The Vanished Man

eighteen hundreds,” the man explained. “ ‘Presti—’ As in presto, fast. ‘Digit.’ As in finger. Prestidigitation—fast fingers. Sleight of hand.”
    So maybe, he slowly came to believe, he was someone more than odd man out in the family, something more than knuckle bait at the playground.
    Every day he’d leave school at 3:10 and head directlyto his favorite store, where he’d hang out and sop up method. At home he practiced constantly. One of the shop managers would hire him occasionally to put on demonstrations and brief shows for customers in the Magic Cavern in the back of the store.
    He could still picture clearly his initial performance. From that day on Young Houdini—his first stage name—would talk, or bully, his way up onto stage at any opportunity. What a joy it was to mesmerize his audience, delight them, sell them the medicine, trick them. To scare them too. He liked to scare them.
    Finally he got busted—by his mother. The woman eventually realized that the boy hardly spent any time at home and raided his room to learn why. “I found this money,” she snapped, rising from her dinner and waddling into the kitchen one evening to confront him as he walked in the back door. “Explain.”
    “It’s from Abracadabra.”
    “Who’s that? ”
    “The store? By the Tropicana. I was telling you about it—”
    “You stay off the Strip.”
    “Mom, it’s just a store. That magic store.”
    “Where you been? Drinking? Let me smell your breath.”
    “Mom, no.” Backing away, repulsed by the massive woman in the pasta-sauce-stained top, her own breath horrific.
    “They catch you in a casino, I could lose my job. Your father could lose his.”
    “I was just at the store. I do a little show. People give me tips sometimes.”
    “That’s too much for tip money. I never got tips like that when I was a hostess.”
    “I’m good,” the boy said.
    “So was I. . . . Show? What kind of show?”
    “Magic.” He was frustrated. He’d told her this months before. “Watch.” He did a card trick for her.
    “That was good,” she said, nodding. “But for lying to me I’m keeping this money.”
    “I didn’t lie!”
    “You didn’t tell me what you’re doing. That’s the same as lying.”
    “Mom, that’s mine.”
    “You lie, you pay.”
    With some effort she stuffed the money into a jeans pocket sealed closed by her belly. Then she hesitated. “Okay, here’s ten back. If you tell me something.”
    “Tell you . . . ?”
    “Tell me something. You ever seen your father with Tiffany Loam?”
    “I don’t know. . . . Who’s that?”
    “You know. Don’t pretend you don’t. That waitress from the Sands was over here with her husband a couple months ago for dinner. She was in that yellow blouse.”
    “I—”
    “Did you see them? Driving out to the desert yesterday?”
    “I didn’t see them.”
    She examined him closely and decided he was telling the truth. “If you do see them you let me know.”
    And she left him for her spaghetti, coagulating on a TV tray in the living room.
    “My money, Mom!”
    “Shut up. It’s the Daily Double.”
    One day, performing a small show in Abracadabra, the boy was surprised to notice a slim, unsmiling man enter the store. As he walked toward the Magic Cavern all the magicians and clerks in the store fell silent. He was a famous illusionist and was appearing at the Tropicana. He was known for his temper and his dark, scary illusions.
    After the show the illusionist gestured the boy over and nodded at the handwritten sign on stage. “You call yourself ‘Young Houdini’?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You think you’re worthy of that name?”
    “I don’t know. I just liked it.”
    “Do some more.” Nodding at a velvet table.
    The boy did, nervous now, as the legend watched his moves.
    A nod, which seemed to be an approving nod. That a fourteen-year-old boy would receive a compliment like this stunned the magicians in the room to silence.
    “You want a lesson?”
    The boy nodded, thrilled.
    “Let me have the coins.”
    He held his open palm to offer the coins. The illusionist looked down, frowning. “Where are they?”
    His hand was empty. The illusionist, laughing harshly at the boy’s bewildered expression, had already dipped them; the quarters were in his own hands. The boy was astonished; he hadn’t felt a thing.
    “Now I’ll hold this one up in the air. . . .”
    The boy looked up but suddenly some instinct said, Close your