Albert’s got a seat near the front: got in early and was rewarded with a little table off to the right of the stage. Let the waitress sort him out with a serviceable Martini and got himself comfy to enjoy the show. Eyes on the prize, that’s the first thing to remember. The second, and only microscopically less crucial, is to make sure the prize doesn’t have eyes on you. It’s a right weird feeling, when you’re surveilling somebody who doesn’t have an earthly that he’s being watched: it’s like you’re looking at them through a two-way mirror, they’re right in front of you and yet utterly oblivious. But you need to keep your nerve, which is harder than some folks might think, because some little cautious part of you just can’t fucking believe they ain’t tumbled you, can’t believe they don’t know you’re there and aren’t seeing you as clearly as you’re seeing them. That’s when you can get jumpy and give yourself away, and it don’t take much. It’s amazing how the slightest extra effort to be inconspicuous can be the single most conspicuous act. Nah. You gotta believe in yourself, have faith in the craftsmanship with which you constructed that imaginary mirror.
Back in Palma, he had been watching that Innez bastard for days without the cunt having any inkling he was there. Sat in his bar, observed him like a specimen under a bloody slide. First he knew about it was when he walloped him with Mr Spank. Fat lot of fucking good it had done Albert in the end, but you live and learn, don’t you? And the better you learn, the better you live. Had to be more careful this time, had to apply a bit of the old subtlety and finesse, now that the quarry knew what he looked like. Hence the mufti: the fake Barnet, the Gregories, the face-fuzz and the middle-aged clobber. His own mother wouldn’t recognise him. Well, actually, truth be told, she might detect a certain unnerving familiarity, given that when he’d clocked himself in the mirror before leaving the cabin, the image in the frame was disquietingly reminiscent of his late uncle Vic, as captured forever in his pulling attire in a photo that had pride of place on his dear departed Nan’s mantelpiece. Point was, though, Innez, who’d only glimpsed him for a matter of minutes, wouldn’t know him from Adam, hence he could sit sipping his Martini less than ten feet from the stage with the same invisibility and thorough impunity he had enjoyed watching the lad’s smaller-scale magic act back in that boozer in Palma.
Oh yeah, Innez has gone up in the world, rapid ascent too. A few weeks back, he’s turning bar-top card tricks in between pouring beers and washing bottles. Now he’s got himself a proper stage and, by the looks of it, pretty bloody close to a full house.
The houselights go down and the stage is lit with a single spot, picking out a four-legged table close to the front. A voice over the speakers asks the audience to welcome ‘Maximilian’ and Innez walks on. Got a round of applause already and the geezer hasn’t done nothing yet. He’s scrubbed up, got himself a jacket and a top hat and he’s carrying a suitcase. Looks like some Edwardian doctor paying a house call, apart from the peroxide job visible just under the headgear. He sticks the case on top of the table and flips it open, pulling out an oversize black die, also unsettlingly reminiscent of Albert’s uncle Vic in that he used to have two such matching items dangling from the inside rear window of his much-cherished conveyance, the superseded but never truly replaced Ford Cortina.
He holds the die up in one hand for a minute and parks the case out of the way on the floor in front of the table. It’s just occurred to Albert that a stage magician in this classic get-up is usually accompanied by a nice piece of crumpet dressed in something that would threaten imminent arrest or possibly just hypothermia if worn outdoors, when Innez, or Maximilian, announces that his assistant has only taken the hump and hidden herself inside the die. He gives it a little shake and holds it up to his ear, doesn’t hear nothing but says he’d best not shake it again in case he really burns his bridges. Albert can’t see where this is going. Gotta be a distraction for something else. He’s going to throw it across the stage and she’ll appear from the wings suddenly to catch it, something like that. Fuck knows.
But then the thing starts to grow, like some speeded-up time-lapse film of a plant. Soon enough it’s so big he needs both hands to hold it, and it’s still bloody growing. He’s struggling under the weight, so he rests it on the table, where it continues to expand, all of this accompanied by weird, hypnotic music on the speakers. The music stops and the die seems to have ceased its metamorphosis too, though it gives a little shiver when Innez goes to touch it, which makes everybody laugh. He backs off, then makes to approach it once again, more cautiously this time. His hands are just about to touch either side when Albert, like half the bleeding room, jumps in his seat as the aforementioned crumpet bursts out the top of the thing where it sits on the table. Albert is a little disappointed to observe that she’s in a suit very similar to Innez’s (except for it being covered in white spots, like the die), as opposed to some item of bathing attire you could comfortably fit inside a cigar tube and still have room for the cigar, but that aside, like everyone else in the lounge, he’s impressed.
Innez is a clever bastard and no mistake. Found that out the hard way. But he’s not as smart as he thinks he is; or rather, he makes the common assumption on the part of clever bastards that everyone else is fucking stupid. A lot of the time he’s probably on the money with that, let’s be honest, but not when it’s Albert Samuel Fleet. Just because he pulled a right nifty move on him once before didn’t mean all future engagements were a foregone conclusion. You live and learn. Case in point being the very reason Albert is here on this tub. Oh yeah. Innez knew a thing or two about misdirection, give him that, but short-term gambits could have a nasty habit of backfiring if you used them against those who were used to playing the long game. Innez had sold him a nice little dummy the way he’d emptied his cash, made him think he’d no interest in the other contents of Albert’s wallet. It was only when the statement came in that he discovered he was actually lighter to the tune of just north of a grand, paid out as a one-off to some travel firm in Palma. Slippy bastard hadn’t sunk the boot in hooligan-style, though: that one single item was all he’d charged. Probably wanted clean away first and foremost, rather than risk triggering an authorisation request that would put Albert back on his tail sharpish. And he would have gotten away clean if he’d just hopped on a plane, but the charge to Albert’s credit card was for a berth on board a cruise-liner.
Could have been another bit of misdirection, of course: send Albert chasing a bloody boat to the Canaries while he has it away on his toes somewhere else entirely. Geezer knew that he’d seen the air ticket to Paris in his bedroom, didn’t he? Could have been another cheeky little play that Albert would have needed to weigh up before making his next, potentially expensive move. Yeah, could have, if it weren’t for the fact that he only discovered this lead after ten days of fruitless pissing about in naffing Paris.
Nah, something about this cruise thing just smelled right. The guy wanted to lie low, drop right off the map for a while now he knew someone was on to him. According to the travel outfit, that boat sailed the very morning he’d escaped from Albert’s handcuffs. Innez had mumbled something about it being tricky getting him off an island. How much harder did Innez perhaps reckon it would be to get him off his own little moving island?
Not as tricky as you might think, my son, especially with the able assistance of Mr Spank’s soft-footed little cousin, Dr Rohypnol. Don’t you worry about that. Maximilian’s would be a limited engagement, shame to say, but as befits the man of mystery, he would finish with a vanishing act and leave them wanting more. Bit of a comedown for a VIP to be disembarking via the luggage ramp rather than the gangway, but he wouldn’t be the first star to require an incognito departure route.
He’s on to card tricks now. Same ones he was doing in the bar in Palma, mostly, but they’re going down just as well. Geezer’s got the front for it, and that’s half the battle. The thought of the boozer in Palma reminds Albert his glass is empty, and he don’t half fancy a refill. There’s waitresses working the lounge but he can’t get anyone’s attention: seems his choice of a table so near the stage has its downside, as they don’t want to be moving back and forth right in front of the show. Bollocks. He can’t get up and go to the bar; same as the waitresses, he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, though for a very different reason.
Then it turns out Maximilian only reads naffing minds as well, don’t he?
He walks across to the left-hand side of the stage, where there’s an area curtained off, and pulls a cord. The curtain swishes clear to reveal a narrow cocktail bar, padded with studded leather and bearing a row of stemmed glasses along the top, as well as a translucent cylinder. It’s a lot like the ones every nouveau-riche punter used to have in their living room, intending to create the impression of upper-class sophistication but paradoxically serving instead to reinforce the fact that they was one generation out of a room-and-kitchen in the East End. Needless to say, Uncle Vic had one. If the cylinder turns out to be a lava lamp, then that would just put the tin lid on it and he’d be right back at Vic’s place in Ilford. Albert remembers he raided Vic’s bar one curious Sunday afternoon at the age of nine and got his first taste of gin, with the result that his next taste of the stuff was close to two decades later. Quite likes it these days, mind, and would sincerely like another Martini right now. Fat chance of that though, he reckons, and he ain’t the only one sitting there thirsty.
Maximilian reaches into the bar and pulls out a bottle of vino, which he then lobs over his head, letting it spin a couple of full rotations before catching it behind his back in his other hand. He twists off the screwtop, saying, ‘Thank God for the Australians – kinda slowed the pace of the trick when I had to uncork it,’ and grabs a glass from the top of the bar, holding it by the stem. He pours out a glass of vin rouge and has a sniff before sampling a brief taste, then wrinkles his hooter like he ain’t impressed.
‘It’s chilled,’ he says. ‘Really ought to be room temperature.’
He holds the glass in front, about eye-level, then waves his other hand, wiggling his fingers like he’s casting a spell. The wine bursts into flames: seriously, real fire, not just a little blue tickle like on top of a Sambuca.
‘Sorry, overdid that a little,’ he says. He goes back to the bar and places the bottle back down out of sight, lifting a chrome cocktail shaker in its place and pouring the still flaming wine into it. He holds it up in one hand and gives it a bit of a swirl. Meanwhile the assistant has entered from the other side with this huge glass tankard, supporting it in both hands, as it looks like it must hold two pints at least.
‘Maybe something cooler, huh? How about a Margarita,’ he suggests, and pours the contents of the shaker into the tankard. Instead of red wine, it’s a clear green liquid that pours from the shaker. And pours, and pours, until the tankard is close to full, despite the shaker being less than half the size of the thing. He places the shaker back behind the bar and takes the tankard from the assistant.
‘Kind of overdid it again. Who’s thirsty?’ he asks, to plenty of giggles and not a few raised hands in the audience. ‘No, wait a second, it’s pretty dark down there. Better make sure I can see what I’m doing.’ With this, he flips a switch and the translucent cylinder reveals itself to be a white lamp. ‘That’s better. Wouldn’t want to spill this,’ he says, picking up the shaker again and carefully pouring the contents of the tankard into it. Once again, it appears he bought it from whoever built the TARDIS.
‘This is a phenomenon which you’ll encounter in any bar,’ Innez tells his audience as the Margarita continues to implausibly flow into the shaker. ‘Usually applying to the optics, so that what looks like a lot of booze as it’s pouring out, somehow becomes that tiny measure at the bottom of your shot glass.’ Everyone laughs, Albert especially. It’s bloody true of every boozer he’s drunk in.
Innez finishes pouring and the assistant puts a cap on the shaker before taking the tankard and exiting stage left. ‘I love a Margarita,’ he says, walking forward and contemplating the shaker. ‘I feel it infuses the whole atmosphere with its ambience, even the light itself.’ As he says this, he gesticulates towards the bar with the shaker, at which the white light suddenly turns green. ‘I wonder how it does that. Probably just the booze.’
He wanders back to the bar, handing the shaker to the returning assistant en route, then switches off the light and removes the translucent shade. Inside there’s a huge bulb connected to the socket, which looks at first to be green. However, once he’s unscrewed it and held it up, Albert can see it is actually clear, and filled with green liquid. With a flick of the wrist, Innez removes the brass end from the bulb and pours the liquid into three of the stemmed glasses on top of the bar. He puts them on a silver tray and carries them to the front, where he invites anyone who fancies one to come and get it.
There’s a woman four tables along who steams right in there for her and her mates, who’ve already emptied a jug of Margaritas between them and are having the same luck as Albert getting a refill.
‘How is it, ladies?’ he asks. ‘The real deal?’
‘Better than from the bar,’ one of them reports, and they all get stuck in.
Innez walks back to the centre of the stage and takes the shaker back from the assistant. That’s when Albert’s sussed it. It’s the shaker, innit? Got to be. Innez has switched it, several times probably. Yeah. Albert’s always been good at tippling magic tricks. He’ll have his eye on that shaker now.
‘Now, you may be wondering whether the effect I just mentioned works both ways, given the capacity of that bulb is smaller than the capacity of my shaker. Truth is, it doesn’t. I’ve got some Margarita left in here. But maybe that’s not everybody’s cup of tea. Or Long Island Iced Tea, even.’
Yeah, here we go. He goes back to the bar and pours out a brown-coloured drink into a stemmed glass. Switched the shakers, definitely. Smart, but not as smart as he thinks. That’s why Albert’s gonna have him.
Innez brings the Long Island Iced Tea out to a keen recipient in the audience. All eyes are on this bloke as he takes a sip, waiting to see if he’ll verify that the drink is what it purports to be. All eyes, that is, except Albert’s, which remain locked on the shaker in Innez’s hand. The cocktail approvingly appraised, Innez walks back to the bar with applause ringing around him. Albert keeps eyes on, waiting for the switch, but Innez stays in front of the bar in full view as he lifts another glass and suggests: ‘How about we move from Long Island to Manhattan?’ He puts a cap on the shaker and gives it a thorough jiggle before pouring out a distinctly amber-coloured drink. The assistant comes over again, this time bearing a tray of fresh glasses, upon which Innez places the new drink and the cap.
All right, so it’s the lid, Albert decides, but Innez immediately takes another stemmed glass and pours a clear drink into it from the same shaker. Just to rub it in, it’s only a bleeding Martini, innit?
Holding the Martini in one hand, Innez leaves the shaker on top of the bar and lifts the Manhattan from the tray, then takes the drinks down to the audience. He asks for opinions from the grateful recipients. The woman who gets the Martini says it’s the best she’s had since they left Marbella, asks him if it’s Tanqueray. Albert’s throat’s like an Arab’s sandal just looking at her knocking it back.
He returns to the bar, where the shaker remains in plain sight, the assistant still standing there with her tray of clear glasses, and now it just gets daft. He pours out, from this same bloody shaker, a cherry liqueur, a Crème de Menthe, a Piña Colada, a Bloody Mary and a Blue Lagoon. Albert’s all but licking his lips as he watches the assistant carry the tray down to the floor and start handing out the goodies. Innez has walked to the front of the stage to take the applause, still holding the shaker. He has a look back and forth and suddenly zeroes in on Albert’s empty glass.
‘You ready for a refill there, sir?’ he asks.
Albert thinks for a split-second about waving the offer away, keeping his head down, but remembers his own rule of keeping your nerve: the slightest extra effort to be inconspicuous can be the single most conspicuous act. Added to that, the guy can’t possibly see any of the audience’s faces with much clarity while he’s on stage under the lights and they’re sitting down in the dark. And all of this is to say nothing regarding precisely how much Albert fancies another drink.
‘Wouldn’t say no,’ he replies, deepening his natural voice a little and neutralising his accent.
‘Elizabeth, bring me that man’s glass.’
Now, this really bloody surprises him. He’d assumed Innez would just toddle back to the bar for another glass as a pretext for some nifty bit of legerdemain, but it is indeed the glass he so long ago finished, and this glass only that is presented to the magician on her tray. Remaining at the front of the stage, he takes it in his hand, gives it a sniff.
‘Martini?’ he asks.
Albert nods. Innez places his glass back on the tray and reattaches the cap to the shaker before giving it a good old once-over. He then pours out a fresh drink, complete with an olive, and walks down to present it to Albert, with the audience giving it plenty. Innez hands it over with a smile, looking him right in the face without the merest glimmer of anything that could be interpreted by the most cautious mind as the slightest hint of recognition.
‘How is that, sir?’ he asks.
Albert takes a mouthful. It’s chilled, it’s smooth, and it’s a sight better than the one he got from the bar.
‘Delicious,’ he declares, then watches Innez return to the stage, lapping up the ovation before one last surprise to close the bar act: pouring himself a drink from the shaker, which turns out to be milk.
Albert rests back in his seat to enjoy the rest of his drink and the rest of the show. No doubt about it, it’s a bloody good Martini. Bloody good routine, too. Almost a shame to deny subsequent audiences the unquestionable pleasure, but not everybody could get paid for doing card tricks and stunts with a magic cocktail shaker. Nothing personal. And he wouldn’t be taking any chances this time, wasn’t going to be underestimating a bloke like Innez. You live and learn.
The assistant rolls away the bar, then high-tempo drum music plays over the speakers as she performs a quick change. She returns dressed in a black leather outfit with understated but inescapable S&M overtones, bearing two armfuls of handcuffs, padlocks and chains. She and Innez perform a bit of a dance to the rhythm for a minute, establishing that she’s the one wearing the strap-on dildo in this particular relationship, then she leads him over to the pillar near the right-hand side of the stage. As part of the dance, she commands him to his knees in front of the column, then pulls his hands behind his back either side of it and cuffs them together.
Albert feels the old ticker give a start, but reminds himself it don’t mean nothing. What happened back in Palma must’ve given him the idea, that’s all. The girl cuffs Innez’s feet together too, at which he feels a little light-headed. Tells himself not to panic: it’s the old déjà vu all over again, got him a bit dizzy, innit.
The assistant rolls a screen across from stage left, an opaque drape to conceal whatever technique Innez uses to get out of the cuffs, and Albert would have to confess to deep disappointment and discomfiture at this impending absence of revelation. But that’s bugger-all compared to how he feels when, just before the screen obscures him, Innez looks straight at Albert and gives him a wink.
Something inside him turns to ice. Suddenly he feels like the audience has disappeared and he and Innez are the only ones left in the place. The tempo of the music increases, but it’s like he can barely hear it, like it’s fading out. He grabs his drink and downs the rest of it. After that, everything starts to go swimmy.
Zal’s hands are cuffed, tight about both wrists, the jangling links of solid steel looped behind his back around an upright column. He is on his knees, his bare feet similarly bound to the immovable pillar. The steel is warm from the hands that fastened it, moist now with two people’s sweat. His arms are stretched behind him, his back tight to the column, his posture cramped and contorted.
His captor has retreated from sight. Zal is now isolated, hidden from any observer, cut off from all intercession. The bounty hunter, though unseen, remains mere yards away, rapt in his vigil.
Zal allows himself a moment to contemplate precisely how his situation must look from that bastard’s point of view: one man relishing the other’s inescapable captivity, blissfully unaware that he has the picture back to front.
Zal smiles and whispers to himself: ‘Alakazammy, stairheid rammy. Suffer, you prick.’
The escape itself is not, he would concede, much of a spectacle, and he had no intention of making it a regular part of the repertoire: it was intended to be for one night only, and for one spectator only. However, Lizzie had the idea of turning it into a dance, and it seems to have played pretty well, so it may end up being reprised and probably built upon. The whole show is coming together nicely, some genuine finesse now augmenting the mere energy, pace and enthusiasm that got them through some seat-of-the-pants early performances.
Zal had been practising for up to fifteen hours a day, Lizzie not much fewer in the run-up to that first unsanctioned show, with Morrit just as busy behind the scenes. Henderson had attended, as predicted, but earlier than anticipated, turning up to investigate why there was a large crowd queuing outside what was scheduled to be an empty lounge. He wasn’t foolish or officious enough to stand between the unsolicited act and an eager audience, especially on a rainy day, though he did tell Zal sternly that he wouldn’t be paying anyone for it. To this Zal responded by reminding him that he already had. Understanding that there was very little to lose, Henderson took a seat along with everyone else.
The next day’s show was scheduled and official.
They got the benefit of it now being advertised as part of the entertainment programme, but Zal considered it more effective (as well as good practice) to preview the act by walking the decks and bars, performing card and coin magic on the spot. It was kind of like David Blaine, though without the tricks coming across as a cry for help. Also as predicted, the act soon got moved to the bigger lounge, where the trapdoor under the stage allowed them to open with the Expanding Die. Mirrors fixed between the legs either side of the table, plus some careful work with Morrit’s tricked suitcase, concealed Lizzie’s elevation, assisted by all eyes being drawn to the die itself. DeKolta’s original was a complex construction of telescoping brass tubes, a maintenance nightmare and said to require two men to recompress after each performance, but Morrit’s reconstruction had the benefits of lightweight aluminium, which led the old man to speculate wistfully about what his idol might have achieved given access to modern materials.
Zal undoes the handcuffs, taking longer about it than he did back in Palma, or at least appearing to. On stage, you never want an escape to seem too easy. He wanted to give Fleet some time for things to sink in too, before he lapsed into unconsciousness.
It was often said that conjuring could lay claim to being the world’s second oldest profession. It had been around as long as human civilisation, and in those aeons taken innumerable forms, but there were certain fundamentals of it that never changed. In 1634, a London writer calling himself Hocus Pocus (believed to be one Samuel Rid) published The Anatomy of Legerdemain: The Art of Jugling [sic], in which he prescribed these essential requirements of one wishing to practise the arts of ‘conveyance’:
First, he must be one of impudent and audacious spirit, so that he may set a good face upon the matter.
Secondly, he must have a nimble and cleanly conveyance.
Thirdly, he must have strange terms, and emphatical words, to grace and adorn his actions, and the more, to astonish the beholders.
Fourthly and lastly, such gestures of body as may lead away the spectators’ eyes from a strict and diligent beholding of his manner of conveyance.
In 1716, one Richard Never added:
He must have none of his trinkets wanting when he is to use them, lest he be put to a non-plus.
This last was the one most solemnly imparted to him by his father, and remained the touchstone that served his every endeavour. Zal had been preparing the stage for Albert Samuel Fleet’s arrival since long before the guy even set foot on board the Spirit of Athene. Strictly speaking, Zal’s preparations for their second encounter had begun before he set foot on the ship.
Zal had believed Fleet unquestioningly when he said he’d find him again. That was why, once he’d opted for travelling hopefully aboard the cruise ship, he decided to use the bounty hunter’s credit card to pay for it. He didn’t need the guy’s money, merely needed him to pay for his passage, so that Fleet would know where to find him, and Zal would know he was coming.
Once he had established his credentials as a valued member of the entertainment crew, Zal was soon able to charm the ship’s purser into setting an alert for Fleet’s name against the advance passenger manifest, knowing he’d have to embark under his real name because he’d need his passport. This ensured that when inevitably he got his monthly statement, joined the dots and made his booking, Zal knew not only when and where he would be boarding, but right down to which cabin he would be assigned also.
Fleet joined the ship in Tenerife, having flown out there to catch up with it. Zal watched him board from an overlooking deck. His disguise was pretty good, but only if you weren’t specifically on the look-out for the sonofabitch and didn’t already know where he was going to be.
Swiping a passcard from housekeeping, Zal turned over his cabin while he was having lunch in one of the restaurants. It appeared Fleet had invested in some new cuffs and an outsize suitcase with wheels. He hadn’t brought anything to fill the thing, however, as the intended contents were standing looking at it. Zal also found several phials of Rohypnol, which was how Fleet was planning to get him into the big luggage and on to dry land. Either that or he just placed little faith in his chat-up lines.
He knew Fleet would come to the show, same as he’d kept an eye on his prey at the Dracon Rojo. Zal watched him come in from through the curtains and enlisted a friendly waitress to let him know what he was drinking.
Zal remembered his dad trying to work out how Alan Wakeling did his ingenious bar act, a quest that had continued after Wakeling passed the apparatus and techniques on to Earl Nelson. Wakeling’s itself was merely the latest improvement upon a trick called the Inexhaustible Bottle, dating from the early nineteenth century: like everything in magic, its evolution was ongoing and its secrets plundered. Soon enough, his dad incorporated a version into his own repertoire, and around that time variations of the act became common. As a young child, Zal had been uninterested in the mechanics of it, just dazzled by the impossibilities and the cascade of different colours emerging from the shaker. He had confidence that such a spectacle would still entertain an adult audience today, and giving a few of them free drinks never hurt your popularity either.
It was all in the routining. His dad had puzzled over it, constantly changing his mind about whether it must be done by switching the shaker, by use of imitation drinks or by some kind of chemical solution. The switch theory fell down on the sheer number of such transpositions that would be necessary, while the other two collapsed to the sound of approving thanks from all those satisfied customers. Like all the best routines, of course, the effect was not achieved by a solitary technique, but by a manic combination of all three. There were hollow-stemmed glasses involved, a cleverly constructed drinks tray that concealed what cocktail constituents were already at the bottom of hi-ball tumblers, as well as shaker caps filled with various liquids too. Most nights, only one drink was unapproved for human consumption, and that was the flaming wine, containing as it did sodium carbonate, phenothalene, potassium and lighter fluid. Zal had added it to the act after they put in at Puerto Del Carmen and he was able to get hold of the more exotic constituents.
The main shaker dispensed only vodka, which being essentially tasteless, worked as a standard base solution (or at least passable substitute) for most of the cocktails. It also gave them all an extra alcoholic kick, which ensured that the customers immediately found their drinks to be the real deal. Tonight, however, there had been one that packed more of a punch than usual, that final shaker lid containing Vermouth, Tanqueray, one olive and a generous dash of Fleet’s own sedative.