Abra Cadaver

We begin this episode with confusion and betrayal: confusion because I've apparently already joined an episode in progress, and betrayal because I programmed my TiVo to begin recording at 8:59 p.m., so either my trusty PVR is being brought down by Jamie Kellner's minions, or CBS has screwed up the broadcast and betrayed my confidence in their ability to start a 9 PM show at 9 PM. Either way -- betrayal and confusion, and then I look at the screen as a magic act is unfolding onstage to the strains of Dead Can Dance. We see Janet Reno -- or someone who looks a lot like her -- being led to a clear glass booth as "Rakim" plays, and Suspecto the Magician flashes some swords around before instructing her, "Stand in the middle of the box, hands by your sides." The assistant twirls around, conveniently distracting the audience so it's harder to pay attention to what's going on in the box, and then Suspecto the Magician instructs her not to move as the booth fills with smoke. He then runs several swords through the booth as the crowd gasps in awe. Then the smoke is sucked out, and the booth is empty. The magician says dramatically, "Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you she's all right. In fact, she's -- spotlight please..." The assistant runs down the aisle and gestures dramatically at an empty seat. She then demonstrates her lack of improvisational ability by telegraphing her dismay so clearly, blind people in Reno can pick up on it. Wouldn't magicians practice how to handle screw-ups in front of a live audience? Anyway, after a hasty conference, the magician takes off his black cap and mask, revealing a bald pate and pasty complexion that make me wonder if he goes to a makeover team with a picture of Billy Corgan and says, "Make me look like this." He grins wanly and offers an explanation to the audience.

Cut to the now-empty theatre and Gil walking down the aisle as Brass says, "Welcome to the house of illusion. This is bizarre -- you're not going to believe this. Female volunteer goes on the stage, disappears, and then doesn't come back." Gil asks a little testily, "Was she supposed to reappear?" Brass's sentence construction would imply so, yes. Brass indulges Gil with: "The Amazing Zephyr won't say. You know magicians -- they won't reveal their tricks. But we're working on him." Gil walks over to the booth and stoops to get a better look inside. He calls back to Brass, "I can understand why he won't reveal his trick...but would he like to explain this blood?"

And then we go to the credits. First the 8:59 start time, then no snappy line leading into the credits? Has the world gone mad?

Once we return from the commercials, we're back at the theatre with Brass telling Gil, "We got a bunch of police officers canvassing the theatre -- no sign of her yet, but we have traced her back to her aisle seat 8A. Paid cash." Gil, who really does look as though someone peed in his Wheaties at the beginning of the shift, testily reminds Brass, "Magic is fun, Jim, but it isn't real." I'd dispute the "fun" part too, but that's probably due to a traumatic Doug Henning experience at an early age. Anyway, Gil informs Brass that the woman is "somewhere" -- a prediction that stays remarkably consistent throughout this episode without the precise coordinates of "somewhere" ever revealed to us, the TiVo-befuddled viewers at home -- then wanders off to let Brass deal with two genial and baffled tourists on his own. As it turns out, Brass will need the camera the tourists used to take pictures during this, the only show in Vegas that does not expressly forbid flash photography. The woman demonstrates her compassion for the missing by protesting, "But our entire trip's on there." Brass tells her she should have invested in a digital camera and a flash memory stick, and then they wouldn't have this problem. Oh, wait, that was me. Anyway, he walks off with the camera; the tourists stay behind, bummed because someone's possible abduction means that their pictures of Pharoah's Pheast won't be available instantly.

Cut to Sara, pulling out a sword and examining it. Further proving that this episode was filmed and broadcast from an alternate universe, she's not wearing a hideous shirt as is her wont, but a snazzy black v-neck and a nifty chunky necklace. In fact, Sara's looking great, and while I'm not sailing on the S.S. Geek Love, I'm kind of baffled as to how this phenomenon manages to pass by unnoticed by anyone within a five-foot radius of her, Gil. Anyway, Gil's playing with the sword, noting that it's quite dull, and Sara notes that from a distance, it looks razor-sharp. Gil introduces tonight's theme of illusion by saying, "That's the point. So is it real blood?" Why, yes it is.

Cut to Gil talking to Suspecto the Magician (a.k.a. Zephyr), who's wiping off stage make-up and saying, "Nothing is as it seems." Yeah. That base, for example, seems about five shades closer to natural than the chalky stuff he was wearing on stage. Gil pontificates to the professional magician, "That's the conflict of magic -- the burden of knowledge versus the mystique of wonder." The mystique of wonder? What's so mysterious about wondering? Granted, I wonder about many things on regular basis so it's kind of lost its luster, but wouldn't "the wonder of mystique," which implies a phenomenal quality to mystery, work better in this case? Anyway, Gil's syntactic bafflement provides Zephyr with the chance to segue into a reply: "You're wondering now. I can hear your mind ticking. Was she a plant? Was it real? Is there a reason they've reunited you and I since last we met on Manhunter?" Gil says, "There are no secrets, are there? Only hidden answers and flashbacks to the movie that kicks Red Dragon's ass until its head falls off." Zephyr -- whom many of you will remember as The Tooth Fairy -- turns to Gil and says, "I'm an honest liar, sir. In my line of work, it's accepted. You could say it was my livelihood." "Honest liar"? This episode isn't going to turn into the Prisoner's Dilemma, is it? Gil snaps back, "Well, my livelihood is dispelling lies and finding the truth." And handing tissues to magicians who request it. Zephyr says, "My secrets can't be revealed by any microscope." Gil protests, "But there's a woman missing." Well, she won't be revealed by a microscope either. Unless she's in really tiny pieces. This is the point where Zephyr pulls a half-dollar out of Gil's ear. It's a miracle! He's not deaf anymore! Actually, Zephyr does some sleight-of-hand with the coin. Gil's not very impressed: "Very nice. So where'd she go?" Zephyr leans over again and pulls the woman out of Gil's other ear. It's the shortest CSI ever. Zephyr says, "From the salt of my marrow, I don't know." He offers Gil a half-dollar as consolation. Gil takes it, and Zephyr says, "It's as real as my answer." Gil goes to offer it back, and Zephyr grins at him, saying, "No, you can keep it." Gil narrows his eyes in suspicion.

Meanwhile, Catherine's with the band. We should call this the B-side, instead of the B-plot, but I have a feeling none of you raised-on-CD folks will know what I mean. She's asking who the band is, and Nicky gives the Behind the Music synopsis on Peckinpah, including a tuneful excerpt from "Symphony of Epiphanies." The Singing CSIs pass by a harried man talking to the cops. Catherine purrs, "It was good to dance to." Nicky looks at her askance, clearly befuddled about Catherine's personal chronology -- is she talking about cutting a rug, swinging on a pole, what? Anyway, we identify the short bellicose man as the road manager. Catherine notes, "He does not look too happy," and Nicky replies, "Well, he just lost a lead singer." Actually, I'm sure if you looked in the last place you put the lead singer, he'd still be there. In the most literal sense of the word "lost," really -- we all know the lead singer isn't going anywhere in his current condition. Catherine and Nicky climb aboard the tour bus, and after the first whiff, Nicky's all, "Rock and roll, baby!" They examine a rock star named Gus Kenyon. Nicky mourns the loss of Gus's vocal chops as the camera shows us that yea, verily, when you live fast and die young, you do leave a good-looking corpse. Catherine hunkers down to note the syringe stuck in Kenyon's arm and asks, "If this was an overdose, why leave some in the syringe?" Nicky's also skeptical about the OD: "There's no vomit around either -- that's a first for me." He then notices the tourniquet: "He's obviously left-handed if he shot up in the right arm. If he tied it himself, he would have pulled it towards him like so. It's tied the other way, away from him." Catherine stops musing over the big ink splotch on Kenyon's beringed index finger to register Nicky's astute observation. She then finds the bottle of Black Rush Irish Whiskey (from the Old Mullowhey Distillery Co., a product of Ireland) and wonders if Kenyon was incapacitated by the drink. Their speculation is interrupted by the manager somehow barging into the crime scene, eager to have done with the whole affair so he can plant Kenyon and begin negotiating with MTV for the posthumous special. Catherine and Nicky break the news that this is a crime scene and he shouldn't be there, and that's how we find out Kenyon's a recovering junkie who had been clean for some time.

Then, thankfully, we're back at the A-plot, where Sara and Warrick are examining the glass booth and finding it bereft of evidence. Gil asks if the booth has been processed yet, and Warrick deadpans, "Want us to bag it for you?" Sara adds excitedly, "Let's take it back to the lab -- see if we can make Liam disappear." Think bigger, Sara: let's see if we can take it to Miami. Gil and Warrick pause for a moment while they mentally note never to cross Sara. Then Gil asks who controls the stage, and someone who looks like Zephyr Junior enters. It's Punky Dillinger. No, really. This isn't one of my nicknames. Someone on this show looked at a lanky young man with a gentle, self-effacing demeanor, and decided, "That boy looks like a Punky Dillinger!" Anyway, Punky's the stagehand, and he vigorously denies knowing how the trick works, as he's only responsible for the rest of the stage show. Gil gives him a glare until Punky admits that he does, and Gil snaps, "Make me disappear." Cut to us seeing how the trick works -- the floor of the booth opens up, leading to an entry accessed by the area under the stairs leading to the booth, and that in turn leads to a corridor which typically spits audience members right back out around 8A. Warrick is the first observer to figure this out.

We then follow the camera down to the under-stage area where Punky is explaining the sequence of events to the three CSIs, and he says that he only lost sight of the volunteer for a moment, but she disappeared then. Gil establishes that stage left is the only way to get out, then asks if they could possibly survey the area in any light other than red, as "we're looking for blood." Punky flips the lights, and as everyone wanders toward the back of the space, he calls, "Those are Zephyr's tricks in the corner. No one's allowed to go near them, not even me." Everyone pauses for a moment to feign compliance, then resumes poking around. We get another shot of Sara, and wow, did she make a friend in the wardrobe department or what? Sara's really working the basic-black ensemble tonight. Warrick, however, has his eyes on a trail of blood drops leading toward the wall. Punky asks if Gil wants more light, and he says urgently, "No! Turn them off." Punky does, and the three train their flashlights on the trail instead. It leads to the back wall, which has a thin strip of light glowing along the bottom. It looks like someone was lying about there only being one door out of here. Et tu, Punky? Gil opens the door and walks through to the stoop outside, explaining, "Magicians of Zephyr's caliber belong to a very secluded society..." How does he know this? Does he get the Secluded Society newsletter too? Gil continues, "They barnstorm from city to city -- no contact with the outside world, no association with other magicians. They're like ghosts with skin." Take away the magic and you've got what sounds like a Gil Grissom road trip. Once we're down the steps, Gil has reached the end of the bloody trail, concluding that the puddle looks like a mixture of blood and clear liquid. Warrick notices a skid mark and concludes that someone drove off rather quickly. Sara, who's been inside dusting for prints and lifting footsteps, finds a palm print on the glass.

Flip to the B-side, where David the Classic Coroner is telling Catherine that Kenyon had no heroin in his system. Lots of bourbon -- which he must have drunk before passing out to an empty whiskey bottle, what with the scene and all -- but no junk. David tells Catherine that Kenyon died from an embolism in his heart: "I withdrew air from the right ventricle, and air can be deadlier than heroin if it travels through the vein and into the right ventricle to prevent blood from leaving or entering the chamber, which eventually leads to heart failure." All of which we see, courtesy of the TMICam riding that crazy vein to the heart. Catherine muses, "Shock. Suffocation. Explains why he didn't throw up." David points out that Kenyon's pupils weren't pin-sized either. Catherine wonders why the heroin in the needle didn't make it into Kenyon's system; David replies that Kenyon's blood alcohol count was .31, which is the legal definition of "plowed." And that he was unconscious before his heart stopped. Before Catherine goes, David reminds her of the smudge on Kenyon's index finger. It's standard black printing ink.