CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HOUDINI CALLED CHARLIE Chaplin’s home half a dozen times, and half a dozen times he didn’t answer. When the telephone operator began to recognize Houdini’s voice and patch him through automatically, he gave up.
The magician went to United Artists to look for him there, but he appeared to have vanished. Chaplin’s assistant, a stiff young woman who clung to her clipboard and notebook as if they were the tablets of Moses, said she had no idea where he was or when he’d return. By the deep creases around her grimace, Houdini gathered that Chaplin had a habit of wandering off unannounced.
The assistant grudgingly offered Houdini a seat outside the closed door of Chaplin’s office. Houdini wondered if perhaps the comedian was also angry after yesterday’s stunt and was avoiding him. As soon as the assistant left, Houdini picked the lock to Chaplin’s office and peeked inside.
Chaplin wasn’t there. It was a handsome space, with dark woods and leather furniture that felt more like a banker’s office. One wall was plastered with framed photos of Chaplin, Pickford, and Fairbanks posing with a wide spectrum of famous people: actors, politicians, and dignitaries of every sort. Houdini began to realize that his fame and influence as a magician only went so far; the star power of Chaplin and his friends was truly international.
The three actors traveled the world with an ease that was difficult five decades ago, and virtually impossible five centuries ago. Houdini wondered if the 20th Century’s vast improvement in communication and transportation would prove to be their demise. Calamity Jane had told him that every great talent was born in a place and time for a reason, to make a difference where they were. But with advances in technology, every great talent—every Burden, as she called them—could easily leave his or her hometown and pursue selfish desires. Maybe it wasn’t destiny that had brought them all to Hollywood, but merely self-interest.
He waited outside Chaplin’s office for hours, deliberating over what to do. With the comedian missing, and neither Fairbanks nor Pickford willing to help him, he was back to where he started. Worse, he was a sitting duck.
Finally, he gave up on Chaplin and decided his only option was to leave Los Angeles before Atlas arrived. He simply wasn’t equipped to take on the giant man by himself.
Houdini returned to the MGM studio lot, packed his few belongings, and was headed downtown by early evening. The last rays of sun had just escaped the city, and he’d be doing the same.
La Grande station was a beautiful Moorish-style building, anchored by a grand copper dome whose roof had a brilliant blue-green patina. The magician sat in the domed waiting room, stirring a chamomile tea that had long grown cold. It didn’t matter. The midnight train would soon arrive, and Hollywood would quickly become a memory, along with everyone in it.
Houdini would take the overnight train to Santa Fe. In a couple days he’d be back in New York. And then what? Could he even continue his career as a magician with a killer on his trail? It sounded unlikely. Whatever he did from this point on, he’d have to figure it out on his own. Alone.
A newsboy near the terminal entrance dumped his unsold stack in the trash and walked out. With hardly a soul in sight, he had given up on selling any more newspapers that night. Houdini walked over and picked an issue out of the bin; it was the evening edition of the Examiner.
The top headline caught his eye, in no small part because his name was in it: “HOUDINI FLUBS STUNT; NEARLY KILLS FAIRBANKS.” It was an exclusive interview with Douglas Fairbanks, who explained to the reporter that Houdini was supposed to escape the noose and then throw the rope over to him; Fairbanks would then swing across Hollywood Boulevard to the delight of spectators who, after all, had come to see him. But, Fairbanks said, Houdini took too long to escape, and had hired an incompetent assistant who set the rope on fire. It was a careless mistake that could have set the whole block ablaze. He cautioned anyone against hiring “that old geezer” ever again.
Houdini fumed. Had the reporter never wondered why Fairbanks included Houdini in the stunt in the first place? Or why Fairbanks had climbed a sign not meant to handle his weight? Perhaps the reporter had asked these things, and Fairbanks had kindly requested that he not write about them. He was Douglas Fairbanks, after all, and people did as he requested.
Houdini’s train finally pulled into the station, and a wave of arriving passengers flooded the terminal: couples on vacation, business men home from trips, an occasional family. The once-quiet space suddenly echoed with voices and footsteps.
He set down the paper. As healthy as Houdini was for his age, he suddenly felt very old. Most men at fifty weren’t crawling through sewers or dangling from nooses with ropes on fire. They didn’t sit in tanks of water holding their breaths for minutes at a time. They were bankers or salesmen, and they were saving their money and waiting for the day when they could collect their pensions and retire in comfort.
Old age and death, these are the things from which no one escapes.
A new generation of magicians and illusionists would soon overtake him. Maybe he should retire while he was still on top, while he was still the undisputed king.
“Mr. Houdini!”
The magician looked up. It took him half a second to recognize his wife in this unexpected location. He jumped up to embrace her.
“What are you doing here?”
Bess had a purse and small suitcase. Years on the road had taught her to travel light.
“I’m here for you,” she said. “I packed and left the moment we got off the phone. But why are you at the station?”
“I’m leaving,” Houdini said. “I was heading back to you.”
“Did you make the friends you wanted, then?”
Houdini thought immediately of Pickford. His face reddened and his palms became clammy.
“No,” he said. “I’ve made no friends. I’ve made nothing but mistakes. We need to talk. But first, let’s get on that train heading back.”
“But I’ve just arrived after days of travel,” Bess said. “I don’t want to spend another moment on that thing.”
Houdini picked up her suitcase.
“The man after me, I’ve lured him to Los Angeles. He’ll be here any day. We’ve got to get out of the city.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please!”
A station attendant stood on a chair, shouting through a megaphone to the people in the waiting room.
“I regret to inform you that the train to Santa Fe has been canceled,” the attendant said. “There’s been a malfunction with the tracks. Please try again tomorrow morning.”
Houdini walked over and caught the man as he was leaving.
“What do you mean, a malfunction?”
The man looked around surreptitiously, then leaned in.
“I’m not supposed to say, but the tracks outside Barstow have been damaged. They need to repair them first.”
“Why is that such a secret?” Houdini asked.
“Because a section of track was ripped clear out of the ground,” he said. “The steel was bent and is completely unusable. They can’t figure out how it happened. An earthquake, they’re saying, though some of the repairmen suspect sabotage.”
“Sabotage?”
The attendant leaned his head in toward Houdini’s, like housewives at tea time sharing gossip.
“Maybe from Southern Pacific rivals. Or the automobile industry. My theory is, it was Standard Oil.”
Houdini grimaced.
I have my own theories.
He checked his watch.
“Are there any other trains going anywhere else?”
The man shook his head.
“That was the last train.”
“Then how do we get out of Los Angeles?” Houdini asked.
“You don’t,” the attendant said. “Not tonight.”