accent.
This man had hair, tangled and black, tied in a ponytail, as well as a wispy little beard, sprouting in a triangle just under his lower lip. He was wearing plastic sunglasses that offered mirror reflections instead of his eyes. He smelled of cheap aftershave, which was failing to hide the truth. He needed to change his clothes more. He needed to wash. It was impossible to say if he was younger or older than his companion. Both of them were ageless.
Jamie realized that several seconds had gone by and nothing had happened. He swallowed. “A business card,” he repeated.
The silence stretched on. Jamie was about to move away. Surely he could find someone else who would co- operate? But then the bald man shrugged and reached into his jacket. “Sure,” he said. “I’ve got a card.”
He took out a wallet, opened it and removed a white card, balancing it for a moment between soiled, cracked fingernails, as if considering. Then he handed it to Jamie. Jamie held it in front of him. There was a name and, below it, a company:
Colton Banes
NIGHTRISE CORPORATION
Beneath that was an address and a telephone number. The letters were too small for Jamie to see in the half-light.
The man was looking at him curiously, almost as if he were trying to see into him. With difficulty, Jamie turned back to the stage. He tried to speak but his mouth was too dry. He swallowed, then tried again.
“Scott, can you tell me who this man works for?” he called out.
Silence from the stage. What was happening now?
Then Scott spoke. “Sure, Jamie. He works for the Nightrise Corporation.”
The man smiled. “That’s absolutely right,” he said loudly, so the whole theatre could hear. But his voice was almost taunting Jamie, as if he didn’t care one way or another if the trick had worked. “The boy got it in one.”
There was even more applause this time. There were only forty-five people left in the theatre but they were genuinely absorbed. It was the only real mystery they had seen all evening. Days later, they would still be wondering how it was done.
And none of them had guessed the simple truth, even though it was the only possible explanation and was staring them in the face. There were no microphones. There were no hidden signals. There were no codes or messages being sent from off-stage. The trick was that there was no trick. The two boys could genuinely read each other’s minds.
But the Nightrise Corporation knew. That was why they had sent these men here tonight. To see for themselves.
It was time for Scott and Jamie Tyler to disappear.
BACKSTAGE
The performance was over. Scott and Jamie had half an hour until the next one began, so the two of them went back to their dressing room. A narrow, L-shaped corridor, lit by harsh neon tubes, ran all the way round the back of the stage with an exit door at the end. As usual, they had to pick their way past the costumes, baskets and props which were already set out for the next performance. Swami Louvishni’s bed of nails was propped up next to Zorro’s chains and straitjacket. A papier-mache cow came next and then a broken piano missing most of its keys – these last two were left over from some other show. On one side, a bare brick wall rose ten metres up to the ceiling – this was in fact the back of the stage. On the other, a series of doors opened into small, square rooms. The entire area smelled of fried food. The theatre backed onto a motel with its kitchen directly opposite. Often when the boys left they would see the Filipino staff in their striped aprons and white paper hats, hanging around smoking.
As they made their way backstage, there was a sudden whining and a dog bounded out of one of the doors. It was a German shepherd, ten years old and blind in one eye. It belonged to Frank Kirby, who used it when he was pretending to be Mr Marvano, master illusionist. Twice a night, the dog sat behind a secret mirror, waiting to appear in the cage.
Jamie leant down and patted its head. “Good boy, Jagger,” he said. The dog had been named after the lead singer of the Rolling Stones. Jamie didn’t know why.
“Hey – Jamie!”
Frank Kirby was in his dressing room. Zorro was with him, sitting at a table with a glass and a half-bottle of whisky in front of him. Jamie hoped the escapologist hadn’t drunk too much of it yet. One night Zorro had been handcuffed on stage, tied up and locked into his chest where he had promptly fallen asleep. He’d lost a week’s wages for that. He and Kirby often hung out together. They were both divorced. They were both in their fifties. And – Jamie couldn’t avoid the thought – they were both losers.
“What is it, Frank?” Jamie asked. He leant against the door and felt his brother brush past behind him. Scott hadn’t stopped.
“There’s a rumour we may be moving.” Kirby’s voice was always hoarse. Smoking thirty cigarettes a day probably didn’t help. “I hear maybe we’re getting out of Reno. You know anything about that?”
“I haven’t heard anything,” Jamie said.
“Maybe you can ask your Uncle Don. He never tells us nothing!”
Jamie was tempted to say that Don White never told him anything either. But there was no point. Frank knew that anyway. So Jamie just shrugged and went into the room next door.
Scott was already there, lying on the single bed with its dirty mattress and striped blanket. There was another table and two chairs. All the rooms were the same: completely square with a window looking out onto the parking lot with the motel on the other side. Each one had a washbasin and a mirror surrounded by light bulbs. In some of the rooms, the light bulbs actually worked. Jamie glanced at his brother, who was staring up at the ceiling. There were a couple of old Marvel comics on the table and a half-empty bottle of Coke. That was it. The two of them never did anything between shows. Sometimes they talked, but recently it seemed to Jamie that Scott had begun to retreat into himself.
“Frank thinks we may be moving,” Jamie said.
“Moving where?”
“He didn’t say.” Jamie sat down. “It would be great to get out of here. Away from Reno.”
Scott thought for a moment. He was still gazing at the ceiling. “I don’t see it makes much difference,” he said at last. “Wherever we go, it’ll only be the same… or worse.”
Jamie took a sip from the Coke bottle. The liquid was warm and flat. It was like drinking syrup. He turned his head and examined his brother, lying there on the bed. Scott had unbuttoned his shirt. It hung loose at the sides, exposing his stomach and chest. The shirts looked good on the stage but they were cheap black nylon and made Scott and Jamie sweat. Scott’s hands were loosely curled by his sides. At that moment he didn’t look fourteen. He could have been twenty-four.
Jamie often had to remind himself that the two of them were exactly the same age. They were twins. That much at least was certain. And yet he couldn’t help thinking of Scott as his older brother. It wasn’t just the physical difference between them. For as long as he could remember, Scott had looked after him. Somehow it had never been the other way around. When Jamie had his nightmares, lying in some rundown hotel or trailer in the middle of nowhere, Scott would be there to comfort him. When he was hungry, Scott would find food. When Don White or his wife, Marcie, turned nasty, Scott would put himself between them and his brother.
That was how it had always been. Other kids had parents. Other kids went to school and hung out with their friends. They had TVs and computer games and went to summer camp. But Jamie had never had any of that. It was as if real life went on somewhere else, and he had been dumped outside.
Sometimes Jamie thought back to life before Uncle Don had come and introduced him and Scott to The Circus of the Mind. After all, it hadn’t been that long ago. But the days added up into weeks and then months, and now it was as if a single, long road had smashed through all his other memories and all that was left were shabby theatres
