Stuart Kaminsky - Now You See It

“You think Grieg’s music can cause someone to feel no pain?” I asked, standing in the open doorway.

“He was of a dour Norwegian bent,” Gunther said seriously, with his slight Swiss accent, “and it has been said that even his Peer Gynt Suite might incline those less than devoted to his work to escape the performance by a protective self trance.”

“Meaning?”

“When bored by Grieg, people have been known to fall asleep, sometimes with their eyes open,” he explained. “May I ask why you present this question?”

“Shelly,” I said.

Gunther shook his head. The dentist’s name was explanation enough.

“What do you know about magicians?” I asked.

“When I was with the circus,” Gunther said, tapping the tiny fingers of his right hand on his desk, “I encountered several. At one point I was even employed by Spengler Aroyo, Spengler the Magnificent. Magicians like to have little people in their acts. He billed me as Hugo the Dwarf. I objected. I am not a dwarf. I quit. Magicians are often dual of visage-open, gregarious in public, intense and brooding in private.”

“Phil and I are working for Harry Blackstone,” I said.

“It is my understanding that he is an amiable gentleman of his word,” said Gunther. “Can I be of service?”

“I’ll let you know,” I said. “What are you working on?”

“This?” he said, putting his palm on a yellow folder. “This is a fascinating technical report in Danish of a process for the ultra-refinement of crude oil.”

“Fascinating.”

“You jest,” said Gunther with a smile.

“See you at dinner,” I said. “Beef heart stew.”

I left the room closing the door behind me as the phone at the end of the hall rang. I moved to get it.

“Hello,” I said.

“Tobias,” said Phil. “Our client got another call. “Tomorrow night’s performance at the Pantages. The son-of-a-bitch said it would be Blackstone’s last unless he turned over his secrets to someone who would come to him at the theater before the show.”

“You talk to the caller?”

“Yeah,” said Phil. “I told him we would be waiting for him. He laughed and called me a blustering stooge.”

“What did you do?”

“Tore the damn phone off the wall.”

And then it was Wednesday, the 25 th,and I was on the platform on my back about to be buzz-sawed up the middle, while dressed in a blue uniform with epaulets and big brass buttons.

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how it happened. I do know that the blade was real and spinning noisily very close to the last place I wanted it to be. Then darkness. I felt myself turning over, rolling to my right. Then I was lying on a mattress looking up at Jeremy Butler who reached down, took my arm, and lifted me up. Jimmy Clark, the freckled kid with the limp, stood next to him.

I reached down to be sure I was intact and dry. I was.

“Come,” said Jeremy, turning and leading me away. Beyond the curtain, from where I had tumbled onto the mattress, the crowd was applauding.

“What happened?”

“Blackstone turned you into a lion,” Jimmy said. “We’ve got to hurry so he can turn the lion back into you.”

The three of us dodged props, went through a small pack of heavily made-up girls with spangled blue swimsuits, evaded two men in Babes in Toyland uniforms like mine and headed up a steel staircase. The kid was in the lead, then Jeremy, then me.

The staircase rattled. Someone in the wings below gave a loud “shush,” which could probably be heard in the first half dozen rows of the theater.

At the top of the stairs, the kid went to a door, opened it and stepped back. I entered a large dressing room lined with mirrored dressing tables.

There was only one person in the bulb-lit room, a man at the third table on my left. He was leaning forward, his face pressed against the mirror, eyes open as if he were astonished by his own image and trying to get a closer look.

He was dead. No doubt. The giveaway was not just the open eyes and mouth, but the hole in the side of his head and the thick stream of blood making its way down his cheek.

“Who found him?” I asked.

“Marie,” said Jimmy.

“Marie?”

“This is her dressing room and the other girls’,” the kid said, unable to take his eyes off of the dead man. “She came back for … and she found him.”

I moved forward toward the body.

“Get Marie,” I said.

“She won’t come in here,” said Jimmy. “I know her. She’ll start screaming and all. He’s dead, right?”

People were gathering in the open doorway.

“Most sincerely dead,” I said, leaning over to look at the dead man’s face in the mirror. “And call the police.”

Outside the open door, people were gathering, looking, not quite taking in what was happening.

“Jeremy, close the door.”

Before he could close the door, my brother Phil and Pete Bouton stepped in. Phil looked at the body. He’d seen dozens before, but this one he recognized.

“Robert R. Cunningham,” he said.

“Who?”

“Blackmailer, con man, blackmail, posed as a cop sometimes, or an insurance investigator,” said Phil, moving in for a closer look at the dead man. “Had a private detective license. We took it away.”

Phil touched Cunningham’s cheek.

“Couldn’t have gotten it more than a few minutes ago. Who heard the shot? Saw someone?”

“The buzz saw,” said Pete Bouton. “The sound of the buzz saw probably drowned out the shot.”

“Which means,” I said. “The killer waited for the saw to start making noise.”

“Or he …,” Phil began.

“Or she,” I amended, “just got lucky.”

A knock. The door opened, and Jimmy Clark stuck his head in.

“Called the cops,” he said. “Marie’s out here.”

“Thanks,” I said, and then to Phil. “She found the body.”

Phil and Bouton stayed with the dead man. The kid and I went out onto the landing and through a small crowd of people. Voices in the crowd asked, “What happened? Someone hurt? Shouldn’t we call an ambulance? Who …?”

Jimmy guided me into a room three or four doors down. The room was crowded with boxes of rabbits, quacking ducks, fluttering and frightened cooing doves. Sitting with her back to a mirror was a pretty girl with short dark hair in bangs, very red lips and one-piece green bathing suit covered with glitter that caught the light and shimmered with each sob.

I ushered Jimmy outside, closed the door and turned to the girl.

“Marie,” I said.

No response.

“Marie,” I repeated.

This time her head jerked and she looked at or through me.

“You found the body.”

It wasn’t a question, but she answered with a nod.

“You hear a shot?”

This time, the nod was a negative shake of the head.

“You see anyone near the dressing room?”

Positive nod this time.

“Who?”

She tried to speak, caught her breath and said, “A man. Came running out. I was going in to get …”