by Jeff Garvin
Rico sighed, shook his head, looked at Higgins. “Keep your face down. I don’t want you recognized.” He turned to Dad. “I’m doing this because you meant a lot to my father.” Then to me. “Don’t make me regret it.”
Rico stood. We followed him out of the office, down a long hallway, and through a wide steel door.
Devereaux’s warehouse was cavernous. Fluorescent bars cast a greenish pall over a forest of misshapen lumps—big props, I assumed, covered by black shrouds. Against one wall, I spotted an enormous rack of road cases; it would have taken a forklift to reach the ones on the highest shelves. My heart sank; even if we gained unhindered access to this room for an hour, we might not find what we were looking for.
Still, my heart beat faster as if aroused by the lengthening odds; I supposed this was what kept gambling addicts at the table even when they were losing big.
Rico made a grand gesture as if to say, Feast your eyes—this is all you get. Higgins stared around like he had just landed in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. He took three steps toward the nearest covered contraption, but Rico grabbed his arm.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said.
We moved through the warehouse quickly, slaloming among the giant cloaked props. At the end of a long black corridor, a twenty-something guy wearing a headset stood guarding a steel door. He glanced nervously at our group.
“Hey, Dougie,” Rico said. “I’m going to take these VIPs into the wings for a quick look.”
Dougie. This was the guy whose incompetence had provided us with the clue to the door code. I physically turned to point this out to Ripley—then remembered that he hadn’t come with us. A ball of heat seemed to form in my chest.
“Um,” Dougie said. “This is a closed rehearsal.”
“I know, dude. It’s not a problem.”
Dougie looked dubious but nodded, and Rico clapped him on the arm. Then we followed him through the door.
The stage was a vast black deck a hundred feet from wing to wing and almost as deep. Devereaux was nowhere in sight; he must have finished his run-through while we were still on our tour. Rico looked relieved.
“Do you mind?” Dad said to Rico, gesturing toward the stage.
Rico glanced over his shoulder, then nodded reluctantly.
Dad stepped onto the stage and the lights spilled over him, blanching his skin and making the silk threads in his dark jacket shimmer. His face lit up and his eyes sparkled a deep blue. Despite our predicament, he was completely at ease, as if there was nowhere else he belonged. He strode to the apron and spread his arms wide as if to receive a standing ovation. He looked so natural onstage. For him, the real world required performance; only on the planks, under the lights, could he be his authentic self. He turned to me and reached out his hand, inviting me to join him. I shook my head; I needed to keep a level head right now. I couldn’t afford to lose my grip on the moment, no matter how good it might feel.
Higgins, meanwhile, was staring at the rigging overhead. No doubt he was looking for wires. Rico smirked, confident that any visible secrets would be inscrutable to him.
“My goodness,” a voice said. “It’s the Uncanny Dante.”
The voice was calm and low and seemed to issue from every direction at once; it was coming through the sound system. I looked around to see who was speaking, and then Daniel Devereaux stepped out from between the long drapes on the far side of the stage. My father turned, too, and at the sight of Devereaux, his whole body stiffened as if a thousand volts had just shot up his spine. Devereaux walked toward Dad. My face went numb. Was this really happening? I turned to Rico, who moved forward and tugged Higgins back into the wings.
“I saw you perform once,” Devereaux said, his voice no longer amplified by the sound system. “Years ago, at the Castle. Your Sub Trunk was flawless.”
My dad looked flabbergasted. “I’m . . . I admire your work very much.”
“Thanks,” Devereaux said. “That means a great deal coming from you.” I noticed Devereaux didn’t shake his hand. I wondered if he was a germophobe, or if he just didn’t want to risk injury from a fan’s overenthusiastic grip.
Devereaux’s eyes drifted to the wings, and when they found me, my stomach dropped out.
“Rico,” he said. “Introduce me to your friends.”
I heard Rico mutter a curse under his breath, but he covered it with a smile.
“This is Dante’s daughter, Ellie.”
Devereaux strode toward me, stopped, and looked down at me as if I were a mildly interesting zoo exhibit.
“Hi,” I said.
“It’s a pleasure.” Devereaux turned to Higgins. He squinted, seemed to recognize him, and his face took on a calm but exasperated expression. “Hello, Jif,” he said, sounding like a mother greeting her teenager’s delinquent friend. “How are you?”
Higgins looked like a cat about to be hit by a car. “Hi. Um, good.”
“Dougie,” Devereaux called. The guy with the headset appeared from the wings. “Grab me three blank nondisclosure forms from the office, would you?”
Dougie scuttled off to oblige.
Devereaux put his hands on his hips, shot Rico a look I couldn’t interpret, then glanced back at us as if unsure what to do next. Finally, he turned to Higgins.
“You deserve some credit, Jif.”
“What?” Higgins said.
“You’ve helped a lot of a performers retire with more than they would have otherwise. You probably don’t get thanked very often.”
Higgins’s eyes went wide. “Never, actually.”
“Well, that’s because you’re a giant pain in the ass.”
Higgins looked confused. Dad stifled a laugh. Now it was Rico who looked like the cat in the road.
Devereaux folded his arms. “I’m not selling, Jif. Never, ever, ever.”
Higgins’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. Thirty minutes ago, he had looked a kid on Christmas Eve; now he resembled an addict midintervention. He gave me a sort of oh, well look, and his message was clear: we had failed. I clenched my fists.
Devereaux turned to Dad. “I’m surprised at you, Mr. Dante. Breaking in here like this. I would expect more consideration from a fellow magician.”
Dad opened his mouth, but I jumped in before he could speak.
“It’s not his fault,” I blurted, taking a step forward. “It was my idea.”
“Right.” Devereaux squinted at me. “You’re the girl in the hoodie. Where’s your friend?”
His words brought back the hot weight in my chest; he must have seen Ripley and me in the security footage. Ripley should have been here with me to see this—even though we were about to lose everything, he should have been here. He’d earned it, but I’d driven him away.
When I didn’t answer, Devereaux turned his attention to Rico, who looked mildly horrified by the whole scenario. “Since they’re your friends, I’m not going to press charges. They’ll sign NDAs, and you’ll escort them out.” He turned back to us. “It was a pleasure to meet you both. Circumstances notwithstanding.” Then he turned and strode toward the exit.
I watched him walking away, heard the click of his heels on the stage like the tick of a timer counting down. We’d been caught. We’d failed. This had been our last chance, and it was walking away with Daniel Devereaux.
He was reaching for the stage door when I heard myself call out.
“Wait!”
To my surprise, he stopped and turned back.
“Wait, Mr. Devereaux. Please.”
Maybe it was the desperation in my voice, or maybe he’d only been testing—but he walked back toward us.
“What is it, Ms. Dante?”
“I need your help.” I looked back at my dad. “We need your help.”
“What kind of help?”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was suddenly a desert.
“We need you to show Higgins your method for the flying illusion.”
Devereaux smirked, but it faded
rapidly. “You’re serious?”
I nodded.
“Why in the world would I show him the secret to my best-known illusion?”
“Actually,” Higgins broke in, “the whole Arc de Triomphe thing is probably— Ow!”
Rico had stomped on Higgins’s foot.
Devereaux turned back to me. “Jif is obsessed. He’s been trying to get his hands on my rig for years. But what’s in it for you?”
I exchanged a glance with Dad; what did we have to lose?
“We’re broke,” I said. Devereaux didn’t react. “Dad’s been invited to perform on Flynn & Kellar’s Live Magic Retrospective. It’s his only shot at a comeback. But Higgins has our props. He wants five grand, and we don’t have it.”
Devereaux frowned. “So he what—said he’d hand them over if you could sneak him in here and persuade me to show him my method?”
“Yes,” I said, a little too quickly; this was far better than having him think we’d come to steal his rig.
Devereaux laughed. “And I thought I’d seen everything.” He sighed, tugged at the cuff of one sleeve, and turned to Dad. “I need a new bit. Something to fill the time while my crew clears the stage after my car production. Something simple I can do in the audience. What have you got?”
Dad raised his eyebrows. “You’re serious?”
Devereaux shrugged. “I don’t like anything my team has come up with yet. Show me something new. If I like it, maybe we can do a swap.”
Dad’s eyes sparkled. “A close-up bit? Sleight of hand, something that’ll print on the big screen?”
Devereaux pointed a finger at him. “Exactly.”
Dad thought for a moment, then smiled. “Ellie’s got just the thing.”
Devereaux leveled his gaze at me, and my guts turned to ice.
“Show me.”
CHAPTER 26
MY HANDS WERE SHAKING AS I set up backstage. There was no Wild Turkey on hand, but Dougie had some Jack Daniel’s stashed in his office. I wasn’t used to working with a square bottle, so I practiced half a dozen times. I almost dropped it twice.
“Breathe,” Dad said.
“I am breathing,” I snapped, though, in fact, I’d been holding my breath the whole time. I set the bottle and the shot glass on the desk and put my face in my hands.
“I’m going to screw this up just like I did in Mishawaka.”
“No, you’re not.” Dad squeezed my shoulder. “This is where you shine.”
“You don’t understand. I’ve been . . .” Up is what I meant to say, but the word hovered just past the edge of my mind, unwilling to step forward and present itself. It happened sometimes, when I started down the slope. Words got lost.
“I know it’s hard,” Dad said. He put his hand under my chin. “This thing you tow around with you—it drags you through wreckage, I know it does. But it also gives you an eagle’s-eye view. A perspective most of us never achieve.”
I couldn’t look at him. “You make it sound romantic.”
Dad shook his head. “It is what it is. But, Ellie, you already have the design. The method. The moves. It doesn’t matter that it all came to you during a bright time. You have it now. No amount of darkness can erase that.”
Just then, Rico poked his head into the wings. “You ready?”
I met Devereaux in the aisle above the fifth row. He nodded and folded his arms. “Show me what you’ve got, kid.”
I produced a deck of cards from my pocket.
“Just an ordinary deck of playing cards,” I said, extracting them from the box and fanning them out. “Fifty-two plus two jokers. Three, if you count my father.”
Devereaux rolled his eyes at my lame attempt at vaudevillian humor. I swallowed and went on.
“Please take the deck and examine the cards. Make sure there are no spots, no marks, no clipped corners.”
As he took the deck and began to thumb through it, I felt an icy trickle down my back. I couldn’t tell if it was sweat or twitchy nerves. Devereaux handed it back, and I squared up the cards before holding them out again.
“Choose a card, any card you prefer, and pull it from the deck. Good.” I pocketed the rest of the deck. “Without letting me see it, show your card to the audience.”
With a condescending smirk, Devereaux played along, displaying the card to Higgins, Rico, and my dad.
“Now, keeping the face of the card toward you—I don’t want to see it—place it here between my thumb and forefinger.” He did so, frowning slightly as if he wasn’t sure where this was going. Good; I had him intrigued. Once the card was between my fingers, I snapped, and the card burst into flame.
Devereaux didn’t react. I had to remind myself that he literally knew all the tricks.
I closed my hands like a clamshell around the ashes to extinguish the flame—and when I drew them apart again, a shot glass was perched upside down on the palm of my right hand.
Devereaux gave a slight nod; he’d expected this move, or something like it, but he seemed satisfied by my performance so far. It was a compliment from the greatest illusionist alive, and my head began to buzz. I made fists with my toes—I needed to stay grounded. Devereaux nodded as if to say, Go on.
I reached into the pocket of the oversized blazer I’d borrowed from Rico and extracted a red silk handkerchief. Carefully, I draped it over the hand holding the shot glass—then, with my thumb and forefinger, I pinched the top of the silk and whipped it off, revealing a three-quarters-full bottle of Jack Daniel’s now sitting on my palm, with the inverted shot glass resting on top.
A broad smile broke across Devereaux’s face, and he uncrossed his arms and stuffed his hands into his pockets as if he couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
Now my heart was pounding. The edges of everything seemed to sharpen. My face split into a wide, stupid grin, and I took a small bow.
Then I asked him to hold the glass—and I poured him a shot.
“Bottoms up,” I said.
He took the shot, shook his head slightly to ward off the bite of the whiskey, then held the glass out to me. The look on his face seemed to say, Was that it?
I pointed to the glass. “Look closer.”
He frowned and looked down into the shot glass. Etched in the bottom was the image of his card: the nine of hearts. After a moment, his frown turned into a wide smile. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, holding the glass up for an imaginary camera. “That’s my card!”
Devereaux gave me a small round of applause. Blood pumped like rapids through my ears. My limbs tingled. I glanced at Dad, who was grinning broadly. Rico was applauding, too, but with both eyes on Devereaux, wary of what he might do next.
“That was cool,” Devereaux said. He glanced at Rico. “Think we can make something out of that?”
Rico’s eyes widened for a moment, but then he recovered. “Yeah. Yes. Totally.”
Devereaux nodded, eyes distant, contemplative. The room was suddenly quiet. I could hear the hum of the rooftop AC units forty feet above my head. Finally, Devereaux turned to face Higgins.
“I’m going to show you something,” he said.
Higgins squirmed in his seat.
“I’m going to show you, and then you’re going to leave my people alone. Dougie?”
The stage manager hurried down the aisle and handed out forms and pens to Higgins, Dad, and me. When we’d signed them and passed them back, Devereaux gestured to Rico.
Rico stood up and gestured for Higgins to follow. To my surprise, he led him backstage.
Devereaux took a seat next to Dad in the sixth row and motioned for me to join them. He looked over at me, smiled.
“This’ll be fun.”
The trick worked like this: I didn’t know. What I had seen Devereaux do tonight defied every method I could think of. And even though Higgins was strapped or hooked or clipped into whatever it was, I don’t think he knew, either. What I did know was that I was sitting between the Uncanny Dante and Daniel Motherfucking Devereaux
when Jif Higgins rose ten feet into the air, squealing like a twelve-year-old at a Shawn Mendes concert. As the sweeping orchestral soundtrack blared through the speakers, Higgins soared around the stage like an awkward neophyte superhero, cackling and whooping with unironic glee.
Devereaux watched him, his eyes shining with boyish delight. He caught me staring, but I couldn’t look away.
He leaned toward me and said, “That bottle production was elegant. You ought to be performing.”
I could still feel my pulse pounding in my neck. I shook my head. And then I said something—I don’t know why I said it—something I’d only admitted to three people in the world.
I looked at Daniel Devereaux and said, “I can’t handle the pressure. I’m bipolar.”
Devereaux cocked his head, then reached out his hand. Confused, I shook it, and he said, “Welcome to the club.”
I felt my mouth drop open. “The club? You mean . . .”
“I prefer to say I have bipolar. It’s a diagnosis. Not an identity.”
I couldn’t seem to close my mouth.
“Don’t let it stop you,” he said. Then he sat back and watched Higgins fly.
“DID YOU SEE THAT?” Higgins said, literally jumping up and down. “I was fucking FLYING!”
The four of us—Higgins, Dad, Rico, and I—were standing in the parking lot behind the warehouse.
“Dude,” Rico said to Higgins, “will you please shut up?” He looked at Dad. “Please shut him up.”
“Yes, of course,” Dad said. “Ellie, we’ll meet you at the truck.” Dad took Higgins by the elbow, who let himself be led away, still flapping his hands like a spastic bat.
When they had rounded the corner, Rico turned to glare at me. “You could have gotten me fired.”
“I know,” I said.
“I might still get fired.”
“You think he’s that pissed?”
Rico let out an exasperated breath. “The truth is, he’s been trying to get Higgins off his back for years. This might have done it.”
“You don’t think Higgins will talk?”
Rico laughed. “Daniel may seem like a pussycat, but his lawyers are brutal.” His smile faded. “Your close-up has gotten really good. Forget assistant stuff—you should be onstage.”
