Left To Die

“Pick a card, my friend, any card,” he said, his voice purring through teeth stretched in a Cheshire grin. The man reached up, adjusting his wool cap over his red hair. Now was not the time for conspicuous behavior.

He met the smiling face of a fellow with olive skin, and he winked. The young Parisian frowned in confusion and turned back toward his friends, sipping on a beer.

Sometimes, one simply couldn’t help themselves. The man kept his grin fixed across his face, studying the group of locals before him. This was a larger bar than the last one, and the opposite side of town. What had that one been called? Genna’s. That time, he’d taken it slow—followed the girl home, kept an eye on her routine. Tonight, though… Tonight he couldn’t afford the wasted time.

People were laughing and milling around. This bar was packed, partly due to the rain, which had inserted itself over the city intermittently throughout the day. But also partly due to some sports match. The man didn’t follow sports, and he couldn’t have named any of the local teams if he had been bothered to. The man had more particular interests.

He smiled at the small group of customers he’d enticed around the jutting edge of the counter.

An easy way to meet friends: magic tricks. Especially in the college bars. The man performed the sorts of tricks one could learn watching videos online, coupled with only a little practice. He was an amateur, even in the most generous of descriptions, but he wasn’t here in search of money or praise.

The young man in front of the small gathering of a half-drunk audience watched the amateur magician, waiting as he continued to chatter, fanning the cards.

“And what is your name again?” the magician said, still smiling.

“Amir,” the Parisian replied, hesitantly pulling at one of the soft cards, then suspiciously glancing up and moving his hand along to a different part of the deck. Of course, it didn’t matter which card he chose. The deck was rigged. The decision, the outcome, was already clear.

“And Amir, memorize your card. Show it to your friends.”

A combination of tourists and locals had crowded around for the spectacle, as they often did. The man in the wool cap reached up with his free hand, tugging the hat a bit lower past his bangs, the hem of the wool pressing against his forehead. His smile faltered just a little as his fingernail on his thumb brushed against his ear, eliciting a small amount of pain. The man hated pain.

His lips twisted for a moment, forming into the beginning of a frown. Just as quickly, he readdressed the expression and adopted a smile once more. People loved spectacle.

The man waited for Amir to show his friends the card, and then watched, impatiently, as they shielded the card with their hands so he couldn’t see it. The bar’s customers waited expectantly for the trick to continue. So many of them were so young. Their flesh was smooth, their eyes clear and bright…

He felt a stirring in his stomach.

“I need to think—think very hard,” the magician said, interjecting each word with a playful chuckle or another wry grin. The smile was obviously an act. They all knew it, and he knew it. But the point wasn’t to dupe them. The smile had nothing to do with it. They were watching his hands as closely as possible, studying his fingers.

The smile had other uses: it displayed something around his mouth, something so obvious that no one looked too closely. Tucked inside his cheek, the second, duplicate card rested against his molars and his gums. He didn’t have a particularly large mouth, but had deposited the trick card before even entering the bar. Any good magician had to do their work before the audience was even watching. The card itself was sprayed with trick adhesive which would keep it from growing soggy in his mouth. Optics were a huge part of it.

Pulling forth a soggy card would immediately tell the audience he’d stowed it long before. But pulling a card that looked new, fresh, gave the illusion that it had been placed there only moments before.

It gave him no small amount of satisfaction to know he could dupe so many people at once. All eyes were on him, everyone was staring, and yet, still, they would fall for it. Amir and his friends waited expectantly, watching him. They were younger, much younger than he was. They didn’t value their youth; the young never did. That girl from only a few nights ago, she had been a lively one. He’d enjoyed their time together beneath the bridge.

“Is your card… the three of diamonds?” he said.

Amir’s eyes widened, and then his lips curled into a smirk. “No,” he replied.

The man inhaled in mock surprise. Of course, this too was part of the trick. Every good hero had to fail at least once before they succeeded. Now, the audience would relax. They would think the trick was over. They would think they had duped the magician—this foolish tourist who had come into their bar and demanded their attention. Their eyes would wander from his hands…

And it was in that moment, the man stowed the deck of cards, placing it quickly in his black jacket pocket. Then, just as quickly, he withdrew what looked to be the exact same deck. But this deck didn’t have the forced cards with the glue adhesive on the back. Once he did the reveal, they always asked to see the deck. Predictable.

People were similar in their predictability. Be it in France or Indiana. The man’s expression soured somewhat at the memory of fleeing the United States. The FBI had gotten too close. The female agent—he’d seen her on the news asking for clues. Little did she know that she’d interviewed his host family the night before he’d fled. She hadn’t known he’d been renting a room in their basement, and they hadn’t volunteered the information, wanting to avoid any hassle about renter’s insurance. They hadn’t known who he was.

Besides, how could his host family have known that the vehicle traced back to their home had belonged to him? He’d made sure to ditch the jalopy—he’d paid in cash for it anyway.

Agent Sharp. That had been her name. She’d gotten too close—far too close for comfort. But he was still on vacation. First the US, then France. It wasn’t yet time to return home… There was still so much more fun to be had.

The magician smiled at his audience and then clicked his tongue. He could feel the card wedged into the back of his mouth. He extended his hand, beckoning toward Amir, then took the card. He waved it a couple times in a big show, and then snapped his fingers. The card erupted in flame, disappearing as quickly as flash paper could—bought for less than a pound in magician stores around the world.

And yet, the reaction of his small audience sent shivers through the man. Magic was almost as fun as his other activities. It wasn’t the same, but it was nearly the same. The awe, the spectacle, the complete domination of his audience as they didn’t know what would come next. All of it intoxicated him and brought him the satisfaction of knowing what he had always known: he was smarter than them. All of them.

Everyone was staring at his hands now, awed by the disappearing card. Then he made a choking sound and looped his tongue beneath the stowed card; he pushed the card into his mouth and made a big show of puffing his cheeks, turning red in the face and placing his hands against his stomach as if he were about to throw up. Finally, with a gagging sound, he opened his mouth, and the card fell into his hand, slowly curling open. He had to pull the final fold to reveal the jack of spades.

“Is this your card?” he said, grinning at the audience.

The two tables at the bar erupted in applause, all of them staring in awe at the strange tourist and his tricks.

The jack of spades had been intentional, of course. A hero of his, who’d been named “The Spade Killer,” had been known for creating late-night art in the park districts, adopting the guise of a gardener when hunting his victims. Such interesting monickers the news outlets would come up with, labeling people like the magician as if they were superheroes. The Spade Killer had operated in France only a decade ago. He would carve up his victims with shallow cuts, creating beautiful patterns on human skin.

The man shivered in delight at the memory, recollecting his first time reading about the attacks in the newspaper back home. It had been better than porn. There had been an artistry to the Spade Killer’s work. The artist had never been caught, but photos of his work and his masterpieces could still be found online for those with discerning taste.

“How do you do that?” said Amir, snapping the man’s attention back to the moment.

The magician paused, gathering himself, then he simply shook his head, and smiled. “Would you like to see another one?” he asked.

Another one. He needed another one. It had taken so long, stalling, when that FBI agent had gotten too close. She’d asked the wrong questions in Indiana. It had been time to leave. He still wasn’t sure how much she knew. At least that was behind him. The agents in France would have to start from scratch to catch him. That gave him a good amount of time to enjoy this new playground. Like the Spade Killer, he too wouldn’t be caught.

But he couldn’t wait another couple of weeks. No, he needed to catch up. Time was of the essence. Always ticking, time. He swallowed, and his smile faltered just a little.

“Would you like to see another trick?” he asked, louder this time, glancing around at those clustered near the counter, trying to regain their attention from their bottles and half-filled glasses.

“Yes!” someone said, “Do me!”

He turned, eyeing an old, silver-haired woman smiling at him, pearl earrings glinting beneath the low light of the bar. She wouldn’t do.

He turned away from her and smiled his crocodile grin and said, “I need a little information first. This trick will only work on certain people.” They were in a bar behind the college, after all. The clientele was far younger than usual. “What are your birthdays? Year and month—it’s important. I have a sense; tell me, is anyone here twenty-three?” He said it innocuously, casually, but with enough flair and gusto to arouse curiosity. He glanced around at the few spectators seated at the bar.

“My friend,” someone said at last. The magician glanced over to a young man with a scraggly goatee. He had the look of some sort of starving artist, complete with an artisan’s cap and a black shirt which read “Rock & Roll.” The magician tried not to allow his distaste to show. Music was like wine; when treated with indifference, it could only give someone a stomachache.

“Yes?” said the magician. “Are they here?”

Scraggly-beard nodded quickly, and he hurried over toward another table at the back.

The magician’s French wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad as he often pretended. And he could understand the conversation well enough. Even over the din of the bar, he heard the man with the scraggly beard saying, “Come, he has a trick to show us.”

The friend seemed reluctant, but at the insistent pulls on his arm, got slowly to his feet and allowed himself to be guided over.

“And you’re twenty-three?” the magician asked, glancing at the man with a curious look. He could feel his mouth go dry all of a sudden, but resisted the urge to wet his lips.

The newcomer nodded slowly, his eyes wide beneath dark hair. “Yes, my birthday was in July.”

The magician flashed his crocodile grin. “Count out twenty-three cards. Here.”

The newcomer hesitated, frowning. “Does this trick take very long? What is it?”

“Patience,” said the magician, still smiling. “I’m about to show you.”