A Criminal Magic (26 page)

“Listen, How, I'm sorry, about what I said before, that night in the car with Win,” I say softly. “About you, and your family. I didn't mean it.”

“Water under the bridge, Danfrey.” But his eyes stay hard as diamonds. He flashes me a wolfish smile. “Anyway, that's your MO, right? Come on strong, then fizzle out?”

I swallow. “Thought you just said it was water under the bridge.”

Howie slaps me, hard, on the back. “Can't two friends still mess around?”

“'Course.”

Howie looks around. A crowd's starting to gather in the center of the performance space for the impending finale. “Don't you owe me a little trick or something, Danfrey?”

I burrow into my pocket, pull out my pack of Luckies, light one, and then float it over the space between us. Howie reaches for the cig, then takes a pull. “Always did love how you did that.”

It's getting late—the other sorcerers have started to move to their positions around the space's perimeter. I should go, but I feel like there's something Howie's hiding, something he wants to rub my face in but knows he shouldn't—
if I take another minute, push him, maybe I can trick him into it—
but then I glance at Joan. When she catches me watching her, a huge grin lights up her face.

“Well, at least you got the girl, man.” Howie follows my gaze and slaps my back once more before leaving me. “Have fun with your tricks.”

I sidestep the patrons who are now crowded in the middle of the floor, arranging themselves into ten- to fifteen-person rows across the performance space. I take my place beside Joan on the right of the crowd, off the aisle. “Grace is about to start,” Joan says nervously. “Remember, wait for my cue.”

I shake off Howie's taunting, try to settle back into light, flirtatious, performer Alex. Joan's Alex. “Yes, boss.”

She smiles. “Seriously, don't get too trigger-happy. This has to be just right.”

I give her an exaggerated bow. “Your wish is my command.”

She rolls her eyes, but her smile only grows wider as she looks away from me and up to the lofted ceiling above the audience. And as we stand here beside each other, waiting, I take the opportunity and whisper, “Is Gunn working the floor tonight?”

She keeps her eyes on the ceiling. “He's getting ready for a meeting.”

“Here, you mean? With who?” I look around pointedly. “I didn't see any of the other head honchos here.” I flash her a grin. “You're making me even more nervous.”

“Don't be nervous, you're a natural. Everything's going better than I hoped it would.”

Before I can press her anymore, Grace starts blinking out all the lights that hang in rows over the space, and soon the entire room is coated in a thick darkness. There are gasps, murmurs from the crowd.

The darkness begins to fade, slowly but surely, like someone's taken a bucket of midnight and mixed in a steady drip of light. Black, to a rich gray, to a fading silver—

At some point, Ral and Billy finish painting their night canvas. They hand the reins over to Tommy and Rose, who send billowing clouds drifting across the space and splatter shocks of yellow, deep purple, and electric pink above the audience's heads. The colors begin to deepen and run together. I try to imagine what it must feel like, to have this world of magic hit you all at once, for the first time, not slowly during hours of careful rehearsal and improvisation to make it happen. It must truly feel out of this world.

“Our turn,” Joan whispers.

She sparks to life a small sphere of light, maybe the size of a globe, right above the audience's heads. And then she breathes life into it, slowly expanding it, like she's blowing up the world's most brilliant, glimmering balloon.

I whisper beside her, “Incredible.” Because despite how dangerous magic can be—how it's been used to hide murders, cover up robberies, send people spiraling into the throes of addiction—there's just no denying that it is.

Joan smiles, her eyes still on her bright globe, which keeps expanding. Men and women, young and old, they all arch their necks up, watching Joan's woman-made sun bask them in a warm light. And then she lifts it higher, the sun rising,
rising
—

And now it's my turn. I take her sun manipulation and slowly crack it open like an egg, watch the brilliant yellow run like a yolk across the lofted space, bleed into a huge, vast, spectacular morning. Tommy and Rose step in once again, bring their full and bulbous clouds drifting under the ceiling, and the audience bursts into applause.

The world's first enclosed sunrise.

After our magic immersion, the crowd is now even hungrier, wants to ingest and swim inside the magic that has bewitched them. We sorcerers all climb the stage, as our team of stagehands gathers around the base, waiting patiently with trays of empty shot glasses to fill and hand out to the patrons.

Each of us takes our place in front of the seven bottles on the altar. In unison, we wrap our hands around our glasses, each channel our magic touch right into our bottle. We do this one more time, two tricks of twelve ounces of sorcerer's shine, before the stagehands pour our bottles into shot glasses and hand the patrons their elixirs.

Soon the entire crowd falls under our shine, and as Joan warned, the place erupts into a strange mix of insanity and abandon. People dash across the space and spin around like children. Some dance, others sing, still others hopscotch through the performance space. Some drag lovers into dark corners, letting the shine speak for them, maybe in ways they hadn't had the courage to do on their own before—

Not that everything's so sensual, or freeing. A stagehand rushes a young girl into the corridor toward the bathroom as she sputters and chokes—my guess, an overdose, despite the Den's firm rules of one ounce per patron. A few feet away from the mouth of that hall, I spot that same older lady—the one with the painted face I was going to charm—crying away her makeup, pleading and pounding on the cinder-block wall of the performance space. It brings me back, to strange, terrifying nights
working with my father when he was high. Because as invincible as shine can make you feel, it doesn't let you escape yourself forever. In fact, eventually, it just makes everything worse.
This is why you're doing what you're doing, why places like this need to come crashing down.

“You did wonderfully, Alex,” Joan interrupts my thoughts—like always, bringing me back to her, to the now.

“Thanks to you,” I say, as she falls in line beside me. “You saved me earlier. And our replica trick you came up with is something special. You heard the crowd. They were wild for it.”

Under the bright lights that highlight our stage, Joan positively glistens. “My mama used to always say that magic is alive. That if you want things from it, you need to respect it, listen to what it has to say.” She looks away from me, back to the crowd, drops her voice to a seductive hum. “And there was real magic on our stage tonight, Alex.”

And for one quick, hot moment, I almost reach out and grab her, pull her into me, make her mine like I do in that trick. “I think your mother was right. And I even think we did one better.” I throw her a wink but fold my hands on the altar, forcing them to stay where they are. “I actually think we went and spellbound the magic itself.”

She looks at me strangely, like I've said the wrong thing. But then she laughs, a big, freeing, bold laugh. Her smile grows wide, her eyes expectant. “I think you're righter than you know, Mr. Danfrey.”

By this point, Tommy, Rose, Billy, and Ral have all left our stage and angled the stagehands for their own glasses of shine, so Grace crosses the empty space and sidles up to Joan and me.

“That little mirror trick of yours is going to run the rest of us out of town,” she shouts to both of us over the jumpy jazz. Her voice is warm, but even still, she takes a step closer. I swear I can almost
feel
the pressure from Grace trying to mine her way in
and figure me out. Thank God Joan warned me about Grace's special gift, and every time she gets close enough to burrow her way into my mind, I picture a fortress, sky-high and insurmountable.

On the surface, of course, I flash her a grin and wiggle my thumb playfully toward Joan. “That trick was all Joan's idea.”

Grace mentally retreats. Maybe she senses she's not getting in. Or maybe she's decided to trust Joan, who's now shooting Grace a pleased, loaded look over my compliment.

I can't help but smile too, as I glance back to the main space—

And then my heart leaps, just for an instant, over who I spot at the back of the crowd. There's a cluster of mob men—I recognize their faces, all of them, some from my time running with McEvoy, some from black-and-white photos that were pinned to the Prohibition Unit's board of wanted Shaw men. Harrison Gunn, Win Matthews, and George Kerrigan, McEvoy's underboss from the racketeering side, plus a few others I don't know well enough to connect with a name. And they're all heading with their little glasses of sorcerer's shine into the left corridor off the main space.

“I better get going,” I say to Joan, a little too briskly. So I force a yawn. “Long night, and it's going to be a longer week.” I look around quickly. “But should I stay? Is there a post-performance meeting or anything?”

Joan gives me a canned smile. I can't read her—I'm not sure if she looks more anxious or disappointed. “No, of course, you're free to go.”

I grab her hand, give it a little squeeze. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

I angle my way through the sea of shiners and to the mouth of the hallway. I wait until a small crowd of half-crazed dancers surges forward, a perfect cover while I sneak down the hall after the underbosses. I reach for the cinder-block corner of the hallway, ready to round it—

But my fingers are stopped short, smack against a hard surface as smooth and strong as glass.

I step back a few feet, take in the perfect manipulation—a flat facade of an empty hall closing off the actual corridor. A protection wall, just like the ones Joan used to create, to keep our hallway conversations secret from prying eyes.

Is this Joan's handiwork too?

On instinct, I look back to the stage, wonder if she's watching me, and if I can somehow conjure a door straight through her replica without being detected. She and Grace are still up there, scanning the crowd slowly, talking in hushed whispers, both of their faces creased, concerned.

It's not worth the risk. Not yet.

I bound up the two flights of stairs to the first-floor liquor bar, dart through the small space, needle my way out the door. I walk home quickly, only stop when I reach Iowa Circle, collapse onto a park bench to catch my breath.
Plans are cooking inside the Red Den, maybe something involving Harrison Gunn, Win, others. Joan at least knows enough to protect them, to keep their meetings hidden behind magic walls.

I need to get more out of her, push her, figure out all I can
.

But it pains me a little, thinking about actually doing it.

I'm so lost in my own thoughts that when I finally round onto P Street, I almost walk right by the black car sitting in front of my house. The window rolls down a crack, and a pair of feral, bloodshot eyes peer out over the glass.

“About goddamned time, Alex,” McEvoy's voice bellows from inside. “Get in.”

My heart nearly stops.
The last thing I want to do right now is get inside this man's car.

I reluctantly slide into the passenger seat. Between McEvoy's seat and mine, a small mirror lies facing up. It's dusted with blue powder, and a rolled dollar bill lies on top of it.
So McEvoy must
have tried the dust—tried it many times, from the looks of him right now. Which means he's paranoid, unpredictable.

Even more dangerous than usual.

“You're supposed to check in every day with me.”

“I tried you last night, sir, but it was late,” I say slowly. “They have me there all day practicing, and nights are at the show. If I sneak out, it might arouse suspicion—”

“You're there
for me
, you understand?” He roughly pinches his nose, sniffs loudly. “If you arouse suspicion, you find a way to deal with it.”

“Of course, sir, that's not what I meant—”

“You've been there two days already. I need information, Alex.”

I steal a better look at him. McEvoy's hand is itching over the pistol tucked into his holster, like he's just waiting for a reason to use it.
Now's not the time to tell him that at least three underbosses were meeting behind a concealed door. Now is not the time to tell him that instead of somebody after him, it might be a goddamned coup
. I need an answer that buys me as much time as possible at the Den, without McEvoy barreling through its doors before my Unit can. “Harrison Gunn wasn't on the floor.” I give him the name of his youngest underboss. “He's been more absent from the performances, seems a little distracted. Could be nothing. But whatever's going down, my best guess is that he knows about it. I think I need to start homing in on Gunn, paying him a little more attention, tailing him.”

“Gunn.” McEvoy shakes his head, starts his car's engine. “Time for a chat with Gunn—”

“Sir, wait, I'm not even sure if he's involved,” I rush to say, “or if he's just providing the meeting place. You go after him now, you might never find out the truth, or how far any of this extends.” I steal a breath. “Let me find out more, get to the heart of it, find my way inside the meetings at the Den.”

McEvoy stares at the window as his engine hums. My fate, the Feds's sting, it all hangs in the balance.

“You start ringing
every
night, Alex,” he says. “You don't reach me? I expect you to come calling, sit on my fucking doorstep till you find me and loop me in. Or I'll find myself a new little rat to burrow in there. We clear?”