The Magic Square: (A Puzzling Magic Convention Murder) by John Gaspard

Author:John Gaspard [Gaspard, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Albert's Bridge Books
Published: 2020-11-09T22:00:00+00:00

“Have you figured out what you’re going to do?” Nathan asked quietly.

I had found the meeting room, which was bustling with hyped-up young magicians. The shift in energy from the hall into the room was startling.

“I think so,” I said. “What did the guy do last year? I don’t want to repeat anything.”

Nathan immediately began to shake his head. “Not to worry,” he said. “The guest speaker last year just got up and did his act for the kids. No lecture, just his act.”

“That sounds kind of boring.”

“Oh, just the opposite, my friend. It was quite memorable. There were tons of complaints, mostly from the parents. Letters, emails, angry phone calls.”

“Why were there complaints?”

Nathan leaned in and whispered the name of the performer from the previous year’s session. I nearly yelped when I heard it.

“But his act is filthy,” I said. “I mean, there’s blue and there’s adult and then there’s filthy. His act is filthy. Why did they book him?”

Nathan shook his head. “Beats me. But that’s why they asked me to take over this year. I think they knew I would make safer choices.”

“Hence Abe. And now me.”

“Yep. I think I can trust you to keep it clean.”

“We shall see. If I were ever going to snap and go all Andrew Dice Clay on you, this would be the weekend to do it,” I said. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

“Just one sec,” Nathan said. He glanced toward the door. At that moment, Allison passed by the room, comparing the event schedule in her hand with the name of the room. She saw all the young magicians and then spotted Nathan and me.

“You don’t mind if Allison sits in do you?” Nathan asked quickly as he headed over to greet her.

“No problem,” I said, although I doubted he heard me. He hustled her over to our corner and we nodded a greeting as Nathan then zig-zagged his way to the front of the room.

“Good morning, folks,” he shouted as he seamlessly morphed into his on-stage character, which is about two or three hundred times more energetic than the off-stage Nathan. I had seen this transformation countless times and was still always blown away by it.

I scanned the room as Nathan launched into my prepared introduction, which he must have pulled from my dusty website. There were about twenty-five kids, between the ages of maybe twelve and sixteen. There were more girls than I’d expected, although the boys were still the majority.

Virtually every kid held something in their hands, from a deck of cards to a Rubik’s Cube. And they were constantly fiddling with their chosen objects. The card kids were either practicing false shuffles or displaying some stunning display of cardistry, which always struck me as being closer to juggling than to magic. The Rubik’s Cube kids were spinning, solving, twisting, re-solving, all at ultra-high speed.

“Were we ever that young?” Allison murmured.

“What are you talking about, you’re still practically that young,” I whispered back.

Before she could respond, Nathan wrapped up his introduction and gestured for me to come forward.

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