Houdini's Last Trick (The Burdens Trilogy) (11 page)

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

H
OUDINI
CALLED
C
HARLIE
Chaplin’s home half a dozen times, and half a dozen times he didn’t answer. When the telephone operator began to recognize Houdini’s voice and patch him through automatically, he gave up.

The magician went to United Artists to look for him there, but he appeared to have vanished. Chaplin’s assistant, a stiff young woman who clung to her clipboard and notebook as if they were the tablets of Moses, said she had no idea where he was or when he’d return. By the deep creases around her grimace, Houdini gathered that Chaplin had a habit of wandering off unannounced.

The assistant grudgingly offered Houdini a seat outside the closed door of Chaplin’s office. Houdini wondered if perhaps the comedian was also angry after yesterday’s stunt and was avoiding him. As soon as the assistant left, Houdini picked the lock to Chaplin’s office and peeked inside.

Chaplin wasn’t there. It was a handsome space, with dark woods and leather furniture that felt more like a banker’s office. One wall was plastered with framed photos of Chaplin, Pickford, and Fairbanks posing with a wide spectrum of famous people: actors, politicians, and dignitaries of every sort. Houdini began to realize that his fame and influence as a magician only went so far; the star power of Chaplin and his friends was truly international.

The three actors traveled the world with an ease that was difficult five decades ago, and virtually impossible five centuries ago. Houdini wondered if the 20
th
Century’s vast improvement in communication and transportation would prove to be their demise. Calamity Jane had told him that every great talent was born in a place and time for a reason, to make a difference where they were. But with advances in technology, every great talent—every Burden, as she called them—could easily leave his or her hometown and pursue selfish desires. Maybe it wasn’t destiny that had brought them all to Hollywood, but merely self-interest.

He waited outside Chaplin’s office for hours, deliberating over what to do. With the comedian missing, and neither Fairbanks nor Pickford willing to help him, he was back to where he started. Worse, he was a sitting duck.

Finally, he gave up on Chaplin and decided his only option was to leave Los Angeles before Atlas arrived. He simply wasn’t equipped to take on the giant man by himself.

Houdini returned to the MGM studio lot, packed his few belongings, and was headed downtown by early evening. The last rays of sun had just escaped the city, and he’d be doing the same.

La Grande station was a beautiful Moorish-style building, anchored by a grand copper dome whose roof had a brilliant blue-green patina. The magician sat in the domed waiting room, stirring a chamomile tea that had long grown cold. It didn’t matter. The midnight train would soon arrive, and Hollywood would quickly become a memory, along with everyone in it.

Houdini would take the overnight train to Santa Fe. In a couple days he’d be back in New York. And then what? Could he even continue his career as a magician with a killer on his trail? It sounded unlikely. Whatever he did from this point on, he’d have to figure it out on his own. Alone.

A newsboy near the terminal entrance dumped his unsold stack in the trash and walked out. With hardly a soul in sight, he had given up on selling any more newspapers that night. Houdini walked over and picked an issue out of the bin; it was the evening edition of the
Examiner
.

The top headline caught his eye, in no small part because his name was in it: “HOUDINI FLUBS STUNT; NEARLY KILLS FAIRBANKS.” It was an exclusive interview with Douglas Fairbanks, who explained to the reporter that Houdini was supposed to escape the noose and then throw the rope over to him; Fairbanks would then swing across Hollywood Boulevard to the delight of spectators who, after all, had come to see him. But, Fairbanks said, Houdini took too long to escape, and had hired an incompetent assistant who set the rope on fire. It was a careless mistake that could have set the whole block ablaze. He cautioned anyone against hiring “that old geezer” ever again.

Houdini fumed. Had the reporter never wondered why Fairbanks included Houdini in the stunt in the first place? Or why Fairbanks had climbed a sign not meant to handle his weight? Perhaps the reporter
had
asked these things, and Fairbanks had kindly requested that he not write about them. He was Douglas Fairbanks, after all, and people did as he requested.

Houdini’s train finally pulled into the station, and a wave of arriving passengers flooded the terminal: couples on vacation, business men home from trips, an occasional family. The once-quiet space suddenly echoed with voices and footsteps.

He set down the paper. As healthy as Houdini was for his age, he suddenly felt very old. Most men at fifty weren’t crawling through sewers or dangling from nooses with ropes on fire. They didn’t sit in tanks of water holding their breaths for minutes at a time. They were bankers or salesmen, and they were saving their money and waiting for the day when they could collect their pensions and retire in comfort.

Old age and death, these are the things from which no one escapes.

A new generation of magicians and illusionists would soon overtake him. Maybe he should retire while he was still on top, while he was still the undisputed king.

“Mr. Houdini!”

The magician looked up. It took him half a second to recognize his wife in this unexpected location. He jumped up to embrace her.

“What are you doing here?”

Bess had a purse and small suitcase. Years on the road had taught her to travel light.

“I’m here for you,” she said. “I packed and left the moment we got off the phone. But why are you at the station?”

“I’m leaving,” Houdini said. “I was heading back to you.”

“Did you make the friends you wanted, then?”

Houdini thought immediately of Pickford. His face reddened and his palms became clammy.

“No,” he said. “I’ve made no friends. I’ve made nothing but mistakes. We need to talk. But first, let’s get on that train heading back.”

“But I’ve just arrived after days of travel,” Bess said. “I don’t want to spend another moment on that thing.”

Houdini picked up her suitcase.

“The man after me, I’ve lured him to Los Angeles. He’ll be here any day. We’ve got to get out of the city.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please!”

A station attendant stood on a chair, shouting through a megaphone to the people in the waiting room.

“I regret to inform you that the train to Santa Fe has been canceled,” the attendant said. “There’s been a malfunction with the tracks. Please try again tomorrow morning.”

Houdini walked over and caught the man as he was leaving.

“What do you mean, a malfunction?”

The man looked around surreptitiously, then leaned in.

“I’m not supposed to say, but the tracks outside Barstow have been damaged. They need to repair them first.”

“Why is that such a secret?” Houdini asked.

“Because a section of track was ripped clear out of the ground,” he said. “The steel was bent and is completely unusable. They can’t figure out how it happened. An earthquake, they’re saying, though some of the repairmen suspect sabotage.”

“Sabotage?”

The attendant leaned his head in toward Houdini’s, like housewives at tea time sharing gossip.

“Maybe from Southern Pacific rivals. Or the automobile industry. My theory is, it was Standard Oil.”

Houdini grimaced.

I have my own theories.

He checked his watch.

“Are there any other trains going anywhere else?”

The man shook his head.

“That was the last train.”

“Then how do we get out of Los Angeles?” Houdini asked.

“You don’t,” the attendant said. “Not tonight.”

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

H
OUDINI
HAD
NO
choice. He and Bess were stuck in L.A. for the night.

The red car went south, all the way to the town of Santa Ana, but it was closed for the night. He thought of taking a taxi down to Orange County, but he doubted he could convince a driver to go that far.

There was no evidence the damaged rail lines had anything to do with Atlas. Houdini’s stunt had occurred only yesterday evening; it would take him days by train, and a private airplane was unlikely for a man of that size and on such short notice. The more Houdini thought about it, the more preposterous the idea became.

I’m just being paranoid.

He and Bess took a taxi back to the apartment at MGM. The studio lot, with its high wall and guard stations, was the safest place to stay.

The guard at the main gate recognized Houdini and let him inside. Apparently Mayer hadn’t blackballed him yet. The backlot was silent at this time of night. Houdini and Bess walked through the set of a frontier town, by a cluster of dark log cabins. There was a small pond at one end of the dirt road with a willow tree drooping over it. All it lacked was the sound of crickets and perhaps a few fireflies.

“It’s magical,” Bess said.

Houdini wondered if the cabins looked anything like the settlement where Calamity Jane had grown up in Montana, or later in Wyoming. He found himself wishing he had asked her more questions in the brief time he had spent with her. Jane had known what he was even before he fully understood it. She seemed to think he would have a purpose greater than magic. But she was also crazy, driven to insanity by voices in her head. Houdini sighed.

I’m longing for advice from a madwoman.

The Houdinis crossed from dirt onto cobblestone, taking a shortcut through a glamorous Parisian street. With a little light, music and people, it would have been indistinguishable from the real thing. But in its darkened state, it looked like an abandoned shell of something once glorious. Would that be their marriage, after Houdini had told his wife what he had done? Would the heart of their relationship die, and there be nothing left but a hollow corpse of memories?

Finally they passed by the pirate boat, walking close to the hull. Sails whipped in the light breeze and Houdini jumped at the sudden movement. But there was no one there.

At last they reached the sound stage, entered the side door, and climbed up the stairs to his apartment. He fumbled for his key but he needn’t have bothered: His door was ajar.

Houdini stiffened. He held Bess back and peered through the crack of the door. It was silent, but from the corner of the couch he saw a trail of cigarette smoke snaking its way up through the air.

“I’d invite you in but you already live here.”

“Chaplin!”

Houdini rushed inside, relieved to see his friend.

“What are you doing here?” Houdini asked.

“Waiting for you, old man.”

Bess stepped inside the room.

“Charlie, this is my wife.”

Chaplin stood and took Bess’s hand.

“Mrs. Houdini, a pleasure to finally meet you,” Chaplin said. “Behind every great magician is a great magician’s assistant.”

“Thank you,” she said. “A pleasure as well.”

“Where have you been?” Chaplin asked Houdini. “I’m nearly through an entire pack of cigarettes.”

“I was at the train station. Where were you?”

Houdini’s eyes passed over a wooden crate that had the word “ARMY” stamped on it.

“What’s that?”

“Reinforcements.”

Chaplin picked up a crowbar lying next to the crate.

“During the war, I sold war bonds with Mary and Doug,” Chaplin said. “We made some friends in the military. I called in a favor.”

He wedged the crowbar underneath the lid and pried it open against the groan of nails. Inside, there was a small arsenal: two rifles with bayonets, half a dozen grenades, and a backpack with a long hose coming from it.

“What’s that?”

“A flamethrower,” Chaplin said. “Surely the strongest man on Earth can still burn?”

“Does this mean you’re still in?” Houdini asked. “You’re not abandoning me after the horrible stunt I pulled?”

“I made a promise,” Chaplin said. “And you’re my friend. Besides, your stunt will probably triple our ticket sales. I’m not angry; I’m ecstatic.”

“Thank you,” Houdini said. “For sticking with me.”

He looked at the weapons in the crate. He had never so much as held a real pistol in his hand.

“I don’t like this,” he said. “We’re not equipped to use them. We’ll only end up getting hurt.”

“You know what will get us hurt?” Chaplin asked. “An eight-foot-tall man who can squeeze our heads like juicy grapes. Frankly, I’d rather get shot by you.”

“Mr. Chaplin is right,” Bess said. “If he’s as dangerous as you say, we’re going to have to be dangerous as well.”

“
We
?” Houdini said to his wife. “Absolutely not. You are getting on the first train back to New York in the morning.”

“I’ve been by your side since the day we met,” Bess said. “What makes you think this is any different?”

Houdini could not let Bess help him fight Atlas. He would target her—try to hurt her to get Houdini to give up the Eye. And if anything happened to her…

Life without Bess would be no life at all.

Houdini had to make her leave, at any cost.

“I’ve been unfaithful,” he said to her.

Bess stared at him, blank-faced. She seemed not to understand, as if Houdini had muttered something in an alien language.

“Did you hear me?” Houdini asked. “I’ve betrayed you. Not twenty-four hours ago.”

Chaplin let out a low whistle and focused intently on the ground between his feet. Bess simply stared at him. He may as well have told her that gravity now worked in the other direction.

“But you couldn’t—” she started, but she was interrupted by a man’s blood-curdling scream.

Houdini and Chaplin ran to the window just in time to see a guard booth in the distance go spinning upward into the air, as if caught by a whirlwind. It was weightless for a split second before it went crashing back down toward the ground. Houdini saw the terrified face of a guard still inside it.

“What on Earth was that?” Chaplin asked. “A tornado?”

Houdini shook his head; he knew exactly what it was. He pulled Chaplin from the window and flipped off the lights.

“There’s no way he could have gotten here this fast, not unless…”

He looked at his wife, her unreadable eyes still latched to him.

“He’s been following Bess.”