eighty-thousand-dollar Range Rover with his alimony. Did it just to piss him off, probably.” He placed a hand against the Plexiglas tank and looked up at it. “A month later I wrapped it around a telephone pole on Pecos; Dad was right. I ended up riding the bus to school for a year while I saved up for another car.” He let out a frustratingly parental sigh. “I can’t rent you the props for nothing. You wouldn’t respect them, and you wouldn’t respect me.”
Dad’s expression was blank; he appeared to have surrendered. Ripley looked equally defeated.
It was up to me.
“What if we pay you nine hundred now and six grand more when we get to LA?”
Higgins laughed. “What am I, Han Solo?”
He was acting more like Jabba the Hutt, but I didn’t say so. I gestured at the truck. “Until we use that thing on TV again, it’s worthless.”
“It’s not worthless to you.”
I grunted in frustration. This seemed to amuse Higgins.
“I can’t think of anything you’ve got that I want,” he said, rocking back slightly on his heels. “Can you?”
When none of us spoke up, Higgins dropped his grin.
“Let me show you something.”
CHAPTER 19
HIGGINS’S LIVING ROOM LOOKED LIKE something from an Arthur Conan Doyle story: leather furniture with brass buttons, stone fireplace, old books lining the walls—and for once, there were no boxes or bags in sight. He stepped up to one of the bookshelves, grasped a particularly hefty clothbound volume, and tipped it backward. With a soft whoosh, the bookshelf slid to one side, revealing a dark opening. It reminded me of the secret door that let guests into the Magic Castle, and I figured that was where Higgins had gotten the idea.
“After you,” he said, that self-satisfied grin pulling back his pudgy cheeks.
We descended a spiral staircase into a lushly furnished home theater. Velvet-covered reclining seats. A wall that was all screen. We sat in the front row as Higgins moved to a media cabinet crammed with every conceivable type of player: a Blu-ray, an old LaserDisc machine, and several antiquated tape decks. He pulled a video cassette from a drawer and held it up.
“You want to see some real magic?”
He inserted the cassette into one of the players. Jagged horizontal lines popped onto the screen, and then a pixelated time stamp appeared in the bottom corner: JUN 8 1992.
A spotlight came up on a tall man dressed all in black. He crossed downstage and sat on the apron, looking out at the audience as if he were about to read them a bedtime story. The image cut to a closer angle, and I recognized the man. It was the most famous illusionist alive: Daniel Devereaux.
But this wasn’t current, sixty-something Daniel Devereaux; this was Devereaux in his prime. Midthirties, trim, athletic, with those sparkling brown eyes that seemed both wise and full of wonder. The spotlight dimmed, the house lights came up, and Devereaux began to speak.
“When I was young,” he began, “I didn’t fit in. The kids in my neighborhood didn’t want to play with me, so I retreated into an inner world of fantasy and daydreams.” Devereaux stood, and the spotlight followed him upstage. “As I grew up, those daydreams faded. All except one.” He glanced back at the audience. “The dream that I could fly.” He lifted his arm, and the curtain rose.
Like every magician, I had watched Devereaux’s flying illusion—but only online. He had stopped performing it before I was born, so I’d never had a chance to see it live.
The trick worked liked this:
Devereaux selects a woman from the audience and invites her to explore the stage. Once she’s satisfied that there are no ropes or trap doors, stagehands appear and present her with a square metallic vertical frame six feet across. The volunteer inspects it. It’s solid.
Next, the stagehands roll out a huge Plexiglas box. The woman knocks on each side, demonstrating that the box is solid. Devereaux dismisses the volunteer amid underwhelming applause. The audience is getting antsy.
The music swells, and Devereaux is swallowed by a billow of fog. When it clears, he’s sitting upstage with a single white dove perched on his hand. He releases the bird, and it flaps out over the audience as Devereaux lies down on his back.
And then, with no visible means of support, he rises into the air.
The audience applauds, but with little enthusiasm. This levitation routine dates back to the nineteenth century. They expect more.
Suddenly, Devereaux rolls over, assumes the Superman pose, and takes