Play dead jbakb-4

by Richard Montanari

  NINETY-FIVE

  5:45 AM

  All around him, Faerwood began to breathe.Swann heard the sounds of running children, the sounds of hard soles on oak floors, the hiss of a 78-rpm record on a Victrola, the sounds of his father hammering and sawing in the basement, the noise of walls being erected, ramparts to keep separate the warring monsters of madness.

  In his mind, he was transported back to the first time he had seen his father perform in front of an audience. He had been five years old, not yet part of the act. They were in a small town in Mississippi, a backwater outpost of a few thousand or so, a Sunday afternoon attraction at a county fair not far from Starkville.

  In the middle of the Great Cygne's opening trick, Joseph looked around the room at the other children. They seemed mesmerized by the spectacle, magnetically drawn to this tall, regal man in black. It was at that moment that Joseph realized his father was part of the world outside the puzzle of his own life, and what he must do to change that.

  He looked in the dressing-room mirror. The Great Cygne stood behind him. Joseph Swann dared not turn around. Though he could see and hear and smell the hot damp of the county-fair tent, he knew he had not traveled. He was in Faerwood, in his dressing room. He closed his eyes, wished it all away. When he opened them again the Great Cygne was gone.

  As he slipped into his cutaway coat. Joseph recalled the day he had cut his father down from the rope hanging over the roof beam. He recalled the deep red welt at the base of Karl Swann's throat, the smell of vomit and feces. He had taken him to the back bedroom upstairs, not knowing what to do. When his father stirred, a half hour later, it all became clear to him. The Great Cygne was now trapped in his own device.

  As dawn sought the horizon over the Delaware River, as Philadelphia stirred and stretched and rose, Joseph Swann ascended the stairs. It was nearing 6:00 AM, and the greatest of the Seven Wonders.

  NINETY-SIX

  5:45 AM

  When the mirror turned fully, and a pair of wall sconces blazed to life, Jessica took a few cautious steps forward, her weapon lowered. She came face-to-face with the young woman whose image she had seen in the mirror.

  "You're going to be all right," Jessica said. "I'm a police officer. I'm here to help you."

  "I understand."

  "What's your name?"

  The girl stepped fully into the light. "My real name is Graciella," the girl said. "Some people know me as Lilly."

  Graciella, mi amor, Jessica thought. It all began to make sense. She recalled the diary.

  I still hide. I hide from my life, my obligations. I watch from afar.

  Those tiny fingers. Those dark eyes.

  These are my days of grace.

  "Okay," Jessica said. She knew who she was talking to. "We have to leave. Now."

  Graciella didn't move. "This man? This man who lives here?"

  "What about him?"

  "He calls himself Mr. Ludo, but his real name is Joseph Swann. He killed my mother. Her name was Eve Galvez. I'm going to kill him."

  The girl held up a yellowed piece of paper. It looked like an old blueprint. "I got this from a friend of mine," she said. "Old guy. Wicked weird, wicked old. He used to be a magician, but his insane fucking son has kept him locked in a room for the past twenty years." She unfolded the paper. "There are things you should know about this house. Every room has a secret entrance and a secret exit to somewhere else."

  "What are you talking about?" Jessica asked. "Let's go."

  Graciella handed her the paper-the slight shake in her hands betraying her calm demeanor-then stepped away. "I'm not going with you. I'm not ready to leave yet."

  "What do you mean you're not ready? Where is Joseph Swann? Where is he right now?"

  Graciella ignored the question. "There's one more trick to come. It's called the Fire Grotto." The girl stepped back. She reached out and touched the switch plate on the wall, then touched her foot to the baseboard. "You've got to understand. I cannot let this rest. I will not let this rest. I'm going to kill him."

  Graciella kicked the baseboard. To Jessica's left and right a pair of partitions dropped from the ceiling. She was suddenly enclosed in a six- by-six room. The only light was from the beam of her Maglite.

  Jessica was alone.

  NINETY-SEVEN

  5:45 AM

  Swann stepped into the great room. On its tattered carpeting walked the specters of the past, the many treacheries of his childhood. On the worn, sturdy furniture reposed his victims:

  Elise Beausoleil with her literary ramblings; Wilton Cole and Marchand Decasse and their thieving schemes. So many had come here, prying, threatening to expose him and the many riddles of Faer- wood, so many had never left.

  Swann heard conversation in the main hallway. It was not some phantom of the past. It was happening now. Before he could enter, a figure turned the corner. It was Odette, wearing her scarlet gown. She was as young and beautiful as ever.

  "Are you ready?" Swann asked.

  "I am."

  "Tonight it is the Fire Grotto. Do you remember it?"

  "Of course."

  Swann offered his hand. Odette took it, and together they headed for the stairs.

  NINETY-EIGHT

  5:47 AM

  The walls in the basement were damp and clammy. The flicker of the gas lamps drew their shadows in long, spindly forms. Hand in hand, Graciella and Joseph Swann walked past many small rooms, twisting and turning through the labyrinthine halls. Some rooms were no more than ten-by-ten feet, bearing long oak shelves crammed with magic paraphernalia. Some were filled with steamer trunks, overflowing with memorabilia and mementoes. One was dedicated to smaller stage props-foldaway tables, production boxes, dove pans, parasols. Yet another room was devoted solely to the storage of stage clothing-vests, jackets, trousers, shirts, suspenders.

  They eventually came to a long corridor. At the end of the passageway were bright yellow lights. As they approached the stage Graciella's heart raced. She thought of the night her mother phoned, the long dreadful night two months earlier when her world had been turned upside down. There had been so much Graciella wanted to say to her mother, years of confusion and frustration to unload. But by the end of the conversation she found that the hatred that had lived in her soul like a terrible fire for so long had simply vanished. Her mother had been not much older than she was when she'd had her baby, and she had given her up for adoption for all the right reasons. When Graciella hung up the phone she had cried until dawn. Then she had gone into her closet and opened all the boxes she had received over the years on her birthday and Christmas. She'd known who they were from all along.

  Eve Galvez had loved her. That's why she walked away.

  That night, via her cell phone, Eve had sent her a number of photographs. Photographs of Graciella at two and three and four years old, all taken from far away. Graciella playing lacrosse. Graciella hanging at the Mickey D's on Greene Road. The final photo was of this monstrous place. The last thing her mother had said was that there had been a girl named Caitlin O'Riordan, and that a man, a man who called himself Mr. Ludo-the man who lived here, the man she now knew as Joseph Swann-had killed Caitlin.

  When the story of her mother's murder hit the newspaper, and all the flowers that had so recently been planted in Graciella's heart were ripped from the ground, she knew what she had to do. She made a promise to her mother's memory that she would finish the job.

  But now that the end was in sight, she did not know if she could go through with it.

  The stage stood at the far side of the room. It was about fifteen feet wide. The floor was highly polished; there were velvet curtains drawn to the sides. A spotlight over the center of the stage cut through the blackness like a knife through necrotic flesh.

  Joseph Swann offered his hand, and led Graciella into the wings.

  Between them, the Fire Grotto awaited.

  NINETY-NINE

  5:51 AM

  Jessica pushed on the walls, but they
would not move. She tried lifting one of the panels from beneath the chair rail, but it didn't budge.

  There are things you should know about this house. Every room has a secret entrance and a secret exit to somewhere else.

  She flipped on her Maglite, consulted the schematic the girl had given her. There were lines and notations all over the page. Once she found her bearings, she saw that in this part of the hallway, above the cold air return, there were a pair of dentils in the crown molding marked in red. Jessica pointed the Maglite at the ceiling. She saw that two of the dentils were a slightly lighter stain than the others. She pulled over a chair, stood on it. She pressed the dentil. Nothing happened. She then pressed the other, yielding the same result. She pulled both of them left, right. No sound, no motion. She pushed the two dentils in the center toward each other, and she suddenly heard the wall begin to move. Seconds later, it rose to the ceiling.

  Jessica jumped down from the chair, gulping the air. She drew back to the wall, unholstered her weapon. In front of her was a short hallway with narrow stairs leading up. She climbed the stairs, and found a dead- bolted door at the top.

  She slowly turned the lock, opened the door, and stepped through. The room was pitch-black. She felt along the wall, found a light switch. Overhead a bronze chandelier blazed to life, illuminating a room time had forgotten. She'd found the Great Cygne's prison.

  ONE HUNDRED

  5:54 AM

  Graciella stood on the stage beneath hot, glaring lights. To her left was the Fire Grotto, a steel and smoked-glass cage about three feet by three feet by four feet high. The front had a door that opened out toward where the audience would be, if there had been an audience. The entire apparatus was on a short four-legged steel table with caster wheels. Hanging from the back was the hoop, a three-foot- diameter aluminum hoop attached to a cone of silk fabric.

  It looked exactly like the drawings Karl Swann had shown her.

  Remember the hidden latch.

  Joseph Swann-dressed like his father, in full costume and makeup-emerged from a small room next to the stage. He stepped onto the stage, reached into his pocket, took out a small remote control of some kind, clicked it, then returned it to his pocket. Graciella looked across the room. She could barely make out the silhouette of a small camera on a tripod. She wondered if Karl Swann-the Great Cygne himself-was upstairs watching all of this.

  His son Joseph waited a few seconds, then looked out into the darkness.

  "Behold the Fire Grotto," he said. He turned to look at Graciella. "And behold the lovely Odette."

  He reached over, opened the front of the glass-and-steel cage. He gestured to Graciella. She was supposed to get in. She looked inside, her memory overlaying the schematic drawing on the box itself. She glanced to the lower left corner. There, painted the same color as the smoked glass, was the hidden latch.

  She stepped into the cage. In her hands was the item the old man had given her. She'd held on to it so long, so tightly, she'd almost forgotten she had it.

  ONE HUNDRED ONE

  5:54 AM

  The room was large, high-ceilinged, cluttered with oversized furniture from another era. Every inch of wall space was covered with yellowed news clippings, photographs, posters. Every surface seemed to yield memories of years spent in isolation.

  In the corner was a large hospital bed, covered in grimy sheets. On the dresser was an absinthe fountain with two spigots. Next to it were filmy crystal glasses, sugar cubes, tarnished silver spoons.

  Jessica crossed to the window, parted the velvet curtains. There were bars on these windows too. In the moonlight she could see she was on the third floor, just above the spiked railing that led around the rear porch. Jessica glanced at the bed. Attached to each brass post were a pair of rusted handcuffs. On the nightstands were a series of easel frames, aligned like timeworn headstones. In the photographs, a young man stood in various poses, all mid-illusion-linking rings, releasing doves, fanning cards.

  She crossed the room, pulled down the bed sheets. The dead man stared up at her, his eyes rolled back in their sockets, his hairless skull veined and scabbed.

  Jessica touched a finger to his neck. There was no pulse. "And now the Seventh Wonder," a voice said. Jessica spun around, weapon raised. The television behind her was on. Ice-blue images flickered on the walls, the ceiling.

  The scenario unfolding on the screen was identical to the other videos they had seen. But this time, Jessica knew who the man was. His name was Joseph Swann. The Collector. And he was somewhere in this house.

  On-screen, Swann stepped to the side, and Jessica saw the steel- and-glass cage at the center of the stage. Inside sat Graciella. Swann closed the door, spun the cage twice, lifted a large conical silken drape overhead.

  He then reached into his pocket, removed a small remote control, pressed a button. The camera angle widened, showing more of the stage. There was a ring of tower candles.

  Swann picked up a small copper can with a spout, like a receptacle used for drizzling olive oil. He circled the silken cone, splashing the liquid from top to bottom, all the while mumbling something Jessica was unable to hear. When he finished, he placed the can on a side table, then walked behind the drape.

  Jessica held her breath. For what seemed like a full minute, but was surely a much shorter period of time, there was no movement, no sound. The came a loud thud. The silken drapes billowed out, coming dangerously close to the candles. A few moments later a figure walked to center stage.

  It was Graciella.

  "Behold the Fire Grotto," she said.

  She raised the hoop. The cage was closed, but Jessica could see something inside. It looked like a hand pressed against the smoked glass.

  "And behold Mr. Ludo," Graciella added, gesturing to the box. "You may remember him from the Garden of Flowers, the Girl Without a Middle, and the Drowning Girl. You may remember him from the Sword Box, the Sub Trunk, and the Bridal Chamber." Graciella picked up a candle. "I remember him for another reason."

  At this Graciella lowered the curtain, stepped behind. A few more seconds passed. The silk billowed again.

  The world caught fire.

  ONE HUNDRED TWO

  5:55 AM

  Byrne pulled into the long driveway, followed by Josh Bon trager and Dre Curtis, along with seven or eight sector cars. It would only be a matter of time until every available officer in the district arrived. Jessica's Taurus was parked halfway up the drive. She was not in it. Byrne didn't see her anywhere.

  The three detectives emerged from their cars. Byrne began to direct a perimeter. He and Josh Bontrager approached the front of the house. On the way in, Byrne had gotten on his cell phone to Hell Rohmer and gotten a brief background on the property. In the 1800s it had been known as Prescott Square. Byrne realized it was the final piece of the puzzle. He couldn't help feeling they were too late.

  Byrne drew his weapon, chambered a round. Bontrager covered him as he peered through the leaded glass. Byrne couldn't see anything except the distorted flames of a hundred candles. Music came from inside. Byrne reached out, tried the knob. Locked.

  The two detectives backed off the porch, their weapons lowered.

  That's when Byrne smelled the smoke.

  "Do you-" he began, just as the first flame licked the inside of the front window.

  Three seconds later, an explosion rocked the world.

  ONE HUNDRED THREE

  5:55 AM

  In the darkness, in the deep violet folds of night, he hears whispers: low, plaintive sounds that speak to him of his many crimes, his many sins. As the voices overlap, as the pitch and timbre rise, so does the temperature in the glass coffin in which he is trapped. He soon realizes that these are not the voices of his past.

  It is the voice of fire.

  His head throbs with the effects of the chloroform. Where did Odette get it? Why had she done this to him? He tries to calm himself. Panic is the enemy. He slips his fingers into the secret latch in the corner o
f the box that is the Fire Grotto. The catch is vertical. It does not move. Again he tries. This time the metal is too hot to touch. Smoke filters in. He cannot breathe. He is once again the Singing Boy. And once again he is locked inside a cabinet of his father's design.

  He maneuvers his hand into his pocket, removes the small remote control. He slides off the back panel, snaps it in two. He slips the hard plastic shard into the slot at the bottom of the main catch and begins to turn the screw. The heat is becoming unbearable. Sweat pools on the floor of the cage; steel hinges brand his back. Turn by turn, the screw slowly loosens. Finally, the catch drops to the floor of the cage. He pushes against the door. Nothing. He tries again. This time it begins to move. He takes a deep breath, holds it, as the box is now filled with smoke. His eyes and lungs burn as he rocks back and forth, forcing his shoulder into the door. The glass panels of the Fire Grotto start to crack in the intense heat. He expands his chest, flexes his upper arms. The door flings open. He emerges from the cage to find the stage now covered in thick black smoke. He makes it to his feet. The backs of his arms and hands are scorched and blistered.

  As the flames devour the curtains on either side of the stage, he looks into the wings. Through the miasma he sees the Great Cygne. It is not the broken man he knows, the man who has lived in his filth for almost twenty years. It is the young illusionist, the man who strode onto the stage, his magnificent cape billowing behind him, his eyes mesmerizing. "Where dwells the effect, Joseph?" "The effect," he says, each word burning his throat, "is in the mind." The Great Cygne lifts his cape over his face. In an instant it drops to the floor.