Whoopsy checked in by phone later that day. “Any news from the prisoners yet?”
“They’re not prisoners; they’re just being questioned in connection with the case,” I replied.
“Sweetie, you are so naive. A good-looking cop turns on the charm, and—”
“I haven’t noticed him making much effort to be charming to me,” I said grumpily.
“He’s had them in custody—”
“They’re not in custody,” I insisted.
“—for hours.”
I glanced at the clock. It was late afternoon by now, and I was more worried than I was letting on to anyone. “Don’t worry. Barclay’s got lawyers.”
“Speaking from experience,” Whoopsy said, “a fat lot of good that’ll be in dealing with police persecution.”
“How about you?” I decided to change the subject. “Any luck in the stacks today?”
“Yeah! Delilah and I found something interesting. An account of a magician who vanished onstage.”
“One that Max doesn’t know about?”
“It’s not part of our case,” he said. “This was yonks ago.”
“How many yonks?”
“This was back in the days of vaudeville. I looked the guy up. He’s been dead for decades. Natural causes.”
“But, at some point, he vanished onstage?” This was the first case we’d come across that sounded at all similar to ours.
“Well, he didn’t exactly vanish,” said Whoopsy. “He was onstage one Saturday afternoon, doing his regular act, and he gradually got sort of… transparent for a while.”
“Huh?”
“Kind of see-through. Not invisible, but an eyewitness claimed he could see through him.”
“Was it part of the act?” I asked.
“No, apparently the magician didn’t realize what was happening. Just kept on delivering his patter, as if nothing odd was going on. And then, slowly, the effect reversed and he looked normal again.”
“Did anyone ask him how he’d done it?”
“Yes. But he had no idea. It just happened.”
“Hmm.”
“We found this account under a whole category of similar cases we’re reading about, all spontaneous and involuntary,” said Whoopsy. “So far, no real disappearees; they’re all just people who got a little transparent for a while. This one rang a bell with me, though, because he was doing a magic act onstage at the time.”
“Good work,” I said. “Let me know if you turn up anything else.”
“Roger that. I’ll check in later to see if the prisoners have been freed.”
“They’re not—” But he’d already hung up.
I walked over to the table where Duke, Dixie, and Satsy sat with piles of books. They all wore identical expressions of anxiety.
“Was that news about Max and Barclay?” Duke asked.
“I’m afraid not.” I was about to relate Whoopsy’s anecdote when the bell chimed, heralding a new arrival. I peeked eagerly around a bookcase to see who it was. “Oh. Hieronymus.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice. I glanced behind me and saw three pairs of shoulders sag after hearing me greet him. I relieved a little of my nervous tension by saying snappishly, “Where have you been all day?”
Hieronymus glared at me, then walked to the back of the shop with his head down, looking sullen.
“That boy is useless,” I muttered.
“Someone ought to tell him that Max is being questioned by the police,” said Satsy.
“If ‘someone’ means me,” I said, “then it can wait. I’m in no mood for his sulks.”
“I’ll do it.” Dixie patted my hand. “You shouldn’t have to do everything, Esther.”
She was a sweet girl. “Thanks, Dixie. He’s probably gone down to the lab. It’s—”
“Back of the shop, down the stairs?”
“Right. Uh, the lab is a little weird.” I added, “So is Hieronymus.”
She made a pretty little gesture indicating she didn’t mind, then went off to inform Hieronymus that his master had been taken down to the station house by Detective Lopez.
I stared at the display board, wondering if there was any relevance to the story Whoopsy had just told me.
I read what I’d already written under the names of each victim: Not afraid. Wanted to stay. Spontaneous? MADE TO DISAPPEAR.
Why would someone or something make four magicians’ assistants disappear?
This one rang a bell with me, though, Whoopsy had said, because he was doing a magic act onstage at the time.
But that incident wasn’t really similar to our cases. The guy hadn’t vanished; he’d just gone a bit transparent. And it had happened to him, not to an assistant.
Why make a magician’s assistant disappear?
Or maybe… maybe that wasn’t the most obvious question, I realized slowly. Maybe the question I’d been overlooking was…
I gasped. “Of course!”
Duke jumped. “What?”
“There’s something else we know about the victims,” I said. “Something so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”
“That’s how it is with obvious things,” Satsy said. “But, darlin’, what’s obvious?”
I wrote it under Golly’s name, then wrote the same word under the name of each of the other victims: Onstage.
“Every one of them disappeared onstage,” I said. “While in performance.”
“Well… yes. So?” Satsy shrugged. Then his eyes widened. “Oh. Oooh.”
“Great balls of fire!” said Duke.
“As far as we know, these are the only disappearees so far,” I said. “Since they were all onstage at the time…”
“Then that can’t be coincidence,” said Satsy.
“At least, coincidence seems unlikely,” I said. “That means that either an entity causing these disappearances specifically wants the victims to disappear during performance, or else the right conditions for disappearance only occur during performance.”
“Hot damn, I think you’re onto something, Esther!” cried Duke. “Pardon my language.”
“So why would someone or something want the disappearances to occur during a performance?” I asked.
“Publicity?” Satsy guessed. “To spread panic? To demonstrate power? To prove something to the public?”
“Hmm. Public attention,” I mused. “That might explain why there’ve been multiple disappearances. Maybe the, er, perpetrator never realized that the Herlihys would keep the disappearance of someone as almost-famous as Golly Gee so quiet after it happened.”
“Right,” Duke said. “Maybe the son of a gun thought it’d be in all the morning papers or something!”
“And when that didn’t happen,” Satsy said, “he… she… it… uh, the perpetrator caused another disappearance, hoping this one would draw attention! And when that didn’t work, either—”
“Wait a minute,” I said, spotting the flaws.
“What?”
“I don’t think it makes sense.” I shook my head. “If you wanted to be sure the disappearances would be noticed, would you really choose a D-list pop singer in an off-Broadway show with a scant audience?”
“Well…”
“And when that didn’t create public furor, would your next victim be Clarisse Staunton, an amateur performing in a private household for some children?”
“Hmm. I see your point,” Duke said.
I nodded. “If public attention is the goal, why pick these victims? Why not choose a really famous act, such as David Copperfield? Why not arrange for a disappearance to happen on live television? Or in front of a packed house on Broadway? Why not choose someone whose disappearance would be difficult to keep quiet for days—or even hours?”
“Like the mayor!” said Satsy.
“Or Donald Trump!” said Duke.
“Oooh,” said Satsy. “Wouldn’t it be cool to make Donald Trump disappear?”
“Also,” I said, “once you realized that Joe Herlihy wasn’t eager to publicize what had happened, why go to the trouble of making more victims vanish? Why not just make sure that a bright spotlight got turned on Golly’s disappearance, despite the magician’s silence?”
“Good point,” Duke said. “So far, there’s just one inside-page tabloid story about Miss Golly Gee and one quick paragraph about the Great Hidalgo misplacing his assistant during his act. That seems like a pretty pitiful PR effort for something powerful enough to make four people disappear within a week.”
“So, all things considered,” I said, “I think we can say that the quest for public attention is not why the disappearances are occurring onstage.”
“So what else could be the reason?” Duke wondered aloud.
“Someone is trying to destroy the acts?” Satsy suggested.
“An enemy of all four magicians?” I considered this. “Well, Barclay’s a banker, and Joe’s married to a producer. So I’m sure they’ve each got more enemies than we could count. It would probably be more productive to figure out who Duke’s and Delilah’s enemies are and narrow it down from there.”
“All my enemies are in the condom business,” Duke said. “In magic, as far as I know, I’ve got only friends.”
That was one of the advantages of its being his hobby rather than his profession, I supposed.
“I don’t think Delilah has any enemies,” Satsy said. “Especially not in the condom business.”
“Hmm.” It seemed rather unlikely that the magicians or the assistants, with their varied backgrounds, all shared an enemy. Still, we couldn’t rule out the possibility until we could get them all together for a detailed group interview.
I drummed my fingers on the table, thinking aloud. “Why else might someone want the disappearances to occur during performance?”
“A joke?” Satsy suggested. “A particularly cruel one.”
“That’s a possibility,” I agreed. “Each time it happens, the magician panics in front of a live audience.”
Satsy said, “Some sick perpetrator might find that hysterically funny.”
“You mean all of this might just be done for kicks?” Duke said in outrage.
“Maybe,” Satsy said.
I leaned back in my chair, contemplating another argument. “On the other hand, maybe it’s just that, for some reason, the conditions for disappearance only occur during performance.”
“In which case,” Duke said, “we’re back to asking, why does someone want to make the victims disappear?”
“If their disappearance is something that someone wants,” I said, starting to chase my tail. “Do you think it’s at all possible that the disappearances are just…” I shrugged. “I don’t know… an accident?”
“If they are,” Satsy said, “then why is this happening all of a sudden?”
“Yeah. After all, I never made Dolly disappear before,” Duke pointed out.
“And four disappearances? In one week? An accident?” Satsy shook his head. “You’re getting tired, Esther.”
“Yes, I am.” It had been a while since I’d had a good night’s sleep, and my brain was so stuffed with weird theories and demented speculation, I felt as if it would start dribbling out my ears any moment. I put my head down on my arms and closed my eyes, trying to relax.
I heard footsteps, then Dixie’s voice. “Well, now, that Hieronymus isn’t so bad!”
I didn’t even open my eyes. Just listened.
She pulled up a chair. “He’s painfully shy, poor guy, and it sure is easy to understand why. But he’s kind of sweet, if you just draw him out a little.”
“Hmph,” I said.
“We got to chatting for a while.”
“My Dixie can make friends with anyone,” Duke said proudly.
“By the way, Esther?” Dixie said.
“Yes?” I yawned.
“Hieronymus says that he thinks we’re on the wrong track.”
“Of course he does,” I grumbled. The cellar-dwelling creep.
“He’s been out all day chasing down a lead,” she said. “He says he thinks the culprit in the disappearances is a mundane. He says we should look for someone with access to the prop boxes.”
“Well, that makes some sense,” said Duke.
“He’s really a very bright young man, Daddy. And a good listener, too.”
“Don’t tell Lopez about this,” I muttered. “I had all kinds of access to the crystal cage. And he already suspects me…”
“Pardon, Esther?” Dixie said.
“She’s awfully tired,” Duke said. “Let her be, honey.”
I felt someone pat my back, and Satsy said, “Why don’t you take a little nap, Esther?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll, uh… I should, um…”
I fell asleep with my cheek pressed against today’s edition of the Exposé.
The sound of someone pounding on something woke me.
As I opened one eye I realized where I was and lifted my head. I looked around, disoriented and groggy. I was alone at the table. The Exposé was creased and smeared from my sleeping with my face pressed against it. It was dark outside the shop window. Someone had turned on a light nearby—not close enough to wake me, but close enough to ensure that I wouldn’t wake up in the dark.
The pounding continued, and I realized someone was at the door. I rose to go see what the problem was, but then a note propped up near my arm caught my eye. I picked it up and read it, ignoring the pounding for a moment:
Esther,
Barclay called Dixie’s cell phone. He and Max are free! Details to follow.
We’re locking the front door and going to dinner. Then Duke and Dixie are coming with me to the Pony Expressive, to see the show and keep Delilah company. She needs moral support. Max and Barclay are coming back here to feed you and then bring you to the club, too. We all think you need a night off.
Satsy
Relieved that Max and Barclay weren’t behind bars now, I figured I’d join them for a quick bite and then go home. Right now, my idea of a perfect night off was a hot bath followed by a quiet glass of wine and an early bedtime.
I looked up when I heard footsteps. Hieronymus came from the back of the shop, heading for the front door. He jumped nervously when he saw me, then gave me an exasperated glare.
“Didn’t you notith the knocking?” he said.
“Um, yeah. I just woke up. Wait,” I said, as he continued toward the door. “What time is it? Are we closed now?”
Hieronymus opened the door, brushed past the person standing on the doorstep, and walked away. I stuck my head out the door and called after him, “Wait! Where are you going? What did you find out today?” He pretended not to hear me, and I didn’t feel like running after him. “Oh, good riddance anyhow,” I muttered.
“Excuse me,” said the man on the doorstep.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” I said. “I think we’re closed now.”
“I’m looking for Dr. Zadok.” He was tall, slim, dressed in a nice tweed jacket, and wearing a well-pressed shirt without a tie. Clean-shaven, he appeared to be about fifty, looked like he came from India, and spoke with a Masterpiece Theater accent.
“He’s not in just now,” I said. “If you can come back during business hours tomorrow…”
“This isn’t bookstore business. May I wait for him?”
The man seemed quite respectable, so I decided to let him in. Just to be on the safe side, though, I said, “Actually, Max is on his way here now. It should be just a few minutes.”
“He’s all right, then?” the stranger asked eagerly.
I glanced at him in surprise as I turned on some lights. “Yes.” I showed him toward the table and chairs. “Did you have reason to think he wasn’t?”
“He hasn’t answered any of my recent e-mails.”
“He doesn’t have a computer anymore,” I said.
The stranger stared at me for a moment, then closed his eyes. His lips worked silently, and I had the impression he was trying to control his temper. “Ah,” he said at last, opening his eyes. “Well, then. That explains it. And I seem to have wasted a trip.”
“Why didn’t you just phone?”
“I did. Several times. No answer.”
“Oh.” I had already noticed that Max had no answering machine. “Well, he’s been out of the shop a lot lately, Mr.…”
He exclaimed, “I’m so sorry! Do forgive my lapse of manners. Allow me to introduce myself. Lysander Singh.”
“Esther Diamond.” We shook hands, then took our seats. “Can I offer you something? Tea? Water? Um…” I wasn’t sure what else we had on hand. I definitely didn’t want to search that big cupboard for the aqua vitae.
“Nothing just now, thank you.”
He studied my face, looking as if he was trying to decide whether to say something about my appearance. I scrubbed self-consciously at my cheeks, realizing they must be filthy with tabloid ink. “We’ve been working so hard lately,” I said. “I, uh, fell asleep on the job.”
His brows lifted. “You’re an employee here?”
“No, I’m… a friend of Max’s.”
“One whom he trusts enough to leave in charge here, I see.”
His tone was courteous, but I sensed disapproval.
“Yes,” I said.
“May I ask where Max is?”
“Police station.” I was still groggy. Otherwise I might not have answered so directly.
“Has there been a mishap?”
“You might say that.”
“Has the shop been burgled?” he asked in alarm.
“No… I… It’s complicated.”
“I see.” After an awkward moment, he asked, “Is Max’s assistant here? I think perhaps I should speak with him.”
“That was him just now,” I grumbled. “Leaving. Without warning, apology, or explanation.”
“That was Hieronymus?”
“You know Hieronymus?” I asked in surprise.
“Well, we’ve never met…” His gaze roamed over the books stacked all over the table, then moved to the display board, which was covered in my multicolored notes. After a moment, he said faintly, with a frown, “There’ve been four mystical disappearances here?”
I gasped and rose to my feet. “Who are you?”
“As I said, Lysan—”
“Where did you come from?” I demanded, backing away in dawning fear. Could he be our nemesis?
“Altoona,” he said. “Young woman, there’s no reason to—”
“Altoona?” The word sounded exotic and otherworldly. “Is that in another dimension?”
He blinked. “Er, no, it’s in Pennsylvania.”
“What? Oh!” I stopped backing away. “Oh. That Altoona.” My family had once stopped there for lunch on a road trip during my childhood. “You… Are you causing these disappearances?”
“So there are disappearances occurring?” Then realizing what I’d just asked, he added, “No, of course I’m not causing anything. And who, may I ask, are you?”
“I’ll ask the questions, Singh,” I said, imitating Lopez’s cop tone. “What’s your business here?”
“Now see here, young woman—”
“Sit down,” I barked as he started to rise.
Startled, he sat.
“You’re no friend of Max’s,” I said, attempting to bluff the truth out of him.
“I never claimed to be,” he said tersely.
“Well?” I prodded in a menacing tone.
“I’m… a colleague of his.”
I gasped. “You’re with the Collegium!”
“He told you about the Collegium?” Max’s colleague sounded scandalized. His gaze flashed to the display board and he added, his tone growing appalled, “He’s told you about these disappearances!”
“So that’s how you know Hieronymus’ name,” I said. “You knew he’d been assigned to Max as an assistant.”
“As the most longstanding representative of the Magnum Collegium in the eastern half of the United States at this time,” he said, “I, in fact, authorized the assignment.”
I returned to my chair and sank into it. “Well, now we know who to blame.”
“For the disappearances?” he said in confusion.
“For burdening Max with that sulking, smirking, uncommunicative cellar-dweller who’s never around when you need him.”
“Am I to understand that you’re criticizing a junior member of the Collegium?” His tone could have frosted glass.
“I’m also criticizing you, Lysander,” I said, feeling all the crankiness of the day return in full force.
His posture became even more rigid. “I realize, from the reports of his apprenticeship, that the poor boy’s unfortunate affliction prevents him from uttering certain incantations accurately, causing some unpredictable results. But I don’t see how that is any of your affair, young woman. Moreover, I would have thought that compassion rather than contempt would be the civilized response to his predicament, even in a savage outpost like New York City.”
“‘Savage outpost’? Hey, this is the greatest city in— Wait, no, never mind.” I controlled myself and focused on the most relevant part of his comments. “Look, if Hieronymus’ speech impediment makes him a danger—”
“I didn’t say that. Besides, there was only that one mishap.”
“Only that one?” I repeated.
“I think only a petty personality would count the other incidents.” My companion eyed me coldly.
I thought of the orange explosion in Max’s cellar the other day. “How many have there been?”
“Ah. I begin to understand,” he said in a snide tone. “You’re hoping to replace Hieronymus. You have ambitions to follow in Max’s footsteps.”
“Of course not,” I snapped. “I’m hoping to go back onstage as Virtue and move the show to Broadway.”
“What?”
“I’m involved with these people because of the disappearances,” I said. “And my objection to Hieronymus is that he’s rude, and also the worst team player I’ve ever met.”
“Fighting Evil is not a team sport, young woman!”
“My name is Esther.”
“And it’s not entirely surprising that Hieronymus’ manners might be a bit strained, considering that Max is evidently giving mundanes free access to his work, his lab, and the secrets of the Collegium! This is most irregular!”
“Yeah, I guessed that,” I said. “But we’ve got a huge problem on our hands here, and Max can’t handle it all alone. By now, half a dozen of us have been on the job for forty-eight hours—though, frankly, it feels like much, much longer than that—and we’re still a long way from solving these disappearances or finding the victims. And I don’t see that Max’s ‘assistant’ is helping him much.”
“You are no judge of his assistant’s contributions,” he said. “Or of the challenges facing us in our sacred work.”
Few things spark my temper more effectively than pomposity. “Well, at least the Collegium knew what it was doing when it sent Max here, where there’s real work to be done,” I said, “and sent you to Altoona, where you can enjoy your sacred status in peace and quiet.”
He rose to his feet in offended fury, and I didn’t tell him to sit back down. I was half hoping he’d just storm out the door. “I’ll have you know, young woman, Altoona was a seething cauldron of riotous demonic Evil when I went there. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to frighten small children at bedtime—”
“What kind of twisted person would want to do that?”
“—or make experienced sorcerers shudder with dread, all you had to do was mention the doomed name of Altoona.”
I blinked. “You’re kidding me.”
“It was thought to be a place beyond redemption, beyond retrieval, beyond all hope!”
“Altoona?”
“You have no idea of the challenges I faced there,” he declared. “All alone, a young mage with no help, against overwhelming odds.”
“Altoona, PA?” I said.
“It was a horrific battle, and at times there seemed to be no end in sight. But with talent, grit, and determination…” He took a breath and nodded. “Yes, I succeeded in the end.”
“The same Altoona where I had a grilled-cheese sandwich at some diner when I was eight? That Altoona?”
“And so Altoona is the peaceful hamlet we know today. But make no mistake, young woman.” He raised a warning finger. “Evil still lurks at the edges of Altoona, searching for a weakness, awaiting its opportunity to regain a foothold there and once again grow in strength to dominate the entire town!”
“You’re sure we’re talking about the same Altoona?”
“Positive. So I know whereof I speak when I say that Max should perform his duties here without involving or endangering mundanes. Ours is a solitary vocation of individuals specifically gifted and equipped to deal with the perils we face.” He sat back down, apparently past his pique now.
“Not to minimize your achievements, Lysander,” I said slowly, “but Altoona is not exactly the Big Apple, after all.”
“Oh?” Lysander gave me a worldly wise smirk and gestured to the display board covered in my notes about the four mystical disappearances. “And when was the last time you heard of anything like this happening in Altoona?”