Houdini's Last Trick

by David Khalaf

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE NEXT NIGHT, the two of them walked over to the theater at dusk, and Houdini found himself scanning the streets for the woman with the golden curls. He didn’t see her, but then he probably wouldn’t anyway; everyone was bundled up head-to-toe against the first snow flurry of the season.

  At the theater, doormen were posted at every entrance as usual. The stage manager, Marcel, had taken special care after he had heard about Houdini storming out of another theater. The magician and his wife went to his dressing room to change into their costumes and rehearse, even though their act was as automatic and natural as brushing their teeth.

  The door was locked, and Houdini opened it with his key. When he entered, he looked by instinct to the white carnation on the vanity.

  It was gone.

  He opened the door further and saw a woman seated in the room’s only armchair, twirling the carnation in-between her fingers. She stood. She was dressed all in black, including a black hat and black veil that completely covered her face.

  “Mr. Houdini,” she said.

  “Mrs. Pickford.”

  He noticed that she was clutching something to her chest, a lump covered by her black shawl.

  The magician turned to his wife.

  “Mrs. Houdini, this is Mary Pickford.”

  Houdini had no idea how his wife would react. He had, over the past year, dropped in pieces of the puzzle until his wife saw the entire picture of his time in Hollywood.

  Bess smiled and bowed graciously.

  “What a pleasure it is to meet you,” Bess said. “You must have come here in a hurry. You have no winter jacket. Here.”

  Houdini watched his wife remove her own coat to give to the woman at the heart of his indiscretion.

  I don’t deserve this lovely woman.

  “You poor thing,” Bess said. “You’re shivering.”

  As Bess wrapped the coat around her, there was a sharp and sudden cry. Bess backed away, confused. It hadn’t come from Pickford. Or had it?

  The woman pulled the dark blanket off from the thing she was clutching.

  It was a child.

  He was about five months old, with an expression that was solemn but thoughtful. Everything about him echoed Mary Pickford: the round face, the high cheekbones, even the sparse mop of golden curls on his head, fine as cornsilk. There was only one part of him that was clearly not Pickford’s—the dark, piercing eyes.

  Those indisputably belonged to Houdini.

  Bess looked at her husband. Houdini looked at her. She turned back to Pickford.

  “Let’s see if I can find you some hot tea.”

  Her voice was tight and unsteady, a tightrope walk across her vocal chords.

  Bess, you’re leaving us to talk alone.

  “Thank you,” Pickford said.

  She left. Houdini stared at the boy a long while in silence.

  “Do you want to hold him?” Pickford asked.

  Houdini nodded vaguely. None of it seemed real. The magician hung his jacket on the wooden chair at the vanity, then took the boy in his arms. He was heavier than Houdini expected. The child smelled of talcum powder and lavender. When Houdini thought of Samuel, their imaginary son, he never imagined how his child would smell.

  “I can’t,” Houdini blurted out. “I mean, I never thought I could. Bess and I tried for years.”

  Houdini became aware of a torrent of sadness running through him, like an underground river he had only just discovered. How had he not been aware of it sooner? How could he not know what his heart so truly desired? Even the most introspective man, he realized, could hide things from himself.

  His life of magic had led him to this specific point in time, but it was ultimately a job, not a legacy. It was meaningless compared to the little boy cradled in his arms.

  Magic is the means.

  Tears escaped his eyes. Joy and grief and saline.

  Houdini heard a kind of humming coming from the boy. Rather, he felt humming. It was like vibrations of music but without the music itself. Houdini chalked it up to being emotionally overloaded. He collected himself.

  “What’s his name?” Houdini asked.

  “Hennessey. It was my mother’s maiden name.”

  “Hennessey? What an awful name. Do the poor boy a favor and change it before he enters grade school.”

  The baby started to cry, as if embarrassed by his own name. Pickford took him back and sat down in the armchair.

  “I should have told you sooner, but I couldn’t track you down with all of your traveling,” she said. “And I didn’t want to complicate things for you, either. But I had to come now. He’s in danger.”

  “From whom? Fairbanks?”

  Pickford nodded.

  “In part.”

  “Did he know?” Houdini asked.

  “As quickly as you knew,” she said. “Those eyes, those intense, dark eyes. There’s no mistaking him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much,” Pickford said, “but he broke a lot of things that day. He tried to live with the child, for months he did, but it drove him to madness. He left this week to film a movie on location, and told me the boy had to be gone by the time he returned. I don’t blame him. It’s my fault.”

  Houdini pulled out the wooden chair and sat on it.

  “What are you saying?” Houdini asked. “That you want me to…”

  He stared at her black veil, and the strangeness of it suddenly struck him.

  “What’s wrong? Is someone dead?”

  “No, it’s just… I’m not myself these days. Or perhaps I’m more myself. I don’t know.”

  Houdini stood and walked over to her. He touched the edges of her veil.

  “Don’t.”

  He pulled it up, slowly, and gasped at what he saw.

  What has happened to her face?

  She hurriedly pulled the veil back down.

  “The boy,” she said, either in response to his thought or to change the conversation. She put him back into Houdini’s arms. The child fussed a bit but didn’t cry.

  “I took him to get his first vaccination,” she said as she reached into her purse. She removed a small pin, then grabbed the boy’s hand and pricked his finger.

  Immediately he began wailing.

  “Shh, my darling,” she said to the boy. And then to Houdini: “Watch.”

  She squeezed his finger and out oozed a drop of blood—if it could be called blood at all. It was unlike any Houdini had ever seen.

  “He’s ill,” Houdini said.

  “I don’t believe so,” Pickford said. “I snatched him from the doctors before they could prod at him and rushed home. Douglas wouldn’t listen so I went to Charlie. I showed him, and—”

  The child’s wails nearly drowned Pickford out.

  “Quiet, my boy,” Houdini said. “It’s not so bad.”

  He kissed the boy’s pricked fingertip, then jolted. It felt as if he had just stuck his lips against an electrical outlet. The feeling reminded him of the one time he had used the Eye on Bess. In his mouth he could feel the tiny drop of blood that had touched his lips.

  He swallowed. It entered his system, and he could feel it moving through his body, a distinct and separate entity, as if it had a life of its own. Others without his gift for introspection would never notice, but Houdini could tell it was something unique.

  Houdini searched himself as he followed the path of the blood, and then noticed something quite odd. As he scanned his body, his range extended outside of his skin. He followed the edges of his ability, and was surprised to become aware of the heartbeat of the boy. Houdini could feel the child’s breath, sense the steady flow of his blood. It was as if the boy’s body were his own. The magician focused and reached past the boy, surprised to discover Pickford’s heartbeat within his range too. He could sense her motivations as well—not as distinct thoughts, but as a jumble of pictures, ideas, feelings, and memories. It was like looking at a blurry photograph. This wa
s the first time he had ever been able to see inside someone else, and he realized that Pickford, and probably the rest of the world, lacked the internal clarity and order that he had. It was like walking unannounced into someone’s messy apartment.

  The magician dug into Pickford’s psyche a bit more. He felt guilty, as if going through someone’s underwear drawer. What he discovered pleased him: He found a deep, passionate love for Douglas Fairbanks embedded deep within her. It was a strained, conflicted love, but it was real. And for Houdini himself he found fondness and trust, but no love.

  “You’re right,” Houdini said. “He’s special. He’s powerful.”

  Perhaps more powerful than Newton’s Eye.

  He followed the threads of possibility, wondering if they would go further while in the presence of this boy. Perhaps he’d be able to see days, even months down the lines of options.

  But when he followed the first thread, he saw only blackness, like a sensory deprivation chamber, with no sound and no feeling. It was sudden, like a radio losing power. He then followed the next thread of possibility; it was the same, abrupt darkness and nothingness. And the third and fourth and fifth. Every thread followed a different path, but each ended in the exact same place.

  The magician gasped. He understood. Within the next half hour, every possibility converged at only one outcome.

  Death.

  But why, and how?

  Houdini reached once more to see how far his range of introspection would go. It left the dressing room, flowed down the hall and up the ramp toward the audience. Houdini became aware of two heartbeats making their way backstage. One was a tiny shriveled thing, hardly stronger than a mouse’s. The other was a robust, bear-sized heartbeat that pounded in Houdini’s head like a war drum.

  The magician focused on the owner of that massive heart, and he sensed a single-minded desire. The distance made it difficult, but he tried to discern the intention, the goal. It was for a person. No, it was for a thing. An object. A tool.

  The Eye.

  Houdini shot up.

  “Atlas is here.”