Shadow Woman Read Free

and made a first, tantalizing tug. She
stepped closer to Hatcher, placed a knee on the couch, and everything
happened at once. At the front of the stage there was a flash and a
big puff of smoke. For a second Hatcher could see streams of smoke
piped upward at the footlights, and then he saw nothing. He felt an
abrupt jerk as the silky material under him separated, yanked toward
both sides of the stage by unseen wires. He felt the dislocation of
air as Miranda flailed around in the dark a few feet from him, but he
saw nothing.
    The light came on, and the first
sight was Miranda, this time wearing a Victorian-looking black corset
with garters and black stockings and holding a long silver stiletto.
She said, “Mug for them,” so he looked her over uneasily.
When Miranda had timed the laugh, she stepped closer. “Good.
Now stand up and look at the couch.”
    He got up and stared down at it.
The couch was now an ornate lacquer-and-silver box about four feet
long. She opened the top and said, “Climb in. When it’s
closed, bring your knees up to your chest.”
    He wasn’t surprised to see
the box. Jane had mentioned the box. Pete took one look out at the
audience. He could see Jane sitting alone in the booth, now
illuminated by the bright houselights, and fifty feet behind her and
to her right, the two shadows. One was the guy he had seen outside
his window after dark on Tuesday. He had the melancholy, tired look
of a cop who had been on his feet too much. The other was short,
stocky, and bullnecked like an Irish middleweight, with a round,
reddish squint-eyed face.
    As he stepped into the box he
gazed past them at the ridiculous baroque lounge, its oversized
booths with scrollwork molded from sawdust and glue and painted
purple, then fitted with cushions of foam rubber upholstered with
shiny fabric. He loved all of it, being part of it. He loved to see
the women looking at it: the ones from the Midwest who wore crisp
pastel dresses you could never quite see through and took the long
way out of Caesar’s to look in the windows of the shops at
yellow diamond necklaces and solid silver samovars and sable coats,
not because they wanted them but because they were placed there to be
seen, just like celebrities. He loved the dealers in their little
pressed man-outfits and bow ties and shiny shoes, and the tall
dancers in costumes that made them hard and gleaming like human
jewels, and the women from the dry plains who tiptoed out to the pool
with hotel towels wrapped around their hips because they were having
second thoughts about their new bathing suits – maybe not even
how much skin they showed, so much as what owning a suit like that
might mean about them. Hatcher lay down in the box, let her slam the
lid on him, and waited.
    Jane watched Miranda work
through her variation of the ancient conjurer’s tricks. Miranda
whirled the box around on its casters, watched the mechanical feet at
the end of the box kick and wiggle while she sliced the box in half,
then wiggle again when she separated the two boxes. Finally, she
flung open the lids of the two boxes, and there was nobody inside at
all. She closed the boxes, whirled them around a bit, then had two
burly assistants in turbans lift one on top of the other. She opened
the single door, and out stepped Pete Hatcher. He bowed, shyly
received a kiss from Miranda, and walked toward the steps.
    As he reached the floor of the
lounge, the lights swept back to Miranda. She was climbing into the
box herself. The two assistants turned the box around a few times,
tapped it with Miranda’s discarded wand, and a big flame shot
upward. All the while, the silhouette of the good sport she had
drafted from the audience could be seen making his way in the
darkened room to Jane’s booth.
    He sat down and said in
Miranda’s voice, “He’s on his way, Jane.”
    “Thanks, Miranda,”
said Jane. “It’s a great show.”
    On stage, the two befuddled
assistants opened the box. Out stepped a man