Nightrise

to go. It was ice cold in the room — this was the one place in the theatre where the air-conditioning worked — but there were wet patches on the front of his shirt and under his armpits. Don sweated all the time. For a man his size, even walking ten steps was an effort — and he looked permanently exhausted. There were dark rings under his eyes and he had lips like a fish, always gulping for air. He was eating a hamburger.
    Tomato ketchup was dribbling between his fingers, dripping down onto the surface of the desk.
    There were two men sitting opposite him, waiting for him to finish. If they were disgusted by the spectacle in front of them, they didn't show it. One was bald. The other had dark hair. They were both wearing suits. They both waited silently while Don finished his meal, licked his fingers, then wiped them on his trousers.
    "So what did you think?" he demanded at last.

    "The boys are very impressive," the bald man, Colton Banes, replied.
    "I told you — they can really do it. There's no trick. It gives you the creeps, if you ask me. But it's like they can get inside each other's heads." Don reached out for a half-smoked cigar and lit it. The bitter smell of old tobacco rose into the air. "The other acts in the show…they're nothing. But those kids are special."
    "I'd be interested to know how they first came to your attention."
    "I'll tell you. I picked them up three years ago. They were about eleven then. Nobody has any idea where they came from. They were dumped when they were just a few months old. They were picked up by the Child Protection people someplace near Lake Tahoe. No mom. No dad. Probably got Indian blood in them…you know, Native American. Paiute or Washoe or something. Anyway, they were fostered a few times but it never worked out for long. I'm not surprised. Would you want to have someone hanging around with you who could see into your mind?"
    "They read other peoples' minds as well as each other's?"
    "They can do it. Sure. But they pretend they can't and I can't make them. I mean…all right, on the stage.
    Party tricks. But never outside. Never in real life." Don sucked on his cigar, then blew out smoke. "So they got bounced around a bit and they finally ended up with my girlfriend's sister and her husband in Carson City. But that didn't work out too well, I can tell you."
    "What happened?"
    "They were there for about a year and then Ed — he was the husband — did himself in…committed suicide. Maybe it was something to do with the kids. I don't know. They were on their way out anyway.
    He'd had enough of them." Don leaned forward conspiratorially. "Ed always said there was something weird about them. Like, if you belted one, the other would feel the pain. Can you believe that? You whack Scott and it's little Jamie who gets the bruise on his face. One of them always knew what was happening to the other one, even when they were miles apart. Ed couldn't live with it. He used to say it was like being in an episode of
    The X-Files.
    So he was going to get rid of them, and the next thing I know, he's dead, my girlfriend's sister is freaking out, and nobody wants the boys."
    A lump of ash fell off the end of the cigar. It landed on Don's sleeve but he didn't notice.
    "That was when I decided to take them in," he went on. "I was running this show. At the time it was called
    Don White's World of Illusion.
    But when I saw the boys, when I realized what they could do, I changed all that. I called it The Circus of the Mind, and put them in as the final act. The strange thing is, everyone thinks there must be some trick. Hidden signals and codes…that sort of thing. It isn't just the audience. Even the other performers don't know how the boys do it. Isn't that funny? Marcie and me, we think that's hysterical."
    Banes had introduced the other man as Kyle Hovey. Now Hovey spoke for the first time. "Why haven't you put them on TV?" he asked. 'You could have made more money that way."
    'Yeah. I thought about that. Marcie and me talked about it. But they get too well known, someone's going to take them away." He hesitated, not sure how much he should tell the two men. 'You know how it is," he went on. "We only got them in the first place because the foster care system is so overstretched.
    Too many files, not enough caseworkers. That's what Marcie says. Right now it seems like everyone's forgotten about them…and maybe it's best to keep it that way." He examined the cigar for a moment,