Unsympathetic Magic Read online

  I started by explaining that a lead actor had fallen ill on the set tonight, which disrupted the shoot.

  “Where were you filming?”

  “East of Mount Morris Park.”

  “Did you tell the cops this?”

  “I tried, when they were booking me.” I shrugged and admitted, “But by then, they seemed so convinced I was crazy, I gave up before long and just asked for my phone call.”

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate you thinking of me when you’re locked up for being a demented hooker,” he said, “but I’m wondering why you didn’t just call the set and ask them to come confirm that you are who you say you are.”

  “All the phone numbers I need are in my purse, which was stolen before I was arrested. And I’m just a guest performer, so I don’t even know most of the people’s full names. When the cops let me have a phone book, the only number I could find was the show’s regular production office. And when I called it, all I got was an answering machine. The office staff isn’t there at two o’clock in the morning. Go figure.” I sighed. “Next, I called my agent’s cell, thinking he could come here and straighten this out. But he didn’t answer, either.”

  I rested my head against the bars for a moment, feeling depressed. “I was supposed to be back on the set hours ago. They’ve got no idea where I am. I’m in so much trouble.” I would be very lucky if the producers didn’t fire me.

  After a moment of silence, Lopez put his hand on mine and squeezed sympathetically. He knew how important my work was to me.

  “What’s the show?” he asked, trying to be nice.

  “The Dirty Thirty.”

  He flinched and removed his hand. “I hate that show.”

  “It’s a really good script,” I said morosely, still thinking about how I was bound to be fired. And probably banned from all Crime and Punishment sets. “I play a homeless bisexual junkie prostitute being blackmailed for sex and information by a corrupt cop.”

  “Whatever,” Lopez said sourly.

  “I mean, that’s what I’m playing if I’ve still got a job now.”

  “So some actor on a totally fabricated, insulting, bullshit TV show,” he said, “got sick on your location shoot. They sent for a doctor, and filming came to a halt. What happened then?”

  “Oh. Well . . .” I continued my story, explaining how I had wound up walking through the neighborhood alone in the dark in my costume, and what had happened next.

  Lopez said, “And this guy had a sword?”

  “Specifically, a rapier.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m an actress. The rapier was a common weapon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it’s used in the plays of that period.”

  “Did he threaten you with it?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “What does ‘not really’ mean?”

  I explained that I had startled the young man, who lowered his sword as soon as he recovered from his surprise. I recounted our conversation, his departure, and what happened next.

  “And this is when you saw the gargoyles?”

  “Could we not focus on that?” I said irritably. “The important point is that I saw this man being attacked. And maimed.” I continued my story.

  Lopez soon interrupted to say, “The man was wearing a tuxedo?”

  “Yes.” Seeing that he was looking at me as if this required an explanation, I said, “What’s so strange about that?”

  He shrugged. “It just seems a little odd. Never mind. So this man . . .” Lopez’s tone concealed something. I wasn’t sure what. “He told you his name was . . .”

  “Darius,” I said. “Darius Phelps.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” Since he just kept looking at me, I asked, “Why?”

  “Besides the tux, what did he look like?”

  I described Darius.

  Lopez lowered black lashes over blue eyes and stood there silently for a few moments. He seemed to be thinking.

  Finally, he said, “So you saw him being attacked. Go on.”

  I described the scene that ensued. And since Lopez already knew I thought the attacking creatures looked like gargoyles, I decided not to waste any time or energy prevaricating about that.

  “Wait, you did what?” he said.

  Caught up in my description of the struggle with the growling, befanged thing that had stolen my purse, by the way—“And is anyone here doing anything about that? Hah!”—I was taken by surprise when Lopez suddenly slipped his arms through the bars of my cage and slid his hands around my waist.

  He drew me as close to his body as the cell bars would allow, rested his forehead against mine, and closed his eyes. “You saw a stranger being attacked on the street at night, and you jumped in to help him?”

  “Well, um . . .” It felt so good to be touched by him. So good to feel the warmth of his skin and the soft tickle of his breath on my cheek. I had tried—with varying degrees of failure—not to think about this since he had broken up with me. And it was the last thing I had expected to experience tonight, given the circumstances.

  “Esther, that’s . . . dangerous,” he said quietly.

  I tried to snuggle closer, frustrated by the iron bars between us. “More dangerous for Darius than for me, as it turned out.”

  “Listen to me,” he said, his hands moving from my waist to my forearms, stroking my flesh. “I’m very serious about this. When you see something happening—something like that, I mean—it’s much better to call nine-one-one than to go diving in like that. Do you understand?”

  “Nine-one-one!” I pulled away just enough to meet his gaze.

  “Yes.” He touched my cheek. “I know you want to help people, but—”

  “No, I mean, that’s why I ran out to Lexington Avenue and, er, bothered people. Darius was severely injured, and that creature had stolen my phone, which was in my purse. I was trying to find a phone to call for help!”

  His expression cleared. “So that’s why you were wandering in traffic on Lexington?”

  “Yes,” I said with relief, realizing it actually sounded sensible this time around, now that I was explaining it with relative calm to someone who didn’t think I was a violent crack whore. “No one would stop to help me. Because of the way I’m dressed, of course—but I was so freaked out by what had just happened and so focused on getting help for this guy, I totally forgot about what I look like tonight. So I got desperate. And then the first person I stopped was so abusive, it kind of sent me over the edge. The next driver who stopped wanted me to, um, gratify him—”

  “What?” Lopez’s spine went stiff.

  “I notice that he didn’t stick around to complain to the cops,” I said. “The next one after that is probably the guy who claimed I was grabbing his crotch.”

  “You were trying to grab his phone,” Lopez guessed.

  I nodded. “And I did try to steal the next person’s phone—he was actually a pedestrian, not a driver—because I was frantic by then. But then the cops arrived, and, well . . .” I sighed and let my shoulders sag a little. “I wasn’t coherent or courteous, I have to admit.”

  “And since you looked like a hooker and had no ID . . .”

  “It didn’t go well.” I shook my head, recalling the ludicrous scene. “Anyhow, then they brought me here and they booked me. And when I was finally allowed to make a phone call . . .” I shrugged. “After my calls to the Dirty Thirty production office and to Thack didn’t get me anywhere—”

  “Thack?”

  “My agent,” I said. “Thackeray Shackleton.”

  “That can’t be his real name,” Lopez said.

  “I have no idea. Anyhow, then I phoned . . . um . . .” I stopped awkwardly.

  He looked puzzled for a moment, then made an exasperated sound, released his hold on me, and stepped away from the bars of my jail cell. “You called Max,” he said in resignation.

  “Yes. I called Max.” And, I real
ized irritably, I had no reason to feel awkward about that. Max was a trusted friend who had saved my life. The fact that Lopez mistakenly thought he was demented, dangerous, and probably drugging me was one of the sources of tension between us. But since Lopez wasn’t dating me anymore, I owed him no explanations about my friendship with Max. “But Max has only got one phone, and it’s in the bookstore, on the main floor. At this time of night, he’s probably upstairs and asleep, like everyone else. So he didn’t answer.” The other possibility was that Max was in the cellar beneath the bookstore, working in his laboratory all night long, as he sometimes did; he wouldn’t hear the phone down there, either.

  I said, “So, you see, I really did try to avoid dragging you into this. But I didn’t know who else to call. And the last time that I saw you . . .” Which had been at the funeral of an evil Catholic priest who’d used his supernatural powers to commit murders and to try to start a mob war, and who had messily killed himself when his vicious scheme was thwarted.

  “I said I wanted you to call me if you ever needed my help.” Lopez sighed and nodded. “And I meant it, Esther. God help me.”

  “But I don’t know your number by heart.” I hardly knew any numbers by heart; and I hadn’t had occasion to dial Lopez’s number in well over two months, after all. “And you’re not listed. I knew the cops here could get your phone number, of course. But they wouldn’t give it to me.”

  “Go figure.”

  “So I asked them to call you.”

  “And that was the icing on the cake. They thought that was hilarious. A cop involved with the crazy hooker in their tank.” He smiled wryly. “It’s like an episode of The Dirty Thirty.”

  “Sorry.”

  He waved aside my apology. “Look, all things considered, you did the right thing, calling me tonight.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to get me out of here?” I asked hopefully.

  He didn’t seem to hear me. He frowned suddenly and murmured, “An episode of The Dirty . . .” His voice trailed off and he stood there silent and motionless, a faint frown on his face, staring off into space. Thinking again. Piecing together things scattered in his head and making a coherent pattern with them.

  After a moment, still frowning slightly at something I couldn’t see, he said, “You’re sure you told the cops here that you’re with the production that’s filming near here tonight?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” I said. “I was trying not to be charged, after all.”

  “Did you tell them what the production was?”

  I thought back. “No, I don’t think so. I was more focused on trying to convince them to send help for Darius.”

  Lopez shook his head and murmured, “But they must have known. It’s their precinct. Of course they knew.”

  “Knew what?” I said.

  He looked at me, his gaze clear now. “That the production filming in their precinct tonight is The Dirty Thirty.”

  I frowned. “So?”

  “So that’s a strikingly strange story that you’re telling, Esther,” he said. “A guy with a sword uttering vague warnings. A couple of gargoyles attacking a man in a tuxedo. A severed hand . . .” He shook his head. “My guess is that you got caught in the middle of an elaborate practical joke.”

  “What?”

  “And since you were alone in the dark in an unfamiliar neighborhood, your imagination helped it along.” He paused before adding, “You do have a vivid imagination.”

  “But why would anyone play such a gruesome practical joke on me?”

  “I doubt it was intended for you. It may not even have been intended for anyone in particular.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would—” I gasped as I realized what he was thinking. “You think cops were playing a joke on The Dirty Thirty tonight? On the crew or cast members?”

  “I’d say that it seems more likely than a young man in Harlem hunting man-eating gargoyles with a sword.” He shrugged. “Don’t underestimate how much cops hate that show.”

  “I heard there’d been some unpleasant incidents last year, but no one mentioned anything this . . . creative.” I frowned. “So you think the cops who arrested me were part of it?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe they just came to the same conclusion after running Darius Phelps’ name through the system.” He shook his head. “I was pretty thrown by that, but since a prank has occurred to me, it’s probably occurred to them, too.”

  “Thrown by what?”

  “You supposedly saw a walking corpse.” He looked at me. “A Harlem resident named Darius Phelps, exactly fitting the description you gave, died three weeks ago.”

  4

  To my relief, Lopez made my arrest go away, as if it had never happened. The cops of the Two- Five released me with far more merriment than contrition; but since they were letting me go, I didn’t care.

  I decided against reporting the theft of my purse, partly to spare Lopez more embarrassment (I shrewdly sensed that my description of the assailant would cause further amusement on the night shift), and partly because I was so eager to get back to the set of D30 right away and find out whether I still had a job. I was also skeptical that filing a report would improve my chances of getting the purse back, all things considered.

  Lopez escorted me outside the precinct house, where a patrol car waited to drive me home; this was apparently the NYPD’s idea of fair compensation for imprisoning me. A young black cop in uniform was leaning against the driver’s door of the waiting vehicle. He straightened up as I approached, opened the rear door for me, and introduced himself as Officer Thompson.

  When I asked to be taken to the place where I’d first begun my long night, though, he shook his head.

  “If you’re going to that film set, Miss Diamond, you’re too late,” Officer Thompson said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Yeah, they shut down and packed up a couple of hours ago.”

  “What?” I cried.

  Thompson nodded. “They’re gone.”

  Because I was missing! Because I’d gone AWOL! Because they couldn’t keep filming without me!

  “Oh, noooo!” I leaned against the squad car, wearily rested my face against my forearm in bitter defeat, and drummed my fist on the vehicle’s roof. “I’ll never work again!”

  I heard Thompson say doubtfully to Lopez, “Are you sure you want to spring her, detective?”

  “Not really,” Lopez replied. “So what happened? Did the film set get rampaged by gargoyles and a guy with a sword?”

  “What happened?” I said, my voice muffled by my arm. “They couldn’t find me! That’s what happened!”

  Thompson said, “That guy had a heart attack.”

  “What guy?” Lopez said.

  “That actor.”

  “Actor?” I lifted my head. “What actor?”

  “Uh . . . Nolan something.”

  “Michael Nolan?” I straightened up and looked at Officer Thompson.

  “Right! That was the name. Michael Nolan.”

  “Nolan had a heart attack?” I said sharply. “That’s why they shut down production?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I guess he’s the star or something. So they couldn’t keep filming without him.”

  “Oh, my God!” I said. “Nolan had a heart attack?”

  The young cop nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “A heart attack!” I punched the air in triumph as I gleefully shouted, “Yes!”

  Given the chaos and anxiety that would undoubtedly ensue when the show’s lead actor had a coronary while on location, the director and the production team might not even have realized that I was missing! And, in any case, my prolonged absence tonight had made no difference to the shooting schedule and wouldn’t get me fired!

  I am not a religious person, but I threw my arms up and looked skyward. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

  Then I smiled exultantly at Lopez and Officer Thompson.

  They were both looking at me as if I had just urinated on the st
eps of the precinct house.

  “What?” I said to them.

  Thompson glanced uncertainly at Lopez, who was still frowning at me. I suddenly realized why.

  “Oh! Uh . . . Is Nolan alive?” I asked politely.

  “Yes,” said Thompson, still giving me a peculiar look. “I guess they called in a medic right away. And since this happened only a few blocks away from North General, they got him to the ER fast. Even though he kept saying he wanted to go to Mount Sinai, not to—you know—some Harlem hospital.” Thompson smiled and added, “My buddy was at the scene when they were loading Nolan into the ambulance. I hear that actor’s got a mouth on him that would make a gangsta blush.”

  “So that must be what was wrong with him,” I said, recalling Nolan’s behavior on the set that night. “He was red as a beet and too hot, then nauseated, then he was dizzy, then white as a sheet, then he threw up . . .” The siren I had heard while seeking help for Darius might even have been the ambulance that was taking Nolan to the nearby hospital.

  “Yep, heart attack,” said Thompson. “Happens that way sometimes. But they probably caught it early enough that he’ll be okay.”

  “Not that you seem all that worried about him,” Lopez said to me.

  “Oh, give me a break,” I said. “I’ve had a rough night. Anyhow, if you knew Nolan, you wouldn’t be all that worried about him, either. Besides, Officer Thompson says he’ll be fine. Right?”

  “Well, who knows?” said the young cop. “A heart attack can be a scary thing, even if it’s not too severe. My dad took early retirement after he had his. So maybe Mr. Nolan will decide to slow down after this. Give up acting. Quit the show. And without its star, maybe The Dirty Thirty will be canceled.”

  “Wishful thinking,” Lopez said morosely.

  “God, I hate that show,” said Thompson.

  “Did you guys know that was the show that was filming around here tonight?” Lopez asked casually, as if commiserating.

  I recalled his theory that I’d been the victim of an elaborate prank.

  “Sure, we knew. They don’t go to the Three-Oh anymore, but they still come here.” Thompson snorted. “Television people.” He blinked and added, “But I swear, detective, we didn’t think your girlfriend was one of them. We all thought she was just a crazy hooker. God’s honest truth.”