Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

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 right, 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?”

The weekend’s real priority. Of course, if Ben did better at that tournament than he thought he was going to, we might end up watching the finals ringside instead. But wasn’t that the beautiful thing about Vegas? We could have the wedding any time we wanted—we just had to find a drive-through chapel. My mother would freak. “Everything’s on track, except it’s at six now instead of two.” Please don’t ask why...

“Oh? Was there a problem with the earlier time?” Mom said.

“No,” I said, shrugging and trying to play it cool. “It just worked out better that way.”

“And you have a dress?”

“It’s hanging in the closet in my room.”

“And a photographer? What about a photographer—”

“Mom, this is why we picked Vegas. We don’t have to worry about anything but showing up. The chapel takes care of everything. They’ll even have a cake.”

She sighed and looked unconvinced. I suddenly felt like I had robbed her by not letting her help plan a big wedding.

I held my temples. “I’m not going to apologize for getting married in Las Vegas, okay?”

Mom gave me a look. “I wasn’t asking you to.”

“Then why do I feel like apologizing?”

“You didn’t think you were going to get out of this guilt-free, did you?” said my father, as if reading my mind. He grinned wickedly. I rolled my eyes.

I caught a familiar scent, heard footsteps, and looked over in time to see Ben arrive through the front of the restaurant. I wasn’t aware of how worried I’d been until I felt a sense of relief when he came to the table.

“Sorry I’m late, I got held up. Mr. Norville, Mrs. Norville,” he said, shaking hands with my parents. He slid in next to me, put his hand on my leg, and smiled. And all was forgiven.

“It’s Gail, please,” my mom said, and if possible, she beamed even wider. “Or Mom, even.”

Ben was always telling me I had too much family. Even if it were just my parents, he’d probably still say it was too much family.

“Ready for the big day tomorrow, Ben?” Dad asked next.

Ben’s eyes went a little wide, and for a moment he seemed to be at a loss for words. As a lawyer, he recognized when he was being cross-examined. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, managing a thin smile.

“It’s going to be wonderful,” Mom said.

Ben, his smile frozen, gave me a sideways glance that clearly pleaded, Say something, get me out of this.

Poor guy. “So,” I said brightly. “Any other big plans this weekend? Besides the stuff that’s all about me.”

She said, “We’re going shopping. I’m going to treat myself by spending too much money, and your father’s going to carry the bags.” Dad rolled his eyes, but he seemed just as happy at Mom’s good mood. “Do you have time to join us? I’d love to buy you something nice.”

Was it too late to ditch the whole show? “I’m afraid not. Maybe you could buy something nice for me anyway.”

“Maybe I will.”

And at that moment I was glad to be here, glad they’d decided to come, because it was so nice seeing Mom smiling, happy, and not thinking about being sick.

But tomorrow, somehow, some way, I was going to find time to sit by the pool with a froufrou drink. I might even miss my own wedding to do it.

I had to have makeup done. I sat in a chair while a nice woman made me look gorgeous. I had to wear nice clothes. Erica brought in a wardrobe person to dress me up: nice slacks, shoes with heels, a low-cut blouse in a photogenic shade of red. I was a different person when they all finished with me. I never had to worry about this kind of thing on the radio. I loved wearing jeans to work. I reminded myself to keep that in mind the next time I thought about doing something like this.

My stomach was roiling. I had done remote shows before. It was always a bit of an adventure, working with strangers and wondering if an unassuming glitch was going to derail the whole process. The trick was to keep plowing ahead like nothing was wrong. The minute you started acting, sounding, like something was wrong, the audience could hear it, and you’d lose them. They wanted confidence. Whatever went wrong, make it part of the show.

But I had never done this in front of an actual audience. This added a whole new level of anxiety. If—when—something went wrong, I wouldn’t be able to hide behind the microphone.

Ben stood backstage with me and held my hand. “Wow, you really are nervous.”

My palms were sweaty. I kept telling myself, I can do this. I was in control here.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I’m thinking this is a little crazy. What if no one shows up?”

“Wait, are you worried that no one’s going to show up, or are you worried about doing this in front of a bunch of people?”

I whined a little. “I’m not sure.”

“You going to be okay?” What he meant was, was Wolf okay? Was I going to be able to keep it together? When I got nervous, scared, or felt trapped, the Wolf grew agitated. Harder to control, harder to keep inside. I had to stay in control, or she might come bursting out of my skin, a snarling werewolf onstage in front of a theater full of people.

That might make the morning papers. There was such a thing as bad publicity. I didn’t want to go there.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll be right here if you need me.”

I squeezed his hand. That did make me feel better. “Thanks.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. There were noises on the other side of the curtain. Crowd like noises. I had to look. Edging up to the curtain, I pulled it back a couple of inches and peered out.

The place was almost full. I spotted a few empty seats, and a few people wandering up and down the aisles. Their voices made a rumbling ocean of noise.

I quickly pulled back and ran into Ben. “Omigod. It’s full. The place is packed.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“It’s great. It’s fabulous. I think I’m gonna die.”

He tried to give me a pep talk. “Haven’t you ever been onstage before? You seem like the kind of person who did a lot of theater in high school.”

Not that I wanted to be reminded. “I did one play. Annie Get Your Gun. I was a dancing Indian during the politically incorrect Indian song.”

He looked doubtful. “You played an Indian? Kitty, you’re blond.”

“I wore a wig made out of black yarn. It wasn’t a very ethnically diverse high school, okay?”

A woman wearing a headset, the stage manager, caught my attention. “You’re on in two minutes, Kitty.”

“Thanks.”

Another deep breath. But not too deep. I was about to start hyperventilating.

“So,” I said. “How many people do you think are out there with silver bullets in their guns waiting to take a shot at me?” Like Boris and Sylvia?

He gave me a look. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

“Ha! I’m not being paranoid, you thought of it, too.”

He pressed his lips shut and didn’t say a word.

The stage manager gestured at me again. “It’s time.”

Deep breath. I mentally rehearsed my intro again, imagined myself walking out there and being brilliant. Not a problem.

Ben gave me a quick kiss. “Knock ’em dead.”

“Thanks.”

I walked out into the spotlight like I knew what I was doing.