Carter Beats the Devil (39 page)

Ferrying into San Francisco, he stood with his hands balled into his pockets, tapping the cigar tube, and attempting to conquer the concept of money, which he in no way comprehended. To launch a new tour, he needed capital, and to develop his illusion he also needed capital—this much he understood. And he made money by performing. But the specifics, the way a week of receipts from the Broadway Showcase in Buenos Aires was pared into a pocketful of silver dollars, was for him as elusive as how water flowed from reservoir pipes and aquifers into his bathtub.

According to his posters, Thurston had spent $50,000 on his vanishing horse illusion. Carter would probably need to spend at least that to create what he had in mind and considering this, his imagination flew from the responsibilities of money to how fun it would be to spend it. He moved his lips around the words,
Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce a clever pixie, an imp from the netherworld.

He tipped his boater back, observing the deck of the
Charlie Mae.
A sparse group of passengers, any of whom could be members of his audience. There were bachelors and families with schoolchildren and, now that he thought about it, each of them had paid their nickel for the ferry, which had cost money to build. Where, if money were a finite resource, did it come from in the first place?

He noticed a pair of girls, flappers, in last night’s rumpled clothing, sitting on a wooden bench, leaning against each other and looking unhappily out at the horizon. He glanced at their knees, which were bare and sweetheart free.

Soon they docked, and Carter walked to North Beach. Delighted to see shops open so early, he ducked under the salamis hanging in the doorway of the New Union Grocery. This was James’s favorite emporium, as it was so overpacked with imported and homemade culinary fancies, it was less a shop than a thieves’ repository, like Ali Baba’s cave. Carter puttered among cheeses and candied fruits until he’d located an excellent panettone, and flanked it with assorted rich pastries.

A few minutes later, bearing a pink box, Carter entered the Ferry building. This was the Columbus Avenue rooming house equidistant from the theatre district and the pier where the passenger boats docked. Carter had first come here early one morning in 1911 to announce he was taking over Mysterioso’s show. Today, he pressed the button by the
engraved brass “J. Carter/T. Crandall” name plate and was immediately buzzed in.

James Carter had taken over the building in 1920. He had turned the top floor into a penthouse, where he lived and entertained and, when he so wished, phoned the office to see how his investments were playing out.

James had been managing the World Famous Carter the Great Paragon of Mystery Show since his return to stage in late 1917. This meant that to finance his new illusion, Carter was coming, hat in hand, to ask his younger brother for an advance. He rang the bell decisively, now wishing he’d brought flowers instead of pastries, which had become somewhat controversial.

Immediately, James threw the door open. His tousled golden curls were thinning but still bright. He wore royal blue silk pajamas under a monogrammed bathrobe Carter had given him. “Charlie!” James cried, and then he cried, “Panettone!” and then he hugged his brother.

Carter put his arms around James, which had become slightly more difficult in the last two years. His oceanic travels had obviously been eased with many pastries.

James looked at him with pride. “I’ve become opulent.”

“You’re a pasha!”

The penthouse of the Ferry building had panoramic views of San Francisco and the bay, and the morning sunlight flooded into every window. James had knocked out most of the walls, save for a small suite for living quarters, and the result was a backward-L shape of an open room.

James had never been a collector, but he had inherited their father’s taste. His home was like an inviting series of tableaux to be appreciated first, then to be inhabited. Whenever Carter visited his brother, he first pitied how meager James’s furnishings were, but always ended up wanting to purge his own houses and reorganize his rooms.

While slicing the panettone, and arranging the other pastries so they flanked it, James ran down the list of people who’d told him to say hello, and how well their mother was faring with her photography, and how Dad actually seemed
interested
in her work. Though presented with benevolence, the topics were also a checklist of small talk. “And how are your animals?”

“Baby is slowing down a bit. Tug has developed an odd craving for apple butter.”

“You don’t say.”

Carter said, “Where’s Tom?”

“If you can believe it, he’s at church.”

“No, I can’t believe it.”

“It’s about the only place his family will see him. Here we go. We won’t stand on further ceremony, you’re a man of the world, you’ve seen how coffee is made. It’s Red Gate, mocha java.” James took the percolator off the stove, and carried it to a table by the fireplace.

Carter settled in a fine armchair nearby, and felt that James had purchased the most comfortable armchair in the world. He didn’t want to move. “Anything else about Europe?”

“Paris was beautiful. London was beautiful. Berlin was depressing. You’d like Berlin.”

There it was, the segue from small talk, performed with one raised eyebrow, something James could do with admirable efficiency. In spite of himself, Carter laughed aloud.

“Are you all right? What’s that you’re doing?”

Carter wasn’t aware he’d been doing anything. “Laughing?”

“Good for you. Listen, I’m glad you’re in such a fine mood—we have some problems here.” He glanced at a notepad. James had many notepads, all excruciatingly well organized.

He crossed the room, returning with a fourteen-by-twenty-two window card, which he handed over to his brother, who let out a gasp. It was like looking into the face of a dear friend who had been worked over with brass knuckles. It was his poster: the horned, crazy-eyed Devil holding four kings, and the turbaned, triumphant magician holding four aces. But the magician also had a monocle and pencil-thin mustache, and the title at the bottom made Carter’s skin freeze.

“
Dalton
Beats the Devil,” he whispered. “
Dalton
? Who the hell is
Dalton
?”

“He’s a very foolish Englishman who’s going to be spending his every waking hour in court for the next five years. Not an issue, really. The actual problem—this isn’t a silk screen.”

Carter looked carefully at the details and highlights of the poster. They were perfect. “You mean it was struck off stone plates?”

“It was struck off
your
stone plates. I just checked. Your plates are missing.”

He breathed slowly. He willed his heart to behave. “We have a weasel in the company.” It happened from time to time. He’d had his patter stolen, gimmicks copied, and it usually meant cleaning house. “Carlo.”

Carlo had many lady friends around the world, whom he kept happy with puzzlingly expensive pearls and silver trinkets. James had his Waterman pen suspended over Carlo’s name on the yellow pad. “It’s the end of
the season. We’ll let everyone go and start afresh in the fall, only there won’t be room for Carlo.”

“Yes, that’s an excellent—no, no. Wait.”

“We’ll give him a hearty raise?”

“Not that,” Carter said. “If you have Dalton subdued, we’ll go on as everything was before. I like having an informant on staff. We’ll tell Carlo the fall tour is of Antarctica, and watch Dalton and George and all the rest in an absolute flurry to charter fishing boats to beat me to it. James, I like this news very much indeed. Thank you.”

“You’re
welcome
?” James eyed his brother as if he were mildly insane. “Final problem. I received a wire. That’s it, on the tray there.”

The telegram, addressed to “James L. Carter, Business Manager for Carter the Great,” was from “Thomas Bryson, Esq., representing Madame Zorah.” Carter had never heard of Thomas Bryson, but, given that his mind reader’s real name was Thelma Brysonski, and that she was a notorious cheapskate, he suspected she was getting cut-rate legal advice.

After reading the telegram, Carter said, “James, why does she think we’ll be doubling her salary?”

“She claims that on the night Harding attended, she predicted his death.”

“She certainly didn’t. I’d have fired her on the spot.”

“The trades are backing her up.”

“They can pay her salary.” Carter tossed the telegram into a pile of mail that was in the cold fireplace, and put on his Ledocq voice. “Her, the tramp, we fire.”

“You’ll need a new mind reader, then.”

Carter wondered about that, what sort of person to hire and train—for on top of his spirit illusion, he had plans for a mind-reading effect. How very convincing it would be if the new mind reader were a blind woman.

“Did you just go somewhere for a moment?”

“I’m having ideas.”

James finished off a cruller. He didn’t ask what sort of ideas. Even as an adult, James was stubborn.

“I was thinking . . . James, I just want you to know that I’m very open to profit.” It was like climbing up a mile of ladder to a tree house and hoping the boys inside would let him join. “I know in the past, I haven’t paid enough attention to my finances, but I’d like to know how to manage my funds. Manage them well.”

“That’s good. That’s perfect. I have something else to show you.” He went to his desk, returning with a poster that he unrolled on the carpet. “A contact at Otis Lithograph gave me this proof. Your friend is onto something.”

The poster advertised Thurston’s Wonder Show of the Universe, a show Thurston had presented for the last fifteen seasons. His posters had inevitably featured Thurston’s famous Vanishing Fire Engine illusion. But this year Thurston had outdone himself: the poster now showed a dozen wraith-like girls in diaphanous gowns surrounding an impeccably rendered, floating automobile that struck Carter as far less dramatic than a vanishing fire engine, until he began to read the text aloud. “Thurston’s greatest mystery: The Vanishing Willys Whippet Six-Cylinder Luxury Car. See this fine sedan with hand-tooled leather seats and oiled rosewood dash . . .” He read the small print. “How helpful, it lists financing terms.”

“I can set something like that up for you.”

“Not unless I can put Madame Zorah in the rumble seat and materialize it underneath Tug’s foot.”

“They’re paying him fifteen thousand just to use their automobile next season.”

“I’ve made four world tours, I’ve played every thousand-seat venue in the world, I’ve never signed a product endorsement—”

“And another season of wild success and you’ll be lucky to do three-card monte blow-offs for sailors.” James pulled the sash of his robe together. “Charlie, I thought you were open to profitable plans.”

“Shilling for Henry Ford isn’t a plan, it’s a suicide pact.”

“What did you have in mind, then?”

“A whole new show. Something that will really pack them in!” Though he said it forcefully, it sounded weak in this penthouse. He remembered The Funny Farm, his personal barometer of awful showmanship.

James located a small cinnamon roll and had it halfway into his mouth before seeing his brother’s appraising stare. Then he pushed the entire thing past his lips, and cocked his head as if to ask whether someone in the room had a problem with how simply he pleased himself. Carter felt a twinge of jealousy. Faintly, in his mind’s eye, he saw a seven-year-old James slipping into the bathtub, forever finished with Carter’s avocation. Did magic always have to separate them?

“James—about your suggestion. I’ll keep an open mind.”

“Splendid. Now tell me everything I need to know about these adventures of yours, and hold nothing back.”

Carter said, “Where to begin?” He told James of his performance for
President Harding, of his bogus flight from the country, of his interrogation by Griffin and Starling, and of the attempted break-in. The entire story took ten minutes, during which James ate a final two slices of panettone. Afterward, James was silent for a few moments, during which he finished his mocha java, eyes gazing at the ceiling.

“So,” he finally said, looking at Carter, “what does this girl look like?”

“Who?”

“Phoebe Kyle. She sounds wonderful.”

“I’m sorry, perhaps you missed the point of my story.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you hear the part about the President?

James shrugged. “Did you like her?”

“You’re impossible,” Carter murmured. He turned his eyes toward the ceiling, then the Persian rug, then out the window, then back, looking for something to stare at. He finally settled on a rich blue and gold Klimt watercolor—not a major Klimt, a square golden landscape, golden and autumnal—Carter at the moment disliked how its colors matched the single orchid in the vase before it, and how the painting and the flower and the vase and the table all made perfect harmonious sense. He sensed that if he tried the same in his own home, it simply wouldn’t work.

“I don’t know what I should do.” Carter leaned forward, his hands flexing and releasing.

“About Miss Kyle?”

“No. But she’s—” Carter made a steeple of his fingers, and glared at them. “She seems to be a nice young woman. I didn’t get to know her.”

“Will you see her again?”

“She left her gloves at my apartment. I didn’t even realize she’d taken them off.”

James laughed. “Clever girl.”

“You don’t understand. She’s so fresh. Not in the sense of being brazen—”

“I know what you mean. Like a breath of fresh air.”

“Yes.”

“That does sound horrible, Charlie.”

“I’m not so fresh. I don’t want to poison her.”

James nodded. “I have no idea what you mean.” When his brother began to explain, he interrupted, “You know why people like your act?”

“Yes.” Then Carter muttered, “All right, why?”

“Because it’s fun. You give the audience hours of fun, and when they think about it later, they have fun all over again.”

“I like that,” he said, as though asking James whether he should in fact like it.