and teacher Harlan Tarbell-is a sure-fire audience-pleaser. It involves separating three different colored silks that seem hopelessly knotted together. It's a hard trick to perform smoothly but Kara felt good about how it'd gone. David Balzac didn't, however. "Your coins were talking." He sighedharsh criticism, meaning that an illusion or trick was clumsy and obvious. The heavyset older man with a white mane of hair and tobacco-stained goatee shook his head in exasperation. He removed his truck glasses, rubbed his eyes and replaced the specs.
"I think it was smooth," she protested. "It seemed smooth to me." "But you weren't the audience. 1 was. Now again."
They stood on a small stage in the back of Smoke Mirrors, the store that Balzac had bought after he'd retired from the international magic and illusion circuit ten years ago. The grungy place sold magic supplies, rented costumes and props and presented free, amateur magic shows for customers and locals. A year and a half ago Kara, doing freelance editing for Self magazine, had finally worked up her courage to get up on stage Balzac's reputation had intimidated her for months. The aging magician had watched her act and called her into his office afterward. The Great Balzac himself had told her in his gruff but silky voice that she had potential. She could be a great illusionist-with the proper training-and proposed that she come work in the shop; he'd be her mentor and teacher.
Kara had moved to New York from the Midwest years before and was savvy about city life; she knew immediately what "mentor" might entail, especially when he was a quadruple divorce and she was an attractive woman forty years younger than he. But Balzac was a renowned magician-he'd been a regular on Johnny Carson and had been a headliner in Las Vegas for years. He'd toured the world dozens of times and knew virtually every major illusionist alive. Illusion was her passion and this was a chance of a lifetime. She accepted on the spot.
At the first session her guard was up and she was ready to repel boarders. The lesson indeed turned out to be upsetting to her-though for an entirely different reason.
He tore her to shreds.
After an hour of criticizing virtually every aspect of her technique Balzac had looked at her pale, tearful face and barked, "I said you have potential. I didn't say you were good. If you want somebody to polish your ego you're in
the wrong place. Now, are you going to run home crying to mommy or are you going to get back to work?"
They got back to work
And so began an eighteen-month love-hate relationship between men
tor and apprentice, which kept her up until the early hours of the morning six or seven days a week, practicing, practicing, practicing. While Balzac had had many assistants in his years as a performer he'd been a mentor to only two apprentices and in both cases, it seemed, the young men had proved to be disappointments. He wasn't going to let that happen with Kara. Friends sometimes asked her where her love of-and obsession withillusion came from. They were probably expecting a movie-of-the-week tormented childhood filled with abusive parents and teachers or, at least, a little slip of a mousy girl escaping from the cruel cliques at school into the world of fantasy. But they got Normal Girl instead-a cheerful A student, gymnast, cookie baker and school-choir singer, who started on the path of entertainment undramatically by attending a Penn and Teller performance in Cleveland with her grandparents, followed a month later by a coincidental family trip to Vegas for one of her father's turbine-manufacturing conventions, the trip exposing her to the thrill of flying tigers and fiery illusions, the exhilaration of magic.
That's all it took. At thirteen she founded the magic club at JFK Junior High and was soon sinking every penny of baby-sitting money into magic magazines, how-to videos and packaged tricks. She later expanded her entrepreneurial efforts to yard work and snow shoveling in exchange for rides to the Big Apple Circus and Cirque du Soleil whenever they were appearing within a fifty-mile radius.
Which is not to say that there wasn't an important motive that set-and kept-her on this course. No, what drove Kara could be easily found in the blinks of delighted surprise on the faces of the audience-whether they were two-dozen of her relatives at Thanksgiving dinner (a show complete with quick-change routines and a levitating cat, though without the trapdoor her father wouldn't let her cut in the living room floor) or the students and parents at the high school senior talent show, where she did two encores to a standing ovation.
Life with David Balzac, though, was quite different from that triumphant show; over the past year and half she sometimes felt she she'd lost whatever talent she'd once had.
But just as she'd be about to quit he'd nod and offer the faintest of
smiles. Several times he actually said, "That was a tight trick"
At moments like that her world was complete.
Much of the rest of her life, though, blew away like dust as she spent
more and more time at the store, handling the books and inventory for him, the payroll, serving as webmaster for the store's website. Since Balzac wasn't paying her much she needed other work and she took jobs that were at least marginally compatible with her English degree-writing content for other magic and theater websites. Then about a year ago her mother's condition had began to worsen and only-child Kara spent her little remaining free time with the woman.
An exhausting life.
But she could handle it for now. In a few years Balzac would pronounce her fit to perform and off she'd go with his blessing and his contacts with producers around the world.
Hold tight, girl, as Jaynene might say, and stay on top of the galloping
horse. Kara now finished Tarbell's three-silk trick again. Tapping his cigarette
ash onto the floor, Balzac frowned. "Left index finger slightly higher."
"You could see the tie?"
"If I couldn't see it," he snapped angrily, "why would I ask you to lift
your finger higher? Try again."
Once more.
The goddamn index finger slightly goddamn higher.
Wshhhhhh... the entangled silks separated and flew into the air like triumphant flags.
"Ah," Balzac said. A faint nod.
Not traditional praise exactly. But Kara had learned to make do with ah's. She put the trick away and stepped behind the counter in the cluttered business area of the store to log in the merchandise that had arrived in Friday's afternoon shipment.
Balzac returned to the computer, on which he was writing an article for the store's website about Jasper Maskelyne, the British magician who created a special military unit in World War Two, which used illusionist techniques against the Germans in North Africa. He was writing it from memory, without any notes or research; that was one thing about David Balzac-his knowledge of magic was as deep as his temperament was unstable and fiery.
"You hear that the Cirque Fantastique's in town?" she called. "Opens
tonight" The old illusionist grunted. He was exchanging his glasses for contact lenses; Balzac was extremely aware of the importance of a performer's image and always looked his best for any audience, even his customers.
"You going to go?" she persisted. "I think we should go."
Cirque Fantastique-a competitor to the older and bigger Cirque du
Soleil-was part of the next generation of circuses. It combined traditional circus routines, ancient commedia dell' arte theater, contemporary music and dance, avant-garde performance art and street magic.
But David Balzac was old school: Vegas, Atlantic City, The Late Show. 'Why change something that works?" he'd grumble.
Kara loved Cirque Fantastique, though, and was determined to get him to a performance. But before she could pitch her case to convince him to accompany her the store's front door opened and an attractive, redheaded policewoman walked in, asking for the owner.
"That's me. I'm David Balzac. What can I do for you?"
The officer said, 'We're investigating a case involving someone who might've had some training in magic. We're talking to magic supply stores in town, hoping you might be able to help us."
"You mean, somebody's running a scam or something?" Balzac asked. He sounded defensive, a feeling Kara shared. In the past magic has often been linked to crooks-sleight-of-hand artists as pickpockets, for instance, and charlatan clairvoyants using illusionist techniques to convince bereaved family members that the spirits of their relatives are communicating with them.
But the policewoman's visit, it turned out, was prompted by something
else. "Actually," she said, glancing at Kara then back to Balzac. "The case is a
homicide.".
Chapter Seven
"I have a list of some items we found at a crime scene," Amelia Sachs told the owner, "and was wondering if you might've sold them."
He took the sheet she handed him and read it as Sachs looked over Smoke Mirrors. The black-painted cavern of a store in the photo district, part of Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, smelled of mold and chemicals-plastic too, the petrochemical body odor from the hundreds of costumes that hung like a limp crowd from racks nearby. The grimy glass counters, half of them cracked and taped together, were filled with card decks and wands and phony coins and dusty boxes of magic tricks. A fullsize replica of the creature from the Alien movies stood next to a Diana mask and costume. (BE THE PRINCESS OF THE PARTY! a card read. As if no one in the store even knew she was dead.)
He tapped the list and then nodded at the counters. "I don't think 1 can help. We sell some of this, sure. But so does every magic store in the country. A lot of toy stores too."
She observed he hadn't spent more than a few seconds looking it over. "How about these?" Sachs showed him the printout of the photo of the old handcuffs.
He glanced at it quickly. "I don't know anything about escapology." Was this an answer? "So that means you don't recognize them?"
"No."
"It's very important," Sachs persisted.
The young woman, with striking blue eyes and black fingernails, looked at the picture. "They're Darbys," she said. The man glanced at her coolly. She fell silent for a moment then: "Regulation Scotland Yard handcuffs from the eighteen hundreds. A lot of escapists use them. They were Houdini's favorites."
"Where could they've come from?"
Balzac rocked impatiently in his office chair. "We wouldn't know. Like I was saying, that's not a field we have any experience with." The woman nodded, agreeing with him. "There're probably escapology
museums somewhere you could get in touch with." "And after you restock," Balzac said to his assistant, "I need you to process those orders. There were a dozen came in last night after you left." He lit a cigarette. Sachs offered him the list again. "You did say you sold some of these
products. Do you have records of customers?"
"I meant, products like them. And, no, we don't keep customer records."
After some questioning, Sachs finally got him to admit that there were
recent records of mail-order and on-line sales. The young woman checked these, though, and found that nobody had bought any of the items on the evidence list.
"Sony," Balzac said. 'Wish we could be more help."
"You know, I wish you could be more help too," Sachs said, leaning forward. "Because, see, this guy killed a woman and escaped by using magic tricks. And we're afraid he's going to do it again."
Giving a frown of concern, Balzac said, "Terrible.... You know, you might try East Side Magic and Theatrical. They're bigger than us."
'We have another officer over there now."
"Ah, there you go."
She let a moment pass, silent. Then: 'Well, if you can think of anything else, 1'd appreciate a call." A good civil servant's smile, an NYPD sergeant's smile ("Remember: community relations are as important as criminal investigations").
"Good luck, Officer," Balzac said.
"Thanks," she said.
You apathetic son-of-a-bitch.
She nodded farewell to the young woman and glanced at a cardboard cup she was sipping from. "Hey, there anyplace around here to get some decent coffee?"
"Fifth and Nineteenth," she replied.
"Good bagels too," Balzac said, helpful now that there was no risk, or effort, involved.
Outside, Sachs turned toward Fifth Avenue and found the recommended coffee shop. She walked inside, bought a cappuccino. She leaned against a narrow mahogany bar in front of the flecked window, sipping the hot drink and watching the Saturday morning populace here in Chelseasalespeople from the clothing stores in the area, commercial photographers and their assistants, rich yuppies who lived in the massive lofts, poor artists, lovers young and lovers old, a wacky notebook scribbler or two.
