by John Gaspard
“Well,” I said, settling into my well-practiced description, “in the world of psychics, mystics, and the supernatural, a Debunker is someone who vehemently believes that all other-worldly occurrences are bogus and that they can always be explained by a simple, scientific explanation.”
“And that’s not what you do?” She pushed lightly on my forehead to get me to tip my head back as she deftly applied some powder to my neck.
“I’d like to think so. Debunkers are often as fanatical as the people they oppose. I’ve always preferred the term Skeptic.”
“And that means what?” She replaced the makeup brush in the tackle box and produced a comb and what appeared to be a can of hairspray.
“That means that I approach each situation with an open mind. I don’t immediately assume that every supernatural occurrence isn’t simply a natural occurrence that has been misunderstood or faked in some way.”
“Ever come across one that wasn’t?”
“Not yet. But I’m keeping an open mind.”
“Well, keep that mind open but do me a favor and shut those baby-blue eyes for just a second.”
I closed my eyes and heard the hiss of the hairspray and felt the sharp tug of her comb as she attempted to give my unruly mop of hair a bit of well-needed discipline. When I opened my eyes I was surprised to see a deck of playing cards fanned out in front of my face.
“Pick a card, any card.”
The fanned cards dipped for a moment and I recognized Pete’s face behind the cards.
Before I go any further, I want to go on the record here and say that I like Pete. I really do. He’s a swell guy. But there are two things that have me deeply, perhaps fatally, conflicted in my feelings toward him.
The first is that Pete is trying to learn magic. That’s an unsightly thing to observe for anyone, but it’s particularly gruesome for a professional magician.
The other somewhat larger reason I’m conflicted about Pete is that I’m in love with his wife, Megan. Which really isn’t his fault, but there you go. And although I can fall back on the excuse that they’re getting a divorce and all’s fair in love and war, the truth is I had no idea they were getting a divorce when I first started to fall for her.
If it makes any difference, she hardly knows I exist.
“Come on, pick a card. Free choice.” Pete held the fanned deck closer, swaying his clasped hands from side to side, in his sad attempt at what I suspected was intended to be an enticing manner.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, completely mystified. I was having one of those out-of-context experiences.
Pete and his soon-to-be ex-wife Megan own the row of shops on the corner of 48th and Chicago that includes Chicago Magic. I’m very used to seeing him around the neighborhood and I see far too much of him in the shop, but I was completely taken aback to encounter him and his ubiquitous deck of cards here in The Caves.
“I’ve got a client who owns this place. They’re trying to unload it. Interested?” He switched effortlessly into realtor mode. “I mean, think about it. This place would make a killer magic emporium.”
“Sure, but what would we do with the other ninety-five percent of the space?”
“You’re probably right, there’s way too much square footage here.” He pushed the fanned cards at me once again. “I think I’ve got this sucker nailed, finally. Go ahead, pick a card.”
I acquiesced reluctantly and pulled a card from the center of the fanned deck, showing it to Lauren.
“Now look at the card,” Pete said as he fumbled to square the deck. He glanced up at us. “Oh, you already did. Good for you. Well done. Okay, now, remember that card. I want you to put your randomly-chosen card back into the deck. Anywhere in the deck, this is a free choice that I’m not influencing in any manner whatsoever…”
He lost track of his sentence as he began to drop the cards in a slow shower from his right hand, which hovered about eight inches above his left. “Say stop wherever you like.”
“Stop,” I said, trying my best to put a modicum of interest into my voice.
He stopped dropping cards from one hand to the other and indicated that I should put the card on top of the messy stack in his left hand. I did and he then continued to drop the cards in a painfully slow and awkward manner until all of the cards were in his left hand. He struggled to square the cards again as he said, in an overly practiced manner, “Now to keep things fair, I’ll cut the cards.”
Pete executed a sloppy cut, followed by a second, even sloppier one. I looked up at Lauren, who was watching with a look of sick fascination on her face. I looked back at Pete, who was attempting to roll the top card off the deck with an awkward thumb and finger flip combination. It was obscene.
“And here’s your card, right?” he asked hopefully, offering the top card for our inspection.
Both Lauren and I shook our heads silently. “Really?” We nodded sadly as Lauren unsnapped the clasp on the make-up bib and pulled it off of me.
Pete began to sort through the cards, trying to trace his fatal misstep. “I think I screwed up the cut,” he said.
“I think you did,” I said as I stood up. I turned to Lauren. “Are you done with me?”
She smiled. “Have a good show.”
“Thanks.”
“And keep an open mind.” She gave me a quick smile and turned back to her makeup kit, repacking materials and getting ready for her next victim.
I clapped Pete on the shoulder and turned him toward the archway that led to the foyer. “Come on, Houdini. You can watch the show with me.”
“I must have screwed up the cut,” he repeated as we headed out of one cavern and into another.
“Excuse me. They said up front that Mr. Marks could be found back there? Did you happen to see him?” The question was tossed at us by a costumed character who looked a whole lot like the Mad Hatter without the hat. The eccentric character tossed his question over his shoulder as he marched purposefully past us.
Pete and I were headed back through the foyer toward the main room, where the last of the crowd was taking their seats.
The fellow with the question wore a rich purple tailcoat and colorful plaid pants cut in a style popular back in the late 1970s. This ensemble was accessorized with a paisley silk scarf tied snugly around his neck. He was tall, thin, and long-legged, with an angular face and wild hair that must have been tinted at some point in the past, as I could detect a trace of blue in it as he moved past us.
“If you’re looking for Mr. Marks, that’s me,” I said.
He stopped in his tracks about ten feet from us and turned, tilting his head to one side curiously. “Interesting,” he said in what was either a British accent or a deep-seated affectation. “I don’t know why, but for some reason, I expected you to be much older.”
“I was,” I said. “I mean, my uncle Harry was going to do this show when they booked it last summer. But I’m filling in for him.” I stepped forward and put out my hand. “I’m Eli Marks.”
He returned the handshake like a man new to the concept but certainly enthusiastic about it.
“Clive Albans,” he said, almost bowing. “I was hoping I would have a chance to speak with you, either this evening or at some later point, for an article I’m doing for the London Times.”
“Sure,” I said. “What’s the article about?”
“I’m doing an exposé on charlatan psychics and mentalists. Frauds, fakers, freaks, that sort of thing. My understanding was that you, actually, your uncle, is a bit legendary in the field of debunking. I’d love to include the perspective of the professional debunker, if I could.”
I bit my tongue, deciding I would correct him on the use of that term during the actual interview. “Sure,” I said. “No problem.”
“Brilliant,” he said, turning to follow us as we continued toward the main room. The three of us stood in the archway for a moment, marveling at all the costumed attendees; a truly exotic turnout. I heard Clive cluck his
tongue loudly as he looked around the room.
“These people,” he said, shaking his head slowly from side to side as he jotted illegibly in a small notebook. “They look ridiculous.”
Pete and I exchanged a glance but kept our mouths shut.
“Okay, folks, we’re going live in five minutes,” the smiling television host told the assembled audience from his position near the front of the stage. The host wore his usual get-up—a tweed sport coat with a plaid scarf—but for once the scarf made sense in the crisp, cool constant fifty-five degrees of The Caves.
The floor manager gestured at him and he looked down at small stack of index cards in his hand as if he’d forgotten he was holding them.
“Oh yes,” he said, “I’ve been asked to remind you of a couple of housekeeping notes. So, how many people here have ever been to The Vatican? You know, the one in Rome?”
This apparent non sequitur produced some puzzled looks in the crowd. A few audience members raised their hands tentatively.
“Okay, good, a few of you,” the host continued. “Well, for the rest of you, when you go to The Vatican and visit the Sistine Chapel—which my wife and I did about five years ago, just stunning, don’t miss it, get in line early, that sucker fills up quickly…they tell you the moment you enter the Chapel that you’re not allowed to touch the walls. Da Vinci or Michelangelo or whoever it was who did all the painting in there, he did the whole thing, walls and ceiling. Just stunning. And they don’t want you to touch the walls, because apparently they don’t want the oils from your skin to get on the painting.”
“Well,” he said , unaware that the audience didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, “the same is true here in The Caves, but for a slightly different reason. I’ve been asked to request that you don’t touch the walls in here because they’re made of sandstone and are very soft. They say that it doesn’t take much to damage them. So, hands off the walls.”
He added a laugh to emphasize this point and then flipped through his index cards for his next housekeeping note. “Also, be sure to get your questions into the crystal bowl…where is the bowl?”
The floor manager gestured toward the bowl, which was at the host’s feet.
He grinned broadly and pointed at the bowl. “Yes, there’s the bowl. You need to get your questions for Grey into this bowl before the start of the show. They tell me there’s paper, pens, and envelopes up here and also on a table in the back of the room. Is that right?”
He looked to the floor manager for confirmation, received a quick nod, and continued with his pre-show warm-up.
An audio engineer had found me and was in the process of clipping a wireless lavaliere microphone to my sport coat. I ran the cord under my shirt and slid the small transmitter he handed me into my back pocket.
“So what’s going on here tonight?” Pete whispered as the TV host cracked some more jokes and gave the audience a few more final instructions. Pete still held the deck of cards in his hands, which he fingered badly in what looked to be his sad attempt at a double lift.
“The local PBS station is doing a live remote, as part of their weekly local news magazine show. This week’s special is a Halloween show,” I explained. “They’ve got a psychic medium who is going to perform, and then, in the name of fairness or something, they want to bring me on.”
“The voice of the opposition?” Clive suggested.
“Something like that,” I agreed.
“So who’s the psychic?” Pete asked.
“A performer named Grey,” Clive answered before I could. He double-checked his notes. “Yes, that’s it. Grey.”
Pete looked at Clive quizzically. “Grey what?”
Clive shrugged. “Just Grey,” he said as he paged through his notes. “Apparently he goes by only the one name. You know, like Cher. Liberace. Bono. Do you know him?” he asked me.
“Vaguely,” I said, and then turned to Pete. “You may know him better by his former name…Walter Graboski.”
A dim look of recognition crossed over Pete’s face. “Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar. Wasn’t he a realtor?”
“For years.” Clive tapped me on the shoulder and I answered his question before he could ask it. “In Britain, you call them estate agents.”
He gave me a nod of thanks and continued making notes in his small notepad.
“And now he’s a psychic?” Pete asked.
“If you listen to his version of the truth, he’ll tell you that he’s always had the gift. But in reality, he was your garden-variety realtor for years. And then he started to get the reputation of being, shall we say, friendly to a fringe audience.”
“Friendly to fringe audiences? Interesting.” Clive asked, “Define please?”
“Well, if you were a witch or warlock who wanted to mark a property before you bought it…by urinating around the circumference of the house, for example…Grey was the type of realtor who would happily look the other way,” I explained quietly. “Or if you felt the need to perform a nude cleansing of a space before you put in an offer, Grey was your guy.
“In some instances,” I added, “I understand he was more than willing to strip down and join in. Then, after a while he discovered that he could make more money doing readings instead of doing real estate. So he made the switch to the psychic dodge full time.”
“You can make more money as a psychic than a realtor?” Pete asked, his voice cracking as he attempted to whisper.
A crewmember turned toward us and signaled that less talking would be preferred. I smiled at her, then turned and gave Pete a knowing smile as well.
I considered adding a few more words to the topic, but at that moment the lights began to dim in the cavern as other lights grew brighter on the stage. The host looked directly into one of the large video cameras positioned in front of the stage and announced, “Yes, folks, we’re coming to you live from The Wabasha Caves. It’s Halloween and we’ve got a spooky treat for our audience here and for all of you at home. Please put your hands together for the one, the only…Grey!”
And then without warning, the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness.
Chapter 2
There was a yelp from the audience as the cavern suddenly went black. And then, just as the echo of that exclamation had died down, the room began to vibrate with the deep, eerie tones of a pipe organ. A moment later a spotlight snapped on, revealing an imposing figure, all in black, standing like a statue in the center of the stage. His sudden appearance produced the intended gasp from several audience members. He stood silently for a few moments and then the organ music dipped in volume and he began to speak in a rich, sonorous baritone.
“Good evening,” he said. “Tonight we shall travel together, across the ether. We will summon souls from the other side and explore the terrain of the afterlife, step-by-step and hand-in-hand. We will touch the past and we will in turn be touched by the future. My name is Grey and this is my promise to you.”
Grey spoke with an accent that could have been European, could have been South African, but was definitely not Minnesotan. I looked at him on the stage across the room, and then turned to get a better view on one of the wide-screen TV monitors that had been placed throughout the cavern. He was tall and wiry. His thick, jet-black hair was slicked back, exposing diamond studs in each earlobe, which sparkled in the spotlight. Other reflections were produced by the oversized diamond rings he sported on each hand. He was dressed elegantly in a tailored black suit coat, black turtleneck, and black slacks. His green eyes scanned the room methodically.
“To begin our journey, I require the assistance of a volunteer,” he said as he launched into his act. He quickly found his first volunteer, a heavyset woman, about forty-five, who looked a little too well dressed for someone planning to spend Halloween on a folding chair in a damp cave. The woman appeared both thrilled and terrified as she jumped up and made her way toward the stage while a cameraman with a handheld video camera walked backwards i
n front of her.
As this matronly volunteer headed down the aisle, I noticed for the first time that Grey had an assistant, a figure who was standing silently at the base of the steps. She was a slim young woman. Like Grey, she was dressed all in black, with long dark hair that appeared to flow down to her waist and perhaps even beyond. If it weren’t for her pale, almost translucent skin she might have disappeared completely into the black draping that spanned the back of the stage. Even from my vantage point across the room I could see that she was both exotic and stunning. While others in the room had decked themselves out for Halloween—from Jedi Knights to way-too old Harry Potters to your standard issue ghosts, witches and political figures—her wardrobe appeared to be something she had simply taken from her closet. Not goth, really, but just this side of Morticia Addams.
“Thank you, Nova,” Grey said to her as she handed the woman off to him. Grey smoothly guided the volunteer up the steps and across the stage to where a heavy wooden table and three chairs had been set.
“What is your name, my dear?” he asked.
“Sharon,” she said, her voice cracking a bit from nervousness and excitement.
“Excellent. Sharon, with your help I am going to begin the process of moving from this, the corporeal world, to the other side. I need to ask…Do you have any medical training?”
“I took a CPR class,” she said almost apologetically. “But it was years ago.”
“Then perhaps you know how to find my pulse? Do you think you could do that?”
With his guidance she proceeded to find his pulse. She held his wrist awkwardly, nodding that she had in fact found a pulse.
Grey nodded and then tilted his head back, with a sudden and sharp intake of breath. His body tensed and his head twisted oddly from side to side. Sharon continued to hold his wrist, her eyes widening at his near convulsions. And then she visibly paled. She moved her hand around his wrist, first slowly and then with growing concern.
