Independence Hall by Roland Smith

Author:Roland Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781585364688
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press

Royal Flush

We were the only ones in the waiting room.

“Now would be a good time to pull a rabbit out of your hat,” Angela said.

“I don’t have a hat,” I said. “And if I did I’d try to pull a gun out of it, not a rabbit. You’d better call Boone and tell him we’re still in trouble.”

I watched the door while Angela made the call. Eben and the women were making their way to the front desk. The nurse came out from the exam room.

“When it rains it pours,” she said. “This place was like a morgue until a few minutes ago.”

“She fell and hurt her knee,” Eben said.

“Looks like you fell too,” the nurse said.

Eben touched his swollen face. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

The nurse retrieved another wheelchair and helped the woman into it. She handed Eben a clipboard. “You’ll have to fill out this paperwork. The waiting room’s over there.”

Eben saw me and gave me an icy grin. As he started toward the waiting room a door down the hall opened. Two doctors, a man and a woman, in powder-blue scrubs came out. I wanted to run past them through the door before it slammed shut, but I couldn’t leave Angela behind.

I stepped in front of them, “Hi,” I said. “Do you want to see a cool card trick?”

“What?” the woman asked.

“A card trick,” I repeated. “You know, magic.”

The man looked at his watch. “I’m not sure we have—”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “If you’re not impressed with the trick I’ll give you four tickets to the Match concert tonight.”

The man laughed. “I just happen to know that the Match concert at the Electric Factory sold out in less than an hour and that you can’t get tickets unless you want to pay a couple of hundred bucks a pop from scalpers.”

Eben was halfway to the waiting room.

“You can if you’re Blaze Munoz’s son,” I said quickly. “

Right,” the man said. “And I’m Elvis Presley.”

“It’s the truth,” I said. “Roger Tucker’s daughter, Angela, is here too. A friend of ours bumped his head in an auto accident. They’re looking at him inside.”

“Do you always solicit complete strangers to watch you do tricks?” the woman asked.

“Nah,” I said. “But I just learned a new one and Angela is bored seeing it. I need a fresh audience.”

“Why not?” the man said, smiling. “But I’ll warn you. I’ve seen a lot of card tricks and it’s going to be hard to impress me.”

I didn’t care if he was impressed or not. All I needed was for him and the woman to stick around until Boone showed up.

Eben reached us. “Excuse me,” he said. The right side of his face was starting to turn an ugly yellow and it looked like he would have a pretty good shiner before sunrise. He brushed past us and we followed him into the waiting room.

Angela was still on her phone with Boone and she was clearly relieved that I had brought company. “Oh,” she said loud enough so everyone could hear.

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