Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

  Natural lions were big, heavy, something like four hundred pounds. Balthasar’s hand should have disappeared in that mouth. It didn’t. The lion had to stretch its mouth to fit over it. Balthasar could have slung the body over his shoulders. And the leopards were about the same size as the lions. But if I hadn’t been looking closely, I might not have noticed. I could still write it off to a bad Photoshop job.

  The clerk waited for my questions.

  “What’s the show like? It looks like the usual circus tricks.”

  “Oh, no, it’s much more than that.” Her eyes grew wide and admiring. “Trust me, you’ve never seen anything like this. The tricks those animals do—they’re complex. Really difficult stuff. It’s like they listen to him. I don’t mean hand signals or the usual training. It’s like they’re really talking to each other.”

  “Are they on display? Sometimes with shows like this, you can see the animals during the day, in their habitats.”

  She shook her head. “The show takes a lot out of them, so Balthasar insists on letting them rest.”

  “What about Balthasar? What’s he like?”

  This woman’s face was so expressive. This time, she rolled her eyes and melted into an ecstatic smile of admiration. “He’s so amazing. He’s gorgeous. You don’t realize it until he’s standing right there, but oh, my God. We have people who keep coming to the show over and over again just to see him.”

  “Does he give interviews? My name is Kitty Norville, and I host a radio show. I’m always looking for interesting stories, and this might be right up my alley—”

  Her expression shut down, becoming that of a professional gatekeeper. A loyal gatekeeper who would protect her employer to the end. “I’d have to forward you to the press office for that. But really, Balthasar is far too busy and private a person to be able to talk to you.”

  “Private? He’s the front man for a Vegas stage show,” I said. “I can get him some great publicity—”

  “I’m sorry, I really can’t help you. Call the press office.”

  I recognized a brick wall when I saw one. I pulled out a business card and set it on the counter. “Maybe you can give this to the stage manager or someone who can pass it along to him. I really do hope to catch the show this weekend.”

  She looked at the card distastefully but took it. The card had the KNOB logo on it, so at least she knew I was telling the truth. Not that I’d bet that the card would actually get to Balthasar. That was okay. There was always more than one way to skin a cat. Whatever the cat.

  I joined Ben by the theater doors and lingered, taking in slow breaths to smell every piece of the place.

  The area was public, well traveled. Under the odor of carpet cleaner I smelled people, lingering perfume and aftershave, hundreds of warm bodies passing through these doors, and under it all lurked a musky feline scent. Feline, but different. Distinctive, including both fur and skin.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Ben said. “This is making me nervous.”

  We didn’t speak until we were back outside, on the sun-baked pavement and in the fuel-tainted air. I took a deep breath of it and smiled. After the close environment of the Hanging Gardens, even the crowded, traffic-filled Strip felt like wide-open territory. We walked back to the Olympus.

  “I’m not sure I want to see their show,” Ben said, after taking a deep breath right along with me. “It would just be weird.”

  “And nobody knows about it. They’ve kept it secret. Of course Dom knows—but wow. What a story.” But I wouldn’t be the one to break it unless Balthasar wanted me to. I had too much respect for the kind of effort it took to keep any lycanthropic identity hidden to blow it for someone else. Kind of like my identity was blown. But that was why I really wanted to talk to Balthasar, to find out how this had started, why they did this—and how.

  My face pursed with concentration. “I wonder. . .”

  “Hm?”

  “Does the group of them work like a pack? If Balthasar’s also a lycanthrope”—and with that look in his eyes, even in the picture, I was betting he was—“is he the alpha? And if both those things are true, do you think the performers are there voluntarily? Or are they being coerced?”

  “How? Like someone’s holding a gun to their heads or something?”

  “We’ve seen what a dysfunctional pack of lycanthropes can do. If the alpha’s got them cowed, yeah, they might not want to do this. I just can’t imagine a lycanthrope shape-shifting and performing like that voluntarily.”

  We walked another half block, dodging a crowd of what had to be a bachelor party. Young men, loud, cans of beer in hand. The group swarmed around one guy in the center; they might have been egging him on, or dragging him with them. He looked a little spaced out. Ben and I moved as far to the edge of the sidewalk as we could, and they surged past, like a pack on the prowl.

  Ben said, “If all that’s true, what are you going to do about it? Mount a liberation?”

  “That’s why I want to talk to Balthasar and get the whole story. Then—I don’t know.” But yeah, depending on how the interview went, I might just have to mount a liberation.

  Chapter 8

  I took a cab to the Diablo for my meeting with Odysseus Grant. By myself this time. Ben wanted to spend some time playing poker this afternoon. “Practicing,” he said, for the tournament tomorrow. I’d promised I wouldn’t nag him about how he spent his free time while I was doing work for the show, so I didn’t nag him. But I did remind him about dinner with my parents this evening.

  I’d been instructed to ask for Odysseus Grant at the box office at the Diablo theater. The clerk there directed me to theater door. “He’s onstage, practicing. Go right in.”

  It was somehow less exciting sneaking around a theater when I’d been invited.

  The empty theater seemed larger and lonelier than it had yesterday. All the lights were on and the curtains were open, making the stage seem like a gaping warehouse instead of the setting for a show. I could see the tape marking out spots on the floor, as well as the scrapes and scuffs that marred it. Catwalks and hanging stage lights were also visible. A few of the show’s larger props sat toward the back of the stage, looking lost under the bright lights. Less mysterious.

  In the middle of the stage, next to a small folding table, stood Odysseus Grant. A few props sat on the table: a top hat, a glass of water, what looked like scarves, and a folded newspaper. Grant, wearing a button-up white shirt, open at the collar, sleeves rolled up, and dark trousers, was shuffling cards, rotating through a number of tricks so quickly his hands blurred. He pulled one out, showed it to the empty seats, shuffled, drew out the same card again. And again, and again. He shuffled a different way every time. At one point he winced, shook his head a fraction, and did the same trick again. And again. I hadn’t seen anything wrong with what he’d done.

  I made my way to the stage stairs. “Mr. Grant? I’m Kitty Norville. Thanks for agreeing to talk with me.”

  He gave the deck one last spin—almost literally, launching the cards into the air with one hand so that they fanned in the air and landed neatly in his other hand. An old, familiar trick, but I’d never seen it done in person. The cards whispered through the air.

  “Yes. I know who you are.” He glanced at me sideways with icy blue eyes.

  “The woman up front told me you were practicing. You do this every night, I’d have thought that would be enough practice.”

  “No. You never stop practicing. You always have to find new tricks, stay at the top of your game. Otherwise you become obsolete.” He set the cards down, then twisted his hand to produce a coin. Then another, and another. “I’m afraid I only have a few moments. What would you like to talk about?”

  “Rumor has it your magic is real.”

  He kept going through tricks, plucking coins and scarves out of the air, shoving them all into the hat, pulling out a second glass of water.

  “You don’t mince words, do you? Straight to the point.”
>
  “That’s me,” I said.

  “It’s a useful rumor. Especially recently. I suppose I have you to thank for that. People are willing to believe lots of things these days.”

  “Is it? Real, I mean.”

  He gave a smile that made his craggy face light up with mischief. “You’ve been watching me for five minutes now. What do you think?”

  Hey, I was supposed to be the one asking questions. I moved on. “You might have heard I’m doing a televised version of my show tonight. Stage, audience, everything. I wondered if you’d like to come on, do a few tricks for the audience, talk about your act. It would be great publicity for you. I have a pretty big audience who would love to see what you can do.”

  He was already shaking his head. “I don’t need publicity. This may come as a shock, but I don’t aspire to great fame and success. I have my little show, my little talents. It’s all I need.” He turned a formerly empty hand to show four silver dollars stuck between the fingers.

  “Then maybe you’ll do it because I asked nicely? Please?” I could wear down almost everyone eventually.

  “I’m willing to talk to you for a few minutes, not appear on your show. Those few minutes are almost up.”

  Okay, fine. File this one under future projects.

  I smiled, conceding the point. “Right. Your show’s pretty retro. The tux, the rabbit in the hat, the old-school tricks. Some of your equipment even looks antique.” I nodded to the box of disappearing, with its art-deco stylings.

  “A lot of it is antique,” Grant said, still guarded. Mysterious—was it part of the act, or just him? “I inherited it from an old vaudeville magician. He lived in the neighborhood where I grew up in Rhode Island. He used to tell all sorts of stories to the kids. But I listened the best, so he taught his tricks to me. When he passed away, he was ancient, over a hundred, I think. I was eighteen, and he left me the keys to a storage unit. It held all his equipment and props, his books, notes, everything. I suppose I felt I’d been left his legacy, as well. If I was going to do tricks on the stage, I wanted to do it in a way he’d approve of.”

  I wandered around, growing brave when he didn’t stop me. There was the box where he sawed his own leg off, then put it back on. The levitating chair—I looked for wires and didn’t see any.

  “How do you keep people from writing you off as a nostalgia act?”

  “That’s just it. Many so-called magicians these days use so many special effects, pyrotechnics, and stagecraft, or they appear more on television than not. The audience is so dazzled and distracted, they start to think of it all as special effects. Many of the people who come to see my show have never seen the classic tricks in person. Those are the people who wonder how I do it, without all the stunning effects.”

  “Sleight of hand, sleight of mind?”

  “Something like that. So much of this is in the mind. Optical illusion and tricks of perception.”

  “Then leaving aside the question of whether or not you work real magic in your show—do you believe in real magic?”

  He folded his pack of cards in a silk handkerchief and tucked the bundle in the pocket of his trousers. “What kind?”

  “What kinds are there?”

  “A couple. There’s wild magic, anything you might observe that seems to break the laws of physics. Things disappearing and reappearing. Sawing something in half and restoring it. Then there’s magic that requires ritual: ceremony, spells, the right tools, the right chants. For example, let’s say Jesus Christ turning water into wine is wild magic, and the Catholic miracle of transubstantiation—turning bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ—is ritual magic because it requires the Mass. Assuming you believe in that sort of thing.”

  “Do you?”

  “Do I believe there are things in the world that can’t be explained? Yes. My examples were perhaps a bit. . . simplistic. Don’t touch that—”

  My wandering had brought me to the upright box, into which he’d made the nice woman disappear last night. I’d been about to touch it, to run my finger along the edge, just to feel the age of it, lured the way any old and beautiful object draws attention.

  Grant’s cool poise never slipped, but he did take a step toward me. If I didn’t back off, he’d no doubt make me. “Please, that box is over a hundred years old. It’s quite fragile.”

  “But you let perfect strangers climb inside every day?”

  “Under controlled conditions.”

  I stepped away and tucked my hands behind my back to avoid temptation. “Sorry.”

  “You talk about all this on your show, don’t you?” he said and went back to rearranging the props on his table. “Magic. Whether it exists.”

  “Oh, I talk about all kinds of things. Magic, weirdness, the supernatural. Stuff that’s easy to dismiss, until you end up in the middle of it. Then it helps to learn as much as you can. That’s why I do my show.”

  “You believe, then?”

  “Oh, yeah. I sort of have to, given what I am.”

  “That’s right. The lycanthropy.”

  I said, “That doesn’t mean there aren’t fakes in the world. That’s why I try to ask a lot of questions.”

  “That’s usually wise.”

  “Why no assistants?” I said. “If you wanted to be really classic you’d saw a woman in half, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s always struck me as being a bit Freudian.”

  “You don’t like pretty girls dressed up in spangles?”

  “I work alone. Now, Ms. Norville, do you have enough material for your show?”

  End of interview, I guessed. “There’s never enough. But I’ve got a couple more leads. I’m trying to get a hold of someone over at the Hanging Gardens—”

  “Balthasar,” he said. He stopped straightening another deck of cards and looked at me. “May I offer some advice? Avoid him. You don’t want to get involved there.”

  Ooh, intrigue. “Why not? What’s going on?” Was my theory close? Was Balthasar enslaving lycanthropes?

  “It’s complicated. But you really don’t want him knowing about you.”

  Or maybe the two of them had some kind of magic-show rivalry? Without specifics, I didn’t feel inclined to take Grant’s advice. It only made the prospect of talking to Balthasar more interesting.

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said.

  I offered my hand, and he shook it. I wasn’t sure he would.

  “And one more thing, Ms. Norville. The next time you think sneaking around backstage is a good idea—you might reconsider.” He turned back to his props without a second glance in my direction.

  My smile froze, and once again I reflected on the nature of paranoia. I slipped out of the theater as quickly as I could.

  My parents were flying in this afternoon. Ben and I were supposed to meet them for dinner at the Olympus. I rushed, worried that I was keeping them waiting. And I still hadn’t had a minute to sit by the pool with my froufrou drink. Tomorrow, before the wedding.

  God, the wedding was tomorrow? I suddenly felt like I had compressed about three weeks’ worth of activities into the last two days. But if I could make it to tomorrow, I’d finally be able to relax. Ben and me both.

  I shouldn’t have worried about keeping my parents waiting. When I arrived at the restaurant—after once again glancing around for glimpses of Sylvia and Boris—they were already seated, munching on appetizers. Ben was nowhere in sight. I took a moment to call him, but his phone rolled over to voice mail. I tried not to be annoyed.

  I was kind of weird in that I liked my parents. Of course, the fact that I wasn’t living with them anymore might have made getting along with them a lot easier. I couldn’t help but admire them, at least a little. They’d been married thirty-five years and still held hands in public. I could only hope to be so lucky.

  I slipped into one of the empty seats in the booth across from them. “Hi. Sorry I’m late.”

  Gail Norville, my mother, beamed. “That’s all ri
ght, we went ahead and ordered something and were having a very nice chat. I hadn’t realized how much I was looking forward to this trip. I’m so glad Dr. Patel said I could come.”

  Mom wore a wig. If you didn’t know you couldn’t tell, because it was the same ash-colored graying blond as her own hair, and well done. Mom was like that—tasteful and very put together, and she wasn’t going to let a little thing like cancer disturb the order of her universe. She wore a soft blue blouse and skirt and comfortable-looking sandals. Trading her usual pumps and heels for the walking sandals was the only other concession to her illness.

  Right at the moment, though, she didn’t look sick. Her cheeks had color, and she was smiling at my father, Jim Norville, a tall, athletic man in late middle age. He wore a polo shirt and slacks and was beaming just as hard back at my mother.

  “We came here for a weekend right after we were married. It was kind of a joke—we didn’t want to wait twenty years for a second honeymoon. We were just remembering.”

  After all this time I was still learning things about my parents. Mostly things I didn’t want to know. “I feel like I’m interrupting,” I said. “You want me to go?”

  She gave me her “don’t be silly” look. “The town has changed so much since then,” Mom continued. “This was before all the big theme hotels went up. It’s like a big amusement park now.”

  “Where’s Ben?” my father said, glancing around like my fiancé was hiding and not like it wasn’t perfectly obvious that I’d arrived alone.

  Off gambling like a two-bit hustler. “He should be here any minute,” I said instead.

  “Oh, when your father and I came here we were attached at the hip. You couldn’t pry us apart for a second.” There they went, making puppy eyes at each other again.

  “Well, you weren’t trying to put on a TV show at the same time,” I muttered.

  “That’s true, and I’m sure the show is going to be just great. I can’t wait to see it. And how are the plans for the wedding coming together?”