falling asleep in their seats. They clapped politely when the fakir lay down on his bed of nails and when the escapologist leapt out of a locked-up chest. But they barely acknowledged the illusionist, even when he suddenly produced – in an empty cage – a large, panting dog. Perhaps they knew that in Las Vegas, only a few hundred miles away, there were magicians who had done the same thing with elephants and white tigers.
By the time the last act walked onto the stage, the audience had clearly had enough. Some of them had already left. But as the music changed and the lights dimmed and then rose for the last time, something changed inside the Reno Playhouse. It happened every night. It was as if people sensed, without being told, that they were finally going to be given a little of what the poster had promised.
The twins had appeared, now dressed in dark trousers and black shirts, open at the neck. The taller one was gazing out into the glare of lights with undisguised hostility. He had the look of a street fighter and, indeed, there was a large bruise on one of his cheekbones. His brother was somehow friendlier, more welcoming. It was just possible that he enjoyed being here. He was the one who spoke.
“Good evening,” he began. “My name is Jamie Tyler.” He gestured at the other boy, who didn’t move. “And this is my brother, Scott. For as long as I can remember, we’ve known what’s been going on inside each other’s heads. That doesn’t make it easy when one of us is trying to pick up girls…”
They weren’t his words. They were the words he had been taught to say and he didn’t think the joke was even slightly funny. But he forced himself to smile. The audience was listening to him with a bit more attention. They had seen the poster. Telepathic twins. But nobody had said they were going to be so young.
“It was only recently that we discovered the truth,” Jamie went on. “It’s not just that we know what we’re both thinking. We’re true telepaths, connected to each other in a way that science cannot understand or explain. And that’s what we’re going to demonstrate for you tonight. Starting with this.”
While he had been talking, a stage hand had carried in a table with a pile of newspapers. There were twenty different papers from all around America. There were other props too. He would come to those later.
Jamie scooped up the newspapers and walked down to the front row. He stopped in front of a large, frizzy- haired woman who was wearing pink leggings and an “I
Reno” T-shirt. “Would you like to pick one of these newspapers?” he asked. “You can choose any one.”
The woman was with her husband. He nudged her and she pulled one out of the middle of the pile. It was a copy of the Los Angeles Times .
“Thank you,” Jamie said. “Now this paper has several sections. Will you please choose any one of them and pass it to your husband.”
The woman did as she was asked. She chose the Calendar section. Her husband took it.
“Will you please tear one page out of the section and pass it to the person behind you,” Jamie instructed.
He was fortunate that there was someone in the row behind. On bad nights, he knew, he might have to travel three or four rows to find a third spectator.
The page was being held by a Korean tourist who had come with his wife and daughter. Jamie hoped that he would be able to understand English. He took out a pen. “You have a page with more than a thousand words on each side,” he said. “That means you have at least two thousand words to choose from. Could you please circle one of those words. It can be a headline or an advertisement. It doesn’t matter. The choice is entirely yours.”
The Korean man smiled and muttered something to his wife. He took the pen and ringed something, then handed the newspaper back to Jamie. Jamie looked down. Without speaking the words, he read:
The latest trend in Los Angeles is the eco-friendly funeral. Celebs are lining up to make sure they go green when they go.
One word had a ring around it. He looked at it. On the stage, Scott spoke for the first time.
“Funeral,” he said.
Jamie held the newspaper in front of the Korean man. “Is that the word?” he asked.
“Yes… Yes!” The man was astonished.
For the first time that evening, the applause was loud and genuine. It had to be a trick, of course. Everything that the audience had seen had been a trick. But how had it been done? Both the frizzy-haired woman and her husband had been given a free choice. The man behind her could have chosen any word. Perhaps the two boys had secret microphones. They could be in radio contact. But how would that help? Jamie hadn’t said anything. He’d barely glanced at the page.
Jamie had already returned to the stage by the time the applause died down.
“I’d like to invite someone to join me,” he said. He pointed to the husband who had already taken part. “Would you mind, sir?”
The man climbed onto the stage. Scott didn’t move. Apart from the moment when he had spoken, he could have been a statue. A boy carved out of wood. But Jamie was moving around, collecting the next prop, welcoming the man.
“I’m going to blindfold my brother,” he explained. “And I want you to make sure that he really can’t see. While you’re here, I’d also like you to check that there are no hidden microphones. Nothing in either of his ears.”
The man went over to Scott and ran a finger behind each of his ears. For just a second, something flared in the boy’s eyes. It was a humiliation he had to endure twice a night, every night – and he could never forgive it. But the man didn’t notice.
“He’s clean!” he announced.
A few people laughed. They were enjoying this. They wanted to see what would happen next.
Under Jamie’s guidance, the man placed two coins against Scott’s eyes. They were old English pennies, larger than modern coins. Next, he was blindfolded, and then, to finish, a black hood was placed over his head. It was like an executioner’s hood. It completely covered his eyes, his nose and his hair, but it left his mouth free.
Jamie went into the audience. He stopped beside a blonde woman in a tight-fitting dress. Her boyfriend was sitting next to her. He had his hand on her thigh.
“Can you give me something from your handbag?” Jamie asked.
“You want something from my handbag?” The woman giggled, then glanced at her boyfriend. He nodded, giving her permission, and she pulled out a small silver object. Jamie took it and held it in the palm of his hand.
“It’s a key ring,” Scott said.
Jamie held the key ring up so that everyone could see. The audience applauded again. Several of them were talking now, whispering to each other, shaking their heads in disbelief.
“Let’s make this more difficult,” Jamie called out. “I wonder if anyone here has a business card. How about you, sir?”
He had stopped in front of two men sitting next to each other. All he had noticed so far was that they were both wearing brown linen suits, which in itself was strange because nobody in Reno ever dressed very smartly. On the other hand, he always tried to look for someone in a jacket when he reached this part of the act. From his experience, a man was more likely to have a wallet and, in the wallet, a business card. Women took longer, searching in their handbags. The act was supposed to last eighteen minutes. If he went over, he’d get slapped. Or worse.
Jamie waited for the man to reach into his jacket pocket, and when that didn’t happen, he looked down. That was when he knew he had made a mistake. At that moment he wished he had gone to any row but this. Jamie had been struggling to get through the act in the damp, sluggish heat of the theatre. The air-conditioning was failing as usual. But the very sight of this man was like cold water thrown into his face.
It wasn’t just that he was ugly. Jamie had met many unpleasant-looking people when he was doing his act – indeed he sometimes wondered if there wasn’t something about the Reno Playhouse that actually attracted them. But this man was beyond ugly. There was something almost inhuman about him, about the way he was gazing at Jamie with eyes that were a very faint shade of blue: so faint as to be almost colourless. The man was quite bald but he hadn’t lost his hair with age – nor had he decided to shave it off. The polished skull was unblemished, as if there had never been anything there to begin with. His face was the same. He had no eyebrows. There was no stubble on his cheeks or chin. His whole face looked like a mask stretched tight over a bone structure that kept it in shape but allowed it to express no emotion at all. He had very small, very white teeth. They looked false.
“He wants your card,” the man next to him said. He spoke with a soft, rasping voice and a Southern
