Now You See It

Chapter 19

We clattered down the steps and past Raymond Ramutka, who was listening to classical music on the radio on his little table.

“Not there?” he asked.

“Not there,” Blackstone said.

Ramutka was going to ask another question, but he was too slow. We piled into Phil’s car and he did a wild U-turn, heading back toward our office. I was in the front passenger seat. Phil ran two red lights and, amazingly, avoided a collision with a truck. His jaw was set as if it was he who now had a toothache. I considered talking about what we were going to do when we got to the Farraday, but Phil was in a don’t-mess-with-me mood so I shut up.

“If he’s there …” Pete said from the backseat.

“He’s there,” I said, or, rather, hoped.

I didn’t pray. I don’t pray, not for show, not to feel better. I don’t know if there’s a God or gods out there. I don’t think about it much or often. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe. I just thought if there was a God and he wanted to get involved, he was watching. He could do what he wanted. What could I promise him that would make a difference? Why should he do something for me just because I asked him?

That’s about the extent of what I think about religion. What I did think about now was a pretty, smiling little girl and a young man who had killed people-Japanese soldiers-about a year or two ago, and maybe three more men in the last few days.

“If he’s there,” said Blackstone behind us, “I want to talk to him.”

If Phil had driven like a lunatic on the way to the Pantages, he drove like a man possessed on the way back to the Farraday. When we got there, he didn’t bother to find a legal parking space. He just pulled up on the sidewalk in front of Manny’s Taco Shop.

We decided not to stop at Jeremy and Alice’s apartment for two reasons. First, we might be wrong and didn’t want to give them hope and then find out Jimmy and Natasha weren’t on the roof. Second, there was no way Jeremy and Alice would agree to stay behind, and, if they came with us, there was no way of knowing what they might do.

We walked up the stairs to the top floor, turned right, away from the Butler apartment, and made our way to the door to the narrow stairwell that led to the roof. I’d been up there a few times. I couldn’t remember why.

“He’s there,” Phil said, pausing at a door on our left.

The sign on the door said it was the office of The Puccini Locksmith Company. Albert Puccini, a quiet little old man, would be his own client in the morning. His door was slightly open and shorn at the level of the lock.

“He made that call to the Butler apartment from here,” said Phil. “He never left the building.”

My gun was safely in the glove compartment of my Crosley. Phil had his tucked under his jacket in a leather holster he kept oiled and clean.

The door to the stairwell was closed but no longer locked. That meant more work for Albert Puccini in the morning. Phil led the way up the narrow, dark stairs to the door at the top. His gun was in his right hand. He opened the door with his left and stepped onto the roof. We followed.

The sky was bright with stars and almost a whole moon. Maybe it was the blackout or the fact that we were on a roof, but it was lighter up there than it was inside the Farraday.

We couldn’t see Jimmy. There were four vents dotting the roof and a little wooden storage shack to our right. Then we saw him.

Jimmy was sitting on the two-foot wide concrete edge of the building. Natasha was in his arms sleeping, her chest moving slowly in and out, her mouth a peaceful pout. In his right hand, Jimmy held a gun. It was aimed at us.

“Jimmy,” Blackstone said softly. “What are you doing?”

“Right now?” Jimmy said, glancing up at the stars. “I’m remembering.”

We inched forward. Jimmy didn’t pay any special attention to Phil’s gun.

“Remembering what?” asked Blackstone calmly.

“An island,” said Jimmy. “Don’t remember which one. You think the sky is bright tonight? There wasn’t any light out there. You’d lay on your back and look up and see, I don’t know, millions of stars. Some nights it looked as if the sky was all stars and no dark. You know?”

“Yes,” said Blackstone, moving ahead of us closer to Jimmy, motioning for us to stay where we were.

“Then in the morning the sky went flashing bright with the sun and we started to get incoming mail,” said Jimmy. “Mortar fire mostly. They died around me. Mosberg, Tighe, Huang, Donald-berg. Donaldberg was from Detroit.”

“I’m sorry,” said Blackstone.

Jimmy bit his lower lip and looked down at the face of the sleeping child. He shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “My friends got killed. I killed. You know?”

“I think so,” Blackstone said. “Is it alright if I take the girl?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just want to get away. It’s all over.”

“It’s all over,” said Blackstone.

Phil moved slowly, very slowly to his right, his eyes on Jimmy, his gun waist level.

“May I sit here?” asked Blackstone.

“You don’t need my okay,” said Jimmy.

Blackstone sat on the concrete edge of the roof about six feet from Jimmy. “What happened?” he asked him.

“Tonight? I could see that Wilde recognized me,” he said. “I’d stayed back when Cunningham and me went to the studio to see him, but I could see he recognized me. I don’t know how. I was supposed to come here and sit with Natasha, so I came here and got her.”

“Lovely child,” said Blackstone with a smile.

Jimmy looked at her.

“Smart, too,” he said.

“Why did you kill Calvin Ott?” Blackstone asked.

“Same reason I killed Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Rand,” he said. “To protect you.”

“Me? I don’t understand.”

“Mr. Cunningham was going out with Gwen,” Jimmy said. “He talked to me a few times. Then just last week he asked me if I wanted to make a lot of money. I don’t need a lot of money, but he said it funny. Kinda like it was a secret. So, I said ‘yes’ to find out what he was going to say.”

Natasha made a soft sound and moved a little. Jimmy rocked her gently, the gun in his hand aimed in my general direction.

“Go on,” coaxed Blackstone.

“He said he and some friends had good reasons for wanting to hurt you. He wanted me to help him do things, make the illusions mess up, help him come up with things they could blackmail you with. Said one of his friends was rich and would give me two thousand dollars.”

“Ott?” asked Blackstone.

“Ott,” Jimmy confirmed. “The other night, when the buzz saw had a problem, I went up to the dressing room and shot Cunningham. I waited till the buzz saw was making lots of noise. Then I came back down and sort of waited for someone to find the body. Mr. Rand was backstage in a turban and stuff. He went up to the dressing room and found the body. I was watching. Gwen saw him coming out of her dressing room with the gun. He ran down the stairs. She found the body and screamed. Then she ran down the stairs and out the stage door. Or maybe it was the other way around. Yes, it was. Gwen ran down first, and Rand followed her.”

“Why?” asked Blackstone.

“I think because she saw him coming out of the dressing room, and he figured she would tell the police,” said Jimmy. “But he didn’t have a real gun, just the pellet gun we use in the bursting red balloon illusion.”

“And then?” Blackstone prompted.

“Mr. Ott was there, in the theater. He came to watch the show come apart.”

“And you killed Ott,” Blackstone said.

Phil had edged a good six feet over now. He might, if he had to, have a shot at Jimmy. I knew he wouldn’t take it unless he had to, because of Natasha.

“Yes,” he said.

“And Rand knew?”

“Yes, he was there when I did it,” said Jimmy. “I just walked past him to where Mr. Ott was sitting and laughing. I think he thought I was going to help him hide the fake knife. I had my own knife in my belt. I stabbed him while he was laughing about the look that was going to be on your face when you came back and found him alive and holding up a glass of wine to toast his making you look bad.”

“But he didn’t get the chance,” said Blackstone.

“Didn’t get the chance,” Jimmy agreed. “Mr. Rand looked at me, looked real scared. He was right. I would have killed him there, too, but he ran.”

“Jimmy, you could have told me and …”

“No,” said Jimmy with a sigh. “Nothing you can do with people like that but kill them. War is going on. American soldiers are getting killed and twisted all up every day and they do stuff like this. They needed killing, Mr. Blackstone. You needed protecting.”

Natasha definitely stirred and squirmed and looked like she was about to wake up. Jimmy looked over his shoulder and down at the street six floors below him. Phil raised his gun a few inches.

“Why should you kill three people to protect me?” asked Blackstone.

“Why? Because you saved my life and my mom’s life,” he said.

“I did? When?”

“Decatur two years ago, just a week before I went into the army,” said Jimmy. “The theater fire. I was at the show. My mom was in the ticket booth when you brought us all out on the street. You got her to come out of the booth. The fire came flying out the door and cracked right through the booth. I don’t forget. People shouldn’t forget, you know?”

“I know,” said Blackstone. “She’s waking up.”

Jimmy looked at Natasha, who definitely was about to wake up. He started to get up with her in his arms. Phil’s gun hand was at waist level now.

“Jimmy,” Blackstone said. “Please hand her to me.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt her,” Jimmy said, holding the little girl out to the magician.

Blackstone rose and took her from him. Phil’s gun was shoulder level and aimed at Jimmy.

Blackstone backed away and said,

“Thank you, Jimmy. Now, if you just put the gun down we can help you.”

“Where’s the satchel?” I asked.

“I threw it in the garbage,” Jimmy said. “There was no money in it, just folded newspapers.”

Jimmy looked at the gun in his hand as if he had forgotten it was there. Then he looked over at Pete Bouton and me and then turned his head toward Phil. He saw the gun aimed at him.

“Jimmy,” Blackstone repeated. “Look.”

Jimmy turned his eyes toward the magician, who was handing the child to his brother.

Blackstone held up both of his arms, clapped his hands and a flash of light appeared between them. When the flash ended, Blackstone was holding a duck in his hands. The duck quacked, and Phil fired.

Jimmy staggered back and looked as if he were about to topple over the roof. I ran toward him, grabbed his arm, and pulled him toward me away from the edge. He fell on his side, the gun sliding across the roof away from him.

Phil stepped forward, gun at the ready.

“How is he?” Phil asked.

“Hole in his thigh,” I said. “Bleeding a lot.”

“I’ll call for an ambulance,” Pete said, moving to the stairwell with a groggy Natasha in his arms looking over his shoulder at Jimmy. She looked as if she were going to cry.

“I wouldn’t have hurt her,” Jimmy said, not seeming to feel any pain.

“I know,” said Blackstone.

“All those months,” Jimmy said, looking at me. “Never got shot, just the shrapnel in my leg. Now I’m here, and I get shot. Funny, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Funny.”