Honest Illusions

by Nora Roberts

  while ago,” he said reluctantly. “I’m filling in until you’re not full of spots.”

  Her lip poked out. Slowly, she picked up the cards and began to shuffle them. It always helped her to think if she did something with her hands. “You’re taking my place.”

  “Max said there was a hole in the act without you. I’m filling it.” Then with a diplomacy he hadn’t been aware of possessing, he added, “Temporarily. That’s what Max said. Maybe just tonight.”

  After another moment of consideration, she nodded. “If Daddy said so, it’s okay. He said he was sorry about telling me he’d replace me. That nobody ever would.”

  Luke had no idea what it would be like to be loved that way or to have that much trust. Envy was a fist punching his heart.

  “Here’s what you have to do,” Roxanne began, drawing his attention back to her. “First you have to set the cards up in a riffle pack.” She dealt out two heaps and began to teach him with all the patience of a first-grade teacher instructing a student on how to print his name.

  She ran through the trick twice, step by step, then handed him the pack. “You try.”

  As Max had said, the boy had good hands.

  “This is cool,” he murmured.

  “Magic’s the coolest.”

  When she smiled, he smiled back. For a moment, at least, they were simply two children with a good secret between them.

  4

  Stage fright was a new and humbling experience for Luke. He was set, cocky, even eager as he waited in the wings. His secondhand tuxedo, hastily altered by Mama Franconi’s nimble fingers, made him feel like a star. Over and over in his head he ran through the blocking, his moves, his patter while Max warmed up the crowd with some sleight of hand.

  There was nothing to it, he thought. It would be a grade A cinch that would earn him an extra ten bucks a night as long as Roxanne remained covered with those little red welts. If the doctor’s prognosis ran true, that would mean a hundred dollars for Luke’s Miami fund.

  He was congratulating himself on his good fortune and sneering at the pop-eyed group of rubes in the front row when Mouse tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Cue’s coming up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your cue.” Mouse jerked his head toward the stage where Lily was flouncing in her spangled tights, adding a little hip motion for the men in the audience.

  “My cue,” Luke said as his bowels turned to ice water and his heart became a hot little ball in his throat.

  Having been prepared for this possibility by Max, Mouse gave a grunt of assent and shoved Luke onstage.

  There was a titter of laughter as the thin boy in the baggy tux stumbled on. In contrast to his shiny black lapels, Luke’s face was sheet white. He missed his mark, and his first line. The best he could manage as his back ran with what any pro could have told him was flop sweat was to stand rock still while his eyes darted wildly over the grinning faces of his first audience.

  “Ah.” Smooth as the silk he’d caused to appear and vanish, Max strode to him. “My young friend seems to be lost.” To the audience it appeared that Max stroked a friendly hand over Luke’s hair. They didn’t see the agile fingers pinch hard at the back of the boy’s neck to shock him out of opening-night jitters.

  Luke jerked, blinked and swallowed. “I, ah . . .” Shit, what was he supposed to say? “Lost my hat,” he finished in a rush, then went from white to red as the chuckles bounced toward the stage. The hell with them, he told himself and straightened his shoulders. In that moment, he was transformed from a frightened little boy to an arrogant young man. “I got a date with Lily. Can’t take a beautiful woman dancing without my hat.”

  “A date with Lily?” As rehearsed, Max looked surprised, then annoyed, then sly. “I’m afraid you must be mistaken, the lovely Lily is engaged for the evening with me.”

  “Guess she changed her mind.” Luke grinned, and hooked his fingers around his lapels. “She’s waiting for me. We’re going . . .” A little flourish, and a big red rose popped out on his lapel. “Out on the town.”

  The scattering of applause for his first public magic trick beckoned like a seductive woman.

  Luke Callahan had found his calling.

  “I see.” Max shot a sideways glance at the audience. “Aren’t you a little young for a woman of Lily’s charms?”

  He was rolling now. “What I lack in years I make up for in energy.”

  This remark, delivered with a sneer, brought a loud guffaw from the audience. Luke felt something shift inside him at the sound. As it settled comfortably into place, the sneer turned to a grin.

  “But of course, a gentleman can’t escort a lady out on the town without his hat.” Max rubbed his hands together and glanced stage left. “I’m afraid that’s the only hat I’ve seen tonight.” The key light swung on the oversized top hat. “It’s seems a little large, even for one with your swelled head.”

  Rocking back on his heels, Luke tucked his thumbs in his waistband. “I’m on to your tricks, old man. It’ll go easier on you if you change my hat back the way it was.”

  “I?” Eyebrows lifting, Max placed a hand to his breast. “Are you accusing me of sorcery in order to spoil your evening with Lily?”

  “Damn right.” It wasn’t precisely the line as rehearsed, but Luke delivered it with relish as he stalked over and tapped the rim of the hat. “Just get on with it.”

  “Very well then.” With a sigh for the boy’s obvious lack of manners, Max gestured. “If you’d be so kind as to step into the hat.” He smiled as Luke eyed him owlishly.

  “Okay, but no funny business.” Agile and quick, Luke hopped inside. “Remember, I’m on to you.”

  The moment Luke’s head disappeared below the rim, Max whipped out his magic wand. “And presto! Suitable magic.” He reached in the hat and pulled out a white rabbit. As the audience roared their approval, Max tipped the hat toward them so they could see for themselves that it was quite empty. “I doubt Lily will be interested in a night on the town with him now.”

  Responding to cue, Lily sauntered out. One look at the wriggling rabbit in Max’s hand made her shriek. “Not again!” Exasperation clear on her face, she turned to the audience. “That’s the fourth rabbit this month. Let me tell you, ladies, don’t get yourself hung up on a jealous magician.” Amid the laughter, she turned to Max. “Change him back.”

  “But, Lily—”

  “Change him back right this minute.” She fisted her hands on her glitter-slicked hips. “Or we’re through.”

  “Very well.” With exaggerated reluctance, Max slipped the rabbit back into the hat, sighed, then tapped the rim twice with his wand. Luke popped up, fury on every feature.

  The audience was still applauding as Luke scrambled clear of the hat, fists raised. Then there were gales of laughter as they spotted the white cottontail strategically placed on the back of his tux.

  It hadn’t taken Luke long to learn how to milk a bit. His head craned, he turned three circles, struggling to get a look at his own rear.

  “A slight miscalculation,” Max apologized when things quieted. “To prove no hard feelings, I’ll make it disappear.”

  Lily pouted prettily. “You promise?”

  “On my honor,” Max swore, placing a hand over his heart. He whipped off his cape, swirled it over Luke, then passed his wand over the silk-shrouded form. Even as the cape began to drift toward the floor, Max took up a corner and swung the silk high.

  “Max!” Lily gasped out his name, horrified.

  “I kept my word.” He took a deep bow toward her, then the cheering audience. “The tail’s gone. And so is the presumptuous brat.”

  As Lily and Max segued into the finale, Luke stood in the wings. Transfixed. They were applauding. They were cheering. For him. Luke leaned forward in the wings, staring at Max as he prepared to saw Lily in half.

  It was only for the barest of instants that their eyes met, held. But in that instant there was such a wealth of
understanding, and joy, that Luke felt his throat burn.

  For the first time in his life he began to love another man. And there was no shame in it.

  Luke haunted the midway. It was long after the last show, but he still carried the sound of applause and laughter inside his head, like an old song that kept repeating its melody over and over.

  He’d been somebody. For a few brief moments, he’d been someone who’d mattered. Before the baffled eyes of dozens of people, he’d vanished.

  And they’d believed.

  That was the secret, Luke thought to himself as he strutted along past the tired carnies who were still rambling out their spiel to the dwindling crowd. Making people believe an illusion was reality, if only for a split second. That was power, true power that went beyond fists and fury. He wondered if he would be able to explain to anyone that it was all in the mind. And his mind was now so full of that power it felt as though it might split apart, and light would spill out, hot and white.

  He knew Max would understand the sensation, but he wasn’t ready to share what was inside him with anyone. For tonight, this first night, it was his alone.

  The ten dollars Max had given him after the last show crinkled against his fingers when he slipped a hand into his pocket. The urge to spend it was amazingly strong—stronger than the hunger he’d learned to ignore. He stared at the blur of lights from the Ferris wheel, heard the rumble of cars whirling on the Crack the Whip. Tonight he could ride them all.

  The little figure in jeans and a baggy shirt darted across his vision, made him stop, then frown, then swear.

  “Roxanne! Hey, hey, Rox!” He scrambled after her, grabbing her arm. “What the hell do you think you are doing out?”

  She’d thought about it all right. She’d thought about being cooped up in bed feeling miserable while Luke took her place onstage. She’d thought about how endless the days had become, and how itchy the nights. And she’d thought about the fact that they would be in New Orleans, the summer season behind them, before she was clear of spots.

  “I’m going for a ride.”

  “Like hell.”

  Her pale face flushed with angry color. “You can’t tell me what to do, Luke Callahan. Not now, not ever. I’m going for a ride on the Ferris wheel, right now.”

  “Look, little miss shit for brains.” But before he could finish the thought, she’d rapped him hard in the stomach with her elbow. She was off and running before he caught his breath. “Goddammit, Roxy.” He snagged her again only because she got stuck in line. He started to tug her out, but this time she rounded on him with teeth.

  “You crazy or what?”

  “I’m going for a ride.” She folded her arms over her thin chest. The colored lights played over her face, making her blotches eerily festive.

  He could walk away. She certainly would tell no one he’d seen her. After all, she wasn’t his responsibility. But for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom he stuck by her side. He’d even reached for his money to pay their fares when the operator, who knew Roxy well, waved them both on.

  Like a princess granting an audience, Roxanne nodded to Luke. “You can ride with me if you want.”

  “Thanks loads.” He dropped down beside her and waited for the clang of the safety bar.

  Roxanne didn’t squeal or gasp as the wheel started its backward ascent. She merely sat back, closed her eyes and let a small, satisfied smile play around her lips. Years later, Luke would look back on that moment and realize that she had looked like a satisfied woman relaxing in an easy chair after a long day.

  She didn’t speak until the wheel had completed a full revolution. When she did, her voice was oddly adult.

  “I’m tired of being inside. I can’t see the lights, I can’t see the people.”

  “It’s the same every night.”

  “It’s different every night.” She opened her eyes then, emeralds in which all the colors around them flashed. She leaned forward against the bar, and the wind rippled her hair back witchlike into the sky. “See that skinny man down there, the one with the straw hat? I’ve never seen him before. And that girl in the shorts carrying the stuffed poodle? I don’t know her either. So it’s different.” As they climbed again, she threw her face back to the stars. “I used to think that we’d go right up through the sky. That I could touch it and bring it back down with me.” She smiled a little, just old enough to be amused at the childishness of the thought—and child enough to wish it could be true. “I wanted to do it. Just once.”

  “A lot of good it would do you down here.” But he smiled as well. It had been a long time since he’d ridden a Ferris wheel. So long he could barely remember the sensation of having his stomach drop away and his body circling fast to catch up.

  “You did a good job tonight, with the act,” Roxanne said suddenly. “I heard Daddy say so when he was talking to Lily. They thought I was asleep.”

  “Yeah?” He struggled to feign indifference.

  “He said that he’d seen something in you, and you didn’t disappoint him.” Roxanne lifted her arms straight up. The rush of air felt glorious on her itchy skin. “I guess you’re going to be part of the act.”

  The ripple of excitement Luke felt had nothing to do with the quick downward drop. “It’s something to do.” He shrugged to show insouciance. “As long as I’m hanging around.” When he glanced over she was watching him, measuring.

  “He says you’ve done things, seen things you shouldn’t have. What things?”

  Humiliation, anger and a sick sense of horror collided inside of him. Max knew, Luke thought. Somehow he knew. He felt his skin heat up, but his voice was cool. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “If I do, it’s none of your business.”

  “If you stay with us, it is. I know all about Mouse and Lily and LeClerc.”

  “Who the hell’s LeClerc?”

  “He cooks for us in New Orleans and helps Daddy with the cabaret act. He robbed banks.”

  “No shit?”

  Pleased that she’d snagged his full attention, Roxanne nodded. “He’s been to prison and everything ’cause he got caught. He taught Daddy how to open any lock there is.” Because she felt like pulling away from him, she rounded back. “So, I should know all about you, too. That’s the way it works.”

  “I haven’t said I’m staying yet. I got plans of my own.”

  “You’ll stay,” Roxanne said half to herself. “Daddy wants you to. And Lily. Daddy will teach you magic if you want to learn. Like he teaches me. Only I’ll be better.” Her lashes didn’t even flutter at his snort of derision. “I’m going to be the best.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he murmured as they wheeled into the sky. He turned his face to the wind. When he did, he almost believed that what he had done was nothing, nothing compared to what he could do.

  5

  Luke’s first impression of New Orleans was a jumbled whirl of sounds and scents. While Max, Lily and Roxanne bedded down in the trailer, he’d been curled in the cab of the truck, bored into patchy sleep by the sound of Mouse’s tuneless humming. They’d argued about the radio since Shreveport, but Mouse stood firm. He refused to have any noise that would interfere with the pleasure of listening to his engine.

  Now other sounds had begun to drift into Luke’s logy brain. Voices pitched high and shrieking laughter, the clashes of sax and drum and trumpet. As he floated awake, he thought they were back at the carnival. He could smell food, a spice on the air and the underlying reek of garbage gone ripe in the heat.

  Yawning, he opened his eyes and blinked out his open window.

  People, masses of people, streamed past in the streets. He saw a juggler who looked like Jesus tossing bright orange balls that glowed in the dark. An enormously fat woman in a flowered muumuu was doing a solo boogie to the backwash of Dixieland that poured through an open doorway. He smelled hot dogs.

  The circus is in town, he thought as he strug
gled to sit up.

  And he saw they had left the traveling carnival behind to join a more massive and more permanent one.

  “Where are we?”

  Mouse negotiated the truck and trailer through the narrow streets. “Home,” he said simply as he drove past Bourbon Street toward Chartres.