Real Magic Read Free Page B

life in his eye. But he carried an odor of impending death that seeped into the walls and carpet of his cramped apartment. "I've given you everything I've got. All the tools I know. And you're welcome to spend the night here, but I don't have the money to bankroll. I doubt your father would want me to do it anyway."
    "Since when has his opinion mattered?"
    Pappy gave a sly wink. "I'm not sure I approve, either. I taught you these skills so you could follow your dream of becoming a magician. Not so you could cheat at cards."
    "You're not really going to pull that argument on me?"
    "All I mean is that there's more to it all than simply taking people's money."
    "I'm doing what I have to do. Some people can work a nine-to-five they hate to make ends meet. I'm not one of those people. I've got that artistic temperament. Heck, you're the one who taught me all this — that a magician is an artist and all artists suffer under the strict limits of a regular life. Now that I'm living the irregular life, everyone wants to tell me how wrong I am?"
    Pressing out his hands in a placating manner, Pappy said, "Okay, calm down." He struggled to his feet and shuffled toward the kitchen. "You want something to eat? Something to drink?"
    Pappy's apartment should have felt like a mansion. It wasn't overly large but it had high-ceilings and beautiful floors. He rarely let anything go. He hoarded to the point of covering all the walls with stacks of books, magazines, and trinkets. If he weren't so old, Duncan would consider getting him on a reality show, but at his age, what was the point? He had earned the right to live however he saw fit.
    "Here," Pappy said. Duncan looked up expecting a glass of iced tea or water. Instead, Pappy tossed over a new deck of cards — he had hundreds of them. "Let me see your shuffles."
    Duncan sighed. They had been through this routine countless times, but he knew better than to argue. He revealed the Ace of Spades on the top of the deck and shuffled. After a few overhands and a riffle of the deck, he revealed the top card — still the Ace of Spades. He turned the card back over and shuffled downward, keeping the cards on the table like a Vegas dealer. Then he turned the top card over — still the Ace of Spades.
    "Not bad," Pappy said. "Now deal."
    Duncan dealt out four hands of five cards each. When he finished, he turned over the top card of the deck — Ace of Spades.
    Pappy grimaced. "You're still not buckling the bottom card early enough. You need to press the corner, popping the card away from the deck a little to make it easier to position, so you can then pull it out when you're ready. But if you wait to buckle it, you can't get it out in time. That's why you're pausing too long before you deal the bottom. Breaks up the flow of the deal and looks suspicious. You need to rock your left hand more, too. That back-and-forth motion is natural when you hold the deck in that hand and it helps hide that you dealt the first three rounds as seconds and the last two as bottoms. Now, show me your Classic Pass."
    The Classic Pass was always Pappy's final test. Not surprisingly, it was one of the most difficult maneuvers in sleight-of-hand. Duncan had to hold the deck in his left hand, break the cards and use his pinky to maintain the break while making it look like the deck was held solid, then while appearing to shore up the deck, he slipped the top half over and brought the bottom half up. Now the bottom half had become the top half.
    "Sloppy," Pappy said. "Might work in a card game if the players are drunk or not paying attention, but if someone's burning you, really studying your moves, they'll catch you no problem at all. For one thing, you keep flashing the break just before you do it."
    "Maybe a little, but it doesn't matter. That's what misdirection is for."
    "You'll never fool a real magician with that pass. Especially when they burn you."
    "I don't care about fooling magicians. I'm not going