Honest Illusions

by Nora Roberts

  She’d sprung up over the years, as he had. But while Luke skimmed under six foot yet, and was no more than average height for his age, Roxanne was the tallest girl in her class—taller, in fact, than most of the boys. Most of it was leg, as showed now in the short nightshirt she wore. Since her hair was neatly brushed, something Luke knew she did every night before bed, he assumed she’d yet to go to sleep.

  “Stuff it.” He smiled and set the bottle on the counter.

  “Maybe someone else wanted some.” Though she wasn’t in the least thirsty, she marched to the refrigerator and searched. As she chose a Dr Pepper, she wrinkled her nose at Luke. “You smell.” Sniffing the air she caught, among other things, the fading hint of Annabelle’s cologne. “You went out with her again.”

  Roxanne hated Annabelle Walker on principle. The principle being that she was petite and blond and pretty, and that Luke spent time with her.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “She bleaches her hair and wears her clothes too tight.”

  “She wears sexy clothes,” Luke corrected, feeling an expert on the subject. “You’re just jealous because she’s got tits and you don’t.”

  “I’ll get them.” On the cusp of thirteen, Roxanne was mortified by the snail’s pace of her feminine development. Almost all the girls in her class had at least the buds of breasts, and she was still as flat as LeClerc’s breadboard. “When I do, they’ll be better than hers.”

  “Right.” The idea of Roxanne with breasts amused him. Initially. When he began to think about it, it became uncomfortably warm. “Beat it.”

  “I’m getting a drink.” She poured Dr Pepper into a glass to prove it. “I don’t have a bedtime on Saturday nights.”

  “Then I’m going.” How was a guy supposed to float around on a cloud of lust with that little whiner around? he wondered as he strode out and up the stairs. Not wanting to miss a moment of the indulgent dream he had planned, Luke stripped and plopped naked onto the bed.

  He’d gotten used to the scent and feel of clean sheets, though he’d yet to take them for granted. It was a rare thing for him to go to bed hungry, and for long periods of time he’d forgotten what real fear was.

  In the past four years, he’d traveled over most of the eastern United States, had performed in fallow fields, in dingy clubs and on polished stages. The previous summer after Max—with some regret—had sold the carnival, they’d traveled to Europe, where Max had added to his reputation as a master magician.

  He could speak French, haltingly, and had learned to make the cards dance. As far as he could see, he had it all. Life was perfect, Luke thought as he drifted to sleep.

  So he was stunned when he woke in a cold sweat an hour later with a whimper in his throat.

  He’d been back, all the way back to that cramped two-room apartment. Al’s belt had whipped like a razor across his skin, and there’d been nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

  Sitting up, Luke gulped in huge breaths of the heavy, autumn air and waited for the shaking to pass. It hadn’t happened in months, he told himself as he rested his head on his knees. Months and months without his subconscious zapping him back there. He’d thought he’d beaten it. Each time weeks or months passed without one of those hideous dreams he was sure it was behind him.

  Then it would pop back, like a cackling gremlin out of a closet, to taunt and torture.

  He wasn’t a kid anymore, Luke reminded himself and stumbled from the bed. He wasn’t supposed to have nightmares and wake up shaking and wanting Lily or Max to come and make it all go away again.

  So he’d walk it off. Luke pulled on pants and told himself he’d walk over to Bourbon and back and shake off the sticky dregs of the nightmare.

  When he reached the bottom of the steps he heard the high-pitched scream and the muffled mutter of voices. Glancing into the den, he spotted Roxanne seated cross-legged on the floor, a bowl of popcorn on her lap.

  “What’re you doing?”

  She jolted, but didn’t take her eyes off the screen. “I’m watching ‘Terror Theater.’ Castle of the Walking Dead. This count guy’s embalming people. It’s neat.”

  “Gross.” But he was caught, at least enough to sit on the end of the couch and dip a hand into Roxanne’s popcorn. He was still feeling shaky, but before Christopher Lee got what was coming to him, he had fallen asleep.

  Roxanne waited until she was sure he had, then, leaning her cheek against the cushion on the couch, reached up to stroke his hair.

  “They’re growing up on us, Lily.”

  “I know, honey.” She sighed as she settled into the brightly painted horizontal box. They were rehearsing alone in the club, a new bit Max called the Divided Woman.

  “Roxy’s going to be a teenager.” Max clamped the locks into place while doing a stylish turn around the box for the benefit of the potential audience. “How much longer are the boys going to stay away?”

  Lily smiled and wriggled the feet and hands that stuck out of the holes in the box. “Not much longer. Don’t worry, Max, she’s too smart to settle for anything less than exactly what she wants.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “She’s her father’s daughter.” Lily made the appropriate whimpers and moans while Max demonstrated the keenness of the blade of a jewel-encrusted scimitar.

  “By that you mean she’s stubborn, ambitious and one-track-minded.”

  Lily was silent as Max went through the routine of cutting the box apart and then joining the halves together. Then she asked, “You’re not sad the kids’re growing up, are you, sweetie?”

  “Maybe a little. It reminds me I’m getting older. Luke driving a car and chasing girls.”

  “He doesn’t have to chase them.” Lily’s brow creased in annoyance. “They throw themselves at him. Anyway,” she sighed, “they’re good kids, Max. A terrific pair.”

  Half of that terrific pair was two blocks away, running a brisk game of Three Card Monte. A flood of conventioneers had poured into town. Roxanne simply didn’t have the willpower to resist.

  She was neatly dressed in pink jeans and matching jacket, a flowered shirt and snow-white sneakers. Her hair was pulled back in a bouncy ponytail, and her face was scrubbed clean of everything but freckles.

  She looked like a sweet, wholesome, all-American girl. Which was precisely her intention. Roxanne knew the value of illusion and imagery.

  She’d already taken in over two hundred, though she made certain to hit no one mark too hard. She wasn’t doing it for the money—though she was every bit as fond of what money could buy as her father. She was doing it because it was fun.

  Once again she slapped three cards on the little folding table. She took the five-dollar bet from her current mark—a portly man in an aloha shirt—flipped the cards facedown and began to manipulate them. And the rest of the crowd.

  “Keep your eye on the black queen. Don’t blink. Don’t sneeze. Keep watching her. Keep watching.” Her small, long-fingered hands moved like lightning. And, of course, the queen was already palmed.

  She took in another fifty, paid out twenty of it to maintain good community relations. Somewhere close by a street-corner musician blew a lonely trumpet. Roxanne decided it was time to close down and move on.

  “That’s all for today. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy your stay in New Orleans.” She started to scoop up the cards when a hand clamped over her wrist.

  “One more game. I didn’t get to try my luck.”

  It was a boy of eighteen or nineteen. Under his faded jeans and Grateful Dead T-shirt was a wiry build—all lean muscle. His shaggy hair was a golden blond, a scruffy halo around a narrow face of sharp angles. His eyes, a deep, dark brown, were locked on Roxanne’s.

  He reminded her of Luke—not in looks but in that inner wildness and potential for mean. His voice didn’t sound like New Orleans. It didn’t sound like anywhere at all.

  “You’re too late,” she told him.

  His hand remained firmly
locked around her wrist. When he smiled, showing perfect, even white teeth, her nerves jangled. “One game,” he said. “I’ve been watching you.”

  It was nearly impossible for Roxanne to resist a direct challenge. Instinct told her to, but pride was stronger.

  “I’ve got time for one. The bet’s five dollars.”

  With a nod, he pulled a folded bill from his back pocket and laid it on the table.

  Roxanne laid the cards down, two red queens with the black in the center. “Watch the black lady,” she began as she flipped the cards over. In a split-second decision she opted not to palm it, but to face the challenger even up. She shifted the cards in an ever-increasing rhythm, and kept her eye on the boy.

  He wasn’t new to the game. She’d been in it herself too long not to recognize a pro. Roxanne bet her ego against the five-dollar bill.

  Though she hadn’t looked at the cards since she’d begun, she knew exactly where the black queen hid. “Where is she?”

  He didn’t hesitate, but tapped a finger against the left-hand card. Before she could turn it up herself, he snagged her wrist again. “I’ll do it.” He flipped up the queen of hearts.

  “Looks like my hand’s quicker than your eye.”

  Still holding her hand aloft, he turned up the other cards. He blinked once when he saw the black queen was exactly where she’d begun. In the center.

  “Looks like,” he murmured. His eyes narrowed as he watched her slip his five and the cards into a bag she’d put under the table.

  “Better luck next time.” She folded the table, hitched it under her arm and started toward the Magic Door.

  He didn’t give up that easily. “Hey, kid. What’s your name?”

  She slanted him a look as he fell into step beside her. “Roxanne. Why?”

  “Just like to know. I’m Sam. Sam Wyatt. You’re good. Real good.”

  “I know.”

  He chuckled, but his mind was working on the possibilities. If he could lure her into a less crowded area, he could get his five back, and the rest of her take as well. “You took them smooth. What are you, twelve, thirteen?”

  “So?”

  “Hey, that’s a compliment, sweetheart.”

  He saw her preen, just a little. Whether it was in response to the compliment, or to the fact that a boy his age would call a twelve-year-old “sweetheart,” he wasn’t sure. Either way, it was working.

  “I was in New York a few months ago. There was a guy working a corner there, taking in five, six hundred a day. He wasn’t any better than you. How long you been on the grift?”

  “I’m not a grifter.” The idea that she could be mistaken for a common con artist had Roxanne bristling. “I’m a magician,” she informed him. “Working that crowd was a kind of rehearsal.” She smiled to herself. “A paying rehearsal.”

  “A magician.” Sam noted that the pedestrian traffic was thinner here. He could see no one who would give him any real trouble when he snatched the kid’s bag and ran. “Why don’t you show me a trick?” He put a hand on her arm and prepared to shove her to the ground.

  “Roxanne.” Scowling, Luke loped across the street. “What the hell are you doing? You’re supposed to be at rehearsal.”

  “I’m going.” She scowled right back, furious that he’d come along just when she was going to try her hand at flirting. “You’re not there either.”

  “That’s beside the point.” He’d noted the table and bag and guessed what she’d been up to. It annoyed the hell out of him that she hadn’t cut him in. Pushing that aside for now, he sized up Sam. In the way of the male animal, his hackles rose.

  “Who’s this?”

  “A friend of mine,” Roxanne decided on the spot. “Sam, this is Luke.”

  Sam flashed an easygoing smile. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay. You’re not from around here.”

  “Just got into town a couple days ago. I’m traveling around, you know?”

  “Right.” Luke didn’t like him. The greedy look in Sam’s eyes didn’t match the generous smile. “We’re late, Roxy. Let’s go.”

  “In a minute.” If Luke was going to treat her like a baby, she’d damn well show him she was her own woman. “Maybe you’d like to hang out, Sam. Watch the rehearsal. We’re right down there at the Magic Door.”

  It didn’t look like he was going to get his hand on the bag, but Sam wasn’t one to give up. The encounter with Roxanne had to be worth something. “That’d be great. If you’re sure it’s okay.”

  “It’s fine.” She took his hand and led him to her father.

  Sam knew how to be charming. The veneer of affability, manners and deprecating good humor was as much a part of the game as a marked deck. Sam sat in the Magic Door and applauded, expressed astonished disbelief and laughed at all the right places.

  When Lily extended an invitation to dinner, he accepted with shy gratitude.

  He found LeClerc old and stupid, Mouse slow and stupid, and went out of his way to make a good impression on both.

  Afterward, he made himself scarce for a day so as not to seem too forward. When he showed up at the Magic Door to watch a show, he was greeted warmly. He made certain Lily saw him carefully counting out enough change to buy a soft drink.

  “Max.” She tugged on his arm when he came backstage, leaving Luke in front to do his five-minute sleight of hand. “That boy’s in trouble.”

  “Luke?”

  “No, no. Sam.”

  “He’s hardly a boy, Lily. He’s nearly a man.”

  “He’s barely older than Luke.” She peeked out, spotted Sam at the bar and noted that he was nursing the same watered-down Coke. “I don’t think he has any money, and nowhere to go.”

  “He doesn’t seem to be looking for work.” Max knew he was being harsh, and had no real clue as to why he felt so reluctant to offer this helping hand.

  “Honey, you know how hard it is to find any. Couldn’t you find something for him?”

  “Perhaps. Give me a day or two.”

  A day or two was all Sam needed. To cap his image, he curled up to sleep in the Nouvelle courtyard one night, making sure he was discovered in the morning.

  Fully awake, he kept his eyes closed, watching under his lashes as Roxanne darted out of the kitchen door. He groaned, shifted, then blinked his eyes open on a muffled cry of alarm when she spotted him.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Nothing.” He rolled up a tattered blanket and scrambled to his feet. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

  Brow puckered, she came closer. “Were you sleeping out here?”

  Sam moistened his lips. “Listen, it’s no big deal, okay. Don’t say anything.”

  “Don’t you have a room?”

  “I lost it.” He shrugged, managing to look brave and hopeless at the same time. “Hey, something’ll turn up. I just didn’t want to be out on the street all night. I didn’t figure I’d bother anybody here.”

  She had her father’s heart. “Come on in.” She held out a hand. “LeClerc’s fixing breakfast.”

  “I don’t need a handout.”

  Because she understood pride, she softened further. “Daddy can give you a job. I’ll ask him.”

  “You would?” He slipped a hand into hers. “Man, I’d really owe you, Rox. I’d owe you big.”

  9

  There was very little Max denied Roxanne. It was because of her that he hired Sam Wyatt, despite an odd reluctance to add the boy to his entourage. He gave Sam a job hauling props, an occupation Sam knew was beneath his dignity and abilities.

  But Sam had instincts as well. His told him that joining the Nouvelle troupe could be the gateway to much bigger and much better things. They were saps, all of them. Even as he derided them he detested them for taking him in off the street like some lost