Vegas Knights (15 page)

  "Thank you for accepting my offer of hospitality," he said. "I hope my friends here weren't too emphatic in delivering it."

  I rubbed my chest where the Taser dart had gone in. "Nothing we couldn't handle, sir," I said.

  The man flashed a wide, easy smile then. "Excellent." He gestured toward the cluster of seating around the fireplace. "Please come in and relax. We should talk."

  The man stood shorter than anyone else in the room, yet he somehow seemed larger than them all, as if he took up more space than he actually filled. He had dark curly hair, lively inquisitive eyes, and a wide and knowing smile. I was sure I'd seen the man someplace before – maybe on the Internet or TV – but I couldn't place him.

  The man sat in a chair by himself. Bill and I took spots on a nearby couch, and Gaviota perched on the edge of a chair next to me. The four thugs who'd hauled us out of the airport stood behind the couch. I had no doubt that they'd grab Bill and me in a heartbeat if we tried to escape or threatened either man. Weiss ignored them, though, as if such protection would always be beneath him.

  "I hope you've enjoyed your stay in Las Vegas," Weiss said. He spoke with the clear diction of an actor. "I assume this is the first time either of you has visited here."

  Bill and I both nodded. I noticed then that Bill had gone pale and clammy. I, on the other hand, felt more at ease now than I had since we'd been captured in the airport. I don't know exactly what I'd expected from a meeting with the big boss of Bootleggers, but this wasn't it.

  "It's been far from boring," I said.

  Weiss laughed. "A master of understatement. I like that."

  "I could have done without the Tasing," I said.

  Weiss creased his brow and gave Gaviota a concerned look. "What happened, Ben? I specifically asked you to retrieve them unharmed."

  Gaviota rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke. "I wanted to make sure they didn't rabbit on us again, Mr Weiss. I figured this was the best way I could get them to sit down and talk without having to chase them through the entire airport."

  Weiss gave Gaviota a disapproving grunt. "I'd like to think you have more imagination than that, Ben. I suppose I should know better by now."

  "There's not a mark on them, Mr Weiss."

  "We're fine," Ben said in a tremulous voice. He looked like he would have given up every dollar we'd won at the casino today if he could be somewhere else right now. "Just fine."

  Weiss arched an eyebrow at me for confirmation, and I nodded. "I'd rather not go through it again, but we're all right."

  "That is a relief," he said. "I'd hate to have our relationship start off on such a bad foot."

  I leaned forward on the couch. "What sort of relationship is that?"

  "Oh," said Weiss. "I do hope that we can become friends. Young men with talents like yours have a lot to offer us, and I believe that you'll see that we have a great deal we can do for you in return."

  "What do you have in mind?" I glanced at Bill. His head swayed slowly back and forth as he stared at the floor and out the window. He refused to make eye contact with Weiss at all.

  Weiss sat up in his chair. "As you might guess from your encounter with old Ben here, we place a great deal of importance on the study and practice of magic here at Bootleggers, and we're always on the lookout for new talent to recruit to our ranks. You two boys have shown a great deal of aptitude already, and with the proper training I think you could develop into some of the most powerful magicians this city – or any other – has ever seen. I'm prepared to give you that training personally."

  "Really?" I said, flattered. The idea that Bill and I could be that good at something as amazing as magic thrilled me straight through. I tamped that enthusiasm back down though, as I knew there had to be a catch. "And what would this training cost? We go to college. We know tuition isn't free."

  Weiss waved this off. "Not a thing," he said. "Your money is no good here. In fact, we'd hire you. A full salary, benefits, the whole kit and caboodle."

  That snared my attention. I loved studying at Michigan, but the thought of me or my grandmother having to pay off hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans for the rest of my life bothered me every day I spent there. The idea that someone would pay me a good wage to study exactly what I wanted to learn – and probably help me learn it better than I could at any college – sounded too good to be true.

  "What's the catch?" I had to say.

  A wry smile wrinkled his face in a way that told me that Weiss had to be far older than he'd seemed at first. He must have been dying his hair at the least. I'd seen far faker things in Vegas already though.

  "No catch," he said. "I simply want to hire you and train you to be the best employee you can be. This is common in all sorts of business, and in this at least magic is no different than any other kind of occupation."

  "And what if we want to leave at some point? Go work for someone else?"

  Weiss looked over at Gaviota, who began to laugh. "No one has ever left my employ voluntarily," Weiss said with a wide smile. "We tend to keep our employees very happy."

  I shrugged and peered at Bill. He sat as far back in the couch as he could go without pushing himself straight through it, and he was now watching Weiss like a hawk. "What do you think?" I said to him.

  "About what?" he said, still staring at Weiss, who pretended not to notice.

  "About this offer. It sounds great. What am I missing?"

  Bill licked his lips, then swallowed. "The fact that Mr Weiss here is dead."

  I narrowed my eyes at Bill. "What?"

  Bill pointed at the old man in his immaculate suit. "I've been watching him this whole time. Other than to talk, he doesn't breathe. And he only blinks on purpose."

  Weiss blinked three times as if to respond to Bill's accusation. I expected him to throw back his head and laugh it all off. Instead, he broke into a wide smile that showed his gums had turned black.

  "Very astute, Mr Teach," Weiss said. "From what Mr Gaviota here had told me, I expected only Mr Lafitte to be the prize catch of the day, but you have surprised me. I'm delighted. That doesn't happen to me often enough."

  "Wait," I said to Weiss. "He's right? You're dead?" I knew I was just getting started in my education about magic – Professor Ultman had tried to drive this into my head – but this revelation shocked me to my core.

  Weiss allowed himself a faint smile. "As are the men that helped Mr Gaviota bring you here tonight."

  I craned my neck around to stare at the men. I hadn't noticed any of this, but the fact that the men hadn't breathed a word to me the entire time I'd been with them lent some credence to that.

  "They're not quite as chatty as you," I said.

  "Despite my best efforts, no," Weiss said. "They're closer to death than I."

  Bill spoke to Weiss. "If I wasn't staring at you right now, I'd say this was all impossible. Even with magic, coming back from the grave just can't happen."

  "Which is yet another reason I suggest you take me up on my offer," said Weiss. "You clearly have a great deal to learn about our ancient profession. I can provide you with the knowledge you seek."

  Bill looked back at me. He no longer seemed like he wanted to sprint out of the room, but I still thought he might want to leave at a steady jog.

  "It sounds like a good deal to me," I said, "but I'd like to know a little bit more about who we'd be working for."

  Weiss tapped himself on the side of his head. "A smart boy," he said. "I like that."

  He sat up in his chair then and composed himself. "If you wish answers, then you shall have them. I have been dead for a very long time, over eighty-five years now, but before I died I was the greatest magician of my time."

  "Of any time," said Gaviota.

  "You're too kind," Weiss said. "The point is that I knew that I would someday die, so I set about taking precautions. I was determined to be the first man to ever come back from the grave – barring Jesus and Lazarus, if you believe in that sort of thing – and I went about making sure that I would be able to survive my own death, at least in a manner of speaking."

  "But you didn't survive it," said Bill. "You're dead."

  "That I am, but I did manage to keep myself out of the grave despite that. While I was not able to extend my life, I substituted a magical spark for the spark of life, and that is the energy that motivates my form until this day."

  "It seems to be working well." I said.

  "Being dead has its advantages," Weiss said. "I no longer age. I am never hungry or thirsty. I have no need for sleep. But I suffer from a cold that penetrates my bones in a way that I can never drive from them, except in the harshest of the desert heat."

  "Is that why you live in Las Vegas?"

  "In part. The dry air here helps to preserve my form and to keep it from rotting. My magic does the rest."

  I nodded. Bill seemed only partly ready to take the plunge, and as enthused as I found myself becoming about it, I understood why. It was one thing to study magic and another entirely to work for a dead man at it.

  I moved forward on the couch and turned myself square with Weiss so I could gauge his reaction to my next question. "If you don't mind me asking, sir," I said, "you look awfully familiar. I'm sure I've seen you someplace before. Who are you?"

  Weiss smiled, again showing me his blackened gums, reminding me that no matter what he might say he was still dead.

  "If you've studied magic for any length of time," he said, "I have no doubt that you'll have encountered my name and my handiwork. After all, before I died I was the most famous performer in all the world."

  Weiss edged forward on his seat too, his unblinking gaze flickering back and forth between Bill and me. "My name is Ehrich Weiss," he said. "I was born in Hungary and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin. I lived most of my years in New York City. I was a good son, brother, and husband. I traveled all around the world to stun audiences with my stage act and my stunts. And I was once – and, I humbly submit, still am – the greatest magician who ever lived.

  "I was Harry Houdini."

 
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
 

Bill shuddered so hard I could feel the vibrations through the couch. My head spun so much I had to reach up and grab it.

  "Houdini?" I said. I couldn't believe the word coming out of my mouth. I had to repeat it. "
The
Houdini?"

  "The one and only," Weiss – I mean, Houdini – said. I don't care what he called himself. I'd never think of him as anything other than Harry Houdini again.

  "This – this has to be the biggest secret in town," Bill said. The color drained right out of him along with the volume of his words. "Oh, god, you're going to kill us too."

  Houdini shook his head and gave us a smile that lacked none of the warmth he could no longer feel. "If we had wanted to kill you, Mr Gaviota would have destroyed you in the airport. You two are far more valuable to us alive."

  "Then why tell us who you are?" said Bill. "You can't just let people walk around with that kind of knowledge in their heads."

  "It's an open secret among Las Vegas magicians," Gaviota said.

  "Then why doesn't the outside world know about this?" I asked.

  "For the same reason they don't know about magic. "It's so ludicrous that few people can manage to believe it," Houdini said. "It's very much 'The Purloined Letter.' Hiding in plain sight."

  "Like how magicians use stage magic to cover up what they're really doing?" It dawned on me then. "Oh, wow. You invented that, didn't you? You're the one who started it."

  Houdini laughed at that. "Not at all. Whoever began this long and trusty tradition of ours started it long before even I was born. The proof of its excellence is the fact that it still works."

  "How – how old are you?" Bill asked.

  Houdini rolled his eyes backward a moment while he thought about it. "One hundred and thirty-five years old," he said once he had figured it out. "In fact, I'll be one hundred and thirty-six later this month."

  "That's just wrong," Bill said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

  "I have to agree with you, Mr Teach," said Houdini. "I'd always planned to defeat death in a more glorious manner, but as I said after I survived my first plane crash, any landing you can walk away from is a good one. The same is true of any death."

  I leaned back in the couch and gazed at the room around us and the Strip blazing beyond the tall windows and the open doors. "You have everything you want," I said. "Power. Money. Eternal life. You
flew
into the room. Why could you possibly need us?"

  Houdini frowned. "One of the perils of having power is that other people would like to have it. They are often willing to kill for it. I see a great deal of talent in you two boys, and I would much rather have you working for me than against me.

  "I have been here since long before the Strip existed. I played no small part in coaxing it from the valley's desiccated floor. I built this icon of America from its dust. I founded this garden in the desert as a shining temple to the best and worst that our nation has to offer, the crucible in which we discover who the winners and the losers are in their lives."

  He stared into Bill's eyes and mine. "Despite the forces arrayed against me, I refuse to let Las Vegas fail. My enemies may be as weak and distant as coyotes howling in the foothills of the mountains, but they are growing in number. Someday we may have to cull their numbers for the safety of all we have built, and when that day comes I will need help – not the least of all yours."