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BLUFFA NOVEL
MICHAEL KARDOS
Copyright © 2018 by Michael Kardos
Cover design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].
FIRST EDITION
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: April 2018
This book was designed by Norman Tuttle at Alpha Design & Composition
This book was set in 12.5 pt. Dante MT
by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-2804-1
eISBN 978-0-8021-6567-1
The Mysterious Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
groveatlantic.com
18 19 20 21 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Katie
Trust everybody, but always cut the cards.
—American proverb
Table of Contents
Cover
Also by Michael Kardos
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Acknowledgments
Back Cover
PART ONE
A
It started with that most basic of requests: Pick a card.
Though really it started before that, when I asked the woman at the nearest table, “Give me a hand, will you, please?”
She looked a little like me—long brown hair, narrow face, younger than most of the women in the room. Maybe that’s why I’d approached her. Also because she’d seemed engrossed in the show. But when I spoke to her, she threw her hands up as if to prove she wasn’t carrying a weapon.
“Oh … not me,” she said. “I couldn’t.”
“Of course you can,” I said. “You’ll do great!” Usually, that was all it took—a little prodding, followed by some scattered, encouraging applause from the audience.
“No, no,” she said. “I’m way too wasted.”
I scanned the room for another woman to help out. (Women, I’d learned over the years, were better volunteers—they generally followed directions and didn’t try to show off.) But I was too slow. A man at the same table was already springing up from his chair, saying, “I’ll do it!”
Had my wits been more about me, his overeagerness would have put me on alert. But halfway through the show at this point, I just wanted to be done and go home. Close the door on what had been a trying day. Besides, the weather was only getting worse, and my car was half hopeless even on clear roads.
So I said, “Sure, come on up.”
Immediately, people across the ballroom started in with Oooh and Oh, damn and the anxious laughter that told me now I had a problem.
Corporate shows around the holidays were usually plum gigs—good pay, good food, good spirit. And tonight’s event, a holiday party for Great Nation Physical Therapy, in the Hyatt in downtown Newark, had seemed especially promising when I booked it. Who needed to be entertained more than a roomful of medical professionals during the holidays, glad to be away from illness and injury for a night?
But when I arrived, I learned that the party being thrown by the physical therapists wasn’t for them. Rather, the purpose was to wine and dine the hundred or so personal injury attorneys who held the key to an endless supply of injured people in need of rehabilitation. Door prizes included a home theater system and a vacation in Aruba.
My volunteer followed me to the front of the room and stood teetering a little. Definitely dined and wined. But I was determined to push through the routine. It was the finale of the card portion of the show. Then on to the linking rings. I asked my volunteer his name.
“I’m Lou!” he said, beaming. I could picture his face, those white teeth, grinning at me from a highway billboard beneath an aggressive font. SOMEONE MUST PAY FOR YOUR INJURIES!
Within the hour, I’d learn that Lou Husk, though not yet thirty-five, was already a legend among his peers in the room—extreme climber, extreme skier, extremely not someone you want opposing you in court. But right then, standing beside him in the Grand Ballroom, I knew him only as the man who would help my show along, usher me a few minutes closer to collecting my check and going home.
I put on a smile and gave him a warm, two-handed so-glad-to-meet-you handshake. When I went to let go, he surprised me by raising my hand to his lips and kissing it.
Then he licked my knuckles.
It threw me. This wasn’t some bachelor party or frat gig. And even then. In a decade of supporting myself as a working magician, I had been patted, grabbed, groped, and kissed. Even punched once … but never licked.
No one else seemed to notice. I wiped my hand on my pants and reminded myself that on my feet were a new pair of four-inch leopard print stilettos that replaced the red leather heels I’d lovingly worn into the ground. The rest of my outfit was less flashy: pencil pants, white tuxedo shirt left open at the collar, well-tailored black jacket. But even simple clothes cost money, and tonight’s show paid for
