Honest illusions(BookZZ.org) (9 page)

“Twenty-two thousand. Me, I thought it a clumsy work. Those English painters had no passion,” he added, dismissing the Turner landscape with a shrug. “The Chinese vase I hold awhile longer. Did you bring the coin collection with you?”

“No, I didn’t get it. When Roxanne took sick, I canceled that engagement.”

“Best.” LeClerc nodded and smoked. “Worry for her would have distracted you.”

“I would hardly have been at my best. So, until the vase is placed, that makes the tithe . . . thirty-seven hundred.” A glance at LeClerc’s scowl made Max smile. “So little to resent so much.”

“By the end of the year, you’ll have thrown fifteen thousand away at least. Add this to each year you’ve been taking ten percent to ease your conscience—”

“A gift to charity,” Max interrupted, amused. “I don’t do it to ease my conscience, but to appease my soul. I’m a thief, Jean, an excellent one who thinks nothing of the people from whom I steal, but quite a bit about those I see who have nothing worth stealing.” He studied the glowing tip of his cigar. “I may not be able to live with the morality of others, but I must live with my own.”

“The churches you give your tithe to would damn you to hell.”

“I’ve escaped from worse places than the hell priests imagine for us.”

“It’s not a joke.”

Max smothered a smile as he rose. He knew that LeClerc’s religion ran the gamut from Catholicism to voodoo, and any handy superstition in between. “Then think of it as insurance. Perhaps my foolish generosity will ensure us both a cooler place in the hereafter. Let’s get some sleep.” He laid a hand on LeClerc’s shoulder. “Tomorrow I’ll tell you what I’ve planned for the next few months.”

Luke knew he’d found heaven. There was no list of chores the next day so he was free to wander the house, which he did gobbling beignets he’d snatched from the kitchen. The trail of powdered sugar in his

wake dribbled through the first floor, up the stairs, onto one of the long flower-twined balconies and back again.

He couldn’t believe his good fortune.

He’d been given a room of his own, and had spent a great deal of a wakeful night looking, touching. The high, carved headboard had fascinated him, as had the soft sheen of the wallpaper and the muted pattern of the rug. There was a huge cupboard that Max had called an armoire. Luke figured it would hold more clothes than any one person would need in a lifetime.

And there were flowers. A tall blue vase was filled with them. He’d never had flowers in his room before, and though he knew he should dismiss them as sissy, their fragrance brought him a deep and secret pleasure.

Luke drifted through the house as soundlessly as smoke. He wasn’t sure of LeClerc as yet and easily avoided the man while he made his explorations.

The furnishings reflected Max’s elegance. It gave Luke a sense of his mentor, though he didn’t recognize the French and British antiques. What he saw were graceful gleaming tables, curvy sofas, pretty china lamps and peaceful landscapes.

As much as he liked the house, Luke found his favorite spot on the balcony outside his room. From there he could smell the heat of the flowers and the street. He could watch people snapping pictures and searching for souvenirs.

He couldn’t help but notice how careless people were with their wallets. Women with their shoulder bags dangling, men with their cash tucked into the back pocket of their bell-bottoms. A pickpocket’s paradise. If Miami didn’t pan out, Luke decided he could do very well here, supplementing his salary as a sorcerer’s apprentice.

“You got sugar all over,” Roxanne said from behind him.

Luke tensed. He snuck a look down at his hands and saw with disgust that the evidence was all over his fingers. Hastily, he wiped them on his jeans. “So?”

“LeClerc’ll get mad. Sugar draws bugs.”

He wiped his hands again, because they’d grown damp. “I’ll clean it up.”

She joined him at the rail, looking pretty and prim in a yellow shorts set. “What’re you doing?”

“Just looking.”

“Daddy says we can take the whole day off. Tomorrow we have to start rehearsing the new cabaret act for the club.”

“What club?”

“The Magic Door. We work there.” She began to play with the flowers that twined along the rail. “We can do bigger illusions there than at the carnival, and sometimes Daddy goes over during the day and does close-up work for some of the customers.”

LeClerc’s annoyance and any possible reprisals shifted to the back of Luke’s mind. He didn’t know what his place would be in a cabaret act, but he was going to make sure he had one. “How many shows a night?”

“Two.” After plucking a clematis bloom, she tried to wind the slim stem around her ear. “Eight and eleven. We’re the headliners.” She wrinkled her nose. “I have to take a nap after school every day. Like a baby.”

Luke wasn’t the least bit concerned about Roxanne’s problems. “Does he keep in the card tricks?”

She patted the flower as she wandered back into Luke’s bedroom to study the result in the mirror. “Oh, he’ll make up other ones.”

Luke nodded and began to plan. He was getting pretty good at the tricks he’d wheedled Roxanne into showing him. And he’d been practicing at least an hour a day with the Cups and Balls. He just needed to show Max. He couldn’t bear it if they cut him out of the act now.

“Daddy gave me money for ice cream.” She poked her head back out the French doors. “You want to go get some?”

“No.” Luke was much too busy to be distracted by a treat and an eight-year-old’s company. “Take off, will you? I have to think.”

“More for me,” Roxanne shot back, barely controlling a pout.

The minute he was alone, Luke dug out his cards and began to practice. He’d hardly begun to set up Aces High when he was distracted again.

It was the voice. He’d never heard anything like it. He tried to brush it out of his mind, but it kept flowing back. A rich, heartbreaking alto that seemed to be singing just for him. Unable to resist, he walked back out on the balcony.

He spotted her instantly. A woman in a flowing flowered dress, a red turban over her head, her skin gleaming like ebony. She stood on the corner, a cardboard box at her feet as she sang swaying gospel a cappella.

He couldn’t turn away, the sound all but hypnotizing him. This was true beauty. Even as he realized it, it reached deep inside him to a place he didn’t know existed.

That voice rang out over the Quarter. It never paused or hesitated when she drew a small crowd. She never glanced down when coins thudded into the box.

It made his skin prickle and his throat ache.

On impulse he dashed back inside and dug out the bag he’d secreted under his pillow. From it he took a crumpled dollar. His heart was still soaring to the music as he raced out of the room and down the stairs.

He saw Roxanne in the hallway, sweeping up powdered sugar while LeClerc stood behind her, lecturing.

“You eat in the kitchen, not all over the house. You be sure you get all those crumbs, you hear?”

“I’m getting them.” She lifted her head to stick her tongue out at Luke.

His heart was so full of the music, his brain so dazzled by the idea that Roxanne was taking the blame for him, he missed the last step. On a muffled cry, he threw out a hand to save himself.

For Luke it happened in slow motion. He saw the vase, the faceted crystal alive with sunlight, filled with bloodred roses. In horror, he saw his own hand sweep at it, watched it teeter even as he scrambled for balance.

His fingers brushed it. He felt the cool glass on his skin and let out a groan of despair as it slipped away.

The sound of the vase shattering on the hardwood was like a volley of pistol shots. Luke stood frozen, the glistening shards at his feet, and the smell of roses heavy in the air.

LeClerc was swearing. Luke didn’t have to understand French to know the oaths were strong and furious. He didn’t move, didn’t bother to run. He was braced for a blow, had already taken that part of himself that felt pain and humiliation away. What stood there was a silent shell that would refuse to care.

“You run through my house like a wild Indian. Now you break the Waterford, you bruise the roses and you have water all over my floor.
Imbécile!
Look what you’ve done to my beauties.”

“Jean.” Max’s voice was hardly more than a whisper, but it cut through the old man’s tantrum.

“The Waterford, Max.” LeClerc crouched down to save his roses. “The boy was running like hounds of hell were after him. I tell you he needs to be—”

“Jean,” Max said again. “Enough. Look at his face.”

With roses dripping from his hands, LeClerc glanced up. The boy was ghost white, his eyes dark and glazed over with something too deep to be termed fear. With a sigh, he straightened. “I’ll get another vase,” he said quietly and walked away.

“Daddy.” Shaken, Roxanne gripped her father’s hand. “Why does he look that way?”

“It’s all right, Roxy. Run along.”

“But, Daddy—”

“Run along,” he repeated, and gave her a nudge.

She stepped back into the parlor, but she didn’t go far. For once her father was too intent on someone else to notice.

“You disappoint me, Luke,” Max said quietly.

Something flickered in Luke’s belly, and showed briefly in his eyes. An oath, a blow wouldn’t have touched him, but the simple sadness in Max’s voice cut deep.

“I’m sorry.” The words burned like acid in his icy throat. “I can pay for it. I have money.”

Don’t send me away, his heart begged. God, please don’t send me away.

“What are you sorry for?”

“I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m clumsy. Stupid.” And all the rest he’d been accused of during his twelve short years. “I’m sorry,” he said again, becoming more desperate as he waited for the blow.

Or worse, so much worse, a shove out the door. “I was hurrying because I thought she might go away.”

“Who?”

“The woman. Singing on the corner. I wanted to . . .” Realizing the absurdity of it, Luke looked helplessly at the bill still crumpled in his hand.

“I see.” And because he did, Max’s heart all but broke. “She often sings there. You’ll hear her again.”

Fresh terror swam into his eyes as he looked back at Max. It was so much more frightening to hope. “I can—I can stay?”

On a long breath, Max bent down and picked up a piece of shattered crystal. “What do you see here?”

“It’s broken. I broke it. I never think about anyone else but myself, and I—”

“Stop it.”

The sharp order had Luke’s head snapping up. Somewhere inside he began to tremble as he realized he couldn’t hide from this. When Max hit him it wouldn’t just be the physical pain, it would shatter his hopes as completely as he’d shattered the vase.

“It’s broken,” Max said, struggling for calm. “And it’s quite true you broke it. Did you mean to?”

“No, but I—”

“Look at this.” He held the piece of glass toward Luke. “It’s a thing. An object. Something anyone with the price can own. Do you think you mean less to me than this?” When he tossed it aside, Luke couldn’t hold the trembling inside any longer. “Do you think so little of me that you believe I’d strike you for breaking a glass?”

“I don’t . . .” Luke’s breath began to hitch as the pressure in his chest spread like brushfire. He couldn’t stop the hot, hateful tears from spilling out. “Please. Don’t make me go.”

“My dear child, can you have been with me all these weeks and not know I’m different from them? Did they scar you that badly?”

Beyond words now, Luke only shook his head.

“I’ve been where you’ve been,” Max murmured, and took the next step by gathering Luke against him.

The boy stiffened, the primitive fear running deep. Then even the fear crumbled as Max eased him down on the steps and rocked him. “No one can make you go back. You’re safe here.”

He knew he should be humiliated, blubbering like a baby against Max’s shirt. But the arms around him

were strong, solid, real.

What kind of a boy is it, Max wondered, who can be so moved by a song that he would part with one of his precious dollars to pay for it? How deeply could such a boy be hurt by casual cruelty, and the lack of choice?

“Can you tell me what they did to you?”

Shame welled up, and the need—oh the need for someone to understand. “I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t make it stop.”

“I know.”

The old angers simmered out even as the tears fell. “They beat me all the time. If I did something, if I didn’t do it. If they were drunk, if they were sober.” His fists clenched against Max’s shirt like small balls of iron. “Sometimes they’d lock me up, and I’d beat on the closet door and beg them to let me out. I couldn’t get out. I could never get out.”

It was hideous to remember that, weeping hysterically in the dark coffin of the closet, with no hope, no help, no escape.

“The social workers would come, and if I didn’t say the right thing, he’d take after me with the belt. The last time, that last time before I left, I thought he was going to kill me. He wanted to. I know he wanted to—you can tell when it’s in their eyes, but I don’t know why. I don’t know why.”

“It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.” Max stroked the boy’s head and fought back his own demons. “People tell their children there are no monsters in the world. They tell them that because they believe it, or they want the child to feel safe. But there are monsters, Luke, all the more frightening because they look like people.” He drew the boy back to study his wet, ravaged face. “You’re free of them now.”

“I hate him.”

“You’re entitled to that.”

There was more. He wasn’t certain he dared speak of it. The shame was black and oily. But with Max’s eyes so quiet and intense on his, Luke stumbled through it. “He—he brought a man one night. It was late and they were drunk. Al went out and locked the door. And the man—he tried—”

“It’s all right.” He tried to gather Luke close again, but the horror had the boy scrambling back.

“He put his fat hands on me, and his mouth.” Luke wiped his own with the back of his hand. “He said how he’d paid Al, and I was supposed to do things to him, and let him do them to me. And I was stupid,