The Lightness of Hands

by Jeff Garvin

  I texted Liam:

  Me: We’re in the truck.

  Liam: Everything OK?

  Me: No.

  Liam: What’s up?

  Me: This guy is definitely not mute.

  Liam: LOL ☺ Good luck.

  I frowned at my phone. Were we on LOL terms already? I had made a joke, but still.

  Before I could overthink it, Rodney climbed back into the cab holding two license plates, which he slipped into the center console along with his drill. He didn’t make eye contact, and I didn’t ask questions. We rode in silence, the rumble of the truck’s diesel engine reminding me painfully of our RV and the trailer full of props we had abandoned. I wondered if they were still rusting in the Arizona desert, or if someone had already towed them away.

  Rodney eased the truck onto Industrial Road. We passed an auto-parts store, a machine shop, and a porn mart, its blackened windows reflecting the lights of the Strip half a mile east. Finally, I spotted High Steaks.

  I leaned forward and pointed. “Pull in there.”

  Rodney flipped on his blinker. “Hunker down. I’ll tell you when we’re clear.”

  Dad and I leaned toward the center of the bench seat, hiding ourselves from view. A moment later, the truck stopped and Rodney rolled down his window.

  “You going to the club?” a voice hollered over the idling diesel.

  “Yeah, thought I’d get out of the rig for a bit, see some girls.”

  “Cool, man. Park in the alley. You can pull around the back of that warehouse when you’re ready to leave.”

  “Thanks, brother,” Rodney said. The truck rolled forward for a few seconds; then Rodney cut the engine and spoke to us without turning around.

  “I’m going to go into the club, order a beer, and chill. Wait five minutes before you get out of the truck. Then do what you need to do, and text me when you’re ready to load up. I’ll meet you in back.”

  Before I could ask questions, Rodney hopped out of the cab and closed the door.

  Dad and I stayed hidden for a few minutes, then sat up and looked around. The parking attendant was distracted, smoking a cigarette and flirting with one of the dancers.

  “Come on,” I said, and the two of us climbed out the passenger side, keeping the truck between us and the club.

  I turned the corner and stifled a scream.

  I was face-to-face with a man in a ski mask standing by the warehouse door.

  “Shit!” I scrambled backward, knocking into Dad.

  “It’s me!” the man said, then pulled up his ski mask.

  It was Higgins, and he was grinning like a horror-movie clown.

  “Jesus,” I said. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  Higgins chuckled.

  “Take that ridiculous thing off,” Dad said.

  Higgins’s grin turned into a pout. “Why?”

  “Because if we’re caught, we can’t exactly claim to be lost if one of us looks like a damn bank robber,” Dad said.

  Higgins shrugged and peeled off the mask.

  I glanced around. The same two cars were still parked in the lot: the hatchback and the Beemer.

  “Whose cars, do you think?” Higgins asked.

  “Employees of the club, perhaps?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “They were here this morning.”

  Higgins gestured at the door. “Is that how we’re getting in?”

  The three of us moved toward it. I squatted in front of the lock, and Dad put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Ready to work your magic?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “It’s a combo lock,” Higgins whispered. “How are you going to pick that?”

  I glared at him. “If you insist on being here, please keep your mouth shut.”

  He looked hurt, but he kept quiet. I turned back to the keypad.

  Dad and I had spent the afternoon brainstorming Devereaux’s likely heroes. We debated until we had narrowed it down to three—because, according to Ripley’s research, we had only three tries to get it right. I reached for the keypad, one finger outstretched—then withdrew my hand. What if Ripley was wrong? What if I punched in the incorrect code and the alarm started squealing straightaway? Probably, the thought should’ve petrified me; instead, I found myself savoring the first trickle of adrenaline.

  The name at the top of our list belonged to one of the first TV magicians ever. In a 2008 interview in Genii, Devereaux had called him an inspiration. It was the only time he had ever publicly mentioned a magician as an influence. He was a solid choice, but I had my doubts—because the man had called himself Dante the Magician. He hadn’t just been Devereaux’s hero, he’d been my father’s, too. So much that Dad had changed our family name to honor him. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. What were the odds that our last name was Devereaux’s password?

  But this was no time for second-guessing; we’d discussed every name on the list for hours, making our decisions in the calm of the motel room precisely so we wouldn’t have to choose in the stress of the moment. Dante was the only magician Devereaux had ever called out in print. I had to trust our choice, no matter how unlikely it seemed.

  I typed:

  3-2-6-8-3 (D-A-N-T-E)

  I heard no click, no sound of a bolt being thrown—and, after a moment, a red LED above the keypad blinked once.

  Shit.

  “What the hell?” Higgins said.

  Dad laid a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “We’ve got two more chances.”

  I swallowed hard and looked back at the keypad.

  According to the archivist at the Magic Castle, Devereaux had once owned a vintage poster from a 1922 performance by the Great Blackstone. Blackstone was the most famous illusionist of the early twentieth century, best known for his take on the classic levitation illusion—the same effect that Devereaux paid homage to in his flying routine. Because of this, Blackstone had been our second choice. It had the right resonance; plus, the first five letters of his last name formed a coherent word.

  I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and typed:

  2-5-2-2-5 (B-L-A-C-K)

  The red LED blinked twice, then went dark.

  “Fuck!”

  Dad let out a hiss of breath through his teeth.

  Higgins leaned in. “I thought you said you knew the code?”

  I turned to curse at Higgins, but Dad intervened.

  “No one asked you to come,” he said.

  Higgins took a few steps backward and folded his arms.

  Dad turned to me. “It’s got to be him,” he said. “It’s got to be Houdini.”

  Houdini was, inarguably, the most famous magician in history. Like Devereaux, he was known for performing public exhibitions of magic in front of huge audiences; his 1904 handcuff escape in London had strong parallels with Devereaux’s vanishing of the Arc de Triomphe. Plus, like Devereaux’s, his mother had been a Jewish immigrant.

  The problem was, Houdini had seven letters, not five—and on top of that, it wasn’t even his real name. Weisz, the name on his birth certificate, fit the bill—but the spelling had later been changed to Weiss, which also had five letters. We had gone round and round, finally deciding on W-E-I-S-Z because it was the most authentic.

  Now, though, it felt like we’d made it too complicated. Like there was something stupid and obvious we had overlooked. But we’d agonized over it for hours, and this was the best answer we had come up with. I had to trust it.

  I closed my eyes. Took two deep breaths. Reached out my hand—

  And froze.

  Dad whispered, “What is it?”

  “What was Dante’s real name?” I said. “His birth name.”

  Dad frowned. “It was Jansen. Harry August Jansen.” His eyes drifted slightly out of focus.

  “Harry,” I said. “Harry Jansen, Harry Blackstone, Harry Houdini.”

  Dad looked at me, his expression blank. “How did we miss that?”

>   “What do you think? It’s stupid, right?”

  His shook his head. “Do it.”

  I blew out a breath, licked my lips, and typed:

  4-2-7-7-9 (H-A-R-R-Y)

  The green LED went solid, and the door clicked open.

  Breath rushed out of me in a gust, and I slumped against the wall. Higgins pumped a fist in triumph.

  Dad smiled. “Showtime.”

  CHAPTER 25

  IT WAS PITCH-BLACK INSIDE, SO I turned on my phone’s flashlight. We were standing at the base of a long, enclosed ramp with no lamp or light switch in sight. The place was eerily quiet; it reminded me of haunted houses back in Fort Wayne where you paid ten bucks to be chased through a strobe-lit labyrinth.

  Higgins whispered, “What now?”

  “Now we find the storage area.”

  “And what are we looking for, exactly?” There was a sparkle in Higgins’s eye, as if he thought I was about to reveal some part of Devereaux’s secret to him.

  “A big road case, probably,” I said, enjoying watching Higgins’s smile turn into a scowl. “It’ll probably have DEVEREAUX stenciled on it. And, if we’re lucky, FLYING, or something to that effect.”

  I shone my phone light around to confirm there was only one way forward. “Looks like we stick together for now. Come on.”

  I took the lead, walking as softly as I could. The ramp turned out to be a switchback, and the pathway took two sharp U-turns before coming to a T intersection. One way continued upward, and the other broke off right and sloped down.

  “We’ll cover more ground faster if we split up,” I said. “Higgins, do you have a light?” He held up his phone and turned on the flash. “Okay. You two stick together.” Dad started to protest, but I cut him off; there was no time to argue. “If you find something, text me.” I gestured to the descending ramp. “I’ll take this one.”

  As I made my way downward, I heard their footfalls above and hoped no one else was listening. Higgins was big and far from stealthy; if there was attention to be drawn, he would draw it. As I moved forward, I felt a slight breeze, and then the passageway opened up. I stopped and shone my light around again.

  I was in a very wide room, at least fifty feet high and twice as long, the ceiling getting lower as it stretched away from the outer wall of the building. It looked like I was underneath a set of bleachers, or maybe the terraced house of a theater. I saw no boxes or road cases, just a nest of snakelike cables running to electrical panels mounted on the walls. There was nothing to find down here. I turned and headed back up the ramp, hoping to catch up with Dad and Higgins. After a minute or so, a haze of indirect light came into view, and I switched off my phone.

  A pair of voices drifted toward me, but they didn’t belong to Dad or Higgins. They reverberated as if the people speaking were standing on the floor of a large auditorium. I paused at the mouth of the passage, listening. Someone was giving instructions. Someone else was laughing.

  As quietly as I could, I stepped out of the tunnel. There were Dad and Higgins, standing six feet away with their backs to me. I approached.

  We were looking down from the back of a huge black-box theater. Plywood tiers packed with rows of folding chairs stepped down toward a broad stage that rose ten feet off the warehouse’s concrete floor. Above, a battery of lights clung to a truss, but the stage was illuminated only by a single spotlight, which cut through a billowing blanket of stage fog.

  As the fog thinned, a figure resolved: a man in black lying faceup center stage. I took a few steps forward and squinted down at him.

  It was Daniel Devereaux.

  I held my breath. Dad’s hand gripped my shoulder like a claw. Devereaux was here? Now?

  For a moment, he lay still as a corpse. Then, slowly, he began to levitate, rising off the stage as if supported by an invisible platform. The same way he had risen off the stage in the video Higgins had shown us yesterday. I remembered the banner I had seen plastered over the windows of the Tangiers Hotel & Casino as I drove north on Las Vegas Boulevard:

  DANIEL DEVEREAUX: SKY’S THE LIMIT

  COMING THIS CHRISTMAS

  Oh my God. He was going to fly again.

  For a moment, I lost myself, fascinated by the sight of one of my magical heroes floating in midair; then I snapped back to reality and remembered why I was here. I scoured the stage with my magician’s eye, searching for a clue that might give away Devereaux’s method. But even though the smoke had cleared and the spotlight was bright, I saw no harness, no ropes, no wires.

  Without warning, Devereaux turned a cartwheel and shot into the air. I put a hand over my mouth. He pivoted, put a fist forward like Superman, and dove toward the stage. At the last moment, he pulled up, soaring toward the wings, only to turn again.

  It was nothing like the video; there were no words to describe it. I was six again, and I believed in magic.

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw Higgins, his face slack with awe.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said. “Is that . . .”

  “Just watch,” I whispered.

  And we did. For how long, I don’t know; we were entranced, all three of us. What we were seeing was beyond belief.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  I jumped at the sound of the voice and wheeled around. A tall security guard stood at the entrance to the ramp, wielding an eight-cell Maglite in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other.

  I glanced at Dad, then at Higgins. Both looked shell-shocked.

  “I’m a huge fan,” I began, trying to sound as young and sycophantic as I could. “I’ve always wanted to meet Mr. Devereaux, and I thought—”

  “Save it,” the rent-a-cop said, and pushed the talk button on his radio. “I need the SM at back of house. Right now.” Then he lowered the walkie-talkie and gestured toward us with the flashlight. “You all just hang out right where you are.” He clipped the radio back on his belt, folded his arms, and settled in to watch us like we were a gang of teenage vandals.

  The waiting was interminable. We couldn’t make a plan because the guard stood six feet away. And there was no place to run because the rent-a-cop blocked our only exit. Dad and I exchanged nervous looks. Higgins was pale, and I began to wonder if what he’d had said about the LVMPD Foundation was a lie.

  Finally, I heard footsteps coming up the ramp. Dad shot a deadly look at Higgins, then glared at me to make it clear that he would do the talking.

  A man in a purple button-up came out of the tunnel, and when he stepped into the light, I had to bite my lip to stop myself from gasping.

  It was Rico. When he saw me, his eyes went wide. He looked at my dad, then at Higgins, frowning as if contemplating a hard math problem—and then his face split in a Lando Calrissian grin.

  “I didn’t think you were going to make it!” he said, striding forward and clapping me on the shoulder so hard, it hurt. He turned to the security guard. “It’s all right, Chris. They’re with me.”

  Rico crammed the three of us into his tiny production office and shut the door behind him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I started to answer, but Rico held up a hand to silence me. Then he leaned forward, put his palms on the desktop, and looked from Dad to me and finally to Higgins. Realization swept over his face like the beam of a spotlight.

  “Holy shit,” he said, blinking rapidly. “You were going to— Holy shit.”

  He stood, paced behind the desk, ran a hand over his shaved head.

  “Let me explain,” I began, my voice pleading, but he cut me off again.

  “Tell me I’m wrong. Please tell me you did not come here to steal what he couldn’t buy.” He pointed at Higgins.

  “I didn’t know you were working for Devereaux,” I said. “You wouldn’t tell me, remember?”

  “That’s not the point,” Rico said. “You can’t just— Ugh.” He dropped into the chair and stared at the desk.

  “I didn’t know what else to do, Rico. We’re—
”

  “I can’t even talk to you right now.” He looked at Higgins. “And you. You arrogant ass. This is why no one in magic wants to talk to you. You don’t care about the craft; you don’t care about the performers. You just want to collect things.”

  “That’s not true,” Higgins said, sounding like a scolded teenager.

  Rico folded his arms. “I should call the cops. I really should.”

  I looked at Dad, hoping he would step in to negotiate—but his jaw seemed wired shut.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening, couldn’t believe we’d been caught. After everything we’d done, after how far we’d come—it couldn’t be over. I had to do something. I had to get Rico back on my side.

  “Please don’t,” I said, forcing my voice to break, and finding it was easier than I’d expected. “Our RV is totaled. We’re broke.” My eyes grew hot; I wasn’t faking it anymore. “We didn’t have any other choice.”

  Rico pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look. I’m sorry you’re in a bad place. I really am. But what do you expect me to do?”

  I tried to take a deep breath, but that lead X-ray vest was compressing my chest again. I needed to act quickly—I could already feel the rush of adrenaline slowing to a trickle. The wheels in my mind were grinding down, finally succumbing to friction. But if I could just hold on a little longer, delay the downslide for another hour—I might be able to keep us out of jail. There was still a vague tingle of mania in the back of my mind. I grabbed onto it like a life preserver.

  “There’s a way.”

  Rico leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

  “Pretend to give us a tour of the facility. We touch nothing. We say nothing. We’re not magicians; we’re just your friends from back home, visiting Las Vegas on vacation, and you decided to give us the VIP experience.” I was improvising, riding on pure instinct, flying with no visible means of support. I didn’t know what I would say next, and I didn’t know how we were going to get our hands on the flying rig. I only knew I had to keep Rico from calling the cops.

  He scowled. I was losing him.

  “At the end of the tour you escort us out, and we never come back.”

  He tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, and the fist in my guts tightened its grip. If he agreed, we’d stay out of jail—but how would we get the rig?