At the next corner Hardare looked at the street sign. They had walked in a circle, and were heading back to L’ermitage. Finally he said, “Do you plan on getting a gun?”
She hesitated, knowing how he detested firearms. “I thought it would be a good idea while we’re in L.A.”
They walked the remaining block in silence. At the hotel’s entrance he said, “Let me think about it.”
Jan kissed him. “Do what you think is best.” She went inside, and he had the valet hail him another cab. He hopped in, and the cab pulled away.
“Anyplace special?” the Hispanic cabby asked.
“Why? Do you normally just drift?”
“Believe it or not, yeah. People get in my cab, they think it’s a cloud. We just float around, looking at the new billboards on Sunset Boulevard. One guy, he gets in, hands me a brand new C note, says `Let me out when I run out of money. I’ll walk from there.’ So I did. People around here are goofy.”
They pulled into traffic. Hardare stared out his window at the darkening skies. He needed to go someplace private to think, and figure out what he wanted to do.
“7001 Franklin Avenue,” Hardare said, realizing it was his only refuge.
“You mean the Magic Castle?” the cabby said. “Sure thing.”
Tires squealing, the driver viciously punched his horn and cut off a stretch Mercedes limousine, then swerved into the other, faster moving lane, making it feel like a real cab.
Chapter 6
The Castle
As the cab drove down Franklin Avenue and climbed the formidable hill leading to the Gothic mansion known as the Magic Castle, the rain started to fall in sheets. Years before, on a night identical to this, he had flipped the car he was driving, sending his first wife to her grave. He had thought time healed all wounds, but he had discovered that was just a poet’s bullshit line. He still grieved for Barbara, and had accepted the painful fact that he probably always would.
Like many magicians, the Magic Castle was his home when he visited L.A. Besides acting as a wonderful private club for magicians, the Castle also served as the clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts, a non-profit organization devoted exclusively to the advancement of magic.
Opening the front door, he entered a dimly lit library. A remarkably pretty female receptionist greeted him from behind a desk. He took the pen to sign his name in the ledger, then looked into her face and said, “Didn’t you used to be a brunette?”
“You have a good memory,” she said, beaming.
Often, when he was in town taping a television special, he would hire one or two Castle employees to assist him, having found it less expensive than what it cost him to fly in and house the crew that he employed full-time in his traveling show. He struggled with the receptionist’s name.
“Tracy. No. Stacy.”
“I’m impressed,” she said.
“Friedman.”
“Wow! Want to get married?”
He wasn’t ready for that one, and burst out laughing. She was no doubt aware that her job had netted two of her predecessors’ millionaire husbands, and he said, “I’m afraid I’m not that wealthy. Give me ten more years.”
“God, you’re the fourth man I’ve asked today.”
He entered his name in the guest ledger beside magic’s true luminaries. The Professor was here, the Japanese dove-worker Shimada who’d worked Vegas just the week before, the great Bill Malone, mind reader extraordinaire Max Maven, Jim Patton, the amazing John Carney, and the uncanny Scot Ron Wilson. He needed a sounding board, and he supposed this was as good a group as he’d be able to find at a moment’s notice. He went to a cluttered bookshelf where a small carved owl sat.
“Let me know if you ever need another assistant,” Stacy said, trying not to sound too anxious.
“I will. Open sesame.”
With that, the owl’s eyes lit up and the bookshelf slid open, granting him access to the club’s main lounge and bar. It was nearly empty, and he glanced at his watch, wondering where his friends were.
Sitting at the bar was one of the Castle’s celebrity members, a well known movie actor who was blind drunk.
“What’s your pleasure, Mr. Hardare?” asked the bartender.
“Ginger ale. He looks ready for the stool, Bobby.”
“Indeed he does.” The bartender poured his drink while his foot kicked the lever on a hydraulic pump beneath the bar. Very slowly the movie actor’s barstool evaporated into the floor. With his knees nearly level with the top of his head, the actor cheerfully toasted Hardare’s good health, and downed his martini. The gag had backfired, and Hardare paid for both their drinks.
Music floated through the air. Irma, the house poltergeist, was at the piano, her fingers dancing invisibly across the keys, playing an airy Chick Corea composition that had been part of his act for years. He smiled at Bobby, who pretended he had nothing to do with it.
He went upstairs to the dining room. The Castle was a large, rambling structure, with three separate small theatres, four bars, a restaurant, and a dozen hidden spots where magicians could sit and talk magic without being disturbed. At the Festalboard he fixed himself a heaping salad and took an empty table.
“I thought you went back to Vegas,” said a familiar voice.
“Change of plans,” Hardare replied, shaking hands with Les Griffey, an illusion-maker he often employed. “Where is everyone hiding? The bar was deserted.”
“They’re meeting in the Houdini Séance room. The new officers of the Academy were voted in last week.”
“I need to talk with them.”
“They just got started,” Griffey said. “I was going to call you. I just finished a new illusion. Kio’s Lady to Tiger without the depth illusion. It can be done surrounded.”
“Sounds terrific,” Hardare said.
Encouraged, Griffey gave him a full description of his new creation, his use of superlatives a show in itself. By the time he was done, Hardare had agreed to drive to San Clemente the following week, and get a first hand look.
It was because of men like Les that big stage illusions had left the dark ages and now employed lasers and other space age technology. Gone were the bulky boxes and tables with black art servantes; women were no longer suspended on brooms, they were suspended on the tips of swords, and made to rotate. Illusions now had multiple climaxes, with three or four different tricks evolving at the same time. Since Hardare could not enjoy the luxury of employing three illusion builders, as Houdini had done, he entered into contractual agreements with men like Les Griffey. Griffey would design a new illusion, and when he had honed its working to the necessary degree of perfection, he would offer it to Hardare on a short, exclusive basis. Hardare would have a few months to perform the illusion — even use it on TV — and in exchange, Griffey would later market the illusion to the fraternity using Hardare’s name as an endorsement.
When Hardare had finished his salad, he and Griffey went upstairs to the third floor and walked down a short hallway, where the magician rapped softly on the secret door to the Houdini Séance Room. It cracked open and Ron Wilson stuck his head out. “Hey Vince — good to see you. We’re just wrapping up. Give us fifteen minutes.”
“I need to talk to everyone.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes, and I need your help.”
Wilson ushered him in without another word.
The Houdini Séance room was the Castle’s most historic attraction, with many of his uncle’s old props and playbills in use as decorations. A round antique mahogany table big enough to seat eight people sat in the room’s center. The table was a masterpiece of deception, and allowed a “medium” to make all sorts of ghostly manifestations occur once the lights had been dimmed.