“Sorry. I’m a mess. Thanks for coming over on short notice. I made spinach-and-artichoke pasta if you’re hungry,” Jessica warbled.
“Sit down. Tell me what’s wrong,” Kaimi suggested. She placed the offending cutting board out of the way, and she and Jessica sat at the dining table.
“It’s Cal. He’s never home, and when he is home we barely see each other. He never wants to meet up with people, or take me to the club, and the other day I found this…” She showed Kaimi the bill from Reputation Restorer. “I think he’s hiding something from me. Something big.”
Kaimi studied the bill. “I’ve heard of them. They clean up your online profile, right?”
“Yeah. But why did he get it done now? Look at the date—just a few weeks after we met.”
They met each other two months ago!? “Well…” She racked her brain for an explanation. “His show’s about to air. Maybe it has something to do with that? All the attention he’ll be getting, he probably doesn’t want anyone digging up embarrassing photos or an off-color remark from years ago. He could be worried about bad publicity.”
Jessica sniffled. “I guess, but…look how much it is. It’s way more than we can afford, or at least that I thought we could. Why would he need to spend this much? What is he trying to stop me from finding out?”
It might not be about you, Kaimi thought but didn’t say. No need to upset Jessica further.
She was disappointed about Cal and struck him off the list of buyers. If he was spending that kind of cash before he’d earned it, he was worthless to her. That left only two people, hardly enough for a good bidding war. And time was running out.
“And what about the whole swinging thing with that group of women at Table Six. What the fuck, you know?”
It took Kaimi a moment to figure out what Jessica was referring to. Oh, right, we bonded over that, too—our mutual sex-crazed magicians.
“And then…” Jessica took a deep breath. “This is going to sound batshit, but I met up with Cynthia, one of the older WAGs, and her mom the other day to go through some old photos, and the mother told me…” Jessica dropped her voice to a whisper. “She told me something awful about Cal.”
Kaimi frowned. “Does she even know Cal?”
“Probably not…and her daughter said she has dementia, but…”
“Well then, I think you can safely discount it,” Kaimi said with a reassuring smile.
Jessica rubbed her forehead and got up to blow her nose. She washed her hands afterward and retrieved the casserole from the oven. “I don’t know. But I can’t sleep and I can’t concentrate on anything.” She dished out two servings and sat back down.
“That sounds rough. I’m sorry.”
“What was your ex-boyfriend like?” Jessica asked. “The one from hell? You mentioned him at lunch?”
Kaimi froze. “Oh. You don’t want to know.”
“What did he do? I mean, if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it, I understand.”
“It’s all right. He framed me for something, and got me kicked out of grad school.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know. But let me ask you something: How do you feel about Cal? Not What do people at the club say?, not What did you find in his mail?, not What did a confused old lady tell you?”
Jessica sniffled again, but when she spoke, her voice was clear. “I love him. That’s what scares me the most.”
“And how does he treat you?”
“When he’s not working, he treats me like a goddess,” she admitted.
“Okay. And when does the show wrap?”
“Next week. It airs two weeks after that.”
“Here’s my advice. Wait until he’s done with the show, and see if things improve. In the meantime, do you still have your old ID?”
Jessica nodded.
“Set up a bank account in LA under your maiden name. Don’t transfer your money into a joint one.”
“What money?” Jessica mumbled.
“I’m serious.”
Jessica nodded again. “You’re right. Thanks. Who knows, maybe the music box is worth something and I can start with that?”
After they’d eaten, Jessica brought out the item in question.
“What’s that stuck to the bottom of it?” Kaimi asked.
Jessica peeled it off and showed it to her. “It’s just a photo of a clock tower. No message or anything.”
In the background was the Bay Bridge, but the waterline beneath it was lopsided.
“It’s not even a normal photo, it’s all elongated and weird. I think it was cut out of a larger picture.” She shrugged. “Whatever.”
Kaimi turned the photo over. On the back, on the lower left corner, Jessica’s dad—or someone—had written 126, 4B in pencil.
“Any idea what that means?”
“Nope,” Jessica said. “An address, maybe, like Apartment Four-B? But One Twenty-Six where?”
Just in case it proved useful down the road, Kaimi snapped a few pics on her phone of the music box, the photo, and the numbers.
Then she put on gloves and picked up the music box. Best-case scenario, it was a rare enameled Griesbaum Automaton that would fetch five figures. For Jessica’s sake she hoped it was.
She carefully wound a lever at the side of the box, which caused a clock-like reaction to occur. An oval lid on the top of the case opened, and a mechanical, feathered blue-and-gold bird rose up, singing, flapping its delicate wings, and turning from side to side.
She set the timer on her phone, and when the song ended her shoulders drooped.
“Sorry, Jess, but it’s a replica.” Kaimi set her magnifying loop down on the kitchen table.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s sophisticated, but it’s a replica all the same.”
“I thought since I got the bird singing again, it might be worth something…”
“The bird’s song is what tells me it’s fake, actually. It lasts longer than it should. Also, the cam set—the part of the music box that makes the bird sing—isn’t a perfect spiral. Lastly, it uses a going barrel instead of a fusee. You see the same issue with modern watches.”
“Oh.”
“It’s meant to look like a Frisard, but it’s not one. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks for the fucking knockoff, Dad,” Jessica muttered. “Sorry for wasting your time, K.”
“You didn’t waste it,” Kaimi said kindly. “It was worth looking into. I really wanted it to be authentic.”
“I should’ve known anything that came from him would be garbage.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Kaimi offered. “It’s still a nice piece. The music is lovely. It’s not a bad gift, it’s just not real.”
“It’s the only thing I have of his,” Jessica lamented with a bitter laugh. “It’s shit, but it’s mine.”
They chatted blandly for another ten minutes, but Jessica’s gloom had sunk into the furniture and stuck to the walls like wet moss.
“I’m sorry I didn’t have better news,” Kaimi tried again, after a while. “I know it sucks.”
“It’s not your fault. Thanks for looking at it. What do I owe you?”
“Nothing. Happy to help.”
“You’re the best. And I’m sorry, I never said thanks for the cutting board.”
Kaimi stood and wound her purse strap around her shoulder. “The pasta was great. Send me the recipe?”
“Sure, and here, take the leftovers.” Jessica rose as well, and filled a Tupperware container with the remaining food.
She walked Kaimi to the door but stopped short before turning the knob. “God, I talked so much about myself today I never even asked how you are! I’m a jerk.”
“Don’t worry about it. Really.”
“Things are good with Landon? He treats you well, too?”
“Yeah, he really does.”
During the elevator ride down to the parking garage, Kaimi realized she hadn’t lied.
* * *
Back at the Oakwood apartments, she pulled up Landon’s website and subscribed to his newsletter. Why not? Nothing better to do while I wait for him to skip town.
Half a second later her inbox dinged with a new message.
Dear Friend,
If you’re performing magic for any reason other than to give of yourself and your talent, screw you. No one owes you jack. They don’t owe you applause, let alone a date. Stop expecting the world and the women in it to bow down to you. The moment you use your gifts for any sort of gain, material or otherwise, you lose. Yes, some of you need to make a living. That’s different. Honor your contracts and perform your best regardless of the price you’re being paid or who’s in your audience. But when you’re not on the clock, using magic to make other people happy should be its own reward. When you truly embrace that aspect of your talent, and let go of any expectations or sense of entitlement, that’s when love (and its corollary, sex) will come to you.
Dig deeper.
Stop picking only the supposedly pretty girls to come up onstage. If you took a look at the “second choice” you’re using as a prop to make the pretty ones jealous, really looked at her, and saw how much fun she was having, how much she enjoyed your magic, maybe you would clue in that she’s the one worth getting to know.
Dig deeper.
In my weekly newsletters, fresh to your inbox every Thursday, you’ll learn about mindfulness, accomplishing your goals, and enriching your relationships, all through using your magic skills.
Kaimi laughed so hard her stomach ached. He was a con artist all right, just as he’d claimed. But he conned men, not women.
It was now clear Landon’s racket consisted of three parts:
Marks paid to attend “sold-out” seminars on picking up women using magic. At the seminar, marks were advised to select women they would normally ignore as their helpers, and then browbeaten into signing up for Landon’s newsletter, where the “real” pickup information awaited them.
Marks paid to subscribe to the newsletter, which literally said “screw you” to them and steered them toward better behavior.
Marks were then bludgeoned by dozens of ads. In the margins of the newsletter was an ever-rotating series of links for magic products, DVDs, and downloads. Mentalism. Vanishes. FISM-award winning routines. Bar Magic. Gimmicks. Party tricks.
Each step presumably brought in respectable amounts of cash, but the ads were likely where Landon made most of his money. Purveyors of magic products and instructional videos, magic warehouses, and even mom-and-pop stores would pay a nice commission for such a precise target audience, handpicked for their disposable income and interest in magic. The seminars drummed up initial interest but after that, the newsletter and ads were self-sustaining.
Bonus points for the word corollary, Kaimi typed into her phone. She was about to hit SEND on the text to Landon when she thought better of it. Don’t get attached. If you need a Landon fix, snoop his Facebook page.
It had seemed peculiar at first, Landon’s low number of FB friends, but that was only because he kept the group carefully curated—people he truly knew and liked. And they obviously cared a great deal for him, too.
Kaimi was his sixty-fourth friend.
She didn’t fault herself for thinking he was full of crap when they’d first met. But she had to admit there were hidden depths to him that intrigued her. He’d been straight with her about one major thing from the beginning: Landon the Libertine and Landon the Actual Human Being were opposites.
His most recent update remained his new relationship status.
She clicked on the comments. (Her own FB status about Landon had received thirty-four “likes” but not a single comment.) In contrast, Landon’s page overflowed with kind words from all over the city and country.
Good for you. I knew you’d get there. Love and hugs.
Hi, Kaimi! Good to “meet” you! Friend me?
Does this mean your mourning period is over? So proud of you.
Happy for you, bro. When are you two coming over for dinner, hahaha?
Congrats!! See you at Deception soon I hope. Charlie will want to meet her.
She’s pretty. Must be smart, too, if you’re with her. Let’s double when I’m in town for Halloween!
Don’t break his heart, Kaimi, we’ve got his back. But don’t be afraid to call him on his sh*t, either ;)
It is so nice to see you looking happy. I’ve been thinking of you and that talk we had. I know it’s been a long road for you. Don’t ever think you don’t deserve this. What a beautiful piece of news on my feed this morning.
On and on it went, each welcome warmer than the last. His announcement was as fake as Jessica’s music box, but she felt special anyway. Like she’d joined a rarefied group of close-knit friends.
The thought of never seeing him again was oddly deflating. Surely they had more insults to fling at each other.
Suddenly a new status update appeared under Landon’s name:
Just touched down in Albuquerque.
* * *
Landon lived in a quiet neighborhood on Pickford Way in Culver City, in a cozy, blue-and-white Colonial split-level house. Not exactly the hit-’em-and-quit-’em vibe I was anticipating, Kaimi thought. She hadn’t expected Ground Zero for Landon the Libertine’s pickup operation to look like a single-family home waiting for its family to return.
She was surprised, but maybe she shouldn’t have been. So far he had defied all her assumptions of him. Don’t think about that.
Kaimi parked two blocks away and approached on foot, wearing a dark-gray hoodie and black leggings.
At dinner the week before, he’d asked her why she’d shoplifted as a kid. She hadn’t known how to explain it, but as she walked toward his house, a familiar sensation overtook her.
Time was slowing down.
For this instant, she was innocent. She would remain innocent until the second she used her key to get inside his home without permission, at which point survival instinct would kick in, and all her problems, every single wayward thought, every frustration and rage from her past, would vanish. One objective would remain: Don’t get caught. What a relief to feel only one thing, instead of many. What a relief to know the way forward, to see her world shrink down into a single directive, free from emotion, free from pain. That sort of relief demanded to be duplicated, and committing a crime was the only way she knew how.
She put her gloves on and got to work.
Her homemade key didn’t glide in the lock as seamlessly as she’d hoped. While she jiggled it, she glanced from side to side, hoping nobody in the neighboring houses would head out for their nightly stroll.
The key didn’t work.
Did you really think it was that easy? That you’d turn from a mall rat into Catwoman overnight? She took a few deep breaths and tried again, slowly, willing the grooves to catch. One more time, and…
Yes.
Hands shaking, she turned the knob and gingerly stepped inside the house. If she flicked a light switch, would that arouse suspicion outside? Hedging her bets, she moved to the living room and pulled the cord of a small desk lamp, which cast a thin triangular glow into a corner of the room.
A bay window overlooked a spacious backyard and BBQ pit. She imagined Landon in jeans and an apron, rotating skewers of grilled chicken and vegetables, the comfortable, easygoing host of a party.
His bookshelf took up an entire wall.
Let’s see what he’s got:
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. The Expert at the Card Table by S. W. Erdnase. (No surprise there.) Bound to Please by Simon Aronson. (That sounded a little kinky, but it wasn’t S&M, it was a magic book.) Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. (Whatever.) Kama Sutra. (That seemed more like him. Though the book looked new, pristine, uncracked.) An anthology of Mexican poetry, compiled by Octavio Paz, gave her pause.
Underneath it, on the bottom shelf, was a thick paperback turned spine-in. The pages were curled and yellowing. She remo
ved it and flipped it over: The Journey from Abandonment to Healing: Turn the End of a Relationship into the Beginning of a New Life.
Inside the book, handwriting filled the margins, sometimes in pencil, sometimes in pen. Chapter headings were highlighted as well. Who had abandoned him? He’d mentioned a father, but no mother. Perhaps she’d split when he was young? Or did it refer to someone else?
She replaced the book the way she’d found it, title hidden.
A framed photo on the table next to the shelf caught her eye. Landon as a teenager, standing beside an older white guy—his dad, she presumed—in a panoramic view of a wide, low, grayish-blue building. Letters atop the building read PORT OF (big space) SAN FRANCISCO. Landon and his dad were the same height. They stood back-to-back with their arms folded, sunglasses on, posing like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones from Men in Black. It made her smile.
Focus, Kaimi. She moved to his office/guest room and silently opened the ironwork-and-glass French doors. Pulse racing, she searched his desk drawers, closet, and the boxes under the bed—nothing.
Because the manila envelope that housed the Erdnase papers sat on his desk, propped against his computer.
Oh, no. This is wrong. This is too easy. Why isn’t it in a safe? A locked cabinet? Landon wasn’t careless, and he wasn’t lazy. He meant for her to find it.
How did he know?
She undid the thin red cord, winding it tightly around her finger. It was a cumbersome task while wearing gloves.
She allowed herself to succumb to the fantasy of a six-figure payday.
She lifted the envelope flap and removed the papers.
They were blank.
A Post-it note attached to the top page read,
Nice try, Hustler. YOU’RE FIRED.
Felix
In the end, fear won.
To be more accurate, the greater fear won.
The fear of being ordinary.
So he bombed onstage—so what? What was the worst that could happen? He’d be a washed-up minor-league player? Guess what, he was already there.
Club Deception Page 17
