Two for the Show (18 page)

The message to me couldn’t have been more explicit. Somewhere between a plea and a boss’s order. Clearly, I was on it. Maybe he had put Dom on it too, but maybe he deliberately hadn’t, making this a pure and undiluted test of my loyalty, of where I stood. It was his challenge, his all-or-nothing Vegas bet laid on the table.
Really need you on this, partner. Don’t know anymore if you’re with me or against me—obviously someone waltzed into my home with the codes, and you’re the only one who could do that, so I obviously suspect you. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll put it aside. Let’s seize the opportunity together. Name your price—you can return to my payroll after this if you want, or not, up to you. A mentalist victory like this will put Wallace the Amazing over the top.

Though it went unsaid, I felt it. Like a heat that singes my back, my forearms, my skin.

I was hiding in an anonymous motel room. But the spotlight was nevertheless, finally on me.

FIFTEEN

So now, all of Las Vegas
—to say nothing of the rest of America—will be looking for Amanda for the next twenty-four hours. Those who saw the show, passing on the news to those who didn’t. Replaying the show on the Internet, getting a good hard look at Amanda’s photo.

And I’m thinking—as the Stewartsons are—that the mobilized army of the curious and the newly and sympathetically alert could easily include a motel clerk or maid who happened to see us hustling in or hustling out. Or had a vague awareness of something unconventional and inappropriate going on in Room 201, and now had a new focus on it.

The mobilized army will in a few minutes be wildly exchanging clues and sightings, and the police task force, already assigned, at their row of desks, will begin sorting through the flood of excited calls.

And the ingeniousness, of course, is that if Amanda is found like this, by conventional, terrestrial, cooperative, human means, the Amazing’s “powers” will not have been tested. A higher power will have triumphed, he’ll justifiably say—the power of human goodness over human venality.

And if she is not found—and his “powers” fail him in this instance—any rational public questioning of his powers, of the whole tent show, will be subsumed in, overwhelmed by, sympathy for a victimized father searching desperately for his treasured daughter. No cynics, no late-night comedians, will dare fly in the face of that. Filial love and duty and responsibility: the greatest power of all.

If she is not found—if his “powers” fail him in this instance—then yes, there is speculation anew about those mysterious powers, but about why they failed him here, not doubt of them as a whole. Those who believe in such powers will have explanations about his wanting something so much that it overwhelms the calm and stasis and deep serenity of mind required to perform his usual mental feats (and he can even reinforce this view with a few stumbles onstage). Those who know his powers are all a stunt will have sympathy, will see him suffer this object lesson, this moral accounting, and therefore will ask nothing further of him in the way of a fall. You’ve fallen far enough. You need fall no farther.

Outside the motel room, the pack of dogs is already spreading out over the city. Unleashed, a hundred thousand noses to the ground. Sniffing the desert air. Will some contingent of the citizenry start searching local motel rooms? Seems a logical place to start.

The Stewartsons can’t send another e-mail. Now it will be traced. After last night’s broadcast, the Las Vegas police—the
real
Las Vegas police—are now fully aware and informed about the kidnapping (if they weren’t already, in some previous arrangement with Mr. Vegas, Mr. Insider, their favorite civic booster, the Amazing Wallace). They certainly have the technology for tracing e-mails. Police will now be watching all places of public access—library, Internet cafés, etc. They have the manpower and surveillance for that. (And the more I think about it, the Amazing Wallace probably alerted them just before his broadcast. The Amazing Wallace would have played the politics of dialing them into what he was about to do. To keep in their good graces. So they are part of the plan.)

In fact, when Dave Stewartson and I go to buy a disposable cell phone and a minutes card off the rack at Anton’s, a local electronics retailer, and bring it nonchalantly to the checkout counter, we are in for a sobering surprise. The clerk looks up apologetically. “Sorry, Vegas police said we can’t sell these right now. In fact, anyone asks for one, we’re supposed to call that info into them.” The clerk smiles. “I ain’t gonna do
that
, but I can’t sell you the phone. It’s all inventoried, items and sales dates, and I’d be fucked, lose my job.”

I watch Dave Stewartson take a breath. He looks silently, haughtily, down at the clerk. I know what the quick judgment is, running through his mind.
Do I trust this kid not to call it in, or is he gonna be a Boy Scout?
How will Stewartson handle this?

Stewartson smiles jovially. “So essentially, if I’m gonna get this phone, I’m also gonna have to find you a new job.”

The clerk smiles. He likes this good-looking, smiling, charming guy, likes the wit, the engagement. This nontransaction has taken an interesting turn.

Stewartson continues: “So the next question is, how much do you like your job?”

“Not at all.” No hesitation.

“Want to come work for me? I’ll double what you’re paid here.”

The kid’s eyes light up. “Doing what?”

“Everything. I’ve got a pretty good-size import-export business based in the area.”

“Really?” The clerk clearly has no idea what that is but won’t admit it.

“I always need clerical help, sales help, little of everything. I hire bright people, and I train them. That’s been my business model for twenty years now. You’d have to show up Monday, eight a.m.” He scribbles an address—God knows what address—and hands it to the clerk. Who holds it like the Sacrament.

The clerk nods. This is Vegas. This is how it happens. He’s heard about this kind of thing all the time. Surprising—and not surprising at all. “Okay, I’ll be there.”

“And the cell phone and card?”

The clerk shrugs. He’d half forgotten them. “Sure.” He looks furtively to both sides of him. “Know what, sir? I’m not even gonna ring them up. That’s one way to not have the police getting in your business, right? Here. And thanks.”

“No, thank
you
,” says Stewartson, big, genial. And when the clerk looks at me—I am obviously a trusted lieutenant, a right-hand man of some sort—I nod approvingly to him, assuring him of the wisdom of his split-second decisiveness. Indicating my clear admiration of it. Good, quick thinking, kid.

And seeing the new cell phone slip into Stewartson’s pocket, I think of Debbie’s cell phone again. There’s been no indication from the Stewartsons that they have it, that they did indeed take it off her kitchen counter. So has she in fact retrieved it? Or has she decided instead not to risk any more with that phone, that it’s better to start over, with a new phone, a new phone number, cutting off any connection to her previous life with me, safely, practically, but also symbolically.

I think of how my own cell phone would ring, Debbie calling me from the road, one acting job or another, from Duluth or Anchorage or Philadelphia or Miami, her movement around the country reminding me so vividly of my own pre-Vegas existence. Checking in between filming setups or from her hotel room at night, with the news of her day, descriptions of the city she was in, the nice people she was working with. Nothing urgent or even memorable was said, and yet during each day spent locked in my condominium in front of my screens, it was my moment of intersection with real life. With actuality. With living, breathing humanity, channeled through a single human voice. It was the nothingness of those conversations that I missed; it was their lack of import, their casualness and simple contact, that was so meaningful. Their pointlessness was their point.

I would never, could never, bring Debbie anywhere near this tight, tense chaos of the moment. But after it is done, after it plays out one way or another, whether with millions and a fugitive’s freedom or with a lengthy jail sentence, will I reach out to her? I feel more alone than ever. And find myself asking, with more frequency, with more longing, and despite the shadowy allure of Dominique, where is Debbie now?

Before Stewartson calls the Amazing, he takes from his luggage a little gray box—about four inches square—and attaches it to the phone with a thin red wire in a highly practiced way, offering a quick, sidelong smile as he does it. I’ve never seen one, but I know it’s a voice scrambler. Further indicating what kind of employment background the Stewartsons have. America’s cast-off warriors. In full post-patriotic mode.

Dave sits on the bed. Takes a breath. I watch him dial. I don’t say anything, but I know from the first three digits that it’s Wallace’s private number.

A number I’ve always known. And a phone call I could never make. How does Stewartson have it? Why hasn’t he used it before? But I know why—because even with a disposable phone, there are risks of being traced. Stewartson is taking on more risk. Feeling frustrated. Edging closer to the endgame, one way or the other.

The Amazing Wallace doesn’t pick up.

Stewartson leaves a message. Short and punchy. “Pretty ballsy of you, Wallace. Pretty fuckin’ ballsy. Offer still stands. Ten mil, we disappear, and you remain the Amazing Wallace, locked into your lie, taking your little lie to the grave. But you’ve set your own clock, haven’t you? Offer runs out at broadcast time tonight. Which we’re looking forward to, by the way. We thought we’d be exposing you. But turns out you’ll be exposing yourself.”

We hang up. We wait.

That night, Wallace the Amazing amazes the city and the world again, takes the stage, defiant of the kidnappers, defiant of their effort to derail his show, his routine, his entertainment. (I haven’t supplied any information for tonight’s show. I didn’t need to. Because last night’s same audience is returning, per Wallace the Amazing’s directive. It was a pretty clear message to me.
To let you totally focus on solving the kidnapping, Chas
. Making it a priority, relieving me of my other duties, given my special relationship with his daughter—my daughter. Though perhaps sending another, subtler, inverse message to me as well:
I don’t really need you, Chas; I can work around you. You’re disposable, dispensable, so keep that in mind.
)

When it becomes apparent that he will continue to do a live show, despite his daughter’s kidnapping, the ratings are greater than ever. During last night’s show he brazenly promised to produce his daughter here tonight. I would have thought her absence would be seen as his failure, his inability, his empty bravado. But no, Amanda’s absence only extends and expands his audience, builds sympathy and curiosity, heightens tension and drama. Wallace the Amazing proves his showman’s instincts once again.

The kidnapping of Amanda Wallace hangs over the show, literally. The massive projected portrait stays up throughout—testament of a father’s love of his missing daughter, saying clearly she is on all our minds.

A couple of times, he furrows his brow, and says, partly annoyed but partly sympathetic to the theater audience, “Too many of you are thinking about the kidnapping. It’s making you hard to read. We’re all thinking about it. But try to put it aside for the next ninety minutes. That’s what I’m trying to do. Don’t let them win.” Appreciative gasps, because
yes
, they
are
thinking about the kidnapping. Accompanied by sympathetic nods.

And toward the end of the show, he turns to the massive portrait still floating above him—the tacked-up missing poster, the milk carton missive writ large, Vegas style—and turns back to the audience and turns to the subject at hand, the subject on everybody’s mind, and ups the ante, stuns them (and us) again.

“Twenty-four hours. And nothing has turned up. Obviously these are professionals, and my instincts were right. In the past twenty-four hours I know you’ve been looking, for the sake of justice, to return a daughter to her father. But the police have sifted through the clues you’ve turned up, and we’re nowhere yet.” (
“We’re nowhere”
—all in it together. He’s a master.) “So let me add something tonight. Last night, I wasn’t explicit about paying you for your help. About whether that would be a part of my thanks, my appreciation. But it will be. What’s a daughter worth to a father? What do you think? You find her, and you tell me what’s fair. You tell me. The reward is what you think it should be.”

Gasps. Murmurs.

And a little kick in the ribs of the kidnappers.

Deliver her to me and pick your own dollar figure.
You
say what she’s worth.

Turning the city and the nation, in effect, into a city and nation of blackmailers.

Saying, in effect, you’re nothing, you kidnappers. You’re one among a million blackmailers. And I’ll pay any of them, gladly, anything, maybe more than what
you
were looking for, before I’ll give you a dime.

So I sit with Amanda. Amanda of the beautiful swimming eyes, clear and nearly poreless skin, preternaturally calm demeanor. I want to talk to my daughter, but Dave and Sandi are always nearby. All I can do is try to smile reassuringly, and such a steady, affectionate smile from a stranger has to be highly unnerving to a fifteen-year-old girl. So all I have is a neutral look, and I try not to look at her, that being the best I can do to reassure her.

Archer Wallace is still chained to the bathtub, bathroom door closed, bathroom light off. I have been instructed not to interact with him in any way. (Sandi and Amanda have the same routine for using the motel bathroom: light kept off, blanket tossed over Archer’s head, when they’re on the toilet. I face the other way, say nothing to him, when I pee. He rises to the level of a presence only when we attend to bodily functions. He must realize that. Sandi tosses him food or snacks periodically. His own bodily functions he must take care of right from the tub.)

While the Stewartsons check the motel perimeter, Amanda and I are alone for a precious few minutes.

She can sense, probably, that I am free to talk to her only when the Stewartsons are out of earshot. She probably senses that I
want
to talk to her.

“Just checking one more time . . . you’re warm enough? I can get you a sweater, remember, or turn down the AC.”

She shakes her head, smiles a little again. “You sound like a parent.” She looks at me. “Afraid you won’t get your money if you return me with a cold?” Then she frowns, her lightness suddenly gone. “It’s kidnapping. I don’t think you should be worried about colds.” Cynical, realistic—but also indicating, oddly, perhaps, that she is thinking about what will ultimately happen to
me
. Now
that
is amazing.

I don’t know how long the Stewartsons will be out of the room. “I saw an online video of you starring in your school musical. You were a pretty convincing Peter Pan.”