The Lightness of Hands

by Jeff Garvin

  As the three of us approached the house, Ripley turned to me and said in a half whisper, “Are you sure you want me here? Maybe I should’ve stayed back at the motel.”

  “You’re great with words,” I said. “You might come in handy.” Ripley seemed pleased; Dad did not.

  When we reached the gate, I pressed the buzzer, and a voice came over the talk box.

  “Who is it?”

  I was surprised to recognize Higgins’s low, nasal voice; I had expected a butler or a housekeeper or something.

  “It’s Ellie Dante,” I replied.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s today,” Higgins said. “How do I know you’re really Dante’s daughter?”

  There was a camera mounted above the talk box. I looked directly into it.

  “Don’t take my word for it.” I stepped aside and motioned for Dad to come forward.

  “That old guy is the Uncanny Dante? No fucking way.”

  Dad stiffened.

  “Who’s the other kid?” Higgins asked.

  “He’s our consultant,” I replied.

  For ten seconds, he said nothing. Then the talk box buzzed and the gate rolled open.

  Ripley let out a low whistle as we walked side by side up the cobblestone driveway.

  “This place looks like the lair of a millennial James Bond villain.”

  I snorted. Dad shot us a warning look. We ascended three steps, and I smashed a lion’s head knocker against a thick oak door. It opened almost at once.

  Higgins stood on the threshold, spindly limbs hanging from a six-foot frame. He was dressed like a teenage boy: gray skull T-shirt covering his beer belly, black skinny jeans. I had expected an older guy, but there wasn’t a hint of gray in his sandy hair, and the corners of his eyes were free of wrinkles.

  “Come on in,” he said, then turned and walked farther into the house, his flip-flops slapping the marble floor.

  You could have parked three pickup trucks in the foyer if it hadn’t been crammed with wall-to-wall boxes. There were hundreds of them: cardboard cartons, milk crates, and plastic bins haphazardly stacked and spilling over with random junk. I saw hole-punched decks of cards from the long-gone Stardust casino. A cups-and-balls set still in its clamshell packaging. An ancient VHS player. Higgins wasn’t just a collector; he was a hoarder. I glanced at Ripley, and the look on his face told me he felt as claustrophobic as I did.

  Higgins led the three of us into a big, modern kitchen, where every square inch of countertop was covered with plastic grocery bags filled with chips, cereal, canned goods, and bottles of rubbing alcohol and bleach. He moved two of the bags aside, revealing a coffee maker.

  “Caffeine, anyone?”

  “No, thanks,” I said. My mind was already buzzing.

  Dad and Ripley took him up on his offer, and he poured them each a cup.

  Dad accepted his with a nod. “May I ask you a question, Mr. Higgins?”

  Higgins took a long slurp from his ORIGINAL AF mug and seemed to size him up. “All right.”

  “How did you get your hands on our gear?”

  Higgins’s face broke into a grin. “At the bankruptcy auction,” he said. “I prefer buying direct, but . . .” He shrugged.

  Dad gave him a tight, aggressive smile.

  Higgins seemed to enjoy his reaction. “Now I’ll ask you one.”

  “Fair’s fair.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to this?” Higgins leaned back against the counter. “According to the internet, the first time kind of wrecked you.”

  Dad shot me a glance, and I saw some of the old fire in his eyes. Good.

  But then he jabbed a thumb in my direction. “This was her idea. I’m not even sure I want to try.”

  I wondered whether the second part was tactical or true.

  Higgins cocked an eyebrow at me. Naturally, he’d assumed Dad was running the show. That I had called on his orders. Of course, that’s how it had been for a long time. But over the last year, things had shifted, and now I had taken the lead. I felt an unexpected rush of pride at the thought. I might have wrecked the RV—but I had also saved us.

  Higgins shot each of us a searching look, then crossed his arms. “You want to see it?”

  He led us out through a sliding glass door, around a huge swimming pool, and toward a building the size of a small airplane hangar. When we got close, he pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. The door of the hangar rolled up.

  In keeping with his pathologically cluttered house, the hangar was packed with piles of miscellaneous junk: old framed posters, dusty props, antique furniture. Spaced evenly among the piles and running all the way to the back wall were four steel warehouse racks, all crammed with cardboard boxes and plastic bins. Higgins moved down the center aisle, taking us deeper into the hangar. He stopped at a large black guillotine with an old rope handle—a stage prop that looked older than me. He smiled at us, stuck his leg through the hole, and yanked the rope. The blade dropped hard and fast.

  Ripley gasped—but, of course, Higgins’s leg was fine.

  He smirked at Ripley. “Consultant, my ass.”

  Ripley went red.

  I thought Higgins was going to interrogate us further about Ripley, but he only laughed, withdrew his foot, and hoisted the blade to eye level. “Got this when Eric Starr quit doing it,” he said, running his thumb along the edge. “Not even sharp.” He motioned for Ripley to try it himself—maybe in an attempt to make up for his snide remark? It was hard to tell. Ripley humored him, Higgins reset the blade, and we moved on.

  “Oh, yeah,” Higgins said, stopping in front of a refrigerator-sized object hiding beneath a black Duvetyne cover. “This might interest you.” His tone was falsely casual, as if he expected a big reaction. He grabbed one corner of the black cloth and yanked.

  Standing before us was a wood-framed tank with brass fittings and a thick pane of antique glass. Dad and I both gasped.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Dad asked.

  Higgins leaned against it like it was an old car. “Yup,” he said, patting the side. “Houdini’s Chinese Water Torture Cell. The genuine article.”

  Dad approached, hands folded as if he were walking toward the Venus de Milo. This was probably the most sought-after piece of magic paraphernalia in the world. “It has to be—”

  “A hundred and eight years old.” Higgins glanced up at it. “Pretty neat, huh?”

  Higgins seemed pleased at Dad’s reaction. Clearly, he was proud of his collection, and eager for actual magicians to admire it.

  “I can’t believe you’ve got all this stuff,” I said, figuring it couldn’t hurt to butter him up a little. “You could start a museum.”

  Higgins grinned. “But you didn’t come here to admire ancient relics,” he said. “You came to rent some.” He turned to walk farther down the aisle. Ripley shot me a look that said don’t overdo it.

  We turned right at the end of the row, and that’s when I saw it, parked at a perfect angle in the center of the concrete floor:

  The 1947 Chevrolet pickup.

  Higgins must have had it polished, because the bloodred hood and chrome grille shone under the fluorescent lights. It was bigger than I remembered, and somehow more aggressive, as if it might roar to life at any moment and run us down. I glanced at Dad and saw an expression on his face I’d never seen before—a mixture of revulsion and longing. I touched his arm, and he flinched.

  “Step right up,” Higgins said in a corny carnival-barker voice. “Don’t be shy.”

  Ripley and I stood back as Dad slowly approached the truck. He circled it once, then placed a palm on the hood and closed his eyes. Whatever memory he was reliving in that moment was a painful one.

  “Looks good, right?” Higgins said. “Check these out.” We followed Higgins down the aisle. He yanked aside a blue tarp, and there stood the massive Plexiglas tank.

  Dad looked at it like he was sizing up a hostile bear. Then he spotted the steampunk prop lever, an old tractor brake that
he had spray-painted antique bronze and topped with a fiberglass handle, and his eyes lit up. He grasped the lever and pulled it. Nothing happened, of course—it was just a prop—but a faint smile played on Dad’s lips nonetheless. “Still works,” he muttered.

  I approached and reached for the handle—then shrank back.

  My mother had pulled this lever. Her hand had been right there. I felt a stab of sadness and turned away. Higgins was watching, enjoying our reactions. I couldn’t tell if he was just proud, or if there was something darker at play, some kind of emotional vampirism.

  He looked from Dad to me, and then said, “About that rental fee.”

  My stomach tightened. This was the make-or-break moment.

  I cleared my throat and turned to Higgins—but before I could say anything, Ripley cut in.

  “I read on Forbes.com that you’re worth forty million.”

  I sucked in my breath. What was Ripley doing? Dad looked about to intervene, but then Higgins eyed Ripley and snorted.

  “Forty. As if.”

  “Oh,” Ripley said, crossing his arms. “So it’s less.”

  “What are you, an idiot? Forbes only reports public information.” He gestured around the warehouse. “As you can see, I keep my assets well sheltered.”

  Ripley pretended to be taken aback. “You bought all this with cash? Under the table?”

  Higgins grinned.

  “But you must have the biggest collection in Vegas,” Ripley said.

  “In the world, actually. There’s a guy in Japan who thinks he’s got me beat, but I’ve been to his place. His whole collection would fit on one of my racks.” He shrugged, then clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Back to business. I believe we agreed on a fee of five thousand dollars?”

  I looked at Dad; his face was stone. My heartbeat accelerated. That invincible feeling was gone. Then Ripley cut in again.

  “It’s probably none of my business—but how does five grand make a difference to a guy worth more than forty million?”

  Now I understood his strategy, and I had to hide a smile. This was the Ripley I knew: clever, resourceful, and unafraid to speak up when it mattered.

  I played along, shooting Ripley a shut up look. Higgins grinned as if we were all behaving exactly as he had expected us to. When he spoke again, he looked directly at me.

  “When I turned sixteen, my father refused to buy me a car. The jackass was worth twice what I am now, and he wouldn’t drop five grand on a used Corolla. Said I wouldn’t take care of it unless I bought it with my own money.” There was no trace of the cocky teenager now; he was confident and in control. “So my mom stepped in and bought me an eighty-thousand-dollar Range Rover with his alimony. Did it just to piss him off, probably.” He placed a hand against the Plexiglas tank and looked up at it. “A month later I wrapped it around a telephone pole on Pecos; Dad was right. I ended up riding the bus to school for a year while I saved up for another car.” He let out a frustratingly parental sigh. “I can’t rent you the props for nothing. You wouldn’t respect them, and you wouldn’t respect me.”

  Dad’s expression was blank; he appeared to have surrendered. Ripley looked equally defeated.

  It was up to me.

  “What if we pay you nine hundred now and six grand more when we get to LA?”

  Higgins laughed. “What am I, Han Solo?”

  He was acting more like Jabba the Hutt, but I didn’t say so. I gestured at the truck. “Until we use that thing on TV again, it’s worthless.”

  “It’s not worthless to you.”

  I grunted in frustration. This seemed to amuse Higgins.

  “I can’t think of anything you’ve got that I want,” he said, rocking back slightly on his heels. “Can you?”

  When none of us spoke up, Higgins dropped his grin.

  “Let me show you something.”

  CHAPTER 19

  HIGGINS’S LIVING ROOM LOOKED LIKE something from an Arthur Conan Doyle story: leather furniture with brass buttons, stone fireplace, old books lining the walls—and for once, there were no boxes or bags in sight. He stepped up to one of the bookshelves, grasped a particularly hefty clothbound volume, and tipped it backward. With a soft whoosh, the bookshelf slid to one side, revealing a dark opening. It reminded me of the secret door that let guests into the Magic Castle, and I figured that was where Higgins had gotten the idea.

  “After you,” he said, that self-satisfied grin pulling back his pudgy cheeks.

  We descended a spiral staircase into a lushly furnished home theater. Velvet-covered reclining seats. A wall that was all screen. We sat in the front row as Higgins moved to a media cabinet crammed with every conceivable type of player: a Blu-ray, an old LaserDisc machine, and several antiquated tape decks. He pulled a video cassette from a drawer and held it up.

  “You want to see some real magic?”

  He inserted the cassette into one of the players. Jagged horizontal lines popped onto the screen, and then a pixelated time stamp appeared in the bottom corner: JUN 8 1992.

  A spotlight came up on a tall man dressed all in black. He crossed downstage and sat on the apron, looking out at the audience as if he were about to read them a bedtime story. The image cut to a closer angle, and I recognized the man. It was the most famous illusionist alive: Daniel Devereaux.

  But this wasn’t current, sixty-something Daniel Devereaux; this was Devereaux in his prime. Midthirties, trim, athletic, with those sparkling brown eyes that seemed both wise and full of wonder. The spotlight dimmed, the house lights came up, and Devereaux began to speak.

  “When I was young,” he began, “I didn’t fit in. The kids in my neighborhood didn’t want to play with me, so I retreated into an inner world of fantasy and daydreams.” Devereaux stood, and the spotlight followed him upstage. “As I grew up, those daydreams faded. All except one.” He glanced back at the audience. “The dream that I could fly.” He lifted his arm, and the curtain rose.

  Like every magician, I had watched Devereaux’s flying illusion—but only online. He had stopped performing it before I was born, so I’d never had a chance to see it live.

  The trick worked liked this:

  Devereaux selects a woman from the audience and invites her to explore the stage. Once she’s satisfied that there are no ropes or trap doors, stagehands appear and present her with a square metallic vertical frame six feet across. The volunteer inspects it. It’s solid.

  Next, the stagehands roll out a huge Plexiglas box. The woman knocks on each side, demonstrating that the box is solid. Devereaux dismisses the volunteer amid underwhelming applause. The audience is getting antsy.

  The music swells, and Devereaux is swallowed by a billow of fog. When it clears, he’s sitting upstage with a single white dove perched on his hand. He releases the bird, and it flaps out over the audience as Devereaux lies down on his back.

  And then, with no visible means of support, he rises into the air.

  The audience applauds, but with little enthusiasm. This levitation routine dates back to the nineteenth century. They expect more.

  Suddenly, Devereaux rolls over, assumes the Superman pose, and takes to the sky.

  In Las Vegas almost thirty years later, my heart swelled as the music reached a crescendo and Devereaux soared around the stage. He wasn’t just doing a trick, he was delivering a dream. He was flying, and for the moment, so was I. Even with the fake clouds and the artificial smoke and his terrible mullet, it was beautiful.

  I turned my head to steal a glance at Higgins. His face was contorted in a frown, his jaw twitching. He was caught up, but not in the ecstasy of flight. It looked more like he was trying to solve an impossible puzzle. I turned back to the screen.

  Devereaux pivots in midair. He swoops, turns, and dives, impossibly graceful.

  If there were wires, I couldn’t see them.

  If there were wires, I didn’t want to see them.

  Finally, he swoops low and turns over to face the sky, hovering six
feet off the planks. His stagehands approach, bearing the metal frame the volunteer inspected earlier. Devereaux floats through the frame, demonstrating that he can’t possibly be suspended from above.

  Next, the Plexiglas box is rolled center stage and, nimble as Peter Pan flying through Wendy’s window, Devereaux lowers himself into it. A stagehand affixes the lid, then walks across it, proving that it is indisputably solid. Clearly he can’t be suspended from the sides, either.

  The box opens and Devereaux flies a final loop around the stage, finally touching down on the apron like an Olympic figure skater landing an impossible jump.

  The audience erupts; it’s a standing ovation.

  Back in Higgins’s home theater, tears left tracks on my cheeks. I wiped them away. The beauty of Devereaux’s work hurt my chest. This was what magic was for. This was the highest form of the art.

  As I sat there in the dark, watching Devereaux bow, I realized how much I was going to miss performing. How much I was going to miss making other people feel the way I felt when I watched Devereaux fly. I wanted to fly, too—but I couldn’t handle the landings, and probably never would. And even if we had the right doctors and the right medicine, Dad and I just couldn’t do it anymore. Even if we nailed the Truck Drop and walked away with the full fifteen grand, that would only buy rent and insurance for a few months. Then what? I was too fragile to tour, and Dad was too old—and I needed to be healthy enough to take care of him as he got even older. Magic would never provide that. We both knew we would have to find something else.

  But first, we had to do one last show.

  Higgins stopped the tape. The screen went blank, and the lights in his home theater faded up.

  Dad got to his feet. “What’s the point of all this?”

  Higgins sighed. “I bought your props because I was bored. Escapes like the Truck Drop don’t impress me; Houdini did it all a hundred years ago. But that . . .” He pointed at the screen. “That’s real magic.”

  Dad’s face turned red, and he started toward the door; I stayed put.

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” I asked Higgins, nodding toward the screen. His jaw tightened; I’d struck the right nerve. “You want Devereaux’s flying rig.”