tatty bojangles (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
apocalypsos) wrote2007-07-14 03:22 pm
apocalypsos) wrote2007-07-14 03:22 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: Nothing Up My Sleeve (Supernatural)
Title: Nothing Up My Sleeve
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Word Count: 3,000 words (give or take a couple)
Warnings: Uh, pure ridiculousness? How's that?
Spoilers: "All Hell Breaks Loose"
Summary: So Sam's mastered his powers and defeated the crossroads demon. Now what?
Author's note: Written for Sweet Charity for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baileytc, who wanted fic about Sam's powers. And I had angsty plotbunnies and crackfic plotbunnies and I was taking forever to decide which one I wanted to write, and a few days back this idea came out of nowhere and whacked me upside the head. :)
NOTHING UP MY SLEEVE
1.
Harry Houdini once made an elephant and its trainer disappear from a stage built over a swimming pool full of water. He was once challenged to escape from the most difficult lock ever constructed and did so after an hour and ten minutes. He escaped from anything he was locked into -- straitjackets, ropes, chains, milk cans full of beer. Once he even escaped from the belly of a whale washed up on shore.
When he took to debunking mediums, showing up in disguise at seances to catch them in the act of defrauding their clients, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle claimed that Houdini had powers of his own which he'd used in his magic tricks and was now using to block the powers of other mediums.
Houdini claimed not to have superhuman abilities.
Yeah, he was probably full of shit.
2.
"Sammy?"
"Yeah?"
"Now that this whole demon thing's done with, what do you say about going to Vegas?"
"Is this because I can make things move with my mind?"
"No! Damn it, can't I just want to spend some time with my favorite brother in the whole world?"
"..."
"While cheating at roulette?"
"Let it out, Dean."
"Oh, shut the hell up."
3.
Okay, so imagine a wall.
Keep it simple, right? Makes it easier. No paintings, no wallpaper, just a plain white wall with nothing on it but some light switches. Keep them simple, too -- just those cheap plastic ones you can pick up in the clearance bin at Home Depot or whatever.
Imagine all of the switches have labels. Short neat lengths of masking tape over the top of them, each of them labeled with a word or phrase. VISIONS OF DEATH. MIND CONTROL. SUPERSTRENGTH. TELEKINESIS.
Got it, right?
So now you try to flip one up. Just reach out and try to flick it on like you would with any other, except this little fucker's stuck. It might have been superglued or some shit, you don't know. The point is, it's hard. You can't turn the damn thing on without pushing and pushing and pushing, but before you know it the switch wiggles and goes all the up, full stop.
'Course, it's so damn hard switching it on that when you do one or two more pop up like just watching you try got them off or something. Figure out how to get TELEPATHY to work and there go DEATHLY TOUCH and EMPATHY. Tug and tug at DEMONIC CONTROL and PYROKINESIS goes with it. Yank real hard on the switch for TELEKINESIS and SUPERSTRENGTH flips into the on position, too.
So after a little bit of struggle and whole lot of trying not to be a murdering bastard, you can move things with your mind and read other people's emotions and know every other card on the table, and that, my friends, is how you rip off a casino.
It's also how you kick a demon's soul-stealing ass, but that's what we did last week.
4.
"I can't believe you got our hotel rooms comped."
"Neither can I."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Hey, I expected to have to stoop to, you know, 'asking nicely.'"
"Winning a shitload of money isn't good enough for you?"
"You're not going to get it all and dump it on the bed and roll around in it, are you?"
"Don't make me have to hurt you."
"Yeah, I dare you."
"Uh, look, Sam, I had this idea when I was down in the lobby ..."
"I don't like it when you sound like that. I end up in handcuffs every time you sound like that."
"Hey, do you really think I'd get you arrested now?"
"If my birthday were on Christmas and I decided to get married at noon, I think you could have me in a jail cell at eleven fifty-five."
"No, hear me out ..."
5.
Walter Braintree manages magicians.
Well, hell, he manages a lot of variety acts in the Las Vegas, dancers and singers and acrobats, but Las Vegas is where magicians can --
6.
"Oh, hell, no."
"Aw, come on!"
"It's stupid."
"It's brilliant!"
"What about hunting?"
"We can still hunt!"
"Nobody ever makes any money!"
"Tell you what, you go buy tickets for Lance Burton then come back here and try saying that with a straight face."
"... how do you even know who Lance Burton is?"
"That's not the point, damn it!"
"There is no way in hell I'm doing this, Dean."
"Sam, you have superpowers. It's either this or I slap you into tights and send you out to fight crime."
*slap*
"Hey! What did I say about invisible smacks upside the head?"
"Not on the first date?"
"I still say it's a good idea."
"And I still think that superhero idea's sounding better and better the longer this conversation goes on."
"Just think about it?"
"All right, fine."
7.
So, yeah, Walter Braintree manages lots of people.
He's also one of those guys who's constantly guilty of Knowing A Guy. "Hey, you need a hundred pounds of shrimp on a discount? That's okay, I know a guy." "Your kid need to get into that fancy prep school? That's okay, I know a guy." You know, that one, that laidback charmer who makes connections left and right until he's hooked into so many people one pulled string is all it takes.
Walter Braintree knows a guy who can get you a thousand pounds of heavy explosives without batting an eyelash and hasn't asked Walter for a single thing in return for ages, which is why Walter parks in the middle of the darkened drive-in on the outskirts of the city and waits.
He really needs to stop Knowing A Guy.
"Hey," he hears someone bark out from behind him.
Walter turns around and sees some kid leaning against the ruined excuse for a refreshment stand sitting forlornly out in the center of the cracked and weed-strewn lot. The kid's in his mid-twenties if he's a day and don't that make Walter feel old, and he's good-looking with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and a sly smirk on his face, and don't that make Walter feel fat and ugly just for kicks.
"Hey yourself," Walter says, slipping his car keys into his pocket. "You who I'm supposed to meet out here?"
His smirk widens. "Sort of."
The kid plucks a piece of popcorn from the cardboard container in his hand and tosses it into his mouth. Walter has the brief and silly thought that the kid had to have gotten it elsewhere, couldn't have made it in the remnants of the refreshment shack. It doesn't even look like there's power running around here, the air still and silent, the lights in the sign at the front of the drive-in shot out long ago. This is a dead place, he thinks, and clenches his fists.
"Look, kid," he says, "Jeff said he had an act I had to see to believe, but I hope it's not just you downing a bucket of popcorn."
"Not exactly," the kid says.
Another kid emerges from the shadows just then, or maybe he's not a kid, not even close. He's dressed all in black and wearing one of those goddamn cheap masquerade masks, the ones you can get for eighty-nine cents at the nearest party supply store. He's tall and broad and there, more there than most people. Walter can't explain it, pictures those old black-and-white photos of college students cramming into phone booths.
Walter frowns. "Who the hell are you?"
The kid eating popcorn grins and pushes away from the wall of the refreshment stand. "He's the talent," he says, as if that explains everything.
A second later the man in black raises a hand in the air, one smooth graceful movement of his arm, and Walter stumbles backward as his car suddenly lifts off the ground like it's been filled with helium.
It moves steady, though, like a bow cutting through clear crisp ocean water, and Walter glances over at the kid in terror.
The kid just nods and says, "Told you."
Yeah, that really doesn't explain anything at all.
8.
"I hate you."
"Oh, you do not. And how many aspirin did you just take?"
"Was I supposed to stop taking them?"
"Sam!"
"Dean, I picked up the guy's car and flew it in a circle over the drive-in. Consider yourself lucky I'm not asking you to collect my liquified brains in a cup as they drip from my ears."
"So that's not going in the act then?"
"Really, really hate you."
"I'll keep that in mind."
9.
There are several things about the act that set it apart from the others on the Strip.
For one, his assistant is a man, the same kid who'd chowed down on popcorn while his buddy has taken Walter Braintree's car and floated it around a deserted drive-in like a balloon in a parade. Walter tries to take the kid out of it (the man himself never speaks or shows up without that damn mask on) because audiences like a little T&A to go with the surf and turf and the smoke and mirrors.
The kid just grins and says, "It's me or nothing, man. I'm the only one he trusts with his secrets."
What secrets?, Walter thinks, every magician in Vegas has probably seen your schtick a billion times over.
But hell, even he knows he's wrong on that count.
The guy adds a trick to the act where he strips off his shirt, shows off his bare chest and back to the audience to a sudden chorus of whistles and catcalls, then shoots fire into the air from his fingertips. No one can figure out how he does it.
Ricky Jay walks up to him at a party with scotch in hand and says, "Where the hell did you dig this kid up?"
"The funny pages," Walter says with a smile, an old joke that feels more real than it should in this case.
10.
"What do you think?"
"About what?"
"My outfit. You know, for the show."
"Are you going to be stripping at a gay cowboy bar afterwards?"
"Very funny."
"Hey, at least you're wearing pants. I was expecting an assistant in one of those frilly little skirts."
"You know, I can still kick your ass."
"If you're really good you can do it while you're stuck to the ceiling."
"Sam! Put me down, goddamn it!"
11.
A little over a hundred years ago a dazed deputy walked into the barroom of the Last Call Saloon and fired two shots into the bartender, an action which he later claimed not to remember and blamed on a hell of a lot of whiskey. The ghost of the bartender didn't quite believe him, and within a few years the Last Call had been abandoned to the spirit that went after every man to cross the threshold.
Mitch Whitehorse, who bought the ghost town the Last Call stood in, knows well enough that a problem like this calls for someone with serious experience.
He calls a old friend of his who's ex-military, who wasn't right in the head to start out with even before he got shipped off to 'Nam. Buck says he'll make a few calls, get in touch with a couple of guys in the area.
"You'll like these boys," Buck says with a laugh. "They're messy as hell but they'll get the job done, that's for damn sure."
Mitch shows up in Tumbleweed Creek to a chorus of shotguns and crashing glass, the heavy stench of woodsmoke and barbecue. He stumbles from his pickup thinking the whole place is going down, burning to the ground after accepting the last rites in the form of a hail of bullets. But the scent cuts off in a heartbeat, and a moment later two men walk out of the Last Call, dusted with slivers of glass and small cuts across their skin but otherwise okay.
They're practically boys, these ones, men and yet not, soldiers and yet not, serious about the job but laughing up a storm as they approach him.
"Hey," the shorter one says, "you Whitehorse?"
"Yeah, that's me." Mitch puts his hands on his waist and nods towards the cuts on their faces. "You two okay?"
The shorter one waves him off. "Eh, don't worry about it. We've had worse. Name's Dean, by the way." He holds out his hand for a shake, then tilts his head towards the other man and says, "And this is my brother, Sam."
Mitch is still holding onto Dean's hand when he turns to look at Sam, narrowing his eyes as he takes in the kid before him. Tall and brown-haired, built like a brick wall but floppy and eager to boot, and something about him ...
"Have we met before?" he blurts out.
Sam just smiles and shakes his head, taking Mitch's hand and giving it a good strong jerk up and down. "No, don't think so."
"That's funny. I could swear ..." Mitch could swear he knows those eyes, that face. Maybe he's seen him on TV or passed him on the street. Maybe he sat next to him in some casino on his last trip to Vegas, spotted him in the packed audience he'd been in for that new magician who'd stunned everybody speechless with his tricks.
"No," Sam says, and his voice sounds strange and dark. "We've never seen one another before."
Mitch just grins. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"
12.
"That was close."
"What are you talking about, dude? You seriously expected that guy to say, 'Hey, weren't you that magician I saw who changed the entire audience's drinks into champagne when we weren't looking?'"
"Kind of, yeah."
"Since when did you get so damn paranoid?"
"I don't know. Since the billboard went up?"
"Okay, point."
13.
The name on the marquee says, "John Chesterfield," but most of the posters make a big deal about him being the Masked Magician. He never takes the mask off. Even Walter's never seen him with it off.
The first thing he does with an audience, just to get their attention, is tell them their secrets.
All of them.
He goes from person to person, holds their hands and stares into their eyes, whispers things in their ears that make them blush and gasp and laugh and scream. He gets a few hard stares and terrified looks, and sometimes he leans close to the people who stare at him in fear and whispers again. Sometimes they get up right then and there and walk out the door, out of the casino, and right to the nearest police car. Sometimes they confess.
He makes things move when they shouldn't and tugs fire through the air with his fingertips, lifts things too heavy for any normal person to manage without help and makes things appear and reappear with a wicked smile and a wave of his hand.
He's unreal.
He's magic.
14.
"Hey, look at the bright side. If you're lucky, maybe Cameron Diaz will try to break up your marriage."
"Dean, I'm not married."
"Yeah, well, you live in Vegas now. I'd marry you tonight if it meant nailing Cameron Diaz."
"You know, if you want we can go down to the chapel down in the lobby --"
"Don't tempt me."
15.
Some tries are easier than easier.
People try to get into everything in Vegas -- a comped high rollers suite, the pockets of the guy next to them at the craps table, the teeny little skirt of the sexy blonde cocktail waitress bringing them a steady string of martinis. They try to get into the busiest nightclub in town and the seediest brothel around.
They try to get into overfilled five-dollar buffets, the next showing of Cirque du Soleil and the country club just outside of the city.
They try to get into the hottest show in town, a mysterious magician the likes of which no one's ever seen. When interviewed, other magicians can't or won't say much. David Copperfield grins and walks away. Penn Gillette recommends him highly. The Amazing Johnathan mutters something vaguely insulting to his ancestry and changes the topic of conversation.
People who try to get into his show usually fail.
John Chesterfield is booked solid for the next six months.
And at the rate he's going, it'll only take a few short years before he's the most successful magician in Las Vegas.
16.
"This is still the most ridiculous thing you've ever made me do, you know."
"Shut up and hand me the rabbit, Sammy."
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Word Count: 3,000 words (give or take a couple)
Warnings: Uh, pure ridiculousness? How's that?
Spoilers: "All Hell Breaks Loose"
Summary: So Sam's mastered his powers and defeated the crossroads demon. Now what?
Author's note: Written for Sweet Charity for
baileytc, who wanted fic about Sam's powers. And I had angsty plotbunnies and crackfic plotbunnies and I was taking forever to decide which one I wanted to write, and a few days back this idea came out of nowhere and whacked me upside the head. :)1.
Harry Houdini once made an elephant and its trainer disappear from a stage built over a swimming pool full of water. He was once challenged to escape from the most difficult lock ever constructed and did so after an hour and ten minutes. He escaped from anything he was locked into -- straitjackets, ropes, chains, milk cans full of beer. Once he even escaped from the belly of a whale washed up on shore.
When he took to debunking mediums, showing up in disguise at seances to catch them in the act of defrauding their clients, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle claimed that Houdini had powers of his own which he'd used in his magic tricks and was now using to block the powers of other mediums.
Houdini claimed not to have superhuman abilities.
Yeah, he was probably full of shit.
2.
"Sammy?"
"Yeah?"
"Now that this whole demon thing's done with, what do you say about going to Vegas?"
"Is this because I can make things move with my mind?"
"No! Damn it, can't I just want to spend some time with my favorite brother in the whole world?"
"..."
"While cheating at roulette?"
"Let it out, Dean."
"Oh, shut the hell up."
3.
Okay, so imagine a wall.
Keep it simple, right? Makes it easier. No paintings, no wallpaper, just a plain white wall with nothing on it but some light switches. Keep them simple, too -- just those cheap plastic ones you can pick up in the clearance bin at Home Depot or whatever.
Imagine all of the switches have labels. Short neat lengths of masking tape over the top of them, each of them labeled with a word or phrase. VISIONS OF DEATH. MIND CONTROL. SUPERSTRENGTH. TELEKINESIS.
Got it, right?
So now you try to flip one up. Just reach out and try to flick it on like you would with any other, except this little fucker's stuck. It might have been superglued or some shit, you don't know. The point is, it's hard. You can't turn the damn thing on without pushing and pushing and pushing, but before you know it the switch wiggles and goes all the up, full stop.
'Course, it's so damn hard switching it on that when you do one or two more pop up like just watching you try got them off or something. Figure out how to get TELEPATHY to work and there go DEATHLY TOUCH and EMPATHY. Tug and tug at DEMONIC CONTROL and PYROKINESIS goes with it. Yank real hard on the switch for TELEKINESIS and SUPERSTRENGTH flips into the on position, too.
So after a little bit of struggle and whole lot of trying not to be a murdering bastard, you can move things with your mind and read other people's emotions and know every other card on the table, and that, my friends, is how you rip off a casino.
It's also how you kick a demon's soul-stealing ass, but that's what we did last week.
4.
"I can't believe you got our hotel rooms comped."
"Neither can I."
"You're kidding, right?"
"Hey, I expected to have to stoop to, you know, 'asking nicely.'"
"Winning a shitload of money isn't good enough for you?"
"You're not going to get it all and dump it on the bed and roll around in it, are you?"
"Don't make me have to hurt you."
"Yeah, I dare you."
"Uh, look, Sam, I had this idea when I was down in the lobby ..."
"I don't like it when you sound like that. I end up in handcuffs every time you sound like that."
"Hey, do you really think I'd get you arrested now?"
"If my birthday were on Christmas and I decided to get married at noon, I think you could have me in a jail cell at eleven fifty-five."
"No, hear me out ..."
5.
Walter Braintree manages magicians.
Well, hell, he manages a lot of variety acts in the Las Vegas, dancers and singers and acrobats, but Las Vegas is where magicians can --
6.
"Oh, hell, no."
"Aw, come on!"
"It's stupid."
"It's brilliant!"
"What about hunting?"
"We can still hunt!"
"Nobody ever makes any money!"
"Tell you what, you go buy tickets for Lance Burton then come back here and try saying that with a straight face."
"... how do you even know who Lance Burton is?"
"That's not the point, damn it!"
"There is no way in hell I'm doing this, Dean."
"Sam, you have superpowers. It's either this or I slap you into tights and send you out to fight crime."
*slap*
"Hey! What did I say about invisible smacks upside the head?"
"Not on the first date?"
"I still say it's a good idea."
"And I still think that superhero idea's sounding better and better the longer this conversation goes on."
"Just think about it?"
"All right, fine."
7.
So, yeah, Walter Braintree manages lots of people.
He's also one of those guys who's constantly guilty of Knowing A Guy. "Hey, you need a hundred pounds of shrimp on a discount? That's okay, I know a guy." "Your kid need to get into that fancy prep school? That's okay, I know a guy." You know, that one, that laidback charmer who makes connections left and right until he's hooked into so many people one pulled string is all it takes.
Walter Braintree knows a guy who can get you a thousand pounds of heavy explosives without batting an eyelash and hasn't asked Walter for a single thing in return for ages, which is why Walter parks in the middle of the darkened drive-in on the outskirts of the city and waits.
He really needs to stop Knowing A Guy.
"Hey," he hears someone bark out from behind him.
Walter turns around and sees some kid leaning against the ruined excuse for a refreshment stand sitting forlornly out in the center of the cracked and weed-strewn lot. The kid's in his mid-twenties if he's a day and don't that make Walter feel old, and he's good-looking with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes and a sly smirk on his face, and don't that make Walter feel fat and ugly just for kicks.
"Hey yourself," Walter says, slipping his car keys into his pocket. "You who I'm supposed to meet out here?"
His smirk widens. "Sort of."
The kid plucks a piece of popcorn from the cardboard container in his hand and tosses it into his mouth. Walter has the brief and silly thought that the kid had to have gotten it elsewhere, couldn't have made it in the remnants of the refreshment shack. It doesn't even look like there's power running around here, the air still and silent, the lights in the sign at the front of the drive-in shot out long ago. This is a dead place, he thinks, and clenches his fists.
"Look, kid," he says, "Jeff said he had an act I had to see to believe, but I hope it's not just you downing a bucket of popcorn."
"Not exactly," the kid says.
Another kid emerges from the shadows just then, or maybe he's not a kid, not even close. He's dressed all in black and wearing one of those goddamn cheap masquerade masks, the ones you can get for eighty-nine cents at the nearest party supply store. He's tall and broad and there, more there than most people. Walter can't explain it, pictures those old black-and-white photos of college students cramming into phone booths.
Walter frowns. "Who the hell are you?"
The kid eating popcorn grins and pushes away from the wall of the refreshment stand. "He's the talent," he says, as if that explains everything.
A second later the man in black raises a hand in the air, one smooth graceful movement of his arm, and Walter stumbles backward as his car suddenly lifts off the ground like it's been filled with helium.
It moves steady, though, like a bow cutting through clear crisp ocean water, and Walter glances over at the kid in terror.
The kid just nods and says, "Told you."
Yeah, that really doesn't explain anything at all.
8.
"I hate you."
"Oh, you do not. And how many aspirin did you just take?"
"Was I supposed to stop taking them?"
"Sam!"
"Dean, I picked up the guy's car and flew it in a circle over the drive-in. Consider yourself lucky I'm not asking you to collect my liquified brains in a cup as they drip from my ears."
"So that's not going in the act then?"
"Really, really hate you."
"I'll keep that in mind."
9.
There are several things about the act that set it apart from the others on the Strip.
For one, his assistant is a man, the same kid who'd chowed down on popcorn while his buddy has taken Walter Braintree's car and floated it around a deserted drive-in like a balloon in a parade. Walter tries to take the kid out of it (the man himself never speaks or shows up without that damn mask on) because audiences like a little T&A to go with the surf and turf and the smoke and mirrors.
The kid just grins and says, "It's me or nothing, man. I'm the only one he trusts with his secrets."
What secrets?, Walter thinks, every magician in Vegas has probably seen your schtick a billion times over.
But hell, even he knows he's wrong on that count.
The guy adds a trick to the act where he strips off his shirt, shows off his bare chest and back to the audience to a sudden chorus of whistles and catcalls, then shoots fire into the air from his fingertips. No one can figure out how he does it.
Ricky Jay walks up to him at a party with scotch in hand and says, "Where the hell did you dig this kid up?"
"The funny pages," Walter says with a smile, an old joke that feels more real than it should in this case.
10.
"What do you think?"
"About what?"
"My outfit. You know, for the show."
"Are you going to be stripping at a gay cowboy bar afterwards?"
"Very funny."
"Hey, at least you're wearing pants. I was expecting an assistant in one of those frilly little skirts."
"You know, I can still kick your ass."
"If you're really good you can do it while you're stuck to the ceiling."
"Sam! Put me down, goddamn it!"
11.
A little over a hundred years ago a dazed deputy walked into the barroom of the Last Call Saloon and fired two shots into the bartender, an action which he later claimed not to remember and blamed on a hell of a lot of whiskey. The ghost of the bartender didn't quite believe him, and within a few years the Last Call had been abandoned to the spirit that went after every man to cross the threshold.
Mitch Whitehorse, who bought the ghost town the Last Call stood in, knows well enough that a problem like this calls for someone with serious experience.
He calls a old friend of his who's ex-military, who wasn't right in the head to start out with even before he got shipped off to 'Nam. Buck says he'll make a few calls, get in touch with a couple of guys in the area.
"You'll like these boys," Buck says with a laugh. "They're messy as hell but they'll get the job done, that's for damn sure."
Mitch shows up in Tumbleweed Creek to a chorus of shotguns and crashing glass, the heavy stench of woodsmoke and barbecue. He stumbles from his pickup thinking the whole place is going down, burning to the ground after accepting the last rites in the form of a hail of bullets. But the scent cuts off in a heartbeat, and a moment later two men walk out of the Last Call, dusted with slivers of glass and small cuts across their skin but otherwise okay.
They're practically boys, these ones, men and yet not, soldiers and yet not, serious about the job but laughing up a storm as they approach him.
"Hey," the shorter one says, "you Whitehorse?"
"Yeah, that's me." Mitch puts his hands on his waist and nods towards the cuts on their faces. "You two okay?"
The shorter one waves him off. "Eh, don't worry about it. We've had worse. Name's Dean, by the way." He holds out his hand for a shake, then tilts his head towards the other man and says, "And this is my brother, Sam."
Mitch is still holding onto Dean's hand when he turns to look at Sam, narrowing his eyes as he takes in the kid before him. Tall and brown-haired, built like a brick wall but floppy and eager to boot, and something about him ...
"Have we met before?" he blurts out.
Sam just smiles and shakes his head, taking Mitch's hand and giving it a good strong jerk up and down. "No, don't think so."
"That's funny. I could swear ..." Mitch could swear he knows those eyes, that face. Maybe he's seen him on TV or passed him on the street. Maybe he sat next to him in some casino on his last trip to Vegas, spotted him in the packed audience he'd been in for that new magician who'd stunned everybody speechless with his tricks.
"No," Sam says, and his voice sounds strange and dark. "We've never seen one another before."
Mitch just grins. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"
12.
"That was close."
"What are you talking about, dude? You seriously expected that guy to say, 'Hey, weren't you that magician I saw who changed the entire audience's drinks into champagne when we weren't looking?'"
"Kind of, yeah."
"Since when did you get so damn paranoid?"
"I don't know. Since the billboard went up?"
"Okay, point."
13.
The name on the marquee says, "John Chesterfield," but most of the posters make a big deal about him being the Masked Magician. He never takes the mask off. Even Walter's never seen him with it off.
The first thing he does with an audience, just to get their attention, is tell them their secrets.
All of them.
He goes from person to person, holds their hands and stares into their eyes, whispers things in their ears that make them blush and gasp and laugh and scream. He gets a few hard stares and terrified looks, and sometimes he leans close to the people who stare at him in fear and whispers again. Sometimes they get up right then and there and walk out the door, out of the casino, and right to the nearest police car. Sometimes they confess.
He makes things move when they shouldn't and tugs fire through the air with his fingertips, lifts things too heavy for any normal person to manage without help and makes things appear and reappear with a wicked smile and a wave of his hand.
He's unreal.
He's magic.
14.
"Hey, look at the bright side. If you're lucky, maybe Cameron Diaz will try to break up your marriage."
"Dean, I'm not married."
"Yeah, well, you live in Vegas now. I'd marry you tonight if it meant nailing Cameron Diaz."
"You know, if you want we can go down to the chapel down in the lobby --"
"Don't tempt me."
15.
Some tries are easier than easier.
People try to get into everything in Vegas -- a comped high rollers suite, the pockets of the guy next to them at the craps table, the teeny little skirt of the sexy blonde cocktail waitress bringing them a steady string of martinis. They try to get into the busiest nightclub in town and the seediest brothel around.
They try to get into overfilled five-dollar buffets, the next showing of Cirque du Soleil and the country club just outside of the city.
They try to get into the hottest show in town, a mysterious magician the likes of which no one's ever seen. When interviewed, other magicians can't or won't say much. David Copperfield grins and walks away. Penn Gillette recommends him highly. The Amazing Johnathan mutters something vaguely insulting to his ancestry and changes the topic of conversation.
People who try to get into his show usually fail.
John Chesterfield is booked solid for the next six months.
And at the rate he's going, it'll only take a few short years before he's the most successful magician in Las Vegas.
16.
"This is still the most ridiculous thing you've ever made me do, you know."
"Shut up and hand me the rabbit, Sammy."
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