possible all those Dark Things which earthlings pretend are mere flights of imaginative fancy, all those thaumaturgie realities of Abaddon which would swathe their pigmy minds, their shriveled souls with Insensate Fear.
Dr. Cesare Sabbat: The Secret Heresies
I NSPECTOR G AVIGAN WAS PHONING headquarters and still throwing out intermittent bursts of lava when Malloy came back and reported that Tarot had last been seen in a taxi headed north, Detective Janssen in his wake.
Gavigan barked into the phone, “Send a couple of men to NBC at once and pick up a guy named Eugene Tarot. He’s on the ten o’clock program, and I don’t care how many million people are waiting to hear him. I want him at once! Bring him directly here and hurry it!”
He banged the receiver. “Malloy, Headquarters is sending more men. You can put them to work collecting data on those people in the next room. Quinn, you nose through the desk and filing cabinets. I want to know lots more about the cadaver.”
Malloy went out followed by Dr. Hesse, and Gavigan, motioning Brady to follow, moved toward the kitchen. “I want to see that other door for myself,” he said as they disappeared.
I lit a cigarette and stood for a moment or two by the window, listening to the foghorns and watching the lighted outline of a ferry boat that moved slowly across the dark nothingness of the river. I heard a step behind me and turned to see a tall figure come through the door and move toward me around the end of the davenport. Then, as at some stage manager’s cue, the ceiling lights and the green shaded desk lamp flicked on, chasing the darkness at last from the corners of the room and with bright accommodation giving Merlini a good entrance. As he stood there, blinking a bit in the light, I half expected him to take a bow and proceed with his opener, in which one of his white gloves, tossed into the air, became a dove that circled and disappeared into the wings.
Merlini’s off-stage appearance is, for a magician, oddly lacking in peculiarity. Those rubber stamp stigmata of the conjurer, the curling mustachios and the unharvested crop of bushy hair, have little existence today, save in the cartoonist’s imagination. Merlini’s face was clean shaven and his haircut altogether normal.
At first you do not suspect him of any connection with show business. This despite the fact that the Riding Merlinis have been one of circusdom’s top equestrian acts here and abroad for five generations. You would not guess that Phineas T. Barnum had been his godfather, that his initial entrance on to this earthly stage was made in a circus car en route somewhere between Centralia and Peoria, Illinois; or that he made his first public appearance at the age of three in the role of a small, burnt-corked Nubian, who held grimly to the side of a swaying howdah as it was borne around the arena on the back of the immortal Jumbo.
It is not until he speaks that you suspect his profession. His voice belongs to the theater; richly resonant, it exhibits an unusual range of depth and tone. Merlini can be, and at times is, completely self-effacing, then suddenly he speaks and in that instant has captured everyone’s complete attention. If he is “working” he proceeds at once to double-cross his listeners with smooth misdirection. His speech, habitually dry, ironic, and humorous, has a habit of shifting with subtle celerity to a compelling delivery that is not far short of hypnotic. It is utterly impossible to tell when he is being serious and when he is pattering in preparation for a minor miracle. He could sell you anything; and he does sell you impossibilities.
The planes of his face are forceful though asymmetric, one wayward ear projecting with rakish nonconformity considerably further than the other. His hair and eyes are black; and the latter shine with an intense curiosity. The good-humored crinkles at the corners of his mouth often bracket a faintly lopsided smile. He carries his
Dr. Cesare Sabbat: The Secret Heresies
I NSPECTOR G AVIGAN WAS PHONING headquarters and still throwing out intermittent bursts of lava when Malloy came back and reported that Tarot had last been seen in a taxi headed north, Detective Janssen in his wake.
Gavigan barked into the phone, “Send a couple of men to NBC at once and pick up a guy named Eugene Tarot. He’s on the ten o’clock program, and I don’t care how many million people are waiting to hear him. I want him at once! Bring him directly here and hurry it!”
He banged the receiver. “Malloy, Headquarters is sending more men. You can put them to work collecting data on those people in the next room. Quinn, you nose through the desk and filing cabinets. I want to know lots more about the cadaver.”
Malloy went out followed by Dr. Hesse, and Gavigan, motioning Brady to follow, moved toward the kitchen. “I want to see that other door for myself,” he said as they disappeared.
I lit a cigarette and stood for a moment or two by the window, listening to the foghorns and watching the lighted outline of a ferry boat that moved slowly across the dark nothingness of the river. I heard a step behind me and turned to see a tall figure come through the door and move toward me around the end of the davenport. Then, as at some stage manager’s cue, the ceiling lights and the green shaded desk lamp flicked on, chasing the darkness at last from the corners of the room and with bright accommodation giving Merlini a good entrance. As he stood there, blinking a bit in the light, I half expected him to take a bow and proceed with his opener, in which one of his white gloves, tossed into the air, became a dove that circled and disappeared into the wings.
Merlini’s off-stage appearance is, for a magician, oddly lacking in peculiarity. Those rubber stamp stigmata of the conjurer, the curling mustachios and the unharvested crop of bushy hair, have little existence today, save in the cartoonist’s imagination. Merlini’s face was clean shaven and his haircut altogether normal.
At first you do not suspect him of any connection with show business. This despite the fact that the Riding Merlinis have been one of circusdom’s top equestrian acts here and abroad for five generations. You would not guess that Phineas T. Barnum had been his godfather, that his initial entrance on to this earthly stage was made in a circus car en route somewhere between Centralia and Peoria, Illinois; or that he made his first public appearance at the age of three in the role of a small, burnt-corked Nubian, who held grimly to the side of a swaying howdah as it was borne around the arena on the back of the immortal Jumbo.
It is not until he speaks that you suspect his profession. His voice belongs to the theater; richly resonant, it exhibits an unusual range of depth and tone. Merlini can be, and at times is, completely self-effacing, then suddenly he speaks and in that instant has captured everyone’s complete attention. If he is “working” he proceeds at once to double-cross his listeners with smooth misdirection. His speech, habitually dry, ironic, and humorous, has a habit of shifting with subtle celerity to a compelling delivery that is not far short of hypnotic. It is utterly impossible to tell when he is being serious and when he is pattering in preparation for a minor miracle. He could sell you anything; and he does sell you impossibilities.
The planes of his face are forceful though asymmetric, one wayward ear projecting with rakish nonconformity considerably further than the other. His hair and eyes are black; and the latter shine with an intense curiosity. The good-humored crinkles at the corners of his mouth often bracket a faintly lopsided smile. He carries his
Similar Books
