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  Harry managed to help him into the chair, and Max slumped back, his breathing labored. “God,” he said again. He began to gag, unable to breath. His mouth opened, and his tongue lolled out for several moments.

  Then, with a wheezing moan, his body convulsed, jerked a few times, and went limp, his eyes falling shut.

  chapter 9

  I felt my heartbeat thudding heavily, an old drum in the cavity of my chest, beaten with a slow and weary stroke. I wondered why it hadn’t split in two.

  Harry gaped in silence at my son. Finally, he spoke.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Oh, Jesus. Jesus H. Christ.”

  Bending over, he pressed his right ear to Max’s chest, listening intently, trying to hold his shaking breath long enough to hear the beat of Max’s heart—or, more likely, the absence of it.

  Which is what he heard; nothing.

  He jerked erect and looked at Max in shock.

  Then—incredibly—in fury.

  Spewing out words which, to my dying day, will typify the man for me.

  “You lousy son of a bitch,” he said. “Now I’ll never get to Boston by tonight.”

  The shriek of horror he emitted was that of a woman as Max leaped up, eyes wide and glaring, and grabbed him by the arms.

  Harry tore loose from Max’s grip and, losing balance, flopped down on the carpeting.

  Sprawling there, breath barely functioning, he gaped up at my son.

  “Surprise!” said Max.

  Silence then as Max walked over to my wheelchair and laid his right hand on my shoulder.

  “I apologize for frightening you, Padre,” he said. “But I wanted you, of all people, to see the effect. It was a grand one, wasn’t it?”

  Leaning over, he kissed me on the cheek, then turned away and walked back to Harry. Sonny, Sonny, I was thinking, what is happening in your mind?

  Reaching Harry, he began explaining—in a positively cheerful voice.

  “Let me anticipate your questions,” he said. “One, the capsules: B-complex. I added the smell of bitter almonds to fool you. Two, the lack of heartbeat as you listened: A skill I learned in India from one Pandit Khaj, a fakir of surpassing knowledge.”

  Pandit Khaj! Of course! I thought. How could I have forgotten that?

  “Three, my heartrending performance,” Max was saying. “Have I not told you that a magician is, first and foremost, a skilled actor?”

  Skilled indeed, I thought. Enough to almost finish me off, Sonny boy.

  Harry found his voice then.

  “You bastard,” he said. “You dirty, miserable, shit-faced, mother-fucking, cocksucking son of a bitch!”

  “Kudos,” Max responded. “You appear to have incorporated all the major profanities in one sentence. I shall forth with notify The Guinness Book of Records.”

  Ambivalence raged within me. I wanted to bop my son on the head for putting me through such an ordeal.

  I also wanted to laugh aloud. (I’ve always yearned for the unreachable.)

  Harry, on the other hand, was obviously not experiencing ambivalence at all. The emotion he felt was singular and pure.

  Revulsion.

  With a shake of his head, he pushed to his feet and moved unevenly to the chair. Picking up his attaché case and hat, he started for the entry hall.

  Max strode quickly to the desk and reached beneath it.

  As Harry approached the door, I heard a click in the latching mechanism. Harry turned the knob and tried to pull the door in. It would not move.

  Harry didn’t turn. I saw his face gone hard. In a low-pitched voice, trembling with anger, he said, “Unlock the door, Max.”

  Max did not reply. Harry waited, then spoke again, his tone more vehement. “Unlock the door, Max,” he ordered.

  No response.

  Harry whirled, cheeks flushed with rage. “Unlock the fucking door!” he shouted.

  Max did not reply or move.

  With a teeth-clenched grimace, Harry lunged toward the desk.

  Max picked up the pair of dueling pistols and stepped aside as his frothing agent searched for the button which would unlock the door.

  “All right, where is it?” he demanded. He kept groping underneath the desk in vain. “Damn it!” he cried. He glared at Max.

  Then a vengeful smile pulled back his lips. “All right,” he said. “I’m calling the police.”

  Max shifted one of the pistols to his left hand, extending the other in his right, pointed at Harry’s chest.

  “I wouldn’t,” he said.

  Harry’s snarl was soundless. “Another of your frigging little tricks?”

  Max’s smile was barely visible.

  “Care to test that supposition?” he inquired.

  Harry wasn’t sure anymore; Max was behaving too erratically.

  He did not pick up the telephone receiver.

  Still, his fury bubbled over, uncontrollable.

  “You went through all that shit before—the arsenic, the phony death—just to get back at me?”

  “In part,” Max answered quietly.

  “All that crap about your precious Adelaide?” Harry sneered.

  Mistake.

  He twitched with a grunt of shock as Max’s face went rigid and his arm abruptly levered out, pointing the pistol at Harry’s head.

  Harry cried out in stunned dismay as Max pulled the trigger and the pistol fired with a deafening report.

  On the mantelpiece, a vase exploded like a bomb, shooting terra-cotta shrapnel in all directions, making Harry gasp and fling his arms up automatically. In his agitated state, he’d failed to notice Max’s wrist cock to the left an instant before he fired. I’d noticed, but it hadn’t relieved my state of mind—I was still distressed (is it overly flippant to say: to the max?) by my son’s behavior.

  Harry stared at Max in total apprehension now. Max stared back with deep malevolence.

  “Everything I said about my Adelaide stands uncontradicted,” he said softly, vengefully. “Except for my mother and father, she was the only genuine person I ever had in my life.”

  Harry shuddered as Max put the fired pistol on the desk and shifted the other one to his right hand. He smiled at Harry.

  It was not a reassuring smile … to either of us.

  “I take it back,” he said. “That pistol ball was also genuine. You demean me, Harry, by suggesting that I deal in nothing but ‘frigging little tricks.’”

  “What do you want?” asked Harry in a faint voice.

  My question exactly.

  “Well, I had considered a duel,” said Max, “for a number of reasons. Honor. Revenge. Whatever.”

  His expression of regret was a mocking one.

  “That’s now impossible, however,” he continued, “since I had to fire your pistol to prove that both weapons were really loaded.”

  His face went hard now, and he gestured toward a chair with the pistol. “Sit,” he said.

  Harry tried to tough it out; his voice was not exactly convincing as he muttered, “No.”

  “Very well,” said Max.

  He extended the pistol toward Harry.

  “This time I will not destroy a vase,” he said. “Farewell, old chum.”

  “All right,” said Harry quickly. He hurried to the chair and sat.

  “Now put down your little hand-stitched, leather, monogrammed-in-gold attaché case,” Max told him.

  Harry swallowed dryly, placing his attaché case and hat on the table beside him.

  “Very good,” said Max.

  Harry drew in a shaking breath. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Max?” he asked.

  “Wrapping up loose ends,” Max answered. “Pal.”

  Keeping his eyes on Harry, he edged over to the desk and pulled out its middle drawer. Removing two folded sheets of paper, he unfolded one of them.

  “Found in Cassandra’s raincoat pocket,” he explained.

  Harry swallowed again. I actually heard the crackling of membranes in his parc
hed throat. He watched uneasily as Max returned to the chair and began to read the letter he was holding in his left hand.

  “‘Sometimes, I wonder why I bother anymore. God knows, he doesn’t make me more than petty cash these days. He’s washed up but too stubborn to admit it. If he keeps making a fool of himself on stage, I’m going to drop him from the agency or let some flunky handle him.’

  “Shall I go on?” he asked.

  Harry stared up at my son, his eyes like cold stones; the look which, I am certain, paralyzed untold numbers of business contacts.

  “It’s a hard world, Max,” he said. “Nobody’s out there to do you favors.”

  “Dog-eat-dog, eh, Harold?” Max responded.

  “You got it, pal,” said Harry. Clearly, he was vowing not to let Max see any further signs of weakness in him. He gestured toward the letter with contempt.

  “Is that why you’re doing all this?” he asked. “Because I wrote an unflattering note?”

  Unflattering? I thought. Insulting, you bastard!

  “No, there’s a bit more,” Max replied.

  In spite of his obvious vow, Harry could not restrain a shudder as Max shook open the second folded sheet of paper. Perhaps I shuddered, too; who knows?

  “One sworn affidavit, duly notarized,” he said. “Signed by one Emmanuel Farber, night porter at The Essex House.

  “Statement: ‘Yes, I saw that man’—identifying a photograph of you, dear Harold—‘and that woman’—identifying a photograph of guess who, Harold?—‘enter Room 525 on the night of April 28—’”

  “All right, I fucked her!” Harry interrupted, with desperate bravado. “So what? I didn’t start it! She did! She wanted it, I gave it to her! Big deal! What do you expect? You can’t even get it up anymore!”

  If I had been my son and held that pistol in my hand, I would have blown out Harry’s brains exactly then.

  It was a compounded fury I was feeling at that loathsome toad of a man. The crimes?

  One, a snarling admission that he’d gone to bed with Cassandra.

  Two, a casual dismissal of the incident.

  Three, a weaseling out from all responsibility. It was her fault, her desire, her demand. All he’d done was accommodate the bitch.

  Four, the final insult, mocking my son as impotent.

  Kill him, I thought.

  But Max did not respond as I did. Did not raise the pistol to fire. Merely gazed at Harry in regret. (Regret!)

  “The irony of ironies,” he finally said, “is that I trusted you completely, considered you my friend.”

  “That was your mistake,” said Harry. I saw him flinch as though in shock at his suicidal reply.

  Still, he couldn’t stop himself. “If you’re looking for an apology, forget it,” he added.

  Madness, I thought.

  I myself flinched as Max raised the pistol, aiming it between Harry’s frozen eyes.

  “There is only one thing I’m looking for,” Max said. “That is revenge. And I am about to exact it.”

  chapter 10

  Harry braced himself. Death was coming now. He was certain of it; I could see it in his face.

  And yet, instead—maddeningly now!—Max said, “You never understood me for a moment, did you? Never understood the endless time and work I expended to perfect my skill.”

  What tangent now? I thought. Is he going to shoot Harry or not?

  Harry was clearly wondering the same thing. He stared at Max uncertainly, anticipating death, yet wondering at the same time when it was due.

  “I have been the best,” Max was saying. “As my father was before me. The best.

  “And why? Because I saw to everything. Everything. Consistency of attitude. Consistency of detail.”

  In an eerie way, it was like hearing myself speak. Max and I resembled one another. Our voices (when I had one) were alike.

  And certainly the words he spoke, I had spoken—if not word for word then, surely, feeling for feeling.

  “Consistency of detail,” he repeated. “Speaking clearly to the last row as to the first. Speaking to my audience as though the words are coming for the first time instead of being repeated verbatim as they’ve been for twenty years.”

  Dear Lord, an echo of my own repeated declarations.

  “Preparing monologues not only for the audience to hear,” said Max, “but for myself to think as well. Soundless lines for me to think between the words I speak aloud. Details.”

  Was I smiling? Surely not; I couldn’t. But inside I was. Inside I felt a warmth of sweet nostalgia.

  Max had lowered the pistol now and begun to pace again. I saw Harry watch him with suspicion. And knew that he was thinking, Now what?—for I was thinking it as well, despite my pleasure at the words my son was speaking.

  “Details,” Max said, gesturing with his left hand.

  “You must not surprise an audience. You must ‘stage-surprise’ them. An audience loathes to be truly surprised, because it is unexpected, therefore unenjoyable.”

  The inner smile again. These words, like benedictions from the past. I wonder if he knew the pleasure they were giving me.

  “The ‘stage-surprise’ is different,” he continued. “Openly announced in advance. The magician declaring: ‘My friends, I am going to surprise you. Are you ready? Prepare yourself carefully. Here it comes.’ “

  I was not a hunching cabbage in a wheelchair now, not a worthless lump of detritus. I was back in the world I knew and loved, and Max, my son, had taken me there.

  “Details,” he said again.

  “The choosing of a volunteer. One who will cooperate. Bright outfit, never drab. Eye-catching. Preferably female. Not overly attractive, though. If she’s too attractive, she’ll draw excess attention from the act.”

  Quite so, I thought; absolutely right.

  “If a male,” said Max, “someone with a physical oddity—skinny, fat, protruding ears, whatever. Someone to amuse the audience. Distract it.

  “And look before the need,” he added. “Let them be already chosen when the time arrives to use them.”

  Absolutely, I reacted.

  Max was coming to life now, as I was (well, relatively)—his eyes bright, his posture alert, his voice increasingly excited as he spoke; and why not? Wasn’t this his kingdom?

  Hadn’t it been mine?

  “What will these volunteers be used for?” he asked. The question was academic, of course; he already knew the answer. “Helpers? Subjects? Subjects must be credulous, not doubtful, not distrusting.”

  Harry would have made a lousy Subject, it occurred to me.

  “Lenders of objects?” Max was adding further academic queries. “Watches? Keys? Pens? Lenders must be chosen for appearance of integrity. The same for inspectors of devices. The audience must trust their judgment.”

  How well I had taught him; I basked in the knowledge.

  Now Harry tensed as Max moved to the desk and set the pistol down, then began to use both hands to gesture as he continued pacing. Is that a good idea? I fretted. What if Max moved so far from the desk that Harry could make a rush for the pistol? Surely he would do it. There was no other way out for him.

  It seemed as though Harry listened now with one ear (as they say), keeping himself prepared to move should the opportunity arise. Watch it, Son, I thought. Don’t get so carried away by your rhapsodizing that you overlook basic caution.

  “As for me, the magician,” Max was saying; he seemed to have completely forgotten the pistol. “I must show no sign of strain or stiffness in the hands, the elbows, or the shoulders. Gestures must be practiced to perfection—even the smallest one.”

  He demonstrated some. “Their length,” he said. “Their speed. Never more than one at a time.”

  Watch it, Sonny boy, I thought.

  “Time,” said Max, so loudly that it made Harry twitch. “Pauses. Counts and rhythms. Root out everything which might distract. Useless movements. Pointless jewelry. Clothes that call attention to the
mselves.

  “And always an alternative ending; always,” he said. “One must look ahead. Things can go wrong.”

  Yes, they can, I thought. Like an agent rushing to a desk and snatching up a pistol.

  It disturbed me to see that Max’s gaze was so inward now. I’m not sure he even knew that Harry was in the same room with him. And I saw that even wooden-witted Harry sensed this and was readying his move.

  “Consider every detail,” Max was saying (or was it The Great Delacorte, father and son, who spoke?). “Lighting. Music. Apparatus. Stagehands. Posture. Footwork; one kind for a cross, another for climbing steps. Another for moving upstage, yet another for moving down.”

  He began to demonstrate as to a class of novices. Ambivalence tore at me. I loved what he was saying but feared that, in saying it, he had become too incautious. I saw Harry edging forward on the chair. Oh, God, to have a voice! my mind exploded with lamenting rage.

  “The eight positions of the body,” Max was saying, demonstrating as he spoke. “Full back. Three-quarter right. Right profile. Quarter right. Full front. Quarter left. Left profile. Three-quarter left. Return to full back.”

  Harry started up, then sank down hurriedly as Max turned back. Was it possible that Max was playing with him? If so, he was taking greater risks than were prudent.

  “The six positions of the feet,” Max told him, smiling as he demonstrated. (He was lost in his kingdom!) “Feet together, side by side, pointing forward. Either foot one step sideways so the feet are twelve to twenty-four inches apart. One foot perpendicular to the other, the heel of the perpendicular touching the arch of the other.”

  Despite uneasiness, I could not but be awed by the detailed lengths to which Max had gone to perfect his act. Even I had not gone so far, I admit (with contrition).

  “The perpendicular foot one step forward,” he was continuing, “one foot pointing forward, the other at a forty-five-degree angle to it, the heel of the angled foot touching the toe of the first.

  “The same, but with the angled foot a step forward in the direction it points.”

  Look out, Max, I was thinking anxiously. Harry’s arms were rigid as he pressed down on the armrests, preparing himself to lurch up. How could Max not notice?