“And I was right the first time, wasn’t I?”
Gus had to admit it was true. “But why?”
“This is how stage magic works,” Shawn said. “They do a trick. You’re amazed. You can’t imagine how they pulled off something so miraculous. You’re dying to know. But they’ll never tell you.”
Gus slipped his sock over his foot, then stood into his loafer. “Because if you know the trick, then the illusion is ruined.”
“But why would that be?” Shawn said. “If they were really communing with the spirits or reading your mind or dancing with dragons, wouldn’t they want you to know?”
“Sure, but they’re not.”
“Obviously,” Shawn said. “But even if what they were doing was so difficult, so complicated, so challenging, knowing how they did it would only make you respect them more.”
“Yeah.”
“So why don’t they want you to know how they do it?”
Gus thought it through, but he still couldn’t see where Shawn was going with this.
“Just watch him.” Shawn pointed at the putto collecting his cards on the floor.
“What am I watching?”
“That.”
It was just a flicker of movement. If Gus hadn’t been staring so hard at the magician’s hands, he never would have noticed it. But while the putto was down on the floor gathering his deck, one hand shot out and slipped a card into the shoe of the young man whose way he had blocked. Unlike every other one of the magician’s fluttering movements, this one was sure, direct, and clean.
“Hey!” Gus said. “Did he do that to me, too?”
“What do you think?”
Gus tried to recreate the first moment he saw the man kneeling on the floor. Had he felt something brushing at his ankle? He couldn’t remember.
“But even if he could get a card inside my sock—”
“Which he did.”
“Okay, even after he got a card inside my sock, what if I had chosen the nine of clubs?” Gus said, trying to work out the trick. “He’d look pretty stupid.”
Shawn let out a heavy sigh. “Which is why he didn’t give you a choice of which card to choose. If you could get that deck away from him, I bet you’d find that every other card is the five of hearts. And he knows how to force the right one on you.”
Gus stared as the magician climbed to his feet and thrust the deck of cards into the young man’s face. “So it’s not that he made the card I chose end up in my shoe. . . .”
“It’s that he made you choose a card identical to the one he’d already stuck down your sock,” Shawn said. “Feeling mad yet?”
“Yeah,” Gus said. “But I’m not exactly sure why.”
“It’s the one thing that all magicians share,” Shawn said. “No one ever figures out the secrets to their tricks, not because they’re so complex, but because they’re so obvious. And when people find out the truth, they get mad because the entire illusion depends on the audience behaving like idiots. When they figure it out—if they ever figure it out—they get mad.”
Gus thought that over. And then he got mad all over again. “Let’s go.”
“After we deliver the present.”
“No, let’s go back and expose that fake,” Gus said, staring hard as the chubby magician forced the five of hearts on the young couple.
“Don’t bother,” Shawn said wearily. “These guys are pros. They’re ready for hecklers.”
“He’s not ready for me.”
“Gus, Gus, Gus,” Shawn sighed. “Didn’t you learn anything from War Games?”
“If you mean not to turn complete control of your nuclear arsenal over to computers on the grounds that they’re more logical and less likely to act out of emotion or error, I had already learned that from Colossus: The Forbin Project,” Gus said. “And if it’s that sentient computers find Ally Sheedy irresistible, Short Circuit is much more believable on that score.”
“I mean the lesson that WOPR has for all of us,” Shawn said. “The only winning move is not to play.”
“I don’t want to play. I want to expose that fraud.”
Shawn sighed. “Look, if I wanted to shoot a bear—”
“Why?” Gus interrupted, his eyes laser focused on the fraud crawling around on the ground.
“Why what?”
“Why would you want to shoot a bear? Remember what happened that time you borrowed Eli Messenger’s BB gun and accidentally winged a squirrel? You were a wreck for weeks.”
“First of all,” Shawn said, “I didn’t ‘accidentally wing’ the squirrel. I tracked it to its lair, waited until I could see the whites of its eyes, and then, reenacting the primordial battle of man against beast—”
“You dropped the gun. It went off and hit another squirrel that was watching you from a branch above,” Gus interrupted. “And even though it was just a flesh wound, you climbed up that tree every day for a week to bring your victim a bowl of Screaming Yellow Zonkers. Which even you have to admit was a strange choice, since of all the sweetened popcorn-based snack foods, Zonkers is the only one that doesn’t contain peanuts.”
“It was a young squirrel, and it might have had an allergy,” Shawn said. “Anyway, I wasn’t actually proposing that we go out in the woods and hunt a grizzly. What I was saying was that if I wanted to shoot a bear—” He broke off, making sure that Gus wasn’t going to interrupt again. Assured that he wouldn’t, Shawn continued. “If I wanted to shoot a bear, I wouldn’t do it in a den full of other bears.”
“Thank you for this moment of folksy wisdom,” Gus said. “Now, can we go expose that fraud?”
Shawn took Gus by the shoulders and turned him so he was facing the fireplace. “Tell me what you see.”
Gus glanced across the room and saw a sixtyish man, sporting a shiny red suit and an even shinier red nose, pulling miles of colored scarves out of one sleeve. By the front door, an aging hipster in a gold lamé jumpsuit was crashing metal rings together. Shawn pointed to the fireplace and Gus saw a woman with close-cropped hair, black slacks, and a black vest over a vividly patterned blouse lift a pair of daggers and drive them into her eyeballs, then wander off with the hilts sticking out of her sockets as the two people who had been paying attention stared in horror.
“People who make us look cool,” Gus said.
“Exactly,” Shawn said. “And if we go after one of them, they’ll all put aside their differences to fight back. Just like the bears in the den. So instead of exposing anyone, how about engaging in a little fraudulent behavior of our own?”
Shawn headed off down the corridor toward the noisy bar. Gus shot one last glance across the room, just in time to see the young woman squealing with delight as her boyfriend removed a playing card from his shoe. Then Gus followed Shawn down the hall.
The pub was clearly the most used room in the Fortress. The walls were clean and cobweb free; the carpet between the door and the bar had been worn down to threads. There were clearly several different events being held here tonight, and the room was clustered with tight knots of partyers.
“So, which one is Bud Flanek?” Gus said.
“Look for a guy wearing bib overalls.”
Gus scanned the crowds, but saw no one dressed as a farmer or train engineer. “We don’t even know which is the right party,” he said.
“Shouldn’t be that hard to figure out,” Shawn said. “Just look for wide ties and wider lapels.”
Gus wasn’t sure what Shawn meant by that, until he noticed a group of graying and balding men standing by a flickering fireplace. Each one wore a single-breasted suit fashioned out of some material nature had never intended, with lapels so wide they nearly touched at their wearer’s spine, and a tie that practically obviated the need for a shirt.
“How do you know that’s them?” Gus asked.
“Dad’s bowling group was all blue-collar guys,” Shawn said. “Sewer workers, garbage truck drivers, mechanics—not exactly jobs that require a coat and tie. They wear
a suit only once or twice a year to weddings or funerals, which means the first one they bought is still in great shape. So why should they ever buy a second?”
A roar of laughter came from the bachelor party as Shawn and Gus made their way over to them. When the hilarity over what was evidently a bit of clever wordplay involving the names of various items of the female anatomy subsided, Shawn stepped forward with the present.
“Mr. Flanek?” Shawn said to a tall, stooped man in the center of the crowd.
Bud Flanek studied Shawn carefully, trying to place a face he seemed certain he’d seen at least once before. “Do I know you?”
The man whose joke had been the cause of the recent merriment pushed his way out of the crowd and grabbed Shawn by the shoulder. He was shorter than Bud and almost completely bald except for a few strands of gray hair combed over his scalp and pasted down with spray. There was something about the way he moved that told the world he was to be the center of attention in any circumstances.
“This is the stripper we got you, Bud,” the man barked. “Sorry she’s so ugly—best we could afford.” He dissolved into gales of laughter over his own witticism.
Gus realized that the man was Lyle Wheelock, Bud’s best man and the evening’s host.
“I think we met once,” Shawn said. “My father is Henry Spencer. He asked me to—”
“Henry!” Lyle interrupted. “That old goat! What’s his problem that he can’t even bother to show up to the most important night in Bud’s life?”
“Second most important,” another man shouted from the crowd. “I think the wedding night is number one.”
“Not if this party goes the way I think it will!” Lyle roared, then, as the men erupted in laughter, turned back to Shawn. “So what’s Henry’s story? Is he afraid I’m going to tell everyone about that time in Reno?”
“Why isn’t Henry here?” Bud asked. “I was there for his bachelor party.”
This was Shawn’s moment: maximum humiliation of his father for minimum effort, a perfect revenge not only for this morning’s scare, but for years of similar scores. He was about to launch into the story of just why Henry would never again be allowed on the steep walkway to the Fortress of Magic, when he realized something was wrong. Henry had sent him here for a reason. He could just as easily have used a courier service, or dropped off the gift with the doorman. Henry was setting Shawn up for something, and while Shawn didn’t know what it was, he was pretty sure it was going to be some kind of lesson he wouldn’t enjoy learning.
“He’s in bed with a bad cold,” Shawn said.
“I know who you are,” Lyle bellowed. “You’re that psychotic kid.”
“Psychic,” Shawn said.
“I’m pretty sure I heard Henry say psychotic,” Lyle said. “Go ahead, tell my future.”
“I don’t tell futures,” Shawn said.
“And we’ve really got to be going,” Gus said, trying to pull Shawn away. “Give Bud the present and let’s get out of here, Shawn.”
But Lyle Wheelock placed himself directly in front of them. “Come on, brain boy,” he taunted. “We need some entertainment at this party. Do your trick.”
“I don’t do tricks,” Shawn said. “Talk to any of the magicians here. I’m sure they’ll be happy to help you out.”
“I knew you were a phony,” Lyle shouted. “You couldn’t read my mind if I took it out of my skull and handed it to you.”
“You tell him, Lyle,” Bud said.
“Come on, brain boy,” Lyle said. “Do something psychotic. Tell me something about myself nobody knows.”
Shawn pressed his fingers to his forehead and doubled over as if in pain. Then he straightened suddenly. “You are . . .”
“I am what?” Lyle said.
“Not nearly as funny as you think you are.”
A voice came out of the crowd. “He said tell him something no one else knows!”
Lyle’s face burned red as Shawn turned to go. “Come on, I want you to read my mind,” he said, grabbing Shawn’s arm. “I’m not letting you go until you tell me something amazing.”
Shawn sighed and took a hard look at Lyle Wheelock. And he saw. Saw a fine white powder on his shoulders—powder that might have been dandruff, except that Lyle didn’t have any hair. Saw a film of yellow grease under his fingernails. Saw the small tear in his shirt that had been amateurishly stitched together. Saw the bare white band on his ring finger.
Shawn’s hands dropped away from his forehead. “I’m not seeing anything,” he said, then turned to Gus. “Let’s go.”
“Just tell him something so we can get out of here,” Gus hissed in Shawn’s ear.
Shawn sighed again. “If that’s what everyone wants . . .”
Shawn leaned close to Lyle and whispered into his ear. Gus couldn’t hear what Shawn said, but he could see the reaction. Lyle dropped Shawn’s arm, his face turning red.
“Let’s go,” Shawn said, turning toward the door. But before they could take a step, Lyle let out a howl.
“How dare you come to this party and tell everybody I’m sleeping with my best friend’s fiancée?” Lyle shouted.
Behind Lyle, Bud Flanek turned pale. The other members of the party looked like they’d been struck with hammers.
“I didn’t,” Shawn said. “You just did.”
Lyle leapt across the room and grabbed Shawn by the throat. “Shut up! Shut up!”
Shawn gasped for breath, but Lyle was squeezing too tight. Gus tried to pry his fingers off, but they were like steel bands. Shawn could feel himself beginning to lose consciousness, when a scream echoed from the front room.
“What was that?” Lyle said, releasing his grip on Shawn’s throat and letting him drop to the floor.
Every head in the bar swiveled toward the door, and for a moment, the entire crowd stood frozen. And then the scream came again.
“This way,” someone shouted, and the entire crowd drained out of the room.
“Can’t see why my father doesn’t like this place more,” Shawn said, rubbing his neck.
Chapter Five
The Fortress shook as if someone had slammed a wrecking ball into it.
“Earthquake!” Gus shouted as he followed Shawn into the main parlor.
“I don’t think earthquakes usually hit at two-second intervals,” Shawn said.
Shawn and Gus pressed into the room, but all they could see were the backs of the people who’d gotten there before them. The Fortress shook again.
“Then what’s going on?”
Shawn scanned the room. Then he pointed above the crowd toward the entrance. “I think it may have something to do with that.”
Gus craned his head around a tall man in a cheap tuxedo, looking to see what Shawn was talking about. And when he did, he wished he’d never opened his eyes. It wasn’t the fact that there was a head bobbing above the crowd that bothered Gus, even though its bald crown must have been more than seven feet off the ground.
It was the fact that the head was green.
The Fortress shook again. The head moved through the crowd like a shark’s fin cutting through the waves, and Gus realized what was rattling the building: It was the green creature’s footsteps.
“What is it?” Gus whispered to Shawn.
“A product of global warming, I’m thinking,” Shawn said.
“What?”
“Don’t you remember Frankenstein:The True Story?” Shawn said. “At the end, Victor Frankenstein is chasing the monster over the North Pole, and they both get buried by an avalanche. Clearly, global warming has melted the ice enough to set the monster free.”
“That was a movie, Shawn,” Gus said. “It didn’t really happen.”
“It’s the true story,” Shawn said. “It said so in the title.”
“That doesn’t make it real,” Gus said.
“Really?” Shawn said. “I thought there was a law.”
The room shook again as the creature took another step. Somewhere in
the crowd, a woman screamed.
“What’s it doing?” Gus said, jumping up to see over the crowd.
“The last thing you want it to do,” Shawn said. “Coming this way.”
Shawn was right. The head had turned and was now moving directly toward them. Up ahead, Gus could see the crowd falling away to make room for the creature.
“Do you think it eats people?” Shawn said, edging back a little. “Because if so, I think Lyle would make a tasty treat.”
The crowds parted as the stomping footsteps got closer. The two men blocking Shawn’s view fell aside, and the creature stood directly in front of him.
Its enormous feet were encased in heavy black boots. On its bald head it wore a thick gold band as a crown. Its midsection was wrapped in a black loincloth. The rest was rippling muscles covered only by bare flesh.
Bare green flesh.
Gus stared up into the creature’s face. If he ignored the coloring and the razor-sharp teeth, he could imagine he was looking at a normal human. Of course, if he could ignore the coloring and the razor-sharp teeth, he could imagine a great white shark was a goldfish, but that wouldn’t keep him from being digested as a snack.
The creature stared down at Shawn and Gus, arms crossed over his mammoth chest. “Puny humans, tremble before P’tol P’kah,” his voice boomed down at them.
The creature pushed between Shawn and Gus as it stomped toward the back of the building. Before Gus could decide between following the green monster or collapsing into a dead faint, a thin, reedy voice came from behind him.
“Fellow magicians,” the voice said, “P’tol P’kah has come here to meet your challenge.”
Gus turned to see a tiny man following in the open aisle the creature had created. His salt-and-pepper hair was razor cut; his designer suit hugged his body. Aside from the fact that the top of his head didn’t quite skim the five-foot mark, he could have been Mitt Romney.
“Now, who here has dared call P’tol P’kah a fake?” the small man said.
There was a concerned murmur in the crowd before a heavyset man in a worn tuxedo pushed his way up to the speaker, his face twisted in scorn.
“I dared,” the man spat. Gus was certain he’d seen the angry man before, but couldn’t quite place him. “If I could build my own Vegas showroom and never let anyone backstage, I could perform miracles from beyond the wonders of space, too.”
Psych: Mind Over Magic Page 4