Magic Words

by Gerald Kolpan

  “My good friends, I simply don’t know what to say. I had hoped that in my Cabinet of Wonders I would find my successor; but it has brought me only embarrassment and defeat before you, my honored guests. But wait! Perhaps my redheaded friend will know where my replacement has gone. Besides, it is very rude for him to stand here all this time with his back to you. I shall make him mind his manners.”

  Compars turned to the hooded figure and snapped his fingers imperiously.

  “I say, young man! I, the Great Herrmann, command you to remove that absurd hood and turn and face my guests.”

  At first, the robed figure hesitated. Then he slowly reached up, grabbed the two sides of his hood, snapped it back, and turned toward his audience.

  The reporters gasped.

  Where the big redhead had stood was a completely different man; a satanic figure who looked for all the world like a younger version of The Great Herrmann himself. He possessed the same penetrating blue eyes and raven hair; the identical spade-shaped beard and wax-tipped mustache. He bowed to the newsmen with a flourish of both arms, his graceful hands completing the gesture like a pair of landing birds.

  “Holy shit!” cried Knoblauch of the Whip.

  The younger Compars unknotted his rope belt and swiftly removed the monk’s robe. He was as thin as a marsh reed and dressed in a swallow-tailed coat and double-breasted vest of silver brocade. His patent leather boots shone beneath gray spats.

  “Gentlemen,” Compars said, clapping his twin on the shoulder, “allow me to introduce you to the only man on God’s green Earth capable of accurately reproducing the marvels my audience has come to demand! He has, these past two years, often traveled the smaller provinces with an act that is nearly a perfect duplication of all my genius has produced. His resemblance to your humble servant is far from accidental as he is in fact, my own beloved youngest brother. And so, gentlemen, it is my distinct pleasure to present to you my singular and only designated successor …”

  And here, the “professor” began a fanfare that started at the lower keys and ended at the highest.

  “… Alexander!”

  The younger man bowed again and immediately launched into a series of small miracles. He produced cards from his mouth and eyes; he released a white rabbit from his bare hands; he materialized a fully lighted birthday cake from a seemingly empty hat. With each new illusion, the reporters applauded louder and scribbled harder. Even the chef was enlisted for the occasion. At the sound of a whistle from Compars, M. Denys made his way through the gathering with a large covered silver dish. Stepping to the platform, he removed the cover with a courtly bow.

  “Voilà!”

  On the platter sat a whole roast duck, surrounded by potatoes and tiny green peas. The young magician studied the bird for a moment, took a white silk from his pocket, and passed it over the steaming dish. When he snapped the cloth away, the meal was gone, replaced by a live mallard, quacking in terror at the sudden transition.

  Finally, the two brothers moved to opposite sides of the platform and produced twin revolvers. They fired them in perfect unison and as they did, a gigantic poster unfurled from the ceiling. It was a portrait of Alexander in full color, his splendid head encased in a leaf-encrusted oval. All about the likeness were scenes from Compars’s career: his appearances before royalty, the classic tricks he had listed for the reporters; and at the bottom, in fine hand lettering surrounded by flames, read the legend:

  ALEXANDER THE GREAT

  Brother & Sole Successor to the Great Herrmann

  The journalists applauded thunderously and raised their glasses in tribute. With a grin, Compars reached into the air and plucked from it an elaborate German bierstein. He lifted its pewter lid, placed the stein to his lips and took a long draft.

  “Drinks for everybody!”

  The assembled press cheered again and made for the bar. On the way, two of them mounted the makeshift stage and linked arms with Compars, dragging him from the platform.

  Alexander stood in front of the cabinet, alone, the playing cards and black robe in a pile at his feet. Looking toward the bar, he saw the reporters clapping his brother on the back and toasting his health. One of the “actresses” was handing out cards printed with Compars’s biography on one side and his own on the other. Finally, a group of liveried waiters accompanied a huge cake—a real one this time—on its journey from the kitchen. On its top stood a profile of his brother in spun sugar and paste; its lowest layer was encircled with the words, “Farewell, Prof. Herrmann, Illusioniste Extraordinaire!”

  Alex threw the revolver to the floor. Without looking back, he walked through the black backdrop and exited the ballroom through a door at the rear. In the deserted corridor, he found the redheaded assistant busily packing his master’s equipment.

  “What’re ya doin’ back here, Mr. Alex?” he asked. “Plenty a’ good drink still in there and the the press boys will be wantin’ yer comments.”

  Alex smiled at the young Irishman. From the banquet room, he could hear the “professor” strike up Auld Lang Syne, quickly followed by drunken voices mangling its lyrics.

  “It’s Mr. Dowie, am I right?”

  “Yessir,” the Irishman said. “Yessir, Seamus Dowie, sir, at your service.”

  “I expect you haven’t eaten, Seamus. Neither have I. Here.”

  Alex reached into his fine morning coat and produced the perfectly roasted leg and thigh of a Long Island duckling. He handed it to Dowie.

  “Just an hors d’oeuvre, my friend. Let’s to Delmonico’s for some beefsteak and beer. As to sticking here for Herr Docktor and these ink-stained dolts, never have I seen a better occasion for a magician to vanish.”

  8

  LEMUEL NORCROSS ENJOYED HIS NEW JOB. IT WAS EXCITING and grown-up and it paid better than any other work a ten-year-old could find in Omaha.

  His duties were specific and unchanging. He would arrive at the Corner Pocket around seven in the evening and rake the rat pit until the surface was flat and even. About an hour later, the handlers appeared with their dogs, each a different breed of terrier: Cairns, Westies, Norwiches, Lakelands, and a few mixes. They were little—the largest not much more than twenty pounds—and the boy loved to assist their masters in petting and massaging them.

  At ten o’clock, the audience began to arrive and the wagering began. Lemuel was entrusted to hold the money and keep the odds, no one expecting a mere baby to possess either the guile or the courage to indulge in any dishonesty. As the money changed hands, the boy watched as, one by one, the dogs were weighed and the rats counted out. The number of rats placed in the pit equaled the weight of each dog: ten pounds, ten rats; twenty pounds, twenty rats and so on. The bets were based on the amount of time it took a given dog to kill every rodent in the ring. Lemuel received no money for his services, but tips were generous, and there were nights when he placed as much as ten dollars in his mother’s apron.

  The first animal up this evening was called Handsome Harry: a champion Cairn owned by a railroad brakeman named Adolph Karns. The crowd stomped and cheered as the terrier was placed into the pit and began pacing in anticipation. Sherdlu, one of the Pocket’s rat catchers, hefted a pulsating bag over the ring and turned it over. Fifteen rats—the number corresponding to Harry’s weight—poured into the ring.

  Almost before they hit the ground, Harry was on them, lifting and shaking them, sometimes two at a time. Once one was killed, the dog moved immediately to the next. When all the rats were dead, a bell sounded to indicate the time.

  As the bloodied dog was lifted from the pit, Lemuel Norcross looked at the numbers written on his slips: one minute; fifty seconds; seventy seconds. It wasn’t until he saw the sixth slip that he found the number he sought, accompanied by the name of the winner.

  “We have a victor, gentlemen!”

  Basking in the attention, Lemuel raised the yellow slip above his head. The ring announcer shouted above the din.

  “A winner here and one winner
only. At seventy-six seconds, the exact time for the mighty Harry, the proceeds of this evening’s first bout benefit one of our most charming citizens, the one and only Red Rose of Omaha, Miss Lady-Jane Little Feather!”

  The crowd roared its approval as Lemuel raced to the center of the tiered benches. As he reached Lady-Jane, she stood to acknowledge the applause and whistles and accepted her winnings from the boy. Smiling into his flushed face, she peeled off a dollar from her roll and handed it to him. Lemuel whooped in gratitude, bowed to his benefactress, and hurried back to take the next round of wagers.

  Lady-Jane returned to her seat, placing the winnings discreetly into her bodice. Her companion took a long drag on his cigar and wrote the number thirty below his name, his bet on the next dog.

  “As usual, you are lucky,” he said, “and prudent.”

  “If by that you’ve guessed that I’m not going to bet again tonight, then you’re right. This is a bird in the hand, Calhern: and if I’m ever to stop screwing cowboys, I’ll need a cage full.”

  Adrian Calhern handed his marker down the aisle. As it made its way hand over hand to his right, a drunken Hunk Marston approached from his left. He saluted Calhern in the manner of an Army veteran and offered him congratulations on his girl’s good fortune.

  Calhern removed his hat and stood to face Marston, his cold stare quickly removing the good nature from the young man’s face.

  “Never mind that, bucko. You have a balance due at the Dime. A bar tab of fifteen dollars, and eighteen dollars for the use of my women.”

  “Gosh, Mr. Calhern. As much as that?”

  “Yes, Hunk, as much as that.”

  The second dog, a nineteen-pound Skye named Jock, was lowered into the pit. The dog was known to be quick and vicious. In honor of that reputation, the men cheered louder at his mere appearance than they had for Harry’s triumph.

  Marston put his hand to his chin. “Well, gee, Mr. Calhern—how long do I have to pay it back?”

  It was only the crowd’s own noise that kept them from hearing the howl as Calhern snatched Marston’s hand and bent it straight back at the wrist. When Hunk tried to free his hand, the pimp head-butted him. Hunk reeled amid stars and planets.

  “This, bucko, is what I call the quality of mercy.”

  Calhern bent the hand back a little more. The crowd cheered louder as the rats were released from the bag.

  “One fraction of one more inch and this wrist breaks like a swampy cattail,” Calhern said. “Breaks so it don’t get better. Breaks permanent.”

  The roar was deafening as Jock lit into the rats. One attempted to scratch his eye and was bitten nearly in half.

  “But if I break it, Hunkie, you don’t work. You don’t work, you don’t pay, savvy? So now—right now—you’ll leave this place. You won’t drink, you won’t gamble. You’ll live the pure life, and all of your wages from the livery will go to me until we’re square. They don’t, your wife meets the ladies that have serviced you so well and I break this hand and then the other.”

  Jock crushed the largest and last rat against the pit wall. His official time was announced as one minute flat: slower than usual.

  Calhern released the hand from his grip and sat back down. He took a lace handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands as if to remove any essence of his victim. Finally, he looked up at Marston and, raising his hand, waved him off as if instructing a child to run along and play.

  “Go,” he said, “and sin no more.”

  Hunk Marston made his way through the cheering throng and out a side entrance. Calhern put his cigar back in his mouth and began to study the yellow sheet bearing the names and weights of the remaining contenders.

  Lady-Jane stared straight ahead.

  “If you performed that little song and dance for my benefit, you needn’t have bothered.”

  Calhern didn’t look up from the dog roster. “At this late date, my dear, you should know that your benefit is all that matters to me in this world.”

  “That’s good, Calhern—because on July thirteenth, I turn eighteen. The vault opens, I walk in and collect every penny I’ve earned since I started in the profession.”

  Calhern again wrote his name on the slip and whistled for Lemuel Norcross. As the boy came running, he rose to pass his bet down the line. No money changed hands. His credit was always good at the Pocket.

  The crowd screamed as the next bout began.

  “You don’t have to present me with a sum, my darling. I know how much I owe you. I believe that God himself sent me by the Indian school that day. That he meant me to find you. The soldiers killed every other child in that school, burned it, brave and buck, but they left you alive for me to love.”

  Lady-Jane was a scarred veteran of such grand speeches. They had worked well four years ago when Calhern had found her waist-deep in ashes, starving and alone. Back then, his kindness had seemed genuine, and, by the lights of a man in his business, it probably had been. He fed and bathed her. He bought her clothes from the East and jewelry from Max Meyer. He beat her only when she deserved it. And when she fell in love with him, he trained her in the art of what a man likes and the sacrifices that must be made to achieve a degree of marketable skill.

  When he first offered her to another man, Lady-Jane wanted to run or refuse; but she owed him for everything, from her shoes to her life. He told her it would only be for this one time. The client was neither old nor ugly but a boy not much older than herself, brought to the Dime by his father for some “experience.”

  She weighed disgust against fear and fear against gratitude, and her career began. By 1867, when ten dollars bought flour for a year or rent for a month, it was also the amount that bought the Red Rose for a night. Half of the fee, Calhern had told her, would be put aside; and when she reached her majority she would receive the funds to which she was entitled. Lady-Jane had kept strict accounts. The number stood at over twelve thousand dollars.

  The dog in the pit was let loose. He was a small, scrappy mutt with a patch of brown over one eye. Calhern fell silent and reached into his vest for his watch. He snapped open its case and began to time the match. For the first time, Lady-Jane noticed that the little portrait opposite the clock face was his own.

  He swore into the watch. The dog was slower than it had been all year. Calhern sighed and turned toward his companion, his eyes filled with regret.

  “As sure as the Lord made you beautiful, I know that I should repay you double. Which is why it’s doubly hard to tell you that I can’t pay you at all.”

  Lady-Jane was still. She had rehearsed this reckoning in her mind many times in recent days; how he would balk and bargain, the charm he would use to dispute her numbers. But her brain had never defaulted to what he had just said: I can’t pay you; I can’t pay you at all.

  Calhern checked off the next name on the roster. “Of course, that don’t mean I’ll never. I just can’t right now. These dogs and the cards have been mean to me of late—and I’ve had to give that bastard Swain twenty percent more of the Dime’s pleasure business. Add to that Addie Jackson dying of the syph and Peggy Bradley running off, well, you see how it is.”

  Lady-Jane didn’t move. She thought for a moment of the tintypes of famous chiefs that adorned the upstairs parlor of the Dime; how the inscrutable faces exposed to the indignity of the camera betrayed nothing before the white destroyer. She forced her face into the same stillness.

  The pimp’s face brightened. “But see, if we work together we can make this right. One more year, maybe two, and I’ll pay you back with interest—everything you’ve made up to now and everything you will make. We’ll raise your fee from ten dollars to eleven and that extra dollar will be yours to keep.”

  He began to laugh.

  “Just don’t tell Lotus. She’d skin me alive and eat me for chop suey.”

  Lady-Jane shook her head as if she understood his problem. He clapped her on the back for a good sport and sighed over his losses as the final match e
nded with a rout by a sixteen-pound Lakeland bitch named Jenny. This time, Calhern had been off by over twenty seconds.

  The crowd rose and parted to allow the pit’s only woman to pass. Soon they were outside. The night was soft with spring.

  “It’s been a bad bargain for me tonight, my love. I guess I left more markers in this place than them dogs did rats. Still there’s always more to be made in the big world. No one knows that better than you.”

  Calhern stepped in front of Lady-Jane and with fingers as deft as a pickpocket’s, plucked the night’s winnings from her bodice.

  “See? There’s money everywhere.”

  He smiled, touched the rim of his hat, and walked in the direction of the Pink Lady.

  She waited until he was out of sight and then strode quickly through the town until she reached the Dime. She unlocked the private entrance and ascended the winding stairs. There was a time when such a cavalier betrayal would have caused her to weep, but tears had long since deserted Lady-Jane. Peggy Bradley, the girl who had run away, had told her this would happen; that one day she would receive the final scar on a hardened heart.

  “Cherish it, girl,” Peggy had told her. “It’s your armor. Without it, they’ll own all of you. And then you may as well jump from the top of First Baptist.”

  Removing her hat and shawl, Lady-Jane sat down at an antique partner’s desk. She plucked two sheets of fine white notepaper from a cubby above the blotter and began to write two identical notes. They would go to two people she hoped to spare her hatred—the last warm emotion in a soul turned to ice.

  As he did at seven every morning, Julius descended the stairs from the apartment he shared with Max to the sales floor of the M. Meyer Tobacco Company.

  He would usually be alone at that hour—having awakened to his brother’s bed neatly made and his brother not in it.