The Hidden Man Read Free Page B

of flushing perpetrators from the shadows. Let them take the victory lumps and earn the useless purple hearts.
    Yet tonight, the department brass in their immortal wisdom had him on the sort of honorary “body guard” duty that made a great training exercise for a wet-eared rookie. Naturally, then, the department was going to waste the services of a detective on such an assignment. No advance instructions, just “show up at the theatre and be prepared to work.”
    The runner with the orders had warned Blackburn that the captain was meeting with Police Chief White about him, at that very moment. “Under no circumstances” was Blackburn to leave the second-floor hallway before Captain Merced arrived.
    But once he got up there, he was left to wait while the rest of the audience filed in, gradually finding their seats. Eventually, the heavy doorway curtains were pulled shut and the show began. Blackburn heard the strains of patriotic theme music, an announcer booming on and on about the
Glorious Achievement of Instantaneous Communication by Voice, from One Side of the Country to the Other!
    The renowned mesmerist, James Duncan, then took over the audience. Duncan immediately began to shout and bellow from the stage, strangely forceful in his delivery. Blackburn casually wondered if this trait was part of the man’s usual act. He could not make out the words from his position, but the showman’s voice remained filled with bursts of fiery passion. He sounded like a half-crazed evangelist. The man’s emotional tone was unusual enough to tickle at Blackburn’s investigative sense, even though he could not see the stage.
    Since he was under orders to play the role of personal escort to this showman, he tossed the question of onstage emotional levels into his mental “could be something” bin, just in case. It was an old habit. The bin was large.
    Forty-five minutes of the mesmerist’s one-hour show went by. Frustration compressed his head, but under orders from his captain, he could only wait and quietly pace in a slow loop.
    His boot heel lightly nicked something on the floor. He had just done the same thing moments before. This time he looked down and saw that there was a hairline crack running all the way across the floor. It extended as far as he could see from that point. His heel had briefly caught on it because the floor on one side had taken a slight vertical drop—maybe an eighth of an inch. He had never studied masonry, but he knew that this was a fairly new building, brick and stone over a steel frame. It was built atop the ruins of the theatre that was demolished by the Great Earthquake, and billed as a solemn testament to the need for worthy construction in this unstable part of the world. Here, of all places, it seemed odd for such a long split to run through a new building’s floor. The fact that he noticed it at all was a grim marker of his level of boredom, but he made a mental note to report the crack to somebody back at the City Hall Station.
    At that point, his train of thought was finally derailed by the appearance of Captain Christian Merced. The man puffed his short and portly body up the stairs, swiveling a domed head in all directions until he spotted Blackburn. When he did, he immediately locked on to Blackburn’s eyes. Merced was not imposing as a physical figure, but his momentary anger amplified his permanent sense of rank and made him a formidable presence.
    Blackburn felt the same cold chill that he sometimes caught during card games. Nothing good ever followed it.
    The captain stepped toward the nearest curtained alcove, and without so much as a glance back at Blackburn, he flicked a silent gesture of commandment to join him. Blackburn’s cold chill deepened while he stepped over to him.
    The moment that they were both inside the temporary alcove formed by the thick velvet sound curtains, Captain Merced stared straight up at Blackburn. His expression seemed to insist that Blackburn’s