I. What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes

It was 1926, and the blistering heat of New York city could be felt all throughout the dimly lit theater of Broadway New York. Katarina sat near the front row with Hardeen, Houdini’s youngest brother. He was a talkative chap, and after many offers to show her one of his many “tricks” backstage had finally been disabused of the notion, which led to the newly found friends sitting back to watch his brother Houdini perform.

The show was a three-act, two and a half hours with the Chinese Water Torture Cell being one of the crowds’ highlights or maybe it was the sexily clad female assistants KatarinaGenovese thought as she smoked her cigarette, and discreetly blew the smoke over her shoulders.

It became clear to her as the show progressed that Houdini was a driven, dedicated, and death-defying man who would surely change the field of magic forever. He was a man that refused to accept any limits on his capacity to learn, evolve, and amaze, and honestly it was a beautiful thing to watch. After the performance and with Hardeen’s helpful offer KatarinaGenovese was able to meet the great Houdini.

Houdini’s name was synonymous with the man himself. He was intriguing, delightful, magical, and Kat could not help but become enraptured with the man as she hung onto his every word as they sat in the parlor of his home.

Kat took the offered tea given to her by Houdini’s wife Bess, and with a grateful sip that was a blessing to her parched throat drank deeply, before placing the tea back onto its saucer, “Houdini if I may…” Kat trailed off before continuing, “Why Houdini? I am sure there were many names that you could have chosen, I am only merely curious as were the many others in attendance today.” She knew the latter would appeal to Houdini’s rather notorious ego, and would more than likely inspire him to answer the question. Houdini chuckled before answering seeming to take little or no offense at Kat’s question, “When it became necessary for me to take a stage-name, a fellow low-player, possessing a veneer of culture, told me that if I would only add the letter “I” to the Houdin(i) name, it would mean, in the French language, “like Houdin”, and I adopted the suggestion with enthusiasm. I asked nothing more than to become in my profession “like Robert Houdin.” Kat smiled utterly delighted with the tale, “Such an honest answer Sir, and a bashful one to boot!”

After a while Houdini’s wife Bess retired upstairs to get ready for tomorrows show leaving Houdini, Hardeen, and Katarina alone downstairs. The liquor bottle had been opened earlier, and everyone had been indulging in their fair share of the “Spirits” with nothing short of enthusiasm.

The heady combination of intrigue and alcohol helped Katarina ask her more daring question, “So Houdini, would you mind sharing with me just how you escaped from that vault in act three, inquiring minds would love to know.” Houdini smiled, angled his head, and waited a bit before answering, he did not normally partake in the sharing of his craft, but one look at his brothers besotted expression Houdini decided he would make this one exception, because after all the vault would really be of no use to the girl seeing as how it was headed back to an undisclosed location in Chicago where it was rumored to house some of the world’s most rarest jewels and diamonds, “Dear come along we will need a bit of room…” Houdini offered his hand for Katarina to take in which she did, and they headed towards the terrace doors, but before leaving Katarina said with a look over her shoulder, “You too Hardeen come along, I’ll need someone to hold my coat.”

II. The easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place someone is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death

August of 1930- 

KatarinaGenovese had the entire lay out of the bank mapped out in her head, it was simply a matter of timing now she thought as she held her breath waiting for the one of the three guards to finish his smoke, and go back to his post.

She sighed when he finally left, and inched her way forward with one of her most loyal and trusted bodyguards following closely behind, as they made their up to the middle floor where the object of their intense desire lay.

The second guard shined his light down the hall, not realizing what lay just beyond the light, the two figures practically plastered to the wall did not so much as breathe as they waited for the man to continue his walk, after a few tense seconds the guard left. Kat let out a slow breath, and shook her head at her bodyguard as he chuckled softly behind her -the things we do for beauty Kat thought as she shook her head, but continued onward.

They were only ten steps away now, and Katarina could literally feel the fat rubies, diamonds, garnets, and emeralds in her hand, she could feel their smoothness, and weight. How sexy it would feel to hold millions in the palm of her hand. She just had to get through one more guard, and then she would only have the vault to worry about. The man in question sat directly behind the vault. Kat and her closest bodyguard were plastered to the wall opposite of him knowing that if they were to so much as breathe the wrong way the plan would go to hell and back, and so they waited. Their plan was going directly as planned, and then they heard it, the distraction.

Katarina and her bodyguard grinned at one another as everyone in the room simultaneously heard the commotion, the guard jumped up, and raced through the door way, never seeing the two lone figures crouched in the dark.

KatarinaGenovese ran over to the vault with her bodyguard directly behind her. She remembered Houdini’s words as she palmed his key -the same key that she was using now to open the vault, “Dear anything is easy to escape from, it is only the matter of you figuring out how.”

Katarina’s bodyguard held up two fingers indicating that there were now two minutes left on this grand scheme, and so she hurried things along. Katarina turned the key once, then twice, as she was instructed to do by the late Houdini, and then she had to reach around the back, and press, ah there it is, Kat thought as she pressed the hidden mechanism located underneath the vault two paces to the right exactly as Houdini had said, and she as well as her bodyguard watched the vault slowly click open, and the starred at what must have been at the very least three billion dollars in jewels. Kat took only the special, a fat ruby at least twice the size of her thumb, a diamond so big that it could easily be held with two hands, and a beautiful emerald rapped in cloth. Her bodyguard quickly stuffed jewels in his pocket uncaring of what he possessed, he just knew that it was shiny, and would sell quickly.

They ran opposite of the racket still going on down stairs, Kat smiled and had to remember to thank her cousin for his generosity in loaning his men for that, and as they reached the exit in the back of the store Katarina had the sheer pleasure of hearing the guards race back into the room and exclaim, “Someone broke into the vault!”