Authors: Matt Forbeck
Vegas Knights (22 page)
He had turned over the Jack of Diamonds and the Six of Spades.
"What?" I slouched back in my chair, stunned. I'd been expecting to see a straight flush, but with the common cards, Gaviota's best hand came from the single Ace as his high card. "You've got nothing but slop."
Gaviota smiled as he raked in the chips. "Actually, I have the winning hand."
I gaped at him, flabbergasted at how easy and fast I'd been knocked out of the game. "Why didn't you go for the straight flush?"
I realized then that Gaviota had never even bothered to glance at his hole cards during the final round of betting. He hadn't needed to.
He failed to suppress a tight smile. "Normally, like any great magician, I don't reveal my secrets, but since we're among friends here, I'll tell."
He pointed at both Cindi and me. "I knew the two of you wouldn't go for the obvious win. You both are too clever for that – maybe too clever for your own good. I figured you'd find a way to tie each other if I nudged your cards in that direction. Once you did, all I had to do was sit back and watch the fireworks. And take all your money."
Bill clapped me on the back. "That was rough. I so thought you had him."
Frustrated with myself, I couldn't take the compliment. Feeling my face flush with emotion, I stood up and snapped Gaviota a quick salute. "Thanks for the fast-track education," I said. "I think I hear the bar calling."
I shuffled off to a chorus of comments like "Gutsy play," "Next time," and "Ouch." When I reached the bar, my father was standing there. He didn't look happy.
"How are you doing?" he asked.
I pointed to his side. He was in a fresh suit, not his performance clothes, with a white shirt and no tie. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
He waved it off. "I'm fine. You survived getting shot the other night, right?"
"I got grazed by a bullet. You had a sword rammed through you."
"It was only a flesh wound," he said with a British accent. "Seriously," he said in his own voice, "I've survived much worse. There's a reason those slots in the Chinese Torture Trap are positioned around my belly instead of my heart."
I winced. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought for sure you had some kind of trick worked up that would keep that from happening."
"I did." The lines on Dad's face deepened. "You foiled it."
"But how is that possible?" The bartender shoved a beer in front of me, and I grabbed it like it might try to hop away. "I wasn't trying to hurt you. I swear."
I meant every word of that, and I desperately wanted my father to believe me. I think he did.
"I don't doubt that," he said. "But that's even more frightening."
"How do you mean?"
"I was cheating during that act. I wasn't using any tricks. I relied on magic – real magic – to phase those swords right through me. You kept that from happening, and if you weren't even trying, then you've got more mojo flowing through you than I've ever seen."
"Maybe it was someone else," I said. I felt a swell of pride at the fact that maybe I'd trampled over my father's magic without even noticing it, but I couldn't believe it was true. "There were a lot of other magicians in that crowd."
I took a sip of my beer as he put a hand on my shoulder. It tasted bitter and cold.
"None of them had their hands on the hilt of that sword," he said.
I gave him a half-hearted smile. "Maybe you just had an off night."
He shook his head. "Your buddy Bill's blade phased right through me like I wasn't there. Didn't even leave a scratch. Yours ran straight through my guts."
I put my back to the bar and craned my neck around to gaze at the poker table. "For someone with so much mojo, I got my clock cleaned in that game over there. I don't think I've ever busted out so fast."
"Your magic worked fine," Dad said. "You blew the game itself. You were playing the cards, not the people. Didn't I teach you better than that?"
I scowled. "I haven't seen you since I was thirteen, Dad."
"Except for last night. When I helped crowbar you out of a tough spot. And then I find you right back in it. What the hell was the point of all that, Jackson?"
"We tried, Dad. We honestly did. We changed our tickets. I can show you our boarding passes."
"And?" He furrowed his brow at me.
"And they caught us. A TSA agent pulled us out of the security screening line and brought us straight to Gaviota. He grabbed us and brought us here."
Dad paled at that. I took a big gulp of my beer.
"By 'here,' where exactly do you mean?"
"Back to Bootleggers."
"Where in Bootleggers?"
I pointed straight up.
He covered his eyes with a hand. "Houdini?" he whispered.
I could barely hear him over the buzz of conversation in the lounge, but when his fingers slid off his face so he could look at me, I couldn't pretend that I had missed what he said. I nodded.
"And?" he said.
I hated that word and the way he used it. Every time I'd been caught doing something wrong as a kid, he did the same thing. He just kept prompting me to continue until I had nothing left. If I tried to skip something or – worse yet – missed the path of the chat he wanted me to follow, he kept pressing me until I either filled in the holes or he had to enlighten me about what had slipped by me.
"He was amazing. I thought he was going to kill us. He offered us a job instead."
"And?"
"And what?" I didn't want to play this game anymore.
"Did you take it?"
I glanced over at Bill. He had just won a hand and was raking in the chips with a huge, happy grin.
"Not yet. We have until the end of the week."
"And?"
"Stop that," I said with a shudder. "Just knock it off."
"Stop what?"
"Stop the whole Socratic shorthand thing you have going on there. If you have a question, ask it. Don't make me guess what it is. No matter how much mojo I might have, I haven't figured out how to read minds yet."
He considered this. "All right. Which way are you leaning on the job offer then? In or out?"
"They've been treating us well so far. Actually, that's a mild way of putting it. They've treated us like kings."
"Sure they have." Dad's comment came across as a warning. "That's what they do. They have a lot of money. It's not important to them, and they spread it around to gain influence over those who care about such things."
"Like me."
He gave me a canted eye. "Money never used to be that important to you either, Jackson."
"That was before Katrina. Before Mom died. Before you left. Before grandma had to step up and raise me on her own. Going to the University of Michigan ain't cheap."
"Isn't."
"Whatever. I'm paying out-of-state tuition. At those rates, it's the most expensive public university in the world. It's over thirty thousand dollars a year just for tuition alone."
Dad's jaw dropped. "It's a great school – I loved it there – but that's outrageous. Why didn't you try something closer to home?"
"Grandma insisted on Michigan. You and Mom filled her head with how great it was over the years, and she knew Mom would have wanted me to go there, so off I went."
"That's ridiculous. She can't possibly afford that."
"I know," I said. "That's why I'm here. I wanted to find a way to help pay."
"Try going to a different school."
I put down my empty glass. "I think I'll stick with the judgment of the adult who's been there for me for the past five years."
That shut Dad up. I knew it wasn't fair, but I didn't care. As he steamed, I signaled the bartender for another beer. "Do you want anything?" I said. "From him, I mean?"
Dad shook his head. "Do you know what he wants?" he asked. "Houdini, I mean?"
I shrugged. "To run Las Vegas, I guess." I looked around the room. "Seems like he's doing a great job of it."
Dad grunted. "He's already in charge of most of the city, whether people here know it or not. I'm talking about what he really wants. Why he's doing all this."
I had to admit, I hadn't thought much about the matter. I wanted money because I needed it. I assumed Houdini, like most people, did too. I was probably wrong. "When you're as rich as him, I suppose it doesn't have as much to do with the cash, huh? He mentioned something about sides forming up for a big battle, but I don't think I really understood what he meant."
"Think about it, Jackson. What's the one thing a dead man can't have?"
"Life?" I blurted it out as a glib joke, but as the word left my mouth I realized how right I was. "But doesn't he already have something like that? He's the liveliest dead man I've ever seen."
"He doesn't want a semblance of life. He wants the real thing. He's close enough he can taste it – or could if he was alive."
I wanted to ask how he could manage that, but I didn't understand how he'd gotten away with escaping from his grave the first place. The easy answer was "magic," but like most easy answers it didn't mean nearly enough.
"And?" I said to Dad.
He started to reprimand me for sassing him – I could tell by the way he opened his mouth – but he stopped himself and answered my question instead. "And that's why he wants your help – why he wants all the people in this room. He's going to use our power to bring himself back to life."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"I don't see the problem with that," I said. I picked up my beer and had a drink. "The man hires us, and we do him a service. Isn't that how America works?"
"It's not that easy, Jackson." Dad lowered his voice. "He's going to ask for a lot more than anyone here bargained for. You cannot come to work for him. Go back home. Go back to school."
"Can't really afford it. Remember?"
"I'll pay for it. For everything. Tuition, room, and board. I'll hire you to get yourself an education."
I cast a wary eye at him. The thought of not having to work in the East Quad cafeteria during the day and drive pizzas at night – that's what drove me to Las Vegas in the first place. If I could somehow manage that without having to use my mojo, that seemed like a no-brainer. But I knew what taking the money from my father would mean.
"I don't want to work for you," I said. "You pay my way, and you'll use that cash like a club. I need to make my own way."
He put a hand on my arm. "No, Jackson, I won't. I owe you this – far more than this for leaving you with your grandmother for so long. If I'd not been so caught up here, I would have realized you needed the money, and I would have sent it. Your grandmother never asked. Not once."
"She didn't know where to find you."
"Is that what she told you?" He sighed. "I've been sending her money every few months ever since I left. You ever wonder how she managed to keep you clothed and fed?"
I blushed as I realized I hadn't. "I figured she had a pension. Or money from Mom's life insurance."
"Your mother never had any life insurance," he said. "She didn't believe in it." He choked up a bit then. "She thought I was her life insurance."
"Guess she was wrong about a lot of things then."
That came out colder than I meant it, but I discovered that I didn't want to take it back.
Dad bent his head. When he looked back up at me, his eyes brimmed with tears he refused to let free.
"Just go," he said. "Take your friend with you. I'll make sure you're taken care of."
I looked down at him. For the first time, I noticed he was just a bit shorter than me. "What about you?" I said. "If working for Houdini is so bad, then why do you do it? If you can do it, why can't I?"
He ran his tongue over his teeth. "I have my reasons. I don't really want to talk about them. Not here. Not now."
"When then? Am I supposed to go home and wait for a letter?"
He pointed at himself with both hands. "Look at me, Jackson. I'm a wealthy man. I'm at the top of my game. I have everything I need. What's the one thing I want that I can't ever have back?"
I didn't like considering this riddle. "I don't know," I lied.
"Your mother," he said. "I'd give anything to bring your mother back."
I felt myself choking up now, but I refused to do that here, not in front of all these other people. Not in front of my dad. "Me too," I said.
"That's why I came here. That's what I've been working on night and day for the past four and a half years. That's why I agreed to work with Houdini. I'm conducting my own research on how to unlock the secrets of life and death."
"So why shouldn't I?"
"You're young. You have your whole life ahead of you. I got mixed up in all this when I was young too, and it just about ruined my life." He squeezed my arm and looked me in the eye. "I can't have that happening to you."
"But Mom–"
A wistful smile spread on his face. "I especially can't have your mother ever see you doing this. If she came back from the dead to find you mixed up in this, she'd kill me – and then you'd be down to one parent again, just like that."
"That's not funny, Dad," I said. "Not one damn bit."
"Hey, I was just–"
"I know what you meant, but I can't find the humor in it. I've been down two parents already, ever since the day you left. Mom couldn't help it. She died." I glared at him. "What's your excuse?"
"Jackson." He huffed in frustration. "I just told you–"
"You ran off here to save Mom. Right. And in all those years, you never came back home once. You never spoke to me or wrote me or even let me know you weren't dead."
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