Club Deception

by Sarah Skilton

  “Right? And I think that’s common. With magicians. Maybe they started doing magic to break the ice, have a little game, and when it suddenly worked, when they started getting dates, they went a little overboard. They’ve been starved for girls for years so now they overcompensate, because who wouldn’t?”

  Jessica considered this. “Yeah, maybe.” She scrolled to a more recent photo. “Plus, hello. Criminally hot now.”

  Their food arrived and they dug in.

  Between mouthfuls, Kaimi told Jessica about a rare set of card-manipulation papers she represented, written by a long-dead card cheat named S. W. Erdnase. They weren’t cheap but Kaimi figured she may as well ask: Would Cal be interested in buying them?

  “I have no idea. I’ll be happy to ask after his premiere, though. Right now he’s completely absorbed,” Jessica explained. “And we wouldn’t have the money till after anyway.”

  “Okay, but just so you’re aware, I’m talking to other people, too, so if someone else wants them, they could get snatched up before then.”

  “I’ll definitely ask him.” Assuming we ever see each other during daylight hours.

  “Could you let me know at the next WAG brunch?”

  Jessica’s fingers twisted her paper napkin into tense shapes. “I’m not sure I’m ready to go back yet.”

  “Please don’t leave me alone with the crazy wives,” Kaimi begged.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “If you can’t make it, just call me on my office line.”

  She handed Jessica her business card. It read:

  Kaimi Lee

  Restorer of Antique Artifacts

  Finder of Lost Things

  * * *

  On the drive to the nursing home for her next appointment, “Hotel California” came on and Jessica didn’t bother to change the station. Why fight it?

  Once again she looked intently out the window. For a place often blamed for the country’s moral decline, Los Angeles was pretty religious. On a single block there was a Mormon temple, a Zen Buddhist pagoda, and a Korean United Methodist Church. There was also a towering cathedral at the top of Highland Avenue just before the lanes merged into the 101 freeway, and a glowing white cross hovered mysteriously in the mountains above the Hollywood Bowl.

  Cynthia’s mother lived at the Sunshine Estates between mid-Wilshire and K-town. Built in 1924, the Estates still looked grand from far away, but the crown molding was crumbling and the marquee sign on the roof had long since burned out.

  The streets surrounding the nursing home were named for East Coast states and schools (Vermont, New Hampshire, Harvard), but the industrial buildings, video stores, cash advances, doctors’ offices, and nightclubs all had signs in Korean script, occasionally interrupted by Que Ricos!, the short, squat, orange-lidded Mexican taco stands. Little Armenia was just up the road. It was like a cheaper, dirtier Epcot village.

  She parked at Johnie’s Coffee Shop, an old-fashioned diner with a blue-and-white-striped awning. It looked incredibly appealing until she saw it was dark inside. Not a single person was there. A large sign in the window read, AVAILABLE FOR FILMING, with a phone number underneath. It was a fake; a shell rented out for movies and TV shows. There was something sad and lonely about it. She wondered if it had ever been real.

  Feeling tired and out of sorts, she walked around the corner to her destination. The sidewalk was wide and eggshell white, with baby jacaranda trees stamped in black square boxes every twenty feet or so. Lavender blossoms had fallen to the street, where they got smeared like waxed paper under the wheels of cars.

  “I’m here to see Evelyn White,” she told the fifty-something receptionist in the lobby. “Could you tell me where her room is?”

  The receptionist checked Jessica’s name off a list and walked her to the elevator. “Second floor, first door on the right.”

  In the elevator was a bulletin board with the days’ activities (Social Hour, Bridge, Naptime, Movie) and menus (Today’s breakfast: orange juice and Malt-O Meal).

  In the hallway of the second floor, the lingering smell of disinfectant and stale Cheerios pushed Jessica to discomfort. I don’t belong here. She’d never known her grandparents, had never gone to their houses on summer breaks or been spoiled by them at birthdays or Christmases. From her scrapbooking jobs she’d learned just enough to know what she’d been missing out on. But she pushed her forlorn thoughts away before knocking on Evelyn’s door, plastering a smile on her face.

  To her relief, Cynthia answered.

  “My mother’s just in the bathroom, but please come in and sit down.”

  For the next several minutes they went over Cynthia’s hopes for her mother’s photos. Cynthia rifled through a large box absentmindedly. Jessica looked at the clock on the wall. Both women ignored the sounds emanating from the bathroom. Evelyn’s bedside table contained at least six bottles of prescription drugs.

  “Oh, look,” said Cynthia. “This’ll interest you.”

  She held out an old photo for Jessica to look at. It had been taken outside Club Deception (there was no photography allowed inside the building). There were ten people in the picture, and Jessica’s eyes immediately focused on a young Cal, his hair thicker, his teeth a little more crooked (did he have them fixed after he moved to the States?), and she smiled despite herself. My handsome husband. Within the group, Claire stood between a man who was probably her husband and a brunette woman with a pixie haircut.

  It was Brandy. It had to be.

  Everyone else was from Cynthia’s generation. Claire, Claire’s husband, Cal, and Cal’s wife were the new class. Claire was pregnant, and Jessica remembered from the WAG brunch that Claire’s daughter was in college, which meant the photo was at least eighteen years old.

  Brandy was stunning—disaffected, and cool, all sharp, high cheekbones and dark, mischievous eyes. She seemed to be staring right at Jessica and laughing. Everything about her was luxurious, like an elegant Swiss chocolate.

  Jessica felt about as exotic as a handful of Skittles.

  Why was Brandy’s arm around Claire instead of Cal?

  Evelyn emerged from the bathroom at last, clad in a nightgown. Her hair was neatly combed but she seemed either sleepy or highly medicated; her gait was unsteady and her hands trembled. Cynthia was no spring chicken herself; with the aid of her black cane, she guided Evelyn by the elbow to her bed.

  “This is the woman I was telling you about, Mother. Her name’s Jessica, and she’s come to help with the photos. She’s part of the club, she married Calum Clarke.”

  Evelyn’s still features sprang to life and her face snapped toward Jessica. Her voice was anxious and very loud.

  “Calum Clarke? The one who killed his wife?”

  Kaimi

  The next buyer Kaimi was scheduled to speak with that day had wanted to meet at Yoga Booty Ballet class, but Kaimi had declined, citing her lunch date with Jessica. So at one o’clock they met at the juice bar inside a health club off Fountain Avenue.

  The young woman who’d DM’d her on Facebook on behalf of her magician lover wore teeny-tiny shorts and a red racerback tank top that read SQUAT DAMN in white cursive. She held out a perfectly manicured hand.

  “I’m Becca. You’re Kimmie?”

  “Kaimi. Thanks for meeting me.”

  Becca’s hairline was sweaty and her roots were visible under the headband she wore high on her forehead. She held out a chocolate bar that was half eaten. It said 4.20 on the wrapper. “Pot choc?”

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  “It’s medical. Man, they didn’t have anything like Yoga Booty back in Joliet. My muscles are so ‘oww,’ right now and I have to go to work after this so I need a little help, you know?”

  “Where do you work?” Kaimi asked, genuinely curious.

  “At Lil Folks preschool in Santa Monica. I wish I worked at the Brentwood one, though—their parents are way more tapped in to the business.”

  Kaimi tried her best not to react. L
uckily, Becca required no encouragement to continue.

  “My boyfriend wants me to quit and work for him, but doing a magic show isn’t really acting, you know? My uncle, he manages my career, said to forget it. Right now my hours are good. I can work out and go on auditions in the morning.”

  “And get stoned before looking after our nation’s greatest resource,” said Kaimi cheerfully.

  Becca wasn’t so high that she couldn’t sense sarcasm. “It’s not like they know. Anyway, I told him I’d help out with this because his wife is a mega-beeyotch and he doesn’t trust her.” She puffed up proudly. “He needs me to handle it for him. He’s trusting me with everything. So give me the deets on the drawings or whatever.”

  Reluctantly, Kaimi laid out the information in the simplest possible terms.

  * * *

  That night, she and Landon met for drinks at the Polo Lounge so she could update him on her progress. She’d spent two hours primping and making herself look both stereotypically Hawaiian (hello, absurd peony in my hair) and submissive. She wore a demure, loose-fitting floral dress with simple white flats, and one tiny pearl earring in each ear. She basically looked like a Honolulu airport greeter, minus the leis. She needed Landon to let down his guard around her.

  She’d been doing additional research on the papers as well as the man, the myth, the legend, and discovered that Erdnase’s identity was the most notorious mystery in magic. More than a century after the book first appeared, there was still nobody who could claim to know its origins. Karl Johnson, author of the 2005 book The Magician and the Cardsharp, asserted, “It was as if Erdnase had made some devilish bargain to erase his identity in order to guarantee the immortality of his work.” Unpublished, handwritten, heretofore unknown pages by Erdnase were priceless. Her QDE had confirmed the papers’ age, and that would have to suffice; buyer beware and all that. Granted, she didn’t understand the magic terminology they contained, but the point was they truly seemed to have come from the greatest card master the world had ever known. There could be techniques in it nobody else could replicate; information that would offer unparalleled advantages to a card cheat, or career-defining, life-changing status to a magician.

  She pulled up to the iconic, Pepto-Bismol–pink Beverly Hills Hotel in her rental Kia, and her heart fluttered in her chest. This isn’t a date, she berated herself. Your body thinks it is because of all the prep time, and because you’ve been pretending for days now that you’re seeing each other. They’d simultaneously selected “In a relationship” for their Facebook statuses (complete with the psychotic-looking smiley photo she’d snapped on her phone) in case anyone from the club tried to friend her. She’d pointedly ignored the comments his FB update elicited. All sixty-three of his friends had an opinion.

  Landon had reserved a corner table for their tête-à-tête. He looked fit and debonair in a dark-gray vest and slacks, no tie. He had more facial hair than when she’d seen him last: a bit of stubble with a neatly trimmed mustache.

  She briskly walked over. “I’ll tell you who I’ve spoken to so far and you can let me know which ones sound the most promising.”

  He stifled a laugh. “What’s with the flower?”

  “What’s with the chinstrap?” she retorted.

  He looked offended. “It’s not a chinstrap, it’s a little scruff.” He stroked the short, neatly trimmed ’stache portion with his fingers. “Deliberate scruff, nicely maintained.”

  “The purpose of scruff is that it’s not deliberate, it’s haphazard.”

  And then she was laughing all of a sudden. She couldn’t help it. Their hostile greeting had devolved into an argument about facial hair.

  “Most ladies like a little scruff,” he said.

  She counted herself among them, and it was imperative he never find that out. The guy was magically delicious. Problem was, he knew it.

  “Do I seem like most ladies?”

  “Not at all.”

  She sat down at the table, smoothing her shapeless dress down her thighs. She hated engaging in small talk but if it helped loosen him up, she’d suffer through it.

  “Can we start over?” she asked. “Hi, how’s it going?”

  “That’s better. Fine, how are you?”

  “Phenomenal. So, Claire Fredericksson,” she said. “She was running the wives’ brunch, so that’s the first person I approached.”

  “Ahh, Claire. The vagician,” Landon said fondly.

  “The what?”

  “Female magician.” He put his hands up defensively. “Not my word.”

  “So don’t use it!”

  “She’s also the wife of the board president.”

  “Jonathan Fredericksson,” Kaimi cut in.

  “Right. Apparently Claire writes all his material. It’s the best-kept secret in magic.”

  “I thought Erdnase was the best-kept secret in magic.”

  “Okay, Claire is the second-best-kept secret in magic.”

  “How come you know about it?”

  “My buddy Patrick Blake, he used to intern for Jonathan. Hated him so much he quit stage work altogether. He’s a close-up guy now, only works with cards.”

  She pursed her lips. “My, my.”

  “Yeah, they’re kind of the snobs of magic. Anyway, he said Claire’s the real deal.”

  “Well, she didn’t think her husband would want the papers. Told me to ask Calum Clarke instead. But then get this…” Kaimi leaned in and lowered her voice. “Jonathan’s mistress found me and said he was interested, and to only go through her with the info.”

  Landon’s jaw dropped. “Whoa.”

  “I know. I also reached out to a collector in London, and I had lunch with Cal’s wife, Jessica, already.”

  Landon nodded, pleased. “Good thinking. Jonathan hates him. Make sure you let it slip that Cal wants them. He’ll set fire to himself rather than let Cal win.”

  “Will do.”

  “What’d you think of the new wife?”

  “Total sweetheart. Way too sweet to be swimming with sharks.”

  He grinned. “I knew those WAG brunches were trouble.”

  She smiled back before she could stop herself. “Yeah, a whole room of women with opinions. That must terrify you.”

  She wondered if suggesting they meet for drinks instead of dinner was part of his manipulation technique. Drinks were casual, dinner was serious. Did he want her to think he had a “real” date planned later that evening?

  Who cares! She forced herself to concentrate. “Jessica couldn’t commit him to anything, but she’ll get back to me, and if the show takes off they’ll have the cash on hand.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “I have three more people on my list, and as soon I as know more, you will, too.”

  “Cool. Now I have a question for you. What’s with you looking all girlie tonight? Why’d you cover up your hair?”

  “That’s two questions.”

  “The shaved thing you had going on was cool. It suits you.”

  “Any other critiques you’d like to share?” she asked crisply.

  “I’m not critiquing, I’m just saying I liked how you were last time. You know, with your funky style and all the earrings.”

  “I should change the way I look because you like me better that way?”

  “No, would you stop putting words in my mouth? I’m saying you should be yourself, that’s all.”

  Landon’s glass of sangria arrived. Kaimi threw caution to the wind and ordered a Ramos Gin Fizz.

  Landon didn’t touch his drink.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “I’ll wait for yours to arrive,” he replied.

  “Suit yourself. Why are there so few women in magic?” she asked. “Why is it so rare that you have to make up a gross term for it?”

  “You may as well ask why there aren’t any dudes who are cat ladies,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re acting like it’s a real shame, like w
omen are missing out. But women don’t want to be magicians, so they don’t become them. It’s that simple.”

  “Why don’t women want to be magicians?”

  “Magicians are dorky. They’re nerds. They spend all their time alone, practicing their routines.”

  She heard Jessica’s voice in her head: Nerd alert! “Not true. Some of them are sexy and mysterious.”

  He gave her a sly glance. “Anyone in particular you’re thinking of?”

  “Ha. So women shouldn’t aspire to the same level of nerdiness as men? They have to be responsible, humorless ‘adults’? They can’t be artists?”

  He laughed. “You’re relentless. I never said any of that.”

  “If magicians are so dorky and nerdy—your words—is that why you target them for your seminar? Because you think that without you they won’t get any lovin’?”

  “Are you saying they don’t deserve love? That’s pretty harsh.”

  “They deserve love as much as anyone”—which isn’t much, she thought—“but why do they have to trick women to get it? Why can’t they be themselves? You just accused me of not being real, but isn’t that what you’re advising to all of them?”

  “I never said, Don’t be real. It all boils down to, Don’t choose the prettiest girl to assist you onstage. Go against your instincts, and give someone else a shot.”

  “But only so the prettiest girl will be jealous!”

  “That’s what courtship is, Kaimi. Wanting someone for yourself, wanting them not to be interested in other people. That’s what spurs action. Jealousy is as old as love.”

  “I think the real reason there are no female magicians is because men don’t like being fooled by other men. But they hate being fooled by a woman.”

  She assumed he would brush off her idea without considering it, but to her surprise, he nodded. “Men are kind of assholes.”

  Kaimi’s Ramos Gin Fizz arrived and Landon took Kaimi’s menu away from her and handed it to the waitress.

  “Want to get some food?” he asked.

  “I am a bit hungry,” she acknowledged.

  “What do you like? Meat, veggies?”