Harry examined his knuckles for bruising, in much the way he might have chosen an apple from the corner vendor's cart. "I wasn't set," he said.
"So I gathered. Come on."
We turned and walked toward the mouth of the alley, and that's when we ran into the man with the Smith and Wesson. He was small, red-haired, and he had three friends with him. One of them was cracking his knuckles, another had a length of chain wrapped around his first, and the third had a knife that he kept flicking open and closed.
"Which one of you is the Great Houdini?" asked the man with the gun.
"I am," my brother said.
"Mr. Stein will see you now."
IX: The Glass-eater
The red-haired man kept the gun trained on us while his associates dragged our two unconscious sparring partners out of the alley. The pair were loaded roughly into a waiting carriage. When they returned, one of the men held a hank of coarse bailing rope. "Hands behind your backs," said the red-haired man. His voice was strangely high and musical.
"You're tying up the Great Houdini?" Harry asked incredulously. "This is-"
"Shut up, Harry," I said, as a blindfold was slipped over my eyes and tied roughly at the back.
"Nobody needs to get hurt," said the high voice. "We're just taking a little ride."
It's fortunate that gangster movies were still some years away, or I imagine that phrase would have filled me with dread. I wouldn't say I was thrilled about "taking a little ride'' in any case, but I didn't know enough to conjure visions of cement overshoes. Harry, for his part, was busy muttering about the indignity of having his hands tied in a "saucy little half-hitch." Happily, our captors seemed to be ignoring him.
We were bundled into a covered carriage and I heard a rap on the roof to signal the driver, who whipped the horses to a brisk trot. In spite of my blindfold, which smelled faintly of salted fish, I was able to hold onto a loose thread of where we were going. I knew the area well, and could track our progress by a variety of sounds bobbing up through the constant clatter of the wooden wheels on granite slabs-the shrill cry of a fruit vendor, the gaseous roar of the elevated train, the tinny wheeze of an organ grinder. Aromas, too, seemed much stronger to me as I sat blindfolded in the back of the carriage. The warm balm of roasting nuts mingled horribly with the sickly stench of an open sewer; the all-pervading funk of horse effluvia blended with the gritty bite of burning coal. Gradually these gave way to the sounds of birds and water, and I realized we were nearing the East River. The granite beneath our wheels now yielded to wooden planking. "We're getting out," the high voice said as the carriage drew to a halt. "Don't even think about giving us the slip." Mercifully, my brother said nothing.
Rough hands pushed me out of the carriage and I stumbled badly as I misjudged the step. Someone took hold of me at the elbow and led me forward, with the ludicrous warning "Watch your step." A change in wind signalled our progress along a dock.
"Step up," I was told. I realized with a shock, as I climbed a shallow set of stairs, that I was being helped aboard a boat of some kind. Several pairs of hands half-lifted, half-pushed me a short distance through the air, and my feet came down with a thump onto a wooden deck. I felt the gentle roll of the water beneath me. I scarcely had time to register these new sensations when I heard the thud of my brother's feet hitting the deck, and a shouted instruction to "bring 'em below."
Someone pushed my head from behind. I bent forward, passing through what was evidently a low doorway. I heard latches working and doors creaking as we passed along a short corridor, then down a steep set of step rungs.
Finally we appeared to reach our destination. I heard a low murmur of voices, and a clinging whiff of stale cigars reached my nostrils. A voice said, "Take off the blindfolds."
We were in a large but sparsely appointed ship's cabin. The furnishings were those of a warehouse rather than a sailing vessel-seven wooden filing cabinets, a dozen packing crates, four ladder-stools, and a flat, highly-polished deal table. Maps of the city covered the wall opposite us, with a spray of yellow-headed pins jabbed in at various points. Four or five young men were arrayed along the map wall, some of them standing, the others perched on stools. A much older man sat in a cane-backed swivel chair behind the deal table. He was squat and pudgy, with cool gray eyes that regarded us from behind a pair of round spectacles. A coil of white hair swept forward from the back of his head, struggling to conceal a wrinkled and spotted pate. A heavy shading of bluish stubble covered his jawline. He waited a moment as we took in our surroundings, then removed a wet panatela from his teeth. "Sorry about the rough treatment," he said. "I'm Jake Stein."
I suppose we merely stared. He certainly did not fit my boyhood impression of a legendary criminal, a man rumored to have beaten a pair of traitorous underlings to death with his bare hands. He looked instead like one of the men I saw playing chess each day in the lobby of my mother's apartment building. Perhaps his only notable feature was the coarse, labored quality of his voice, which sounded as if it had been dipped in hot oil.
"Which one of you is the Great Houdini?" he asked, gesturing with the cigar.
"I am," my brother said. "It is kind of you to receive us." His tone sounded bright and firm-his stage voice.
"What are you, some sort of circus act? The Great Houdini?"
"I am the world-renowned handcuff king and prison breaker, the justly celebrated self-liberator."
"Come again?"
"I escape from handcuffs and ropes."
"Seems to me we've got you tied up pretty good right now," Stein said, leaning back and swinging his feet onto the table.
"These bonds?" Harry gave an indignant snort. "Child's play. If your associate had not pointed a gun at me, I would have disposed of these ropes in an instant."
"That so?" Stein squinted hard at Harry's face, trying to make up his mind about something. "I'd like to see that. Why don't you just-"
Stein never finished the sentence. Harry's shoulders twitched, and a grimace washed over his features. "Child's play," he said, tossing the untied ropes onto the table.
My stomach clenched as I watched the play of anger and fascination on Stein's features. Clearly he did not care for brash young men. After a tense pause, the old man apparently decided to find my brother amusing. He grinned and clapped his hands. Harry took a bow as Stein's henchmen followed suit. I took advantage of the appreciative climate to escape from my own bonds, though no one seemed to notice.
"Not bad!" Jake Stein said in his painful-sounding growl. "You say you can escape from anything?"
"Nothing on earth can hold me a prisoner," my brother assured him. "The Great Houdini can escape from anything."
"I'll have to introduce you to my wife sometime," said Stein, a remark that drew energetic hilarity from the men along the back wall. Harry grinned weakly. I would guess that he heard this joke perhaps seven thousand times over the course of his lifetime.
"So"-Stein took a drag on his cigar-"you must be the guy who keeps trying to bust out of Mulberry Street, huh?"
"You know of this?"
"Jake Stein knows things, kid. Remember that. Let me know if you ever figure a way out. Could be useful."
This prompted another outburst of mirth from the boys at the back.
Stein pointed his cigar at us. "I guess you boys are pretty good with your fists," he said. "I might just have some work for you some time." The growl trailed off and he gazed at the ceiling, pondering the manner in which the Brothers Houdini might make themselves useful to his operations. For me, this prospect seemed about as attractive as Harry's plan to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Fortunately, Harry did not entirely apprehend the nature of Stein's interest. "Well," he said, "until recently my wife and I were playing at Huber's Museum. Prior to that we enjoyed a lengthy engagement with the Welsh Brothers Circus. In addition to our public performances, we are available for birthday parties, family gatherings, and social functions of all descriptions. I also offer a comprehensive series of lessons in magic and sleight of hand."