Houdini's Last Trick (The Burdens Trilogy) (8 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

G
RAUMAN
’
S
E
GYPTIAN
T
HEATRE
was built like a pharaoh’s temple, with sand-colored blocks of thick concrete jutting upward from the sidewalk. It was as if a sandstorm had swept up a Middle Eastern citadel and plopped it onto the heart of Hollywood Boulevard. Two towering obelisks flanked the grand entrance, each capped with the head of an Egyptian deity.

Houdini had been around enough mystics and spiritualists to recognize the sandstone busts. The one with the head of a dog was Anubis, the god of the afterlife. The other, with the head of a crocodile, was Sobek, the god of fertility and power. Death and birth. Birth and death.

The grand entrance led to a small courtyard, reminiscent of an ancient public square. The theater itself, as if an afterthought, was at the back of the courtyard.

From the rooftop across the street, Houdini closed his hand into a loose fist and looked through the tiny hole it made. Without the passing automobiles, the crowd of spectators, or the giant neon sign blinking “GRAUMAN’S,” it was easy to believe he was staring at a scene from the days of Tutankhamen.

“Fairbanks is on his way,” said Ned Auerbach, Mayer’s assistant. “You should start getting ready.”

In about ten minutes, just before sunset, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford would arrive at the theater. Auerbach had a man watching the couple, and telephoned as soon as they left Pickfair, their mansion home. Spectators had been lining up for hours, and the press was already in place, stationed by the two obelisks at the entrance. A street car rolled down the tracks in the middle of the street; Houdini hoped the trollies wouldn’t block the view of photographers. He needed them to get a good shot if he hoped to make it on the front page of the newspapers.

For
The Thief of Baghdad
, Oriental carpets had been set out along the walkway leading up to the theater, flanked with potted desert palms. Massive purple curtains with gold Arabesque embroidery draped from the tops of the obelisks all the way to the sidewalk.

That’s enough cloth to dress a pharaoh’s harem.

Men and women dressed as Arabian servants took their posts along the carpets with palm fronds to fan the arriving celebrities. Two belly dancers in flowing turquoise garments warmed up in the courtyard.

Houdini began to wonder if maybe his stunt wasn’t flashy enough. His escapes were always dramatic, but with a kind of quiet, nail-biting suspense. He didn’t want people’s attention drawn away by a couple of glittery belly dancers.

“Get the lion,” Houdini said.

Auerbach stared at the magician.

“Are you sure?”

Houdini nodded.

“Set up a second set of gates around the spikes.”

Auerbach nodded and climbed down the ladder. The lion was in a cage in the alley. Mayer had his animal handlers deliver it that morning despite Houdini’s protests.

Holding onto the crane, Houdini leaned out over the rooftop and looked down at the spikes his men had set up on the sidewalk below. They were long skewers with pointed ends that had been disassembled from the castle gate of an old movie set on the MGM lot. Although they were only silver-painted wood, not metal, they would still skewer him easily enough from the height at which Houdini was performing.

The spikes were cordoned off with a wall of sawhorses. The police had stopped by to question them, but ten dollars each and an autograph from Harry Houdini had been answer enough. He even got one of the cops, a lazy-faced officer named Barry Stoker, to help out with the act.

Auerbach re-appeared behind Houdini.

“Fairbanks is almost here. I can see their car down near the corner of Orange.”

Houdini looked west and could see Fairbanks’s bright red Mercer Raceabout down the street. It was shaped like a bullet and appeared to be just as fast. Like Fairbanks himself, there was nothing subtle about it.

He triple-checked the items spread out on a cloth: the megaphone, the straightjacket, the handcuffs, the razor blade, matches.

“Get the cop,” Houdini said.

Auerbach nodded behind them, toward the grunts of an overweight man cresting the roof from the ladder. Officer Stoker pulled himself onto the rooftop and then flopped down prostrate, like a sunbathing seal.

“We’re nearly ready, officer,” Houdini called over to him.

The policeman got onto his hands and knees, then finally to full standing. He walked over to the edge of the roof facing Hollywood.

“Thirty clams, right?”

Auerbach pulled out the dollar bills and waved them in front of his face.

“Thirty aces. But only after.”

Houdini pulled the noose over his head, which he had tied himself. From his neck, the rope wound upward to the top of the small crane, then back down its arm, where it was coiled around a winch at the base.

“Let’s go.”

Houdini looked down and saw the lion being lead into a narrow corridor made of sawhorses that circled the spikes. He hoped the animal trainers knew what they were doing. One jump and the lion could easily be out and about on the streets of Hollywood.

Officer Stoker spit on the lion below. It looked up and growled at him.

“I hate cats,” he said.

Houdini closed his eyes and searched for his fears. Fear of being constrained. Fear of impaling himself. Fear of becoming a wild animal’s dinner. He pictured a wooden storage chest inside his head and put all of his fears inside of it. Then he locked the chest, and buried the key deep inside the recesses of his mind.

He slipped into the straightjacket and crossed his arms across his chest. He turned his back to Officer Stoker.

“As tight as you can make it.”

The officer grinned in anticipation and began fastening the sleeves behind Houdini. The magician took a deep breath and flared his shoulders as Stoker tightened the buckles. This would give him the slack he would later need to escape.

Auerbach picked up the megaphone when he saw the red Mercer pull up. A valet ran over to open the car door. Auerbach looked at Houdini. The magician nodded.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Auerbach shouted through the megaphone. “We present for your pleasure, the most dangerous, the most daring, the most death-defying magician on Earth! Harry Handcuff Houdini!”

The man’s voice boomed, carrying over the traffic of the Boulevard. Fairbanks, donning a sharp white tuxedo, stepped out of his car just in time to see thousands of spectators turning their eyes away from him and up to the rooftop across the street. Houdini gave him a wink.

“Watch Houdini as he escapes a straightjacket secured by an actual officer of the Los Angeles Police Department,” Auerbach shouted. “Is it properly secured, officer?”

Auerbach turned to Stoker who gave the audience a big thumbs up.

“Our magician will escape while hanging from a noose above razor-sharp spikes!” Auerbach continued. “And if the spikes don’t get him, the hungry lion might!”

As if on cue, Slats roared in his narrow pen surrounding the spikes.

“Better still, Mister Houdini has fewer than three minutes before a flaming torch burns his rope in two!”

Auerbach nodded at Officer Stoker, who took the matches and lit an open kerosene torch at the base of the rope, next to where it was wound around the crane’s winch. This was the only true misdirection in Houdini’s act. From down below, the open flame appeared to be directly under the rope, licking at it. But on the roof they could see that the torch was actually six inches in front of the rope and would pose no danger of burning it.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Auerbach boomed. “Let’s hear it for Harry Houdini and the Hangman’s Death!”

The crowd erupted into wild applause. Houdini bowed deeply.

Fairbanks stood dumbstruck, still trying to understand what was happening at the premiere of his movie. Houdini looked to the other side of the car and saw Pickford standing with her arms folded, unamused but somehow unsurprised. She looked stunning in a sapphire blue gown and matching cloche hat.

“Action!” Houdini shouted.

Officer Stoker knelt down and turned the winch slowly. Houdini took one last deep breath as the rope pulled taught around his neck and then gently lifted him off the roof. His body swung forward over the edge of the building, dangling a good thirty feet above the spikes.

“Start the timer!” Auerbach shouted, although he was the one with the pocket watch.

There was a time limit, but it wasn’t the burning rope; it was Houdini’s breath. The magician had positioned the noose in such a way that his jugular veins and carotid arteries weren’t compressed, but his airway was completely cut off. He would have about three minutes until he passed out.

With his neck rigid, Houdini could just barely see the thousands of faces across the street, all of them staring up at him in wide-eyed wonder. All except one.

“Welcome, everybody!” Fairbanks shouted from across the street. “You’re all here for the movie, am I right?”

No one responded. Cameras flashed in Houdini’s direction.

“You’re all here for me—Douglas Fairbanks!”

Houdini adjusted his shoulder to create the slack he needed to loosen the straightjacket. He let out thirty seconds worth of breath to compress his chest slightly.

Two minutes and thirty seconds of breath.

Houdini yanked hard on the sleeves, loosening buckles behind him. Once he got enough slack he was able to lift his elbows over his head. But the rope around his neck prevented him from unwinding his sleeves. He removed the razor blade he had carefully clutched in his closed fist. First he sawed at the sleeve until there was a small hole. Then he reached back as far as he could to saw at the strap that was constraining his arms. It was made of leather and would take a good minute to get through.

“Ladies and gentlemen, who wants to see me in a movie?” Fairbanks shouted from across the street. He held out his arms and smiled. No one paid him any attention.

“Look at me!” he said.

Houdini saw the people immediately surrounding Fairbanks turn and look at him. If they smiled or otherwise reacted at seeing America’s Hero mere feet from them, Houdini didn’t notice.

Finally having the attention of a few dozen people, Fairbanks smiled and clapped his hands together.

“I’m so very happy to have all of you—”

The lion roared below Houdini. Everyone staring at Fairbanks turned back to the stunt. The magician couldn’t see the giant cat, but he would have bet money that Auerbach had one of the handlers prod it.

The poor thing never signed up to be an entertainer.

Houdini saw Fairbanks ball up his fists and storm toward the entrance. It seemed he would admit defeat and go into the theater, barely noticed by the fans who had come to see him.

But that’s not what he did. From the corner of his eye, Houdini saw Fairbanks throw off his tuxedo jacket and leap onto the giant purple drapes that hung from one of the obelisks at the entrance.

“You think you’ve got a show, Houdini?” he shouted. “I’m the king of the
show
business!”

When he saw Fairbanks begin scaling the purple curtain, Houdini dropped his razor blade. It clattered among the spikes below. The actor, famous for his athleticism, deftly climbed upward.

People turned and finally began to take notice of him.

“There’s Douglas Fairbanks!” an elderly woman exclaimed. “Oh, he’s wonderful!”

Fairbanks climbed the drapes until he was almost at Houdini’s height, then let go with one hand to wave at the crowd.

“Good evening, my friends! Yes, look this way my dear fans! Welcome to
The Thief of Baghdad
!”

Fairbanks’s antics were drawing eyes away from Houdini, and his one means of cutting though the straightjacket was now somewhere on the ground. From the lack of oxygen, Houdini was beginning to see blackness close in from the sides of his vision.

Ninety seconds of breath.

The leather strap gave a little bit when Houdini pulled his elbows apart. It may have been severed enough that he could break it. He yanked his elbows apart hard and fast, like a chicken with a broken wing. Once, twice, three times. Nothing.

Houdini needed more slack. He closed his eyes and saw one possibility. It was a risk, but he had to take it. With a short, hard exhale, the magician let out all of his breath.

Zero seconds.

It compressed his chest enough to give him more room. He opened his eyes and saw only blackness and stars. With one hard jerk the buckle snapped and his arms came free from his chest. The sleeves of the straightjacket hung long, like a child in his father’s dress shirt.

Immediately Houdini grabbed the rope behind his neck and gripped it. He pulled up hard, and it gave him just enough slack in the noose to take a long, deep breath. Vision flooded back to him.