The Whittier Trilogy

by Michael W. Layne

  The kid almost laughed when Trent mentioned the word stage, but he shuffled around the counter and walked Trent through the casino to the bar area. There were enough round tables to seat about 200 people, arranged in front of a modest stage on a raised wooden floor maybe only a foot or so off the ground.

  Luckily, Trent was used to performing anywhere, including street corners. He had been doing this long enough that he wasn’t nervous at all about how close he would be to the audience. In fact, sometimes these little venues yielded the best shows. He was interested to see how many people would show up for his first performance, and he asked the kid about the crowd they were expecting.

  “Not sure,” the young man said. “We put up flyers and stuff, so…hopefully more people will show than normally come out here. It’s pretty dead most of the time, at least until guests start coming back from the strip, but by then they’re usually pretty drunk. And broke.”

  Trent nodded and asked for the key to his room. At least the job included free room, breakfast, and a decent little payment per show. He wasn’t going to get rich working this kind of room, but it was better than nothing.

  With money still on his mind, Trent made a note to talk to his agent when he got back to Northern Virginia. Trent had played much larger venues in the past and, quite frankly, was better than this. He wondered if his agent was losing it or if this was some kind of subtle revenge he was taking on Trent for going on vacation last month instead of accepting that gig in Atlanta.

  Either way, Trent needed to get settled in and to prepare for his first show at 10 p.m.—only a few hours away. Even though it would mean less money, he secretly hoped that not many people would show up for his first set. He was here in Vegas physically, but his mind was still elsewhere, and he needed some time to acclimate to his new surroundings.

  He walked outside and up the stairs to the second floor. His room was right in the middle of the outside walkway, which meant that hotel guests would be staying on either side of him. At least when he finally entered his room, the place was clean and the sheets appeared to be fresh. He could only just detect the faint scent of cigarettes despite the no smoking signs plastered sporadically throughout the room.

  Trent set his bags down and walked over to the front window. He pulled back the curtain and looked up at the sky. The moon was already up. It wasn’t full yet, but it wasn’t too far away from it either—maybe three or four days at the most.

  A shiver traveled up and down his spine as he held the silver pendant hanging from his neck and once again remembered Christina. For some reason, the thought of experiencing a full moon without her just didn’t seem right, and he wondered if he would ever meet anyone who would take his mind off of her.

  Chapter 6

  IT WAS JUST BEFORE 10 p.m., and the tagline for Trent’s show read, Be Very Afraid, on the small marquee sign outside of the Lucky Imp’s bar.

  Trent prided himself on being able to entertain, but on also being able to instill fear or at least morbid astonishment on his audience members.

  If asked, he freely admitted that he held no special powers, no true psychic ability, and no connection to a higher being. But he was able to create situations on stage and with members of his audience that seemed to touch them at the core of their most basic selves—the parts of them that still reacted to strange sounds in the middle of the night and that bit at fingernails during scary ghost stories.

  But in a country where people were used to being mindlessly entertained and having their senses bombarded with rapid-fire images and other stimuli, getting them to pay attention to anything was difficult. Getting them to focus and to actually feel something real, like fear, was even harder.

  Besides that, people didn’t journey to Las Vegas to feel. They came here to indulge—to gamble, drink, smoke, do drugs, have illicit sex, or at the very least, to get a lap dance in the kind of bar they would normally never visit. Vegas was about excesses and not feeling that you were accountable for them.

  Normally at a show, Trent had a pretty good idea of the different kinds of people who would pay money to see a mentalist. But in Vegas, there was no telling who or what he might expect to find at his shows.

  Some members of his audience might be returning back to the hotel early from a losing streak on the strip. Maybe some were in town for a convention or were just returning from a show at one of the big hotel casinos. Whatever their individual reasons for ending up at his show, with start times at 10 p.m. and midnight, Trent was sure to have a decent number of worn-out and inebriated people only half-watching and paying attention to him.

  On the one hand, this was not an ideal situation, since drunk people didn’t tend to focus very well. On the other hand, at least they’d be fairly easy to impress.

  When 10 p.m. arrived, Trent was introduced by the hotel owner, and stepped onto the small stage, ready to launch into his welcome speech and then his first routine. Just as he had hoped for this first show, there were only five members in the audience—one couple and three loners. Four of them were well behaved, and Trent interacted with them each, doing his best to convince the small audience that they were the luckiest folks in Vegas because they had their own personal mentalist all to themselves for an hour and a half.

  After the show was over, he didn’t feel that he had been particularly on for his first performance, but four of the five audience members had clapped loudly when he had said goodnight, and at least two of them left substantially more sober than when they had arrived. It was such a small crowd that Trent also went around and personally thanked each of them afterwards.

  After taking a small break, Trent was ready for his midnight show.

  He made a comment to the hotel owner about the show starting so late, but all the guy said was that the strip was for A-listers, and that he was just trying to catch the late crowds when people were on their way back from the casinos, to convince folks to buy a few more drinks or maybe spend a few more dollars before going to sleep for the night.

  Trent’s job was to entertain them and keep them awake so they could order those drinks. And if things went really well, maybe some of them would remember how good the show had been and even stay again at the Lucky Imp the next time they were in town.

  Trent understood the deal. He knew he wasn’t the star of the strip, so he just nodded and headed to the bar area for a few shots of Jägermeister before it was time to meander back to the side of the stage.

  Just before midnight, the crowd wandered in and took their seats at the various round tables scattered in front of the stage. Most of the people entered holding drinks, and Trent was sure that they would continue to imbibe throughout his performance.

  This time, at least, the crowd was a decent size, and whether it was the Jäger or the fact that the first show had warmed him up, Trent donned his microphone headset and was immediately ready to entertain.

  When the house lights came down, the owner of the hotel hopped up on stage, holding a wireless mic, and introduced Trent as the most astounding mentalist he had ever seen. He also warned the audience that if anyone in the crowd had heart problems or was wearing a pace maker, they should consider leaving the room immediately. The hotel owner laughed at his own joke, the same way most unfunny people did; but at least he was trying to get everyone into the spirit of things, and Trent was thankful for that.

  As the hotel owner made a final flourish with his hands, Trent stepped onto the tiny stage. He counted the number of audience members with a single glance as he turned to face the twenty-three people in the room.

  He bowed his head and then stared directly above the heads of the seated audience members. He stayed silent until just before he felt that some of them might lose interest or that one of them might suddenly yell something out loud.

  He spoke.

  “Has anyone tonight ever been afraid?” Trent said. “Please raise your hand if you have been afraid before. Of anything.”

  Only a single young man sitting in the bac
k of the room abstained. Trent made a mental note of him, his posture, and his facial expression. He concluded that the man had at some time, and maybe even regularly, been very afraid of someone or something to such a degree that he was even now too afraid to admit what he perceived to be his weakness.

  “Every one of you has been terrified of something before,” Trent said. “After all, we are only animals, and to experience fear is wired into our DNA. We encounter many things in our daily lives that elicit emotions from us, and inevitably fear will be one of those emotions at some point and time. Yes? Totally natural. Fear serves a purpose, and is one of the reasons our species still thrives today. You may put your hands down.”

  Unbeknownst to the crowd, Trent’s manipulation of their minds had already begun. Just by having them respond to his gentle commands and the soft but confident tone of his voice, he was beginning to, for lack of a better word, train them and prepare them to be hypnotized, an ability on which he would be relying heavily throughout the rest of his show.

  “Let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?” Trent said. “How many of you have experienced fear due to some sort of paranormal phenomenon? Something you knew, or at least hoped, was not real but that you could not explain otherwise. It could have been a ghost or even a UFO. Raise your hands, please, if you have been afraid of something supernatural before.”

  This time, only six people raised their hands. But Trent could tell from the reactions of the other seventeen people that over half of them were either too embarrassed or for some other reason hesitant to admit that they had at one time had a frightening supernatural encounter.

  As he spoke to the members of the audience, who were now all watching him intently, Trent made sure the silver pendant around his neck freely twisted back and forth, reflecting the brightness of the overhead stage lights and the single spot trained on him at front center stage. The flickering light his pendant produced didn’t serve to hypnotize anyone per se, but it did help audience members to focus, and paying attention was key to any good show.

  The other essential ingredient for a successful hypnosis was relaxation, but most members of his audience were more than relaxed enough given the time of night and the amount of booze in their bloodstreams. Trent’s only concern was that a few of them might actually fall asleep if he didn’t keep things engaging and interesting.

  “Let me begin by explaining why I am here tonight,” Trent said, pacing freely about the small stage. “The answer is really quite simple. My purpose is to instill in each of you tonight, the sensation of fear. Not the thing you feel in a movie theater when you watch someone getting hacked to pieces, but real fear. Tonight I will be tapping into that part of you that I like to call your reptilian brain—the part of you that believes in things that go bump in the night.

  “To warm up, I need three volunteers to join me on stage right now. Since the crowd is small tonight, I will close my eyes and randomly point, and I will trust you to come up if you are selected.”

  With that, Trent closed his eyes, and pointed to three people whose seat positions he had memorized and whose faces and reactions told him they might be susceptible to being hypnotized in front of a live crowd.

  When Trent opened his eyes, three people were already on their way to the stage, and the other audience members were clapping weakly.

  Trent didn’t mind the lack of initial enthusiasm. He knew their energy levels would grow over the course of the next hour and a half—as would their fear.

  Chapter 7

  “THE THREE OF YOU, please give us your names,” Trent said to his first set of volunteers.

  One was named Susan. The other woman was Jennifer. And the only male of the trio was named Phil.

  Trent arranged his three volunteers in a line—gently guiding each by touching his or her shoulders. Once in place, he stood in front of each volunteer in turn, holding first Jennifer, then Susan, and finally Phil by his or her wrist.

  With each volunteer, he repeated the person’s name for the audience to hear while introducing himself again. By doing so, Trent was relaxing his subjects as much as possible and was already starting their hypnosis.

  When he was done, he stepped back and turned sideways so that he could face both the audience and his volunteers.

  “I want each of you to think of an object,” Trent said. “Nothing like a building or anything large or impersonal, but something that you own, perhaps something you have on your person right now would be best. It is very important that you do exactly as I say. And once you’ve selected an object, hold the image of that object in the front of your mind. I will go around to each of you and guess what you are thinking of in less than twenty questions. Ready? Please keep the object in your mind. And do not change or switch objects, even if you are tempted to do so.”

  Trent walked over to the first woman.

  “Let’s talk to Jennifer first. Jennifer, please come over here in front of me,” Trent said, as he gently guided her to stand in front of him. Trent made a show of putting his finger to his lip and looking Jennifer up and down.

  She was an attractive young woman, probably age twenty-four to twenty-five. Her shoes were simple, from somewhere that sold discount footwear, probably over the Internet, but they were also the nicest part of her wardrobe that night. Her jeans were faux designer also from somewhere that sold discount clothing. The fit was decent, but not perfect, highlighting the fact that Jennifer did not exercise regularly. Her fingernails were done in a home version of a French manicure. Her blouse tried to be just a bit too stylish, and Trent assumed there was a high probability that she had purchased it at a discount store as well, probably in preparation for her trip to Vegas.

  “I’m trying to pick up on the object you are holding in your mind,” Trent said. “I can almost see it circling around in your head. I want you to let the image of the object just roll out of your mind and into mine. Try your best. You must try to project the image into my head. Are you trying, Jennifer?”

  Jennifer nodded and said, “Yes.”

  “Then I will begin my questions. I want to say that the object you’re thinking of is…is it something maybe that you are wearing?” Trent said, as he observed her micro expressions and her barely detectable downward glance toward her feet.

  “Yes…” Jennifer responded with a nervous smile. Trent couldn’t have asked for a better first volunteer.

  “Oh, so close, Jennifer! Try just a little more. Make sure you’re trying your hardest to project the image of the object right at me. From your mind into my mind. You must try. Is it something that you might purchase online? Wait. I can see it. Is the object you’re thinking of one of your lovely high heel shoes by any chance?”

  Jennifer looked suitably surprised as she again answered “yes,” and started clapping and smiling.

  Trent moved her back into position and whispered something in her ear that only she could hear.

  The next two people were brought to center stage in turn, and within three questions each, Trent had successfully guessed strawberry lip balm for Susan and a coin—a quarter to be exact—for Phil.

  After guessing each of their objects correctly, Trent whispered something privately to each of them, just as he had done with Jennifer.

  So far, the show was going well. The audience was beginning to engage, and three quarters of the tables clapped loudly as Trent thanked his volunteers and asked them to return to their seats.

  “As the more astute of you may have noticed, after surmising each of their objects, I whispered something to our wonderful volunteers that only they could hear. To the three of you now back in your seats, I know it’s been a long night, but it is extremely important that you do one more thing for me. Please get a piece of paper from someone at your table or just a napkin will be fine, and write down the word I just told you. Don’t show it to anyone, please. After you’ve written it down, fold the paper in half and then in half again so that no one can see what you have written. Hold on to that until the
end of the show. Am I clear?”

  Each of the volunteers nodded from their seats as they wrote down their words.

  Trent addressed the audience as a whole again.

  “I know that you are all thinking to yourself how very entertaining that was, but also how you certainly weren’t frightened by any of it. And of course, you are correct. There was nothing particularly horrifying about me guessing a few objects that our three friends were thinking of. Thank goodness! But remember, the evening is still young. Bear with me, and I promise that you will not be disappointed.”

  Trent continued his show and went on to guess correctly myriad facts about several of the audience members through a series of deftly executed cold readings. By observation, intuition, and probability, Trent was able to tell a great deal about each person by such things as their body language, age, clothing, hairstyle, gender, manner of speech and many other attributes that typically made it seem that he knew much more about each subject than he actually did.

  During the show, Trent also pulled numbers seemingly out of thin air that audience members had written down in black magic marker without showing him. Trent knew he had a solid first half of his show, and he went through each part of his routine with high energy and dramatic execution. More and more of the audience engaged and stayed with him as he led them here and there with wit and humor punctuated with astounding feats of mental and intuitive ability that left everyone astounded and perplexed.

  During one of his cold reads, Trent had just deduced the last television show one of his audience members had watched earlier in the day. As the woman was taking her seat, and the audience was clapping again, Trent honed in on an attractive young woman sitting at one of the tables in the back of the bar area. Next to her sat the young man who had not raised his hand when asked if he had ever been afraid.

  There was an implied challenge in the man’s claim that was almost too sweet for Trent not to accept, but not in the way that anyone would expect.