The Door

I stared in disbelief, partially because I couldn't believe that I let Prettyboy drag me into another mystery, but mostly because I couldn't believe I travelled over four hundred miles just to stare at an archway. And, not just any archway. An archway in somebody's house, leading to the master suite. A very nicely made, elegantly arched archway, but still an ordinary, everyday opening between rooms. Yes, it was weird that it was at the end of a short hallway, and that it led into a bedroom, but that was the fault of the builder or whoever had renovated the place last. There was no air of mystery there.

"Well?" Prettyboy asked with the proudest expression on his face. "What did I tell you? Pretty good, eh?"

"It's an archway," I mumbled at him, trying my best not to offend the owner, who stood close behind us. Turning a smile in his direction, I added for his benefit, "It's very nice."

"That's just the thing," the owner, one Glen Schwartz, replied. "It's not supposed to be there!"

I blinked, then cleared out my listening ear. Did I hear right? Maybe. So, I told him, "Well, it is unusual. Most of the time, people want a door that they can close -!"

"That's the thing!" the man exclaimed, and I could hear the frustration in his tone. "I want a door there!"

"Well, maybe a contractor -?" I suggested, and again, he cut me off in agitation.

"I've had a contractor in!" he boistrously protested. "I've had a few in! They all put in a door! And then, in the morning, poof! It's gone!"

"Gone?" I asked, confused. I had no idea what the man was trying to say. But Prettyboy must have spoken Freakoutese, because he leaned in to translate.

"Mr. Schwartz, here," he said, indicating the homeowner, "Bought the house a few months ago. One of the first things he did was hire someone to replace the door that the previous owner decided to get rid of. The men came in and installed one, but when Mr. Schwartz woke up the next day, he saw that somehow, overnight, someone had removed it and restored the archway."

I watched Prettyboy closely as he spoke, and I didn't see any sign of a prank; the idiot couldn't put one over on me, anyway, so I turned to the owner to look for the signs. But he showed all the little tells of a man quite fed up with his situation. And, I could tell he was used to people not believing him about it; the way he jumped in right away to continue Prettyboy's exposition was enough to tell me that.

"I didn't know what to think!" Schwartz blurted out. "Did someone break in to do it, or what? I didn't know, so I did what I thought I had to! I called the police!"

"And, what did they say -?" I almost got out the whole question before Schwartz launched into the next part of his story.

"They laughed at me!" Schwartz wailed, the frustration of that memory breaking through in his voice.

I didn't have the heart to make him relive it anymore, so I quickly asked him, "And, then what did you do?"

"Well," he replied, putting the experience with the police behind him, "I called the contractor again and explained the situation. And the guy was so nice about it! He offered to come out and put it back in at no cost to me, and so I took him up on it."

"And, then?" I asked to keep him talking.

"Well, the next morning, it was gone again!" the man heatedly declared. "I couldn't believe it! So, I called the police, again, and when they laughed at me a second time, I called the contractor. And now, even he didn't believe me, and said he would have to charge for it! So, okay, I said, fine! Come out! So he did, and his crew made sure to use some pretty long screws and drilled into the studs as far as they could so it couldn't go anywhere. And guess what happened!"

"It changed back again?" I ventured, knowing the answer.

"It changed back again!" Schwartz proclaimed in fury. "I couldn't believe it! And, I even tried to stay up to catch whoever was doing it! But early in the morning, I closed my eyes for a second and when I opened them, there it was again! It was unbelievable!"

"I can see where you're -!" I started to sympathize, but Schwartz cut me off again.

"Do you really think you can help me?" he asked Prettyboy. "I can't keep bringing contractors in to look at it! I'm already blackballed by the Contractors' Association, so I've had to deal with some pretty dodgy people to get anything done."

"Did any of them try to overcharge you for the work?" I asked, a germ of an idea forming in my head.

"No," Schwartz muttered, carefully mulling it over. "Not that I remember. Nothing that was unusual, anyway."

"Did any contractors approach you after the first incident?" I delved.

"No," the man replied in certainty. "I called them all."

"Not even a flyer or a mailer?" I asked, illiciting a strange look from the man.

"I live in a house," he sarcastically replied. "Most of my mail is flyers of some sort!"

I mulled it over, as the homeowner turned to Prettyboy, again. "You said you could solve this case. Well, can you?"

The frustration was back in his tone, probably due to me asking my questions. But it sounded like the man was caught up in some weird construction scam, except that he wasn't getting extorted for any great amount of money, nor had anyone approached him with an offer to end his problem. I had to know one more thing, though, before I was sure my suspicions were wrong.

"How long have you had the house?" I asked.

Schwartz tore his eyes off Prettyboy to peer at me suspiciously. Very warily, he told me, "Eight months or so. Why?"

That didn't quite answer my question, so I asked, "How many times did you contract for the work to be done?"

His eyes narrowed even more and he said, "About five or six."

"Why did you continue to try renovating after the third attempt?" I asked, thinking of another angle to the story. "Didn't you realize it would go back to the way it was?"

Now, the man glared at me. Then, he turned to Prettyboy and said, "I don't appreciate this kind of grilling!"

To his credit, Prettyboy was very diplomatic about things. He calmly told the homeowner, "He's the lead investigator. If he's asking, there's a reason for it."

The homeowner scowled, but turned back to me and tightly said, "I was hoping that, whoever the pranksters were, they would get tired of the joke and give up!"

"But they didn't," I calmly pointed out. "Did you have any work done recently?"

"I haven't had anyone else in for about a month or so!" Schwartz complained. "It wasn't worth it! Then, I saw your advertisement and -!"

"Advertisement?" I asked. This was the first I was hearing about any advertisement. I turned to Prettyboy, who was smugly pleased with himself.

"I bought space on YouTube," he told me. "Pretty clever, eh?"

"We'll talk later," I promised him, not bothering to add that he wasn't going to like it. Returning to the homeowner, I asked, "And, has there been anything else unusual that's happened since? Anything not related to the door, that happened in the house?"

The man scowled at me like I was crazy, but he answered anyway. "No," he assured me. "Nothing! Just the door!"

"No voices out of nowhere?" I asked to prompt any hidden memories. "Nothing moving on its own, or vanishing from one spot to reappear in another, that sort of thing?"

"Are you asking me," the man asked dubiously, peering at me like I had two heads or something, "If my house is haunted?"

"Is it?" I asked, knowing that he was going to clarify one way or another.

"No!" Schwartz protested, and turning to Prettyboy once more, he demanded, "What kind of a question is that?"

Prettyboy shrugged hopelessly and turned a helpless expression my way, looking for an answer. I really wanted him to flounder for dragging me out there, but somehow it didn't turn out that way. In a surprise burst of kindness, I told the homeowner, "It's as important to figure out what something isn't as it is to find out what it is."

Schwartz turned to me with a malicious glint in his eye, demanding, "And you thought ghosts stole my door?"

"There are other explanations for the events I described," I tightly replied, my dislike for the man growing by the moment. "Other than simple hauntings, that is."

"Like what?" Schwartz demanded in challenge.

"Dimensional incursion," I replied, deliberately using meta-messaging to assert my dominance. "Trans-temporal flux. Otherdimensional intelligence." Then, because I was feeling a little guilty, I added something the man might understand. "Aliens."

Schwartz stared blankly at me for a moment, then turned to Prettyboy and asked, "This is your chief investigator?"

Prettyboy obviously didn't know how to answer for a second, then he lamely replied, "He gets the job done."

"He's a loon," Schwartz told him, then glancing my way, he added, "No offense."

I sighed, quite used to that kind of treatment from my literary agent, and waved to tell him that none was taken. The man turned back to Prettyboy and said, "I'm not so sure I want to hire your firm, anymore."

"Well, that's fine," I told him, turning away and taking the first steps. "We'll show ourselves out."

I could imagine the look of panic on Prettyboy's face as I lost his first client for him, but I didn't care. This detective agency was in his imagination, anyway; I certainly didn't agree to it. And the only reason I let him talk me into this so-called case was to get him off my back about it. Sure , he was my ride to and from, but I figured I could easily get an Uber, if I needed to. So, I decided to cut my losses; the only thing it cost me was the better part of my afternoon.

It was Schwartz that called me to a halt. The desperation in his voice was palpable as he said, "You're just going to leave me to deal with this on my own?"

I took a deep breath and turned to face him. I don't like confrontation, even when I'm right. But this time, I was willing to make an exception.

"I suggest you put up a curtain and stop wasting your money," I told him. "Something here doesn't want you to change the place, and if you persist, it might get more aggressive. Or, you could sell the house and let it be someone else's problem. You wanted help with this? There you go!"

Schwartz was dumbfounded, and even Prettyboy was stunned. I guess neither of them considered what I said very professional; certainly, neither expected me to turn down any opportunity for work. But this wasn't the kind of work I wanted, even if it was the only thing paying me lately. Like I said a million times, I'm not a detective. I'm a writer. An unknown writer, but still a writer. It's my first and only passion. It's all I ever wanted to do with my life. So, why was I still standing there staring at them, like I was waiting for something?

Schwartz got over his shock enough to tell Prettyboy, "If its a matter of the fee, I'll pay double your usual if you can figure this out."

What? I couldn't believe what I was hearing! Didn't I make it clear enough? I wasn't taking the case! But Prettyboy did pretty much what I figured he would do. He told the man, "That's not necessary. You've been through enough. We'll be happy to solve the case for you, and we can talk about the payment later."

Before I could protest, Schwartz got this greatly relieved look on his face and through the biggest smile I've ever seen on anyone, he told Prettyboy, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Petty! Thank you! You don't know what this means to me! You don't know how much sleep I've lost!"

The man took a dubious glance at me, then added to Prettyboy, "Are you sure you can find out what's going on?"

Prettyboy glanced at me, too, and I tried to glare at him, but he put his full attention on Schwartz before I could make my point. He told the homeowner, "You'll see! We'll have it figured out within a week!"

I glared, but kept my mouth shut. I couldn't say a word as we left the house, but once we got outside and away from the owner, I hissed angrily, "Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" Prettyboy asked innocently.

"Promise what you did!" I told him. "What makes you think anyone could solve this kind of case so quickly?"

Prettyboy answered through a winning smile. "I have confidence in you!"

Confidence! I couldn't believe it! Confidence! Just because I got lucky enough to solve that hotel thing didn't mean that I could solve everything! I wanted to tell him that, but before I could, he asked me, "So, where should we start?"

And, stupid me, I reflexively replied, "I guess we could look around outside a bit, to see if anything seems strange."

"Stranger than a disappearing door?" Prettyboy asked, oblivious to my change of heart.

I couldn't believe that I answered by saying, "Maybe equally as strange."

But, it was an ordinary house in the middle of an ordinary street, and none of the neighbors we spoke to had experienced anything unusual in their homes. One, an elderly woman, retired, remarked on the amount of construction going on in Schwartz's house, lately, and that sparked my brain a bit. I asked her how long she'd lived in the neighborhood, and she told me she'd raised her family there. After a little conversation about them and the recent passing of her husband, I asked, "You ever notice anything unusual about the Schwartz house, besides the reconstruction?"

"Oh, no," she replied in that sweet tone of hers. "Lovely man. And so quiet, not like some other neighbors, playing their loud music at all hours of the night!"

"You have some rowdy neighbors?" I asked, another line of thought germinating in my head.

"Oh, yes," she said in that dismissive tone of a woman fed up with the younger generation. "Parties every night, it sounds like! I've had to call the police a few times!"

I mulled that over, and asked, "Do you think Mr. Schwartz called the police on them, as well?"

"Oh, I don't know," she demurred. "He's so far away, I don't think he would have heard them."

I had to know, so I asked, "How long have you had rowdy neighbors?"

"Oh, they moved in a week or so ago," she replied after thinking it over a bit. "I don't know much about them, but I think they might be drug dealers."

"Drug dealers?" I asked, seeing her credibility slipping away.

"Oh, yes," she said, then leaned closer to confidentially tell me, "There's all sorts of boxes and packages coming and going all the time over there! I saw a show about it on Fox News! What else could it be?

"Besides," she whispered so that no one in the house she was talking about could possibly overhear her, "They're black!"

And that was the death knell for her credibility. I thanked her for her time and turned to go, when something struck me, and I asked her, "You've been here for a long time, then?"

"Oh, young man," she chuckled goodnaturedly. "I don't plan on leaving any time soon!"

"Do you know who used to own the Schwartz house?" I asked, going out on a limb.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, her face brightening. "It was that nice Mr. Fabuloso!"

"Mr. Fabuloso?" I asked, knowing an alias when I heard it.

"Oh, yes!" she told me, beaming. Then, she peered at me quizzically, and chided, "Oh, don't tell me you don't know Mr. Fabuloso! The famous magician?" she prompted. When she saw no recognition in my expression, she explained, "He does all kinds of fantastic magical feats! He was featured on Broadway once, and he played Vegas for decades! I think he was even on TV once or twice! Don't tell me you don't know who Mr. Fabuloso is!"

I was about to tell her I didn't when Prettyboy stepped in and said, "I think I remember him! It was a long time ago, though. Didn't he make the Grand Canyon disappear?"

The old lady was very pleased to say, "Yes! That's him! He was a very good magician! He even performed at the block party a while ago. That was before he died, of course."

"He's dead?" I asked, and I only realized how insensitive that sounded after I said it.

"Passed away a year ago," the old lady sadly replied. "That's the trouble with people my age. Your friends all pass away eventually."

"You knew him well?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," she cooed, the memory obviously a very pleasant one.

"What was he like?" I asked.

"Oh, he was sweet," she told me. "But he was a little unusual. He had a fear of confined places, you know. Came from a trick he tried to perform once when he was younger. He locked himself in a safe and tried to escape. It took the fire department over an hour to cut through it and get him out. Ever since then, he never did that act again." Suddenly, she laughed to herself and told me, "He couldn't even have doors in his house. Had all of them removed except the front and back. I don't know where he found the money for it. The last I knew, he could barely hold onto the house! The bank was always breathing down his back, or so they say!"

That was exactly what I needed to start another thread. I thanked her again for her time, and after making a false promise to come back to visit some time, I went back to Prettyboy's Hummer. As soon as we got in, he asked me what I had.

"What are you talking about?" I asked innocently. But I guess I wasn't as good at it as I thought, because he saw right through my ruse.

"You have something, don't you?" he slyly asked me.

"Maybe," I admitted, and immediately whipped out my phone.

"Calling someone?" he asked, and I told him, "Looking something up."

Prettyboy shrugged and started up the engine, but I told him, "Don't go anywhere, yet."

I didn't elaborate, and, to his credit, he didn't ask any dumb questions. After I looked up what I needed, I felt reasonably sure that I had solved the case. Prettyboy was surprised when I got out and headed for Schwartz's door. I heard the Hummer shut down behind me.

"Did you solve it?" he demanded as he hurried to catch up.

I didn't answer, not until Schwartz answered his doorbell. He scrunched up his face in confusion at the sight of us and asked, "Did you forget something?"

"Do you have a chainsaw?" I asked, which made him very uneasy.

After a very long conversation, I was standing in front of the archway with the chainsaw in hand. I'd never handled one before, so I was surprised that it was so heavy. After a few abortive attempts to start it, Schwartz gave me a hand, and as it rumbled in my grip, vibrating all the way up my arms, he nervously asked, "So, just what do you need that for, anyway?"

And I showed him by reving it up and cutting right into the archway, gouging a deep and lasting groove right in the lintel. Schwartz howled in protest, and even Prettyboy was shocked. I released the trigger and left the chainsaw dangling in the gap, which made the homeowner even more indignant.

"What did you do that for?" he demanded of me, then he told Prettyboy, "You'll be hearing from my lawyers!"

"Do you want this case solved, or not?" I asked him, and he rounded on me with a fury unrivaled by any combatant in the history of warfare.

"Solved?" he exploded. "I'll make sure you never solve another case in your entire lives!"

"Promises, promises," I muttered to myself.

"I'm sure my colleague can explain," Prettyboy started to tell the man.

"I hope so!" Schwartz shrieked. "I'm sure a judge would love to hear it!"

"Why don't we go into your family room and talk about it?" I suggested, and before the man could explode again, I left.

Schwartz followed, promising many horrible things were going to happen to me, but I ignored him and took a seat on his couch. The man stood over me, venting his spleen, while Prettyboy looked hopelessly lost in the background. I watched the clock, and after fifteen minutes had elapsed, I figured it was time, so I stood and, interrupting Schwartz in the middle of his tirade, I said, "Let's check the damage."

They followed me back to the archway, Schwartz yelling and Prettyboy watching his trustfund go bye-bye. When we arrived, though, Schwartz's yelling suddenly froze in mid-syllable, and Prettyboy gawked stupidly. The archway was back in pristine condition, and the chainsaw sat on the floor as if someone had just set it there.

"The previous owner, one Thaddeus Greene, otherwise known as Mr. Fabuloso," I told them, "Was in an accident when just starting out as a magician. He nearly suffocated in a failed escape trick involving a safe, and ever since that day, he became obsessed with never allowing something like that to ever happen again. According to some publicity flyers from that time, Mr. Fabuloso spent a few years traveling Europe and Asia, studying with the best magicians in the world to hone his craft. When he returned, he brought with him illusions that no one had ever seen before. He was on television a few times, and did shows in Vegas and New York, but the public being what it is, people soon became bored with his tricks, as fantastic as they were. And, Mr. Fabuloso never changed his act to draw people back, so he quietly faded from the limelight, and retired to this very house, where he lived for many years until his death."

I paused to let that sink in, since it was a lot to digest. Schwartz mulled it over, then demanded, "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Your neighbor," I told him, "A sweet old lady that lives just down the street, she knew Mr. Fabuloso. She told me he had a thing about confined places. It sounded like he couldn't even be in a closed room, so he had all the interior doors removed."

I looked at the other archways around us. With the exception of the bathroon, for some reason, there wasn't a single door inside the house. I kicked myself for not noticing it earlier. Then, I resumed my narrative.

"But," I added, "He didn't have the funds to do it. It seems the life of a retired magician isn't very lucritive, and he barely managed to keep the house, so there wasn't much money left for improvements. But our friend had a solution for that, and a very easy one. He did the work himself."

Schwartz peered at me intently and said, "So?"

"So," I told him, "He used the only skills at his disposal. Magic."

"Magic," the man repeated doubtfully.

"Magic," I reiterated. "He transformed all the doors into archways, saving himself time and money. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't use magic for other things, like food, heat, AC, and so on."

"Magic," the man repeated, sarcastically this time.

"Yes," I told him, reading his thoughts on his face. "Who's to say that Mr. Fabuloso didn't learn real magic in his travels, and use it in his act? Who's to say that he didn't use it to renovate the interior?"

"Real magic?" Schwartz asked in complete disbelief.

"Magic," I told him, undaunted by his attitude, "That is so strong that it puts back every change made to it, no matter what it is."

Schwartz stared blankly at me for a while before he uttered, "You're mad!"

"Mr. Schwartz," Prettyboy tried to explain. "If my colleague says it's magic, then you can believe -!"

"I believe," the man told both of us, "That you're trying to take me for a ride! Magic! What nonsense!"

"You can believe me or not," I told him. "That's up to you."

Schwartz was on fire. He snapped, "If this Fabuloso was so famous, then why did he need magic to fix the house? What happened to all the money he made all those years?"

"It turns out," I told him, "That Mr. Fabuloso had quite the eye for the ladies. And he was very generous with them, going to great lengths to give them expensive gifts. I guess he spent everything he had impressing them."

"Then," Schwartz demanded, "Why have I never heard of him, he was so famous?"

"Probably for the same reason as me," I replied. "I never heard of him, either."

Schwartz favored me with a hard stare for a long time. He really didn't look pleased, or convinced.

"Get out of my house!" the man demanded, pointing towards the door.

"But, Mr. Schwartz," Prettyboy began, "About our fee -?"

"I'm not paying for 'magic'!" the homeowner exclaimed. "And I'm not giving you one red cent! Now, get out of my house before I call the police!"

"But, we had a deal -!" Prettyboy tried, but the man shouted, "Get out!"

Needless to say, Prettyboy and I beat a hasty retreat. In his Hummer, Prettyboy stared at the steering wheel for a while before he looked at me and asked, "Magic?"

"Let's just go," I told him, and Prettyboy fired up the engine. I didn't want to talk about it.

It was a few days later when Prettyboy pounded on my door. I didn't like that he figured out where I lived, but there was nothing I could do about it. When I opened the door, I saw how pale his face looked; his eyes were haunted. Before I could ask him what was wrong, he shoved a newspaper in my face. He'd circled an article buried deep in it. It was about a catastrophic house fire that leveled a residence. The weird thing was, though, not a single archway in the house was affected by the blaze. They were the only things left standing in the ashes, looking as pristine as if they had just been built.