“But what if I do get caught? What will these guys do to me?”
“They aren’t mafiosi, Natalie. These are professional men with clients to think about and public images to uphold. They don’t even want anyone knowing they’re in the game. They can afford to lose a quarter million in a night. They’d never do anything to jeopardize their own lives. It would be illogical.”
“Ellen.” I was old enough to know how little logic explained why people did many of the things they did. “What could they do to me?”
“Worst case? And I mean worst case, like you sneeze and all the palmed cards go flying across the room? They kick you out the door and keep your buy-in. Which, if you’ll remember, is really my buy-in. I’d be the one out of luck, not you. But that’s not gonna happen. We’re gonna work hard. We’ll be ready. You’ll be palming cards in your sleep. You’re gonna earn your money.”
“What if we switch jobs? You shuffle and I deal?”
She shook her head. “If you’re a little slow palming off the cards, you can take some extra time. These guys play with two decks, and while you’re shuffling the one, I’ll be dealing the other and can slow the pace down a little. If you absolutely have to, you can wait for the deck to come around a third time to grab the rest. But if you’re the dealer, there’s only one chance to get it right.” She shrugged. “Besides. This is my gig. I set it up, and I’m staking everything on it. I deal the cards.”
I nodded.
“No one’s gonna be watching the shuffler anyway,” she said. “The dealer gets all the attention. And the Greek deal is a really hard move to get right. It’s taken me years to perfect.”
“Why not just bottom deal?” I asked.
“You saw why in Atlantic City. And here tonight. The Greek deal’s just a better move when it’s done right.”
I had to agree. “All of this. It’s … hard. This is really hard sleight of hand we’re talking about.”
“I know.”
“If I hadn’t gone running after you in Atlantic City, what were you going to do? Who were you going to find?”
She took another sip of coffee. “I don’t know. I guess we both got lucky.”
She gave me a lesson in the finer points of the gambler’s cop. By the time she put her coat on and I walked her to the door it was past midnight. The birds were side by side on the perch with their eyes closed. Ellen and I made plans to meet up again on Tuesday when she was done teaching for the day. In the meantime, I had plenty of magic to practice. Ellen was almost out the door when I stopped her. “What about the cut?” I couldn’t believe this hadn’t occurred to me earlier. “Whoever’s sitting between us is going to cut the cards.”
“Of course,” she said.
“But if I arrange the deck and then someone cuts the cards, it would undo everything. That’s why cards get cut.”
She smiled. “All taken care of.”
“How?”
“It’s late,” she said. “You’ve had a big day. Sleep on it and tell me what you come up with.” I was shutting the door when she turned around and said, “By the way, your name’s Nora.”
“Nora?”
“Nora Thompson. And don’t just practice the Greek deal because I said it was hard. Work on controlling the cards. That’s your job.” She waved. “See you on Tuesday.”
9
The next morning, my eyes opened at the first light and I was fully awake. The air felt crisper, electric. In the bathroom, the blue tiles on the walls seemed brighter, as did the silver faucets. Everything seemed more. I knew things, amazing things, that I did not know yesterday, and I anticipated the busy hours and days ahead, when I would work to reduce and ultimately eliminate the friction between what I knew and what my hands could do.
There were a few shows on my December calendar. The money for those gigs, I knew, would help pay for Lou Husk’s settlement, but if they took away from the time I would otherwise be practicing for the game with Victor Flowers, then they weren’t worth keeping. Also, I couldn’t bring myself to care one iota about coins or linking rings or silks or ropes or clever reveals inside citrus fruits. I didn’t care about witty patter or making a crowd laugh or gasp or admire me for all my years of dedication to the art of close-up prestidigitation. All I cared about was January 1. Being ready. Being perfect.
My next show was on Saturday night in Hartford, Connecticut, the private holiday party of a retired Aetna executive. This was a referral from another retired Hartford exec, whose party I’d done a year ago. It was an easy gig, but at a home gig like that I couldn’t just leave right after the show. I’d be expected to schmooze and laugh at all the right moments, as if their motive in inviting me was so that I could be their audience and bear witness to their success and energy and wit, to the ease with which they inhabited their white-haired years.
I was meeting with Ellen again in just a few days. I kept thinking about all that time driving up to Hartford and back, the obligatory traffic jam on the Cross Bronx Expressway, all those wasted hours. So I called Jack at the store and asked him to help me find a replacement.
“For this Saturday?” he asked. “December’s a busy time. What’s the matter? You don’t sound so good.”
“I think it’s the flu,” I said, making my voice rasp without overdoing it. “Or something like it.”
“You have enough food at home?” he asked. “You have Gatorade? You have to drink Gatorade if it’s the flu.”
“Yeah, I
