You Might As Well Die (19 page)

“Bright light is all around me,” Ernie’s voice said. “Golden harps play all day long.”

As Ernie’s voice was heard, Houdini watched the enraptured Viola. Then he bent and peeked under the table. He straightened up. He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for.

“Why her, Mr. MacGuffin?” Houdini wheezed. “Why do you speak through
this
woman?”

“Hossenfuss, please!” Tibbet hissed. “Respect the solemnity of the spirit circle.” Then he called out, “Spirit, do not depart because of the disrespectful observers here. Pay them no heed. Rather, give us your wisdom.”

“My wisdom, yes, of course,” the voice said. “Allow me to share my—my wisdom.”

Dorothy’s fear had quickly faded away. It had been replaced by indignation and downright spite. Real or unreal—alive, dead or undead—she was going to give MacGuffin a piece of her mind.

“Your
wisdom
?” she blurted. “You had none when you were alive, Ernie. How the hell did you get so wise in the afterlife? Did St. Peter pass you a crib sheet as you went through the pearly gates?”

“Shut your trap, boy,” Tibbet snapped. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”

Viola’s eyes peeked at Dorothy a moment, then quickly rolled back again as Ernie’s voice answered. “Who is that? I know that voice.”

“You bet your disembodied ass you know me,” Dorothy said. “You gave me your suicide note—don’t you remember?”

Dorothy watched Houdini’s eyes roam around the room.
What was Houdini looking for?

“Ohhhh,” Ernie’s voice said.

“I’ve been carrying that damned thing around like a deadweight since you jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. Who the hell do you think you are to dump that kind of responsibility on me?”

“Dottie? Is that you?”

“Damn right it’s me. Who do you think it is? Or were you handing out suicide notes like valentines, and now you don’t remember who you gave them to?”

Tibbet stood up. His narrow face looked enraged. “Be quiet, kid! You’re annoying the spirit.”

Ernie’s voice said, “Well, I—I thought if anyone would understand, you would.”

“Understand?” Dorothy said. “I told you to forget it, don’t you remember? Don’t kill yourself, I said. And now look where it got you. You’re playing parlor tricks for twenty-five bucks a head. Is that any way to spend eternity?”

Tibbet rounded the table. “Boy, I said that’s enough!”

Dorothy ignored him. “Ernie, you turned this blond nudie model into your own personal public address system from heaven—or wherever the hell you are. Is this what you were expecting from the afterlife? Some life, Ernie. What the hell was your hurry?”

Viola’s eyes rolled down, from white to their usual blue, and stared angrily at Dorothy.

Ernie spoke, but Viola’s lips didn’t move. “Now, hold on just a gosh-darn minute, Dorothy!”

“Dorothy?” Tibbet grabbed her shoulder.

“Dorothy?” Viola said in her own voice, and not the soothing one.

“Dorothy!”
Houdini yelled. “Get up. Now!”

Dorothy and Houdini jumped to their feet.

“I am Houdini!” he yelled, pointing at Viola. “And you are a fraud!”

He yanked the tablecloth. The single candlestick went flying. The flame went out. The room plunged into absolute darkness. Both Mrs. Tibbet and Sylvester screamed. Cissy laughed.

Then all hell broke loose.

T
he auctioneer raised his hammer. “Going once ... Going twice . . .”

The eighteenth painting, out of a collection of twenty-five, was on the block. Benchley’s fingers reached for the glass, tipped it up, felt for the button.

“Don’t you dare.” Lucy grabbed his hand and jammed it between her knees. “That’ll hold you.”

“No more bids?” the auctioneer said. He banged the hammer lightly, just one knock. “Sold to Bidder G for twenty-seven hundred dollars.”

Now that the painting was sold, Benchley tried to free his hand from between Lucy’s legs, but she was too strong. He felt as though he had his hand trapped in a silky vise.

“It’s wet,” she said. “And sticky.”

“Excuse me?”

She was fumbling with the champagne glass on top of the bidding mechanism. “It’s all wet and sticky. There must have been some sugary soda left in your glass. I hope it didn’t leak down into the—the thingamajig.”

Benchley thought of the wealthy art collector who had a final run-in with a sidewalk. What would Mickey Finn do if he found out Benchley’s hand was jammed in between Lucy’s lovely legs?

“You can let me go now.” He tried to free his hand again. “I get the point.”

“Not just yet.” She smiled devilishly. “I’ve got you just where I want you.”

I’m caught,
he thought,
between the devil and her petite, cute knees.

 

In the chaos and blackness, Houdini yelled, “Dorothy, follow me. Quick!”

Follow him?
She couldn’t even see him. Wisely, she had remembered to stow her cigarettes and a box of matches in the pocket of her boy’s britches. She dug out the box and lit a match.

She nearly jumped. Tibbet was standing right over her. Almost on top of her. He grabbed for her. Dorothy dodged away, cupping the lit match in her hand.

Houdini stood at the doorway, holding a wire in his fingers.

“Look there,” he yelled to Dorothy and pointed at the table. “It’s a built-in radio speaker.”

Dorothy glanced at the bare wooden table. In the center was a large hole, as wide as a plate. Set inside the hole was some kind of loudspeaker.

Ernie’s voice emanated from the speaker. “Dorothy? Viola, darling, are you all right? What’s going on in there?”

Dorothy’s gaze traced a wire that went from the speaker beneath the table, along one of the table legs, and into a hole in the carpet. The wire ran under the carpet to the opposite side of the room. At the edge of the carpet stood Houdini, tugging the wire in one hand and flinging open the door with the other.

“Come on. Our spirit is somewhere at the end of this wire!” Houdini disappeared into the dark hallway.

Dorothy sprang forward to follow him, but something held her back. Viola had grabbed onto Dorothy’s short jacket, digging her nails into the leather.

“You ruined my séance. You can’t go anywhere.”

“You bewitched my dog,” Dorothy said. “You can go to hell.”

Dorothy flung the match at Viola’s platinum blond hair. Dorothy had intended only to make her flinch so Viola would let her go. But with so much shellac, pomade or whatever was in the fake medium’s hairdo, it caught fire. The room lit up like daylight. Viola screamed so loud, Dorothy’s ears hurt.

Again Dorothy leaped to follow Houdini, but now Tibbet clutched her by the arm. He brought his fish face close to hers.

“Infidel! You’ve trespassed on our sacred ceremony.”

“Let me go,” Dorothy said, trying to wriggle free. “Let me go, you mesmerized moron.”

Viola continued to shriek, the blue and white flames dancing above her head like a halo, burning the chemical fumes more than her actual hair.

From the corner of Dorothy’s vision, she saw someone enter the room, sweep up the tablecloth from the floor and quickly wrap it around Viola’s head. The blazing fire went out, and the room fell into inky blackness again.

Dorothy then heard someone else stumble into the room. She recognized the clomp of Houdini’s heavy, old man’s shoes.

“You charlatan,” Houdini yelled. “Come back here. You can’t escape the World’s Foremost Escapist so easily!”

Cripes,
Dorothy thought,
even at the direst moments, he’s busy promoting himself.
Again she tried to free herself from Tibbet’s grasp. “Houdini, get over here. I’m in the clutches of a zealot.”

Dorothy heard Houdini’s walking stick knock against the edge of the table and whoosh through the air. It thudded against something. A man cursed in pain. But it wasn’t Tibbet.

Stumbling footsteps thumped toward the far door and disappeared. Another door creaked opened and the room’s bright overhead light flicked on. After the darkness, the brilliant light hurt Dorothy’s eyes. She blinked and saw the blond battleship filling up the nearest doorway.

The lady bellowed, “My darling, your beautiful wig!”

Dorothy turned to look. Viola’s charred blond hair lay in a clump on the floor. Viola stood before it; her frizzy dark hair was matted down against her skull. Now Dorothy understood why Viola had chosen the platinum blond look.

In the surprise of the moment, Dorothy again tried to pull away from the tight grip of Tibbet’s pincerlike fingers.

He snarled, “No, you don’t. You sinned against heaven and you sinned against this poor woman. You’re not leaving until your sins have been purged.”

“
All
my sins?” Dorothy asked. “Honey, we don’t have that kind of time. And this ‘poor woman’ wasn’t sinned against—merely singed. And only her wig, at that. Now, let me go!”

But Tibbet didn’t let go. He raised his other hand to strike her.

Houdini moved far faster than Tibbet. With the walking stick in his right hand, Houdini struck Tibbet’s fist with a hard crack, as though swatting a fly out of the air. With his left hand curled into a wide fist, Houdini landed a precise hard jab to Tibbet’s nose. It sounded like a twig breaking. Blood gushed and Tibbet yowled in pain as he clumsily covered his shattered nose.

Dorothy had never seen anything like it. Now,
that
was some trick.

“Come on,” Houdini yelled to Dorothy, rushing again toward the far door. “The charlatan went this way.”

Dorothy darted after him but was immediately stopped by Viola’s big blond mother. The woman blocked her way, staring furiously down at Dorothy. Imitating Houdini, Dorothy shot a sharp jab at the large woman’s large nose, but the lady brushed Dorothy’s slender arm aside.

Then, with thick, flabby forearms, Viola’s mother reached forward to grab Dorothy. But Dorothy dodged backward and realized she still held the box of matches. She quickly lit one and held it threateningly forward. The woman screeched and covered her big blond hairdo with her chubby bearlike hands.

Dorothy dodged around the big woman and hurried through the doorway after Houdini, tossing the dying match harmlessly to the carpet.

The hallway was dim and empty. Houdini was already way ahead of her. Dorothy spotted the loudspeaker wire snaking along the hardwood floor. She followed the wire to an adjacent room. No one was in the room. It contained only an old desk. On the desk was a big, shiny microphone mounted on a short tabletop stand. The microphone was plugged into a kind of black box, with dials and switches on the front and vacuum tubes on top—a radio mechanism or public address set.

Back out in the hallway, a door slammed. She heard Houdini’s voice growl, “You coward!”

She raced back into the hallway and followed the sound. She came into a tight, messy little kitchen. Houdini was hunched near the back door. He held what appeared to be lock-picking tools in his hands. He deftly manipulated the tools in the keyhole.

“The villain,” Houdini said over his shoulder to Dorothy. “He locked the door from the outside. It’s of little concern, however. I’ll have this lock picked faster than a jackrabbit’s sneeze.”

Dorothy watched in wonder as he worked.
His fingers move as fast as Irving Berlin’s on the piano,
she thought. “How did you know about the wire under the table? You spotted it in the dark?”

He glanced at her with a proud smile. “I felt it with my toes.”

“Your toes?”

“I slipped off my shoes and felt around. I’ve trained my toes to be as nimble as fingers. I can tie or untie any knot with my toes.”

She continued to watch, impatient now, as he worked on picking the lock. “Maybe you should use your toes to unlock that door.”

He made a perfunctory laugh and kept fiddling at the keyhole.

“Let me give it a try,” she said.

Before he could respond, Dorothy picked up his walking stick from the floor. She swung it. Houdini dodged aside, eyes wide. The end of the walking stick shattered the door’s porthole-sized window. She carefully reached through the jagged opening. The remaining blades of glass scratched lines on the sleeve of her leather jacket. She twisted the outside knob and the door opened.

“Well-done,” Houdini said, amused and impressed.

“I’m just following your lead,” she said. “So lead.”

Houdini pulled open the door and they found themselves in a narrow, dimly lit alley. It was littered with trash, debris and dark puddles of muck. Footprints were just barely visible after the first puddle, and they raced forward.

Houdini, despite his age and cumbersome costume, was clearly as fit as an Olympic athlete. He shot down the alleyway like a greyhound. Dorothy, in spite of her youth, was hobbled by her heavy shoes and slowed by several years of smoking, drinking and physical inactivity. Houdini turned left down one side alley and then right down another.

He was soon well ahead of Dorothy. Within just a few dozen yards, he had rapidly outdistanced her. She feared she might lose sight of him. Lost and alone in the dark, narrow labyrinth of alleyways was not where she wanted to be after midnight on Halloween. She pushed herself to keep running.
Curse that MacGuffin! This was all his doing.

Then she realized something. In her tirade at MacGuffin during the séance, she hadn’t even asked him if the paintings at Snath’s office—the same paintings at that evening’s auction—were authentic.

Oh, the hell with it,
she thought, quickly losing steam. She began to slow down.

From somewhere far ahead of her, Houdini egged her on. “Quick, Mrs. Parker. This way!”

She forced herself to keep going. The alleyway twisted and turned. Houdini was well ahead of her now. So when she lost sight of him, she followed his wet footprints. She dodged around battered trash cans and stacks of wooden fruit crates. She ran through discarded newspapers and over broken bottles. At some points she raced through pitch blackness and didn’t know what she was running or stumbling through.