Psych: Mind Over Magic

Chapter Four

The black night was filled with howls and growls of a pack of vicious dogs. Gus moved closer to Shawn. At least he tried to, but since he couldn’t see his friend in the darkness, he might just as easily have been moving away. Something brushed his ankle, and Gus leapt away. He could practically feel the hot breath through his socks.

“How many do you think there are?” Gus said, trying to differentiate between dozens of dog sounds.

Shawn listened for a moment. And then for another moment. And another. “I don’t have to think,” he said finally. “I know exactly how many.”

At first, Gus thought Shawn was cracking under the strain of their impending, and very unpleasant, death. But he quickly realized that what he heard in Shawn’s voice was not a tremble of fear, but a poorly repressed chuckle.

“And that’s funny somehow?” Gus said.

“It is if you know the number,” Shawn said. “What did the invitation say again?”

“It said we needed to know the magic word, or we’d be eaten to death,” Gus said. “Or words to that effect.”

“I don’t care about the effect. I need to know the exact words.”

Gus called up the image of the small red type in front of his eyes. Even in this remembered state it was hard to read. “If you wish admittance to the Fortress, you must say the magic words, else all is forfeit.”

“Okay then, let’s say the magic words.”

“We don’t know them!”

“Don’t we?”

“No, Shawn, we don’t. That’s why we’re standing in the dark, surrounded by vicious hell hounds.”

Gus could almost hear Shawn’s smirk. “My friend, you are wrong on every count.”

“Then if you’re so smart, you go ahead and say the magic words.”

“I don’t think you want me to do that.”

“To save our lives? Say the words.”

“You’re going to be mad.”

“Because you figured it out first? I’ll live-if you say the words.”

“Fine, I will,” Shawn said. He took a long, dramatic pause, and then let his voice ring out over the hillside. “The magic words!”

Gus felt his heart sink in his chest. At least it would be harder for the dogs to get to it that way, he thought. He had actually allowed himself to hope that Shawn knew what he was doing, that they might get out of this alive. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to prepare himself for the first fangs to penetrate his flesh.

After a moment, he realized there were no fangs. There weren’t even any growls. The dogs seemed to have disappeared. Cautiously he opened his eyes just as the entire hillside erupted in a blaze of landscape lighting. There wasn’t a bared tooth anywhere, unless you counted the ones in Shawn’s broad smile.

“The magic words?” Gus sputtered. “That’s it? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Told you you were going to be mad.”

Gus realized he was. Relieved, yes, at no longer facing a hideous, drooling death. But also annoyed at the simplicity-in fact, the stupidity-of the clue.

“How did you figure it out?”

“You’ve just got to know how magicians work,” Shawn said.

“How do they work?”

“Mostly as waiters,” Shawn said. “It’s convenient for them because they can use the tux for both jobs. Shall we head on up to the Fortress?”

Shawn waved Bud’s present up the now brightly illuminated path to a grand craftsman manor that sat on top of the hill.

“But where are the dogs?”

“Same place they always were.” Shawn pointed to a spot a foot away from the path where a small speaker was staked between two lavender bushes. Gus could see several other speakers hidden in the landscaping.

“How did you know?”

“Magic.”

“Exactly what kind of magic?”

“The magic of the human ear,” Shawn said. “Do you realize how complex that organ is?”

Gus glared at him and waited for him to continue.

“The dog growls were on a tape loop,” Shawn said. “After the fourth dog joined in, there was a tiny blip where it was spliced together. And since it seemed unlikely that the canines were doing the editing job themselves, I figured out that there were no dogs anywhere around.”

Shawn headed up the path to the Fortress. Gus chugged behind him until they reached the front door, a mammoth slab of green painted oak with a sign across it reading REALITY ENDS HERE.

“I’ll say,” Shawn muttered as he pushed the door open.

Inside, the old craftsman had been skillfully transformed into something that looked like the haunted house at a middle school carnival. Plastic skeletons dangled from the ceiling, their formerly white limbs encased in gray dust, and the fake spiderwebs that had been sprayed in the corners had all been covered with real ones. A banner hand-painted in red tempera on butcher paper welcomed Bud’s bachelor party to the Fortress.

Gus looked around the room, dismayed. He had spent much of the afternoon reading up on the Fortress of Magic, and until the attack by imaginary dogs, he’d been looking forward to seeing it. Founded in the late twenties by a group of professional magicians, the Fortress was a place for “the peers of prestidigitation” to “practice their dark arts away from the prying eyes of the public.” In its heyday, every great stage magician stopped by whenever they passed through Santa Barbara, and many made the trip west specifically to visit. It was a place where they could talk about their craft and test their new illusions on the most demanding audience of all.

Over the years, the Fortress had gained a certain mystique, mostly because only members were allowed in, and only professional magicians could become members. Of course, that mystique had diminished as the small group of magicians who sat on the Fortress’ board started to rent the place out for parties to bring in a little money for operating expenses. Apparently there had been a fierce controversy over the idea of allowing nonpros in to see the magicians’ sanctum sanc torum, but when the board insisted that they needed money to stay in business, and the only two options were to open the place to outsiders or raise prices at the bar, the membership quickly fell in line.

Now the Fortress was an exclusive club open only to members-and to anyone who held an invitation for a fundraiser, a book club meeting, or a bachelor party. Still, the magicians who attended continued to act as if they were in their own private preserve, testing out their new illusions on each other while making sure their business cards ended up in the pockets of anyone who looked like they might be hiring.

From the descriptions Gus had read online, he’d expected the Fortress to be a grand, Gothic spectacle, a step inside a private world few would ever have the opportunity to experience. Instead, he saw a run-down mansion with wobbly furniture, threadbare carpets, and a smog of desperation hanging over the small crowd that populated it. He was momentarily surprised that none of the Web sites he’d checked out had described the place as anything but a palace of wonders. But he quickly realized that the illusion of exclusivity was stronger and more appealing than anything reality had to offer-what was the point of gaining admittance to this fabulously private place, only to describe it as a dump? If the writer’s privilege was to mean anything, the Fortress had to be portrayed as something, well, magical.

What it felt like more than anything else was the headquarters of an Elks lodge that hadn’t recruited a new member since Nixon resigned.

“This is some rocking party,” Shawn said. “My father doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

“So when are you going to tell me what he did that was so bad, they banned him for life?” Gus said.

“It was a little misunderstanding, that’s all,” Shawn said. “They thought they should be able to practice their craft in their own building. He disagreed.”

“Let’s just find this Bud Flanek guy and get out of here,” Gus said. “This place is depressing.”

“If there’s one thing that professional magicians and aging bachelor partyers have in common, it’s their choice of location,” Shawn said. “We’ll find him in the bar.”

A burst of laughter from down the hall strongly suggested where that bar might be found. But when they turned to head in its direction, Gus nearly tripped over an enormous lump on the floor. Looking down, he saw a crown of bald scalp laurelled with graying ringlets that resolved into a greasy ponytail. Fleshy hands scrabbled over the carpet, scraping together a mound of playing cards.

The lump looked up and Gus found himself peering into the cherubic face of a Quattrocento putto -or at least what such a cupid might have looked like if he’d spent his thirties and forties trapped inside a bottle of vodka.

“Knew I shouldn’t have tried the Brazilian shuffle in public yet,” the putto said sheepishly as he gathered the rest of the cards into a neat block and scooped them into one hand. He used the other to push himself up to his knees, and from there up to his feet. Once he was standing, he adjusted the cummerbund on his too-tight tuxedo to cover the stomach-revealing gap in his shirt. “Darn cards keep getting away from me. Speaking of which…”

The putto fanned the deck clumsily and thrust it under Gus’ nose. “Choose a card.”

Gus’ hand reached up reflexively, but Shawn pulled it back down.

“We’d prefer not to choose,” Shawn said. “We like them all equally.”

“No, really, this is good,” the putto insisted. “I’ve practiced it a lot.” His face blazed red as he screwed up his mouth in embarrassment. “I mean, it will astonish and amaze you. You like being astonished and amazed, don’t you?”

Gus had to admit he did. He reached out for a card, but again Shawn pulled his hand away. “You’re just encouraging him.”

“What’s the problem?” Gus said. “All he wants is to do a trick for us.”

“Sure, that’s how it starts,” Shawn said. “But then he’s going to follow you home, and you’re going to want to take care of him. You’ll promise to feed him and clean up after him and take him out for walks-”

“It’s a card trick,” Gus said. He reached for a card and waited until Shawn knocked his hand away. Then he reached out with his other hand and snatched a card out of the deck. “What do I do now?”

The putto looked confused. “I’m trying to remember. It’s been so long since anyone actually said yes.”

“Come on, Gus,” Shawn said. “Let’s find Bud Flanek and get out of here.”

“Wait, wait! I remember,” the putto said. “You look at the card. That’s right. You look at the card and then put it back in the deck.”

Gus glanced at the card. It was the five of hearts. He slipped it back into the deck, which the magician had helpfully shoved back under his nose. The magician gave the deck a couple of sloppy shuffles, then proudly pulled out one card.

“This is your card!” the putto pronounced, holding up the two of spades.

“That’s right, that’s amazing, that’s astonishing,” Shawn said quickly. “If only there was a tip jar.”

Shawn pulled Gus away toward the bar as the putto gaped after them.

“You know that wasn’t my card,” Gus said.

“And so did he.”

“So, what, you were trying to spare his feelings?”

“I was trying to spare us another fifteen minutes watching him pretend to be a bumbling idiot while he worked you over,” Shawn said. “You still have your watch, don’t you?”

Confused, Gus checked his wrist. The Fossil was firmly in place. “I don’t know why you say he was pretending,” Gus said.

“Why are you limping?”

“I’m not.” Gus stopped, realizing that he was. He pressed his left foot down on the floor. “I think there’s something in my shoe.”

“Maybe you should take it out.”

Gus sat on an overstuffed couch, fighting a sneeze as dust motes flew up around him, and pulled off his left oxford. He peered under the tongue. “Nothing there.”

“Try the sock,” Shawn said.

Gus pulled the Gold Toe Executive Stretch off his foot. As it cleared his arch, something fluttered out. Gus picked it up and stared at it.

The five of hearts.

“Is this your card?” Shawn said wearily.

“But he was…,” Gus started, casting a glance back to where the putto, apparently failing another attempt at the Brazilian shuffle, knelt on the floor, scraping up cards in front of a young couple clearly here for a function more glamorous than Bud Flanek’s bachelor party. “How did he? And how did you?”

“You don’t want to know,” Shawn said. “It’s just going to make you mad.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” Gus said.

“And I was right the first time, wasn’t I?”

Gus had to admit it was true. “But why?”

“This is how stage magic works,” Shawn said. “They do a trick. You’re amazed. You can’t imagine how they pulled off something so miraculous. You’re dying to know. But they’ll never tell you.”

Gus slipped his sock over his foot, then stood into his loafer. “Because if you know the trick, then the illusion is ruined.”

“But why would that be?” Shawn said. “If they were really communing with the spirits or reading your mind or dancing with dragons, wouldn’t they want you to know?”

“Sure, but they’re not.”

“Obviously,” Shawn said. “But even if what they were doing was so difficult, so complicated, so challenging, knowing how they did it would only make you respect them more.”

“Yeah.”

“So why don’t they want you to know how they do it?”

Gus thought it through, but he still couldn’t see where Shawn was going with this.

“Just watch him.” Shawn pointed at the putto collecting his cards on the floor.

“What am I watching?”

“That. ”

It was just a flicker of movement. If Gus hadn’t been staring so hard at the magician’s hands, he never would have noticed it. But while the putto was down on the floor gathering his deck, one hand shot out and slipped a card into the shoe of the young man whose way he had blocked. Unlike every other one of the magician’s fluttering movements, this one was sure, direct, and clean.

“Hey!” Gus said. “Did he do that to me, too?”

“What do you think?”

Gus tried to recreate the first moment he saw the man kneeling on the floor. Had he felt something brushing at his ankle? He couldn’t remember.

“But even if he could get a card inside my sock-”

“Which he did.”

“Okay, even after he got a card inside my sock, what if I had chosen the nine of clubs?” Gus said, trying to work out the trick. “He’d look pretty stupid.”

Shawn let out a heavy sigh. “Which is why he didn’t give you a choice of which card to choose. If you could get that deck away from him, I bet you’d find that every other card is the five of hearts. And he knows how to force the right one on you.”

Gus stared as the magician climbed to his feet and thrust the deck of cards into the young man’s face. “So it’s not that he made the card I chose end up in my shoe…”

“It’s that he made you choose a card identical to the one he’d already stuck down your sock,” Shawn said. “Feeling mad yet?”

“Yeah,” Gus said. “But I’m not exactly sure why.”

“It’s the one thing that all magicians share,” Shawn said. “No one ever figures out the secrets to their tricks, not because they’re so complex, but because they’re so obvious. And when people find out the truth, they get mad because the entire illusion depends on the audience behaving like idiots. When they figure it out-if they ever figure it out-they get mad.”

Gus thought that over. And then he got mad all over again. “Let’s go.”

“After we deliver the present.”

“No, let’s go back and expose that fake,” Gus said, staring hard as the chubby magician forced the five of hearts on the young couple.

“Don’t bother,” Shawn said wearily. “These guys are pros. They’re ready for hecklers.”

“He’s not ready for me.”

“Gus, Gus, Gus,” Shawn sighed. “Didn’t you learn anything from War Games?”

“If you mean not to turn complete control of your nuclear arsenal over to computers on the grounds that they’re more logical and less likely to act out of emotion or error, I had already learned that from Colossus: The Forbin Project,” Gus said. “And if it’s that sentient computers find Ally Sheedy irresistible, Short Circuit is much more believable on that score.”

“I mean the lesson that WOPR has for all of us,” Shawn said. “The only winning move is not to play.”

“I don’t want to play. I want to expose that fraud.”

Shawn sighed. “Look, if I wanted to shoot a bear-”

“Why?” Gus interrupted, his eyes laser focused on the fraud crawling around on the ground.

“Why what?”

“Why would you want to shoot a bear? Remember what happened that time you borrowed Eli Messenger’s BB gun and accidentally winged a squirrel? You were a wreck for weeks.”

“First of all,” Shawn said, “I didn’t ‘accidentally wing’ the squirrel. I tracked it to its lair, waited until I could see the whites of its eyes, and then, reenacting the primordial battle of man against beast-”

“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 wants…”

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.