The Lightness of Hands

by Jeff Garvin

  Higgins snorted. “I want all of it,” he said. “The props. The rigs. The tricks. The secrets.” He licked his lips. “I want to know how it’s done.”

  I sat back in my seat; it all made sense now. There were two kinds of magic fans: those who loved being carried away by the illusion, and those who couldn’t stand not knowing the secret. Higgins was one of the latter.

  Dad turned to glare at him. “You’ve got the means. Why don’t you make him an offer?”

  Higgins expelled a bitter laugh. “You think I haven’t tried? His people don’t return my calls. Total cock block. I even tried using proxies. Other collectors. One of his old employees.” He shook his head. “They hate me. Everybody hates me until they’re ready to retire and desperate for cash. Unfortunately for me—but lucky for you—Devereaux is neither.”

  I wanted to chime in, but I bit my tongue. Devereaux’s flying illusion was, like Higgins had said, a quarter of a century old. He had to know he could find out how it was done on the internet. Hell, he had probably looked it up himself—but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see it firsthand.

  He wanted to own it.

  “What is it you expect us to do, exactly?” Dad demanded.

  “You’re the magician,” Higgins said. “Use your contacts. Find out where he keeps the stuff. Then acquire it.”

  Dad composed himself, brushed a finger across his mustache. “We are not thieves,” he said. “And we are not traitors to our profession. Ellie, Ripley, let’s go.” He turned and strode toward the door.

  Ripley stood to follow, but I stayed in my seat. Dad turned back to glare at me, his eyes boring a hole in my skull. Rule number two: Never tell them how it’s done. I wanted to argue with Dad, to tell him that the rules didn’t matter when our livelihood—our lives—were on the line. But I knew he wouldn’t budge.

  “Now, Ellie.” He turned and stormed out.

  Ripley stalled, glancing from Higgins to me.

  “Damn,” Higgins said. “The old man’s ferocious.”

  “You’re an asshole, Higgins,” I said.

  His face flickered, and I saw a brief flash of the angry, isolated teenager he must have been. For a moment, I felt sorry for him.

  Then I took a deep breath and focused on the problem at hand. Or rather, the opportunity.

  “If we get it,” I said, “you’ll let us borrow the props? For free?”

  Higgins put out his hand, and I stepped forward to shake it.

  CHAPTER 20

  I EXPECTED TO FIND DAD pacing the driveway with clenched fists; instead, he was leaning against the Hyundai, shoulders slumped, massaging his temples.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Dante?” Ripley asked.

  “It’s just a headache.” He looked at me, gestured at the house. “What was that about?”

  “I thought maybe Higgins would respond to pleading,” I lied. “It didn’t work.”

  Dad shook his head in disgust or defeat, I couldn’t tell.

  I hadn’t wanted to lie—not again—but right now, Dad was too angry to be persuaded. I was going to have to solve the problem myself. Then, once I’d gotten us the props, he’d have little choice but to go along.

  Ripley pulled onto Lake Mead Boulevard, and the three of us rode in silence for five minutes that felt like an hour. My head buzzed, my mind spinning this way and that like the dial on a safe as I frantically tried to find the right combination. My meds wouldn’t kick in for another three or four days, and in the meantime, I knew I couldn’t maintain this pace. I was headed for a crash—but for the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to worry about it.

  As we approached Downtown, Dad turned to Ripley. “Turn left on Main.”

  I looked at Dad. “Are we going to see Dr. Shah?”

  He shook his head.

  “We don’t have the funds. We need a place to stay, and we need a way back to Fort Wayne. I need to find work, any work, and soon. Turn left,” he said to Ripley. “We’re going to the Four Jacks.”

  “What’s at the Four Jacks?” Ripley asked.

  “Maybe nothing,” he said, and stared out the window.

  When we arrived, Dad told us to go get something inexpensive to eat, and we’d all meet back at the car in an hour. Then he headed into the casino, and Ripley and I wandered off into Downtown Las Vegas.

  This old part of Vegas was shabby but charming. Instead of blinding LED marquees, the casino signage comprised thousands upon thousands of old-school tungsten light bulbs blinking on and off in sequence, chasing one another around the edges of the signs. We found a walk-up window selling ninety-nine-cent hot dogs; I bought four and we sat down on the curb to inhale them. When I had finished scarfing down my first, I checked my phone. I had missed a call and a text from Liam.

  It’s not what you think. I care about you. Please at least text me back and let me know you’re okay.

  A hot ball swelled in my throat, and before I could put the phone down, Ripley had read the message.

  “Whoa,” he said. “What don’t I know?”

  Reluctantly, I told him about my pathetic late-night text to Liam and the phone call from his girlfriend. I left out the part about how I had melted down afterward, and I wasn’t sure why. Ripley was my best friend; I’d told him things I’d never told anyone else in the world. And yet, since he had shown up in person, things had been weird. It was almost like getting to know an entirely new person, and despite our bonding and brainstorming session, I didn’t trust this new Ripley as much as I had trusted his avatar.

  “So that’s it?” he said, leaning back on his hands. “You’re just never going to talk to him again?”

  I drew back; I’d been afraid he wouldn’t understand about Liam and me.

  “What would I say? He had a girlfriend, and he cheated on her with me. Which makes me an asshole, too.”

  Ripley looked sheepish. “Look, I don’t know anything about relationships and whatever. I just think maybe you don’t have all the facts, and ghosting him isn’t going to solve anything.” He must have felt the heat of my glare, because he added, “But ignore me. As established, I don’t know anything.”

  “No, you don’t,” I said.

  For a while, neither of us spoke. Ripley finished the last bit of his hot dog before breaking the silence.

  “Are you really thinking of going after Devereaux’s stuff behind your dad’s back?”

  I nodded.

  Ripley raised his eyebrows. “He lost his shit when he found out you’d said yes to Flynn & Kellar. How do you think he’s going to react to this?”

  I glanced up at the vintage mint-green facade of Banyan’s Casino. This was the personification of classic Las Vegas—but despite the glow of a thousand lights, the place’s romance was diminished. Vegas was like that in the light of day; you could see the cracks in the concrete, the peeling paint. But in just a few hours, an undeniable excitement would permeate the whole city and everyone in it. You just had to wait for the sun to go down.

  “You should have seen Dad’s face this morning when I told him my new idea for the Truck Drop. I haven’t seen him smile like that since before Mom died.” I swallowed hard. “We have nothing, Ripley. No home, no transportation. No way to make a living.”

  The sound of coins dumping into a bucket erupted from the casino behind us. Someone had just hit the jackpot. I stood up and dusted off my hands.

  “This is our last shot.”

  That evening, we stopped at a supermarket for staples—we had descended once more into the world of Jif and Wonder bread. When we got back to the motel, Dad lay down and proceeded to cough until his face went red. I got him a glass of water from the sink.

  “Are you coming down with something?” I asked.

  “It’s just Vegas,” he said, rubbing at his temples. “All the damn dust. I’ll get used to it again. I just need to rest for a bit.” He swallowed our last three Advil, lay back, and closed his eyes.

  Dad had said nothing about his meeting at the Four Jacks except that h
e had an appointment the next day with the director of entertainment. That was good; even if it didn’t lead to a gig, at least the meeting would keep him occupied while I did what I had to do. Whatever that was.

  When I was sure he was asleep, I grabbed my laptop and gestured for Ripley to follow me out. We found two dilapidated lounge chairs and pulled them up next to the pool. While I fired up my computer, Ripley got us Cokes from the vending machine. I chugged half of mine in a single go; the bubbles felt good on my throat.

  “Is your dad going to be okay?” Ripley asked, taking a sip from his own can.

  “Traveling is getting harder on him. I used to have to remind myself that he’s sixty-four. But lately, he seems even older.” I stared blankly at the laptop. “He always said Mom kept him ‘youthful.’ She was twenty years younger than him. Did I ever tell you that?”

  Ripley shook his head.

  “Sometimes it grosses me out when I think about it. But they loved each other, you know?”

  Ripley looked away. “Love doesn’t solve everything. I mean, my parents love each other and look what it does to them.”

  “At least your mom is alive.”

  “I wish she wasn’t.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” I snapped.

  Ripley seemed to shrink. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  I turned to stare at the spidery light dancing at the bottom of the pool. “She died when I was six. I remember so little about her.”

  After a long pause, Ripley said, “I bet she was nice, though.”

  I bristled; why did he have to make this about him?

  “She could be kind of a nightmare, actually,” I said. “She used scream at me. I wouldn’t put my shoes on fast enough, and she’d come over and rip them out of my hands and yank them on and tie them herself, so tight my feet would go numb.” I blinked; mostly I remembered good things about my mom—but this thing about the shoes was true, and it had popped up seemingly out of nowhere.

  Ripley said nothing, just listened, and I could tell he understood what I meant. My irritation ebbed.

  “But she could be gentle, too. I never knew which Mom I was going to get. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, she’d hiss at me to lie quiet and still in bed. Other times, she would stroke my hair and sing me that song—you know that song, ‘Count Your Blessings’?”

  Ripley shook his head. I ran a hand through my hair, and I could almost smell the smoke from her cigarette, feel the calluses on her palms as she held my face in her hands.

  “Do you think you got it from her?” Ripley picked a thread off his jeans. “I mean, it’s genetic, right?”

  “Oh, I definitely got it from her. That’s why I . . .” I dropped my hand into my lap. “Don’t think I’m crazy when I say this, okay?”

  “I never would,” Ripley said.

  I let out a heavy breath. “In a way, part of me is glad I ran out of meds.” I closed my eyes. “I’ve had a couple of moments in the last few weeks where I . . . I don’t know. I just feel like I understand her better now. The way she was sometimes. Is that stupid?”

  “It’s not stupid,” he said. “But you’re back on them, right?”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to explain how it took time for them to build up in the system.

  “When I’m on meds, I’m more level. My edges don’t feel as sharp. But it’s like—is that the real me? Or is that just the pills?” I scraped my teeth against my bottom lip. “I want to be healthy. But sometimes I just want to ride the storm and I don’t care what happens.”

  On the other side of the motel, I heard glass breaking. A car horn blared in the street.

  A coldness sank into my chest. It was a vague and distant sensation—but still, I knew it was a warning. A dark cloud on the horizon.

  Ripley said, “I’ve never heard you talk this much. Like, ever.”

  “It’s a manic thing,” I said. “Easy to hide online. Harder on the phone. Impossible in person.”

  “I dig it. It’s like you ate an extrovert and then burped her up.”

  I laughed. “You’re insane.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  I leaned in and wrapped my arms around him. The laptop pressed uncomfortably into my ribs.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for coming. And everything.”

  The hug lasted just long enough to be awkward, and then I broke it off, adjusted the laptop on my thighs, and woke up the screen.

  “First things first,” I said, typing in my password. “I have to figure out where Devereaux keeps his flying rig.”

  “You mean you already know how he does the trick?”

  “I have a theory. The props will tell me everything I need to know.”

  “Any ideas where to look?” Ripley sat back in his chair, took another chug of his Coke.

  “No good ones.” I Googled Daniel Devereaux, clicked on the first hit, and started to read. “Jesus! He’s grossed over four billion dollars. He’s the highest-paid solo entertainer in history.”

  “No way,” Ripley said, leaning over to look at the screen. “Wait. You’re on Wiki-fucking-pedia? Give me that.” He put down his can and seized the laptop. He opened a new browser tab, and then, using only the thumb and forefinger of each hand, he began to peck at the keyboard at an irrational speed. He typed faster than I could talk. He typed faster than I could think. Before I knew it, he was deep into a website called LotZilla.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Ripley kept clicking and typing, ignoring me, until finally he said, “He owns a home in Vegas worth eighteen million dollars.”

  “Devereaux?”

  Ripley nodded. “It’s less than three miles from Higgins’s, up in the foothills. I bet that’s why Higgins bought there. He’s obsessed with the guy.”

  “Do you think he stores his props there?”

  “Good question.”

  Ripley brought up Google Maps and turned on the satellite view. He typed in the address he’d found on LotZilla and zoomed in on the property. A giant, modern, glass-walled home stood on an isolated lot. The house was made up of three long wings pointing out from a cathedral-like central structure.

  “Looks like a Scientology compound,” Ripley said.

  “Are there any outbuildings? Sheds? Hangars like Higgins’s?”

  Ripley scrolled and zoomed around the property. “There’s a detached four-car garage.”

  “That could be it.”

  “Hang on.”

  He launched a new program, one I didn’t recognize and didn’t know I had installed; green letters glowed against a black background. It looked like something from an old spy movie.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked, leaning in.

  “It’s called a command prompt. Don’t distract me.”

  He typed in a line of code, hit Enter, and got a screen full of gobbledegook in return. He read the string of symbols, then clicked back to Google Maps.

  “Hmm,” he said. “He probably uses it for cars.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because he owns five vehicles registered in Nevada, all to this address. It’s possible he parks them somewhere else, but why would he?”

  I wanted to ask about a hundred questions, not the least of which was how he got Devereaux’s car registration information, but there were more important things at hand.

  I chewed my lip. “You’re probably right. That garage doesn’t look tall enough for rehearsing the really big stuff. He’s got to have a warehouse or something. Can you do a search for that?”

  Ripley clicked back to LotZilla. After five minutes, he sighed in frustration and sat back in the chair.

  “If Devereaux owns other property in Nevada, it’s under some kind of corporate entity. An LLC or something.” He rubbed his eyes. “Oh. We could go to the hall of records and poke around.” He surfed to the county website. “Buuut they’re closed till Monday.”

  “We can’t wait that long.” I was starting to feel edgy, the sides of
my vision twitching as if distorted by waves of heat. Hypomania had its upsides—it was almost certainly responsible for the all-night session that produced my Truck Drop breakthrough—but it could turn bad quickly. Excitement could morph into anxiety. Enthusiasm into anger. I could feel the tide rising, and I wasn’t sure I could stay above water long enough for the drugs to kick in.

  Ripley played with the tab on his Coke can. “What was your plan? You know, before I took over your laptop and started hacking?”

  “Magic is a small world,” I said. “I was just going to Google around, see if I could make a connection through one of Dad’s old friends in the business. Go from there.”

  “Six degrees of Daniel Devereaux,” Ripley said.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Where do we start?”

  Ripley handed back the laptop. I set my fingers on the keyboard, stared at the screen, and tried to think.

  Devereaux was an institution in Las Vegas. Over the years, he’d employed dozens of magicians, consultants, and assistants; it was highly likely that Dad had worked with some of them. I hoped to find this kind of connection and use it to gain some bit of insider knowledge that might help me. But now that I’d said it out loud to Ripley, it seemed like the weakest plan ever. The half-baked invention of a manic mind.

  It was exhausting, not knowing which thoughts were real and which were figments of my defective brain. I tugged at my hair, chugged the rest of my Coke, and forced myself to concentrate.

  My first thought was Rico. He would know someone, I was sure. The problem was that Rico knew how desperate we were. He knew we resorted to stealing diesel from time to time, and he knew I had picked pockets. If I asked him about Devereaux directly, he’d know something was up. He might even feel obligated to tip off Devereaux’s people. I couldn’t risk it.

  Ripley decided we needed more caffeine and snacks, so he wandered off in search of a 7-Eleven while I kept working. I scrolled through my contacts, then my Facebook friends, noting names of people who might help. But everyone on the list had the same downside as Rico: they might help, or they might give us away.

  Ripley returned with a bag of powdered donuts and a two-liter of Mountain Dew. We ate and tried to brainstorm but came up with nothing. When Ripley started yawning in the middle of words, I told him to go up to the room and sleep.