by Ivy Pochoda
When they collected themselves again, I suggested that we move to the front of the theater.
“The front?” Sandra hollered. “All the action goes on back here.”
I had just enough time to fall into a seat before the lights went out. A single grimy bulb lit the stage, illuminating the entrance of my magician. There was something sultry about his appearance. The stage lights erased the creases from his eyes and added a new depth to his hollow cheekbones. His movements were tauntingly languid, as if he were almost inviting his audience into the secret. But the angular shadows Toby cast on the tattered curtain and splintering stage made him seem mysteriously vacant—and they made the spectators want more of him.
As two smoky-voiced catcalls echoed through the theater, Toby paused center stage. Then he smiled an unfamiliar smile that mixed charm with subterfuge. Sandra pinched my arm. The magician began his show with a few unremarkable tricks—he made flowers grow from an empty vase and produced a goldfish in a bowl. After three more tricks, Toby pulled a highball from his jacket.
“Name your poison,” he said, stepping off the stage and approaching a woman in the front row.
“Bourbon,” the woman announced.
Toby filled the glass from an opaque bottle he had brought down from the stage with him.
The woman took a sip. “Four Roses?” she asked. She took another sip. “It is Four Roses.”
Toby moved through the audience, taking drink orders and filling glasses from the same bottle. Out came whiskey, vodka, rum, and cognac. Out came tequila and gin.
Sandra squawked with delight when Toby poured her a glass of Absolut Peppar. Trina asked for gin and received a glass of Bombay Sapphire. I noticed that she stroked my magician’s fingers as he passed her the glass.
I asked for whiskey, but got a glass with the nine of clubs.
“Is that your card?” Toby asked.
“How does he do it?” Sandra demanded as I fished the card from my drink.
Toby put down the enchanted bottle and walked out of the theater. The audience stood up to follow. The girls in the back row now had front-row seats for the rest of the show. I hesitated for a minute until Sandra tugged my arm. “This is the good part,” she said, dragging me along.
Toby walked through the slots. Cigarettes appeared at his fingertips. They appeared in the mouths of the slot players. Rows of flaming 7’s appeared across the pay bars of the slot machines. As he passed, a woman discovered that her nearly empty coin bucket had filled with nickels. A cocktail waitress with an empty tray found herself carrying six old-fashioneds. The audience, following several paces behind the magician, gasped and laughed. At the tables, a gambler put down his drink, and a full one appeared in its place. The man on his left found two cigarettes tucked behind his ears. Toby made dice hover in the air before they fell. He made the ball on the roulette wheel disappear. He conjured a pentagram on the bingo board.
But with the women, with the hardened Vegas broads, the gamblers’ wives, and the newcomers, he was especially slick. He pulled fistfuls of chips from a woman’s plunging neckline. He lit another woman’s cigarette from ten feet away. He transformed the cards of an elderly woman who was losing at poker into aces. Bouquets of flowers materialized in empty arms. Swing music flowed from cigarette lighters. Lipstick shades turned from pink to red.
Toby moved about the casino with the silence of an Indian tracker. The audience was unable to keep up with him. First he was causing an olive to appear in the martini of a woman playing blackjack; then he was making pink smoke rise from the drink of a lady by the bar.
For his finale, Toby chose a blackjack table, pulled out a chair, and placed a bet. The cards began to gallop across the felt. Chips followed suit. A cigarette appeared in the magician’s lips. He dropped it in an ashtray. When he looked up, a fresh one was hanging jauntily from his mouth. He deposited the new cigarette in the ashtray and discovered that another had found its way between his lips. Soon a delighted cry rippled across the table. All the players revealed their cards—six identical hands of twenty-one—all made up of the king of hearts and the ace of hearts. The dealer placed his cards on the table. They were identical to those of the other players. “Tie goes to the house,” he cried. Toby stood up, took a small bow, and the surrounding tables and spectators burst into applause.
“That was different,” I said, maneuvering around a woman in a sequined suit who had cornered my magician. Toby was having difficulty extracting himself from her grasp.
“Did you like it?” Toby asked.
“Absolutely,” I replied, although I did miss the natural elements—the sand, water, and flowers—that I had come to expect from Toby’s magic.
“Lemme buy you a drink,” the sequined woman pleaded.
“No thank you,” Toby said, unwrapping her hand from his wrist.
“Why don’t you buy me one, then?” she wheedled. “My husband’s over on the craps. Blind as a bat.”
“Sorry. I don’t socialize when I’m on duty,” Toby lied.
“So when do you get off work?” another woman wanted to know.
Toby grabbed my wrist, and we wove our way to the bar. Women popped up on all sides. They wanted their cigarettes lit. They wanted their drinks refilled. They wanted to slip twenty-dollar tips into the pockets of Toby’s green suit.
“Wow,” I said when we found space in the bar off the casino’s main floor. “What’s that all about?”
“I don’t know,” Toby replied. “Started two weeks ago. I was meant to lure the husbands into emptying their pockets, but it seems I’ve won over the wives. The manager was angry after the first week. Said that I was hired to charm the gamblers, trick them into loosening their purse strings. He said I should give my show a more masculine angle. For a few days, nothing worked. Gamblers, especially in this place, are tough guys. They don’t want flowers or silk handkerchiefs. They want top-of-the-line card tricks or they want to see girls being cut in half. Blood or money. But then the women started coming. All sorts of women.”
“What made them come?”
“I don’t know. There was a poker tournament in town. Maybe that was the reason—something to distract them while their husbands sweated it out at the tables. Maybe they were bored with the testosterone of Fremont Street. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.”
“You are very charming,” I said.
“Sometimes,” Toby replied with a wink. Then all the playfulness left his face. “This is the first time in ages that I’ve had the chance to be charming.” He laced his long fingers through mine. “You started all this. You were the first.”
I shook my head. “Meeting you was just luck.”
“A good magician doesn’t believe in luck.”
“What about the one-armed bandit at the gas station?”
Toby shook his head.
“Then what?”
“Some things are meant to be, and some are brought about by circumstances we don’t understand.”
I stared out over the rippling lights on the casino’s floor, over the coiffed heads of Toby’s new fans and wondered how he was luring these women to him. Then my thoughts rewound to the Red Rock Diner, to another girl Toby seemed to have pulled to his side. And finally my mind landed in Tonopah, where we met and where this chain of women seemed to start.
The noise on the casino floor was growing louder, a cacophony of smoky cackles and hoarse titters. The bar was starting to smell like a mixture of damp perfume and hairspray. I looked around. Women were standing in an imperfect semicircle around my magician. They were watching Toby over the rims of their glasses and over their shoulders. “There are so many,” I whispered.
“Yes. Tonight we have Jacqui Masterson, who likes gold-tipped cigarettes, Manhattans, two-piece suits, but can’t wear heels because of a herniated disk. Her husband is at the Golden Nugget, but she spends most of the day over here because when he drinks, she can’t stand the smell of his sweat. Then there’s Selena Baxter, whose husband was b
anned from the casino after pulling a knife on a dealer. She likes cognac, doesn’t smoke, and wishes she were still a showgirl,” Toby said.
“How do you know all of this?”
Toby looked over the crowded casino floor. “See that woman over by the nickel slots?”
I peered through the fronds of a plastic fern and saw a tall woman with a hive of dyed-black hair smile at Toby through her empty highball.
“She’s trouble. Evelyn Langhorn. Never been married. Grew up in a casino. Thinks she’s seen all there is to see, so she’s looking to create something never seen before.”
“Did they tell you all this?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then how—?”
“In the dark, no one knows how much you can see.”
The bartender placed a whiskey sour in front of Toby. “I’m not sure who this one’s from, Mr. Toby,” he said, gesturing at a gaggle of middle-aged women hovering by the dollar slots.
“Thanks,” Toby said, casting aside the cherry garnish.
The women were approaching. Before they were within earshot, Toby whispered in my ear. “C’mon,” Toby said, taking me by the hand, “let’s get out of here.”
Several doors down from the Castaway, we found a slots hall with a Caribbean theme. We sat in front of a pair of complicated-looking electronic poker games while women in canary yellow Carmen Miranda outfits with headdresses of fruit and fake feathers brought us foot-long glasses of beer. Our seats faced the enclosed promenade of Fremont Street. As we sat, the Fremont Street Experience laser show played across the domed roof of the esplanade. We sat in silence, listening to the tinkle and whir of the slots and the electronic music from the laser show.
Suddenly Toby grabbed my hand, nearly upsetting my beer. “Isn’t that…,” he began.
I followed his gaze and saw a familiar figure with badly bleached hair saunter down the street. Greta had changed out of her waitress uniform and into her usual goth garb.
“It is,” I said. “I saw her earlier today. She’s working in a diner off the Strip.”
“Another diner,” Toby wondered.
“Well, she’d gladly trade it in to become your assistant.”
“I thought she said my show was lame.”
“She did.”
“So?”
“So, she’s a teenager. Anything to get attention.”
“I guess I wasn’t a typical teenager,” Toby said. “I’ve got to get ready for my next show. Coming?”
“I’ll leave you to your ladies,” I said, kissing him.
I took a sip of beer and watched Toby vanish into the crowd outside. Then I slid into a seat in front of one of the slot machines, fed it five dollars, and began to play. The machine was one of the old-style games with a cup holder, an ashtray, and a low payout. After I lost five dollars, I decided to give it five more. I had just spun the wheel when someone reached over and tapped a cigarette into my machine’s ashtray.
“Excuse me,” a man’s voice said.
I looked up, irritated that the speaker hadn’t used any of the ashtrays on a dozen other machines.
“It’s a fool’s game,” he continued. He was older than Toby, with greased black hair and skin that was either too tan or caked with makeup. He wore a black leather car coat and a tight white T-shirt tucked into black jeans. Years ago, he might have been muscular, but his physique was melting into paunch. When he put his cigarette to his lips, a large gold signet ring glinted in the flashing lights of the slots.
“Doesn’t bother me,” I said, swiveling my chair away from him.
“I don’t believe in luck,” the man said.
“Then you’re in the wrong place.”
“Actually I’m not.” He stuck his hand out in front of my face. “Name’s Swenson. Swenson the Spectacular.”
“Mel,” I said, pulling away from Toby’s old partner.
“Do you believe in luck, Mel?” Swenson asked. He plucked a cocktail in a plastic cup from the top of a nearby machine and took a sip.
“I don’t know,” I muttered, wanting to be rid of Swenson.
“Well, maybe you believe in coincidence.”
I spun the wheels and won a dollar.
Swenson cracked an ice cube in his teeth. “Would you say it’s a coincidence if I told you I’m a magician?”
“Why would that be a coincidence?” I asked, keeping my back turned. “Anyway, I already know you’re a magician.”
“So, I’m not the only magician in your life.”
“I’d hardly say that you’re in my life.”
“Not yet.”
I spun the chair round and faced Swenson. “What is it that you want?”
“I’ve known Toby Warring a long time. We go back.”
I didn’t reply.
“Did a show together at one point.”
“I’ve heard.”
“Now, what have you heard?” Swenson lowered himself into the chair next to me.
“That you’re not the best magician.” I spun the wheel again.
“Hmm.” Swenson cracked another ice cube. “That pretty much sounds like Toby.” Now he wrapped a large hand around my wrist. “At least I’m not a dangerous magician.”
I pulled free. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Swenson smiled. “I think you do.”
I spun the wheel and lost all my money. Out of the corner of my eye, I could sense Swenson staring into the gritty esplanade of Fremont Street.
“I wonder,” he said, jostling the remaining ice in his drink. “I wonder.”
When I didn’t respond, he drained his glass and replaced it roughly in the cup holder in front of him. I was about to feed the machine another dollar, but Swenson stopped me. “I wonder,” he said again, “how you make someone disappear.”
I shrugged, and slid the dollar into the machine.
“I’m not talking for a split second behind a screen. But really disappear.” He waited for a moment, then rapped his signet ring on the plastic front of the gambling machine. “What I’m talking about is making someone vanish for months. Or years.”
“I don’t know,” I said finally.
Swenson laughed and winked. “Exactly. Neither do I. And I’ve been a magician half my life. A trustworthy magician.” He drained his drink and winked once more.
“I loved her. Obviously more than he did.”
“Who?”
“Eva, our assistant. And Toby ruined everything.”
“I’m not sure what you want from me.”
“There’s absolutely nothing I want from you, sweetheart.” He smiled and nodded slightly. “I’m just worried about you. That’s all.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“That’s what she thought.” He reached over, spun the wheel on my game, and lost. “Such a disaster.”
“Some people prefer to be absent,” I said, thinking of my brother.
“Most don’t.” Swenson trapped me with his red-rimmed eyes. “And most magicians don’t like renegades like your husband. Not even in dives like the Castaway.”
I looked away.
“We have a code.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Swenson’s face wore an indulgent smile. “Drink?”
I shook my head.
He withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket, draped it over the top of the machine in front of him. When he whisked it away, two fresh cocktails had appeared. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.”
“No thanks,” I said.
“You see, that is magic.” Swenson smiled. “Now, if you want to see a real show, you should check out my North American Wonder Show.”
“No thanks,” I repeated.
“I’ve got the biggest tour going in the Canadian provinces.”
“And?”
“It’s a lot better than what your husband will have when people discover that he’s not to be trusted. You think this side of town is bad. I can’t imagine where you two will go next.”
“Why would we have to go anywhere?”
“Ah,” Swenson said with another patronizing smile, “by now you should have learned that a magician never reveals what is up his sleeve.”
“Toby never has anything up his sleeve,” I said.
“That, sweetheart, is precisely the point.”
Five
If Toby had been perturbed by my meeting with Swenson, he didn’t let it show. He simply told me that things were going too well for Swenson to interfere with him now. In fact, attendance at Toby’s show at the Castaway was so good that the management had offered him a yearlong contract, which Toby had yet to sign. He had a feeling a better offer was waiting in the wings. Getting stuck on Fremont Street when the Strip was calling would be a disaster.
Like a fish in a tank, I had grown used to living without natural light since arriving in Vegas and mistook the city’s shrunken castles and palaces for the real thing. I was drugged with the lazy promise of simple days, of conveyor belts that moved me, slots that might make me rich, and around-the-world trips that were just across the street. Most of all, I was drugged by the calm that descended every morning when I opened my eyes and saw the sleeping magician. We always slept tightly wound around each other. When we woke, we would open our remote-controlled curtains, revealing the empty desert flowing away from the Strip. Then we would sit up, conjuring our future from the sun-baked sands.
To my surprise, I was beginning to look forward to settling in the desert. On Toby’s day off, we’d drive out of Vegas, heading deeper into the desert, navigating the dirt roads with Toby’s creaky van. We sometimes drove in the direction of the spot where Toby had made the sand dance for me. It was near there that we discovered a solitary blue ranch house, its unusual cornflower color fastened brightly to the rusty hues of the surrounding desert.
An abandoned model home from the early seventies, it stood, framed by two distant mesas, waiting for a suburban sprawl that never arrived. Shag carpet, brightly colored living room and bedroom sets in shades of blue and green, all pretty much intact. Toby sprung the lock, and we stepped inside. Despite the lack of air-conditioning, the interior was cool and soothing. We linked hands and toured our desert home.