Real Magic (16 page)

That was 1934. No matter what he did, Duncan didn't belong here.

As the band poured out its final, stomping flurry of notes, Vincent adjusted Duncan's turban. "You better be ready. It's show time."

The band filed backstage, heat radiating off their sweaty suits, and the magicians headed to the diners. Each magician had an assigned section to work — Duncan's was next to Vincent's. They walked out as people milled about — talking, ordering, drinking, laughing. It all brought back memories of growing up.

Pappy had finagled a job for Duncan working tables at a local restaurant. He was only fifteen but Pappy convinced the owners that nobody would ever know. Duncan did look older than his age, so a deal was struck for a small payment and any tips he could earn.

Duncan hated it. The restaurant owners contributed nothing to promotion and stuck him on the floor Monday through Thursday. They reserved the weekend for live music. This meant that Duncan had to perform for people who had no idea that a magician would be appearing at the restaurant and on a night when people were not seeking entertainment. They wanted to get their food so they could be home in time for their favorite sitcom then slump off to sleep before starting another grueling day.

Though most of the tables were tolerant, people tended to be polite for a trick or two, the bad tables always stayed with him like burping up an acrid meal from hours earlier. There were the families that decided Duncan's "little magic show" would be a perfect way to entertain the kids while the parents huddled in a little conversation, soaking in the few minutes of respite. There were the drunks who thought they could outdo the magician, would ultimately fail in some embarrassing manner, and then wait out back ready to start a fight. And there were the religious folk who were offended even at the mere suggestion that they would be near the evil arts. He even had a man once forcibly take him by the arm and say through gritted teeth, "Leave us alone." No, tableside magic was not for the faint of heart. One needed confidence, a touch of arrogance, and a skin thicker than a rhino.

Vincent and the other two magicians rushed out to greet their audience but Duncan hung back a step. He wanted to scope out the most approachable table in his section before bumbling into the lion's den. In case the management asked them to switch section, he gave advice to the others rather than let them fall flat and ruin the audience for him later.

The two magicians had brought along some gimmicks that would work great one time but then require a complicated reset. "There's no time for that," he told them. "You need to keep things simple and clean. Card tricks, coin tricks, maybe a ball or two. Nothing more. You don't want to be searching for props while these folks are losing interest." He told them to watch their time. Nothing was worse than being in the middle of a trick when the waiter showed up with food. All their interest in the magic would transfer to their stomachs, and the show would be over. He tried to tell them a few more important points, but one of them said, "Look, I don't know who you are and I don't care. I been doing this long enough to know how to do it right. So maybe you should clamp it and watch how a real professional works."

Duncan said nothing more. Watching them approach the tables, he had to admit they did seem at ease in the situation. Even Vincent had little trouble with his approach.

He walked right by the table he wanted, stopped and picked a coin up off the floor. He offered it to the patrons who shrugged, so he made it disappear before their eyes. They laughed, and he had them.

Duncan scanned his own tables now. They were tiered booths like a mini-theater and a half-moon, upholstered couch formed each booth. The other half opened out so diners could watch the show.

He passed over the nearest table. A middle-aged couple sitting as far apart as the booth would allow. The next table consisted of a husband, wife, and little brat splattering mashed potatoes on Mommy's hand. No, thank you. The third table at the nearest tier had a young couple mooning over each other, longing to lie down on that half-moon couch and see if it had any spring to it. Not the best choice, but he could work with it.

"Good evening," he said as he approached the table.

"Oh, look, honey. He's a swami," the perky woman said.

Duncan used all his strength not to react. Forcing a smile to his lips, he pulled out a deck of cards and launched into a classic ace cutting routine. Since the man's perturbed brow and crossed-armed body language told Duncan more than he cared about, Duncan focused on the woman. He had her cut the deck into four piles, and then he turned over the top card of each pile. Amazingly they were all aces.

Perky clapped her hands like a performing seal. "Oh, do another, do another."

"Of course." With a flurry of his robes, Duncan swiped up the cards and pulled out a coin. He then went into a series of hand motions to make the coin disappear and re-appear all over the table. He segued this neatly into the classic "coin under the salt shaker" trick in which the coin appears under the table's salt shaker that he then magically smashes through the table so that it ends up on the floor.

As Perky wound up into another seal impression, Duncan bowed, thanked them, and moved on. As he walked up to the second tier, he caught sight of Vincent performing an assembly routine in which four kings are shown, placed down in a row, and three cards are put on top of each king. With a magical wave of the hands, three of the card packets prove to be empty of kings because they all jumped to the last packet. Vincent's diners went nuts for it. They applauded and laughed and wanted more.

Duncan had never seen such a reaction before — and these weren't even impressive tricks. Maybe it was all the alcohol the people of 1934 consumed, maybe it was because television and the internet hadn't been invented yet. Drunk and starved for entertainment might be a winning combination. Whatever the reason, though, this was the best audience Duncan had ever experienced.

With more bounce to his step, he went up to the next table, bowed, and put on a show. "Ladies and gentleman, I have come from the far reaches of the globe to bring you this seemingly simple but truly rare and difficult magic. You, madam, please name any card."

The woman at the table, a wrinkled woman with bad teeth yet beaming with enthusiasm, touched her forefinger to her chin and thought. "I think I'll go with the Ten of Diamonds."

"And what lady wouldn't want diamonds to go around such a charming neck."

"Oh." She blushed.

Her husband, an equally wrinkled and dentally challenged man, frowned. Duncan decided to ease back a little on the false compliments. He pulled out another deck of cards and started searching through them, making a big display of the difficulty he had in finding her card. Finally, he spread the deck on the table. "Please, help me. Do you see the Ten of Diamonds?"

Together they looked amongst the cards but could not find the woman's selection. "Wait, I remember now," Duncan said. "It's in your hat."

"My hat?"

"Please, may I?" Duncan lifted her hat from the booth and pulled out the Ten of Diamonds. The woman loved the trick and the man softened at her happiness. For the briefest moment, Duncan felt a sense of excitement and even pride in being able to shine that light upon her. He even wondered why he had given up performance and settled for cheating instead. Never had a successful cheat felt this good. And had the night continued in this manner, Duncan may have followed an entirely different path — one that would have led him to fulfillment and joy through performance. But as he turned to go to the third tier, he once more glanced at Vincent, and what he saw changed everything for him.

Vincent stood before an eager, young couple. He fanned a deck of cards in front of him and said something about making a prediction. He then wrote on a piece of paper and folded it up.

"Ma'am, I'd like you to think of a secret number," he said. Duncan heard the sheer delight in Vincent's voice. "Okay, I'm going to turn my back and I want you to quietly deal down the cards until you reach your secret number. Look at that card. Okay? Now, place the rest of the deck on top." Vincent turned back to the couple. "Go ahead and cut the cards. Good. You know, one prediction is actually quite easy. Let's make it interesting. I'll make a second prediction." He fanned the cards again, thought, squared up the deck, and wrote on another piece of paper and folded it up. He then handed the deck to the young man. "Please have your lovely lady here whisper the secret number to you. Now, deal down to that secret number and look at the top card of the pile you dealt. All done? Let's look at the predictions."

From where he stood, Duncan could not make out the individual cards, but he could tell by the astonished laughter that Vincent had predicted correctly. As Duncan turned to the nearest table, he realized he knew that trick. It was called
Twin
-something. He had read it described in a magic book. Or maybe it was one of Pappy's old issues of
The Sphinx
magazine.

To be sure, he decided to do something a magician should never do. He decided to perform the trick unprepared. An older couple sat at the table, and as he shuffled up the cards, buying some time to think, he made a little small talk.

A splinter of worry slipped under his skin until he fanned the cards. The trick rushed out of the recesses of memory and into his hands. He had to note the top and bottom cards of the deck during the fan. The Five of Spades was on the bottom and the Queen of Clubs sat on top.

With a pen and paper he had stashed in his robes for another trick, Duncan wrote "The man will get the Queen of Clubs." He folded the paper and told the woman to think of her secret number to count with. As he led them through the procedure, he knew all he had to do was remember that the Five of Clubs was on the bottom.

After the lady had cut the deck, he made a show of thinking through his next prediction, but really he searched for the Five of Clubs and re-cut the deck at that point, sending the Five of Clubs back to the bottom of the deck. He fanned the cards and noted the card on top — this would be the card that the lady had stopped on when she counted down whatever number she had picked. In this case, the Two of Hearts. Duncan took out another piece of paper and wrote "The lady will get the Two of Hearts."

He handed the deck to the man who would simply count the cards back to their original order and end up where the whole thing had begun. When Duncan revealed the correct predictions, the couple applauded.

"That's a real peach of a trick," the man said and tipped Duncan a quarter.

"It certainly is," Duncan said, his mind replaying Vincent's challenge trick.

There was still more time in the performance, but instead of moving on, Duncan bowed to his section and scurried offstage. He rushed over to an empty section at the makeup table and ran the Twin trick one more time to be sure. When he finished, he fell back into a chair with a triumphant grin.

He had the answer.

The secret to the Twin trick was that the two selected cards were separated by the "secret number" which cleverly forced both cards on the spectators. He still had to work on Vincent's challenge trick a few times back at his hotel room to get the specifics, but the principle behind the Twin trick and the challenge trick had to be the same. In his head, it made sense enough and as he ran it over yet again, his confidence in the answer grew.

Tomorrow, he would be joining the magic club.

 

When Duncan told Vincent
he had solved the challenge trick, Vincent had the gang assembled early that morning like a gaggle of eager toddlers told there would be candy. They surrounded Duncan at a table in the back near the blue door. The energy sparked around them — even Lucas managed to show true interest. From behind the counter, Lucy watched in silence.

Duncan tried to read her eyes, tried to see if she was still angry with him, but either she had superior skills at hiding her emotions or he had yet to be able to understand the complete catalog of 1930's facial expressions. While Ben unwrapped a fresh deck of cards and Morty made sure every man had a beer for the expected celebration, Duncan stepped over to Lucy.

"Look, I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say, but —"

"What are you sorry for?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"For whatever I did that sent you running upstairs."

"I was just being stupid. Forget it." But nothing on her face agreed with her words.

"Flirting time is later," Morty said. "Get over here and show us some magic."

Unable to get a clear read on Lucy, Duncan turned back to the card table and focused on the trick. "I have to admit," he said, taking the deck of cards from Ben, "this had me stumped for quite a bit longer than I had expected."

"We all thought you were a bit slow on this one."

"I have a lot on my mind, so it was hard to concentrate."

"Hear that, Lucas? He's going to end up just like you — got an excuse for everything."

Vincent shushed everybody before they could get rolling with insults. "Let's all pay attention and see what Duncan's come up with."

Shuffling the cards, Duncan said, "The secret is that the two key cards are separated by a specific number of other cards. That's it. The rest is simply manipulation."