Magic Mansion (40 page)

It took everything he had, but Ricardo forced himself to focus on his hoops. He juggled them dangerously high, no longer needing to make it look difficult, because it was difficult—and then he palmed the modern silver dollars from his jeans pocket (no mean feat, given how tight they were) and flipped them into the crowd, declaring, “Hey, where’s Eisenhower?”

The over-sixty choreographer and the vocal coach had thought that joke was a scream. The under-thirty stylist didn’t get it. Unfortunately, a majority of Ricardo’s current crowd was in agreement with her.

The airhorn sounded again, and the audience rotated. Or did it? They were supposed to, but when Ricardo scanned, he saw that the crowds were definitely thicker around John and Kevin. Their acts were so good, their personalities so magnetic, they were keeping the spectators from Ricardo and Jia. Ricardo poured everything he could into his performance, tossing the hoops high, focusing on his patter, smiling so hard his face hurt (although he was battling a sinking feeling that he was not nearly as clever in designing his act as he’d thought he was) and doing his damnedest to draw the crowd away from John, away from Kevin, and over to himself.

Ricardo juggled and palmed and bantered for all he was worth, and the airhorn sounded for the third time. He focused in on specific members of his final crowd—definitely fewer in number than the other end of the boardwalk—and poured his heart into forging some kind of connection with each of them.

When the final airhorn sounded to signal the end of the challenge, and Ricardo caught his five hoops and then attempted to catch his breath, he realized…he was standing with his weight all on one hip. And his elbows turned in.

He kept his posture exactly as it was and tilted his chin up defiantly as applause rippled through the audience. If the crowd didn’t love him for his real self…then what good was winning, anyway?

Monty was talking now, praising the audience, but Ricardo took the opportunity to thank his final group of spectators personally, shaking hands, making eye contact, connecting. The public seemed more eager to meet him now that he was a TV star than they had back when he was working the small-club circuit, when he’d emerge into the cocktail lounge in his offstage garb to vague looks and the question, “Hey, aren’t you that guy?”

No, everyone knew exactly who he was now, and men and women alike seemed eager to shake his hand. He thanked anyone who would listen for coming, and thanked them again when they told him he was their favorite and they hoped he’d win. Maybe it would be enough, winning over this final crowd, if the other votes were split between Jia and Kevin and John. Of all the magicians, Ricardo was the most approachable, and since there was nothing that said he couldn’t keep on schmoozing after the final airhorn blast, then he planned to work his every last advantage to the max.

“You have to beat Kevin,” a middle-aged woman said, how funny. And, “I can’t believe I get to meet you in person,” a younger woman gushed. “You look even better than on TV.” Ricardo gave her hand an extra squeeze, even though Iain was descending upon him, probably to tell him to knock it off. As he took a step back from the crowd and gave them a parting wave, he caught the eye of one of the men, who frowned and said, “Where’s Sue?”

Iain grabbed him by the elbow hard, and hauled him off the boardwalk himself. “Come on, Mr. Magnificent, there’s no time for you to diddle each and every one of them personally.”

“Shut up,” Ricardo said, but only half-heartedly—because Iain wouldn’t be Iain if he wasn’t acting like the world’s most insulting dweeb. Instead what troubled Ricardo was the thought that no matter what he did or said, no matter how hard he worked or how well he performed, Magic Mansion’s viewers saw him as one thing, and one thing only: half a couple, without Sue.

An assistant handed Ricardo a towel, and he blotted his sweat carefully so as not to smear off his makeup in a huge swath down the center of his face. There were still handhelds wandering past, after all. Jia, Kevin and John were already there, sheltered from the milling boardwalk crowd by a wall of divider screens, cooling down. Chairs stood ready for the talent, but nobody sat. They were too keyed up. They all gulped water like they were dying of thirst, though, and Jia was making actual use of her big gold prop fan.

Ricardo’s knees shook. These last few days had been a roller coaster ride—his first real on-air magic performance, his first chance to show the viewers what he actually was, beyond being the guy who’d bled into the wand pond or crawled through the bounce castle the fastest. His first chance to demonstrate what his actual passion was all about. And now, for good or ill, he’d done it. He’d actually performed. On wobbly legs, he made his way past a pair of assistants and a handheld, and there, finally, stood John. Except “John” was the tender-eyed man who held him in that narrow bed each night as he drifted off to sleep. This striking magician in the burgundy ascot was none other than Professor Topaz.

Although Professor Topaz wasn’t exactly known for the smile he was currently shining on Ricardo.
 

“I can’t believe that tux,” Ricardo said, and his roller-coaster sensation slowed as he decided that if he did lose to John, it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing after all. Because as Jia had said when she stood to be eliminated, there was no shame in losing to the best. “You were amazing out there.”

“Was I?” John replied. “I don’t know how I managed. As usual, ‘someone’ was doing his very best to distract me.”

“No way.”

“Oh, yes. How could I help but stare?” John swept off his top hat so he could lean in close and whisper directly in Ricardo’s ear. “You look uncannily like the first boy who ever slid his hand down my pants. Only more glittery.”

Though the hairs on Ricardo’s forearms were damp with sweat, they managed to stand on end anyway as a delirious thrill raced down his spine. All around them, the crew milled, the handhelds zoomed in and out, the audience surged beyond a few flimsy screens, and Iain stormed around being a dick. But for Ricardo, the world had narrowed down until it consisted of only the two of them, him and John, together.

___

The throng of viewers queued up at the table to receive their Magic Mansion T-shirts and, more importantly, to get their parking validated. “Make sure these ballots are correct,” Marlene told the assistant who was helping her collect them. “One magician chosen in each category, no more, no less. We have exactly one hundred people here. If any of them screws up their voting, the scores won’t add up right in the end.”

Immediately, the assistant spotted a card with five checks on it, and made the audience member re-do the ballot, much to the annoyance of everyone in line behind them. Marlene called out, “If you marked more than one magician in any category, raise your hand and we’ll get you a new ballot.” A few hands popped up, and she sent another PA out with some blank ballots, muttering, “Go help them, okay?” It was almost over. That’s what she kept telling herself. And she had two weeks in Cabo coming to her, with no cell phone, no executive producers and no bleeding magicians, in the very near future.

With the re-do ballots dispatched, she turned back to the front of the line, noticing one guy watching the proceedings more shiftily than the people around him. “You…in the blue windbreaker. C’mere.” Marlene crooked her finger, and the guy stepped up and handed over his ballot.

The ballot was technically correct. There was only one magician chosen in each category. In fact, there was only one magician chosen at all: Kevin Kazan for magic tricks, Kevin Kazan for style, and Kevin Kazan for the theme of his act. No big surprise. The home viewers had their favorites, and a few “straight ticket” votes were to be expected.

But the word
FAG
scrawled across Ricardo’s name was a bit much. “Really?” Marlene said. The guy in the windbreaker wouldn’t quite meet her eye. She threw a too-small T-shirt at him and said, “Get out of here.”

Chapter 36

RUMOR MILL

It was late, and the magicians were all snug in their beds. The day had been brutally long, flying to the east coast and back with a big performance in between. And for once, Iain felt like he had another few hours’ reserve energy to draw on.

He’d slept like a baby on the plane.

Marlene, on the other hand, was looking haggard, though she always looked that way toward the end of a project. Iain scanned the email his PA had sent him, and realized he was probably about to accelerate Marlene’s need for another botox injection by a few weeks. He hit the print button and cleared his throat.

“What is it?” she snapped. “Can it wait? Because getting everyone together for the next big reveal is a bitch—”

“I think you’ll want to see this.” Iain slid her the printout. Marlene set it in her lap without glancing at it so she could finish up the email she was currently working on. Once she hit send, she glanced down. And groaned.

The photo was the most striking thing. Backstage, Atlantic City Boardwalk. Professor Topaz whispering in Ricardo’s ear, bending close, holding his top hat off to the side, dapper, almost courtly. Ricardo with his face all lit up, leaning toward him. Camera phones were getting better and better these days. This candid wasn’t as clear as a posed studio shot. But for onscreen viewing, it conveyed its message loud and clear.

And then there was the title of the message board thread: Ricardo the Fag-ificent.

Iain turned back to his monitor and read along with her.

realmagic34 - everything u see on this show is a fraud - maybe prof topaz is gay but riccardo is like the biggest fag u eva seen - look at him here hes just wishin he could go down on the prof right now

JodeeGal - shut up yr a jerk

sp@rkle - It doesn’t matter if someone is gay, if you care about magic like you say you do, what matters is how they do magic.

JodeeGal - and u didn’t even spell his name right

Anonymous - dude hes a total fag

PrettyBitty - ur wrong I tottally ship SueCardo

Anonymous - I hope they give each other AIDS and die

Marlene handed the printout back to Iain, pressed her fingers into her temple, and said, “Make this go away.”

“On the network’s message board, no problem.” Iain hit a few keys. “Done. But I’m sure by now it’s everywhere.”

“And the weird part is, once we got off the plane, I thought Ricardo and the Professor were pretty low-key about their…thing.” Marlene drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “The contestants don’t have access to phones or Internet. I don’t suppose public reaction at this point matters.”

“They’ll see it eventually.”

“True. But not when it can throw them off their game before the final challenge.”

Iain looked down at the photo again. It wasn’t that the magicians were even doing anything particularly incriminating. It was more subtle than that. The lines of their bodies, the expressions on their faces—absolutely everything about them suggested a smoldering attraction. He wadded up the printout and lobbed it into the trash can. “Funny thing is, Ricardo’s the one they’re tearing up. Not the Professor.”

“What are you saying?”

Iain wasn’t exactly sure. “I dunno…the Professor’s, like, twice Ricardo’s age. Someone who didn’t know better could make the Professor out to be the bad guy, a creepy old performer out to take advantage of the young, starry-eyed hopeful.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what someone out there is doing. Painting this whole thing as the magicians’ equivalent of a casting couch.”

A glance at the monitor, at the enraptured look on Ricardo’s face as Professor Topaz spoke to him, told Iain differently. “I don’t think so. Ricardo’s obviously head over heels. Plus the Professor’s not the type. He’s…elegant.”

Marlene shrugged. Even hearing that her favorite contestant wasn’t so bad after all didn’t seem to cheer her up.

“Don’t you think it’s weird,” Iain said, “that the Professor was the one we outed, but Ricardo’s getting the brunt of the flak?”

“In retrospect? No. It pisses off the audience when they feel they’ve been lied to. And the ones who fell in love with the whole Ricardo-and-Sue romance will feel betrayed.”

Iain took one final onscreen look at the covert snapshot of the Professor and Ricardo, then closed the browser. “I’m ready to call it a night. How about you?”

“I want to count the votes one more time.”

Iain stood and stretched, and wondered if he might actually have time for a little Call of Duty before he turned in. “I’ll have my PA count it up. You don’t need to do it yourself.”

“It’s just that it doesn’t make sense.”

Iain sensed a time-suck keeping him from his apartment and his game…but he couldn’t resist. “What doesn’t?”

“Jia’s score.”

“Good…or bad?”

“Nowhere near as high as it should have been. You saw her move—she was so smooth it looked like CGI.”

Iain thought back to the crowd. “They were scared of her, Marlene, plain and simple. Jia looks great on camera, but in person, she’s an intimidating little ball-buster.”

“But she looked gorgeous. And that thing she did with the fans and the ropes was so freaky.” Marlene sighed. “You’re right. Jia’s act was made to be seen from a stage. Not up close.”

“Not that it matters.” Iain flicked the trailer lights on and off a few times in an attempt to get Marlene to take a hint and go home. “You know the advantage they’ll win from today’s challenge is basically bogus.”

___

Stay in bed…or hit the gym? It was a tough call. John never worked out, and he looked great. Still, Ricardo had been diligent about his regime for the past twenty years…it would be a shame to start letting it slip now. The sorry little room that they called a “gym” was thankfully unoccupied. Ricardo warmed up with some shadow boxing, did his crunches on a yoga ball, then moved on to the treadmill. A brisk 4.5 walk there, a 6.0 jog for five minutes, and once his heart was thrumming good and fast, jab-jab-jab at the “up” button to take it to a nice, sustainable 7.5 run….

He was so focused on his run that the feel of someone mounting his treadmill behind him nearly sent him flying right back off…until his assailant spoke in that low, mellifluous voice that pervaded his daydreams. “I’ll need to get better at enticing you to stay in bed.”