Escapade Read Online Free PDF Page B

it was I who invented the art. And, if I may say so, with no false modesty, Houdini is still the greatest of them all.” He turned to me. “Would you agree, Phil?”
    “Sure,” I said. It was true, after all.
    “Really,” she said, pronouncing every letter in the word. A faint light had begun to flicker behind her eyes, and a faint note of irony had slipped into her voice. “And just what is it you escape from, exactly?”
    Irony, faint or otherwise, was wasted on the Great Man. He waved a hand. “Everything. Anything. In the beginning it was handcuffs and shackles. But anyone can escape from handcuffs and shackles. Always, you see, I try to go beyond what others can do, what even I can do, and that is the greatest challenge of all, naturally. Nowadays Houdini escapes from everything. Locked trunks. Coffins. From coffins under water, or buried in the earth. And naturally this requires enormous physical strength and stamina. Tremendous stamina. Would you like to hit me in the stomach?”
    “I beg your pardon?” she said.
    He opened up his suit coat. “Go ahead. Hit me. As hard as you like. Years of conditioning have turned Houdini’s muscles into steel.” He nodded toward his stomach. “Please. Feel free.”
    “Ah,” she said. I saw that she was blushing. Quickly, she glanced around the room. She wasn’t as jaded as she pretended to be. She looked back at him and cleared her throat. “Thanks awfully, of course,” she said. “But perhaps some other time.”
    Houdini flexed his arm and held his biceps out to her, like a proud butcher presenting a prime slab of porterhouse. “Here. Go ahead. Feel.”
    She looked over to me, as though expecting a rescue. I didn’t have one. She hesitated. The Great Man still held out his arm.
    She said, “Oh, well,” and she shrugged lightly, as though it didn’t really matter in the long run. And she reached out and touched it, tentatively, experimentally.
    “Amazing, isn’t it?” he said. “Exactly like steel. Feel it.”
    “Yes,” she said. She touched it some more. She blinked again as her fingers moved along the tight black fabric. “Yes, it’s really quite . . . firm, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, naturally,” he nodded. He let his arm drop. “Conditioning, exercise,” he said, “years and years of it, every day without exception. Alcohol would ruin that in an instant. It destroys muscle tissue, you know. Eats it away, like sulfuric acid. A glass of plain water is what I would like, if I may.”
    She was staring at him with her lips slightly parted. She blinked again, like someone waking from a daydream, and she closed her mouth. Blushing once more, she glanced around the room. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.” There was a faint sheen of perspiration on her forehead.
    I had seen it happen before. People were never prepared for the Great Man’s bald, boundless ego. Some people were repelled by it. But a lot of them were attracted.
    And some people are also attracted to firm muscles.
    The Great Man hadn’t noticed the girl’s reaction. He had turned away from her and he stood now with his hands behind his back, his head held high. He glanced thoughtfully around the room, like a theater director gauging the house and its profits.
    She turned to me. She cleared her throat. She had wrapped her world weariness back over herself, but I think she realized that it didn’t fit nearly as well as it had before. “And you, Mr. Beaumont?”
    “A whiskey, thanks. With a little water.”
    She turned and she stabbed her cigarette into the ashtray. Her movement was so quick and violent that I felt sorry for the cigarette.
    She ordered the drinks from the servant. She didn’t look into the Great Man’s eyes when she gave him the glass of water, but her hand was rock-steady. She handed me the whiskey and water. No ice. The English don’t trust it. “You must meet the other guests,” she told me.

Chapter Four
    The GRAMOPHONE was tinkling out a Scott Joplin rag