with the support beneath you apparently gone, the audience believes you are suspended by wires. So I pass the hoop, first from one end and then the other, using the S-bend to lay it almost flat when it’s in front of me. No wires! When I do the trick in front of an audience, I replace the chairs, then allow the drape to drop back over the front of the platform. Only then can I move away from the pole. There’s another version of this trick, where the pole is behind a curtain. In that version, I can move around. But I like this version better. I think a curtain that close to the platform is too obvious — makes the audience suspicious.”
He began showing Frank other tricks, how they were done. Although Frank was slowed by the chains between his ankles, he seemed to be enjoying the conversation. Under other circumstances they would have appeared to be friends. Frank made no attempt to overpower him, although I was fairly sure he could have.
At one point Frank said, “Why are you showing me all of this? Isn’t there some code of silence among magicians?”
“Not really. Otherwise, all the secrets would have died out with Houdini or Thurston.” Bret smiled. “Or Merlin.”
“But I’m not exactly a sorcerer’s apprentice,” Frank said.
“This isn’t really magic. It’s illusion. It requires skill and showmanship and no small amount of mechanical wizardry. And it works best if you believe in real magic.”
“Do you?” Frank asked.
“Of course. What if someone else had found us that day?”
Frank was silent.
“I want this to be a children’s theater,” Bret said. “With magic shows.”
“Then make sure you get what you want,” Frank said.
Bret shook his head.
A door burst open and Samuel came onto the stage.
“The alarm was tripped,” he said to Bret.
“I know,” Bret said.
“What do you mean?”
“It was nothing. I checked the building. No one.”
Uneasy with this discussion, I moved back to the pile of equipment.
“What do you mean, ‘no one’?” Samuel asked.
“I mean, it went off not long after you left. The point of entry was the delivery area. The entry door was secure. All the doors leading from it were locked.”
“I just checked the videotape,” Samuel said angrily.
I felt sick to my stomach.
“And?” Bret said calmly.
“And you erased part of it.”
“Yes. The lights went on in the delivery area. The cameras rolled — and recorded absolutely nothing. Is there some special reason you’d like to save a tape of an empty concrete room?”
There was a brief silence, then Samuel said, “Did you check the other parts of the building anyway?”
“Of course.”
There was another lull in the conversation, then Samuel said, “What’s he doing up here?”
“I was teaching Frank something about magic,” Bret said, then added, “You are being impossibly rude.”
“Shhh,” Samuel said suddenly.
At first I didn’t understand what was happening. Frank said, “What’s wrong?”
“Shut up!” Samuel snapped, then, in sarcastic tones, said, “Forgive me. Please listen.”
Soon I heard it, too. The unmistakable sound of a rotor blade slapping the air. A helicopter was hovering overhead.
“They’ve found us!” Samuel said. “Let’s move it.”
I heard a scrambling sound, Frank’s chains rattling. Then Bret said, “I’ll go up to the control booth to turn the board off. You take Frank.” He paused, then said,
“And, Samuel—”
“I won’t hurt him, for chrissakes. Not unless—”
“Samuel!”
“Just go. He’ll be fine. Hell, if you’re that worried about him, I’ll go up to the booth.”
“No,” Bret said, and even I heard the quickness of the reply.
There was another brief silence.
“You’ve run all the errands,” Bret said. “I can’t make you do everything for me.”
“I don’t mind,” Samuel said, all the heat gone out of his voice. “I like staying busy. You know that.”
