Vegas Knights (19 page)

  I contemplated that for a moment, then shook my head. "It's all right. Believe it or not, I'm actually curious to see him perform."

  "Haven't you ever?"

  "He showed me all sorts of tricks when I was a kid, but he never took the stage in New Orleans. Grandpa – my mom's dad – tried to push him up there a few times, but he always resisted. 'Those days are behind me now,' he said."

  "Looks like he changed his mind after he left New Orleans."

  "A lot of things changed for me when he left. I'm not surprised the same is true for him."

  "Do you know any magic tricks yourself?"

  "Seriously?" I stared at Gaviota. "I think you know the answer to that. Isn't that why you're hiring us?"

  He gave me a winning smile. "I meant stage magic, like the kind we're about to see."

  I shook my head. "I used to play around with card tricks as a kid, and I read every book I could find on escape artists for a while, but I never performed anything. Why?"

  "As part of our organization, every magician must study stage magic and perform it well. If you sign on with us, you should be ready for that."

  The idea of walking onto a stage and making myself disappear didn't scare me much. "That sounds a little too easy."

  "The trick – for people like us, that is – is that we're not allowed to use our other talents while on stage."

  "Why not?" Bill said. Until then, I hadn't realized he was listening.

  Gaviota turned to welcome Bill into the conversation too. "For centuries, the use of stage magic has given magicians the perfect cover story, and Mr Weiss insists on following in that tradition. One of the greatest advantages that magic gives us is that no one expects it to be real. And why is that?"

  It dawned on me first. "Because you tell them it's fake."

  "It's an orchestrated disinformation campaign," said Bill.

  Gaviota gave Bill a hesitant nod. "I wouldn't have used those words in a million years, but sure. We perform tricks, and some of us even show people how they're done. Then, when people see us do something they can't explain by normal means, they automatically assume there must be a reasonable explanation for it, even if they don't know what it is."

  "And having members of the Cabal perform magic helps reinforce that image?" I asked.

  "Every stage magician who has ever performed in Vegas has either been a member of the Cabal or has walked on stage only with our permission. We own – either in part or in whole – most of the casinos in town after all. A few of them have absolutely no talent with real magic. They're exactly what they say they are: skilled mechanics practiced in the art of illusion. They make for the best cover of all."

  "So why can't we just skip that part?" Bill said. "Why do we have to bother with card tricks and sawing women in half?"

  "Because you can't be as careful as you want to be. At some point, you'll do something that will expose your magical powers to the world. When that happens, it's easy to explain the error as a magic trick – but that only works if you happen to be a magician."

  My head spun back to the man who'd grabbed my leg as Bill and I were trying to escape Bootleggers. He and his lady were sure to have one hell of a story to tell people back home – as would that guy who'd been counting all that money – although no one would be likely to believe them. I decided to not share those details with Gaviota myself.

  "Why not just come clean and announce it to the world?" I asked.

  Gaviota laughed out loud at that. "Some people have tried. In the best cases, no one believed them. In the worst, they were hanged as witches or warlocks."

  "That had to be centuries ago though."

  "Try the 1950s here in the USA. In some parts of the world, this still goes on today. Sometimes we still get the occasional spoon bender who goes public, but we just send one of our own out there to discredit him. It goes away fast enough then. People don't really want to believe in magic."

  "I always did," I said.

  "Sure. To you, it's real. To most people, the idea that others can manipulate the world in ways that they can't flat out terrifies them. They like to think that the world works the way it's supposed to, that it's fair and impartial, and it's hard for them to swallow that they're wrong about that in so many ways."

  "So it's a matter of maintaining your edge? Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for just that. "

  "Just that?" Gaviota smirked. "Kid, I've seen a lot of things in my many years on this planet and in this town. If there's one thing that Vegas taught me it's that you never give up an edge. You keep it up for as long as you can, or you wind up being one of the losers that put this city in their rearview mirror every day. That edge put Mr Weiss in control of this city, and edge or not that's no mean feat."

  I fell silent as I pondered this. None of the three of us said anything more until the curtains rose on the stage. That's when Gaviota leaned over and said, "You two are in for a treat."

  I'd seen a few magic shows as a kid, mostly just buskers on Bourbon Street or in Jackson Square. Once in grade school, a classmate's parents hired a magician for her birthday party. My dad had come along and chuckled the whole way through it. It struck me now that he hadn't been laughing with the performer so much as at him.

  I'd also seen a few TV shows about magic, mostly those specials in which the performer claims to be a rogue magician exposing the secrets of his peers. I wondered now if Houdini had somehow secretly been behind all that. Anything that made magic seem to be more mundane like that would work in his favor.

  I'd never seen my father do so much as step onto a stage to accept an award. He'd worked a series of odd jobs when I was growing up: bartender, newspaper reporter, janitor, delivery man, cook, even private investigator. Sure, he spoke like he was in charge, like he always knew what he was doing, but I'd figured that's just how fathers were – right up until he'd left town. I'd never had any inkling that he wanted his name up in lights.

  When Luke Wisdom came out on the stage, it was something else. He didn't just occupy the space, or even fill it. He owned it.

  He rolled through a sequence of tricks, each one better than the last. He had every one of us in the audience on the edges of our seats. He made us laugh, think, and even scream.

  He was masterful, and I don't remember when I'd ever been so proud of him. It had been far too long.

  Throughout it all, I don't think he saw me. Not until he set up his last trick.

  "For my last feat, I need two volunteers. Strong souls who do not fear to get their hands more than a little bloody."

  He took off his black dinner jacket and handed it to an assistant as a spotlight from the side of the stage swept the audience. I tried to duck low, but all of the magicians around me – except, admittedly, for Bill and Gaviota – were stabbing their hands into the air, eager to be even a small part of such an excellent act.

  My dad's breath caught in his chest when he saw me. He actually staggered a step back. I don't know what surprised him more: the fact that I was there at all, or that I was sitting next to Gaviota.

  I have to give him credit though. He masked his surprise by rolling up his sleeves, and he recovered right away. Someone else might have stumbled through the rest of his act, or maybe just moved on and ignored us until the show was over. Dad wasn't willing to let me off that easy though.

  "You, sir!" he said with a humorous tone. "The handsome young man in the third row."

  I pointed at myself. "Who, me?"

  "Yes, of course, you. You and the young man sitting next to you. You both seem like just the sort of boys willing to toss caution to the wind and do something really stupid – even more so than most souls in Vegas."

  The crowd giggled at that, but I didn't crack a smile. I knew just what he meant. I tried to wave him off, but he wasn't going to permit that.

  One of his assistants rolled out a rack of long, shiny swords, Asian weapons with thin, curved blades. Their edges glittered in the spotlight. Dad picked up three of them and juggled them as he spoke.

  "Come now, boys!" he said. "Don't be shy. This will be a lot harder on me than you. I promise."

  He tossed the three blades into the air, one by one. "This is your chance to really stick it to me."

  The blades thunked down into the stage on each of his last three words. Each of them stabbed deep into the wood and stuck there, juddering from the floor. He snatched up the middle one and stabbed it out at me, still cowering in the audience.

  "It's the chance of a lifetime, son," he said. "Don't let it pass you by!"

  Another assistant stepped forward and started up a chant, clapping with every word. "Stick! It! To! Him! Stick! It! To! Him!"

  The crowd roared and joined in. "Stick! It! To! Him!" The noise grew with every second.

  "Stick! It! To! Him!" The people sitting right behind me and Bill pushed us forward, urging us to our feet.

  "Stick! It! To! Him!"

  I glanced at Bill, who shrugged. "It's your dad," he shouted.

  "Stick! It! To! Him!" I glared up at the man on stage. The man who'd left me behind in New Orleans to grieve for my mother on my own. The man who'd found me in that empty lot last night and sent me packing with barely a word of explanation.

  "Stick! It! To! Him!" I looked at those swords and thought of how it would feel to stab someone with them – anyone – particularly him, the man who was daring me to do it in front of hundreds of strangers.

  "Stick! It! To! Him!"

  I stood up tall and strong and thrust my fists into the air. Bill jumped up by my side. The crowed cheered. People nearby pounded me on the back and whooped in my face.

  As I strode onto the stage, I had one thought in my head. If these people wanted blood – if my father wanted it too – then I was going to give it to them.

 
 

CHAPTER TWENTY
 

"Hello, gentlemen!" my dad said, shaking our hands as Bill and I joined him on stage. "I'm so glad you could join us."

  Here, in front of the crowd, he had to pretend he didn't know us, or the audience would think we were shills, paid to be part of the act. It also meant he couldn't chew me out quite yet, at least not until the show was over. I decided to play along, and Bill followed my lead.

  "For my next trick," Dad said to the crowd, "I will require the most devious and demented device ever created." He turned to shout at someone offstage. "Bring out the Chinese Torture Trap!"

  Two of dad's assistants wheeled a strange contraption onto the stage. The open lattice of silvered framework stood about as large as a closet. It had a black platform at the bottom, and a pair of handcuffs hung from closed steel loops high on the front side's bars. The middle part of the framework held a steel box with a man-sized hole cut out of the top and the bottom of it. It had a hinge in the middle, and the entire apparatus separated in half and could be spread out like the covers of a book standing straight up with its spine pointed at the audience.

  The assistants brought the device into the middle of the stage and then spun it around and opened it up to show it from every angle. When they were finished, they rotated it so that the hinge faced the audience again. Dad strode behind it and stepped into the device, one foot on each side of its floor and his arms held high.

  His assistants brought the sides together, trapping him inside the steel box from his chest to his groin. One of the assistants locked the box with a heavy padlock slipped through a hasp that wrapped around from the back to the front. The other set to fastening a handcuff to each of my dad's wrists, keeping his arms high and away from his sides. He rattled them hard to test them, and they held tight.

  Then each of the assistants stepped away and went to retrieve the blades from where they still stood sticking out of the floor. They handed two of these directly to Bill and me, giving one to each of us.

  "Gentlemen!" Dad said to us. "I want you each to inspect both the box around my middle and the manacles around my wrists. Please assure both yourself and the audience that they are solid and untampered with."

  Bill and I set about doing just that. I knew that if I found anything wrong with the setup I wouldn't say a word to blow my dad's trick, but everything seemed as normal as could be.

  "Now, please satisfy yourselves that it is impossible for me to break free."

  At the assistants' urging, Bill and I pulled and yanked on both the box and the handcuffs. The box had been tailored to fit my father like a glove, and both it and the manacles were sealed on him tight. After checking everything out, we gave the assistants and the audience an approving nod.

  "Now, please examine the swords and ensure that they are composed of nothing but the finest steel."

  Bill and I each took our blades and swung them around. They looked and felt real. The edges seemed sharp, although I wasn't about to cut myself to prove the point.

  I held my blade up before me, and Bill did the same. Without a word, we assumed double-handed grips and clashed them together like Jedi battling with lightsabers. They clanged against each other just like the real thing, and I felt the jarring from it all the way up to my shoulders.

  The audience hooted at that, and Bill and I turned to salute them with the blades. The spotlights blinded me, and I couldn't see anything much past the edge of the stage, but I could hear the people out there as they burst into applause.

  In that instant, I could already see how performing in front of a large group of people could become addictive. I wondered how my father – if he was actually the stage magician Gaviota had implied he had been – could ever have given it up. He must have done it for my mom and me, and realizing that I found it hard to be angry with him right then.