. Or at all, for that matter.” I handed the pack to him.

  “I know. I’m going to stop pretty soon.” He pocketed the pack. “There’s a charger in there, too.”

  I pulled out a black wire with an electric plug at the end. I held the phone in one hand, the wire in the other and sighed audibly.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “I’m going to ask where this came from, and you’re going to say, ‘I know this guy.’”

  “Are you psychic or something? That’s just what I was going to say. I know this guy has a store and sells these pre-paid phones. That one was a demo and the model’s discontinued. He can’t give it away. Everyone wants phones with games, video, email, music, television, and a kitchen sink. This one’s more phone than entertainment center. I thought you could use it, you know, in case.”

  “Is it your phone? Like will people call me on it and order a cab?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? It’s new, except that it was a demo in the store. Sometimes I pick up guys from out of the country. They need a phone that works here. I’ll take them to this guy’s store, and they’ll pick up a pre-paid phone at a good price. So the guy that owns the store gives me this phone with about hundred minutes already paid for.”

  “Does he also give you a percentage of what he sells to your fares?”

  Rico shrugged. “We’re all businessmen, you know?”

  “Okay, businessman.” I reached into my money bag. I pulled out a twenty and handed it to him. “I’ll rent this phone from you while I’m in town.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” He tried to push the money away, so I leaned forward and tucked it into his shirt pocket behind his pack of cigarettes.

  “Yes, I do.” No point in explaining my moral outlook. Someone like Rico would never really understand. With his lazy grin and his many connections, he was trouble, pure and simple. I’d learned to walk away from trouble. I’d take another cab or a city bus to get back to the loft tonight. And when I was ready to leave town, I’d have Nancy return the phone to Rico for me. But I didn’t have to announce it. With men like Rico, you just played along, then when you had the chance, made your exit.

  He drove me to the police station. I paid him, thanked him, and got out of the taxi. “See you later,” he said. I just smiled and waved. There wouldn’t be any later, if I could help it.

  ***

  He sat at a metal table in an interview room. I gazed at him through
one-way glass. The last man in the world I wanted to see again. Or one of the last. Lopez had brought me directly to this vantage spot without explanation. I just wanted my duffle bag, but here I was on a trip down memory lane.

  “You know this guy?” Lopez asked me.

  “Uncle George,” I said. “I don’t remember his last name.”

  “Your uncle?” Lopez asked, eyebrows raised.

  “One of Elizabeth’s marks. She made me call them uncle.” I hadn’t seen him for many years, but he looked just as I remembered. Short, fat, and graying. Elizabeth had made a point of describing him as “portly.” Pudgy and unprepossessing were more like it. Elizabeth’s ideal mark. A wealthy widower with no children, until the stunning Elizabeth appeared on the scene with her golden-curled girl. He’d adored Elizabeth and been nice to me.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Looking for your mother—he says. We picked him up when her neighbors complained that he was ringing their doorbells and asking questions.”

  “You arrested him?”

  “Nothing like that. He’s just answering some questions for us. Only he’s asking more than he’s answering. I put him off, waiting till you got here. Only you took your time getting here, and he’s about to walk.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “See if you could tell us something about him.”

  “I don’t know anything. Not his last name or where he’s from. I couldn’t keep track of cities very well when I was little, we moved around too much.”

  “He’s from Cleveland. Flew in this morning. He says. We’re checking on it. Says he hasn’t seen your mother in fifteen years.”

  “That sounds about right. How’d he find her?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” Lopez said.

  “Weird coincidence—his showing up today.”

  “Yeah, weird. What say you go in there with me and help us figure out what his story is?”

  I took a step away from him. “Me? I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Elizabeth stole from him. She might have ruined him, for all I know.”

  “Sure, but you were just a kid. He can’t hold it against you.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t understand. I was part of the con, and he knows it.”

  “Look, this guy isn’t telling me anything, and I can’t make him. I want to know why he’s here, how he knew your mother lived here. There’s a chance he’ll tell you.”

  What was it with Lopez? He’d done this yesterday—appealed to my better nature. It’d worked then, too. “Okay.”

  “Great. Thanks.” He led me to the door to the interview room and held it open for me.

  Uncle George’s mouth fell open as I entered the room. He rose to his feet, his mouth working, but no words came out. Finally he croaked out, “Valerie? Is that you?”

  “Hello, Uncle George.” I would’ve stayed right in the doorway, but Lopez propelled me forward into the room.

  “Good Lord,” Uncle George said. “For a moment there, I thought you were Betty. You look so much like her, but younger, of course.”

  “Betty?” Lopez asked.

  “Elizabeth’s alias at that time was Betty,” I said to him over my shoulder. “Mine was Valerie.” I turned to Uncle George. “My real name is Valentine. Valentine Hill.”

  “Yes, yes. I know that. I discovered it after…But I still think of you as I knew you then.”

  “Look,” Lopez said. “I’m going to get some coffee. Would either of you like some? It’s actually not bad stuff.”

  Something cued me that Lopez wanted me to say yes. “Sure. Black is fine.”

  “Nothing for me,” Uncle George said.

  Lopez left, closing the door behind him. I moved to the interview table and sank into a chair. Uncle George sat, too.

  “It’s pretty awkward for me, seeing you again,” I said. “I don’t even remember your last name. I always thought of you just as Uncle George.”

  “The name’s Hunsinger, but I don’t mind your calling me Uncle George. You were a very nice little girl. Although, when you and Betty first came to live with me, you were a handful. I don’t know if you remember, but one time, you punched me in the face. Tried to knock me down.”

  I winced. Actually, I had knocked him out, but what would be the point of challenging his version? “I remember getting into a lot of fights at school. The kids teased me for being behind in math. You taught me fractions, and I got A’s on all my math tests because of you. No one teased me after that.”

  “You caught on quickly. You could have achieved a lot academically if….” His voice trailed off.

  “If Elizabeth hadn’t stolen your money and run off,” I finished for him. “I didn’t really understand that what she did was wrong until later. I’m sorry.”

  “You were as much a pawn as I.”

  “Actually, I was more than a pawn, but I simply didn’t know right from wrong at that point. Now, it’s different.” He didn’t have anything to say to that and silence fell between us. Where was Lopez with the coffee? He’d left me to do his work. I’d have to just dive in. “I’m really curious, so I have to ask—what are you doing here?”

  “I admit to the same curiosity about you. I’m looking for Betty, of course. And you?”

  “Same thing.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  This must’ve been what Lopez meant about Uncle George asking more than he was answering. “No, sorry. I got here yesterday, but I just missed her.”

  “Do you know anything about what happened? The people in her apartment building said that someone was murdered, but they wouldn’t tell me anything else. It wasn’t Betty, was it?”

  “No,” I said briefly and let it go. If Lopez wanted him to know anything else about it, he’d have to tell him.

  He sighed and sank back in his chair. “That’s a relief. I was afraid…” He left what he feared unspoken.

  “You said you were looking for her, but how did you find her?”

  “Through this.” He reached into an inner pocket, pulled out a folded page and handed it to me.

  I unfolded it and spread it out on the table. It was glossy like a magazine, but larger. A photograph at the top of the page caught my eye right away. It featured four smiling people in formal dress. Two I didn’t know. The other two were Bobby Kroy and Elizabeth. The caption identified them by name. I bent over the page to study it.

  Lopez came in with the coffee. A woman came in with him. Thirty-something and black-haired, her badge clipped to her belt. “This is Inspector Springer,” Lopez said. Springer nodded in our direction and took a chair at the end of the table.

  Lopez handed me a steaming cardboard cup and leaned across the table to get a better view of the clipping. “What’s this?”

  Uncle George lifted his hand as if he wanted to snatch the page out of sight, but Lopez had already slid it over so he could study it.

  “It’s how Uncle…, I mean, Mr. Hunsinger found Elizabeth. I guess it’s from some magazine?”

  Lopez’s eye drifted to the print at top of the page. “Nob Hill Express. It’s an upscale shopper. Along with the ads it has a lot of society news and photos.” He slid into a chair and pulled his coffee cup toward him. “My mother-in-law always reads it so she can tell my wife how well so-and-so is doing. So-and-so being someone my wife supposedly could’ve married instead of a cop. What I get for marrying into an old San Francisco family. Great-great granddaddy made his money the old-fashioned way. By stealing it. I try not to bring that fact up too often.” He took a sip of coffee.

  Inspector Springer chuckled softly at Lopez’s joke. I drank some of my coffee and watched Uncle George. He remained stiffly upright in his chair, but under the barrage of personal details from Lopez, some of the tension le
ft his face.

  “You don’t live in San Francisco, Mr. Hunsinger, so how’d you come by this?” Lopez asked, gesturing to the page on the table.

  He didn’t reply right away. His answer, when it came, seemed wrung out of him against his will. “I subscribe to a clipping service. Over the years I’ve uncovered all of the pseudonyms Betty uses. She’s careful, though, and has never before allowed her picture to be published.”

  “What are you after, Mr. Hunsinger? Restitution? You know the crime she committed against you has passed the statute of limitations.”

  Uncle George reached across the table and retrieved the newspaper clipping. “My reasons for being here are completely legitimate. I’m a respected businessman. I simply wish to see Betty, if that’s possible.”

  “It’s not possible at this time,” Lopez said.

  “Is she being held by the police? Has she been charged with a crime?”

  “No.”

  “And Valerie?”

  Lopez raised his eyebrows. “Ms. Hill is a concerned citizen who’s given us a lot of help with a homicide investigation.”

  Uncle George turned to me, eyes wide. “Help? How? Betty’s a suspect, isn’t she?”

  “No,” Lopez said.

  “Then why won’t you put me in touch with her?”

  “What if you give us a way to contact you, and we’ll pass the information on to her?”

  Uncle George pursed his lips. “Very well. I’m staying at the Four Seasons. And, is there a number where I can reach you?”

  “Sure.” Lopez pulled a business card out of his inner coat pocket.

  Uncle George pocketed the card and stood up. “I’m glad I had a chance to see you again, Valerie, even though the circumstances are regrettable.” He held out his hand and I shook it. His grip was surprisingly firm. He didn’t offer to shake hands with Lopez, just gave him the briefest nod and headed out the door.

  I started to stand up, too, but Lopez put his hand up, palm out until the door closed on Uncle George’s departing back. “Wait a sec, would you?”