Layla blinked. "It's owned by Fox Wentworth."
"Right, but… Never mind." He scooped up his chips and tucked them into the pocket of his chinos. "You have a nice night, Fabrizio."
"It's Layla."
Marcus sighed, all of his best material lost on her.
As he headed for the elevators, she called out to him. "If there's anything I can do to make your stay more enjoyable, don't hesitate to call!"
He thanked her and thumbed the up button.
Upstairs he had trouble finding the room. The doors were numbered backwards, with the higher numbers closer to the elevator. Room 208 was right beside the ice machine, which rattled loose another load of cubes as he approached used his cell phone on the door. He heard the maglock click and the light turned green.
"Fucking wonders of technology."
The room was a standard queen with zigzag carpeting like the hall, a plush white duvet and oversized pillows. Beside the minibar fridge was a safe that looked just big enough to fit the briefcase. Thinking it would be a good idea to put the case in there right away, he followed the instructions to choose a PIN and locked it up securely.
Marcus thought he heard the object in the briefcase tumble after he locked the door as if whatever it was might be alive, but he supposed it was probably just the sound of the ice machine out in the hall dropping another batch.
Someone had taped a note to the closet on the Wentworth Casino Hotel stationary adorned with a single word in flourished script: CHANGE.
Curious, he slid open the door. Inside a single outfit hung alongside the ironing board and an iron with the cord tightly wound around its handle. Marcus brought the white tuxedo down off the rack and gave it a good look. He hung the jacket in front of himself to get a look at his reflection.
"Shaken, not shtirred." He chuckled and shook his head. "Yeah, I'm not wearing that damned thing."
A muffled conversation on the other side of the connecting door drew his attention.
As a rule Marcus wouldn't normally listen in on someone's private conversation but for some reason he was curious. Maybe it was the connecting door. It felt like part of his room, like the conversation was violating his personal space. He brought the glass on the dresser over, creeping on the carpet in his black socks, and placed it as quietly against the door as he could.
Even with his ear against the glass he still couldn't make out any actual words, it just sounded like monotone garble. But he realized it was only one person, possibly speaking to someone on the phone. The man's voice reminded him of the Thriller cassette he'd had in his teens where the tape had warped, the music had slowed and stretched until Michael's voice was weirdly deep and sounded like it was bubbling up from the bottom of an old bathtub.
Recalling it, a shiver ran up his spine.
The pig's squeal from behind the door made him stagger away from the door in sudden, absolute terror, the glass tumbling on the carpet at his feet. He stared at the door as the terrible high-pitched shriek went on and on.
He snatched up the phone from the dresser and dialed the lobby. Layla picked up on the first ring.
"Front desk, how can I assist you?"
"Yeah hi, it sounds like someone's slaughtering a pig next door."
"A what?"
"A pig. Listen."
The second he held the phone toward the door the sound stopped.
"I don't hear anything."
"That's because it stopped. But it was just there, I swear."
"Maybe it was the TV."
"It wasn't the TV." Now he was beginning to doubt his own sanity. "Look, could you just check in on the room next door? I think someone might be hurt."
"I'll send someone up right away."
She hung up on him. Marcus set the phone down and studied the connecting door. How could he sleep knowing that was next door to him?
His gaze fell on the minibar's reflection and the laughter died in his throat.
He crouched to open the fridge and a wonderful array of tequilas, whiskeys, vodkas and wines in tiny colorful bottles dazzled his eyes. The candy and nuts he could live without. He selected a bottle of scotch, twisted off the cap, and guzzled it.
"Shit, that probably just cost me twenty bucks."
He set the emptied bottle on the fridge and stood.
"What now?"
The phone buzzed in his crumpled chinos on the floor. He bent and read the text message: BILLY WONDERS @ 10.
"All right. Guess I'll go check out this Billy Wonders cat."
He stepped out into the hall and locked the door with the phone. A blonde woman and her son passed in their bathing suits on his way to the stairs, towels around their waists. Marcus smiled at the kid and the woman smiled back.
Downstairs the front desk was unmanned so he let the strange pig noises go for the time and entered the casino. Lights flashed and jackpots dinged. Gamblers shuffled back and forth between machines with red cups full of coins, pulled levers and thumbed buttons, smoking cigarettes and drinking free booze.
They said casinos pumped in oxygen to keep people awake and gambling. He wasn't sure if that was true or a myth but he'd always loved the crispness of the air in these places, aside from the cigarettes and the occasional stink of someone who'd pissed in their casino diapers.
Marcus sat behind an American Liberty slot machine near the double doors. He had some change leftover from the gas station and pumped a few quarters into the slot. He pulled the lever even though it was easier to press the button and watched as the digital readout came up with two bald eagles and a liberty bell.
"You know those things are rigged, right?"
Marcus turned to see a young white man with slicked hair and thick-rimmed glasses, dressed in a baby blue bespoke suit jacket and black jeans. "Is that right?"
The man slid his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "Oh yeah, big time." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Actually I'll let you in on a little secret: I've got an app that will let you win nine times out of ten."
"An app?"
"For your phone." He showed off his own before tucking it back in his lapel pocket.
Marcus shook his head. "Fucking wonders of technology."
"You're goddamn right!" The kid—he couldn't have been much older than twenty—stuck out a hand. "I'm Simon Adder."
Marcus shook it. "Marcus Mills."
"You're Morales's courier? I was expecting—"
"Someone whiter?"
Adder laughed. "I was gonna say younger, actually. Look I know we're supposed meet tomorrow morning but I was just on my way upstairs to meet up with the brothers—"
Marcus raised his eyebrows. "Brothers?"
Adder seemed to get what Marcus was implying and grinned. "We're a sort of fraternity. Fellow hackers." He shrugged. "Doxxers, shitposters, clickbait journalists."
"You're internet trolls."
Adder flashed with anger. "That's derogatory. We call ourselves the Brotherhood of Kek."
"What is that, like a breakfast cereal?"
Adder grinned. "You're thinking of Kix. No, Kek is an ancient Egyptian frog god."
"And you guys… what? Worship this guy?"
"Not exactly. It's complicated. Anyway we'd love to have you join us if you're not busy."
"Morales wants me to go see the magician."
"Billy Wonders?" The kid sputtered. "That guy's so 1990! You wanna see some real magic, forget about that cuck and come upstairs, check out my dudes getting nasty with memes."
"I'm not into prostitutes."
Adder stared at him for a long moment, then squeezed Marcus's bicep with a hearty laugh. "You're fuckin with me, right?"
Marcus just looked at the spot on his shoulder were the kid had touched him.
"Shit, I'm sorry, guy." Adder smoothed the shoulder of Marcus's polo as if he'd only meant to feel the material. "What is this, Tommy Bahama?"
"I have no fuckin clue."
"Well it looks terrific." He began backing away. "Look, you want
to join us after the show, we're in 301 and 302. Tell 'em Simon sent you."
"Yeah, will do."
"Cool cool. And if I don't see you tonight, we'll meet up tomorrow morning, have some mimosas poolside, check out some mamacitas…"
The guy was already grating on Marcus and he just wanted him to leave. He couldn't imagine having to hang out with him at the pool tomorrow and decided to duck out quickly after the handoff. "Sure. Whatever."
The kid left and Marcus put in a few more quarters and pulled the handle. He watched as the display came up three cherries and his machine started dinging. He'd just won twenty bucks.
Cashing out, he wondered if Adder had used his app on the machine to make him win. If not it was a strange coincidence. If he had Marcus thought it was slightly more frightening what could be done with a phone these days.
He brought the receipt to one of the booths and collected his twenty dollars. On his way to the theater at the back of the casino he picked up a drink from a server's tray and sipped at it as he pushed through the double doors.
The standee inside showed a man about Marcus's age with a Jheri curl and a red jumpsuit with shoulder pads. The kid wasn't joking—this clown looked straight out of the past. The headline under the sparkly perspective letters spelling out BILLY WONDERS asked DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?
Marcus shook his head at the corny headline and took a seat near the back, not expecting much out of the show, wondering why Morales had wanted him to see it. He would have preferred to see Penn and Teller. Hell, Siegfried and Roy would have been better. At least those dudes had a tiger.
Another server came around and Marcus ordered two drinks so he wouldn't have to wait for the second. He drank them slowly while watching the conversations around him, people laughing, drinking, flirting. It felt strange to be among so many people with expendable income again. He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to it, like a long-time prisoner finally given his freedom.
I'm not really free though, am I? Not with Morales's damn phone in my pocket.
Even as the lights dimmed and the curtains opened, the audience kept chatting and laughing and fiddling with their phones. This was the world now. Life happened but no one noticed.
A smokepot exploded, caught in the red glow of a spotlight.
Over the speakers hinges creaked and footsteps crossed a wooden floor. A wolf howled. The drums kicked in, followed by the synth buzz of keyboards. Marcus had recognized the song even before the first chord struck. It took a moment for some of the others in the audience to start moving their heads and singing along to Michael Jackson's "Thriller," an especially strange choice in music since he'd just been thinking of the song upstairs.
Marcus felt that shiver up his spine again as a man emerged from the red smoke on stage. As it thinned the man Marcus assumed had been standing in its gauzy embrace wasn't standing at all, he was floating above the stage. No wires seemed to be holding him in the air but Marcus assumed they must be just too thin for him to see.
The man extended his arms, his sequined boots several feet above the stage. No one in the audience seemed impressed as the music faded.
Billy Wonder's voice boomed out of a microphone he held against his chest just under his chin: "Ladies and gentlemen: do you believe in magic?"
A smattering of applause.
He spun in the air, a complete three hundred and sixty degrees. "I said: do you believe in magic?"
Billy Wonder squinted over the crowd and through the clearing smoke and seemed to zero in on Marcus. The audience applauded slightly less enthusiastically.
What happened next finally got a reaction from the audience as Billy Wonder flew over their heads and plopped himself down in the empty seat beside Marcus, who scooched back a seat so the magician wouldn't land on him.
"Tell me, my brother, are there any wires attached to my suit?" Up close the magician's purple sequins were dazzlingly bright. "Go ahead and check."
Hesitantly, Marcus reached out and swept his hand over the man's head. He waved it down each side.
"Nothing," he said when Billy Wonders held the mic to him, and though he couldn't explain how, it was the truth.
"And we don't know each other, do we? We don't go to the same Handsome Black Man chapter meetings?"
Marcus chuckled. The audience joined him.
"No sir," he said into the mic.
"'No sir,'" Billy Wonders echoed, and let that hang.
Marcus saw other audience members reaching up, trying to find the invisible wires, like pulling at spider webs. When they began to realize there were none to find they looked at each other, stupefied.
"So tell me, Marcus Mills," Bill Wonders said with a grin, "do you believe in magic?"
Marcus leaned against the dressing room door while Billy Wonders unzipped his sequined jumpsuit and stepped out of it. He wore a black t-shirt and boxer briefs.
"All right, what's the secret?"
The magician caught his eye in the wide mirror. "Secret?"
"How'd you do it? Those tricks. How'd you float over the audience? How'd you know my name?"
"It's no secret, brother. You simply have to let the scales fall from your eyes."
Marcus shook his head. "Is that a biblical reference?"
Billy Wonders grinned in the mirror and slipped into a pair of black jeans. "I wish you could have seen your face when I sat down beside your black ass. At first you were like, 'Who the hell is this corny-ass fool?' Then you looked like you shit your damn pants."
The magician chuckled and unzipped his boots.
"Come on, man. What's the trick?"
"The trick is to make it look like it's just a trick. That's why I wear this bargain basement Rick James jumpsuit. If those people out there believed what they saw was real magic…" He shook his head. "We wouldn't be having this conversation. Or if we were, it would be during visiting hours at the loony bin."
Marcus looked at the magician with suspicion. "Are you trying to fucking tell me that shit out there was real?"
"Why is that so hard for you to believe?"
"Because magic isn't real."
"What makes you so sure of that?"
"Sanity. Sanity does."
"Then what did you just see out there? Explain it like I'm five."
"Somebody told you who I am—"
"That is the truth. But that's not what's troubling you."
"Who told you?"
"You're deflecting the issue. You want to know how I flew over the heads of the audience to your chair with no wires. So ask me. Ask me how I did it."
"Fine. How did you do it?"
Billy Wonders grinned. "I just spoke the magic words."
"Magic words," Marcus repeated.
"Words have immense power." Billy Wonders swung a leg over the chair and sat, resting his arms on the back. "We learn that from a very young age. And just changing how you say them, even something as simple as the inflection, effects how powerful they are. Saying something in anger makes it more potent than when it's said in indifference, right? You say something with love and it can tear down walls. I'm sure you remember the first time someone who wasn't your mama said 'I love you.' Or the fear you felt when you said it first."
"I don't think I'm following you."
"When you're a kid, you realize certain words have more power than others, right? Curse words. Derogatory words. You might try to push the boundaries of what you can get away with saying. One time—" He chuckled wistfully. "—Big Mama was baking cookies and she let me eat a little bit of the dough out of the bowl. I remember I said something like 'Goddamn that's a good cookie,' like how I heard my older brother's friends would say sometimes. 'Goddamn this and goddamn that' when the adults weren't around. Well my mama's mouth just about fell open and before she could say anything Big Mama snatched up the wooden spoon and smacked me on the back of the head. That's when I first realized the power of words, I think. I was six years old. Later on, after Big Mama passed, Mama moved us to a white neighborhood.
And you don’t forget the first time a white boy calls you 'nigger.' Do you, Marcus?"
Marcus remembered his first time clearly. He'd been horsing around with a kid much bigger than him, a friend at the time. The friend whose name Marcus couldn't recall had been swinging him around and around against his will and finally Marcus had snapped on him and kicked him in the shin. The older boy had let Marcus go and Marcus had gone sprawling in the grass, but instead of apologizing the boy—the white boy—had called him a 'fucking nigger.'
He'd been angry when it happened, but he'd also felt betrayed, ashamed and embarrassed. A small part of him had felt sympathy for his friend, who'd seemed to understand immediately the power of what he'd said and regretted having said it, stumbling through an apology Marcus could not force himself to accept.
"Okay, words have emotional response, I'll buy that. But you're telling me you say some mumbo jumbo like 'open sesame' and all of a sudden you can fly? Bullshit."
"It's not exactly like that," He shrugged. "Think about what Martin said."
"You mean about the stank?"
Billy Wonder gave him a look like Marcus had lost his mind. "What? Martin Luther King Jr. He stood in front of all of America—black, yellow, brown, red and white—and told us about his dream. And brother, that speech changed the playing field. For the first time since the Thirteenth Amendment white people, not just the beatniks, were woke to our struggle. It took a dream to wake people up, you see? Not just in America either, but all around the world."
"Seems like people went right back to sleep."
"We still have a ways to go, but King paved the road. Trouble is the people in charge want things to stay the same, and they doing their damnedest to make sure it does." Billy gave him a dark look. "Your man Morales, for instance."
"What does Americo have to do with this?"
"Well for starters, the rich have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. You don't get rich from revolution, not unless you're the one supplying the ammunition. And here we are talking about words and neither one of us brought up Wentworth's speech today."
HARBINGER Deliver Us to Evil Page 5
