“And that was far from the only such act. Dismemberment tricks are ancient. In India it used to be popular for conjurers to cut off children’s tongues – that was a standard. Ripping apart birds, cutting up snakes – street magicians in India probably still do this kind of thing. They would show the blood; they might even dip stones into it. Then once the bird – usually a bird because they’re cheap and dramatic – was restored to life, they’d sell the stones as lucky amulets, imbued with the life force.”

“Wait a minute – you don’t mean it was real blood?”

“Oh, yes. Well, not in the case of the children’s tongues. But the birds? Certainly. It’s my opinion – if you have time?”

I nod.

“I believe these tricks go back to ancient days. Dismemberment and restoration to wholeness and life – it’s the power of life and death, isn’t it? Magicians didn’t start as mere entertainers, you see. They used to fill a much more elevated role in societies. This is the common theory, in any case – that today’s magician was yesterday’s priest or shaman.”

“Really.”

“Religion and magic have always been mixed up together. That’s because magic explores that region between the natural and the supernatural, between life and death, between reality and illusion. And religious figures have, I suspect, always employed magical devices and tricks to focus the attention of adherents and enhance their apparent power. There’s no question about that. Good Lord, there are sketches on papyri that show the ancient Egyptians used hydraulic devices to make temple doors open mysteriously.”

“Open sesame?”

A chuckle. “Quite right. And there’s solid evidence the priests in Greece used speaking tubes to make the statues talk at Delphi. It does make you wonder about weeping and bleeding statues. Even the ‘magic words’ have quite religious roots.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, abracadabra – that comes right from the Jewish Kabbala. So words, symbols – the Kabbala is a mystical text about… to some extent… the power of words.”

“Really? So abracadabra means something.”

“Absolutely. And hocus-pocus? – that’s even more shocking. Some scholars believe that hocus-pocus is a corruption of Hoc est meum corpus.”

My blank look conveys my lack of understanding.

“No Latin, eh?”

I shake my head.

“Well, I don’t know how religious you are and I don’t want to shock you, but it’s believed that the magician’s phrase hocus-pocus – which we perceive as so much nonsense – descends directly from the words of the Christian Eucharist: Hoc est meum corpus. ‘This is my body.’”

“No.”

“For that matter, Jesus of Nazareth was quite openly referred to as a magician in the early days of the church. And his miracles – the loaves and fishes, water into wine, even the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead – these are in the form of standard street magic of the era. There are Roman frescoes from the second century showing Jesus with a magic wand.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“The point is that magic has rather deep and surprising roots. Think about it: If you didn’t know you were being manipulated in a magic show, you’d think you were witnessing miracles.”

“I guess so.”

“In fact – do you remember the spiritualists? In the twenties?”

“I’ve read about it. Madame Blavatsky and so on.”

“Exactly. Ouija boards, seances, that scene. Well, there was a lot of interest at that time in communicating with ‘the other side.’ After a failed attempt to get in touch with his mother – during which, instead of speaking to him in Yiddish, she addressed him in English, which she did not speak – Harry Houdini launched a campaign to debunk the spiritualists. He saw them as taking advantage of the grief-stricken and desperate, and as getting far too well paid for second-rate magic tricks. He set out to demonstrate that most supernatural manifestations were actually common magic effects – made much easier by the fact that the entire audience was made to sit in the dark holding hands.”

“Did he succeed?”

Kavanaugh shrugs. “Not really. What Houdini didn’t count on was that people wanted to believe, and so they did.”

“I had no idea magic had anything to do with religion.”

“Oh, yes. Sitting across from you is the defrocked descendant of a high priest,” he says with a smile.

“And you think the man I’m looking for – if he’s a magician – he might be aware of this aspect of magic.”

“I think he might be a student of magic’s history, yes. The dismemberment of that girl is what makes me think so. There’s a trick – I think I was talking about it when I got sidetracked on magic and religion. Wasn’t I talking about the trick with the birds?”

“Right. A bird was torn apart.”

“That’s right. And as I said, I’m sure this is still routinely performed in India. Here’s how it works. There’s a traditional magic device called a dove pan – it has a hidden compartment for a secret load. So at the beginning of the trick, the magician opens one compartment and out comes a bird. Fluttering and so on. A little business with the bird and then the magician tears it apart.”

“Actually tears it apart?”

A shrug. “Or cuts it apart. A bird would be sacrificed, in any case. Usually a white dove if the magician could afford it because blood shows up so well against the white feathers. It’s very dramatic. The audience is encouraged to handle the dead bird. Stick their fingers in its wounds, as it were.”

“And then?” I feel light-headed. Cold and clammy, as if I’m coming down with something deadly.

“The magician closes the pan, passes the hat amongst the spectators, begging them to contribute to his mental effort – it takes a lot out of him, harnessing the life force. He exhorts them also to focus their own energy on restoring the bird to life. A failed attempt or two to build tension, a secret confederate who doubts the magician’s ability heckling from the crowd. Then a big show of concentration, a few magic words, and… presto!”

“Presto?”

“The magician opens the pan – this time exposing the hidden compartment – and out comes the live bird, fluttering with life.”

Kavanaugh misinterprets the look of horror on my face. He thinks I’m confused. He thinks I don’t get it.

“It’s just like those girls killed up in Red Rock, you see? One is sacrificed, then the other is produced, vibrant with life. That’s the second desirable thing about white doves: They all look the same. From the point of view of the audience, two white doves are identical. They’re all twins, you might say.”

A rush of pressure. I’m standing in the path of a freight train but I can’t move. They’re all twins. They’re all twins.

Kavanaugh leans toward me. “You okay?”

I spend a couple of days going to magic shows in increasingly seedy venues, shopping my sketches of The Piper. I question the girls who work these shows. Did they know the Gablers? Do they recognize The Piper? Did they ever audition for a magic show three years or so ago? The thought of murder and magic intertwined does not cut through their boredom. They go through the motions of looking at my sketches, but they’re thinking about something else: a cigarette, a boyfriend, a chipped nail.

During the day, I work the phones, pestering every vendor or renter of ATVs and generators in the Vegas area to check their records for the time frame around the Gabler murder. “Three years ago?” one guy tells me. “That’s a lifetime here, man. Half of the places in business didn’t even exist.”

Even when I tell people who I am, a move forced by the indifference I meet, most of those I talk to are wary and defensive – or just too busy. If I were a cop, they might help me, but as it is… no. They cite “privacy issues,” liability, understaffing, poor records.