Barker, Clive - collection - Books of Blood Volume 06

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THE BOOK OF BLOOD

(a postscript)

ON JERUSALEM STREET

THE LAST ILLUSION

WHAT HAPPENED THEN - when the magician,

having mesmerised the caged tiger, pulled the

tasselled cord that released a dozen swords upon its

head - was the subject of heated argument both in the

bar of the theatre and later, when Swann's performance

was over, on the sidewalk of 51st Street. Some claimed to

have glimpsed the bottom of the cage opening in the split

second that all other eyes were on the descending blades,

and seen the tiger swiftly spirited away as the woman in

the red dress took its place behind the lacquered bars.

Others were just as adamant that the animal had never

been in the cage to begin with, its presence merely a

projection which had been extinguished as a mechanism

propelled the woman from beneath the stage; this, of

course, at such a speed that it deceived the eye of all but

those swift and suspicious enough to catch it. And the

swords? The nature of the trick which had transformed

them in the mere seconds of their gleaming descent from

steel to rose-petals was yet further fuel for debate. The

explanations ranged from the prosaic to the elaborate,

but few of the throng that left the theatre lacked some

theory. Nor did the arguments finish there, on the

sidewalk. They raged on, no doubt, in the apartments

and restaurants of New York.

The pleasure to be had from Swann's illusions was,

it seemed, twofold. First: the spectacle of the trick

itself - in the breathless moment when disbelief

was, if not suspended, at least taken on tip-toe.

And second, when the moment was over and logic

restored, in the debate as to how the trick had been

achieved.

'How do you do it, Mr Swann?' Barbara Bernstein

was eager to know.

'It's magic,' Swann replied. He had invited her

backstage to examine the tiger's cage for any sign of

fakery in its construction; she had found none. She had

examined the swords: they were lethal. And the petals,

fragrant. Still she insisted:

'Yes, but really . . .' she leaned close to him. 'You can

tell me,' she said, 'I promise I won't breathe a word to a

soul.'

He returned her a slow smile in place of a reply.

'Oh, I know. . .'she said,'you're going to tell me that

you've signed some kind of oath.'

That's right,' Swann said.

'- And you're forbidden to give away any trade

secrets.'

'The intention is to give you pleasure,' he told her.

'Have I failed in that?'

'Oh no,' she replied, without a moment's hesitation.

'Everybody's talking about the show. You're the toast

of New York.'

'No,' he protested.

'Truly,' she said, 'I know people who would give their

eye-teeth to get into this theatre. And to have a guided

tour backstage . . . well, I'll be the envy of everybody.'

'I'm pleased,' he said, and touched her face. She had

clearly been anticipating such a move on his part. It

would be something else for her to boast of: her

seduction by the man critics had dubbed the Magus

of Manhattan.

'I'd like to make love to you,' he whispered to her.

'Here?' she said.

'No,' he told her. 'Not within ear-shot of the

tigers.'

She laughed. She preferred her lovers twenty years

Swann's junior - he looked, someone had observed,

like a man in mourning for his profile, but his touch

promised wit no boy could offer. She liked the tang of

dissolution she sensed beneath his gentlemanly fagade.

Swann was a dangerous man. If she turned him down

she might never find another.

'We could go to a hotel,' she suggested.

'A hotel,' he said, 'is a good idea.'

A look of doubt had crossed her face.

'What about your wife . . .?' she said. 'We might be

seen.'

He took her hand. 'Shall we be invisible, then?'

Tm serious.'

'So am I,' he insisted. 'Take it from me; seeing is

not believing. I should know. It's the cornerstone of

my profession.' She did not look much reassured. 'If

anyone recognises us,' he told her, Til simply tell them

their eyes are playing tricks.'

She smiled at this, and he kissed her. She returned the

kiss with unquestionable fervour.

'Miraculous,' he said, when their mouths parted.

'Shall we go before the tigers gossip?'

He led her across the stage. The cleaners had not yet

got about their business, and there, lying on the boards,

was a litter of rose-buds. Some had been trampled, a few

had not. Swann took his hand from hers, and walked

across to where the flowers lay.

She watched him stoop to pluck a rose from the

ground, enchanted by the gesture, but before he could

stand upright again something in the air above him

caught her eye. She looked up and her gaze met a slice

of silver that was even now plunging towards him. She

made to warn him, but the sword was quicker than her

tongue. At the last possible moment he seemed to sense

the danger he was in and looked round, the bud in his

hand, as the point met his back. The sword's momentum

carried it through his body to the hilt. Blood fled from

his chest, and splashed the floor. He made no sound, but

fell forward, forcing two-thirds of the sword's length out

of his body again as he hit the stage.

She would have screamed, but that her attention

was claimed by a sound from the clutter of magical

apparatus arrayed in the wings behind her, a muttered

growl which was indisputably the voice of the tiger. She

froze. There were probably instructions on how best to

stare down rogue tigers, but as a Manhattanite born

and bred they were techniques she wasn't acquainted

with.

'Swann?' she said, hoping this yet might be some

baroque illusion staged purely for her benefit. 'Swann.

Please get up.'

But the magician only lay where he had fallen, the

pool spreading from beneath him.

'If this is a joke -' she said testily,'- I'm not amused.'

When he didn't rise to her remark she tried a sweeter

tactic. 'Swann, my sweet, I'd like to go now, if you don't

mind.'

The growl came again. She didn't want to turn and

seek out its source, but equally she didn't want to be

sprung upon from behind.

Cautiously she looked round. The wings were in dark-

ness. The clutter of properties kept her from working

out the precise location of the beast. She could hear it

still, however: its tread, its growl. Step by step, she

retreated towards the apron of the stage. The closed

curtains sealed her off from the auditorium, but she

hoped she might scramble under them before the tiger

reached her.

As she backed against the heavy fabric, one of the

shadows in the wings forsook its ambiguity, and the

animal appeared. It was not beautiful, as she had

thought it when behind bars. It was vast and lethal and

hungry. She went down on her haunches and reached

for the hem of the curtain. The fabric was heavily

weighted, and she had more difficulty lifting it than

she'd expected, but she had managed to slide halfway

under the drape when, head and hands pressed to the

boards, she sensed the thump of the tiger's advance.

An instant later she felt the splash of its breath on her

bare back, and screamed as it hooked its talons into her

body and hauled her from the sight of safety towards

its steaming jaws.

Even then, she refused to give up her life. She kicked

at it, and tore out its fur in handfuls, and delivered a hail

of punches to its snout. But her resistance was negligible

in the face of such authority; her assault, for all its

ferocity, did not slow the beast a jot. It ripped open her

body with one casual clout. Mercifully, with that first

wound her senses gave up all claim to verisimilitude,

and took instead to preposterous invention. It seemed

to her that she heard applause from somewhere, and

the roar of an approving audience, and that in place

of the blood that was surely springing from her body

there came fountains of sparkling light. The agony her

nerve-endings were suffering didn't touch her at all.

Even when the animal had divided her into three or

four parts her head lay on its side at the edge of the

stage and watched as her torso was mauled and her limbs

devoured.

And all the while, when she wondered how all this

could be possible - that her eyes could live to witness

this last supper - the only reply she could think of was

Swann's:

'It's magic,' he'd said.

Indeed, she was thinking that very thing, that this

must be magic, when the tiger ambled across to her head,

and swallowed it down in one bite.

Amongst a certain set Harry D'Amour liked to believe

he had some small reputation - a coterie which did

not, alas, include his ex-wife, his creditors or those

anonymous critics who regularly posted dogs' excrement

through his office letterbox. But the woman who was on

the phone now, her voice so full of grief she might have

been crying for half a year, and was about to begin again,

she knew him for the paragon he was.

'-1 need your help, Mr D'Amour; very badly.'

'I'm busy on several cases at the moment,' he told her.

'Maybe you could come to the office?'

'I can't leave the house,' the woman informed him.

Til explain everything. Please come.'

He was sorely tempted. But there were several out-

standing cases, one of which, if not solved soon, might

end in fratricide. He suggested she try elsewhere.

'I can't go to just anybody,' the woman insisted.

'Why me?'

'I read about you. About what happened in Brooklyn.'

Making mention of his most conspicuous failure was

not the surest method of securing his services, Harry

thought, but it certainly got his attention. What had

happened in Wyckoff Street had begun innocently

enough, with a husband who'd employed him to spy

on his adulterous wife, and had ended on the top storey

of the Lomax house with the world he thought he'd

known turning inside out. When the body-count was

done, and the surviving priests dispatched, he was left

with a fear of stairs, and more questions than he'd ever

answer this side of the family plot. He took no pleasure

in being reminded of those terrors.

'I don't like to talk about Brooklyn,' he said.

'Forgive me,' the woman replied, 'but I need

somebody who has experience with . . . with the

occult.' She stopped speaking for a moment. He could

still hear her breath down the line: soft, but erratic.

'I need you,' she said. He had already decided, in that

pause when only her fear had been audible, what reply

he would make.

Til come.'

'I'm grateful to you,' she said. 'The house is on East

61st Street -' He scribbled down the details. Her last

words were, 'Please hurry.' Then she put down the

phone.

He made some calls, in the vain hope of placating two

of his more excitable clients, then pulled on his jacket,

locked the office, and started downstairs. The landing

and the lobby smelt pungent. As he reached the front

door he caught Chaplin, the janitor, emerging from the

basement.

'This place stinks,' he told the man.

'It's disinfectant.'

'It's cat's piss,' Harry said. 'Get something done about

it, will you? I've got a reputation to protect.'

He left the man laughing.

The brownstone on East 61st Street was in pristine

condition. He stood on the scrubbed step, sweaty and

sour-breathed, and felt like a slob. The expression on

the face that met him when the door opened did nothing

to dissuade him of that opinion.

'Yes?' it wanted to know.

'I'm Harry D'Amour,' he said. 'I got a call.'

The man nodded. 'You'd better come in,' he said

without enthusiasm.

It was cooler in than out; and sweeter. The place

reeked of perfume. Harry followed the disapproving

face down the hallway and into a large room, on the

other side of which - across an oriental carpet that had

everything woven into its pattern but the price - sat a

widow. She didn't suit black; nor tears. She stood up

and offered her hand.

'Mr D'Amour?'

'Yes.'

'Valentin will get you something to drink if you'd

like.'

'Please. Milk, if you have it.' His belly had been

jittering for the last hour; since her talk of Wyckoff

Street, in fact.

Valentin retired from the room, not taking his beady

eyes off Harry until the last possible moment.

'Somebody died,' said Harry, once the man had

gone.

'That's right,' the widow said, sitting down again.

At her invitation he sat opposite her, amongst enough

cushions to furnish a harem. 'My husband.'

Tm sorry.'

'There's no time to be sorry,' she said, her every look

and gesture betraying her words. He was glad of her

grief; the tearstains and the fatigue blemished a beauty

which, had he seen it unimpaired, might have rendered

him dumb with admiration.

'They say that my husband's death was an accident,'

she was saying. 'I know it wasn't.'

'May I ask . . . your name?'

'I'm sorry. My name is Swann, Mr D'Amour.

Dorothea Swann. You may have heard of my husband?'

The magician?'

'Illusionist,' she said.

'I read about it. Tragic.'

'Did you ever see his performance?'

Harry shook his head. 'I can't afford Broadway, Mrs

Swann.'

'We were only over for three months, while his show

ran. We were going back in September . . .'

'Back?'

'To Hamburg,' she said, 'I don't like this city. It's too

hot. And too cruel.'

'Don't blame New York,' he said. 'It can't help

itself.'

'Maybe,' she replied, nodding. 'Perhaps what hap-

pened to Swann would have happened anyway, wherever

we'd been. People keep telling me: it was an accident.

That's all. Just an accident.'

'But you don't believe it?'

Valentin had appeared with a glass of milk. He set it

down on the table in front of Harry. As he made to leave,

she said: 'Valentin. The letter?'

He looked at her strangely, almost as though she'd

said something obscene.

'The letter,' she repeated.

He exited.

'You were saying -'

She frowned. 'What?'

'About it being an accident.'

'Oh yes. I lived with Swann seven and a half years,

and I got to understand him as well as anybody ever

could. I learned to sense when he wanted me around,

and when he didn't. When he didn't, I'd take myself off

somewhere and let him have his privacy. Genius needs

privacy. And he was a genius, you know. The greatest

illusionist since Houdini.'

'Is that so?'

'I'd think sometimes - it was a kind of miracle that he

let me into his life . . .'

Harry wanted to say Swann would have been mad not

to have done so, but the comment was inappropriate.

She didn't want blandishments; didn't need them.

Didn't need anything, perhaps, but her husband alive

again.

'Now I think I didn't know him at all,' she went on,

'didn't understand him. I think maybe it was another

trick. Another part of his magic.'

'I called him a magician a while back,' Harry said.

'You corrected me.'

'So I did,' she said, conceding his point with an

apologetic look. 'Forgive me. That was Swann talking.

He hated to be called a magician. He said that was a word

that had to be kept for miracle-workers.'

'And he was no miracle-worker?'

'He used to call himself the Great Pretender,' she said.

The thought made her smile.

Valentin had re-appeared, his lugubrious features rife

with suspicion. He carried an envelope, which he clearly

had no desire to give up. Dorothea had to cross the

carpet and take it from his hands.

'Is this wise?' he said.

'Yes,' she told him.

He turned on his heel and made a smart withdrawal.

'He's grief-stricken,' she said. 'Forgive him his

behaviour. He was with Swann from the beginning of his

career. I think he loved my husband as much as I did.'

She ran her linger down into the envelope and pulled

the letter out. The paper was pale yellow, and gossamer-

thin.

'A few hours after he died, this letter was delivered

here by hand,' she said. 'It was addressed to him. I

opened it. I think you ought to read it.'

She passed it to him. The hand it was written in was

solid and unaffected.

Dorothea, he had written, if you are reading this, then I

am dead.

You know how little store I set by dreams and

premonitions and such; but for the last few days strange

thoughts have just crept into my head, and I have the

suspicion that death is very close to me. If so, so. There's

no help for it. Don't waste time trying to puzzle out the whys

and wherefores; they're old news now. Just know that I love

you, and that I have always loved you in my way. I'm sorry

for whatever unhappiness I've caused, or am causing now,

but it was out of my hands.

I have some instructions regarding the disposal of my

body. Please adhere to them to the letter. Don't let anybody

try to persuade you out of doing as I ask.

I want you to have my body watched night and day

until I'm cremated. Don't try and take my remains back to

Europe. Have me cremated here, as soon as possible, then

throw the ashes in the East River.

My sweet darling, I'm afraid. Not of bad dreams, or of

what might happen to me in this life, but of what my enemies

may try to do once I'm dead. You know how critics can be:

they wait until you can't fight them back, then they start the

character assassinations. It's too long a business to try and

explain all of this, so I must simply trust you to do as I say.

Again, I love you, and I hope you never have to read this

letter.

Your adoring,

Swann.'

'Some farewell note,' Harry commented when he'd

read it through twice. He folded it up and passed it

back to the widow.

'I'd like you to stay with him,' she said. 'Corpse-sit,

if you will. Just until all the legal formalities are dealt

with and I can make arrangements for his cremation. It

shouldn't take them long. I've got a lawyer working on

it now.'

'Again: why me?'

She avoided his gaze. 'As he says in the letter, he was

never superstitious. But I am. I believe in omens. And

there was an odd atmosphere about the place in the days

before he died. As if we were watched.'

'You think he was murdered?'

She mused on this, then said: 'I don't believe it was

an accident.'

'These enemies he talks about..."

'He was a great man. Much envied.'

'Professional jealousy? Is that a motive for murder?'

'Anything can be a motive, can't it?' she said.

'People get killed for the colour of their eyes, don't

they?'

Harry was impressed. It had taken him twenty years

to learn how arbitrary things were. She spoke it as

conventional wisdom.

'Where is your husband?' he asked her.

'Upstairs,' she said. 'I had the body brought back

here, where I could look after him. I can't pretend I

understand what's going on, but I'm not going to risk

ignoring his instructions.'

Harry nodded.

'Swann was my life,' she added softly, apropos of

nothing; and everything.

She took him upstairs. The perfume that had met

him at the door intensified. The master bedroom had

been turned into a Chapel of Rest, knee-deep in sprays

and wreaths of every shape and variety; their mingled

scents verged on the hallucinogenic. In the midst of

this abundance, the casket - an elaborate affair in black

and silver - was mounted on trestles. The upper half

of the lid stood open, the plush overlay folded back.

At Dorothea's invitation he waded through the tributes

to view the deceased. He liked Swann's face; it had

humour, and a certain guile; it was even handsome in its

weary way. More: it had inspired the love of Dorothea;

a face could have few better recommendations. Harry

stood waist-high in flowers and, absurd as it was, felt

a twinge of envy for the love this man must have

enjoyed.

'Will you help me, Mr D'Amour?'

What could he say but: 'Yes, of course I'll help.' That,

and: 'Call me Harry.'

He would be missed at Wing's Pavilion tonight. He had

occupied the best table there every Friday night for the

past six and a half years, eating at one sitting enough

to compensate for what his diet lacked in excellence

and variety the other six days of the week. This

feast - the best Chinese cuisine to be had south of

Canal Street - came gratis, thanks to services he had

once rendered the owner. Tonight the table would go

empty.

Not that his stomach suffered. He had only been

sitting with Swann an hour or so when Valentin came

up and said:

'How do you like your steak?'

'Just shy of burned,' Harry replied.

Valentin was none too pleased by the response. 'I hate

to overcook good steak/ he said.

'And I hate the sight of blood,' Harry said, 'even if it

isn't my own.'

The chef clearly despaired of his guest's palate, and

turned to go.

'Valentin?'

The man looked round.

'Is that your Christian name?' Harry asked.

'Christian names are for Christians,' came the reply.

Harry nodded. 'You don't like my being here, am I

right?'

Valentin made no reply. His eyes had drifted past

Harry to the open coffin.

'I'm not going to be here for long,' Harry said, 'but

while I am, can't we be friends?'

Valentin's gaze found him once more.

'I don't have any friends,' he said without enmity or

self-pity. 'Not now.'

'OK. I'm sorry.'

'What's to be sorry for?' Valentin wanted to know.

'Swann's dead. It's all over, bar the shouting.'

The doleful face stoically refused tears. A stone would

weep sooner, Harry guessed. But there was grief there,

and all the more acute for being dumb.

'One question.'

'Only one?'

'Why didn't you want me to read his letter?'

Valentin raised his eyebrows slightly; they were fine

enough to have been pencilled on. 'He wasn't insane,'

he said. 'I didn't want you thinking he was a crazy man,

because of what he wrote. What you read you keep to

yourself. Swann was a legend. I don't want his memory

besmirched.'

'You should write a book,' Harry said. 'Tell the whole

story once and for all. You were with him a long time, I

hear.'

'Oh yes,' said Valentin. 'Long enough to know better

than to tell the truth.'

So saying he made an exit, leaving the flowers to wilt,

and Harry with more puzzles on his hands than he'd

begun with.

Twenty minutes later, Valentin brought up a tray of

food: a large salad, bread, wine, and the steak. It was

one degree short of charcoal.

'Just the way I like it,' Harry said, and set to

guzzling.

He didn't see Dorothea Swann, though God knows

he thought about her often enough. Every time he

heard a whisper on the stairs, or footsteps along the

carpetted landing, he hoped her face would appear at

the door, an invitation on her lips. Not perhaps the

most appropriate of thoughts, given the proximity of

her husband's corpse, but what would the illusionist care

now? He was dead and gone. If he had any generosity of

spirit he wouldn't want to see his widow drown in her

grief.

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THEBOOKOFBLOOD(apostscript)ONJERUSALEMSTREETTHELASTILLUSIONWHATHAPPENEDTHEN-whenthemagician,havingmesmerisedthecagedtiger,pulledthetasselledcordthatreleasedadozenswordsuponitshead-wasthesubjectofheatedargumentbothinthebarofthetheatreandlater,whenSwann'sperformancewasover,onthesidewalkof51stStreet.So...

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Barker, Clive - collection - Books of Blood Volume 06

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