On channel 79 was Preston. It actually took Rudolfo a nanosecond to recognize him, because Preston had shaved or something; somehow his ruddy boiled face had been depilated. His hair was combed, managed anyway, drowned in cream and then forced backwards. His clothes were new and ironed and fit his peculiar body as well as any clothes might. All in all, Preston looked half-human. (Although, as Preston himself often pointed out, he was half-human.)
Preston sat behind a round felt-covered poker table and shuffled a deck of cards, his fat fingers working with improbable facility. Clustered around the table were tiny mewling children, and presiding over them, obviously older but not much larger, was Uncle Rupert. Uncle Rupert wore a cardigan, reading glasses and owned hair that wrapped around his head like seaweed bandages a drowned man. Rudolfo knew Uncle Rupert because—well, he couldn’t really remember, he had encountered him at a club or party somewhere. Occasionally, Rudolfo would feel stifled, irritated by Jurgen’s stiff-backed solemnity. (Although Rudolfo was now rather nostalgic for that solemnity, the way Jurgen would march slowly into the kitchen for a glass of juice, not saying a word, unwittingly imbuing the simplest facets of his life with pomp and circumstance.) So, feeling stifled, Rudolfo would sneak out to some party or club. He wouldn’t do much, not in a sexual sense. Once or twice he kissed boys. He sat beside them on tall stools and took hold of the backs of their necks and drove their mouths forward to meet his own. He locked lips and twisted his own head, tilting it frequently like a bewildered dog. He would kiss the boys until their pale manicured fingers came creeping along his thigh, then he would shove them away brusquely and complain to the bartender about the freshness of his carrot juice. So it was in such a place that he met Uncle Rupert, who behaved abominably all night then rose at dawn to host a show for small children. And on the show this early morning was Preston, shuffling a deck of cards.
“Okay, Uncle Rupert …” began Preston.
“Ah-hmmm?”
“Tell us all the name of the card you chose.”
“It was the, what was it now, oh yes, it was the, what was it, the king of clubs.”
Preston abruptly threw the deck up into the air. He reached into the cloud of playing cards and came away with the king of clubs caught between his thumb and middle finger.
“Why,” ejaculated Uncle Rupert, his eyeballs bulging with hungover veins, “bind my BVDs!”
The children swarming around the table grinned with appreciation, impressed not so much with the magical aspects as by the fact that Uncle Rupert looked momentarily even more foolish than usual.
Preston lifted the card over his right shoulder, holding it there so that his assistant might replace it with a new deck.
Samson gasped. A moment later Rudolfo gasped, too, but Samson had beat him to the gasping punch, opening his blanched mouth and emitting a gust of injured air. Because Preston’s assistant—wearing an outfit that was hurtling all of the little boys toward puberty—was Miranda.
Samson’s reaction was to inhale hugely, sucking in the remote control. He bit down hard, shattering the huge screen into a million dots of light which then slowly faded away.
“Time for bed,” said Rudolfo. He was a bit surprised to discover it was near dawn. He knew that he’d been avoiding the huge, empty bed, but he was amazed to find out he’d avoided it so successfully, and for so long.
Samson knew that he should stay up. There was a prowler outside the house, after all, a terrifying human wrapped in black, and Samson, the grandest of all the animals, should assume the role of protector. But Samson launched himself toward the bedroom, his gait a slack, butt-wiggling trot. Samson was very upset, because, although it was clear that Rudolfo wasn’t going to talk about it, Miranda had left them for Preston.
“I’m having a new idea for the Show,” muttered Rudolfo.
Samson nodded, rounding a corner and spinning out on the Mexican tile. He fell hard, lumbered back up and continued on his way. Samson was now extremely miserable, knowing full well what Rudolfo’s idea was—put the old white beast out to pasture, bring on one of those young cats, one of those saliva-dripping brutes with swollen testicles.
The pair arrived at the bedroom. The ceiling was high and vaulted, and on it was painted a parody of Michelangelo’s “Creation,” one with Rudolfo and Jurgen rendered in place of God and Adam. (This had been Rudolfo’s idea, so he was the one pictured to the right. Rudolfo had never asked for much, after all, so it was only fair that he should be God.) Rudolfo bent over to remove his clothes and was a little startled to see that he wasn’t wearing any. He then reached up to pull off his hairpiece, and was even more startled to feel the cool smoothness of his head.
He picked up the pace then, heading for the round mattress. As he passed the hideous Davenport Spirit Cabinet, he thought again that he really should try to find another place to house the thing. There must be some other room that could accommodate it. It could even be used for storage; it could be filled with old clothes and jewellery. He was pleased with this thought and resolved to move the cabinet as soon as possible. Rudolfo could pretend his determination to move the Spirit Cabinet had nothing to do with the animals that were currently flying and crawling out of the crescent-shaped holes in the front panelling. And through these openings came animals, which a portion of Rudolfo’s mind catalogued without reflection: yellow-headed amazon, kittiwake, hamadryad.
Then the twin doors flew apart, and Jurgen emerged from inside.
“Hello, Rudolfo!” he said, a cheery and hale greeting such as acquaintances might exchange at a party. “Wie geht’s?”
Jurgen floated to the ground, stark naked, his body glowing softly. His descent to the carpet was odd, as though it had been filmed and was being played back at a slower speed. His skin threw off light, light that chased away the gloom and shadow far more effectively than the dawn leaking through the cathedral-style windows.
Rudolfo smiled, nodded, and waved toward the round mattress; for some reason words were not forthcoming. Rudolfo yawned to illustrate the fact that he was very tired, exhausted even. He headed for bed.
The black-clad creature remained outside das Haus, working with a pry bar on a side window, although he obviously lacked expertise in this field. At one point the blade of the bar skipped out from under the window’s metal rim and flew backwards. The creature, alarmed by the weapon it was now swinging, tried to duck out of the way. The metal bar bounced off his head with an audible thwonk, knocking a pair of thick spectacles into the shrubbery. He stumbled backwards, turning dizzy, woozy circles. During one of these spins the sun rose over the distant hills, bathing the creature in weak, golden light. He gave out a whimper worthy of Count Dracula, recoiling, covering the eyeholes in the raven-pitched hood.
The bells keep sounding, filling the air with clouds of mournful music. Outside the doors of das Haus, strange creatures continue to appear When no one responds from within the mansion, the little monsters turn petulant and vengeful. Many have urinated on the stoop. Some have scooped up the shells and sea-throws from the drive and tossed them at the windows, often with enough force to crack the glass. Two of the uninvited visitors, brothers aged seven and five, have made a special point of disguising themselves as Jurgen and Rudolfo. The five-year-old is in a cowboy outfit. He wears chaps and boots and a ten-gallon hat, but leaves his chest bare. The older boy wears a crude white robe. When no one answers the doorbell, these two pound on the oaken door with their tiny fists. Still no one shows—so the little boys begin to circle the irregular perimeter, searching for weakness in the defenses, possible points of entry.
Inside das Haus, Rudolfo is lying on the huge circular bed. He was led to the bedroom, practically carried, by the fair Miranda. There are soft pillows propping him up into a semi-sitting position. Rudolfo’s heart is pounding quickly, bouncing against his rib cage. Across from him sits the hideous Spirit Cabinet. Creatures crawl from the openings—tiny creatures, for the most part, cockroaches, spiders and beetles.
&nbs
p; Miranda comes out of the washroom, a folded wet cloth stretched across her palms. “Someone gave you a hell of a bonk on the head.” She gingerly lays the cool square onto his brow. It seems to Rudolfo that he hears sizzling, so strong is his fever. He notices that the Spirit Cabinet is now glowing slightly, light from inside leaking through the tiny cracks.
“What you do, Miranda?”
“Remember when we first met, how simple everything was? Because you’d say what you do and I’d say like legs, chest, back. Those were the good old days.”
“Why are you at the nudie show?”
“Topless.”
There are larger creatures coming out of the Spirit Cabinet now, skinks and iguanas, serpents from the desert. “So,” asks Rudolfo, and he props himself up on his frail brittle elbow, “Why you not with Preston?”
Miranda shrugs. “It’s a long story.”
“So, what, Miranda, you have an appointment?”
Miranda laughs and wipes a tear from her cheek. “Hey, Rudolfo,” she says quietly, “that was almost a joke.”
“So tell me.”
“What about the intruder?”
“Oh …” Rudolfo waves a hand dismissively. “Samson take care of him.”
“Right.”
“I always liked Preston,” he lies, hoping to get her on track.
“Yeah, me too. So, things went pretty good for a while …”
Chapter Twenty
On the night of Miranda’s final performance, something happened that provoked Rudolfo into action. He’d been avoiding true and significant investigation, but he realized, on this night, that he must understand what was happening to Jurgen if ever he was to stop it.
Miranda brought her boyfriend with her. She entered the green room with her perfect hand linked through Preston’s bloated and hairy one. “Hey, everybody,” Miranda said, “is it okay if Preston watches from the wings?”
The green room had, lately, become very crowded. Curtis Sweetchurch was always in attendance. He had acquired an assistant, a particularly unctuous young man named Bren. Bren was thick and muscular, which gave his unctuousness a threatening nature; Rudolfo often felt that a failure to accept an offer of carrot juice or Orangina would earn him a sound thrashing. The Abraxas management had also materialized, fat men who reeked of cigars. The offending cigars were never in evidence—it was forbidden by Rudolfo—but that didn’t prevent the stench from coming in. The fat men brought their wives or girlfriends, doe-eyed young girls, a year or two out of the chorus lines. So this is why Miranda had addressed her question to “everybody.”
They all turned to look at Jurgen, who sat cross-legged on a sofa. He held a deck of cards in his hands and shuffled with effortless grace, despite his fingernails. Jurgen had played here’s the church, here’s the steeple until his digits formed a solid, even architecturally sound, church; when he opened the doors he displayed a host of tiny, fleshy worshippers, more than could be accounted for by eight fingers. After he had gone as far as he could with that very limited art form, he had moved on to card shuffling.
Feeling the weight of eyes upon him, he made the entire deck disappear. The hangers-on clapped dutifully. Jurgen looked up and shrugged. The lights hit his eyes and robbed them of their blueness, leaving him with two pale stones. “Ask Rudolfo,” Jurgen said.
Rudolfo, of course, resented this meaningless deference. He could feel power shifting; even as the Show gained popularity, Rudolfo’s hold on it weakened. Still, he opened his mouth to say “no.” Magicians do not stand in the wings during the performances of other magicians. It was a transgression against the rules that sorcerers, even weak and ersatz ones, should adhere to. Then it occurred to Rudolfo that he himself was no fucking magician and couldn’t care less. “No problem,” he muttered.
“Thanks,” said Preston.
So they had done the Show with Preston standing backstage with his hands in his pockets as though he were waiting for a bus. Rudolfo had to admit that he didn’t really seem to bother anybody. Jurgen even slapped him on the back before trotting onto the stage, like the two of them were teammates participating in one of the barbaric contests Jurgen found so riveting on television. (Used to find so riveting. Jurgen no longer watched televised sports, or televised anything.) Miranda, darting on and off, threw a number of warm smiles in Preston’s direction. Several times she’d make her costume changes beside him, peeling off one outfit, exchanging it for another, all the time looking at him with impishly raised eyebrows. Preston would blush and look away, leaning forward as if to see more exactly what the shadows between the curtains held. The only one who seemed quite upset with the rival magician’s presence was Samson, who refused to climb into the silver ball as long as Preston was watching.
The Show went along very nicely, Rudolfo thought, until it ground to a halt with the Houdini Substitution Box. But Rudolfo had resigned himself to this grinding. He went to the silver stand and wrenched the pistol-shaped microphone off the head. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Everybody is hearing of Harry Houdini.”
Suddenly the microphone disappeared from his hand; it took Rudolfo a moment to realize that Jurgen had yanked it away and was now wandering about the stage, flipping the mike cable in his wake. “Everybody, tonight is special night, and also very sad. Because tonight we going to lose our Miranda.”
Miranda, Rudolfo saw, was crying. There were slick patches under both of her eyes. Rudolfo was furious with Miranda. (Actually, he was simply furious, and Miranda was a handy target.) It was her decision to leave the Show after all these years, it was her choice to throw in her lot with Preston and the shoddy little George Theater. So, thought Rudolfo, fuck you, bay-bee.
“But instead of be sad,” said Jurgen, spinning now so that the cable didn’t become tangled with the hem of his long sackcloth, “we going to have a little bit of fun. How about that?”
Rudolfo clapped his hands together. “Hoo boy!” he called out listlessly.
“Okay, so this is Substitution Box. Same one used by Harry Houdini. Here is how it work.”
Jurgen held the microphone out to the side. Rudolfo stared at it for a few seconds before realizing that he was expected to trot over and claim it like a menial stagehand. Still, he did so, and he pressed the soft mesh to his lips and went, “Hoo boy,” once again, in a darkly ominous way.
Miranda stood above the box, raised the curtain and then, in the slimmest of moments, the curtain was lowered and there stood Jurgen. The Substitution Box was opened and Miranda was found bound and manacled in the sack that, moments before, had held Jurgen. The audience applauded enthusiastically. “Is same trick Harry Houdini did!” explained Rudolfo. “Exactly the same. No change in seventy years.”
Again the microphone disappeared. Rudolfo made a mental note: two microphones. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen,” said Jurgen. “Rudolfo is right. No change. Never any change in metamorphosis routine. Except tonight, Miranda and I going to do something little bit different.”
Miranda cocked her head sideways, suddenly. This was obviously news to her.
“We going to do it again without the curtain!” Jurgen clapped his hands together, meaning to kick-start the stage into animation. But Rudolfo and Miranda (and Samson, over in the corner) merely stared at him blankly.
“Come on, let’s do it!” said Jurgen, driving the palms of his hands together once more.
“Um,” questioned Rudolfo, raising a finger into the air, “can you do it without curtain?”
“Why not?” demanded Jurgen.
Well, thought Rudolfo, this is hardly the place to have this discussion. Still, if he gave his words a kind of goofy, comedic spin, maybe everyone would assume it was part of the Show. Too bad he wasn’t any good at giving words a goofy, comedic spin. “Well, if you don’t use the curtain, Jurgie, everybody going to see how you do it!”
“That’s okay,” said Jurgen. This time, when he clapped, the sound cue trumpeted, new lights speared the stage, and Miranda bolted forw
ard.
What did people see in the moment of exchange, in that instant when Miranda disappeared and Jurgen took her place? Talking about it afterwards, audience members were divided in their opinions. Some claimed that there had been a kind of transmutation, that Miranda’s limbs had shrivelled slightly, that her torso rippled with new masculine muscle, that her hair had receded and whitened and then there stood the conjuror in her stead. Others claimed that there had simply been an exchange, as though the Almighty had spliced one piece of time, containing Miranda, to another piece of time, containing Jurgen.
What did Rudolfo see? He saw nothing, because he had turned away. This was only partly out of fear. There was, in the split-second before the transformation took place, a realization, and Rudolfo turned abruptly to look at Preston. What Rudolfo saw was Preston fashioning his face into the most profound of scowls. Preston mouthed the word “Shit” with great venom and fumbled for a cigarette.
So it was that the following day—a dark Monday—Rudolfo determined to attend Preston’s Show at the George.
Ever since Jimmy there had been a succession of chauffeurs. Men and women were sent from a firm whose job it was to connect menials with masters. Chauffeurs changed on an almost daily basis, because Rudolfo, finding some paltry ennoblement in the ruling of the roost, dismissed them with aristocratic hauteur. This one talked too much, this one talked too little, this one smelt bad, this one used too much cologne. Rudolfo went out to the garages not knowing who or what to expect.
He threw open the door, hoping to catch the newest chauffeur picking his nose or idly toying with his Schniedelwutz. It would have afforded Rudolfo a tiny amount of satisfaction to fire a driver just seconds after having laid eyes upon him. His initial thought was that the garage was empty, at least of humanity. The limousine sat there, washed and gleaming; the chauffeur’s table and chair was nearby, a logbook unfolded upon the table top. But no chauffeur, or so Rudolfo thought, until he glanced down.
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