Shane immediately whipped around and peered into the darkness, taking in the faces of the audience. He saw a smooth sea of rapt witnesses to tonight’s oh-so-special event. His stomach twisted again. This man was on the verge of passing out up there, but everybody seemed thoroughly charmed by him. It was a dark art, knowing how to tread the thin territory between what people look at and what they actually see. Shane thought again of the late Tommie Kimbrough, who had so boldly walked among San Franciscans as a female, and been ignored by many of the people he would later victimize because they never really saw him when they looked in his direction.
It was late. Traffic was minimal. No one bothers with a solitary man pushing a heavy load, and despite the constantly changing condition of the sidewalks and street surfaces, he sweated his way along the endurance route without interruption. In just under an hour, he was far enough into the twisted Chinatown streets that he was able to pull into a deep shadow in a narrow alleyway. He used the darkness for cover while he unstrapped the crate from the dolly, then opened the crate and pulled the body out.
Strangely, there was still no rigor mortis. She was a deadweight rag doll, still flexible but presenting considerable challenge to a man who had just pushed a heavy load across the city. He had to bend over and breathe for a few seconds, just to get some strength back.
That was it, then. This would have to be the spot. He pulled her over his shoulder and staggered a few feet to a large trash pile that stood awaiting disposal. He quietly dropped her forward and onto the pile, then pushed enough of the trash over her to cover her from sight.
A garbage pile in Chinatown. It was harsh. J.D. was not without compassion. But anyplace where he could leave her without being seen was fine for the job. Show her the same level of respect that she had showed to him, breaking in the first time, stealing some of the elixir, liking it enough to want more, then coming back today and lying in wait to ambush him. She might have accomplished all of it if her own greed had not caused her to consume the last of her stolen powder while she waited to rob him of the rest.
Who in Hell was that young woman, and why would she do these things to him? Expose him to accusations about her death, about the elixir? Could the Devil himself come up with anything worse?
He did a slow turn, checking all directions. The night was velvet black. No one was stirring anywhere in the neighborhood. Time for all good folks to be sleeping. Industrious people, the Chinese. Up in the morning with the first rooster.
Good enough, then. He strapped the empty trunk back onto the dolly and silently pushed the rig away, leaving the mystery girl to her fate. He found his way back out of Chinatown and onto the main city streets with only a couple of wrong turns in the Chinatown maze.
He did not mind. His load was now feather light, with only the empty crate strapped to the dolly. At this point he was only a few more checkmarks away from completely dodging tonight’s terrible bullet.
He returned to Market Street, but crossed over and into the warehouse district. He made his way over to the loading dock for the nearest warehouse, and dropped off the empty trunk, trusting that they would assume it was left there in the course of doing business. They could either put it to use or throw it out.
Two more blocks down the alley parallel to Market Street, there was a smaller warehouse. He placed the dolly neatly next to the rear shipping door. It was a good dolly, strong wheels, stolen from the theatre but without any identifying marks. They would find some rationale for keeping it.
And that was it. Hail a taxi back to the hotel, head straight on up to his suite of rooms and stay there for the next two days.
Chances appeared high that he would never know the dead woman’s motives for such odd behavior. His only clue was the backstage door slipping shut just as he turned around during that first night’s show. It was surely caused by her, sneaking out after robbing him. She must have taken along a sample of the powder; perhaps she had been curious as to what a tiny little bit of it might do.
End you up in a garbage pile like this girl here, is what it might do. Unless you use it right, he reminded himself.
It was an enormous relief to flag down a decorative hansom cab and feel its low center of gravity whisk him around corners with the smooth glide of a carnival ride. The draft horse’s rhythmic clicking of iron-clad hooves against the granite paving stones was a reassuring sound. Slowly, while the icy fog caressed his burning forehead, he embraced the fact that he had actually circumnavigated his way around certain disaster on this night. The sort of disaster that starts gossip and speculations, which are then fed by idle minds and active mouths until they form a litany of complaint. The sort of disaster that ends a career.
But now luck, Fate, or Divine Intervention had seen to it that he found himself safely on his way back home, undiscovered, even on this sudden heart attack of a night. He could explain later to his City Hall employers about his behavior onstage. Dismiss his “crowd sensitivity” as a reaction to food poisoning or something, instead of a surprise dead girl and an unwise shot of elixir.
They would never fire him over something like food poisoning. It would risk provoking an outcry in the newspapers. And what with the world’s fair just now opening, and all those hungry tourists, he could count on City Hall to remain silent about his little faux pas, just as he could always count on his audience members to feel the need to play along. They offered up conspiratorial silence while barely even realizing that they were doing it.
But sleep, now. Sleep was what he needed. Exhaustion tugged at him, even from beneath the cloak of chemical stimulation. When the cursed elixir wore off, he would finally sleep. But who could tell when that might actually occur?
Sleep, he optimistically pleaded to the same God who was allowing his brain to slowly turn to mush. He believed in the power of sleep at that moment more than he believed in Heaven and Hell. In spite of what his racing heartbeat tried to tell him, sleep was what he needed most of all.
THE FOLLOWING DAY
BY THE TIME THAT next morning rolled toward noon, the dead space behind the fake cliff was becoming too creepy even for the nondescript man. Once the girl was gone and he was alone there again, the place lost its meaning to him. And now the emptiness was a constant reminder that every hour spent alone in there was an hour wasted by not accomplishing his mission.
By this point, the nondescript man had whittled his life down to a picture of simplicity. Work, eat, sleep, hide. Lay low, avoid people, stalk Duncan just as a big game hunter stalks a man-eating lion. He was unstoppable in this mission, because he did not care if he died in carrying it out. He had a hard time trying to picture life after the mission anyway.
The broken pipe or whatever it was under the floor of the Hall of Science was doing nothing to improve things; there was now a decidedly wet feeling to the mortar flooring. It seeped in from below, rising so evenly that he could not tell anything about its source.
Mold was beginning to show on the underside of the rock outcropping. Like everything else, the “rock outcropping” was made out of a gluelike mortar that was smeared and shaped over wooden forms and support beams. The mold seemed to find the substance to be an inviting home.
He knew, along with most of the workers and none of the public, that this mortar over wooden supports formed every cubic yard of the exposition’s brand-new architecture. There were only a few rare exceptions, such as the Oregon State Pavilion, a copy of the ancient Greek Parthenon built entirely out of Oregon logs. Otherwise, pavilion after pavilion was wood and glue, stretched and painted to look like anything you want it to be. It was the same with nearly all the architecture built upon this brand-new land.
The brand-new land was also brand-new landfill, composed of the city’s rubble from the Great Earthquake and fires, just nine years earlier. That disaster had struck a city that was brand-new itself, at the time that it crumbled under the earthquake’s powers. Thus even though the pulverized newness beneath every visitor at the exposition was b
eautifully masked, the essence of failed newness was everywhere.
Instinct alone had compelled him to hole up in that dank, dark place while the same events that he wanted to read about in the newspaper today played themselves out. It did not matter that he could not explain his reasoning about why he did not check into a rooming house or maybe even splurge on a decent hotel room for a night or two, to make himself comfortable while certain events unfolded. He only knew that the idea of handling things in that luxuriant way would have given him a superstitious feeling, a feeling that he would tempt Fate if he dared to make himself so comfortable while he was on his mission.
Suffering alone in the darkness was a time-honored way of petitioning the Lord to grant your wishes. Perhaps he had overdone it by hiding in the dead space? Buyer’s remorse flashed through him; he would have loved to get those hours back. Especially since he had already established that the Lord was known to be an unreliable partner, prone to absenteeism.
When he could stand it no more in the dead space, he told himself that enough time had passed for the day’s newspapers to have the story. Perhaps he could venture out?
Why not? he had to ask. He sneaked out the concealed door and quickly stepped away from the fake cliff and fake vegetation. None of the people milling around looked in his direction, and he was out of the display area in no time.
Even a man on a mission could excuse a short break for some coffee, maybe eggs and toast, and of course, most of all, a good morning paper to read. He only wound up at The Sea Mist restaurant because he had followed Duncan there, that last time. Otherwise he would not have been aware of the place. He had done very little exploring around the city, even though he arrived in San Francisco nearly two months before Duncan himself.
He had made his way to the port city as soon as Duncan’s booking for the exposition was set. Once he arrived, he assumed the life of an ordinary workingman. That existence consisted mostly of labor.
But he was a patient warrior. Waiting was simply part of his mission. Waiting and blending in and establishing a genuine presence. It worked in unpredictable ways. He had no idea that his desire to give orders instead of take them would get him promoted to crew chief, back when he signed on to the vast construction team. And he could not have known that the promotion would ultimately present him with the opportunity of this hidden place.
All he knew was that it felt right to be forever pressing forward with things, with everything, as long they somehow pushed him toward Duncan. Meanwhile, the communal shower and the workers’ laundry allowed him to remain clean enough to pass in polite company. He understood the value of a generally presentable personage when traveling incognito.
And so while he walked out of the fairgrounds and into the city, the Sea Mist restaurant seemed as good a place as any to break his long fast. He would do so in the disguise of a simple workingman, while reading all about the delectable details of Duncan’s surprise encounter with the well-planted body of Revenge girl.
He bought a paper at a newsstand when he neared the restaurant, but forced himself to proceed on into the establishment without reading any of it, not even the headlines. When the waiter came to take his order, he recognized the dark-haired young man—the same fellow who had walked away from the restaurant the other day with J.D. and that big police type. He clearly recalled the three of them leaving the place together.
He could still see their image, walking down the sidewalk: the dark-haired young waiter, reed thin; the police type, dangerous looking; and the great Master Mesmerist himself. Three friends, out on the town. A last walk.
So for now, he carefully kept his attitude neutral while he dealt with the young waiter. There was no point in drawing attention, and for him, hiding in plain sight was effortless. Most of the time it was a far greater challenge to make himself remembered.
Still, the nondescript man slipped into his most opaque bubble and willed the waiter to serve him without remembering his face. Like a snake that sees in the dark, he sensed the lack of energy in the waiter’s eyes. He could feel that he was passing beneath the young man’s attention.
He felt the tantalizing pull of the news article in every fiber of himself. Still, his discipline was such that it was only after he was comfortable in the cozy restaurant and safe inside his protective bubble of anonymity that he opened the paper and greeted the day’s news about Duncan’s big pre–Opening Night show, less than twenty-four hours earlier.
Shane hardly noticed his first customer for that day’s lunch shift: single fellow, big man. In his thoughts, Shane was absorbed in the question of why Vignette was so compelled to take risks. The most she had ever been able to tell him about it was that she did it when she felt suffocated to the point that she was going to tear her own skin off unless she did something outrageous. Something that would break through and let her breathe.
He was still daydreaming and putting on a fresh pot of coffee when his sole customer jumped up from the table, moving so sharply that he might have been choking on his complimentary bread.
The motion caught Shane’s attention. The man did not utter a word, but his eyes suddenly bugged out while he stared at the newspaper that he was holding. He slowly stood up. It was only after a moment that he seemed to wake up. He abruptly looked around, then sat back down again, making a little show out of refolding the paper in an imitation of calmness.
Shane could see that the man’s breath was heaving while he held the edge of the table with both hands. His eyes rapidly darted around without pausing, seeking something that they did not seem to find.
It all registered in Shane’s attention, but did not seem to mean much. The man might have been reacting to some outrageous political article. Or maybe he had just found out that he lost a big bet on a horse race.
Then, when Mr. Duncan came in and called Shane over to one of the back booths, the customer’s astonished gaze moved from the newspaper article to Duncan’s face. Shane hardly noticed; Duncan was already a local celebrity. He could tell that the customer was fighting the urge to stare. Most civilized people would do the same thing. He gave it no more notice than that, and forgot about the man.
“Sit down,” Duncan instructed him from his seat in the booth.
“We’re not supposed to sit down on the job, Mr. Duncan.”
Duncan took a deep breath while he rubbed his hand all over his face. He looked up at Shane with a brief smile, then grabbed Shane’s upper arm and pulled him into the booth.
“I persuaded the police to rig your home with a telephone so that I could communicate with Detective Blackburn, but no one answers today. They answer, I think, but they don’t speak.”
“I was out this morning.”
“Someone else, then. They pick up the line, then nothing.”
“I can ask.”
“Good. That’s not why I’m here. This is too dangerous to put over an open telephone line, anyway. You know that the telephone operators can listen right in on those calls, don’t you? Any time that they want to! Think about that!”
“I’ve only used a telephone a few times, so far. There’s nothing for me to—”
“All right, listen.” Duncan dropped his voice level and fixed his eyes on him. “I’m telling you this in person because no one else is supposed to know. For tonight’s opening, I am going to hire two of the stagehands. They’re going to do their regular jobs, but also watch everything the whole time. Backstage. I’ll tell them they can earn a big bonus if they find something. You know. Whoever’s doing this.”
“Doing what, Mr. Duncan?”
Duncan appeared to consider whether he might answer, but then his face clouded. “Nothing. I mean, whoever it is who might want to take some sort of deadly action.”
Shane leaned across the table and nearly whispered, “Sir, it’s very plain that you’ve got something on your mind that you are not telling us.”
“Mr. Nightingale, please don’t bother to—”
“I respect a man’s right t
o privacy, Mr. Duncan, but I’ve got to tell you that you give me the distinct impression of a man who knows something that could help us to do the very thing that you want us to do. But for some strange reason, you choose not to tell us.”
Duncan’s face formed a heavy smile.
“I am sorry if it appears that way, Mr. Nightingale.”
Shane just looked at him.
“At any rate, nobody else is to know this: You and the detective will cover the audience, and my men will cover the backstage area, for each show.”
“All right, Mr. Duncan,” Shane said, rising. “I’ll tell him.”
“I’ll be performing tonight at the Palace of Fine Arts, four fifteen-minute shows in a row, with ten minutes between each one. You’ll need to watch all four audiences, going in and coming out.”
“With only ten minutes to clear the area and bring in more people?”
“It’s a small venue, seats a hundred and fifty. They set up the chairs, build the whole set out of curtains and rods and poles. You could clear everything out in ten minutes, people included. My men will keep everyone away, backstage.”
“Good enough. I’ll make sure we’re both there by eight-thirty, if that’s all right.”
“Yes, but tell him in person!” Duncan insisted. “Not on the telephone!”
“From me to him.” Shane gave him a wave, just to move the older man along, then headed off to the kitchen in hopes that Duncan would leave. The thought of hiding out for a while by helping out the dish jockeys with the rinsing and washing seemed pretty good.
Duncan looked different today. He had lost the electrical glow in his eyes. He seemed about four inches smaller and twenty pounds lighter. There was a deep fatigue about him that Shane had not seen in him before. He got the impression of the man as a half-filled balloon, and wondered how he planned to give four opening-night performances that evening, even if the shows were short.
The Hidden Man Page 12
