The Lost - J. D. Robb [58]
Hmm. Was this a good idea? Benny wasn’t five anymore. What if, instead of making him proud, his magician father embarrassed him? And Sam always said magic was 10 percent technique, 90 percent presentation—how was he going to present himself as anything other than the neighborhood guy most of these children had known all their lives? How could he make magic out of what he’d always been to them: Benny’s dad?
Monica was the emcee. After she got everybody settled, a magic trick in itself, she launched into a rousing introduction to whip up excitement, winding up with, “And now . . . I present to you . . . the amazing . . . the incredible . . . The Great Sambini!”
She pulled the curtain back with a flourish to reveal—nothing. She gasped, looked horrified, tried it again. “The Great . . . Sambini!” Nothing. Third time’s the charm, and I had to admit she had the kids going by now—worried but not too worried. “The Great . . . Sambini!”
A puff of smoke, and Sam appeared—from behind a second colorful patterned sheet, I assumed, but the effect was too fast to see. Out he strode, coughing, waving his hands at the smoke. He didn’t look like himself. He’d moussed his hair into alarming tufts and spikes that shot out all over, making him look beyond eccentric, possibly insane. He wore turquoise and gold striped pants and a gold vest, high-top sneakers, a polka-dot tie. One shirttail hung out under the vest, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses kept slipping down his nose. Okay, he was a sort of wizard nerd, but the image didn’t gel. He was still Sam, until he started talking.
“Mmm, good afternoon, ladies and germs,” came out in a nasal, adenoidal drone, followed by more coughing and silly noises like “Bleh! Haw. Brak.” “Allergies,” he explained, pulling a yellow handkerchief from his pocket and waving it at the smoke. “I mmunderstand it’s somebody’s birthday? Who would that beee? Who is the birthday mmperson today?” he wondered in the tenor nerd voice, nervous and sweet, a sound I’d never heard come from his mouth before.
“Me.” Benny raised his hand, grinning, blushing.
“Me? No, oh, no, mine’s in April, I’m almost sure.”
“No!” said Benny, laughing with the others. “It’s my birthday.”
“Oh, you. Well, I knew that—I am, mmm, the Great Sambini! Now, don’t tell me—your name is mmm . . .”
“Benny!” the kids shouted.
“No, no, starts with a Q. Mmm, I mean J, starts with a J. It’s . . . Joaquin?”
“No, Benny!”
“No, no, that’s not it. Don’t tell me; the Great Sambini knows all. Mmm, your name is . . .” He pressed his fist to his forehead. “Montague.”
“No,” they shouted, “it’s Benny!” giggling but spell-bound. Like me, they knew it was Sam, and yet it wasn’t Sam. It didn’t hurt that while he talked he kept making wild efforts to get rid of the scarf, but it seemed to be glued first to one hand, then to the other.
“Benny? Really? Mmm, if you say so. Happy birthday, Benny. How does it feel to be thirty-n ine?”
“Six.”
“Six!” The Great Sambini went closer, squinting at Benny through the horn-rims. “Here, hold this.” Benny took one end of the scarf, and when Sam backed up, a dozen more came with him, like a string of yellow sausages between their two hands. “Hey,” Sam exclaimed, “how’d you do that?”
“You did it!” the children shouted.
“I did it? Oh, I seriously doubt that. Here, I’ll, mmm, take those.” He reeled the silks back, stuffing them into one closed hand and opening it to discover, in more apparent amazement, they were gone. “Why, you, you scarf thief,” he blustered. “Luckily the Great Sambini knows where you hid them. Aha!” Little Justin Carr jumped in delight when Sam yanked another long parade of scarves out of his ear. “Thieves and pickpockets, mmm, tsk tsk tsk, what are they teaching our young people these days?” He kept stuffing scarves into his pants pocket—but of course, the more he stuffed, the longer the string grew. “Quit it,” he ordered Justin. “Quit that, I say,” which