Left To Die

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.