Honest Illusions

by Nora Roberts

  behind him. “Help yourself.”

  Luke shot a hand into the bag and pulled out a burger. Striving for nonchalance, he took the first bite slowly, then, before he could stop himself, he bolted the rest. Max settled back, swirling brandy, his eyes half closed.

  The boy ate like a young wolf, Max thought as Luke plowed his way through the second burger and a pile of fries. Starved, Max imagined, for a great many things. He knew perfectly well what it was to starve—for a great many things. Because he trusted his instincts, and what he believed he saw behind the sly defiance in the boy’s eyes, he would offer a chance for a feast.

  “I occasionally do a mentalist act,” Max said quietly. “You may not be aware of that.”

  Because his mouth was full, Luke only managed to grunt.

  “I thought not. A demonstration then, if you will. You’ve left home and have been traveling for some time now.”

  Luke swallowed, belched. “Got that one wrong. My folks have a farm a couple miles from here. I just came for the rides.”

  Max opened his eyes. There was power in them and something that made the power more acute. Simple kindness. “Don’t lie to me. To others if you must, but not to me. You’ve run away.” He moved so quickly, Luke had no chance to avoid the hand that clamped like steel over his wrist. “Tell me this, have you left behind a mother, a father, an aged grandparent with a broken heart?”

  “I told you . . .” The clever lies, the ones that he’d learned to tell so easily, withered on his tongue. It was the eyes, he thought on a flutter of panic. Just like the eyes in the poster, which seemed to look into him and see everything. “I don’t know who my father is.” He spat it out as his body began to vibrate with shame and fury. “I don’t figure she knows either. She sure as hell don’t care. Maybe she’s sorry I’m gone ’cause there’s no one around to fetch her a bottle, or steal one for her if she ain’t got the money. And maybe that bastard she’s living with is sorry because he doesn’t have anybody to knock around anymore.” Tears he wasn’t even aware of burned in his eyes. But he was aware of the panic that had leaped like a dragon to claw at his throat. “I won’t go back. I swear to God I’ll kill you before you make me go back to that.”

  Max gentled his hand on Luke’s wrist. He felt that pain, so much like his own at that age. “The man beat you.”

  “When he could catch me.” There was defiance even in that. The tears shimmered briefly, then dried up.

  “The authorities.”

  Luke curled his lip. “Shit.”

  “Yes.” Max indulged in a sigh. “You have no one?”

  The chin with its faint cleft firmed. “I got myself.”

  An excellent answer, Max reflected. “And your plans?”

  “I’m heading south, Miami.”

  “Mmmm.” Max took Luke’s other wrist and turned his hands up. When he felt the boy tense, he showed his first sign of impatience. “I’m not interested in men sexually,” he snapped. “And if I were, I wouldn’t lower myself to pawing a boy.” Luke lifted his eyes, and Max saw something there, something no twelve-year-old should know existed. “Did this man abuse you in other ways?”

  Luke shook his head quickly, too humiliated to speak.

  But someone had, Max concluded. Or someone had tried. That would wait, until there was trust. “You have good hands, quick agile fingers. Your timing is also quite keen for one so young. I could make use of those qualities, perhaps help you refine them, if you choose to work for me.”

  “Work?” Luke didn’t quite recognize the emotion working through him. A child’s memory is often short, and it had already been a long time since he’d known hope. “What kind of work?”

  “This and that.” Max sat back again, smiled. “You might like to learn a few tricks, young Luke. It happens we’ll be heading south in another few weeks. You can work off your room and board, and earn a small salary if you deserve it. I’d have to ask that you refrain from lifting wallets for a time, of course. But I doubt if anything else I’d ask would cramp your style.”

  His chest hurt. It wasn’t until he’d let out a breath that he realized he’d been holding it until his lungs burned. “I’d, like, be in the magic show?”

  Max smiled again. “You would not. You would, however, assist in the setting up and breaking down. And you would learn, if you have any affinity for such things. Eventually, you may learn enough.”

  There had to be a catch. There was always a catch. Luke circled around the offer as a man might circle a sleeping snake. “I guess I could think about it.”

  “That’s always wise.” Max rose, setting his empty snifter aside. “Why don’t you sleep here? We’ll see where we stand in the morning. I’ll get you some linens,” Max offered, and walked out without waiting for a response.

  Maybe it was a scam, Luke thought, gnawing on his knuckles. But he couldn’t see the trap, not yet. And it would be good, so good, to sleep inside for once, with a full stomach. He stretched out, telling himself he was just testing his ground. But his eyelids drooped. The candlelight played hypnotically over them.

  Because his back still troubled him, he shifted to his side. Before he let his eyes close again, he judged the distance to the door in case he had to get out quickly.

  He could always take off in the morning, he told himself. No one could make him stay. No one could make him do anything anymore.

  That was his last thought as he tumbled into sleep. He didn’t hear Max come back with a clean sheet and the pillow. He didn’t feel the slight tug as his shoes were removed, and placed beside the sofa. He didn’t even murmur or shift as his head was lifted and laid, quite gently, on the linen-cased pillow that smelled faintly of lilacs.

  “I know where you’ve been,” Max murmured. “I wonder where you’ll go.”

  For another moment he studied the sleeping boy, noting the strong facial bones, the hand that was clutched in a defensive fist, the deep rise and fall of the frail chest that spoke of utter exhaustion.

  He left Luke to sleep and went to Lily’s soft, waiting arms.

  2

  Luke awoke in stages. He heard the birds chattering outside first, then felt the sun warm on his face. In his mind he imagined it to be gold and liquid with a taste like sweet honey. He caught the scent of coffee next and wondered where he was.

  Then he opened his eyes, saw the girl and remembered.

  She was standing between the round table and the sofa where he was sprawled, her lips pursed, her head tilted as she stared at him. Her eyes were bright and curious—a not entirely friendly curiosity.

  He noted there was a faint dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose that he hadn’t seen when she’d been onstage or in the candleglow.

  As wary as she, Luke stared back, slowly running his tongue over his teeth. His toothbrush was in the denim knapsack he’d stolen from a K Mart and hidden in some bushes nearby. He was fastidious about brushing his teeth, a habit which grew directly out of his paralyzing fear of the dentist. Particularly the one his mother had dragged him to nearly three years before. The one with breath fouled by gin and knuckles covered with coarse black hair.

  He wanted to brush his teeth, to gulp down some of that hot coffee and to be alone.

  “What the hell are you looking at?”

  “You.” She’d been thinking about poking him and was a little disappointed that he’d awakened before she’d had the chance. “You’re skinny. Lily said you have a beautiful face, but it just looks mean to me.”

  He felt a wave of disgust, and of confusion at being called beautiful by the curvy Lily. Luke had no such twisted feelings about Roxanne. She was what his stepfather called a class A bitch. Of course, Luke couldn’t remember any woman Al Cobb hadn’t considered one kind of bitch or another.

  “You’re skinny and ugly. Now, beat it.”

  “I live here,” she pointed out grandly. “And if I don’t like you I can make my daddy send you away.”

  “Big freaking deal.”

&
nbsp; “That’s bad language.” She gave a prim, ladylike sniff. At least she thought it was.

  “No.” Maybe if he shocked her angelic ears, she’d take off. “Big fucking deal is bad language.”

  “It is?” Interested now, she leaned closer. “What does fucking mean?”

  “Christ.” He rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes as he sat up. “Get out of my face, will you?”

  “I know how to be polite.” And if she was, Roxanne thought she might get him to tell her what the new word meant. “Because I’m the hostess, I’ll get you a cup of coffee. I already made it.”

  “You?” It bothered him that he hadn’t heard her rattling around.

  “It’s my job.” She strutted importantly to the stove. “Because Daddy and Lily sleep late in the mornings, and I don’t like to. I hardly ever need any sleep. I didn’t even when I was a baby. It’s metabolism,” she told him, pleased with the word her father had taught her.

  “Yeah. Right.” He watched her pour the coffee into a china cup. Probably tasted like mud, Luke thought, and looked forward to telling her so.

  “Cream and sugar?” She chanted the words, like a peppy flight attendant.

  “Lots of both.”

  She took him at his word, then, with her tongue caught between her teeth, brought the brimming cup to the table. “You can have orange juice, too, with breakfast.” Though she didn’t particularly like him, Roxanne enjoyed the idea of playing the gracious hostess, and imagined herself wearing one of Lily’s long silk gowns and teetering on high heels. “I’ll make my special one.”

  “Great.” Luke braced to wince at the taste of the coffee and was surprised when it went down smoothly. It was a bit sweet, even for his taste, but he’d never had better. “It’s pretty good,” he muttered, and Roxanne granted him a quick smile that was innately female.

  “I have a magic touch with coffee. Everyone says so.” Enthusiastic now, she popped slices of bread into the toaster, then opened the fridge. “How come you don’t live with your mother and father?”

  “Because I don’t want to.”

  “But you have to,” she pointed out. “Even if you don’t want to.”

  “The hell I do. Besides I don’t have a father.”

  “Oh.” She pressed her lips together. Though she was only eight, she knew such things happened. She herself had lost a mother, one she had no memory of. Since Lily had slid so seamlessly into the gap, it wasn’t a loss that jarred her. But the idea of being without a father always made her sad—and scared. “Did he get sick, or have a terrible accident?”

  “I don’t know or give a good damn. Drop it.”

  Under any other circumstances, the sharp tone would have loosened her temper. Instead, it sparked her sympathies. “What part of the show did you like best?”

  “I don’t know. The card tricks were pretty cool.”

  “I know one. I can show you.” Carefully, she poured juice into crystal glasses. “After breakfast I will. You can use the bathroom back there to wash your hands ’cause it’s almost ready.”

  He was a lot more interested in emptying his straining bladder and, following the direction of her hand, found the closet-sized bathroom behind the red curtain. It smelled of woman—not the heavy, cloying scent that often trailed around his mother, but sweet, luxurious femininity.

  There were stockings draped over the rung of the narrow shower stall, and a floral box of dusting powder and a big pink puff sat on a crocheted doily on the back of the toilet. In the corner was a small wedge of counter space that was crowded from edge to edge with bottles and pots and tubes.

  Whore’s tools, Cobb would have called them, but Luke thought they looked kind of nice and pretty jumbled there, like a garden he’d seen on his travels, where flowers and weeds had run wild together.

  Despite the clutter, the room was scrupulously clean. A far cry, he realized as he scrubbed hot water over his face, from the filthy bathroom in the filthy apartment he’d escaped from.

  Unable to resist, he peeked into the medicine cabinet. There were men things in there. A razor, shaving cream, after-shave. There was also a spare toothbrush still in its box. The terror of cavities overpowered any sense of guilt he might have had as he made use of it.

  It wasn’t until he was back in the hall, wondering if he could take a chance and poke around a bit that he remembered his shoes.

  He was back in the living area like a shot, diving under the table and checking his stash.

  As calm as a queen on her throne, Roxanne sat on a satin pillow and sipped her juice. “How come you keep your money in your shoe when you’ve got pockets?”

  “Because it’s safer there.” And it had been, he noted with relief. Every last dollar. He slid up into his seat and looked at his plate. There was a piece of toast in the center of it. It had been mounded with chunky peanut butter, drizzled with what looked like honey, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, then cut into two neat triangles.

  “It’s very good,” Roxanne assured him, taking dainty bites of her own.

  Luke bit a triangle in two, and was forced to agree. She smiled again when he’d finished the last crumb.

  “I’ll make more.”

  An hour later, when Max pushed through the curtain, he saw them sitting hip to hip on the sofa. His little girl had a short pile of bills at her elbow and was expertly shifting three cards over the table.

  “Okay, where’s the queen?”

  Luke blew the hair out of his eyes, hesitated, then tapped the center card. “I know it’s there this time, damn it.”

  Smug, Roxanne flipped over the card, then giggled when he swore again.

  “Roxy,” Max said as he crossed to them. “It’s quite rude to fleece a guest.”

  “I told him Three Card Monte was a sucker’s game, Daddy.” All innocence, she beamed up at her father. “He didn’t listen.”

  He chuckled and clucked her on the chin. “My little swindler. How did you sleep, Luke?”

  “Okay.” He’d lost five bucks to the little cheat. It was mortifying.

  “And I see you’ve eaten. If you’ve decided to stay, I’ll give you over to Mouse shortly. He’ll put you to work.”

  “That’d be good.” But he knew better than to sound anxious. When you sounded anxious, that was when they pulled the rug out from under you. “For a couple days, anyhow.”

  “Splendid. A free lesson before we begin.” He paused to pour coffee, sniff appreciatively then sip. “Never bet on the house game unless losing is to your advantage. Will you need clothes?”

  Though he couldn’t see how losing could ever be an advantage, Luke didn’t comment. “I’ve got some stuff.”

  “All right then, you can go retrieve it. Then we’ll get started.”

  One of the advantages of being a boy like Luke was that he had no expectations. Another might have anticipated touches of glamour, or adventure, perhaps a bit of jolly camaraderie of carny life. But in Luke’s philosophy, people generally got less than they paid for of the good things, and more than they could handle of the bad.

  So when he was put to work by the taciturn Mouse lifting, hauling, cleaning, painting and fetching, he followed orders without complaint or conversation. Since Mouse had little to say for himself, Luke was able to keep his own counsel and observe.

  Life in a carnival wasn’t glamorous, he noted. It was sweaty, and dirty. The air snapped with the scents of frying food, cheap cologne and unwashed bodies. Colors that looked so bright at night were dingy in the light of day. And the rides that seemed so fast and fearsome under a starry sky appeared tired, and more than a little unsafe under a hard summer sun.

  As for adventure, there was nothing exciting about scrubbing down the long black trailer, or helping Mouse change the spark plugs in the Chevy pickup that hauled it.

  Mouse had head and shoulders under the hood, and his tiny eyes were slitted nearly closed as he listened to the idling engine. Occasionally he would hum a little tune, or grunt and make a few m
ore adjustments.

  Luke shifted from foot to foot. The heat was terrible. Sweat was beginning to seep through the faded bandanna he’d tied around his head. He didn’t know a damn thing about cars, and didn’t see why he needed to when he wouldn’t be able to drive one for years and years. The way Mouse was humming and fiddling was getting on his nerves.

  “It sounds okay to me.”

  Mouse blinked his eyes open. There was grease on his hands, streaked on his moon pie face, smeared on his baggy white T-shirt. He was quite simply in Mouse heaven.

  “Missing,” he corrected, then closed his eyes again. He made minute adjustments, as gently as a man in love would initiate a virgin. The engine purred for him. “Sweet baby,” he said under his breath.