“So he wouldn’t have to listen to you anymore?” Rudge called out to mutters of approval.
“Because he knew he’d raised a cynic just like himself,” Shawn said. “And he knew that cynic would leap to the same conclusion he did. But without the encumbrance of years of friendship, he’d make the accusation.”
“It’s not an accusation. It’s a fact, for God’s sake,” Henry said. “A blind idiot could see it. Or even my son.”
“And I did,” Shawn said. “I saw exactly the same thing you saw, because I saw it through your prejudices. But once the prejudice was gone, I could see the truth.”
“That’s great,” Lassiter said. “Glad we wrapped that one up. Let’s move on to the murder.”
“And the truth wasn’t that Lyle was a bad friend,” Shawn said. “It was that Bud was a great one. Lyle’s wife has been institutionalized with Alzheimer’s for years. The marriage is long dead, but he can’t divorce her because she’ll lose her health insurance and be dumped on the street. Last year he met Savonia and fell in love, only to discover that her visa was running out and she was going to have to leave the country. Bud volunteered to marry her so she could get her green card and live with Lyle.”
Everybody turned to stare at Bud and Lyle.
“Is this true?” Henry said.
“We couldn’t tell anyone because we were worried about the immigration people,” Bud said.
Lyle threw his arms around Bud. “Isn’t he the greatest friend ever?”
Shawn took another deep bow. “And with that, ladies and gentlemen, the opening act of this presentation is over. Part two will commence after a brief intermission.”
Major Voges marched up to Lassiter and O’Hara. “This is a farce,” she said. “If you don’t arrest him, I will. And then I’m shutting this ridiculous charade down and taking that tank back to Washington.”
“You can have the tank as soon as I’m done with it,” Shawn said. He signaled to Gus, who wheeled the airplane steps out from the wings and locked them into place. Shawn took the first three steps at a bound.
“Stop that man!” Voges shouted, but no one moved. She lunged toward the stage, but O’Hara pulled her back.
“Sorry, Major, but I missed the first show,” O’Hara said. “I’ve got to see this.”
Shawn reached the top of the steps, then bent down and flipped the latch on the tank lid open, then slid it closed. He unlatched it again, then pulled the heavy steel lid up.
“Get out of there!” Fleck said. “That belongs to my client.”
“Magic belongs to all of us,” Shawn said. He gave another deep bow, then stepped off the platform into the tank.
Shawn sunk down to the bottom, then bobbed back up. He floated midway in the tank, his cheeks puffed out with air.
“Get him out of there,” Henry said, rushing toward the stage.
Major Voges blocked his way. “No one touches the tank.”
“That’s my son in there!” Henry said. “He’ll drown.”
“Which is preferable to what will happen to him once he gets out,” Major Voges said.
Henry shoved her out of the way and went to the stage, but before he could climb up, the water in the tank had changed. Before it had been perfectly still. Now it bubbled and frothed like a glass of cheap champagne. As Henry stared, he realized the bubbles were coming from his son’s body.
Shawn raised his hands over his head, sending a storm of froth rising to the surface. As the bubbles flew from his fingertips, the crowd saw with a shock that the fingers were shrinking. No, dissolving . Within seconds, they were gone down to the first two knuckles, and quickly the hands were reduced to clublike stumps.
Shawn lowered one deformed hand to touch his stomach, and immediately the bubbles began fizzing out of his abdomen. But they didn’t rise to the top of the tank. They spun around, as if caught in a whirlpool. And when they cleared, they had eaten a hole clear through Shawn’s midsection. Where moments before there had been a blue-checked flannel shirt over a white T, now there was a void. And it was growing in all directions, devouring his chest, his hips, his shoulders. His arms, eaten from both sides, fell off his body and dissolved into bubbles before they hit the tank floor. All that was left was the grinning head floating seven feet over the enormous black boots that still sat at the bottom of the tank.
The bubbles were working on Shawn’s chin now. Before they could reach any higher, he opened his mouth as if to speak-or to scream. But what came out wasn’t just a blisteringly loud roaring sound. It was light-a blast of pure white light that lit up every corner of the showroom.
Then the light went out, and the room was plunged into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When the houselights came back on, everyone was staring at the tank, stunned. Even Gus, who’d known what was going to happen, was rendered momentarily speechless by the spectacle.
Henry broke the silence, turning savagely on Fleck. “Where’s my son?” he demanded. “What has your machine done to my son?”
The showroom doors flew open and Shawn strolled in. “Was someone looking for me?”
For one brief second, a look of relief washed over Henry’s face. But he managed to get his emotions under control quickly and replaced the relieved look with a scowl.
A mournful cry came from the center of the room. “All my life I’ve been working at my craft,” Rudge wailed, “and this punk is able to duplicate the most amazing illusion ever performed without any effort at all.”
“There was a little bit of effort,” Shawn said. “The backstage door weighs a ton.”
“I knew it was all a cheap trick,” Jessica Higgenbotham spit. “There was no way P’tol P’kah wasn’t a complete fraud.”
“How did you get out of the tank?” Lassiter said.
“Look,” Shawn said, wringing out his shirt. No water dripped out of it. The cloth was completely dry. “I was never in it.”
“But we saw you,” Detective O’Hara said.
“Did you?” Shawn said. “Did you really?”
“Yes, Shawn, we all did,” Henry said. “Do you want to explain now?”
“Or do we have to beat it out of you?” Lassiter added hopefully.
“Gus!” Shawn called. “Show them.”
Gus went over to the tank and picked at the glass where it met the metal frame. Scraping at it with his fingernail, he pried back a thin sheet of clear plastic, much like the sticky protective wrapping on a new iPod screen.
“Get away from that tank,” Major Voges commanded. “That information is classified.”
“Then we promise not to tell anyone,” O’Hara said. “Go on, Shawn.”
“It was Augie Balustrade who gave me the clue,” Shawn said. “Because he wasn’t a crook or a hustler, he really was devoted to his craft. And it personally offended him that P’tol P’kah was perverting it.”
Gus stepped away from the tank. “That’s why he was clutching a TV remote when he died. To send us a message from beyond the grave.”
“What message?” Lassiter said.
“That P’tol P’kah was not only our favorite Martian; he was actually My Favorite Martian,” Shawn said. “A TV show about a fake alien.”
Gus pulled the plastic sheeting off the glass so that it covered only the left half of the tank. Then he ran up the airplane stairs and fiddled with something on the lid. After a second, the thin plastic came alive with the image of Shawn splashing into the tank. The plain glass showed nothing but still water behind it.
“Hey, Henry,” Bud shouted. “If you want to get me a wedding present to make up for being such a jerk, I’ll take one of those.”
“If you flip the latch one way, the lid opens to reveal the water below,” Shawn said. “If you flip it again, a panel in the lid slides back and opens a chamber in the back of the tank. You drop down there and step out a hidden door when the lights go out.”
“That’s not possible,” Jessica Higgenbotham said. “We would have heard of this TV technology if it existed.”
“Exactly what I said about the dissolving ray,” Gus said. “And the answer turns out to be the same. We never hear of it if the government wants to keep it secret.”