CHAPTER SEVEN
“YOU LOOK LIKE you could use some coffee.”
Houdini shot awake. The receptionist stood over him in her crisp white blouse and red pencil skirt. She shoved a teacup in his hand the moment he opened his eyes.
“Thank you.”
She offered a tight-lipped smile, then scuttled to the far side of the room before taking a deep breath. Houdini sipped the coffee.
He was sitting in an overstuffed chair in the waiting room of MGM Studios Head Louis B. Mayer. Everything in the room was creamy white—the walls, the drapes, the furniture, the plush carpet. It was as if he were sitting inside a giant cream puff. The decor only helped to magnify the filthiness of the magician’s suit.
Houdini barely noticed the smell by now. The worst part of his exit out of New York had been the train to Chicago, which he had paid for by selling his watch at a pawn shop. He boarded the train still soaked in sewage, causing passengers to repress gags. Well-dressed women huffed loudly and made little “tsk tsk” sounds. The conductor was going to kick him off at Columbus until he recognized who Houdini was. The magician had convinced him it was part of an elaborate escape—which was entirely true.
He had showered in Chicago at a YMCA facility near the train station, and had fully rinsed out his suit in a sink, but the smell clung to him like a second skin. He rinsed off again in a public toilet in Salt Lake City, and again in San Francisco at a church shelter for men heading south to pick fruit. By now his skin was raw from scrubbing, but there was still a residual something that he couldn’t wash clean. Maybe it wasn’t the sewage he was trying to escape. Maybe it was the image of Tommy Cipriano’s head getting bashed in.
The white double doors opened and Louis B. Mayer stepped out. Houdini stood.
“Harry!” Mayer said, holding his arms out as if he expected the magician to go running into them. He was a stout man with round glasses, neat gray hair, and a hawkish nose. Houdini smiled, nodded, and shook the studio head’s hand.
“Most people dress up for an interview with me,” Mayer said, taking in Houdini’s ragged attire. “You’re the only one I know who dresses down.”
“It was a last-minute trip,” Houdini said.
Mayer led them inside. His office continued the cream-on-cream-on-cream color scheme, with a massive oval desk that looked nothing short of presidential.
“I thought you ran a movie studio,” Houdini said. “It looks like you run the country.”
Mayer shooed away what he perceived as a compliment.
“Coolidge does a good enough job with that. Sit, sit.”
Houdini sat in another overstuffed cream chair facing Mayer’s desk.
“You want a scotch? Cigar?”
Mayer walked over to a glass-and-chrome bar next to a door that led into a private bathroom.
“Thank you, no. I rarely drink or smoke.”
“Good man,” Mayer said. “Neither do I. I only drink at weddings. And funerals, if I hated the guy.”
Mayer sat down behind his enormous desk. His chair was raised so that he’d sit a good six inches higher than anyone in the room. Houdini had the sense of visiting a king at his court.
“I like you, Houdini, I do. You’re good wholesome fun. Daring and dangerous, sure, but none of that sex and drugs and new-fangled jazz they’re playing in the seedy night clubs. You’re family entertainment.”
The magician gave a perfunctory smile. Like so many others before him, Mayer assumed Houdini was a prude because he didn’t drink, never cursed publicly, and was solidly married. But the magician had grown up in vaudeville, one of the bawdiest cultures in America. Mayer would be shocked to know the kind of people Houdini counted as friends.
“Let’s get down to business,” Mayer said. “I’ve got a job for you.”
He said it as if Houdini were an out-of-work juggling clown. But Houdini paid him no heed. Whatever movie Mayer wanted him to be in, Houdini had no intention of actually doing it.
The magician had remembered Mayer’s telegram as he was making his way out West. He was hoping Mayer would bankroll his visit there, since he had no money and no way to get a wire transfer with Bess hiding in their cabin. Besides, he was afraid someone might be watching his accounts.
All Houdini had to do was to listen to Mayer’s pitch, feign interest in the project, and ask for a week to think about it. Mayer would put him up in studio housing and, if he was lucky, offer him a per diem for food. He hadn’t eaten in nearly two days.
“I want you to perform an escape,” Mayer said.
“What’s the movie?” Houdini asked. “And who’s in it?”
“There’s no movie,” Mayer said. “I want this to be a live stunt. In front of a massive crowd.”
“To promote a movie?”
Mayer winked and leaned in conspiratorially.
“Actually, to downplay a movie.”
The man’s eyes twinkled with a kind of spiteful glee.
“Some independent studio is releasing a film they hope will save their crumbling business. It’s the most expensive film of the decade. If it bombs, the whole studio will go under.”
Mayer clenched his mouth but Houdini realized the man was trying to suppress a smile.
“Mr. Mayer, are you afraid of competition from an underdog?”
“I’m afraid of actors who think they’re producers,” Mayer said. “Just because they’ve been in a few movies, they now think they can make them.”
He sighed theatrically and looked out the window behind him.
“These ragtag companies are going to ruin the studio model we’ve worked hard to establish. Their ‘independent’ films could bring down the industry. They could ruin the economy of Los Angeles. The whole thing is very…un-American.”
To Houdini, it sounded like the most American thing imaginable.
“And what does this have to do with me?”
“The film is called The Thief of Baghdad and it’s showing at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre. I want you to overshadow the premiere by performing your greatest escape—on Hollywood Boulevard, right across the street.”
Houdini’s heart leapt; he loved the challenge of an outdoor performance. For a moment he forgot that he was only there to feign interest.
“And what stunt would you have me perform? The Milk Can Escape? The Chinese Water Torture Cell?”
Mayer’s grin grew so big Houdini thought the ends of it would reach his beady eyes.
“I want you to perform the grandest escape you can imagine. I’ll pay you whatever you make for six month’s worth of shows, and cover the cost of whatever supplies and staff you need. The cost is of no concern.”
Houdini felt his palms begin to sweat as his heartbeat increased.
“I can do any stunt I want?”
This could be his one chance to perform the Hangman’s Death without Bess knowing. Once he did it and proved it was safe, he was sure she’d be amenable to him repeating it in New York.
No, you fool. You’d be telling that giant Atlas exactly where you are.
“I need some time to think about it,” Houdini said.
“You’ve got twenty-four hours,” Mayer said.
“That’s all? I was hoping for a week.”
Mayer shook his head.
“The premiere is Saturday evening.”
“This Saturday? That’s in five days. It can’t be done!”
Houdini usually took months to perfect his escapes.
“If anyone can do it, you can,” Mayer said. “I assume you’ll need space and privacy. I’ve already secured an apartment on the studio lot above a sound stage in which you can rehearse unseen. And you’ll get an advance, of course.”
Mayer slid a thick envelope across the table.
“Take it,” he said. “No strings attached. You can give me your answer tomorrow.”
Houdini pocketed the envelope.
There are always strings attached.
“Go get dinner at any of the hot spots in town,” Mayer said. ??
?Tell them it’s on me; I have a tab everywhere. Afterward I’ll have a driver take you to your apartment. And for God’s sake, take a shower.”
Houdini stood and shook Mayer’s hand.
“I expect your answer by this time tomorrow,” Mayer said.
“By the way,” Houdini said, “what movie studio is it that you’re trying to sink?”
Mayer’s mouth puckered, as if he had bitten into a lemon.
“Some little operation called United Artists,” he said. “It’s Charlie Chaplin’s doing.”
Houdini nodded and walked through the double doors. They slammed shut behind him, as certain as the opportunity itself.