by Nora Roberts
“No, I believe I’ll do it myself.”
“Terrific.” He heaved a sigh. “Once they’re shuffled, I’ll cut the cards and magically reveal the one this fine gentleman chose.” He reached in his pocket, pulled out an invisible handkerchief and wiped his brow. “I think that’s enough. Really, really, you’ve done enough.” Luke snatched the deck back. After setting it on the table, he waved his hands over it and mumbled. “Almost got it. And!” He cut the cards and held one up in triumph. At the gentle shake of Max’s head, he looked crestfallen. “That’s not it? I was sure I did this right. Hold on a minute.” He set the cards back, mumbled over them again, and again chose incorrectly.
“Something must be wrong with this deck. I don’t think your card’s there at all. I think you cheated.” He rose, incensed, and stalked toward the audience. “And someone out here must be working with you. You there.” He pointed a finger at Lester, who was busily taking bets. “Come on, give it up.”
“Give what up, kid?”
“The card. I know you’ve got it.”
“Hey.” Lester cocked the phone on his shoulder and held up both hands. “I ain’t got no card, kid.”
“Oh no?” Luke reached down past Lester’s bulging belly under the waistband of his slacks and pulled out a nine of diamonds. “Guess you were just on your way to a poker game.”
While Lester howled with laughter, Luke held the card overhead for the audience to identify. “Thank you. Thank you. Hey, you’ve been a good sport,” he said to Lester. “Why don’t you stand up and take a bow.”
“Sure, kid, sure.” Amused, Lester rose. “You got an up-and-comer here, Max. You sure as hell do.”
The compliment had Luke beaming. But it was nothing, nothing compared to hearing Max laugh.
“Now.” Max rose to drop a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “That’s showmanship. Let’s see if we can work it into the act.”
Luke’s jaw dropped to his knees. “No shit?”
Max ruffled Luke’s hair, pleased that the boy didn’t stiffen at the touch. “No shit.”
It wasn’t a long trip from New Orleans to Lafayette. With Mouse at the wheel of the dark sedan, Max could sit back, close his eyes and prepare. Stealing wasn’t so different from performing. Or it had never been for him. When he had first begun, so many years ago, he’d blended the two skills. That had been a matter of survival.
Now, older, more mature, he separated his performances from his thievery. That, too, was survival. As his name became more well known, it would have been reckless to steal from his audience.
Max was not a reckless man.
Some might have pointed out that he no longer had to steal to keep food in his belly or a roof over his head. Max would have agreed. He also would have added that not only was it difficult to break a habit of such long standing, particularly when he was so skilled, but he enjoyed stealing.
As a child who had been abused, abandoned and unloved, stealing had been a matter of control, and of defiance.
Now, it was a matter of pride.
He was, quite simply, one of the best. And he considered himself gracious enough to choose his marks carefully, taking only from those who could afford to lose.
It was rare for him to work this close to home. Max considered it not only risky but messy. Still, rules were made to be broken.
With his eyes shut, he could conjure the flash and beauty of the aquamarine and diamond necklace. All that icy blue and white. For himself, he preferred hot gems. Rubies, sapphires, deep, rich colors that held passion as well as glory. But personal taste often had to be set aside for practicality. If his information was correct, those emerald-cut aquamarines would bring a hefty sum once they were popped free of their setting.
LeClerc already had a buyer.
Even after the tithe, and expenses, Max calculated there would be a nice chunk left over for Roxanne’s college fund, and for the one he’d recently started for Luke.
He smiled to himself. Irony rarely escaped him. He was a thief who worried about interest rates and mutual funds.
Too many hungry years had taught him the value of investments. His children wouldn’t go hungry, and they would have a choice over which path they took.
“This is the corner, Max.”
Max opened his eyes and noted that Mouse had the car idling at the curb. It was a quiet neighborhood, tree-lined, with big, elegant houses shielded by leaves and flowering shrubs.
“Ah, yes. The time?”
Mouse checked his watch as Max did. “Two-ten.”
“Good.”
“The alarm system’s really basic. You just snip both red wires. But if you’re not sure, I can come do it for you.”
“Thank you, Mouse.” Max pulled on thin black gloves. “I believe I can handle it. If the safe is as LeClerc led me to believe, I’ll need only seven or eight minutes to open it. Meet me back here at precisely two-thirty. If I’m more than five minutes late, you leave.” When Mouse only grumbled, Max tapped his shoulder. “I have to be able to count on you for that.”
“You’ll be back,” Mouse said and hunched down in the seat.
“And we’ll be several thousand dollars richer.” Max slipped from the car and faded into the shadows.
Half a block down, he vaulted over a low stone wall. There were no lights on in the three-story brick house, but he made a circuit just to be sure before locating the alarm box. Once the red wires were snipped, he didn’t hesitate. Mouse was never wrong.
He took his glass cutter and suction cup from the soft leather pouch at his waist. Clouds dancing over the moon kept the light shifting, but he needed none at all. If he’d been struck blind, Max could have found his way in or out of a locked door.
There was a quiet click as he reached in and undid the latch. Then silence. As always, he listened to it, let it cloak him before he stepped inside.
He could never describe to anyone the feeling that rose inside him each and every time he stepped into a dark, quiet house. It was a kind of power, he supposed, in being where you weren’t supposed to be, and going undiscovered.
Silent as a shadow, he slipped through the kitchen, into the dining room and into the hall.
His heart beat fast. A pleasant feeling, one he knew was similar to the anticipation of good sex.
He found the library exactly where LeClerc had told him it would be, and the safe, hidden behind a false door.
With a penlight clamped between his teeth and a stethoscope pressed near the lock, Max went to work.
He was enjoying the job. The library smelled faintly of overblown roses and cherry tobacco. A light breeze was tapping the branches of a chestnut against the window. He imagined, if he had the time, he’d find a brandy decanter close by and could indulge in a sip or two before going on his way.
The third of the four tumblers fell into place, with eight minutes to spare. Then he heard the whimpering.
Braced to run, he turned slowly. Using the penlight, he scanned toward the sound. A puppy, no more than a few weeks old, stood watching him. With another whimper, he squatted and piddled on the Turkish carpet.
“A little too late to ask me to let you out,” Max murmured. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t afford the time to clean up after you. You’ll just have to take your lumps in the morning.”
Max worked on the fourth tumbler as the pup waddled over to sniff his shoes. With a satisfied sigh, he opened the safe.
“Fortunately for me, I didn’t plan this job a year from now, when you’d be big enough to take a bite out of me. Though I do have a scar on my rump from a poodle not much bigger than you.”
He bypassed stock certificates and opened a velvet box. The aquamarines gleamed up at him. Using the penlight and a jeweler’s loupe, he checked the stones, gave a satisfied sigh.
“Lovely, aren’t they?” He slid them out of the box and into his pouch.
As he bent to give the puppy a farewell pat on the head, he heard the rustle on the stairs. “Frisky?” It was a fema
le voice, pitched to a stage whisper. “Frisky, are you down here?”
“Frisky?” Max said under his breath, giving the dog a sympathetic stroke. “Some of us are forced to rise above our names.” He clicked the safe shut, then faded back into the shadows.
A middle-aged woman with her hair in a sleep net and her face gleaming with night cream tiptoed into the room. The puppy whined, slapped his tail on the rug, then started in Max’s direction.
“There you are! Mama’s baby!” Less than a foot away from Max, she scooped the dog up. “What have you been up to? You naughty dog.” She gave him loud kisses as the pup tried to wriggle away. “Are you hungry? Are you hungry, honey bunny? Let’s give you a nice bowl of milk.”
Max closed his eyes, wholeheartedly on the side of the dog, who yipped and tried to gain his freedom. But the woman clung tight, bundling Frisky to her breast as she started out toward the kitchen.
Since that meant Max couldn’t get out the way he’d come in, he eased up a window. If his luck held, she would be too involved with the pup to notice the nice, neat hole in the beveled glass kitchen door.
If it didn’t, Max mused as he tossed a leg out the window, he’d still have a head start.
He closed the window after him and did his best not to trample the pansies.
Luke couldn’t sleep. The idea of performing the next night had him tied up in knots of exhilaration and terror. The what-ifs plagued him.
What if he fumbled. What if he forgot the trick. What if the audience thought he was just a dumb kid.
He could be good. He knew that inside him was the potential to be really good. But so many years of being told he was stupid, worthless, good for nothing, had left their mark.
For Luke there was only one way to deal with insomnia. That was food. He still believed the best time to feast was when no one was around to tell him not to.
He pulled on a pair of cutoffs and moved silently downstairs. Images of LeClerc’s barbecued pork and pecan pie waltzed through his head.
The sound of LeClerc’s voice made him stop, and swear. He was far from sure of the old man. But when he heard Max’s laugh, he crept closer.
“Your information is always reliable, Jean. The blueprints, the safe, the gems.” Max cupped a brandy in one hand, the jewels in the other. “I can’t complain overmuch about one small dog.”
“They didn’t have a dog last week. Not even five days ago.”
“They have one now.” Max laughed and drank more brandy. “Who hasn’t been housebroken.”
“Thank the Virgin he didn’t bark.” LeClerc added bourbon to his coffee. “I don’t like surprises.”
“There we part ways. I like them very much.” And the light of success glowed in Max’s eyes, even as the necklace shimmered in the overhead light. “Otherwise, a job would become routine. And routine too easily becomes a rut. So, will they miss them by morning, do you think?” He held the necklace up, letting gems drip through his fingers. “And will the fact that these were payment for a gambling debt prevent them from reporting the loss?”
“Reported or not, they won’t be traced here.” LeClerc started to raise his coffee cup in toast, then stopped. His eyes narrowed as he set it on the table. “I’m afraid the walls have at least two ears tonight.”
Alerted, Max glanced up, then sighed. “Luke.” He said the name, and gestured toward the shadows. “Come into the light.” He waited, gauging the boy’s face as Luke walked into the kitchen. “You’re up late.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Despite his attempt not to, Luke couldn’t stop himself from staring at the necklace. It was a matter of trust, pure trust, that allowed him to look back at Max and speak. “You stole them.”
“Yes.”
With a tentative finger, Luke reached out to touch one pale blue gem. “Why?”
Max leaned back, sipping brandy and considering. “Why not?”
Luke’s lips twitched at that. It was a good answer. One that satisfied him more than a dozen heartfelt justifications. “Then you’re a thief.”
“Among other things.” Max leaned forward then, but resisted the urge to lay a hand over Luke’s. “Do I disappoint you?”
Luke’s eyes filled with a love he had no words to express. “You couldn’t.” He shook his head in frantic denial. “Ever.”
“Don’t be sure of that.” Max touched his hand briefly, then picked up the necklace. “The vase you broke that day was a thing—so is this. Things are worth only as much or as little as people believe.” He closed his hand over it, bumped his fists together, then opened both hands. Empty. “One more illusion. My reasons for taking what others value are mine. One day I may share them with you. Until then, I’ll ask you not to speak of it.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” He’d have died first. “I can help you. I can,” he repeated, furious with LeClerc’s derisive snort. “I can make good money picking pockets.”
“Luke, there’s no such thing as bad money. But I’d prefer you didn’t pick pockets unless it’s part of a performance.”
“But why—”
“I’ll tell you.” He gestured for Luke to sit, and the gems were back in his hand. “If you’d continued at the carnival, you might very well have been caught. That would have been untidy, and unfortunate.”
“I’m careful.”
“You’re young,” Max corrected. “I doubt if it occurred to you to wonder if the people you took from could afford to lose what you slipped from their wallets.” He shook his head before Luke could speak. “And your need was great at the time. It isn’t great now.”
“But you steal.”
“Because I choose to. Because, quite simply, I enjoy it. And for complex reasons you—” He broke off and chuckled softly. “I started to say that you wouldn’t understand. But you would.” His eyes darkened. “I was hardly older than you when LeClerc found me. I was hustling nickels and dimes with the Cups and Balls, card tricks. Lifting wallets. I, too, had escaped from the kind of nightmare no child should experience. Magic sustained me. So did stealing. I had a choice, and I chose to hone my craft on both paths. I don’t apologize for being a thief. Every time I steal, I take back something that was stolen from me.”
He laughed and sipped. “Oh, what a psychiatrist would make of that. No, I don’t apologize, but neither will I play modern-day Fagan with you. I’ll give you magic, Luke. And when you’re older, you’ll make your own choices.”
Luke thought it over. “Does Roxanne know?”
For the first time a flicker of doubt showed on Max’s face. “I see no reason why she should.”
That made it better. For Luke, knowing something Roxanne didn’t made all the difference. “I’ll wait. I’ll learn.”
“I’m sure you will. And speaking of that, we should begin to see to your education.”
Luke’s enthusiasm suffered a direct hit. “Education? I’m not going to school.”
“Oh, but you are.” Casually, Max handed the necklace to LeClerc. “The paperwork should be simple enough. I think he should be my cousin’s boy, recently orphaned.”
“It’ll take me a week,” LeClerc stated. “Maybe two.”
“Excellent. Then we’ll be set for fall classes.”
“I’m not going to school,” Luke repeated. “I don’t need school. You can’t make me go.”
“On the contrary,” Max said mildly. “You will go to school, you certainly need it and I most assuredly can make you go.”
Luke was prepared to die for him, would have been delighted with the opportunity to try. But he was not willing to suffer through several hours of boredom five days a week. “I won’t go.”
Max only smiled.
7
Luke went to school. Pleas and bargains and threats fell on deaf ears. When he discovered even the softhearted Lily was against him, Luke surrendered.
Or pretended to.
They could make him go. At least they could make him get dressed, heft a bunch of stupid books and head toward schoo
l under LeClerc’s eagle eye.
But they couldn’t make him learn anything.
The smirky way Roxanne showed off her A’s and gold stars began to tick him off. It really got his goat when she’d smile at him as Max or Lily voiced their approval. And each night the little brat would sit backstage, industriously doing her homework between acts.
Max had expanded her bit with the scarves.
Luke knew he could get A’s. If he felt like it.
It wasn’t any big deal—just numbers on a paper—but to prove that he couldn’t be bested by some snotty, monkey-faced girl, he studied for a geography test.
It wasn’t so bad, really, studying about the states and capitals. Especially when he started counting up how many of those states he’d visited.
Afterward he couldn’t wait to show off. But he made himself stay cool. If his geography test with the bright red A on it happened to slip out of his notebook backstage, it wasn’t his fault.
He nearly exploded with impatience until Lily spotted it and scooped it up.
“What’s this?” He saw Lily’s eyes go wide and bright with an emotion he’d seen so rarely he blushed to his toes. It was pride. “Luke! This is great! Why didn’t you tell us?”
“What?” The foolish grin that spread over his face ruined his show of indifference, but he shrugged anyway. “Oh, that. No big deal.”
“No big deal?” Laughing, she squeezed him against her. “It’s a huge deal. You didn’t miss one. Not even one.” With one arm still slung around him she called Max away from a discussion with Lester. “Max, Max, honey, come see this.”
“What do I have to see?”
“This.” Triumphant, Lily waved the test in front of him. “Look what our Luke did, and never said a word to anyone.”