by John Gaspard
Without a word he crossed the hallway and opened one of the large doors, turning and looking at me without any expression. Recognizing this was probably all the direction I was likely to be getting from him, I took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway into the dark room beyond.
The primary light in the room was supplied by the streetlights outside, which were filtering through a set of gauzy curtains that covered the large front windows. The streetlights offered a small but not really helpful dim glow, not nearly sufficient given the size of the room.
Once my eyes adjusted to the murky light, I saw there was in fact another light, if you want to call it that. It was a faint glow coming from a high-backed chair across the room. This also seemed to be the source of the voices and music, which were faint but getting louder as I approached the chair.
Looking around, I realized the chair seemed to be the only piece of furniture in the room. I suddenly realized why the entrance hall had seemed so large—it too had been devoid of furniture. I continued my trek across the large room, the hairs on my neck indicating I was as nervous as I thought I was.
Rounding the chair, I discovered the source of the light was an iPad, in the lap of a mere wisp of a man. He was as pale as a ghost, with skin pulled so tight over his slim frame it looked nearly translucent. His small frame was dwarfed in the large chair, and in the subdued light it was hard to tell where he ended and the chair began.
His thin hair was nearly as white as his skin and barely covered his small head. Ear buds hung precariously from his tiny ears as he smiled and nodded along with the images on the iPad. I couldn’t identify the exact movie he was watching, but it was in black and white and one of the actresses on-screen looked to be Myrna Loy. Perhaps this seriously thin man was enjoying one of the Thin Man movies? Before I could consider this further, he looked up at me, his small dark eyes revealing a strength and energy the rest of his body could only aspire to.
“Ah,” he rasped, his voice a throaty growl, gesturing to a chair across from him, bringing to two the number of pieces of furniture in the room. Three if you included the coffee table. “Mandrake has arrived. Welcome, sir, welcome. I trust Harpo made you feel sufficiently at home?”
“Um, sure,” I said, moving as directed to the chair. “Harpo, yes, he did.”
He touched the iPad screen and the soundtrack abruptly ceased, then set the tablet on the coffee table that sat between us. He watched me closely as I settled into the chair and placed my bag on the floor next to me. The glow from the iPad threw odd shadows on his already odd face.
“I’m here for the, um…party,” I said, looking around the large room to see if perhaps a party had materialized in the last five seconds. “Was it tonight you wanted me or have I been misinformed?”
“I came to Casablanca for the waters,” he said with a sudden and surprising burst of energy, a smile forming on his thin lips, revealing pointed and yellowing teeth beneath. His voice shifted, as if he were doing both sides of a conversation. “The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.”
It took me a moment to recognize the quote. “I was misinformed,” I repeated, this time adding a poor Humphrey Bogart lisp to my reading. “Casablanca. A classic.”
“Ah, a movie fan. Excellent,” he said, his smile growing into a large and grotesque grin. “I’m a fan of movies and movie fans. And magicians.”
“Guilty as charged,” I said. “On both counts.” He stared at me for a long moment. I looked around the large, empty room, and then back in his direction, unnerved to see his gaze continued to be focused on me. “So, where’s the party?”
“Excuse the, um, misdirection,” he said, still grinning. “There is no party to speak of. I wanted to talk with you and thought paying for your time might be the most expeditious method of achieving that goal.”
“Talk to me?” I parroted. “About what?”
“About whom,” he corrected. “About our mutual, friend, the late Mr. Lasalle.”
It took me a moment to make the connection in my mind. “Well, he wasn’t really a friend,” I began, but he waved a bony finger in my direction and I shut up. At that moment, it felt like the right thing to do.
“My reasoning is simple: I thought it prudent to speak to the person the police turned to so quickly after his untimely demise.” He put a spin on the word “untimely” which produced an actual chill up and down my spine. “My understanding is you were the first person they approached.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, making my voice sound as polite as possible, “but who are you, actually?”
He smiled that spooky, toothy grin again. “For the purposes of this conversation, let’s say I’m Mr. Lime, Mr. Harry Lime.” He leaned forward, clearly testing me. My mind spun, trying to make the connection he seemed so sure I would get.
“Harry Lime,” I finally blurted out. “Orson Welles. The Third Man.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Harry Lime. Cuckoo clocks.” The words rolled off his tongue in a manner just this side of obscene.
Another chill shot up my spine. “Okay, Mr. Lime,” I said, keeping my voice steady and positive, “I don’t mean to disappoint, but I really didn’t know Dylan.”
“As it turns out,” he said, leaning back into the chair, “neither did I. In fact, to such a degree I had begun to call him Francis.”
The reference was lost on me, but I pushed on, feeling a strong urge to put as much distance as I could between myself and the late Dylan Lasalle.
“No, you don’t understand,” I continued. “I wasn’t a friend of Dylan Lasalle.”
“Of course,” he said, nodding in agreement, “I understand. As it turns out, not many people were friends with Francis. I would count myself in that number. But, be that as it may, we had our dealings and now he’s dead and there are loose ends to be tied up. What sort of questions did the police put to you, if I may ask?” He folded his long fingers together, placing them on his pointed chin while patiently waiting for my response.
For my part, I was having trouble remembering just what questions Homicide Detective Fred Hutton had put to me. “Nothing in particular,” I finally said, feeling his dark eyes boring holes through me. “I’d seen him at a high school reunion the night he...the night he was killed. They wanted to know who he had talked to, how had he seemed, that sort of thing.”
“I see,” the old man finally said, his voice now just a tad above a whisper. “So, tell me, who did he talk to? How did he seem?” He paused for a moment and then gave what he probably thought was a reassuring smile. It wasn’t.
“Mostly he talked to the women at the reunion. He seemed upbeat, he drank a lot, and then he and his wife went home. That was the last I saw of him.”
“That was the last most people saw of him,” he said.
“I suppose so,” I agreed.
“So, you and Francis weren’t close?”
I shook my head. “Not now. Not ever. I hardly had anything to do with him in high school. And certainly nothing since then.” I considered my answers so far and then added, “He seemed like a guy who was best avoided.”
“Yes,” the old man said. “But sometimes those types of people can be very helpful. In a pinch.” He gave me another long look. “I thank you for your time, Mandrake. See Harpo on your way out and he’ll see to it you receive your fee.”
The speed at which I stood up clearly indicated how quickly I wanted to leave.
“Oh, there’s no charge, um, Mr. Lime,” I said, picking up my bag. “No show, no charge.”
His voice stopped me in my tracks. “Oh, I won’t hear of it, Mandrake.” The tone was warm but the underlying feeling was anything but.
“You will find,” he continued, “once you get to know me, that if I offer you money you would do best to take it. And, in the case of our friend Francis, if you take my money, without my permission, you would be best to re
turn it.”
“But I didn’t do anything to earn it,” I said, almost pleading.
“Fair enough. Do me a trick.”
“What?”
“Do me a trick.”
“Okay, sure,” I said, starting to feel the first warning signs of flop sweat. “What would you like? Cards? Coins? Rope?”
He smiled up at me, his eyes becoming thin slits. “Surprise me.”
I sensed that in reality Mr. Lime was not a fan of surprises, but for the moment I took him at his word. I racked my brain for something—anything—I could do that would send me on my way in one piece. Uncle Harry always taught me, when in a pinch, go with the tried and true material. I wanted something surefire, I wanted something that would make Mr. Lime happy and most of all I wanted something that was guaranteed to get me out of there quickly. I also needed something that would play in the dim glow provided by the iPad on the table.
“Okay,” I said. “To make it fair, we’ll use your deck of cards. The one there, on the table.”
He looked down at the table, then looked back up at me. “Mandrake, I don’t have a deck of cards,” he said, clearly puzzled.
“Sure you do, it’s an invisible deck. I spotted it the moment I came in.” I gestured again at the table. He looked again, then turned back to me, the beginnings of a smile forming on his thin, pallid lips.
“Oh, yes,” he said, nodding. “I see it now. It’s invisible.”
“Great,” I said, trying to take the nervous waver out of my voice. “Why don’t you take the cards out of their box and give them a quick shuffle?”
He smiled up at me and then ever so gently, he mimed picking up the box, taking out the deck and shuffling it. “Should I cut it as well?” he asked as he completed the shuffle.
“If you wish,” I said.
He pretended to cut the deck and then skillfully mimed squaring the cards. He looked up, patiently awaiting my further directions.
“Okay, I’m going to look away,” I said. “While I’m turned away, I want you to fan through the deck, pick out one card, memorize it, reverse it in the deck and then put the deck back in its box. Got it?”
“I think I understand,” he said, clearly beginning to relish his role in the trick. I turned away and could hear him chuckling, his laugh becoming a slight wheeze. After a few moments he said, “All right. It is done.”
I turned back and he gestured proudly at a spot on the table where he must have set the invisible deck once he had completed his assignment.
“You picked one card and reversed it in the deck?” I asked.
“I did,” he said. “Just as instructed.”
“Well, you work with an invisible deck better than most,” I said, going into my standard patter. “For myself, I sometimes need a little help seeing it. For that, I use some magic whiffle dust.” I reached into the front pocket on my sport coat and then mimed sprinkling magic dust over the spot on the table. I placed my hand over the spot and turned to Mr. Lime. “Let’s see if the whiffle dust has done its magic.”
I removed my hand, revealing a card box where none had been before. Mr. Lime gasped, which is the desired response for that moment in the trick. “Now, what was your card, sir?”
“Seven of Clubs,” he said confidently.
I pulled the deck from the box and spread the cards out before him, face up, so he could see all the cards. Only one card was face down. I pulled that card out and handed it to him. He turned it over. It was the Seven of Clubs.
“Very impressive, Mandrake. Very impressive. I believe you have earned your fee. And my admiration, which, believe me, holds a much higher value.”
He was still chuckling over the card as I headed out of the room. I only stopped long enough for the silent thug in the hall—the aptly nicknamed Harpo—to hand me an envelope containing my fee in cash. I then nearly ran down the long sidewalk to my car and drove away without regard to public safety or the posted speed limit.
It wasn’t until the house was several miles behind me that I stopped to consider some of the movie-related nicknames the man had seemingly pulled out of the ether. Harry Lime, the charming but morally corrupt character from The Third Man, seemed an apt moniker for my spooky host. His assistant had none of the charm of Harpo Marx, but shared his penchant for silent communication. Calling me Mandrake the Magician wasn’t particularly clever, but was certainly in the same general movie realm as the others.
The only name I couldn’t successfully connect was his nickname for Dylan Lasalle. I was still thinking about the name Francis as I parked the car and headed up to my apartment, glad to have the evening’s bizarre gig safely in the past.
Chapter 9
“Did you enjoy your sojourn into the depraved depths of real Hollywood filmmaking?” These were the first words out of Jake’s mouth when I answered his early morning call. I had just finished getting dressed, my hair still wet from the shower and jutting out in all directions. I squinted and rubbed some water out of my eyes, trying to remember where I had put my shoes. It’s a small apartment, but some days it’s the equivalent of a black hole for footwear.
“Enjoy? I wouldn’t go that far, but it was intriguing. That’s quite the dysfunctional bouillabaisse you’ve got brewing out there.” I starting listing off the key players, to make sure I had them all clear in my head. “You’ve got Donna and Arnold, the divorced producers who hate each other and share a hatred for the director. You’ve got Stewart, the writer who hates the director and the leading lady, Noël, who is making the rounds through the above-the-line folks like a bad cold. And you’ve got Walter, the director with the explosive tempter who hates the writer and the producers. And I’m assuming one or more of that group hates you, if not all of them. In short, you’ve got a lot of unhappy campers on that set.”
“Any one of whom would benefit from my untimely death,” Jake said. “And it grows larger every day. But the simple fact is, while they may all hate each other right now, if this movie is a hit, it will be nothing but a love fest as they laugh all the way to the bank.”
“And you’ll be laughing as well?”
“Depends,” Jake said. “If I’m alive, I’ve got net points right off the back end. But between you and me, if I’m dead, my interest in making money diminishes considerably.”
“So, you still joining me for First Thursday?”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “Eli, after what happened at the reunion, I’m not sure I can ever get on a stage again.”
“Oh, come on. Do five minutes. As my Aunt Alice used to say, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“I feel like I already have enough things trying to kill me.”
“Well, let’s have dinner on Thursday and you can decide then whether to sign up for a slot or not.”
Another pregnant pause on the other end of the phone. “Okay,” he finally said.
“You sure you don’t need me on the set today?”
Jake laughed. “Not likely. Walter fired the Key Grip and Arnold fired the caterer, so I don’t think much is going to get shot today, least of all me. How are you going to spend your day off?”
I was going to say therapy, but it came out as “Oh, I don’t know, running some errands.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You have no idea.”
By the time I headed downstairs, Uncle Harry had not only opened the store, but by the sound of laughter I heard, was already entertaining an early-morning patron.
I couldn’t have been more surprised to see the customer was none other than Clive Albans. The British journalist, looking like a scarecrow dressed for a sixties-themed costume party, was seated on a stool while Harry stood behind the counter demonstrating a trick for him. I was surprised to see it was a variation of the trick I had come up with for Jake and the kid, but using a completely different metho
d.
“Given your love of scarves and handkerchiefs, I think this trick will serve your purposes well,” Harry was saying in his distinct salesman patter. “If I may borrow your pocket square.”
Clive, with wide-eyed enthusiasm, carefully plucked his chartreuse silk from his breast pocket and handed it to Harry.
Harry took one end of the silk and, making a fist with his other hand, began to stuff the silk into his clenched fist. “The secret of this trick,” he said to Clive as he continued to push the silk into his fist, “is not only the magician but also the audience must believe it’s possible for the handkerchief to vanish. Do you believe?”
“Oh, yes, by all means, I believe. Goodness, yes.” Clive was nearly panting with anticipation.
Harry gave the silk one more firm push into the fist with his thumb and then pulled his hand away, placing his closed fist just inches from Clive’s face.
“Do you believe?”
“Mr. Marks, you have my word I am in fact a believer.”
“And so it shall be.” Harry opened his fist, slowly uncurling each finger, finally revealing an empty palm.
Clive whooped and clapped his hands together in delight. “Oh, that’s marvelous,” he chirped. “I covet it. I must possess it.” He looked over and noticed me for the first time. “Oh, Eli, it is a delight. A delight. It will provide the shock and awe I do so crave.”
“Perfect,” I said, heading toward the register. “The first sale of the day.”
“Nonsense,” Harry said, waving a hand dismissively at me as he packed the gimmick for the trick carefully into its container. “For our friend Mr. Albans, this is gratis. I guarantee we’ll make it back ten-fold based on his continued good will.”
For a second I thought I might still be dreaming. The idea Harry was not only giving something away, but giving it to a non-magician and a journalist to boot, was almost too outrageous to believe. My mouth slightly agape, I watched as he put the boxed trick into a bag and handed it across the counter to Clive.
