Real Magic (7 page)

Vincent chimed in, "Freddie's always got the best hat."

That was Duncan's cue. Vincent had successfully switched the winning hand in his lap with whatever Duncan had dealt. As long as Vincent remembered to pocket the extra cards, all would be good.

Vincent opened with another minimum bid. Freddie called. And, thank goodness, Sammy raised. Duncan raised, too, and they were off. Freddie stayed in another two rounds before bowing out but Vincent, Duncan, and Sammy kept raising each other until Duncan had all fifteen dollars in the pot. Vincent and Sammy went on further, forming a side pot just between them. By the end, the side pot reached fifty-two dollars. Add to that the original pot of forty-eight, and they would win a round one hundred dollars.

And they did.

Freddie laughed as Vincent laid down his straight-flush. Duncan frowned and crossed his arms while Sammy's pissed scowl said everything.

"I think that's a good place to stop for the night," Vincent said.

"Oh no," Sammy said. "You stay right here until I say you can go."

Freddie slapped Sammy's shoulder. "Quit your whining. You lost. So did Duncan. So what? Vincent never wins. Let him have his victory. Besides, you'll get it all back next week."

"Yeah, well, I better." Sammy put his hand out to Vincent. "You still owe me fifteen bucks for the past week's entries."

"And a dollar for mine, too," Duncan added.

Sammy liked that. "That's right. You pay for this kid's fee, too."

Vincent made a show of wanting to argue but knowing better. "Okay, fine." He peeled off three five dollar bills and tossed them on the table along with a one dollar bill and a smile. "Goodnight boys."

As he walked out, Duncan remained seated. This was the real moment of truth — the real test of trust. He had another drink with Freddie and Sammy before he made his own exit, and he hoped Vincent would be back at the bar where they met. If not, he had wasted his evening and lost all of his money.

 

 

Duncan wanted to run
straight to Joey's Corner, but he knew he had to play his role. He sauntered off in the opposite direction and around the block, making sure to hang his head low. If Freddie or Sammy bothered to watch, they would see a guy dejected at his loss, ready to join the masses suffering through the hard times, maybe even contemplating a visit to the soup kitchen.

Once he turned the corner, however, Duncan tossed away that cloak of sorrow, put a little bounce in his step, and headed to the bar. Though he walked at a brisk clip, he kept at a walk. Running would only draw attention, and that was something a card cheat never wanted.

As Duncan neared the bar, Vincent stepped out and waved. "Joey's is too crowded," he said. "I'll take you somewhere else."

"Sounds good." Duncan put a firm hand on his partner's shoulder. "First, let's settle up."

Vincent's eyes darted all around them and his hands pulled his coat tightly together. "Are you crazy? Keep your voice down and stop with the loony business. We don't do it out here." Shaking off Duncan's hand, Vincent went on, "Just follow me and you'll get your money."

He led the way around the block until they came to Sal's — a small Italian joint with only a few people inside. Like Joey's Corner, Sal's had a bar but alcohol wasn't the main attraction. Several wooden booths with high backs lined the wall, and at the occupied booths, every customer wolfed down a plate of pasta. Garlic and parmesan perfumed the air, and loud voices rattled off Italian from the kitchen.

"Two spaghettis and some beers," Vincent said as they made their way to the back corner booth.

Once they sat, secluded from the world, Duncan felt a hand on his knee. He reached under the table and received a wad of paper bills. He glanced down to count it.

"You can trust me," Vincent said. "Heck, I didn't run off, did I?"

Duncan counted it anyway — fifty dollars. He put the money away, looking around for prying eyes and pleased to see nobody paid him any attention. The waiter arrived with two heaping plates of pasta and two beers.

Vincent swirled up a forkful of spaghetti. "You've got some nice card skills. Nice skills, indeed. Who taught you?"

"My great-grandfather." The pasta tasted fantastic and the beer washed it down well.

"I picked it up from a few traveling magicians and that book,
Expert at the Card Table
. You ever read that? It's quite good. Really opened my eyes back when I was a kid. Even thought about making a go of being a professional magician."

"What stopped you?"

Vincent gestured into the air. "Life. People have no money, no jobs. I take care of my sister and that costs, too. We get by, but a professional's life requires constant travel which is expensive. What are you gonna do? That's just life. What about you? You could be a professional."

Duncan chuckled. "Not for me. Pappy always wanted me to do that, but that's a life that never would have worked for me. For one thing, you've got to deal with all the venue owners and their rules and audience expectations and all of that."

"Ain't that the truth. And worse, you work all those years to perfect a handful of effects, and then you're stuck doing them over and over and over. Nobody wants to see anything new from you. It's like that guy, Goldin. He's out in New York. Coney Island, I think. He does this trick where he saws a lady in half. You ever see that?"

"Of course, that's a classic —" Duncan stopped with a fork of pasta waiting to go into his gaping mouth. He stared at Vincent in disbelief. It wasn't a classic trick — not in 1934.

In fact, the trick started out in England, developed by P.T. Selbit in the '20s, and became hugely popular worldwide. Horace Goldin worked out his own method for the illusion and licensed it to other magicians — fifty bucks a week plus a percentage of the house. It was a gold mine for him, and he went after anybody who dared to perform the trick without a license. He even prevented Selbit from performing his own trick during an American tour.

It was one of the great stories behind magic, and Pappy loved to tell it. But that was all less than a decade ago here. And that reminded Duncan of his situation.

He had money now which meant focusing on finding that door. Chatting up with a guy and making friends was not a smart move. Especially considering that he had traveled back in time. Duncan had never gotten into time travel stories much, but he understood the concepts and dangers involved. He had to be careful of what he said to Vincent. Everything he had done already, everything he would do, everything he would say, all of it could have an enormous impact upon the future. Couldn't it? He wasn't sure but he thought that's what most time travel stories were about — screwing up the future and then trying to fix it. Had he already messed things up? Cheating those guys at cards — had that somehow screwed up the universe?

"Hey pal," Vincent said, "you okay?"

"I don't know," Duncan said for fear of saying anything else.

"Don't look so glum. We cleaned up tonight. We got some cash to spend. Heck, there'll always be plenty of days to look glum. So, let's have a few more beers and relax." Vincent snapped for the waiter's attention and pointed to the beers. After finishing the last of his old beer, Vincent reached into his pocket and brought out his deck of cards. He tossed them on the table near Duncan. "Let me see your pass."

Duncan stared at the cards. Vincent sounded just like Pappy, and for a horrifying moment, he wondered if Vincent was Pappy. His stomach swirled at the idea. But then he remembered that Vincent had mentioned a sister and Pappy had no siblings. With a relieved sigh, Duncan picked up the cards.

Vincent pointed at him. "I see it in you. The second you put those cards in your hands, you were feeling better."

"In a way," Duncan said, shuffling the cards and enjoying the feel on his fingertips. "It was hitting me just now how little control I have in my life, but these cards — I can control these." And with that, he decided he couldn't worry about the future. If he fretted over his every word or action, he'd be paralyzed. He'd never be able to find the door and get home. He had to focus on what he could control and let the universe handle the rest.

Vincent watched closely as Duncan performed the pass. He kept a steady poker face and said, "One more time, please." Duncan obliged. "Okay," Vincent said. "Drink up. Time to go."

"I haven't finished eating."

"Hurry up then."

"Why? Where are we going?"

Vincent smiled. "We're going to steal a car."

 

 

Duncan hadn't acted this recklessly
since his high school days. At first, he had agreed because he needed an ally and Vincent seemed like a good one to have. But he liked Vincent, too. He liked how Vincent fit so perfectly in this time period, and how that perfect fit helped him fit in, too. He liked Vincent's carefree bravado. And he liked that as they careened down the old back roads, kicking dirt and stones behind them, he wanted to smile.

Here he was, lost in 1934, yet he smiled.

And sang.

He stood on the runner, held onto the car door with one hand, and sang out to the sleeping world with a flask in his other hand. When he belted out the first lines of the chorus to Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'", Vincent gave him the oddest look. Duncan laughed and quickly mumbled his way into the only thing he could think of that definitely existed at the time — "The Star Spangled Banner." With all the July Fourth celebrations, the choice made plenty of sense.

Vincent swerved off the road, back on, off the other side, and back on again. Though the Ford they had lifted couldn't have been going more than forty-five miles-per-hour, it felt like ninety while hanging from the runner. When a squirrel darted into the road and Vincent over-reacted, the car moved fast enough to slam into a tree and send Duncan hurtling through the air.

He tumbled in the dirt and tall grass, coming to rest under a pine tree. The fragrant pine needles were soft to lie on as long as they didn't poke him in the side, and Duncan considered closing his eyes for a while. He burped and tasted alcohol, and his eyelids lowered. But then he remembered they had just crashed and Vincent might be hurt.

Wobbling his drunken way toward the car, he saw smoke drifting from the long, narrow hood. Vincent sat in the driver's seat, his head against the steering wheel, blood trickling down the side of his face. He looked up, dazed and smiling.

"I think I had an oopsy," he said.

Duncan fell backwards laughing.

Vincent stumbled out of the car. "It's not my fault somebody put a tree in the way." He glanced around until he found the road. "Come on. We gotta walk back."

"Okay, okay," Duncan said, snorting out another laugh.

As they headed back, Duncan noticed a faint light poking out from the dark trees. "What's that?"

Vincent belched. "Some nutcase still lives out there. Won't come join the rest of society. He'll probably die out there, too. His house is all wood except for the foundation and he smokes like locomotive."

"You know him?"

"Never met him. Just telling you what I heard."

"Wait a second." Duncan stopped and looked around. He tried to picture where they stood in relation to the town. "Oh, wow." That hermit's house had to be the burned out ruins he and Pancake would hang around while they got drunk as teens.

"What's up?" Vincent asked.

Duncan laughed. "Nothing. Just got a weird feeling is all."

"That, my friend, is because you're drunk."

They walked on, and an hour later they had sobered enough to stay mostly on the road while walking, no longer dropping into fits of laughter for no reason at all. At one point, Duncan put his arm around Vincent. "We did good tonight. I bet the two of us could clean up a lot more money working together from the start."

"We could at that. But we can't do anything for a while. We've got to lay low on the poker cheats because of that big guy, Freddie."

"I ain't afraid of him."

"It's his boss you should be afraid of — Nelson Walter. Owns The Walter Hotel in town. He used to go by the name 'Thumbs' on account of the fact that he liked to break them off his victims. Especially magicians. Liked to ruin their careers."

Duncan's face screwed up in confusion. "Why the heck would he care about magicians?"

"We're really good at cheating at cards, for one thing. For another, he's not."

"So he's jealous?"

"Who knows? He's a Jew and they're a strange lot."

Duncan bristled but kept his mouth shut. This was 1934. Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, wasn't necessarily frowned upon. Or even questioned, for that matter.

Wait a few years,
Duncan thought.
World War II might change a few minds.

Vincent shuffled his feet to a halt. He pointed into the sky as if he expected a UFO to appear suddenly. "Look there."

Squinting, Duncan said, "I don't see anything."

"Wait. It'll come."

A few seconds later, the sky lit up with Fourth of July fireworks. Reds and blues streamed across the sky while explosions popped everywhere. In between shots, Duncan could hear the dim noise of a crowd applauding.