"We saw you at the Fortress of Magic," Gus said. "And we have you on tape working as a c.o.c.ktail waitress so you could get close to P"tol P"kah. So I"m not sure how innocent that makes you."
"Me?" She spit out the word like a curse. "I"m not innocent. I"m a born carny. But David. He"s the real thing. All he wants is for us to be members here. And you"ve come along to ruin it."
Shawn stared off into the distance, then pressed his fingertips to his forehead. "I see a young woman, touring the country, performing acts that fascinate and repel. And in the crowd, a sweet young man who comes to every performance. One day he-"
"Knock off the psychic c.r.a.p, will you?" she snapped. "I"m sure I"m an open book to all your really special magical powers. So yes, David came from a good family. They were shocked when he told them he was dropping out of college because he"d fallen in love with, well, me. I even tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted on joining the troupe. He started off as a knife thrower, but when the full extent of his talent became known, we started calling him the Amazing Bleeding Man."
"And then you fell in love with him," Shawn said. "So much so that you agreed to give up performing so that his family would accept you. You even had your tattoos removed."
"They seem to have grown back, though," Gus said.
"I couldn"t do it," Jessica said. "As much as I loved him-love him-the stage was in my blood. So I told a couple of little white lies."
"And a lot of big tan ones," Shawn said.
"And everybody"s happy," Jessica said. "We"ve got the life David"s always dreamed of, complete with a set of anecdotes that will conquer any c.o.c.ktail party, and I"ve got a couple of hobbies he doesn"t have to know about."
"He didn"t notice you were in Vegas three or four nights a week?" Gus said.
"He travels a lot for his job," Jessica said. "No one knew."
"Except for one chubby guy in a three-piece suit and a bowler hat," Shawn said. "And a drink in his face."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about," Jessica said.
"It"s on tape, too," Gus said. "And I"m sure the police would like to know why you denied having ever seen him before he showed up floating in a tank of water."
"I doubt they"d be able to charge you with his murder, though," Shawn said. "They"d probably even have to drop the obstruction of justice charges after a thorough investigation. And I"m sure the membership committee here would be proud to know that at least one of their new members had been completely cleared of any felonious actions."
Jessica looked like one of her knives had slipped clear through the eyeball and penetrated her frontal lobe. "I didn"t kill him," she said.
"We know you didn"t," Shawn said, "because whoever did must have known the secret of the Dissolving Man. And since you"re joining a country club instead of booking a Vegas showroom, you don"t."
"We just need to know what he said to you that night," Gus said.
"If I tell you, will you promise to leave David out of it?"
"We"ll do our best," Shawn said.
She sighed heavily. "I used to see him there on nights when I waitressed. There was always something creepy about him-and I"m used to people who pay money to watch me stick knives in my eyeb.a.l.l.s. That night as I was pa.s.sing by, he grabbed my arm and started telling me how s.e.xy I was, and how he wanted to see if my tattoos covered my entire body."
"Bet you"d never heard that one before," Shawn said.
"Only from every man I"d ever met before I discovered the wonders of spray-on tan," she said. "I tried to pull away, but he squeezed harder. So I threw the drink in his face, which I hated to do, because they charge us for that. And then he threatened me-and David."
"He knew you were married?" Gus said.
"He knew who I was married to," she said. "He knew everything about me. My real name, David"s family, David"s business."
"How?" Shawn said.
"He said he worked for the government." Jessica was near tears remembering it. "He worked for the government, and if I didn"t do exactly what he wanted me to, he"d make sure the next c.o.c.ktail I served would be a Mojito at Guantanamo Bay."
Chapter Eighteen.
Gus" mind reeled. The dead man floating in the magician"s tank was a federal agent. No wonder the police hadn"t been able to identify him in any database. He was probably deep undercover, his ident.i.ty carefully hidden. And no wonder Major Holly Voges had been so eager to shut down the SBPD"s investigation.
But like every other revelation they"d come across in the investigation, this one seemed to raise far more questions than it answered. At least when Major Voges showed up at the Fortress, there was a murder to solve. Chubby Dead Fed had been following P"tol P"kah for weeks, maybe months. Why? What possible interest could Homeland Security, or some other, even more secret agency, have in a Vegas magician?
"What else did he say?" Shawn asked.
"Nothing," she said bitterly. "He wouldn"t even tell me his name, just said to think of him as Uncle Sam. And that if I didn"t do exactly what he said, he would have David"s telecommunications firm shut down as a threat to national security and us both locked away as enemies of the state."
"Did he say which agency he worked for?" Shawn asked.
"No, but he made it pretty clear it was something big, important, and unquestionable," she said. "And that he had the authority to do whatever he wanted to me."
"What did you do?"
"I was trying to figure that out, when P"tol P"kah descended from the ceiling and started growling," she said. "The creep let go of me and ran out of the place; I don"t know why. And I went home, sprayed on an ex trathick layer of tan, and hoped he"d never come after me."
"That"s why you were so hostile when we knocked on your door," Shawn said. "You thought we were government agents working for him."
"Yeah, right," she said. "You I was scared of. Mr. Dead Cow."
"I"ll have you know I put a lot of thought into that story," Shawn said. "I thought the punch line worked exactly as it was supposed to."
"Which is why I broke down right then and there and told you everything you wanted to hear."
Gus could sense that this conversation was slipping away from where they needed it to go. Before Shawn could parry back at her point, he stepped in. "So when you saw the chubby guy floating dead in the tank, why didn"t you say anything?"
"I was hoping it was all over. And I couldn"t afford for anyone to know who I really am. Because this," she said, gesturing to her clean, bronze arms, "is who I really am these days. I couldn"t risk that just because I wanted to hang out at the Fortress for old times" sake. Now please, I"ve told you everything I know. Let me go on with my interview. Let me go on with my life."
Shawn thought it over, then gave her a nod. She scurried through the parking lot to the clubhouse, spraying her arm with a mist of tan goo as she went.
"That was an awful lot of time to get us exactly nowhere," Gus said.
"Really?" Shawn said. "We get the piece of information that"s going to crack this case wide open, and you say we"re nowhere?"
"Which piece of information is that?" Gus said as he started back toward the Echo. "The name of the dead guy? Oh, right, we didn"t get it. The agency he worked for? The reason he was following P"tol P"kah?"
"We know he worked for the federal government and that he suggested strongly he was in Homeland Security," Shawn said. "Which sounds an awful lot like the thing Major Holly Voges told Jules and La.s.sie. Maybe whatever they do is what this case is really all about."
Gus froze with his hand on the car door handle. "You think P"tol P"kah really is a terrorist?"
"Whose secret plot is to destroy America by entertaining us all to death?"
"Then what?" Gus said.
"Remember the basic rule to all magic?"
"That the reason you can never figure out the secret to a trick is because it"s so obvious," Gus said. "You"ve only mentioned it about six thousand times."
"We saw P"rupert P"upkin dissolve in a tank of water," Shawn said with a hint of triumph in his voice. "What is the simplest possible explanation of that trick?"
"Obviously, that he didn"t really dissolve."
"One of these cases we should really change positions," Shawn said, opening the car door and slipping into his seat. "Then you can have all the really brilliant insights and I can be wrong all the time."
Shawn slammed his door closed before Gus could say anything. Gus pulled his own door open and leaned in. "And then you can be helpful and supportive, and I can be a smug jerk. And I can dress badly, too."
Gus slid behind the wheel, slamming the door behind him.
"You don"t have to take it so personally," Shawn said.
"I don"t have to, but I choose to," Gus said. "Just like you choose to be annoying."
Gus started the car and headed off the country club"s property. He didn"t even waste a glance on Shawn. By the time they were approaching the freeway, Shawn was fidgeting in his seat.
"You still haven"t asked what the solution is," Shawn said.
"No, I haven"t," Gus said.
"It"s really good," Shawn said.
"I"m sure it"s delightful," Gus said. "I hope you enjoy it."
Gus drifted onto the on-ramp and merged in with the light midday traffic. He flipped on the radio and found a lite-jazz station. Gus hated lite-jazz, but he knew that to Shawn it had the same pleasing aural effect as a thousand dentists" drills, so he cranked up the volume.
Shawn reached over and slammed his fist into the radio b.u.t.ton, nearly punching it through the dashboard. "Okay, fine, I"ll tell you," he said.
"Not on my account," Gus said. "I"m good."
Gus reached to turn the radio back on, but Shawn batted his hand away.
"Okay, okay," Shawn said. "Gus, I have a theory about the solution to this case, and it would help me greatly if I could discuss it with you."
"In that case, Shawn," Gus said, repressing his grin of triumph, "I would be honored and delighted to hear your theory."
"Yes, you would," Shawn said, then quickly corrected himself. "What I mean is this: I"ve been saying all along that the solution to a magic trick is the most obvious one. In this case, we"ve been looking at a magic act and trying to figure out how he made it look like he was dissolving himself in a tank of water when he really wasn"t. But what if we were making the very mistake the green guy needs his audience to fall for?"
"Which is what?"
"Thinking that he didn"t really dissolve himself," Shawn said.
Gus waited for Shawn to finish, but there didn"t seem to be any more words coming.
"So your theory is that the secret behind the illusion that P"tol P"kah could dissolve himself in a tank of water is that he really could dissolve himself in a tank of water?" Gus said finally.
"You have to admit, it has a certain elegant simplicity," Shawn said.
"The original Volkswagen Beetle has a certain elegant simplicity," Gus said. "The Nike Swoosh has a certain elegant simplicity. The ending of the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes has a certain elegant simplicity. Your solution is just plain giving up."
"Really?" Shawn said. "The statue of Abraham Lin coln with a monkey face? Do you want to explain what that meant? That while the guy from Boogie Nights was escaping from a planet ruled by apes, the simians were busy rebelling on Earth, and they worked so fast they managed to remodel all of Washington DC before he could get home?"
"It makes more sense than your current theory," Gus said. "People can"t dissolve themselves. And if they could, they can"t rea.s.semble themselves later."
"That"s where the government comes in," Shawn said. "What if they could?"
"What, dissolve people?"
"And rea.s.semble them."
Gus decided to let himself follow Shawn"s reasoning, despite the screaming from the logic centers of his brain. "It would be one of the greatest technological breakthroughs in the history of human civilization. We could effortlessly transport people and goods anywhere on the globe. For the first time in human history, physical distance would not be a factor in our movements. We could go anywhere instantly."
"As long as we made sure there were no flies going along with us," Shawn said. "What kind of value would such an invention have to the military?"
Gus thought that through. "I guess the first use would be as some kind of death ray. You could simply dissolve away vast swathes of enemy soldiers and their equipment. But it might be even more useful as an espionage tool. At the very least, you could transport one man into the heart of enemy operations. Imagine how much earlier the Second World War would have ended if we could have teleported one soldier with a bunch of hand grenades into Hitler"s bunker."
"And in that case, if a fly got mixed in, it would be even better," Shawn said.
"If the device were larger, you might even be able to get an entire company behind enemy lines," Gus said. "An army equipped with this kind of technology would be almost completely unstoppable. But if something like that actually did exist, wouldn"t we have heard of it?"
"Not if it was still experimental," Shawn said. "They wouldn"t want anyone to know they were working on anything like it."
"So they test it out in a Vegas showroom?"
"Remember what I said about Major Voges being here on her own?" Shawn said. "She had made some kind of terrible mistake and she was trying to fix it before anyone found out?"
"You think she suspected someone had stolen the technology and was using it in a magic act?"
"It would be one way for the thief to give public demonstrations for potential buyers without fear of anyone else realizing what they were seeing," Shawn said.
"And it also meant he"d never have to reveal himself to buyers who might decide it would be cheaper just to kill him and steal the device," Gus said. It all made sense, as long as you didn"t dwell too long on the central impossibility of the dissolving ray. "That"s why he went to such great lengths to set up that impenetrable ident.i.ty."
"Chubby Dead Guy and Major Voges must have suspected that he was using their stolen toy, but they weren"t quite certain," Shawn said. "That"s why he went to every performance. And then that one time, the green guy saw him in the crowd and knew he"d been figured out. He needed an escape plan."
"So he set up the performance at the Fortress of Magic," Gus said. "And when it was time for the climax, he dissolved himself out of the tank-and dissolved Chubby Dead Guy in. It would have been instantaneous, so he wouldn"t even have had time to hold his breath. That explains why he drowned so fast."
They were coming up to their exit, but Gus didn"t feel like getting off the freeway. Right now, driving with the sparkling blue ocean outside his window, he could feel the solution to this mystery falling into place. All of it was making sense. But he knew the second he pulled into a parking place and turned off the engine, the part of his brain he needed for driving would rush in to focus on the problem of P"tol P"kah, and it would find all kinds of holes in Shawn"s theories.
But even though oil prices had been falling, Gus was still feeling uncomfortable about the idea of wasting gasoline. And he knew that no matter how far they drove, eventually he"d have to put his entire mind to work on the problem. A quick glance over at Shawn showed him that his partner was having some difficulty with the theory, too.