by Brad Meltzer
“That wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
Caesar shook his head. “I-I-I…I knew he was…” He fought to get the words out. “T-Toldja Houdini was a…was a shitbag.”
“This is because of me. I had you give him the bag. This is my fault, Caesar. I’m so sorry!”
Caesar shook his head again. He tried to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. He looked angry now. No, not angry. Frustrated. Then irritated, then terrified, then full of despair, his emotions galloping. It reminded Zig of the hospital all those years ago. When someone’s dying, their face betrays every thought, their filter gone, their eyes like a flip-book of passions and sentiments, each fully formed thought a bolt of electricity whistling through their synapses. On your deathbed, life may very well pass before your eyes, and so does your reaction to it.
Caesar’s breathing slowed. His skin was grayer, looking like putty. And then…he started to smile. Began to laugh.
Another bubble formed at Caesar’s lips. “B-Before he shot me…the…he…” Caesar swallowed hard. “I-I saw it had GPS.”
“What had GPS? I don’t understand.”
“S-Special Forces…they all have— So…so they can track… I saw it on him when he took the bag,” the old magician insisted, reaching into his pocket. His hand was shaking as he pulled it out and revealed what would be his final magic trick. The item dangled from his crooked finger. “I…I stole the fucker’s watch.”
61
Homestead, Florida
Ten years ago
This was Nola when she was sixteen.
“You’re shitting me. A damn skunk?” Royall asked.
“It’s de-scented. He’s like a cat.”
“It’s a fuckin’ skunk!”
“Look at him. It’s like a cat. Like a cat,” Nola said as the skunk did infinity loops around her legs, its tail lingering in the air.
“I thought you liked cats,” Nola added.
Royall did like cats. He’d never admit it, but Nola saw the way he’d kneel down and do kissy lips whenever their neighbor’s pet—a fat and snooty ginger cat named Tubbs—sauntered into their front yard.
“He’s cute,” Royall blurted.
“I know, right!?”
Royall was down on one knee, rubbing his fingers together to call the skunk close. “When I was little, I wanted a cat so bad,” he explained, the skunk now nuzzling against his fingers. “My mother would never let me have one.”
“What about your dad?”
Royall looked up, flashing Nola a—she’d never seen this look before. More than sadness, there was sorrow on his face, profound sorrow. That was the last time she’d ever ask Royall about his dad.
They both turned back to the skunk.
“Where will it poop?”
Nola held up the litter box that Ms. Sable gave her. “In here. Like a cat,” Nola said for the fourth time. “His name is Dooch.”
Royall eyed the litter box, then Dooch. He was unreadable, even to Nola. “I’m not calling him that.”
“You don’t have to.”
“And I’m not saying we’re keeping it—”
Nola nodded, far too excitedly.
“—but until we decide what’s what, I’ve got kitty litter in the garage. In the bookcase, by the hoop.”
“Why do you have kitty li—?”
“For the grease. C’mon, I taught you that! It gets grease stains out of the driveway.”
Nola took off for the garage, her sudden movement startling Dooch, whose rear end spiked in the air, armed with blanks.
In the garage, Nola headed for the basketball hoop that Royall got as payment for a fake Canadian passport. It leaned on a rickety wire shelving unit that bent like a palm tree in a hurricane.
Nola thought the kitty litter was on the lowest shelf. But when she got there, it was gone. Confused, she checked the other shelves, then checked below the brand-new workbench Royall had just bought himself. She even checked behind the stolen stop sign that Royall had illegally taken down at the end of the block since no way did they need a four-way stop there, what kinda dumbass rule is that?
Still no kitty litter.
Glancing around the garage, Nola noticed a few folding chairs and two four-hundred-dollar vacuum cleaners (another trade from an immigrant family) that were blocking the bottom shelves of the white particleboard bookcase that Royall used to store industrial packs of laminating sheets. Maybe that was the bookcase he was talking about.
With a tug, Nola pulled away the vacuum cleaners. There! Kitty litter! But as she stepped in to pull it off the lower shelf, her foot kicked the bookcase and—
Tunk.
The toe kick of the bookcase fell forward. Nola knelt to pick it up. Behind it, though—in the narrow space behind the toe kick—there was something back there. Something hidden. Papers. No, not papers. Envelopes. A small stack of them.
Nola pulled out the stack, which was covered in ancient dust and held together by a green rubber band. They were all addressed to Royall, but the handwriting…the return address… Nola’s throat tightened, her windpipe feeling like it was filled with sand.
B. LaPointe
Guidry, TX
Barb LaPointe. Nola’s old family. The ones who gave her away, gave her to Royall.
Nola tore off the rubber band, flipping through the stack and scanning postdates. Nine years ago, eight years ago, even one from seven years ago…these were right after Nola left, after Royall took her. All these years, she thought the LaPointes abandoned her, but they were reaching out! They were writing!
Nola’s heart punched inside her chest, like it was about to burst through her ribcage.
Ripping open the first envelope—a bright red one, like a Valentine—Nola pulled out…it wasn’t a card. It was a note, handwritten, on white loose-leaf paper. Nola tried reading it, but her eyes…her brain…just seeing the tidy loops of Barb’s old handwriting…everything was moving too fast. None of the words made sense.
She started again.
Dear Royall…so nice meeting you face to face…with such a difficult decision…we know you’ll take care of Nola, but…
But? Why was there a but?
…realized we forgot to collect payment.
Payment?
Nola tore open the next letter.
…I’m sure it was just an oversight, but Christmas is coming, so if you could send a check…
She tore open another. And another. And another. Each letter growing more insistent.
Expect you to keep your promise, Royall. Check. Cash. Money. And that one word Barb used over and over:
Payment.
Nola’s head was spinning, and her heart was deflated, sagging over her lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
All these years, Nola thought the LaPointes gave her away so…so they could give her an improved life…so they were in a better position to help her brother…but now, to read these… They didn’t just give her away.
They sold her.
And worse, Royall bought her. Like property. And apparently, he thought so little of her, he never even made the payment, not that the LaPointes could tell that to anyone. All they had was Royall’s word. They could never enforce an illegal agreement like that.
“Nola, you find the cat litter, or not?” Royall called out, his voice close.
Nola stuffed the letters back into place, quickly closing the toe kick and sliding the vacuum cleaners back, just like it was. But as she grabbed the kitty litter—
Behind her, there was a sharp creak of moving floorboards.
Nola looked over her shoulder. The doorway was empty. Motes of dust floated in the air—but she could tell, sometimes you just know—Royall had been standing there.
Did he see? Did he know what she’d found?
Nola had no idea, until later that night, when she decided that her best course of action was to go back and grab the old letters.
She sat awake half the night, staring up at the
ceiling, her new pet, Dooch, curled in a ball at her feet. Nola wasn’t moving until she was sure Royall was asleep.
At 2:30 a.m., she finally got out of bed, Dooch raising his head at full alert. Quietly as she could, she snuck back to the garage, pulled the vacuum cleaners aside, and once again kneeled at the toe kick.
Wedging her fingers in there, she pulled the toe kick down, revealing Royall’s secret hideaway.
A ball of dust bunnies rolled toward her. But the letters—the proof of what he and the LaPointes had done—all of it was gone.
Royall knew. He knew what she’d found. The only question now was: What was he planning as a punishment?
62
Maryland
Today
Tampons and nasal spray. Oh, and a water bottle. And scissors. And duct tape. That’s what he needed.
An hour ago, after tying a quick tourniquet in the car, Zig raced out of DC, not stopping until he reached a small town called Mitchellville, Maryland. From there, he picked a CVS a few towns over—and the Mi Casa Motel, chosen because its rooms led out to an exterior walkway right next to the parking lot.
Cradling Nola, Zig kicked open the door and was hit by the motel smell of stale cigarettes, sweat, and whatever that Rorschach-shaped stain on the carpet was. With Mi Casa’s Southwestern theme, every piece of furniture was blond Formica.
As Zig pulled down the patchwork top sheets and carefully lowered Nola onto one of the sagging twin beds, she was still in and out of consciousness. At one point, she insisted she was fine, though she was clearly unaware that sudden blood loss caused a rush of the same hormones and endorphins that produce second winds during marathons. Within a minute, she was out cold.
“Doesn’t even look that bad…you can barely see it,” Zig said, whispering the same lies he told all the fallen service members who came through Dover. Back in mortuary school, Zig’s professor warned him not to keep speaking to the dead. The closer you get, the harder it gets, as they say in the funeral industry. But for Zig, there was no other way.
“I’m right here. Y’hear me? Right here,” he said, cutting off her shirt to get a better look at the deep puncture wound below her clavicle. The blood was dark red. Good. The darker it was, the less likely it was coming fresh from an artery. Over the years, in the process of cleaning out and rebuilding over two thousand fallen service members, Zig had become well trained in every makeshift trick our medics use on the battlefield—and the results that came with them. Puncturing a water bottle with the scissors, he sprayed a jet stream at the wound.
“Just cleaning it out. Best way to stop infection.”
Leaning in, he saw that the blood coming from her wound wasn’t pumping in a steady heartbeat. It was oozing slowly. Even better. Meant her subclavian artery was intact. He checked the pulse in the radial arteries of both her wrists. Perfect match. Good sign. Blood pressure okay too. No signs of internal bleeding.
“Lucky girl,” he told Nola, who just lay there, unconscious.
Gently, Zig turned her on her side to check her back. There were faded scars there, old ones, crisscrossing up her spinal column. These were from years ago, when she was a kid. The only good news was…at the top of her shoulder…no exit wound. The bullet was still inside her. Lucky for that too. If the bullet had burst out, there’d be a far bigger and bloodier mess to deal with. Plus, with bits of bullet inside her…
“TSA is gonna love you at airport metal detectors,” Zig said, tearing open the bag of tampons. This would be the hard part.
Cutting a tampon in half, he sprayed it with the Afrin nasal spray, then aimed it directly at the soupy, bloody hole below Nola’s collarbone. No anesthetic. Pain was coming.
“If it helps, squeeze my fingers,” he said, taking her limp hand in his own. On three…two…one…
He shoved the tampon deep into Nola’s wound. The tampon expanded, instantly absorbing—while the nasal spray did its job, tightening the blood vessels to prevent further bleeding.
Nola’s whole body shook, like she was jolted from a dream, her eyes still closed.
Zig jumped back, so lost in the moment—so used to being around corpses—he forgot she was alive. In that moment, for the very first time and in the very worst way, it hit Zig that he’d become more accustomed to the dead than the living. It was a thought he wouldn’t shake for days.
Using his thumbs to stuff the rest of the tampon into place, he sealed the wound with duct tape, then turned his attention to treating (and sealing—more duct tape) the cut on Nola’s wrist. As he looked closer, he realized that wasn’t the only cut there.
“Oh, Nola, what’d you do?” he muttered, eyeing at least three other faded pink scars across her wrist. Unlike the ones on her back, they all ran in the same direction. How old was she when she got these? Sixteen? Seventeen?
There were so many questions he wanted to ask: about her, about the plane crash, about Operation Bluebook, and especially about Houdini—my God, she shot and killed Houdini!—but as Zig moved her to the clean bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, one question stood out above all others. Why? Why the hell did that plane go down? Which of course lead to what. What could possibly be so important about Nola that people were suddenly committing murder? Which naturally lead to… Who?
From his pocket, Zig pulled out the bulky military watch that The Amazing Caesar had stolen from Houdini. Zig had seen watches like this before, back at Dover, on fallen Special Forces soldiers. The more macho the man, the bigger the watch—but big watches like this? Made by a company called Suunto.
Special Forces loved Suuntos because they had built-in MGRS—the Military Grid Reference System—which, like a high-octane GPS, allowed troops to input digital grid coordinates and find locations to within a few meters as they were moving through the theater of war. Efficient? Absolutely. Safe? That was the issue. Once something had GPS, everyone could learn where you—
“Oh, Caesar, you cruel old mastermind.”
Grabbing the landline from the nightstand, Zig started dialing Waggs’s number. Somewhere in this watch were coordinates—coordinates that would show every place Houdini had been today. And also, presumably, every other place he’d visited in the last month.
“Don’t—” a voice called out.
Behind him, Nola fought to sit up in bed, her color pale.
“D-Don’t do it,” she whispered. “Whoever you’re calling…they’ll know where we are.”
Zig kept dialing. “This is someone I trust.”
“You don’t know that.”
He turned, still mid-dial. “What’re you talking about?”
Nola sat up, wearing just her bra. She glanced down at her duct tape bandage, eyeing it with approval. “You’re supposed to be a smart person, Mr. Zigarowski. Have you really not noticed that everywhere you go, Houdini and his crew somehow always know you’re coming?”
“That’s not—”
“Back at Dover, they shipped out Kamille’s body before you could figure out what was happening. When you went to my old office, they were waiting for you there too—”
“They were waiting for you, not me.”
“What about now? Back in the car, I heard you call 911. You said there was an old magician—Caesar. They killed him, didn’t they? You called the paramedics so someone would find him. Don’t be blind, Mr. Zigarowski—”
“I told you, call me Zig.”
“Stop with the bullshit charm and pay attention, Mr. Zigarowski. Whatever dumb trap you were planning in that magic shop, Houdini knew. He came there with every intent to put a bullet in that old man’s brain. The only thing that didn’t go his way was that he thought he’d find you there too.”
With a clang, Zig hung up the phone. For a moment, he just stood there, staring down at the Suunto watch. Was Nola right?
Only one way to find out. He held up the watch. “We still need to get someone who can read the grid coordinates in here.”
“Gimme the watch,” Nola insisted.
&nbs
p; “What?”
“Give it to me. Now.”
For the next two minutes, Nola held the Suunto like a stopwatch, clicking the chronograph buttons, the watch beeping like a droid. As Nola scrolled through its on-screen menu, Zig was hit by that same feeling every dad gets when their child grabs their phone or remote control and displays a clear superiority over new technology.
“Get a pen,” Nola said, still focused on the watch. “Write this down.”
Zig didn’t move fast enough. Nola grabbed the Mi Casa pen and matching pad of paper from the nightstand. Quickly jotting down some letters and a ten-digit number, she clicked back through the watch’s menu, reentering the digits.
A map appeared on-screen. There was another beep, then…
Nola made a face.
“What? What’s it say?” Zig asked.
She looked over at the notepad, then back at the watch, rechecking to make sure she had it right. “According to GPS, this is where Houdini was yesterday.”
“Is it someplace we know?”
“I’d say you definitely know it. Based on the time, he landed there last night.”
“So it’s an airport?”
“Not an airport.”
“I don’t understand. Where do you land that’s not an airport?”
“The one place where he clearly had a friend who could help him get inside. That’s how Houdini stayed out of sight…” she said, holding up the watch toward Zig.
Zig’s eyes went wide. At the bottom of the screen were the letters DE. Delaware. “N-No. That can’t be.”
But it was.
“Houdini arrived last night—hid there right under your nose,” Nola explained.
On-screen, Zig eyed the familiar outline on the map. The mortuary.
“He was in your building, Mr. Zigarowski—at Dover Air Force Base.”
63
In the man’s ear, the phone rang three times. Voicemail.
Annoyed, he hung up and dialed again. New number this time.
Riiiing…riiiing…riiii—
“What’re you doing!?” his associate hissed on the other line. “This is my work line!”
