Gus stifled the desire to say “and so are you”-first, because Shawn was completely aware of that, and second, because he was interested in the answer to his question and didn’t want to see the conversation spin out in another direction.
“Luke Skywalker’s a fake,” Gus said.“Batman’s a fake. Bugs Bunny’s a fake. He doesn’t even look like a real rabbit, but that doesn’t stop you from laughing every time he dresses up as a woman and kisses Elmer Fudd.”
“Because there’s no one standing outside the theater saying, ‘Come in here and see a real rabbit dressed as a human seducing a bald guy,’ ” Shawn said. “Which is just as well, because if they did, everyone involved would end up in prison.”
“So your entire problem with stage magic is that people pretend it’s real magic?”
Before Shawn could answer, there was a thunk from the VCR as the tape finished rewinding. Shawn grabbed the rental remote and hit PLAY. The machine whirred into life, a sideways green triangle appeared in the upper-right corner of the frame, but the rest of the screen stayed black.
“That’s great,” Gus said. “He’s probably been storing his tapes next to his magnet collection.”
“Worse,” Shawn said. “Look.”
Gus peered at the screen and saw a tiny pinhole of light in the center. The hole was moving, bobbing up and down in a jerky motion. “What is that?”
“I’m guessing it’s the buttonhole in a raincoat,” Shawn said. “You can sort of see the stitching around the edges.”
Gus went to the TV and brought his eyes a couple of inches away from the screen. There were stitches around the sides of the image.
“He recorded the entire act through his buttonhole?” Gus said.
“That would explain why he taped it so many times,” Shawn said. “Maybe he got a different inch of the tank every time and he was planning on stitching them together later.”
Gus was reaching for the EJECT button when the lighted hole stopped moving around on the screen, and then went out altogether. After a moment of blackness, the TV was filled with the image of P’tol P’kah’s stage set, the water-filled tank at the back.
“That’s a little better,” Shawn said. “As long as he doesn’t need to hide the camera from security again.”
The edges of the screen went dark as the houselights went down, and a roar of applause came through the TV speakers. After a moment, the green giant stomped out onto the stage. He was every bit as compelling on the small screen as he had been in person, Gus was surprised to discover, and his presence just as strong.
P’tol P’kah lifted his mammoth green arms for silence, and then started rushing around the stage faster than any human could do. It wasn’t magical; it wasn’t scary. If anything, the Martian’s movements seemed comical. It seemed like a strange strategy for someone who understood stagecraft as well as he did. And then Gus realized that the speed wasn’t P’tol P’kah’s doing.
“Stop fast-forwarding,” Gus said, reaching to snatch the remote out of Shawn’s hands. “I want to see this.”
“What we need to see is the Dissolving Man,” Shawn said. “That’s the end of the act. And while I’m sure our client would be happy if P’erry P’mason could get people to fork over two hundred bucks for a three-minute show, I’m going to bet we’ve got a long way to go until we get there.”
“Maybe I’d like to see his other tricks,” Gus said.
“Maybe you’d like your name on the building,” Shawn said. “Then you could say how we run our investigations. But since it’s my name on the building, I get to decide.”
“Your name is not on this building,” Gus said.
“I didn’t say which building my name is on,” Shawn said.
“Sorry, I must have forgotten about the Shawn Spencer Towers downtown,” Gus said.
“It so happens that my name graces one of the finest examples of Spanish Revival architecture in Santa Barbara,” Shawn said.
“Which one?”
“The police station,” Shawn said.
“The police station is now named for you?”
“I didn’t say it was named for me. I said my name was on it,” Shawn said. “And it is. Prominently in blue marker.”
“Because you put it there,” Gus said. “You wrote ‘Jules Hearts Shawn’ on the back wall by the Dump ster and then spent the next day trying to scrub it off before anyone could see it. And when you finally realized what indelible really meant, you took the ‘Re served for Head Detective’ sign off Lassiter’s parking space and covered it up.”
“Only until such time as the statement can be determined to be completely accurate,” Shawn said. “I’m a stickler for facts when I deface public property. Anyway, that’s not why we’re not going to stop fast-forwarding before we get to the Dissolving Man.”
“So what is?”
“The fact that we’re already there.” Shawn pressed PLAY just as P’tol P’kah wheeled a more ornate version of the airplane steps up to his tank. “At two hundred bucks a head, you’d think he could afford an assistant to help with the manual labor.”
Gus stared at the screen, transfixed, as P’tol P’kah performed his signature illusion. He tried to make himself study the act for flaws, for the momentary bit of distraction that would reveal the real secret of the trick, but he kept getting lost in the spectacle. It was almost as astonishing to see the Martian dissolve on video as it was live. As it had in the Fortress, the performance ended with a great explosion of light and sound. The video image flamed into white as the sudden brightness overwhelmed the camera’s sensors. But this time when the image came back, just as the houselights were rising, there was an audible gasp from the audience, and then a burst of applause.
“What’s happening?” Gus asked. “I can’t see anything.”
That wasn’t entirely true. He could still see the stage. But the tank was empty-no chubby corpses this time- and the stage itself was deserted. What was it the crowd was seeing?
Even Shawn looked frustrated. “Come on, you moron,” he muttered to the cameraman. “Show us something.”
As if responding to Shawn’s irritation, the camera jerked around the showroom, giving them a good view of the audience, all of whom were staring up at the ceiling. Some were pointing. Finally the camera lens followed their gaze and tilted straight up.
P’tol P’kah hung by his palms from the ceiling, his hands apparently adhering to the slick surface. To the gasps of the crowd, he pulled one hand free and reached out to grab one of the free-hanging lights. It gently lowered him to the floor, where he stood perfectly still while the audience went wild around him.
“Wow,” Gus said. “It’s even better when he finishes it.”
“You really think so?” Shawn said. “I kind of like the dead guy. You don’t see that in a lot of acts.”
“And you do see this?”
Shawn stared at the screen. “What’s that?”
“Umm, a giant green man dissolving in a tank of water and reappearing on the ceiling, thirty feet in the air?” Gus said.
“No, that.” Shawn froze the image, then walked over to the TV. He pointed at the bottom-right corner, which was filled by an out-of-focus black blob.
“Somebody’s head?” Gus guessed. The fact was, it could have been almost anything.
“Give me another tape,” Shawn commanded, and when Gus was too slow to move, he grabbed the entire stack off the desk and brought them over to the TV. He ejected the tape they’d been watching and slapped in another one. This one, too, hadn’t been rewound. Shawn hit PLAY, and before it could begin to rewind automatically, he began searching manually.
After a moment of static, the image resolved into a scene almost identical to what they’d just seen, only this time a reversed P’tol P’kah was riding the light fixture back up to the ceiling. Shawn studied the image closely, and then froze it.
“There,” he said, rapping a spot near the bottom of the screen. “What does that look like to you?”
