Levitating Las Vegas Read online

  As she came within range, he made one more comment to Marilyn Monroe. Then he turned back to Kaylee, beamed at her, and took one step toward her.

  She threw as hard as she could at him, Asking Kaylee out is not a good idea, and watched him step back to the wall again. Exquisite prickles rushed across her skin. She’d changed Shane’s mind so many times in the year they’d both worked at the casino that she’d almost begun to look forward to the encounter. If she wasn’t careful, she’d associate the sight of him with the pleasure of her power, like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

  Still power-walking across the crazy pattern in the carpet, she stole a glance back at him. He’d folded one arm across his tux and propped the other fist against his chin, hiding his mouth. But he leaned forward just enough that he could see her beyond Marilyn Monroe. He followed Kaylee with his eyes.

  This time the prickles Kaylee felt didn’t come from her power at all.

  Only four more nights, Holly assured herself. Tonight, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. She and her parents took Monday night off. Tuesday her dad would perform his impossible feat of physical stamina. And then he would tell her his secrets, surely. She had to get through only four more nights as a brainless sex object onstage in a spangled bikini.

  Her mom took care of the complicated parts of the magic trick, like yanking the red velvet curtain closed behind herself and balling her body into the tiny compartment underneath the rolling box to make it look as if she’d disappeared. Holly’s dad did all the acting. He adopted a pained expression as if he were focusing on the box through the wisps of dry-ice smoke and willing Holly’s mom to disappear. Holly’s job was to stand smiling at the packed auditorium and make presentation motions with her fingers gracefully extended and her careful manicure on display. No concentration required.

  Until a light flashed in her eyes. Cameras weren’t allowed in the auditorium because the flash was blinding from the dark audience. She stood paralyzed, staring at bright spots marching across her field of view. She knew better than to take a step across the slick wooden stage in her high-heeled sandals until her vision cleared.

  The prerecorded music over the speakers swelled to a dramatic climax, signaling that her dad had jerked open the curtain on the box to reveal—gasp—an empty space where her mom had been! This trick actually did cause Holly some anxiety. Her mom was getting older, and though she still rocked the stage in her own spangled bikini and high heels, her back had begun to bother her when she curled up in the bottom of the box, in a space so impossibly small that the audience believed she was gone. Flexible by comparison, Holly was the logical one to put herself through the most physically difficult part of the act.

  Yet no one ever mentioned this possibility. Holly suspected her parents didn’t quite trust her. She was a beloved dog, generally sweet-natured, that had once bitten its master. If they put Holly in the box, one missed cue would ruin the trick, exposing her dad for the fraud he and all magicians really were. Everyone knew magicians were frauds, of course, but no one wanted to see it.

  In fact, Holly currently was missing a cue, and she hadn’t even suffered a mental breakdown this time. She tried to blink the flashing spots away, unable to move on the stage. If she explained to her mom in the dressing room later that she’d been blinded and feared for her safety on high heels, her mom would one-up her with a story of a too-discerning crowd or a broken prop she’d faked her way through at some point in her many years as a Vegas magician’s assistant. Holly stayed where she was and made presentation hands in the general direction of the velvet box she assumed to be empty.

  Holly waited a few seconds until her dad swept across the stage, cape billowing behind him. She couldn’t see the cape. She’d simply memorized the routine after endless rehearsals and performances. But now her vision had recovered to the point that she could step carefully to the box and twirl it on its casters, showing the crowd that indeed, her mom was gone in the front, her mom was gone in the back. The fact that her mom had stuffed herself underneath seemed so obvious to Holly. She could only assume that either the crowd honestly wanted to be fooled, or they were unable to complain about her dad’s hokey tricks because Holly didn’t pass around suggestion cards.

  She’d just completed her second rotation with the box when the same flash blinded her, from the same place in the audience. Now she was supposed to take several steps away from the box so the spectators didn’t suspect her of engineering the trick through some mechanism on the box itself. Yet with one hand she clung to the side of the box and what was left of her sense of balance. With the other hand, she made the presentation gesture.

  Her dad brushed past her, elbowing her to wake her up. Obediently Holly took a few shaky steps away from the box. Luckily, for the next minute, no tasks needed her concentration. She simply stood by and grinned blindly at the audience while her dad lit the box on fire. She painted it anew every afternoon with nitrocellulose, which produced an impressive flame, convincing the crowd that her mom couldn’t possibly survive unscathed if she were somehow hidden inside—her dad’s banal twist on an old standby in every magician’s arsenal.

  Blinking through the spots before her eyes, Holly took the opportunity to scan the crowd for the source of the flash that had blinded her twice. She might not have as many years of experience in this business as her mom, but she had almost eight, and she knew the flash of a camera when she saw one. This had been no camera flash. The source was bigger. Wearing her pasted-on grin, she panned slowly across the seats, letting her eyes linger on the spot where she thought the flash had originated, even as her head moved away.

  There it was again. She closed her eyes to avoid being blinded a third time, then opened one eye tentatively. Now the flash was dull enough that she could study it. It moved, almost as if it was meant to draw her attention. She panned her head in the other direction but kept her eyes on that mesmerizing light. The small rectangle moved up, down, then blinked brighter and dimmer. Someone was deliberately moving a mirror to reflect the spotlights into her eyes.

  Elijah. Simultaneously she recognized him and was surprised she’d been able to pick him out seven rows back in the sea of faces dimly lit by the glow onstage. Her heart raced at the thought that he’d come to check on her. He didn’t think she was a dork for bailing out of his bathroom window. He was concerned for her safety after her run-in with his unbalanced roommate.

  A lovely little fantasy about her dream carpenter, but untrue. More likely he’d gotten bored with whatever he was nailing and slipped into the audience to catch the end of her dad’s show. He’d blinded her with the mirror as a hello, not realizing how much damage he could have caused to her dad’s act. She forgave him. People who weren’t in showbiz had no idea how difficult it was to make magic look this easy. She resumed her slow head turn, grinning at everyone in the crowd.

  Her attention snapped back to him as he held up one hand in a power fist. No—he turned his fist on its side and stuck out his thumb and first finger. Then he made an L. He was spelling to her in sign language, which they’d both learned in communications class their senior year in high school, before the teachers put a stop to it because students were spending whole periods signing to each other when the teachers made them turn their cell phones off. G-L-I-T-T-E-R-A-T-I, Elijah spelled, then the sign for midnight.

  He wanted her to meet him at the Glitterati dance club at midnight?

  Canned trumpets blasted at her from all directions. Time for her mom to reappear! Holly pirouetted around the box and extended her arms toward it, as if this helped the trick somehow. Her dad ripped back the velvet curtain to reveal—wonder of wonders—her mom, wearing a different color bikini!

  Holly felt the force of the audience’s cheer hit her in the center of her chest.

  Smiling, she took the hand her dad offered her. With his other hand he assisted her mom down from the box, and the three of them stepped forward and bowed. Her dad, who had very limber fingers from many years’ experience as a charlata
n, managed to pinch Holly’s pinkie. Hard.

  He was right to reprimand her, she thought as she and her mom retrieved the levitation table from the wings and wheeled it center stage. She couldn’t let one random flirtation from her high school crush distract her from her duties. She wanted her own act as an illusionist. She needed to stay on her parents’ good side if she planned to use their tricks and their connections.

  She caught the glittering gold hoops her mom threw her and passed them up and down her dad’s supine body as he slowly rose from the levitation table, into the air. The audience ooohed. Holly had no idea how her dad pulled this trick off. Usually levitation tables were powered by carefully hidden hydraulics. Holly couldn’t even see any wires on this one. Of all her dad’s illusions, this was his most impressive, and in her opinion almost made up for the fact that she’d bought the hula hoops at the dollar store and coated them with spray glitter left over from one of her middle school art projects. As soon as she’d cleared his head with the hoops, she assumed a pageant pose at the end of the table and held both hoops high in the air as if she’d truly done something special this time.

  And then, free to examine the audience again, she looked for Elijah. She couldn’t help it. Parents and job and potential career be damned, Elijah Brown wanted her attention, and he had it. She squinted into the darkness for a sign language clarification of Glitterati at midnight and (she wished) Elijah’s love for her that had never died.

  He was gone.

  Elijah ducked out the stage door and hurried down the stairs, into the bowels of the casino. He was a legitimate employee now, with benefits the same as anybody else, and access to all the shows because his boss trusted him. He kept reassuring himself of this. The only reason he felt tonight as if he’d done something wrong was that he had MAD, he had no Mentafixol, and the two days it took the drug to cycle out of his system were over.

  Insomnia didn’t help: he’d been up half the night with the same delusion from the night before that he was reading Rob’s mind and experiencing his dreams. Over and over Rob had rushed through a Chicago subway station to find a hidden bomb before it was too late. Elijah was exhausted.

  Nodding to showgirls who called his name as they tiptoed past in their stilettos and feathers, he hurried down the corridor to the casino health clinic and approached the pharmacy counter. Good, a different clerk manned the register from the one who’d been there that morning when he’d checked fruitlessly.

  Thirty-six hours off the drug at the time, he hadn’t gotten angry. Instead, he’d called Dr. Gray and listened to the message that the number had been disconnected. Then he’d flipped frantically through the phone book. Dr. Gray wasn’t listed. He’d peeked into the casino health center and asked for Dr. Gray. They’d never heard of him. Elijah had pressed the button on his cell to call his mom and get more information about the disappearing doctor who’d diagnosed him with MAD and prescribed Mentafixol in the first place seven years ago.

  Elijah had hung up before the call went through. He was twenty-one years old, after all, and it was getting a bit pathetic for him to call his mom to figure out stuff like this for him. He was growing desperate, yes, but that was probably a symptom of MAD—a symptom he’d best hide before he landed in an insane asylum. Or got himself booted to the Res blah blah.

  But that had been at thirty-six hours. Forty-eight hours off the drug now, he was angry. At his mom, at Dr. Gray, at the pharmacy, at the drug company that had neglected to send their shipment as usual. Angry that he’d been forced to drag Holly Starr into this. But if that shipment of Mentafixol didn’t come in before her own prescription ran out, she’d get dragged into it no matter what Elijah did.

  Now he smiled his most winning, least insane smile at the pharmacy clerk. “I have a prescription in your computer for Mentafixol. When I came in to fill it two days ago, the clerk said you’re out. I’m just checking to see if the shipment came in.”

  “Mentafixol,” the girl murmured like this was a new one to her. She took his name and typed on her computer. Obviously no one had gotten wise and included a message with his prescription information that said “WATCH OUT FOR THIS ONE! HE’S CRAZY WHEN UNMEDICATED!” because the girl didn’t hit a panic button under the counter—anyway, not that Elijah could sense with his imagined mind-reading abilities. She said simply, “Let me check in the back,” and disappeared behind shelves of colorful boxes and bottles.

  While Elijah leaned against the counter for strength, praying that his medicine would miraculously appear, a large brown bear shuffled in. He was from the Animal Instincts sexy acrobatics show, Stage 3. Elijah had fixed their trampoline last week. The bear went to a second cash register. Elijah was too far away to hear the bear’s conversation with another clerk, but in his mind he heard perfectly that the bear was picking up his blood pressure medicine. Elijah hoped this bear appreciated the ease with which he refilled his prescription. Having MAD was a bummer, but Mentafixol at least allowed Elijah to function. He swore that when he finally got his hands on this drug, he would never, ever take modern medicine for granted again.

  Two Mile High Candy Co.

  Icarus, CO

  With a start, Elijah blinked the words away and looked around. Visions like this, voices in his head—these were exactly the symptoms MAD had served him seven years ago. But this time they came with a side order of panic, because he recognized them for what they were: a dinner reservation in the loony bin. Sure enough, even before the clerk reappeared around the shelf, Elijah knew she was coming, with bad news.

  She held an empty box. “Sorry! That shipment still hasn’t come in. Have you tried other pharmacies around town?”

  “I have,” Elijah said. That morning he’d called half the pharmacies in Las Vegas. Shane had called the other half while eyeing Elijah and telling him he didn’t look so hot. “They’ve never heard of Mentafixol.”

  “I hadn’t either, until now. I wonder if we get it on special order just for you.”

  Elijah knew they didn’t get it just for him. For him and Holly, maybe, but not just for him. “Is there a generic?”

  “Your doctor would have to prescribe the generic.” The clerk examined the empty box curiously.

  Two Mile High Candy Co.

  Icarus, CO

  Elijah blinked and leaned weakly against the counter. It was unnerving to have something pop into his head like that. This was not how normal brains worked, and it was not how his own brain worked—not in the last seven years, anyway.

  The clerk continued to stare at the box, unaware that she was giving Elijah a conniption. Edging closer, Elijah glimpsed the address label that held her attention. Surely it didn’t say “Two Mile High Candy Co., Icarus, CO.” If it did, he was going to freak out, because that would certify he could see in his head what someone else was reading. He nodded to the box. “Can I look at that?”

  The clerk made a motion to hand it over, then froze. Elijah heard what she was thinking: Oh no, this is the guy they were talking about on dinner break, the one who’s been in here five times in the past forty-eight hours and has some kind of mental illness. Should I call the police?

  He had to know whether he’d really predicted what the box said. But he couldn’t risk snatching it from her and landing himself in jail, then the loony bin. “Never mind. Thanks.” He backed out of the room.

  He pushed open the door and hurried toward the elevators, trying not to look like he was hurrying, because the casino had surveillance cameras everywhere. The underground corridors recently had been repainted from dull white to gloss white to fool employees into thinking they weren’t underneath megatons of concrete and steel that could collapse on them at any second. Don’t panic.

  The elevator ride was torture. The imagined problems of strangers assaulted him from all sides. Finally he escaped onto the casino floor, which was crowded at 9 p.m., the busiest time of night. Carefully he wound his way through the gaming tables and the islands of beeping, blinking slot machines, staying
as far away from people as possible so their thoughts couldn’t stomp into his consciousness. Veering toward the far wall, he swung open a door and ducked inside.

  After the hyperactive lights of the casino floor, the Peacock Room was so dark that he could hardly see at first. He waited until his eyes adjusted and the giant peacock feathers appeared, the design starting in the center of the room and extending through the carpet and up the walls to touch the ceiling. Elijah had always thought the room looked as if a giant bird were sitting on him until he cried uncle, but he’d never felt the pressure of the peacock’s gargantuan ass until his MAD started acting up.

  He slid into a chair at the nearest empty table and braced himself against the bar waitress’s X-rated thoughts about him. She slid a nonalcoholic beer in front of him and kissed him on the cheek, leaving oily lipstick that he rubbed off his skin when she wasn’t looking. He couldn’t mix alcohol with Mentafixol, so when he’d started coming in to see Shane’s band and she’d offered to bring him anything he wanted, he’d given her a line about not wanting to drink because his dad had been an alcoholic—which could have been true, for all he knew. Of course, now that he was off Mentafixol, he supposed he could drink real beer. It might do him good. He watched the drops of perspiration on the bottle loosen with the vibration of the music and scoot down the brown glass, onto his shaking hand.

  Onstage, Shane’s dad, looking every inch Frank Sinatra in the early 1960s, ended “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” with a flourish of his guitar. He took a bow along with the other members of the band: Shane in the shadows, Shane’s uncle on drums, and Shane’s brother playing bass. Over the smattering of applause, Shane’s dad turned around and said something to Shane.

  Shane stepped forward to the edge of the stage and squinted at Elijah. He held up one finger: one more song until the end of that set. He spoke in his dad’s ear before melting into the background.