by L.H. Cosway
I rub his shoulder, because I don’t know what else to say, but I want to comfort him. We stay like that for a long time, quiet as we look out the windows into the dark night. He squeezes my hand and gets up, breaking our contemplative silence. When he leaves the room, I spend a long time wondering about the boy he once was as I pack away my materials.
Sixteen
When I get back to work after lunch on Friday, I find Dad’s office door closed and voices coming from inside. I put my ear against the wood and listen, picking out Jay’s recognisable cadence. God, I love his voice. I think I’m ruined for all other accents now that his is the one I hear every day.
Wondering what he’s here for, I turn my computer back on and start completing the tasks I need to finish before the end of the day. About a half an hour later, Dad’s office door opens and the two men emerge, shaking hands. Jay has an ecstatic look on his face, and Dad looks pretty happy, too.
“Here’s to a successful endeavour,” says Dad cheerily as he lets go of Jay’s hand and turns to go back inside his office.
“We’re going to win this thing, Hugh, you mark my words,” Jay calls after him.
Dad chuckles as he waves Jay off.
Does this mean Dad’s gone ahead and accepted the case? I try to act nonchalant as I type and Jay comes to perch himself on the edge of my desk.
“Guess what?” he beams.
“Dad’s taking your case?” I smile at him.
“Yeah! How’d you know?” he says, all playful and hyper. “I think you might be psychic, Watson. I should incorporate you into my act.”
“Oh, my God, you really are delighted about this,” I say, shaking my head at him but unable to stop smiling.
“Yep. The plan is back on track.”
“Plan?”
It takes him a second to answer. “To show Una Harris she messed with the wrong magician.”
“I thought you preferred illusionist,” I laugh.
“I do, but the two ‘M’s just made the sentence sound sexier.”
“If you say so.”
I continue working, but he doesn’t leave. Instead, he pulls his phone from his pocket and starts tapping on the screen. Glancing at him, I notice that, despite his invigorated mood, his eyes are a little tired. Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and hear him pacing around in his room. I haven’t mentioned it to him, though.
“What time do you get off work, John?”
“John?”
“John Watson, Matilda. Goodness, keep up.”
I shake my head at him. “I get off at half past five. Why?”
“I want you to come somewhere with me. I promise a fun time will be had by all.”
“And where is this fun taking place?”
Instead of answering, he thrusts his phone at me. It displays a tweet that contains a time, a date, and a place. The date and time are for today, and the place is a well-known meet-up area in the city centre.
“I didn’t know you had a Twitter account,” I say, swiping to his profile. My jaw practically drops when I see he’s got more than 100,000 followers. “Wow, Jay, you’re, like, hugely popular.”
“You sound surprised. Should I be offended?” he teases.
“No, of course not. It’s just unexpected, that’s all. What does the tweet mean?”
He takes the phone back from me and shoves it in his pocket. “I have a lot of teenage fans who aren’t old enough to get into the venues where I perform, so sometimes I do random outdoor meet-and-greets with them.”
My smile grows wide. “You do that? That’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, these kids mean a lot to me. I look at them, and I see myself at that age. I wanna give something back, you know?”
I stare at him, feeling myself growing fonder and fonder of this man by the second.
“So, will you come?” he prods. “Jessie will be there, too. She’s going to film it for YouTube.”
“Yes, I’ll come,” I say eagerly.
“Great, I’ll pick you up at five-thirty.” He bends over the table to ruffle my hair, and then he’s gone.
When I’m finished with work, I spruce myself up a little, letting my hair down out of the twist I’d had it in and changing from my heels into the reliable flats I always carry in my bag. If this thing is outdoors, I’m guessing there’s going to be a lot of standing involved.
“Knock knock,” I hear Jessie call as I quickly swipe on some lip gloss and leave the office bathroom. As I walk out, I see she’s holding a small video camera. Jay’s standing to the side of her, just out of range of the lens.
“Swit swoo, hot stuff coming through,” she whistles, and I shake my head at her, blushing. Jay’s repeatedly flicking a die high up into the air and catching it effortlessly.
“Stop filming me,” I say, self-conscious.
Hitching my bag up on my shoulder, I wave goodbye to Dad, who’s still in his office. We leave down the narrow staircase and out onto the street, but Jessie keeps on filming.
“I swear to God, I’ll sue you if I see myself in this YouTube video,” I warn her. “I work in a solicitor’s office, so you know I’ll do it.”
“Oh, come on. We need a bit of eye candy to get the teenage boy demographic interested,” Jessie jokes. “I’m sure they don’t want to look at Jay’s ugly mug the whole time.”
Jay’s mug is far from ugly, but no way am I admitting that out loud.
“Yeah, Watson. You’ve got to do this. It will help my career,” Jay agrees, a smug look on his face as we walk. He throws his arm around my shoulders and gives them a squeeze, then looks behind to Jessie. “Make sure you get a few ass shots in. Matilda has a rear end deserving of online attention.”
I shove him with my elbow, and he laughs. “If you film my arse, I swear to God, I really will sue.”
He raises his eyebrow at me, and I can’t help the tiny smile forcing its way onto my face. Then he takes things a step too far when he leisurely slides his hand down my back to my bottom. I let out a tiny gasp when he gives it a good, firm squeeze. Immediately, I swipe his hand away.
“Don’t do that again,” I warn, annoyed by the charming grin on his face, and the fact that I still find it charming after what he just did. Jessie’s having a good old laugh as she trails behind us.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be pissed,” says Jay, trying to placate me. “We were talking about your ass, darlin’. I couldn’t myself.”
“He’s an arse man,” Jessie puts in, nodding her head in agreement.
I scowl at the both of them, but I can’t stay angry for too long.
A few minutes later we come into view of the meeting spot where Jay’s fans are waiting, and I have to keep my jaw from dropping. There’s at least a hundred people, maybe more. Jay sticks his finger in his mouth and lets out a loud whistle as we approach; heads turn in his direction, and they all start cheering. He climbs up onto the high wall surrounding a nearby business and gives them all a theatrical bow.
I stand off to the side with Jessie as she captures it on film. She’s not the only one, either. Half the kids here have their phones out, recording videos.
“Thanks for coming, everyone,” says Jay loudly from above. Funnily enough, the acoustics are pretty good, so he doesn’t have to shout to be heard. “Wanna see something cool?” he asks, taking out the die he’d had back in the office.
With it resting between his thumb and index finger, he flicks it dexterously up into the air. We all watch as it goes up and then comes back down, and I wish I hadn’t blinked, because somewhere on the way down one becomes two. The crowd claps loudly, whistles ringing out, while Jay takes the two dice and flicks them the same as before. They multiply again, becoming four, and he starts juggling them. They continue to multiply, moving in a circle through the air, his hands as quick as lightning. Soon he’s got about ten of them on the go, and I can’t figure out how he did it. I didn’t see him slip any out of his sleeves, or slide them from his p
ockets. They literally appeared out of thin air.
When he has too many to handle, he starts tossing them, one at a time, to random members of the crowd. Dozens of teenagers dive for them, eager to have a little keepsake from their favourite illusionist. Jay pulls out a deck of cards and begins doing an elaborate trick with a girl named Sarah who volunteered. She seems at once mortified and delighted to have been selected. Jay walks through the crowd, shuffling the cards and detailing what he’s going to do.
He’s close to the entrance of one of the businesses that surround the area, fronted by large glass sliding doors. The sliding doors open as three women in office attire leave the building. Jay is walking backward as he speaks, and steps just inside the glass doors. He’s still talking as they shut in front of him, and as the glass closes over his body, he vanishes. The doors open again as more workers come out, and he reappears, still going on with his spiel as though he didn’t just make himself disappear.
All around me the teenagers go crazy, clapping and cheering. A few men in suits come out of the building then, and Jay bumps into them by mistake. It all happens so quickly. He apologises, patting one of the men on the shoulder, and I don’t know how I catch it, but I think I see his other hand slip inside the man’s pocket for a split second. It’s all so fast that I can’t be sure it actually happened.
The men continue on their way, but something about the whole thing niggles at me. The man Jay patted on the shoulder looked familiar, and I have to wrack my brain to remember where I’ve seen him before. Then it hits me. He’s the same old guy Jay had been eyeing up in the casino that time, the one Jessie warned him to stop staring at.
What the hell is going on here?
When I look back at the building, a sudden feeling of unease comes over me as I recall the business it houses. No, not a business, but a publication. The Daily Post, to be exact.
I’d like to think that this is a coincidence, but the little I know of Jay would lead me to believe otherwise. He’s too clever to have overlooked this. Why on earth would he stage his gathering outside the place he wants to sue?
The cards he’s using today aren’t a regular deck of cards, but a deck of tarot cards. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a magic trick that involves tarot cards before. Sarah, the girl who volunteered, picks a card. Jay gives her a pen and instructs her to sign her name on the back of it, tear it up, and stick the pieces in her bag. She does so quickly.
“I’m going to guess your card, but I’m not going to tell you what it is,” says Jay. “I’m going to show you.”
There’s quiet among the gathering for a few short moments, the city sounds of people and traffic washing over us.
“Okay, the card is somewhere on the street. Can anybody spot it?”
They all get excited, running around trying to find the card, but I have a feeling it’s not a physical card they should be looking for. I peer about, trying to spot it, when Jessie elbows me and nods up at the newspaper building. There on a window on the fourth floor is the outline of a picture in what looks like red chalk.
Even though I’m clueless about tarot cards, I’d know this image anywhere. Anybody who works in law would recognise the symbol of Justice, sitting with a sword in her right hand and scales in her left.
Wow.
I’d been looking at the building closely earlier when I realised what it houses, and I definitely hadn’t seen this image on the window. My eyes would have been drawn to the colour; the red is too vibrant for it to have escaped my attention.
Finally, one of the teenagers spots it and starts shouting at everyone to look. Sarah puts her hand over her mouth in shock, not saying a word, while her friends all yell and squeal with excitement. Jay sits perched on the edge of the wall, smiling indulgently down at his fans, his chin resting on his palm. His eyes sparkle with glee as he soaks up their reactions, savouring the effect his trick has on them, the thrill it gives them. In his gaze I see him reliving a childhood that was taken away too soon, like he said to me that time in my garden.
“Was I right?” he asks Sarah. “Was Justice your card?”
All she can do is nod, words still failing her. As the crowd starts applauding him, several people shouting to know how he did it, the window on the fourth floor opens, and a woman sticks her head out.
She looks all around, probably trying to figure out where the image came from and how it managed to get on her window in the first place. Then she looks down and pauses for several moments, her eyes zoning in on Jay. Just as her expression turns angry, I recognise her. It’s Una Harris.
Fucking hell.
What does Jay think he’s doing? I mean, who puts Justice on the office window of the woman they’re planning to sue? I’ve always thought it dumb when characters in movies let their enemies know they’re gunning for them. It’s like, why give them the head start?
Harris retreats back inside her office, and I let out a long breath. Perhaps that will be the end of it, and she won’t react to Jay’s blatant taunt. Several minutes later, though, as Jay’s signing autographs for the crowd, she comes marching through the front door of the building, her arms crossed over her chest and a skinny man wearing a shirt and tie at her side.
“I want that mess cleaned from my window immediately,” she demands shrilly.
Jay casually cocks his head toward her, a momentary look of satisfaction on his face before he wipes his expression clean. He lifts his hand into the air, gesturing to the window. “Already done, Miss Harris.”
Harris turns on her heel and stares up to see that there’s a window cleaner sitting on a crane, scrubbing the image from the glass. Jessie and I both laugh. He really does think of everything.
“You think you’re so clever,” says Harris. “But if you don’t vacate the area right now, I’m calling the authorities.”
“This is a public meeting space, Una. Can I call you Una? Since you’ve gotten all up in my dirty laundry, I feel like we should be on first-name terms.”
“No, you may not call me anything,” Harris spits. “And I said you need to leave.”
“It’s not illegal for us to be here.”
“You’re causing a disruption, and you’ve put graffiti on my window.”
“And it’s being removed. Look, your window is all shiny and clean now. If anything, I’ve done you a favour.”
“This is harassment!”
Jay gives her an amused look. “Are you angry, Una? I can’t seem to tell. Your face doesn’t move all that much these days.”
The put-down about her penchant for Botox gets a laugh out of the crowd.
I think she’s finally realised she’s not going to win here, especially with all of Jay’s fans around. The man who came out with her tugs on her arm, quietly urging her to leave it alone.
“You won’t get away with this,” she fumes, and then links her arm through her companion’s before sashaying back inside.
Jay says something under his breath then, a dark expression on his face, but I can’t hear him. Once she’s gone, he continues signing for his fans. A couple of minutes into it, he pauses and scratches his head, seeking out Sarah again.
“Hey, Sarah. You know what — you never showed everyone your card to prove I got it right. I know I told you to tear it up, but can you show them the pieces?”
She rummages in the pocket of her bag where she shoved the ripped-up pieces, coming up empty.
“I…I can’t seem to find them,” she says, checking every pocket thoroughly.
Jay pulls something from his own pocket. “Wait a second, what’s this?” It’s a folded piece of paper. Jay unfolds it and smooths it out, then holds it up for everyone to see. It’s the tarot card for justice. He turns it over, and there on the back is Sarah’s signature.
“No way,” she breathes.
“Yes way.” Jay grins, handing her the card. “Is that your handwriting?”
“Yes,” she goes on, taking the card from him with a shaky hand. “How…ugh, I know you’
re not going to tell me, but this is just incredible. I tore this card up. I know I did.”
Lots of kids clamour forward with questions and more things to be signed. About half an hour passes before two Garda officers show up.
“You’re going to have to move along,” one of them calls to Jay over the heads of the fans surrounding him. “We received a complaint about the noise.”
“We’re just finishing up now,” Jay replies with a charming smile before turning to the crowd. “Okay, everybody, it’s time for me to go.” He takes the backpack he’d been wearing off his shoulder and pulls out a long black sheet. “But before I do, I need you all to back up so I can show you one last trick.” They all move out of the way so there’s a space of several feet around him. He’s standing on the wall again, and the Garda officers have stopped to watch. They look more interested in seeing what Jay’s going to do than in getting him to leave.
The long sheet is actually a cape, and with an over-the-top flourish, he swings it around his body. At one point it completely covers him, and then he’s gone. The cape drops to the ground. He just disappeared into thin air.
Seventeen
Jessie pans her camera over the crowd as they all applaud Jay’s big finish. Then she shuts it off.
“Okay, how the fuck?” I say, shaking my head in confusion. I seem to be doing that a lot these days.
Jessie laughs. “Out of everything he did today, that one was probably the simplest, and yet look at them all. I think some of them actually believe he really is magic.”
“Simple?! He just made himself disappear. There’s nothing simple about that.”
“Look at where he was standing, Matilda,” says Jessie, deadpan.
“He was standing on the wall.”
She gives me a glance like I’m slow. “Yeah, so he just did a bit of fancy messing around with the cape, obscuring himself enough so that he could drop to the other side. You don’t have to be a genius to figure that out.”
I slam my palm to my forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”
