He scooped up the money. “You are officially a paying customer. Do as you please.”
Breaking with the tradition of playing 1930s swing music, and undoubtedly for her sake alone, the dark room soon flooded with the soft sounds of the seventies. Drink in one hand, her bag in the other, Dini took the narrow staircase up to the second level and settled at the corner table where she took out a small timer—old-fashioned, with grains of sand—and a deck of cards. It was a new deck, the cards slick and stiff. In a fluid motion, she upended the timer and commenced to shuffling, counting under her breath, “One…two…three …” A mere fraction of a second lapsed between the fffttt of the cards arched between her palms and their clack on the table before the next interspersing zzzip. “Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one—” and the last grain dropped through the glass. She gave the deck a final, frustrated tap against the thick wood of the table.
“Table riffle’s faster,” Gil called from behind the bar.
“And if I were some Vegas table dealer, I’d use it,” she said, giving the deck a series of soft overhand tosses. She glanced down and noticed the new arrival, recognizing him instantly from the tour. The cute one.
He lifted his glass—a dark ale, two gulps down. “I was only listening—but it sounded impressive.”
“Thanks,” she said, with the perfect amount of gratitude to seem polite.
She took advantage of the balcony to study him. “You were in the tour group earlier?” Phrasing knowledge as a question put people at ease, not that this guy seemed to be the least bit nervous.
“I was. You were entertaining and informative.”
“In that order?”
“Maybe ‘engaging’ would be a better word.”
She looked to Gil. “This the guy you were telling me about?”
“It is,” Gil said.
“I am,” said the guy. “Shall we continue the balcony scene? Or may I join you?”
She looked past him to Gil, who gave an oddly encouraging nod. He mouthed the words Trust me.
“Fine,” she said.
Watching his first few steps away from the bar, Dini thought him to be cautiously aware of his physique, moving purposefully. His footfall on the ancient staircase was even. Precise. The back of her neck still fizzed, and she admonished herself. Don’t be weird, don’t be weird. She was comfortable leading a crowd around the city, telling ghost stories, and even more comfortable in front of an audience, holding them spellbound with close magic and card tricks. The average back-and-forth conversation, however, danced outside of her comfort zone.
By the time he was upstairs and at her table, whatever strength she’d gained from her pep talk had utterly dissolved. She barely managed to invite him to sit opposite her before asking, “Want to see a trick?” So much for not being weird.
He set down his glass. “I love card tricks.”
She shuffled the deck three times, set it down for him to cut, then recommenced shuffling.
“What’s your name?” She knew he would eventually introduce himself, but asking allowed her to control the conversation.
“Quin.”
“Quin? So, you’re a fifth?”
“How did you know?”
She tapped a finger to her temple. “It’s what I do. Magic. Plus, you had a bit of a hesitation before you answered. Means you had a choice in what to tell me, and you went with the nickname, even though we don’t know each other well enough for you to be so informal. Also, it’s a nickname that needs explanation. Not like Bob, short for Robert. A lot of people aren’t aware of the tradition. Sure, maybe a guy named Trey is just a guy named Trey. But maybe he’s really Morton Snoddinghouse the Third. So, you know, Third…Trey. And if Trey Snoddinghouse had a son? The Fourth? Drew. Like quadruple. Fascinating tradition, right? Almost lost in the rush to name everybody after Western cities. Austin. Cody.” There she was, rambling in an attempt to explain the man’s own name to him, like there was some invisible audience in need of distraction. So much for being normal.
Shuffling blind as she spoke, the cards moved almost as quickly as her words, so she stopped—the shuffling, not the speaking—and studied his face. Bemused might be the best word to describe his expression. Bright blue eyes behind light-prescription lenses. A hint of red in his neatly trimmed beard, darker in his hair cut short with a sharp part on the left. A bit of gel to keep it in place.
“Are you from out of town?”
“I am.”
But nothing more. She launched into the conversation she would have in a darkened theater in front of an audience even though they were just two people at a tiny table in a dark bar. “Okay, Quin from out of town. Where are you from?”
“Buckhall, Virginia.”
“What do you do in Buckhall, Virginia?”
“I teach high school math.”
“Ah, math nerd.” She hazarded a look up from her shuffling to make sure he was smiling. He was. “Here for a conference? Those are usually at the Marriott.”
“Nope. Spring break. Being a tourist. And a little business. Some research, actually.”
Dini committed a tiny fumble in her shuffling at the word research. He said it with a lilt that almost made it a question. Given Gil’s mysterious lead-up, she had a feeling she might be part of the answer.
She focused with a breath. “Count a number of cards off the top of the deck. Up to twelve. Don’t tell me how many, and put them in your pocket.” He was wearing an athletic fleece with a zippered pocket. “Now, count out the same number. Still don’t tell me.” She kept her eyes trained on his face as he did so, noting how—unlike most people—he didn’t move his lips as he counted. When he finished, she held her hand out for the remaining deck and told him to look at the top of the stack he’d counted out and memorize the card.
“Got it,” he said after a moment of mock concentration.
“Now give it here.” She put the small stack of cards on top of the deck and made a show of shuffling—once, twice, three times—never allowing the top cards to be mixed in, but keeping her hands at a practiced angle to disguise her skill. She slid the deck back over. “Now, I want you to think of three names. Any three. Your first, middle, and last. Or your favorite actors. Anything at all. Spell them inside your head and take out a card for each letter.”
He counted off six cards. “You haven’t told me your name. Unless it really is Henrietta, like you said on the tour. But you don’t look like a Henrietta.” He counted off five more cards.
Clever, him using the same distracting technique she’d worked so hard to perfect. “I’m Dini.”
He counted off five more cards. “Like the song?” And, completely unbidden, sang a few soft bars of the old Shaun Cassidy hit “Hey, Deanie, won’t you come out tonight?” It was a pleasant memory; her mother used to sing that song to her all the time, and she felt a soft bit of connection to this stranger who so easily tapped into that memory.
Dini smiled and took back the untouched deck, then scooped up the cards he’d counted off and put them on top. “No. Dini as in hoo.”
Quin’s eyebrows rose above the frame of his glasses. “Your actual name is Houdini?”