Psych: Mind Over Magic p-2 Page 4

  “You dropped the gun. It went off and hit another squirrel that was watching you from a branch above,” Gus interrupted. “And even though it was just a flesh wound, you climbed up that tree every day for a week to bring your victim a bowl of Screaming Yellow Zonkers. Which even you have to admit was a strange choice, since of all the sweetened popcorn-based snack foods, Zonkers is the only one that doesn’t contain peanuts.”

  “It was a young squirrel, and it might have had an allergy,” Shawn said. “Anyway, I wasn’t actually proposing that we go out in the woods and hunt a grizzly. What I was saying was that if I wanted to shoot a bear-” He broke off, making sure that Gus wasn’t going to interrupt again. Assured that he wouldn’t, Shawn continued. “If I wanted to shoot a bear, I wouldn’t do it in a den full of other bears.”

  “Thank you for this moment of folksy wisdom,” Gus said. “Now, can we go expose that fraud?”

  Shawn took Gus by the shoulders and turned him so he was facing the fireplace. “Tell me what you see.”

  Gus glanced across the room and saw a sixtyish man, sporting a shiny red suit and an even shinier red nose, pulling miles of colored scarves out of one sleeve. By the front door, an aging hipster in a gold lame jumpsuit was crashing metal rings together. Shawn pointed to the fireplace and Gus saw a woman with close-cropped hair, black slacks, and a black vest over a vividly patterned blouse lift a pair of daggers and drive them into her eyeballs, then wander off with the hilts sticking out of her sockets as the two people who had been paying attention stared in horror.

  “People who make us look cool,” Gus said.

  “Exactly,” Shawn said. “And if we go after one of them, they’ll all put aside their differences to fight back. Just like the bears in the den. So instead of exposing anyone, how about engaging in a little fraudulent behavior of our own?”

  Shawn headed off down the corridor toward the noisy bar. Gus shot one last glance across the room, just in time to see the young woman squealing with delight as her boyfriend removed a playing card from his shoe. Then Gus followed Shawn down the hall.

  The pub was clearly the most used room in the Fortress. The walls were clean and cobweb free; the carpet between the door and the bar had been worn down to threads. There were clearly several different events being held here tonight, and the room was clustered with tight knots of partyers.

  “So, which one is Bud Flanek?” Gus said.

  “Look for a guy wearing bib overalls.”

  Gus scanned the crowds, but saw no one dressed as a farmer or train engineer. “We don’t even know which is the right party,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t be that hard to figure out,” Shawn said. “Just look for wide ties and wider lapels.”

  Gus wasn’t sure what Shawn meant by that, until he noticed a group of graying and balding men standing by a flickering fireplace. Each one wore a single-breasted suit fashioned out of some material nature had never intended, with lapels so wide they nearly touched at their wearer’s spine, and a tie that practically obviated the need for a shirt.

  “How do you know that’s them?” Gus asked.

  “Dad’s bowling group was all blue-collar guys,” Shawn said. “Sewer workers, garbage truck drivers, mechanics-not exactly jobs that require a coat and tie. They wear a suit only once or twice a year to weddings or funerals, which means the first one they bought is still in great shape. So why should they ever buy a second?”

  A roar of laughter came from the bachelor party as Shawn and Gus made their way over to them. When the hilarity over what was evidently a bit of clever wordplay involving the names of various items of the female anatomy subsided, Shawn stepped forward with the present.

  “Mr. Flanek?” Shawn said to a tall, stooped man in the center of the crowd.

  Bud Flanek studied Shawn carefully, trying to place a face he seemed certain he’d seen at least once before. “Do I know you?”

  The man whose joke had been the cause of the recent merriment pushed his way out of the crowd and grabbed Shawn by the shoulder. He was shorter than Bud and almost completely bald except for a few strands of gray hair combed over his scalp and pasted down with spray. There was something about the way he moved that told the world he was to be the center of attention in any circumstances.

  “This is the stripper we got you, Bud,” the man barked. “Sorry she’s so ugly-best we could afford.” He dissolved into gales of laughter over his own witticism.

  Gus realized that the man was Lyle Wheelock, Bud’s best man and the evening’s host.

  “I think we met once,” Shawn said. “My father is Henry Spencer. He asked me to-”

  “Henry!” Lyle interrupted. “That old goat! What’s his problem that he can’t even bother to show up to the most important night in Bud’s life?”

  “Second most important,” another man shouted from the crowd. “I think the wedding night is number one.”

  “Not if this party goes the way I think it will!” Lyle roared, then, as the men erupted in laughter, turned back to Shawn. “So what’s Henry’s story? Is he afraid I’m going to tell everyone about that time in Reno?”

  “Why isn’t Henry here?” Bud asked. “I was there for his bachelor party.”

  This was Shawn’s moment: maximum humiliation of his father for minimum effort, a perfect revenge not only for this morning’s scare, but for years of similar scores. He was about to launch into the story of just why Henry would never again be allowed on the steep walkway to the Fortress of Magic, when he realized something was wrong. Henry had sent him here for a reason. He could just as easily have used a courier service, or dropped off the gift with the doorman. Henry was setting Shawn up for something, and while Shawn didn’t know what it was, he was pretty sure it was going to be some kind of lesson he wouldn’t enjoy learning.

  “He’s in bed with a bad cold,” Shawn said.

  “I know who you are,” Lyle bellowed. “You’re that psychotic kid.”

  “Psychic,” Shawn said.

  “I’m pretty sure I heard Henry say psychotic,” Lyle said. “Go ahead, tell my future.”

  “I don’t tell futures,” Shawn said.

  “And we’ve really got to be going,” Gus said, trying to pull Shawn away. “Give Bud the present and let’s get out of here, Shawn.”

  But Lyle Wheelock placed himself directly in front of them. “Come on, brain boy,” he taunted. “We need some entertainment at this party. Do your trick.”

  “I don’t do tricks,” Shawn said. “Talk to any of the magicians here. I’m sure they’ll be happy to help you out.”

  “I knew you were a phony,” Lyle shouted. “You couldn’t read my mind if I took it out of my skull and handed it to you.”

  “You tell him, Lyle,” Bud said.

  “Come on, brain boy,” Lyle said. “Do something psychotic. Tell me something about myself nobody knows.”

  Shawn pressed his fingers to his forehead and doubled over as if in pain. Then he straightened suddenly. “You are…”

  “I am what?” Lyle said.

  “Not nearly as funny as you think you are.”

  A voice came out of the crowd. “He said tell him something no one else knows!”

  Lyle’s face burned red as Shawn turned to go. “Come on, I want you to read my mind,” he said, grabbing Shawn’s arm. “I’m not letting you go until you tell me something amazing.”

  Shawn sighed and took a hard look at Lyle Wheelock. And he saw. Saw a fine white powder on his shoulders-powder that might have been dandruff, except that Lyle didn’t have any hair. Saw a film of yellow grease under his fingernails. Saw the small tear in his shirt that had been amateurishly stitched together. Saw the bare white band on his ring finger.

  Shawn’s hands dropped away from his forehead. “I’m not seeing anything,” he said, then turned to Gus. “Let’s go.”

  “Just tell him something so we can get out of here,” Gus hissed in Shawn’s ear.

  Shawn sighed again. “If that’s what everyone w
ants…”

  Shawn leaned close to Lyle and whispered into his ear. Gus couldn’t hear what Shawn said, but he could see the reaction. Lyle dropped Shawn’s arm, his face turning red.

  “Let’s go,” Shawn said, turning toward the door. But before they could take a step, Lyle let out a howl.

  “How dare you come to this party and tell everybody I’m sleeping with my best friend’s fiancee?” Lyle shouted.

  Behind Lyle, Bud Flanek turned pale. The other members of the party looked like they’d been struck with hammers.

  “I didn’t,” Shawn said. “You just did.”

  Lyle leapt across the room and grabbed Shawn by the throat. “Shut up! Shut up!”

  Shawn gasped for breath, but Lyle was squeezing too tight. Gus tried to pry his fingers off, but they were like steel bands. Shawn could feel himself beginning to lose consciousness, when a scream echoed from the front room.

  “What was that?” Lyle said, releasing his grip on Shawn’s throat and letting him drop to the floor.

  Every head in the bar swiveled toward the door, and for a moment, the entire crowd stood frozen. And then the scream came again.

  “This way,” someone shouted, and the entire crowd drained out of the room.

  “Can’t see why my father doesn’t like this place more,” Shawn said, rubbing his neck.

  Chapter Five

  The Fortress shook as if someone had slammed a wrecking ball into it.

  “Earthquake!” Gus shouted as he followed Shawn into the main parlor.

  “I don’t think earthquakes usually hit at two-second intervals,” Shawn said.

  Shawn and Gus pressed into the room, but all they could see were the backs of the people who’d gotten there before them. The Fortress shook again.

  “Then what’s going on?”

  Shawn scanned the room. Then he pointed above the crowd toward the entrance. “I think it may have something to do with that.”

  Gus craned his head around a tall man in a cheap tuxedo, looking to see what Shawn was talking about. And when he did, he wished he’d never opened his eyes. It wasn’t the fact that there was a head bobbing above the crowd that bothered Gus, even though its bald crown must have been more than seven feet off the ground.

  It was the fact that the head was green.

  The Fortress shook again. The head moved through the crowd like a shark’s fin cutting through the waves, and Gus realized what was rattling the building: It was the green creature’s footsteps.

  “What is it?” Gus whispered to Shawn.

  “A product of global warming, I’m thinking,” Shawn said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t you remember Frankenstein: The True Story?” Shawn said. “At the end, Victor Frankenstein is chasing the monster over the North Pole, and they both get buried by an avalanche. Clearly, global warming has melted the ice enough to set the monster free.”

  “That was a movie, Shawn,” Gus said. “It didn’t really happen.”

  “It’s the true story,” Shawn said. “It said so in the title.”

  “That doesn’t make it real,” Gus said.

  “Really?” Shawn said. “I thought there was a law.”

  The room shook again as the creature took another step. Somewhere in the crowd, a woman screamed.

  “What’s it doing?” Gus said, jumping up to see over the crowd.

  “The last thing you want it to do,” Shawn said. “Coming this way.”

  Shawn was right. The head had turned and was now moving directly toward them. Up ahead, Gus could see the crowd falling away to make room for the creature.

  “Do you think it eats people?” Shawn said, edging back a little. “Because if so, I think Lyle would make a tasty treat.”

  The crowds parted as the stomping footsteps got closer. The two men blocking Shawn’s view fell aside, and the creature stood directly in front of him.

  Its enormous feet were encased in heavy black boots. On its bald head it wore a thick gold band as a crown. Its midsection was wrapped in a black loincloth. The rest was rippling muscles covered only by bare flesh.

  Bare green flesh.

  Gus stared up into the creature’s face. If he ignored the coloring and the razor-sharp teeth, he could imagine he was looking at a normal human. Of course, if he could ignore the coloring and the razor-sharp teeth, he could imagine a great white shark was a goldfish, but that wouldn’t keep him from being digested as a snack.

  The creature stared down at Shawn and Gus, arms crossed over his mammoth chest. “Puny humans, tremble before P’tol P’kah,” his voice boomed down at them.

  The creature pushed between Shawn and Gus as it stomped toward the back of the building. Before Gus could decide between following the green monster or collapsing into a dead faint, a thin, reedy voice came from behind him.

  “Fellow magicians,” the voice said, “P’tol P’kah has come here to meet your challenge.”

  Gus turned to see a tiny man following in the open aisle the creature had created. His salt-and-pepper hair was razor cut; his designer suit hugged his body. Aside from the fact that the top of his head didn’t quite skim the five-foot mark, he could have been Mitt Romney.

  “Now, who here has dared call P’tol P’kah a fake?” the small man said.

  There was a concerned murmur in the crowd before a heavyset man in a worn tuxedo pushed his way up to the speaker, his face twisted in scorn.

  “I dared,” the man spat. Gus was certain he’d seen the angry man before, but couldn’t quite place him. “If I could build my own Vegas showroom and never let anyone backstage, I could perform miracles from beyond the wonders of space, too.”

  “Of course you could, Balustrade,” the small man said patiently. “And all of America would flock to Vegas to see you practice your card tricks.”

  Now Gus realized who the heavyset man was-the same magician who had slipped the five of hearts into his sock. But the cherubic look was completely gone, replaced by a visage of pure fury. He looked like a different person. He was, Gus realized, a much better performer than he had given him credit for.

  The man in the red suit pushed his way to the front of the crowd. As he got closer, Gus could see that the suit wasn’t just shiny; it was made of vinyl.

  “At least we perform our illusions honestly.” The red-suited man shouted his words over the other man’s head, which wasn’t hard to do.

  Gus caught a glimpse of gold out of the corner of his eye and turned to see the man in the jumpsuit standing at the edge of the crowd. “That’s right! I don’t use computers and video screens and high-tech gadgets to fool a gullible public into thinking I have talent.”

  “There’s no computer in the world that’s that good, Sludge!” a drunken voice called out from the back of the room.

  A wave of laughter passed through the room, which only infuriated the lamed man further. “It’s Rudge,” he shouted. “You all know it’s Rudge. Barnaby Rudge.”

  Rudge jolted forward as if to take on the green giant in a fistfight, and the crowd whooped in anticipation of a bloody, if extremely short, fight. But he quickly dived back into the crowd, and Gus could see that the only reason he’d stepped forward was because he’d been pushed. It took Gus a moment to realize where he’d seen the woman who’d shoved Rudge, because he didn’t immediately recognize her without knife handles protruding from her eye sockets. Now that he was closer to the woman, he could see that she wasn’t wearing a brightly patterned blouse after all. She had on a simple black vest; the colors that ran up and down her arms and covered her upper chest were all tattooed there. And they weren’t just colors-they were snakes and lizards and, Gus was pretty sure, slugs.

  “Isn’t anyone going to stand up for our art?” the woman called to the crowd. “Or are you all going to take little Benny Fleck’s side because he’s rich and you think he’ll stake you to a show when his pretty boy flames out?”

  “Pretty boy?” Gus whispered to Shawn.

  “It’s al
l relative,” Shawn said. “Consider who’s talking.”

  “P’tol P’kah does not flame out,” said the small man, who Gus realized must be Benny Fleck, whoever that was. “Unless you are referring to his newest illusion, in which he will be consumed by a pillar of fire, transforming himself into a cloud of smoke. The cloud will then rain down on the stage and the puddle of rainwater will then rise up in the unmistakable form of P’tol P’kah, the Martian Magician!”

  An excited buzz ran through the crowd, and members of the Fortress began to shout out questions. Mostly the magicians wanted to know when this new trick was going to premiere, but at least two were asking how they might buy tickets.

  “And he’ll do that on a stage fifty feet from the nearest member of the audience so no one can see what a fake he is,” Balustrade said. “Real magic isn’t like going to see The Matrix at a movie theater. It’s up close. It’s personal. It’s real.”

  “It’s three shows a night at the Budget Buffet Dinner Theater,” Fleck said. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it? Real magic is what you do, the way you do it, and nothing else counts?”

  Another wave of laughter rippled through the crowd. Balustrade’s face was getting redder by the second. He sputtered and spit, but he was so enraged, his tongue couldn’t form words.

  The tattooed woman didn’t have the same problem. “We all know what stage magic is supposed to be, and we know where the art of it lies,” she shouted to the crowd. “All of you, fellow magicians, have spent years perfecting your art, mastering your craft, honing your skills so that what you do is seamless. Perfect. So that you can stand right in front of your audience and they will never be able to figure out your illusion. But this man might as well be George Lucas, casting digital shadows on a wall. He is not worthy of your respect, or of the name magician.”

  Gus looked around the room and saw that the woman’s impassioned plea had actually begun to move some of his listeners. Benny Fleck apparently saw the same thing, because he lifted his arms high in the air-high for him, anyway, which brought them roughly to the level of Gus’ nose-and spoke in a serious voice.