The Whittier Trilogy

by Michael W. Layne

  The halibut had been a bit greasier than the other fish, but it had also been the best meal he had eaten during his stay in Alaska. Aside from the different species, sometimes the fish had been battered with beer and sometimes with ale, but in all cases the dish had been served with french fries—not potato chips.

  His opinion of the cruise immediately lowered. So much for promise number two…

  Despite his disappointment with lunch, he was impressed at least with their server.

  Alice (as her name tag claimed) was the tall, slim woman with long, straight blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, who had delivered his sub-par fish and chips. She was pretty in her own way, but she had an angular face with a nose that was just slightly too pointy, giving her an exaggerated look that kept her from being stunning.

  Her Australian accent, however, added to her attractiveness quite a bit.

  Trent appreciated and studied the different accents and vocal patterns of the world, and he particularly liked hers, although he was most interested professionally in stammers and stutters.

  To be specific, he was fascinated by people’s reactions to different accents and vocal peculiarities. For instance, he was constantly amused that, so long after the U.S. had declared itself independent from England, American films still portrayed bad guys as having British accents more often than not.

  And although people would not hesitate to ask someone with a sexy English accent about their country of origin, rarely would anyone question a stutterer about his affliction, as if that were too impolite a topic to discuss in public.

  He didn’t mind this phenomenon at all.

  At some of his more intimate shows, the audience members were so intent on whether or not he was going to be able to finish a given sentence, that his stutter helped misdirect them from the sleight of hand going on right in front of their faces.

  As Trent worked through his stutter to introduce himself to everyone at his table, he began to engage each of them in polite, casual conversation. Even as they were distracted by his manner of speech, he was clandestinely gleaning information and observing details about them that revealed clues about who they were and about their individual histories.

  The Asian man next to him was named Jonathan and was only part Japanese, judging from his facial structure and from a few micro-gestures that persevered despite being Americanized through-and-through. He even had a bit of a residual southern accent when he spoke, perhaps from North Carolina. Trent surmised this because of—among other things—the particular way Jonathan inserted the pseudo word y’all in the middle of otherwise perfectly well formed sentences.

  He also pegged Jonathan as a resident of Alaska instead of an out-of-state tourist for two reasons. First, Jonathan was the only one at the table comfortably wearing only a knit polo shirt and not huddled in a zipped-up jacket to defend against the frequent bursts of chilled air that invaded the cabin every time someone opened the door to the outside deck.

  Secondly, Jonathan looked like someone who was used to taking his time and drinking during the middle of the day during lunch. In fact, the man was already finishing his third beer in the same amount of time it had taken Trent to down his first. Drinking seemed to be an integral way of life to most people in Alaska, probably in reaction to the bitter winters, the fluctuating and extreme patterns of daylight and darkness, and for those who lived in places like Whittier or in even more remote locales, the isolation.

  From these small bits of information and leaps of logic, Trent went with his gut as he chomped on a potato chip and looked directly into Jonathan’s eyes.

  “I’m getting a message about you—you’re a long way from home. You were born somewhere b-b-beginning with the letter M? No. The letter N. North Carolina, I think?”

  Jonathan’s eyes lit up almost imperceptibly. A hit.

  “But you now call Alaska your home and work for…I’d say, the local government. Maybe somewhere like the department of transportation. Definitely a public servant somehow. Also one of your parents…your mmm-mother, is Japanese and you are the first generation born in the United States. Is any of that correct?”

  Jonathan nodded and laughed so loudly that, at first, it hurt Trent’s ears. The man was thoroughly amused and started asking how Trent had done it. Trent’s only answer was to turn to the older woman at the table, Helena.

  Helena sat across from Jonathan. She had a sadness in her eyes that clearly told him that her days of enjoying life were quickly coming to a close. He could have deduced many things about her, but he decided that there was no reason to put the aging woman through the torment of one of his accurate readings.

  He turned instead to Helena’s granddaughter, Jess, who did not share the older woman’s melancholy.

  Jess had been friendly enough during lunch to both Jonathan and Trent, even when Jonathan had started giving out loud, and only occasionally accurate, advice about anything and everything—the increasing volume of SUVs on the state highways, what really to do in case of a bear attack, and the best dog treats made from discarded chunks of salmon, among other things.

  Through all of that, Trent had catalogued everything about the young Jess that he could.

  She was a beefy but pretty girl from what he could see beneath her puffy ski jacket. She had a natural smile and a twinkle in her eye, but the coat she never removed and the grey beanie hat pulled down to just above her eyes did a good job of obscuring any femininity she might have possessed. The dirt under her fingernails and the de-sexualizing effect of her baggy clothes made him think that she probably had a job traditionally held by a male, maybe that of a mechanic. But the tattoo of a star on her left hand looked blurry and home-done, like the kind one would receive in a gang or in prison. And he was fairly certain that she was not an ex-con.

  He knew Jess was from Texas already because of her accent and because of the Dallas Cowboys key ring he had spied when she had opened her purse earlier. She was right handed, and her right ear was very red, much more so than her left ear. Her ring finger still showed remnants of a tan line, but not much of one, since she had a fairly pale complexion overall. And lastly, since she was here with her grandmother, Trent knew that, statistically, there was a better than even chance that her parents were either not alive or that she was not close with them.

  Trent pointed to the young woman as if suddenly hit by an unseen force.

  “Here are three things about you that I was just told by a very friendly p-p-passing spirit. One. You work as a prison guard or something similar to that in a correctional facility. Two. You mmm-miss your mother very much and wish she were still with you. And three. You were on the phone earlier today. And not just for a few minutes, but for more than an hour. With someone in the United States. Not just any place in the United States, but somewhere very far away. Texas. And you weren’t on the phone with just anyone in Texas. You were talking with either a current or a past romantic interest.”

  Trent smiled and sipped his beer.

  Both Jess and her grandmother stared at him like he was an alien. Jess tried to close her ski jacket even tighter about her at first, but then seemed to relax, as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders.

  She finally smiled and shook her head.

  “How the heck did you know all that?” she said, in her best Texas drawl. “And don’t tell me it was the spirits…”

  Trent started laughing.

  “Guilty. No spirits. Just simple logic and deduction—fading arts in today’s world it seems. But I don’t know everything about you yet. And I’ve never mmm-met a prison guard. You must have some great stories to share.”

  With that simple opening, Jess started talking as if she had known everyone at the table all her life.

  Strangely enough, as she related a few stories about her inmates, her otherwise sweet voice turned street-savvy, sarcastic, and even a little sadistic at times.

  During one of her accounts, she went on at length about a female inmate who had disrespected
her.

  In retaliation, Jess had dished out revenge in small helpings whenever and wherever she found the chance. She had given the prisoner’s dessert away to other inmates for a week, had returned a book to the library before the prisoner could finish reading it, and had denied the woman laundry service.

  “She had to learn some manners,” Jess said before reaching her pudgy hand into her grandmother’s bag of chips.

  Trent watched as she casually stuffed her face and reminded himself that appearances were often incongruent with what was really inside someone. For instance, the kind-looking Jess was anything but sweet, whereas the people he had met so far who lived in the harsh town of Whittier had been nothing but friendly and welcoming.

  Alice, for example, kept returning to their table to ask how they were doing, despite being harangued non-stop by a dozen or more guests with various requests and demands for more food. Through it all, she kept her calm and her sense of humor and was always pleasant.

  And then there was Christina, who was more than a pleasure to speak with, exuded kindness, and, at least from his initial impressions, was mentally stable.

  He had no idea how the residents of Whittier maintained their sanity and their cheery dispositions, but he hoped to find out more when he had his drink with Christina later.

  All four of them at the table talked over the next two hours as the ship moved steadily toward the first of the glaciers scheduled on their trip. After the lunch plates were cleared, Jonathan and Trent made their way to the bar to gather another round of drinks for themselves and for Jess.

  They returned with the drinks and made a toast to Alaska just as the ship began to slow.

  The Captain made an announcement over the intercom, asking if anyone on board was a doctor or had any medical training, since one of the passengers had fallen and broken her foot. Trent assumed that no one on board had responded to the Captain’s call, because within a few minutes, the ship started turning around.

  The next announcement from the Captain explained that the cruise was being cut short before reaching the first glacier on the tour in order to get the fallen woman back to land and to the proper emergency personnel.

  It wasn’t often that most people found themselves on a tour boat in Alaska, only minutes away from seeing the splendor of bluer-than-blue icebergs and a slowly sliding glacier slab. But because of a single misstep from this woman, everyone’s once-in-a-lifetime experience was being ruined.

  Even quiet Helena seemed annoyed by this.

  After ten minutes of maneuvering, the ship headed back to Whittier. Trent ate again, scoring an extra lunch from Alice and downed a couple more beers.

  He was more than relaxed and ready to try out what he called some of his up-close magic on his tablemates. He rehearsed in his head what he would say and how he would say it, and within seconds, he was prepared and ready to go.

  The rapport he had built with his three new friends would go a long way to their being more trusting of and susceptible to his suggestions. Also, Jonathan and Jess had been drinking, which made them both more vulnerable to misdirection and to his ideas in general.

  In short, his audience was primed.

  Trent looked for a natural opening in the conversation and was given the perfect opportunity when Jess asked him what he did for a living.

  In turn, he looked each of them square in the eyes before announcing that he was a mentalist. Before they could say much of anything other than ask him to clarify what he had just said, he went on to tell them that his parents were both gypsies and were, in fact, leaders of one of the largest clans in Romania.

  “Gypsies?” Jonathan said, laughing. “Like in the movies? Did you grow up in one of those fancy covered wagons? Does your mom do the evil eye?”

  “Only when one of her sons does something rrr-really rrr-otten,” Trent said. “Would you like to see a trick she taught me as a boy?”

  “Did you say you were a magician?” Jess asked, her face revealing a slight scowl. She was used to people trying to con her and was suddenly on her guard.

  “A magician does parlor tricks. A m-mentalist reads people and their minds and draws on the power of his own mind and the spirits around him.”

  Trent leaned forward across the table and lowered his voice.

  “And I can already tell there are a lot of spirits on this ship, so this trick should work extra well today.”

  Helena looked around with just her eyes like she didn’t want anyone to see her searching for any sign of ghosts. She may not have been drinking alcohol, but she was still a believer.

  “If you’re not a magician, then why are you going to do a trick?” Jonathan said.

  “You are…very observant,” Trent said, flashing a huge smile as a way of rewarding Jonathan for his insight. “First off, because of the amount of paranormal energy on this boat, I wouldn’t want to risk doing anything too supernatural without the proper preparations.”

  The lines in Jess’s face deepened.

  “And because it is still daylight and because I’m in a jovial mood on vacation, I am offering to show you a few tricks that lesser mmm-magicians sometimes perform to help us pass the time on our way back to port.”

  The three of them looked at each other and then at Trent and nodded their heads. Before they knew what was happening, he had pulled out a deck of cards from somewhere in his suit, shuffled the deck a few times, and then slapped it facedown on the table.

  “Now listen very carefully to me. Very carefully. I need s-s-someone, you, Jess, to please pick up the deck and select any card. Any card at all. I’m going to turn away. Don’t let me see it. Then I want you to take this m-m-marker pen, and sign the face of the card. Then just hold onto your card, but don’t let me see it.”

  With that, Trent rolled a marker toward Jess and turned away. When she said that she was ready, he turned back around. He picked up the deck and spread the cards out face down in his hands.

  “Please p-place the card back in the deck, anywhere.”

  Jess did as she was asked, and Trent noted the new position of her card. He cut the deck several times and even offered it to her to cut once. Most people thought that cutting the deck was the same as shuffling, but Trent knew that he could cut the cards forever, and it would never change the relative position of the card in the deck.

  After Jess was satisfied that the deck had been thoroughly rearranged, he spread out the cards face down into a fan and looked up at her.

  “Do not say anything out loud. Do not say the name of your card. Picture the card in your mind and focus on the image of your card.”

  He pretended to go through the deck, like he was homing in on the correct card. He triumphantly turned over a card that he knew to be the wrong one—the Queen of Clubs. While the table made a collected sound of disappointment, Trent tried to look upset as he palmed the correct card in his left hand, unseen.

  “You are sh-sh-sure that is not your card?” he said. “There must be something wrong. Maybe you weren’t thinking hard enough about it. Let’s t-t-t-try one more thing. Let me just tear off the corner off this card first, though…”

  Still holding the deck, he picked up the Queen of Clubs and held it face down in his hand. Jonathan, Helena, and Jess watched as he ripped the corner off of the Queen of Clubs ever so slowly. They had no idea that he was being so meticulous because he was actually tearing the corner off of two cards at once. After the corner was completely detached, he slapped what the three of them thought to be the Queen of Clubs with its ripped corner face down on the table. The impact of his hand on the table made all three of them jump slightly and caused a few heads to turn his way from the other tables.

  “Now that I’ve taught it a little bit of a lesson for being the wrong card, please flip it over again,” Trent said to Jess.

  Jess hesitantly reached out to the card while staring into Trent’s eyes.

  For some reason, people always looked at his eyes when they did this part.

&
nbsp; When she turned the card over, she and her mom and even Jonathan were confused and a bit in awe. There in front of them was the card Jess had chosen with her signature scrawled across it and with its left corner torn off.

  Even though card tricks weren’t usually a part of his stage routine, he still enjoyed performing bits like this where everything was close-up and just the smallest mistake could result in failure. Sleight of hand was easy from a distance, but it was much more difficult when surrounded by people in a closed environment. He was satisfied that his dexterity and card handling skills were continually improving. Five years ago, he never would have dared such a complex little piece, especially not in the middle of the day on a tour boat.

  “How’d you do that?” Jonathan cried.

  “That was very entertaining,” Helena said.

  Meanwhile, Jess just sat there looking truly stupefied at her own signature on the card, even as all three of them applauded. From her face, he could tell that she was not only impressed, but she was also a little afraid, wondering if she had indeed witnessed real magic.

  Jess was the kind of audience member that Trent lived for—the kind that couldn’t help but believe, even when she knew she shouldn’t.

  Trent slapped the table again.

  “So, who’s b-buying my next drink?”

  Something about performing made him crave alcohol. Jonathan offered to get him the drink of his choice, and Trent chose a shot of Jägermeister as he excused himself to go to the bathroom.

  As soon as he got up, their server, Alice, approached him.

  “You’re not taking anyone’s money are you?”

  “I’m not asking anyone for money,” he said, “but I’m not stopping them from buying me a couple of drinks while I try to ease the boredom of the trip—seeing as how we don’t have any glaciers to look at…”

  “Every once in a while, we get folks up here who like to pretend they can see and hear some of our ghosts,” she said. “One gentleman last year really spooked one of the customers when the engine stopped in the middle of one of his ghost stories. Turned out there was a leak in the fuel line, but the man blamed it on the ghosts anyway. And some of the people believed him. We don’t need the reputation of being a haunted ship, especially considering the town’s reputation as it is.”