Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

  That was exactly what I was hoping she’d say. Always ask the locals about the good stories. I tried to look skeptical. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “Where to start. You know the good stuff never gets the publicity, right?”

  “And why is that?”

  “Who’d believe it?”

  “Oh. I’d believe it.”

  She crouched down by the edge of the stage and started counting off on her fingers. “First off, this town is filled with vampires. Absolutely crawling with them. This place is perfect for them—nothing ever shuts down, right?”

  “How do you know they’re vampires?”

  “Even before the NIH outed all you guys, I called those creeps vampires. They hang around in bars looking for all the depressed and beaten-down people who’ve lost all their money. Easy pickings. There’s nothing else to explain why people that sexy would hit on such losers.”

  “I’m intrigued. I’ll check it out.” And maybe they could help me get Rick’s message to Dom.

  “Second, you know anything about the history of Vegas? How it got to be the way it is?”

  “A little. All about the Mob and Frank Sinatra, right?”

  “Bugsy Siegel built the Flamingo, one of the first big casinos. The latest version of it is still right here on the Strip. But he was also up to his neck in the Mob, and he pissed off the wrong guys. So bang, they kill him. And the story is he’s still here, haunting the garden at the Flamingo.” She raised a suggestive brow.

  “That’s so cool,” I said. Spooky, even. I could imagine a slick gangster in a fedora lingering under the palm trees. “You ever see him yourself?”

  “No. But I have a friend who’s a dealer over there, and she’s got a couple of stories.”

  “I might have to get her number from you.”

  “Then there’s this magic act over at the Diablo. Really straightforward, the usual stuff. Card tricks, people vanishing, that sort of thing.”

  The hair on my neck started to stand up, because my instincts had already guessed what she was going to say. “And?” I prompted.

  “Some people say when he does those tricks, it’s real. Not sleight of hand—the things actually happen.”

  Once upon a time, I would have laughed. I’d have written off a story like that as sensationalist bunk. This magician started these rumors about himself as a way to attract publicity. Then five years ago, I was attacked by a werewolf and infected with lycanthropy. I’d had to acknowledge a lot of unlikely realities: vampires, werewolves, psychics. And magic. Exploring these topics had become the bread and butter of my show.

  “You’ve seen his act?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said in a way that made it clear that she was one of those people who might actually believe.

  “Why do people think he’s really doing magic?”

  “Just go see him. You could probably catch the afternoon show.”

  “Okay. I’ll check it out.”

  She looked back at her clipboard and the endless checklist. “We need you to pick what furniture you want. We brought in a couple of chairs and sofas. But you’re from radio—do you even have a style?”

  “Maybe it’s about time I find one.”

  I made a few phone calls. First, Ben. He answered this time.

  “Hey, Kitty,” he said, a little breathlessly. “I can’t talk long, but I got your message.”

  “And should I be worried?” I said.

  “I don’t think so. She was probably just sizing you up. If she were really after you, you wouldn’t have seen her at all.”

  “Why isn’t that entirely comforting?”

  “Oh—the break’s up. Listen—I’m in a satellite game for this tourney and I think I may actually be winning. But I have to go.”

  So he probably didn’t want to come see a magic show with me. But he sounded excited. And hey—winning. That was good, right?

  “Can I at least make dinner reservations?” I said.

  “Sure. I’ll see you then.”

  My next call was to make those reservations, and the call after that was to the Diablo, to see if this show still had tickets left, and it did. I took a cab over there.

  The Diablo’s theme seemed to evoke the seedy underbelly of a Mexican resort town. All polished and made nice for the tourists, of course, so no drug pushers or out-of-control spring breakers. I did spot a few girls going wild. The cocktail waitresses wore leopard-print skirts. The rest of it was almost carnival-like, lots of reds, lots of lights, lots of garish. And like every other casino, too much noise, too many people. I couldn’t even smell anything anymore.

  Odysseus Grant didn’t bill himself as a magician who really worked magic. That would have made him sound like every other magician who’d ever pulled a rabbit out of his hat over the last hundred years. All of them were “real,” inviting their audiences to guess how else they could evoke such impossible illusions.

  Instead, Grant advertised himself as “classic.” Retro, even. No sequined purple leisure suit for him. No rock soundtrack, no fireworks, no making 747s disappear, no ultra-high-tech stunts. His show’s poster, hanging in the lobby of the Diablo, displayed a photograph of a man in his late thirties, dressed in an elegant tuxedo. He held a deck of cards fanned in his hands. A serious expression creased his face, as if he was saving the world and not performing a card trick. He might as well have stepped out of a vaudeville broadsheet.

  I was intrigued. I’d see the show, then try to talk to him after.

  Even the theater was retro: red plush seats lined up in rows before a proscenium stage, thick red curtains hanging on either side. Blue-and-gold-painted art deco trim and light fixtures decorated the side walls. The effect was warm and enticing; I felt like I was being drawn into another world and was ready to watch with wide-eyed wonder.

  I didn’t think I’d be able to tell if Odysseus Grant’s magic was real or not. I knew vaguely how some of the tricks worked: sleight of hand, mirrors, hidden pockets, fake thumbs. But I didn’t obsess over it. I hadn’t studied it. Usually, I was perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief and let the illusions work on me. This time, I planned to watch Grant, study him, to see if I could tell. Make sure I was looking where he didn’t want me to, to spot the palmed cards. If I couldn’t, though, I was right back where I started: just because it looked like magic didn’t mean it was.

  Being a werewolf gave me some advantages: heightened smell, hearing, speed, strength. I could walk into a crowded bar with my eyes closed and tell if a friend of mine was there. But I couldn’t tell real magic from a trick. I wasn’t psychic, telepathic, or clairvoyant. I couldn’t read auras or ley lines. I was just a big scary monster. Well, I was sort of a monster trapped in an average blond female body.

  But the thing about Grant’s show: I could tell. As soon as he walked onstage, something happened. A charge lit the air, a crackle of anticipation. It wasn’t just me—a few people around me shifted to the edges of their seats, leaning forward, eyes wide, unwilling to miss a second. The air felt magic. But then, maybe even that was an illusion: create an atmosphere in which your audience felt like they’d been removed from space and time, make them feel like what happened before them was otherworldly, and of course they’d believe it was magic. They’d tell all their friends, and Odysseus Grant would have a full house every show.

  Just wearing the perfectly tailored tuxedo and top hat gave Grant an air of authority. He was well dressed, so of course he must be a magician. It was all illusion. I had to keep reminding myself that. He moved to the center of the stage. He didn’t speak but looked out at his audience and asked with a raised eyebrow—you see? Here, nothing up my sleeve, yes? He didn’t have to say anything, because anyone who’d seen a magic show, or even their Uncle Bob at their eighth birthday party, had heard all these questions before. Grant used our prior experience, like he was saying let’s cut through the chatter and get to the illusions.

  He held three silver rings, each a foot in diameter. Again, this was a
familiar trick. The rings were solid. He banged them together, making them ring, showing us. Then the third time he hit them, bang, they slipped through each other and became intertwined. He spent only a minute showing us this. It was an old trick, and he knew it. Why waste time.

  Then he did the impossible. When the rings were separate again, he started one spinning on his hand, like a coin on the surface of a table. Okay, that was cool. Then, somehow, he started a second one spinning on top of the first. I wasn’t even sure what I was seeing at first. I had to squint, studying it. He held his left hand perfectly flat, about waist level, with the ring still spinning—not slowing down, not wobbling at all. A second later another ring was spinning on top of it, at a different speed. The two rings together made a chiming sound, strange and pleasant. Then he set a third one spinning on top of those.

  The image, those spinning silver rings balanced perfectly on his hand, was simple but disconcerting. There was probably an easy explanation, even if I couldn’t figure out what it was. But goose bumps covered my arms. I gripped the edges of my seat. I couldn’t even blink. It was like looking through a doorway into another world. I could almost see something inside those spinning rings. He had worlds balanced on his hand. A voice whispered from my hindbrain, This is real. Part of me wanted to run away. Because if this was real, it also meant this was dangerous. Wolf kicked a little, prompted by the instinct to run. I told myself this wasn’t really dangerous. It was stagecraft, that was all.

  With a gesture, he presented the image, his singing spheres, to the audience. Everyone cheered because it was marvelous and beautiful. With a quick toss of his hand, the rings jumped into the air, separated, and fell. Effortlessly he grabbed them, juggled them a moment, then bowed.

  A dozen other tricks followed, simple, old-fashioned, yet still magical. Scarves pulled from thin air, floating tables, canaries from sleeves, all of them performed with simple panache. He cracked an egg into a pitcher. With a wooden spoon, he gave it a few stirs. After setting the spoon aside, he covered the pitcher with a silk scarf—just for a moment—then drew it aside. Inside the pitcher now was a live, cheeping chick. The audience aahed with appreciation.

  Then came the box. The one that beautiful stage assistants disappeared inside with the wave of a magic wand. This one, like the rest of the show, came from another age. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out the box really was an antique from an old 1920s magic show. Painted matte black, it had Egyptian hieroglyphs scattered among tangles of vines and flowers painted along the edges. It was tall and narrow, just large enough for a person to stand inside. The wheels—I assumed there were wheels—were hidden.

  He didn’t have an assistant. He turned the box around himself, showing off the artwork on all four sides, proving that there were no hidden compartments, mirrors, or other tricks aiding the illusion. Then he called for a volunteer from the audience.

  I could be forgiven for assuming the volunteer was a plant. She was too stereotypical to be real: a housewife type in a floral shirt and pastel-colored slacks, permed and dyed hair, too much makeup, and a wide smile. On vacation from the Midwest with her midlevel bureaucrat husband. She hurried to the stairs leading up to the stage, blushing and twittering. Grant assisted her, offering his hand and bowing in old-school gentlemanly fashion. This made the volunteer twitter even more. He asked for her name.

  “Mary,” she said, hand to her cheek, as if she could still her blushing.

  “Mary. Thank you for helping me this evening. Now, you agree that this is an ordinary box?” He led her to examine the box up close.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say ordinary. It’s much too nice for that.”

  “But you agree that it hasn’t been tampered with in any way?”

  “It looks normal.”

  Grant opened the front of the box, revealing the black, featureless interior. “Mary, would you mind stepping inside? I assure you it’s perfectly safe.”

  Mary giggled, moving into the box as she’d been asked.

  He stood in place and turned the box. In the absence of big music and flashy lighting effects, I could hear the box’s wheels scratching on the stage’s wooden surface. Then he stopped the cabinet, steadied it, and opened the door. The box was empty.

  Like many of his tricks, this was familiar. I expected the box to be empty. Still, the effect of seeing that empty space was eerie. Grant stepped into the box to prove that it was empty, that it wasn’t a trick of mirrors. Strangely, that made me even more nervous. In spite of myself I wanted to know, where is she? Where’d she go?

  Grant stepped to the edge of the stage. “Where is Mary’s husband? Sir, would you like me to bring your wife back?” Soft laughter—nervous laughter—rippled through the audience. I couldn’t see the man, but presumably he nodded yes. Grant smiled. “One of these days a husband is going to say no. Then where will I be?”

  Again he turned the box, opened the door, and there stood Mary, wide-eyed and a little breathless.

  Grant asked, “Madam, are you well?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “And how was it?”

  “It—it was very dark in there.” She looked over her shoulder at the inside of the cabinet. Was that a little bit of fear in her eyes?

  That, more than anything, made the illusion a success. Any magician could make someone in a cabinet disappear. But I had never seen the disappearee look at the prop afterward with trepidation. What had happened?

  Grant sent her back to the audience, which showered applause over him. He accepted it gracefully, with a thin smile and short bow. Then he left the stage, and the curtain closed.

  I sat in the theater for a long time, staring at that closed curtain, wondering what it was I had just seen. A magic show, yes. But that wasn’t all. Couldn’t have been all.

  Only one thing for it: I sneaked backstage.

  Chapter 5

  I’d been to enough concerts with enough backstage passes that I knew some tricks. First: act like you belong. If you walk with purpose and disguise the fact that you don’t know where the hell you’re going, most of the underlings won’t stop you. That would take a bouncer or stage manager. Second: most theaters had the same basic layout. The house, the stage, the rigging, the booth, and somewhere in back were dressing rooms and storage areas. Follow your instincts, poke your nose in enough rooms, eventually you’d find something interesting. The hard part was usually finding an unlocked, accessible door to the backstage area in the first place.

  In the lobby area between the theater and the casino, an emergency exit toward the back looked promising. I checked for alarms, hoped for the best, and opened the door. On the other side was a concrete hallway, functional and unattractive. Wiring and vents were exposed. Directly opposite me was another door marked EMERGENCY. It probably led to the outside. To my right, however, the hallway led back to the direction of the theater. Bingo.

  The place was mostly dark, lit by a few unobtrusive work lights. Boxes, chairs, lighting and microphone stands, and other theatrical detritus lined the walls, shoved here to be out of the way. I followed my nose, strained my ears listening for human sounds: movement, voices. I didn’t hear anything. The place smelled musty and a little ripe—thirty years of performers working and sweating here had seeped into the walls. I found a door marked STAGE. It was locked. I continued down the hall looking for another way in, to get a closer look at Grant and his gear.

  The Wolf side didn’t like this at all. The hallway seemed too narrow. It was crammed with stuff, scaffolds, wiring, larger vents trailing along the ceiling, an optical illusion making me claustrophobic.

  I heard something then, like a box dropped on a hollow floor. Freezing, motionless, I waited for the next noise to tell me what was happening and heard movement, shifting, someone walking on the stage, maybe. When I turned, the direction the sound came from seemed to change. Carefully, I continued on, and the sound seemed less human. More like mice scritching behind the walls of an old house. The muscles in
my shoulders started to bunch up, like hackles rising.

  Maybe this place was haunted. Every old theater had a ghost, right? Nothing to be afraid of. Actually, I didn’t know enough about ghosts to know whether to be afraid of them or not. I tried to breathe slower. Had to keep it together.

  Ahead, another doorway—double doors, with long metal push-in handles—stood open. It seemed to be lighter beyond. Maybe this was where the dressing rooms were. I continued, expecting to find another hallway lined with doorways. Maybe one would be helpfully labeled with a nameplate reading “Odysseus Grant.”

  Instead, I found a workshop. Industrial power tools stood on islands, their electric cords attached to overhead sockets. Other industrial equipment, like a stage-sized cherry picker, lined the edges. Above, an extension cord was swinging from a socket, like someone had just been here. I definitely heard footsteps now. They sounded distant, as if someone had followed me through the first set of emergency doors. They walked steadily but unhurried, growing louder.

  I clenched my hands, feeling the claws lurking inside me. Get the hell out of here, Wolf was whining. Growling. I couldn’t go back, though. Had to go forward. I raced through another set of double doors at the end of the workshop.

  And ended up on an outdoor loading dock, behind the theater. The door clicked shut behind me, and I rattled the handle. Locked. A cool evening breeze blew in from the desert. The place smelled like asphalt and truck exhaust. Perfectly normal. The tension started to drain out of me, and I felt stupid. So much for that adventure.

  As I walked back around to the front of the hotel, admiring the plain, grubby exterior of the building’s backside and the glimpse of stark, empty desert beyond the streets behind it, I did what a sane, normal person would have done right from the start: I called the theater box office and asked if it would be possible to pass a message to Odysseus Grant. In minutes I managed to contact the press office and request an interview.