The Confabulist by Steven Galloway

why you are of interest to me. I have plenty of agents. And they think like agents and have the abilities of agents. You, on the other hand, have a range of abilities that they do not possess and that are of much use in our line of work.”
    “I find that hard to believe.”
    Wilkie smiled in a way that did not entirely reassure him. “There is a fine line between an escapist and a crook. They both know how to do things that lawmen don’t. Lock picking; safecracking; escaping ropes, handcuffs, and chains—all your gimmicks and tricks. Everything you do, all the techniques you employ, are skills my agents require.”
    “You want me to quit and become a Secret Service agent?”
    “No, absolutely not. I want to help you make better use of your skills. You’ve been stuck for some time, Mr. Weisz. I can assist with that. In return, you can share your knowledge with me, and occasionally perform a service for your country.”
    Wilkie held out his hands, palms up, to show they were empty, and then he clapped them together and produced a card. Houdini was somewhat impressed. Wilkie was more adept than the averageamateur. Wilkie handed him the card. It read MARTIN BECK, ORPHEUM THEATER, 3 P.M.
    “I believe you are aware of Mr. Beck’s reputation in your business. You have an audition tomorrow at the indicated time. I have every reason to believe he will offer you a contract for the next season’s circuit at rates you will find to be very attractive. I also believe that the police in the cities you will be visiting will be happy to allow you to break out of their facilities, which should provide you very good notices in the papers. I also anticipate that you will, from time to time, find a moment or two to assist my men and to teach them some of the more pertinent tools of your trade. And if and when we need something specific, we will call.”
    Houdini looked again at the card. Martin Beck was the owner of one of vaudeville’s largest theatre consortiums. He’d been trying for years to get someone like Beck to notice him.
    “You have yourself a deal, Mr. Wilkie.”
    “I thought as much.” He stood, they shook hands again, and Wilkie walked to the door. Before opening it he turned toward Houdini. “I trust that this conversation, and our arrangement, will stay between the two of us? It is, after all, called the Secret Service for a reason.”
    “Of course. I have never had any trouble keeping a secret.”
    As things turned out, however, he would have other things to worry about than the keeping of secrets. Wilkie kept up his end of the bargain: the next day Martin Beck signed Houdini on for the year at thirty dollars a week, and before long he was one of the biggest acts in vaudeville. His jailbreaks were set up by Wilkie’s men, often against the wishes of the local police officials, who had no wish for their security to be exposed. After a while, though, their reluctancedissipated. Whether it was because word had gotten around that his visits were not optional, or because they warmed to the good publicity it generated, he didn’t know. What he did know was that the newspaper accounts of his jailbreaks drove the crowds into the theatres.
    The arrangement worked to everyone’s benefit. Whenever he did a jailbreak at a police station, he’d give the police a cursory lesson on lock picking and safecracking, and every once in a while one of Wilkie’s men would turn up at a show, wanting to know some detail of how a counterfeiter was producing a bill or the various techniques of cardsharps. He often got the feeling that they already knew the answers to their questions, but it hardly seemed prudent to point out how one-sided their arrangement was. Wilkie had provided him with an opportunity. He’d made the most of it. Without his skills, without his publicity and showmanship, he’d still be performing with the California Concert Company. He, not Wilkie, had invented Houdini, and he had become Houdini so well that there