Magic Mansion (25 page)

Bev flailed. Kazan flailed. And both of them were pelted by cards. It was difficult to tell if either of them had managed to catch any, let alone who was in the lead. Ricardo couldn’t imagine what it must feel like from inside the booths. Like trying to catch butterflies without a net. In a tornado.

But what if those butterflies were willing to meet Bev halfway?

There was no time to lose. Almost ten seconds had already elapsed. Ricardo threw his attention toward Bev’s cards, focused his ability, and nudged them toward Bev.
And act natural,
he hastened to add. He didn’t need a replay of the pink mylar dove incident from tryouts.

It was subtle, but the cards around Bev took on a different type of swirl, as if maybe she’d just planted her foot in front of the blower in such a way that the wind cabinet’s dynamic changed. Instead of bouncing into the ceiling and then falling down the sides, the cards formed a cyclonic loop—a good portion of them at the level of Bev’s grabbing hands. Ricardo was so pleased with their performance that he didn’t get a look at what Red Team was up to until it registered, in his peripheral vision, that Kazan had gone completely still.

Ricardo shifted his focus for just a split second, and the cards he was coaxing toward Bev erupted in an ecstatic, chaotic dance. As for Kazan…well, he’d apparently discovered that he could trap the cards against the top of the booth. And Bev? If the thought had even occurred to her, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Even if she stretched high, her fingertips couldn’t quite reach the ceiling.

Before Kazan managed to grab too many cards, the timer buzzed and the cards dropped. But Ricardo had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that the discovery of the trapped cards by the ceiling had given Kevin an unbeatable edge. Stagehands released the magicians from the booths, and they stepped out, Bev with a windswept hairdo at odds with the rest of her outfit, Kevin with his necklaces all spun around the wrong way and hanging down his back. “All right, magicians,” Monty said brightly. “Show us your cards!”

“Make sure the numbers are visible and face them toward the camera,” Iain called out. “Hold ’em steady for a dolly zoom.”

Bev arranged her cards, frowning, and held them up. There was a face card in front. That was good. Right?

But then Kevin fanned his hand…and Ricardo saw he’d captured at least twice as many. At least.

“Let’s start with Gold Team,” Monty said. “Bev, you’re holding a queen, a jack, and a nine. That gives you twenty-nine points.”

Bev nodded. She didn’t look thrilled.

“And Red Team leader, Kevin Kazan, you have a three, a five, a seven, a king, a two, and a four.”

The moment Monty announced the number on Kevin’s last card, Bev’s face fell, and Ricardo knew he wouldn’t have to bother trying to add them up.

“The winner of the first leg of Four Prop Challenge,” Monty said, “with thirty-one points, is Kevin Kazan for the Red Team.”
 

A PA traded Bev her glasses for the safety goggles. Ricardo watched Bev walk back to the gold couch with a sinking feeling in his chest, but he greeted her with, “Good try, Bev, you did great,” to which Muriel and Sue added their own sympathetic encouragement. Grips hauled away the clear booths, and several large cardboard boxes were dragged to the center of the ballroom floor. A props assistant pulled a top hat from one of the boxes, then another, then another, setting them upside-down on the floor until the entire center was covered by a sea of top hats.

“One hundred and forty-four,” Bev said. “Twelve dozen. A gross.”

Once the hats were arranged, the assistants cleared the set, cameras rolled, and Monty said, “The next leg of the challenge involves magic hats…and the Gold Team selected Sue, its leader, to perform this challenge. Come on up, Sue, and tell us why you were the best person for this challenge.”

“Well, Monty, since I work at the gift shop at Magicopolis, I’ve handled lots of different props, from toy magic tricks for children, to cheap souvenirs, to decently-made entry level props. If we needed to demonstrate the use of a false chamber hat, I would be the most familiar with it.”

“Good reasoning, Gold Team. We’ll see if it pans out for you. And the randomly selected magician you’ll be competing against from the Red Team…”

Please be John. PLEASE BE JOHN.

“…is Amazing Faye.”

Ricardo’s heart sank. He was going to be put up against John, he just knew it. And if they competed with linking rings—be it juggling them or counting them or marching around with them stacked on top of their heads—Ricardo would win. Because the rings were
his
props. Even if he wasn’t trying to influence them like he did with Bev’s cards, he was so connected to the way they felt and sounded (and even
smelled
), they’d still pick up on whatever it was he wanted them to do.

“What’s the matter, kiddo?” Muriel whispered. “You look a little green.”

Ricardo shook his head, said, “I’m fine,” and shifted his attention back to Monty.

“Pulling a rabbit out of a hat,” Monty read from the teleprompter, “is such a common magic trick that one might say it’s even become a bit of a cliché. But finding a rabbit in a hat among a sea of other things…might prove to be more difficult. Especially when your opponent is trying to find that rabbit first. Ladies, take your places, and when you hear the buzzer, begin searching. The first magician who finds a rabbit is the winner. Ready…set….”

The buzzer sounded. Sue dropped to her knees, while Faye bent at the waist to thrust their hands into the nearest hat. Sue pulled out a stuffed ladybug. Faye pulled out a small teddy bear. Both of them flung the toys over their shoulders and reached for another hat. Sue pulled out a plush monkey, a stuffed dog, a rag doll. Faye pulled out a plush parrot and toy cat. Sue waded forward on her knees. She was quicker, and the pile of stuffed carnival toys behind her was obviously growing faster than Faye’s.

Sue’s progress was not lost on Faye, who decided to use the fact that she was still standing up to her advantage. She leapt into the center of the field of hats in her stiletto heels and began working from there. It hadn’t seemed as if the assistants who’d set up the stunt placed a “winning hat” in any one particular spot…but Faye’s decisive move toward the middle made Sue start working even faster, grabbing hat after hat. She tried to speed things up by shaking the stuffed toys out, one hat in each hand, but the contents were packed in tightly enough that she needed both hands to get them out. In her excitement, she began flinging both the toy and the hat, and soon so many plushies and hats were flying, it seemed as if the whole ballroom had turned into one big card-grabbing booth.

Soon there was a cry—a triumphant shriek so startling Ricardo couldn’t say who it had come from. But then he saw Faye standing tall, brandishing a blue and purple stuffed rabbit over her head, waving it gleefully, while Sue sagged down onto her hands, hair hanging in her face….and the churning dismay in Ricardo’s gut told him that now he’d not only end up pitted against John, but now he’d need to try for all he was worth just to keep Gold Team from losing a member….

“Faye,” Monty called out, “that is not the winning rabbit. The judges are telling me you’ve found a donkey.”
 

“A what?” Faye turned the stuffed animal around and looked at it as if it had just spoken to her itself. “That’s no donkey! How is that a donkey?”

Sue barked out a gleeful laugh and dove back into searching while Faye was still stunned by the revelation that the long-eared toy in her hand was not, in fact, a rabbit. “Ha!” Muriel said. “Look at the tail! It’s got a little donkey string-tail!”

Faye flung down the purple donkey so hard it bounced.

“Go, Sue!” Muriel called out, and Ricardo and Bev joined in. “Go, Sue! Go, Sue! You can find it, Sue!” And the Red Team began cheering, too—although it had not occurred to them to do so until they heard it start in the Gold Team. Everyone was shouting. Hats were flying—and giraffes and bumble bees and even a smiling hot dog—until finally Sue surged to her feet, held a fuzzy pink animal high, and shrieked, “Is this it? Is this the rabbit?”

From the tip of its long ears to the end of its cotton tail, it sure looked like it was. Faye reached into one more hat (pulling out a stuffed guitar) as if she figured she should keep on searching, just in case, but the look on her face told Ricardo what Monty finally confirmed just a moment later. “That is indeed the elusive rabbit, Sue. Congratulations. Gold Team wins the second round of this challenge.”

For just a moment, Ricardo was elated. But once the floor was cleared of hats and covered instead with silver rings, he somehow registered that he was hearing his own name…and that the time had come for him to face his signature props.

“Ricardo the Magnificent,” Monty said, in that dazzling accent of his, “why have you chosen to represent the Gold Team in the Linking Ring portion of the Four Props Challenge?”

Against John, no doubt. Against Professor fucking Topaz. His idol. Jesus. Who he would need to try and beat. Now he knew how dumbass Kevin Kazan felt when he got Fabian Swan eliminated. Ricardo swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat stayed exactly where it was. Was it possible to forfeit? No, he couldn’t do that. He owed it to Bev and Muriel and Sue to win. But it was what he wanted to do—crawl away and go back to working bachelorette parties and be tipped with singles in his g-string and the occasional margarita.

“Hello?” Iain called out. “Answer the man…sometime today.”

“Uh…what was the question?”

Iain made a “go ahead” signal, and Monty repeated, “Why have you chosen to represent the Gold Team in the Linking Ring portion of the Four Props challenge?”

“Linking rings are my best trick, Monty. I’ve been juggling them ever since I was twelve. When I heard there was a ring challenge, I jumped at the chance.”

“Fair enough, Ricardo. You’ll have your chance to prove just how adept you are at handling the rings. And the Red Team player you’ll be pitting your prowess against—”

I think I’d prefer to die rather than hear you say it. Can that be arranged?

“—is Jia Lee.”

Chapter 24

RINGS AND SILKS

Ricardo couldn’t have been more stunned if Monty had marched up and bitch-slapped him.

“Are you okay?” Sue whispered. “Iain just said for you to go stand on your mark.”

Ricardo stood. His feet felt numb. His hands, too. And he wasn’t sure he remembered exactly how to breathe.

Jia waited for him at the gaffing tape X. Although she was just over five feet tall, she managed to look a foot taller, imperious and stern. Ricardo belatedly reminded himself that his stretchy outfit wouldn’t allow for sloppy posture, and he squared his shoulders as he tried not to be too obvious about swallowing past the lump that remained in his throat.

“Miss Lee,” Monty said, “you’re known for taking the traditional acts of magicians like Ching Ling Foo and Tchin-Chao, and performing them with a modern twist. Even today, these rings are sometimes called
Chinese
Linking Rings. Do you think that will give you any advantage?”

Jia stared at Monty coolly for a long moment, and then said, “I guess we’re going to find out.”

Ricardo looked at Jia, and then at the rings. And then he realized that she had a linking ring routine in her own wildly popular act, Apple Blossom Vanish.

And she was good.

“Magicians, you will have three minutes to see exactly how many of these rings you can link together. But to make things a little more interesting….”

No—I don’t want interesting. I want to perform with my linking rings!

“You’ll do it…wearing mittens.”

Ricardo attempted to smile gamely for the camera…but he simply couldn’t do it. Early on in the competition, he’d told Amazing Faye that Magic Mansion had nothing to do with talent. It was about spectacle. But now, as he truly felt that sentiment deep in his gut, his disappointment was overwhelming.

Maybe Faye had been right. Maybe it really was all about humiliation, so the viewers could bask in their schadenfreude as they picked each magician off, one by one.

As the thought crossed his mind, he heard the minuscule whir of a handheld lens zooming, and he felt someone lurking just to his side. Closeup. He forced himself to smile.

Assistants brought out the fleece mittens—one gold pair and one red—and Ricardo and Jia were positioned face to face in the center of a great spread of silvery rings. And even as Ricardo was balking at the thought of groping through them with ridiculous
mittens
on, as well as the cameras and the humiliation and the pressure (and the strangely sickening relief that he was not actually competing against John after all, at least not today)…Ricardo realized that he could feel something.

Cool. Round. Shiny. Filled with that delightful chimey sound they’d make if he struck them together.
 

Their familiarity calmed him. And so he was able to meet Jia’s eyes, and wait for the signal.

“Ready? Set?” The buzzer bleated. “Go!”

Jia and Ricardo both dropped to their knees. It hurt when his kneecap struck metal. He ignored the pain.
 

The whole trick of linking rings was that some had a small slot in them that allowed another ring to pass through. No big surprise there. The pleasure the audience took when they watched a linking rings act was all about the performance. They knew there was a slot somewhere, probably covered by the performer’s thumb, but they were willing to suspend disbelief as long as that performer could juggle, or do handstands, or dazzle them with witty banter, or mince around in high enough heels.

Ricardo always focused on his slotted rings rather than his solids. Knowing where the gap was positioned at all times was critical in keeping the chain from falling apart.
Slotted
, he thought, and the first ring his mittened hand fell on was slotted. It took three tries to pick it up with the fleece mitten—that thing was slippery—but he did it. Slotted. Then he grabbed two solid rings, forced them in, and pulled them to either side so the slotted ring was in the center.