A Criminal Magic (16 page)

And then it happens so fast, I don't process what's occurred until my head is hitting the ground.

Two Baltimore thugs come at me from behind the storage bins, send me sprawling onto the floor. As Win turns around out of instinct, Bobby crosses over the sliver of moonlit cement and knocks Win's gun out of his hand. Howie goes to grab it, but one of the Baltimore thugs stops double-teaming me and turns to sock him in the stomach.

“Not too much, just enough to send a message,” Bobby shouts.

Someone sends a fist to my ribs, a jab to my left eye—I double over, while Howie gives a wail in pain. A warning bullet flies and breaks a window in the warehouse
. I need to stop this, do something, anything—

On reflex, I grab one of the gallons from the box a few feet away, take it out, and smash it over the Baltimore thug who's attached himself to my thigh. He goes down hard, like a bag of bricks, and now two of his buddies are coming for me. But I roll to stand, scramble to my feet, say the words “
Release and fly
.” I reach my hands out—

And like synchronized trapeze artists, the guns fly from the gangsters' hands, land one in each of mine. Then I set my sights on Bobby.

A rumble emanates from the ground. Four walls, a square of thick stone slabs, erupt out of the floor of the warehouse, clamber up seven feet, and cage Bobby inside. “What the hell?” he screams, but his voice is muffled. “Get me out of here!”

It takes Win a second to process, another to breathe. He steals a quick look at me, realization taking him over, paralyzing him for an instant. But then he rips one of my newly stolen guns out of my hand. He points it at two shell-shocked Baltimore men, while I keep my gun trained on the other pair, and says, “Don't move.”

The two Baltimore thugs slowly raise their hands in the air, as Howie bends down and wraps his arms around the crate of remedial spells. He lifts it with a huff.

“Not one inch or I swear, I'll end all you Baltimore trash,” Win says.

“Matthews, you leave me in here and there will be hell to pay!” Bobby bellows from inside his stone cage.

But Win doesn't answer. Like a charmed snake, he, Howie, and I move slowly back out the door. As soon as we hit the parking lot, we start running for the car.

“What the
fuck
.” Win peels out of the empty lot and skitters onto the makeshift road through the wood. Rocks and gravel from the parking lot jump up and knock impatiently on the doors.

My heart and my mind are both sputtering, the high of doing well, and the fear, the pride, it's all shorting inside me like a tangle of live wires—

“Is he going to die in there?” Win looks back at me and demands, and his car swerves a bit into the shoulder. “I need to know the extent of the damage on this.”

I shake my head. “The stone walls will be gone tomorrow. It's real, but impermanent . . . just like all pure magic.”

Win turns back around. “Christ, does Kerrigan not have his boys under control? Boss McEvoy is going to be livid if he finds out. And where'd you learn that trick, huh? Your old man?” Win looks at me through the rearview mirror. But now there's something new in his eyes. A fear—raw and unbridled.

I stay silent, just nod so he can see. No one needs to know my father has less magic in him than a brick. No one needs to know I was all the magic of his operation.

We ride the rest of the way in silence, the ominous forest finally giving way to a four-lane highway. I spend the ride running through what I've learned, trying to make connections, to weave the threads of information together:
Shaw underboss George Kerrigan fell short on McEvoy's promise of extra manpower to Baltimore, which nearly resulted in a bust up north
—

Win asks for directions to my place, and we screech in front minutes later.

I grip the door handle, ready for home, ready for sleep. I'm beat, my nerves shorted and spent. But I need to remember my endgame. I need to keep climbing, get to the next rung on the ladder.
“What now, sir?” I venture, before stepping outside.

“Now I know where you live.” Win gives a nod. “You'll hear from us.”

SETTLED

JOAN

Our troupe of seven doesn't get much downtime, between our daily practices and our nightly shows at the Red Den, but early morning is one of those rare times we do have to ourselves. Time I'll spend lying in bed, looking out my bedroom window on the top floor of the Den, watching shiny new Buicks chug down M Street, and thinking about what Ruby and Ben are doing back home. Or sometimes I'll knock on Grace's door, and the two of us'll sneak out to spend our stipends on milky coffee and sugar cakes from Moby's Diner around the corner. Then we'll sit on my fire escape and chat about our dreams for the future, and the way we're going to take over this city, show by show.

So I'm surprised, as I'm lying here, relishing my morning, to hear a sharp, impatient rap outside my room. And after I get up from bed and open my door, I'm even more surprised to find Harrison Gunn behind it.

He stands there, dressed to kill even at this hour: crisp, narrow pinstripe pants, tight vest over a pressed shirt. He's got one forearm raised and pressed against my door frame. “Can I come in?”

The mixed-up emotions I always feel just on seeing him start battling inside me—
what's he want, what's he see when he looks
at me, am I performing well enough
—and I have to shake my head to quiet the war. “'Course, sir.”

I sit down right on top of my pillow as Gunn perches on the opposite end of the bed. The entire cot is between us, but it still feels too close. Gunn's talked with me alone a few times before, since he cleared his whole old staff out and moved our sorcering troupe into the Red Den a few weeks back. Some nights he's pulled me into his office off the main show space after our performance, to get my pulse on whether we're taking enough risks. And he's stopped by my room once or twice before, in that tight window between rehearsal and our actual show, to give me his last-minute embellishments on the finale—but he's never crossed the threshold.

Now, as he's sitting on my bed, I wonder if he's chatted alone like this with any other sorcerer, or if I've become some kind of face for the troupe. I've thought about asking Grace a couple of times, but I'm not sure what answer I'd prefer to hear.

And I'm sure as hell not going to ask Gunn.

“Wanted to let you know that your little parlor trick last night was a success with some of my colleagues,” Gunn says. “Underbosses Kerrigan and Sullivan were raving about it in the VIP lounge. Said it took the old rabbit-in-the-hat trick to a new level.”

Heat starts rising to my cheeks at the unexpected compliment, and I think about the parlor trick he's talking about, the way I turned the gangsters' handkerchiefs into a pair of doves that soared up to the rafters last night. During every show, there's an intermission between the individual performances we sorcerers put on for the first hour, and the immersive magic finale we perform together at the end—and for those twenty minutes or so, we're supposed to work the floor, cozy up to a patron, and perform an off-the-cuff parlor trick to get the audience even more excited for our finale. The little intermission is
billed as “improvised,” but our troupe learned pretty quick who we're supposed to target with our extra attention: wealthy regulars. Rich shine addicts. And of course, the higher-up Shaw men, on the nights they come in to see what all the fuss over Gunn's revamped club is about. “That's nice to hear, sir,” I finally answer. “Glad your colleagues enjoyed it.”

“It's important, that they understand the true magic inside this place. And I knew they would. It's all coming together.”

Gunn stays silent for a while, until the silence between us is suffocating, until I almost scream,
Why are you really here, what do you really want?

“Your troupe continues to surpass my expectations,” he finally says. “An immersive show where people truly lose themselves in magic for a night. Sold-out performances for a hundred fifty people, six nights a week, at fifteen dollars a ticket. McEvoy laughed when I told him about my idea to transform the Den. He didn't think I'd pull it off.
No one
thought I'd pull it off.” He looks at me suddenly, expectantly.

I gulp. “Well, clearly they were wrong, sir.”

Gunn gives me that smile of his, the cagey one that starts at his eyes and gently touches his lips, but never quite comes together. “But as impressive as the troupe is, Joan, as seamless as the seven of you work together—there's no denying there's a star.” Gunn studies me with those white-blue eyes, and his look, his words, they stun and silence.
He's clearly talking about me.

“We're not so different, you and me,” he adds slowly. “In fact, I think that's why we work well together. I've watched you out at the warehouse clearing, and here, night after night. You push yourself, hard. You run until you win, or until you fall. You do what it takes. I respect that.”

I don't think I've breathed for the past minute. Somehow I manage, “Thank you, sir.”

Gunn leans forward, rests his forearms on his thighs, talks
to my bureau in the corner. “When I was a boy, Joan, I thought my life was going to turn out very differently. But then tragedy struck, and the keys to the kingdom that I thought were in my pocket, turns out they belonged to someone else.” He throws a glance at me. “I learned to be resourceful, patient, learned to work for what I wanted until it was mine. In fact, I've been planning this Red Den transformation for a very long time.”

He fishes in his pocket for cigarettes, lights two, and hands one to me. He waves his match until the small flame surrenders to milky smoke.

“I saw where you come from. I can put two and two together,” he says slowly. “Clearly, your life didn't turn out the way you thought it would either. You want to do right by your family, I understand that, just like I want to do right by mine.”

Gunn's never mentioned his family, or his past, or really anything about himself, ever. It feels like we've crossed into strange, unsettling territory. You don't get personal, or even comfortable, with Gunn—but that provides its own sort of comfort. “Your troupe, these performances, the power of seven—this is your
shot
, Joan, to transform yourself into something truly extraordinary. Just like it's mine.” He stares at me, as smoke curls in between us. “And I know it, I feel it. There's more we need to do—in fact, I don't even think we've scratched the surface of the magic under this roof.”

I'm not sure where this conversation's headed, but I know it's somewhere I don't want to go. I know Gunn well enough by now to understand that he's somehow asking for
more
from me. But I spend nearly every waking hour at the Den already, still have this unshakable habit of practicing on my own after the show and once the stagehands sweep the place clean, if I don't think I nailed my piece of that night's finale. I'd never deny that Gunn kept his promise, he pays us well—sixty dollars per week, with a five-dollar bonus if we pack the house for that week's run,
which we've managed every week since we opened—I'm sending home twice as much money as Mama and Jed ever managed to pull in during the best of times. But I earn it, every cent. Long days, wild nights, nonstop magic. There's nothing I've got left to give.

“This arrived by post this morning,” Gunn interrupts my thoughts, and pulls a ratty envelope from his pocket. He hands it to me, and then I forget everything else and hungrily reach for it with trembling fingers. I know the doily ridge of the stationery, the faded taupe color, the dash of a red seal pressed into the back. But still, I gasp out loud when I flip it over. My cousin Ben's crappy penmanship is scrawled across the front:

Joan Kendrick c/o Mr. Harrison Gunn

The Red Den . . .

It's been so long since I talked to Ben that my eyes start watering, blurring the ink.

“I took the liberty of wiring an extra week of salary directly to Drummond Savings and Loan, about a week after you arrived here at the Den. From what I gathered from you and your cousin back in September, time was of the essence in settling your uncle's debts.” As I sit there dumbfounded, Gunn tears open the envelope for me, pulls out the folded note inside. “I suppose Ben got the news.”

I finally recover. “Thank you, Mr. Gunn. That was far too kind of you, saved us weeks of delay. I won't expect my pay next week—”

But Gunn waves my response away with his hand. “Considering how you go above and beyond, let's think of it as a special bonus.”

Special bonus
. But I don't want to parse that out, not yet. I just want to fall headfirst into Ben's letter:

Joan,

Stopped into Drummond S&L today. They got the money, which damn well saved us. Said it came by wire from Harrison Gunn—sounds like you pulled it off up in the big city. I got Mr. Gunn's address and had to write.

Ruby says hi and that she loves you. She says she promised you she was going to beat the sickness inside her, and sure enough she's been on her feet more each day. Hell, this morning she was helping me in the kitchen, giving me orders like she owned the place. She looks healthier, Joan—weighs heavier.

We're both beyond proud of you. Thank you.

Love always, Ben

The relief and joy welling up inside me is so intense that for a minute, I actually think I might burst.

“This bonus doesn't have to be a one-time thing.” Gunn uses a voice I barely recognize—smooth and slippery, like silk, or a snake. “I could keep wiring payments, take care of the back dues. Help pay down the rest of the mortgage. You could start using your salary for yourself, or save it to buy your family a new place. A palace.”

A palace
dances, slow and sultry, across my mind, but I ignore it, 'cause I'm no fool. Nothing comes without strings from Gunn. “Sir, I'm not sure what else you're asking of me, what I'd do to deserve more. . . . I'm giving everything I've got to the troupe, to the show, you said so yourself—”

“Thing is Joan, there's something I remember.” He pauses, stubs the remainder of his cigarette onto my bedpost and tucks the stub in his pocket. “It's something I haven't quite been able to shake about you since we met. It's been keeping me up at night if I'm honest, thinking, running things over and through.”
He glances at me, but now, all the softness in his eyes is gone. “That night I came down to Parsonage. You brought me a bottle of shine that looked like it went to hell and back.”

My heart skips a beat.
Mama's spell, the blood-magic
. “Well, sir, I—”

“It was dark. But still, I noticed small traces of blood caked around the top, detected an unusual, almost rusty smell to the shine. It was old, Joan, timeworn, even though you insisted different,” he says. “I know my magic. Don't tell me again that was a shine you brewed that morning.”

In one swift motion Gunn moves closer, so that I can't look anywhere else but at him. “I know you're keeping things from me. I don't know what, I just know you are. I'll say it again: you and I have the chance to make both of our lives what they were meant to be.” He shakes his head fiercely, slowly. “But not if you hold back from me.”

My heart's clambered its way up to my throat by now.
Can I lie, dodge, say no?
“What—what exactly do you want, Mr. Gunn?”

“Everything,” he says bluntly. “I want to know
everything
you can do.”

Everything.
I gulp, try to swallow my fear, my panic.
But some of my secrets aren't mine to share.

Mama's blood-spells have been with the women on her side of the family for generations. Her severing spells, the tracking spells, the caging spells: her magic was,
is
, a personal magic, family blood in the truest sense. And I've committed myself to using sorcery in order to right the past—if I'm honest, some nights I've even felt this distinct surge of
rightness
, like performing magic is something I was born to do—but giving Mama's secrets away feels wholly different. Feels like delving into the oldest, truest parts of me and selling them wholesale to Gunn.
Besides, what's Gunn want with blood-magic?

I look at the letter that's starting to crinkle around its edges from my death grip. If this is about Ruby and Ben, and only them, should it matter? Should I keep giving everything I can in exchange for making things better for them, for making things right? Besides, now that Gunn's circling in, how long can I stall?
What happens if you say no to a man like Gunn
?

“Joan.” Gunn shifts on my bed, bringing me back to the here and now. “I'm not in the habit of asking twice.” He stares at me with those cold, hard, almost taunting eyes. “In fact, I'm not in the habit of asking at all.”

My heart hammers against my chest. And even though I swore I wouldn't let these memories haunt me, I can't help but think back to the warehouse clearing: to those two sorcerers Gunn turned on each other, to all the casualties during his little “experiment,” to the way he forced us to “finish” the Carolina Boys during our final test.
This man is dangerous. This man knows where my family lives
.
Gunn does not stop till he gets what he wants
.

Mama might even understand. Hell, Mama might do the same thing, if Ben's and Ruby's futures were on the line.

“If you're promising to take care of our cabin back home, Mr. Gunn,” I say softly, hesitantly, “there are some things that I can show you, things—things I've never shown anyone.”

His eyes grow brighter, hungrier. “But you're going to show me.”

And for just a second, it feels like the bottom of the world has dropped out, and I'm sitting on a bed with the devil himself. I can't say yes, or bring myself to speak what feels like a strange form of betrayal, despite how many ways I try to reason it away.