Escape Artist by Ed Ifkovic

Author:Ed Ifkovic
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2011-10-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The next day I met Esther for a lunch at Volker’s Drug Store, famous for its curious cardboard sign in the front window: Hier wird Englisch gesprochen. On Thursdays Mrs. Beckerstrader baked her German delights, an array of succulent confections, plum tortes, Pfeffernusse, the cottage cheese kuchen, and the cinnamon rolls topped with slivers of almonds—the best in Appleton—and both of us knew the delicacies would be gone by Friday. Each week I treated Esther from the allowance my mother gave me from my salary. It made me feel…independent. Afterwards, sated, I staggered back toward the city room with Esther, who’d be shopping for her mother’s kitchen at W. L. Rhodes, Grocer, just around the corner from the Crescent office. As we approached Morrison and College, we nearly collided with Ivy Ryan, her arms around a basket of poppy-seed rolls.

Miss Ivy gushed, “You’d best get back to the office. You have a visitor waiting on you.”

“Who?”

“The man who warrants these rolls.” Miss Ivy’s eyes grew wide. “Sam first mentioned a pail of beer from Glassner’s Grog Shop, but Houdini said no. Never.”

In an awed voice she told us that Houdini had stopped in at the office asking for me, and Sam Ryan sent her to purchase some breads. The office was in a titter. “Even Matthias Boon seems at a loss for venom.”

Esther said goodbye, but I insisted she meet the great Houdini. Flustered, Esther started to hiccough, debating what to do. Her rabbi father had forbidden her coming with us to see the show at the Lyceum, but she’d peppered me with questions about it. “The opportunity of a lifetime, Esther.”

As we descended the five cement steps, Houdini stood, smiled, and bowed, first at me and then at Esther. Of course, he was immediately taken with Esther, which irritated me. After all, Houdini was my friend. Sort of. Somewhat. Esther slipped into a convenient chair and produced a smile that seemed frozen onto her captivating features.

Byron Beveridge was sitting back, his fingers idly tinkling the keys of his typewriter as he watched Houdini. Matthias Boon had maneuvered his swivel chair to the edge of his cluttered desk, as close to Houdini as he could be and still seemingly remain positioned at his own desk. He gave me a mock friendly look that reminded me of Homer Timm’s transparent attempt at friendliness at the high school. Sam Ryan slumped in his rickety chair behind that chicken wire fence (I wondered what Houdini thought of such a makeshift construction in a newspaper office), conducting a lively talk with Houdini.

Sitting back in a chair pulled close to Sam’s desk, Houdini seemed a nondescript man, as unassuming as the town cooper or gunsmith, someone stopping in to place an ad in the Crescent and chatting about local politics. Sam was puffing on his cigar, and a cloud of dense, stagnant smoke floated above the desk like a low-hanging storm cloud. Sam’s wrinkled face looked more creased and pitted than usual because cracking a smile seemed to set in motion layers of chafed, dry skin.

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