Magician's Fire (7 page)

Harry hid in the alley. The wall behind him was damp, unpleasant smells drifted up from the ground, and a rat crept past one of his boots. But he let none of that distract him.
Just
like
a
trick
—the slightest hesitation or fumble would lead to disaster.
But
there
won't be any hesitations or fumbles
, he told himself as he peered across the street.

Drifting along it was a discordant twanging. Arthur, looking a bit nervous, was hesitantly strumming the ukulele just outside the Hotel Crosby. Harry had carefully chosen him, not Billie, for the task, asking him to attempt one of Billie's most complicated songs—a ballad about a cowboy trying to cross the Mississippi River—and knowing the results would be particularly awful. Billie was part of the plan as well, and by now she would have taken up her position.

“You stop that din! You stop it now!”

The doorman was shaking his fist. As they came down the marble steps, a few of the hotel's guests were looking at the tweed-suited, ukulele-twanging boy, one lady even covering her ears, and the doorman had had enough. He was stomping down the steps, his fist still raised, his voice bellowing in Arthur's direction.

“Scram! You hear?”

Arthur scrammed. He ran as fast as he could, but the doorman was nearly upon him and would easily have grabbed Arthur if the garbage can by the nearby railings had not toppled forward.
Perfect
. Crouched behind the metal can, Billie had done her bit, kicking it forward at just the right time. The doorman stumbled straight into it, his fist flailing after the fleeing Arthur. He didn't even see Billie as she darted away from the railing in the opposite direction.

And
he
definitely
won't see me
, thought Harry as he flew up the marble steps and slid through the revolving doors. As they spun him around, he peered through, made out what he needed, and decided his next move. Stepping out into the lobby, he lunged sideways. A couple of porters pushed a luggage cart, and a clerk was working at the reception counter, but no one saw him because he was safely behind the large aspidistra plant to the left of the doors. Not one of the plant's leaves was even slightly trembling—
nicely
done
.

The clerk stood up from the counter and was heading across the lobby toward a pair of double doors as Harry slid out from the aspidistra, hurried across the hall, and glided behind the counter. Grabbing the hotel guest book, he bundled himself into a cupboard.

He pulled the door almost shut, leaving a tiny shaft of light to spill onto the pages as he turned them. The names of all the hotel's guests were written there, along with their room numbers and the date they had signed in. His finger slid down the list, but he didn't recognize any names. Then his finger stopped, halfway down the ledger's second page.

“Boris Zell. Arrived September fourteenth. Room 760.”

So there he was. Boris Zell, that was his full name. Boris Zell, who was a member of the Grand Gabrovo Order of Magical Illusionists. Boris Zell, who had been seen at the theater. Boris Zell, who had uncannily turned up at the library just now—so uncannily that Arthur and Billie, with some fairness, had put it down to actual magical powers. Harry closed the ledger, slid out of the cupboard, and rummaged about the counter, searching for any possible clue about the guest in Room 760.

His hands flew around, finding nothing. But there was a door near the counter on which was written “Manager's Office,” so he decided to try that. He pushed at the handle and found it was locked. Another pick was needed and his other hand was already reaching back toward something he had spotted on the counter, a dirty fork and plate, the remains of the reception clerk's breakfast.
Perfect
. Harry grabbed the fork, wiped it on his sleeve, bent back three of its prongs, peered into the lock's keyhole, and curved the fourth prong until it was exactly the right shape. He pushed the prong into the keyhole, angled it upward, and…

The lock sprang open. Harry bent back the prongs and replaced the fork neatly on the plate. Then he slid into the manager's office and immediately noticed the day's mail, a knotted bundle on the manager's desk. He undid it and riffled through the letters. Two of them were for Mr. Boris Zell, both in Bulgarian, which Harry didn't understand, so he tossed them aside. But filed with them was a telegram in English, addressed to Boris too. Harry lifted it up and read it carefully.

Just a single sheet of paper that would have cost twenty cents to send, no more. But this was without question a very important discovery, and an unsettling one too. Harry dropped into a nearby chair to take it all in.
Why
would
anyone
want
to
make
off
with
poor
Herbie
in
the
first
place?
Here, resting in his hand, was a possible and very unpleasant answer to Billie's question.

The game, Herbie had called it. Magicians studied other magicians, seeking to uncover the secrets to each other's tricks. This had been going on for more than a thousand years, Herbie had said. But what if one magician chose to take the game a little too far? What if a magician tried to get hold of the secret to some tricks, not simply by watching…but by any means he could?

“Poor Herbie,” Harry muttered.

The telegram proved it. It was clearly a reply to one Boris had sent earlier, seeking a booking for his show. Nothing wrong with that—except for the list of acts Boris was offering. They were Herbie's tricks. “Bicycling over Spikes” must refer to the one in which Herbie floated effortlessly over the bed of spikes as if riding a bicycle, and “The Flying Knives” and “Spider up Sleeve” were Herbie's too. Boris was promising to perform Herbie's tricks—yet how could he do that if he didn't know their secrets? So that was the telegram. But what about the shout that had been heard that night?

“What's yours is mine and always shall be!”

Herbie hadn't just disappeared. He had been kidnapped. Boris had snatched him from his dressing room—and if the Bulgarian was ruthless enough to do that, what might he be doing now? Would he have imprisoned Herbie somewhere, starving him until he gave up what he knew? Or did he have other devices, as mysterious and sinister as his purple smoke, with which he could persuade the old man to blurt out his dearly kept secrets…?

The office door was opening. Sunk in the chair, Harry had almost forgotten where he was. Stuffing the telegram into his pocket, he leaped up and rolled under the desk as the hotel manager, a short, bustling man, rushed in. Fortunately, he left the door open behind him, so Harry was able to slide out to the safety of the reception counter.
I'll break into Room 760
, he decided. In there, he would discover clues to how Boris had performed this kidnapping, where he might have hidden poor Herbie, and more besides.

But for now, he just needed to get out from behind the counter. Peering over it, he made out the porters and some guests. No one was looking directly toward him, so he made a dash for it, sliding across the marble floor toward the aspidistra.
Perfectly
timed
, he thought, and then he saw something and realized he was much, much too late.

A bulky figure was striding across the lobby. A dark cape swept down to his shoes; a dark hat tipped over his face. The figure stopped and looked straight at Harry, who was still several feet away from the plant.

It was Boris Zell.

Those cruel eyes glittered. A lip flexed, and above it, the oiled mustache curled. On the dark cape, the snake-and-sword brooch gleamed. Worst of all, as Harry skidded toward the aspidistra, the telegram rustled in his pocket, evidence of Boris Zell's utterly ruthless plan.

Ruthless
regarding
Herbie
, Harry thought.
And
probably
just
as
bad
for
anyone
who
tried
to
help
him.

“You! You were there…” Those piercing eyes narrowed. “Last night at the theater…I saw you!”

The face darkened. Nostrils flared. Harry decided not to hang around. Besides, the bustling hotel manager had just slammed out of his office and was pointing a finger straight at Harry.

“He's been in my office! Gone through the post and everything! Stolen something too, I'd say. Catch him quick!”

Harry dived past Zell. He tried to reach the revolving doors but found himself staring at the doorman, who was marching back in. Harry struck off across the lobby instead, but everywhere he looked, porters, clerks, and even some of the guests were running toward him. He threw himself through a pair of double doors. His boots pounded down a corridor, voices bellowing behind him.

“Stop him!”

“Thief!”

His boots pounded on, and his heart pounded even faster. On he raced, toward more double doors. He risked a glance behind him—his pursuers were getting closer. He slammed through the doors. Darting to the left, he burst into a stairwell and raced up three flights of stairs, his pursuers' cries spiraling up after him.

“We've got him now!”

“Block off the other staircase!”

“He can't keep going up forever!”

More doors. Another corridor, on the hotel's third floor. Windows ran along one side of it, and as Harry flashed past them, he turned his neck so that he could study their shiny brass fastenings. Down by his side, his fingers fluttered, rehearsing the lightning-quick action he would need. Up ahead, he saw that the corridor turned
. It might work. It just might
… Racing around the corner, he glanced back. He could hear his pursuers' stampeding boots, but they hadn't reached the corner, not yet. His arm flung toward a window, his fingers threw open the fastening at lightning speed, and…

He climbed out through the open window and shimmied along the sill. Harry reached the end and, grabbing a drainpipe, pushed the window shut behind him with his left boot. On one leg, he balanced at the sill's end, out of view. Although the sound was muffled by the glass, he heard his pursuers' boots thud past.

“Faster! He's only a boy!”

“Catch him!”

The
Hotel
Crosby
Disappearing
Act
. As far as the hotel porters were concerned, he would have completely vanished, leaving no evidence at all. Who would be keen eyed enough to notice that the latch of a single window wasn't fastened?
But
the
trick's not done yet.
Balancing at the edge of a third-floor windowsill, he knew it was only a matter of time before someone looked up and spotted him. He needed to get down, and staring at the street below, he saw a way.

He waited, watching, calculating the right moment. Then he let go of the drainpipe, stepped off the sill, and plummeted thirty feet into a garbage cart trundling along the street.

Harry crashed deep into the garbage. Potato peelings, soggy newspaper, and the remains of meals slithered around him. Gagging, he gripped the edge of the cart and swung himself out onto the cobblestones, trying to ignore the slime leaking out of his shoes and the shouts of the driver as the cart trundled away.

He ignored the potato peelings on his jacket and the sludge dripping from his hair as he stumbled off down the alley, slanting left, weaving right until the Hotel Crosby was far behind. Stopping by a water pump, he worked the handle up and down, rinsing himself off. Then he hurried on through more alleys, more streets, until he arrived at the sidewalk corner where his friends were waiting, as had been agreed.

“Billie? Arthur? It's me!”

They didn't look up. They seemed deep in conversation. Billie was talking at high speed, waving her hands in the air, and Arthur was busily making notes on a little pad.
What
are
they
doing?
Harry walked right up to Billie and tugged her sleeve.

“The plan worked great. Thanks, you two.” Harry knelt and picked up his shoeshine box, which Billie had kept safe for him. “Boris Zell, that's his full name, and he's staying in Room 760. And I found something else out too—it's serious.”

Something was up with them. Billie had crossed her arms again, and Arthur was avoiding Harry's eye. But, at the same time, they couldn't help being interested in what he was saying, and the more the story flew out of him, the more interested they looked, particularly when he tugged the telegram from his pocket.

“So Herbie has been kidnapped?” Arthur pored over the telegram. “But that's terrible!”

“I'm trying to think of another explanation, Artie.” Billie inspected the paper and handed it back to Harry. “But what Harry says adds up, unfortunately.”

“We should tell the police.” Arthur frowned. “Herbie could be in real danger—”

“It's not that easy!” Harry had already thought this through. “Who's going to believe us? Three kids, and all we've got is this telegram. They're not going to arrest Zell just because of that. The most they'll do is ask him a few questions, and then he'll know he's in danger. He'll check out of Hotel Crosby and vanish, simple as that. How are we going to help Herbie then? No, we need to get into Zell's room and get more proof. Then the police will
have
to believe us.”

He watched his friends. After a while, the two of them nodded, although Billie also wrinkled her nose.

“What's that smell?” Her eyes fixed on a potato peeling still on Harry's sleeve.

“I noticed it too.” Trying to hide a smile, Arthur took a couple of steps back from Harry. “Pretty nasty.”

“It doesn't matter.” Harry brushed the peeling off. “I was just getting to that part when I had to make a run for it and—”

“You were seen?” Billie looked straight at him. “Right, we're definitely taking charge now!”

“What? Why?”

“You can't go back in there! Doesn't matter if you walk, sneak, or crawl, they'll be looking out for you.”

“She's right, Harry.” Arthur shrugged. “If they saw you, they'll know your face. You'll never get in, distraction or no distraction—”

“'Course I'm right!” Billie was pacing. “The Atlantic City Laundry Caper, Artie! That settles it.”

The
Atlantic
City
Laundry
Caper.
What was she talking about?
No time for Billie's stories
, thought Harry, spinning around. Apart from anything else, he was too busy thinking about something else Billie had said. She was right—it was going to be very hard to get back into the Hotel Crosby now that he had been seen—and that was extremely serious, as far as their plan was concerned. Harry ran across the street and hopped on top of a fire hydrant, nibbling a fingernail as he did so.
For
Herbie's sake, he had to get back in—but how?
He peered up at the tall, dark shape of the hotel, a few streets away. Together with the buildings around it, it loomed high in the air…

High
in
the
air.

“Harry?” Arthur's voice, strangely wobbly, called after him. “What are you doing?”

Harry stood on the fire hydrant, perfectly balanced. The plan to rescue Herbie was what mattered, and in the nick of time, he had thought up the next part of it. Not only that, but he knew where he would be able to get his hands on the equipment he needed. Not only
that
, but he had spotted, trundling toward him and gathering speed, a streetcar with the number 47 chalked on its front. He extended an arm.

“Harry!” It was Arthur again. “Why won't you listen to us? Why won't you…”

The streetcar swept past and Harry flew off the hydrant. Streetcar Number 47 would take him where he needed to go, and it wasn't hard to hold on, not after all the practice he had put into the trick of his, crossing Sixth Avenue by leaping between streetcars just like this one.
More
than
just
a
trick
now
, he thought as he clung to the streetcar's side, ducking to avoid a shower of sparks. He swung around, trying to see his friends.

They were standing there, down the street. That troubled, puzzled look was back on Artie's face. Billie stood next to him, looking a little fiercer, but she had an arm around Artie for some reason. Harry stared and tried to make them out more clearly.

But sparks kept showering, making it impossible to see. And by the time the glittering flare had cleared, the streetcar had swerved around the corner.

His friends were nowhere to be seen.