Book of Night(30)

The man made a choking sound, twisting his body, trying desperately to break free.

“It doesn’t matter now.”

Charlie almost couldn’t recognize this Vince, standing in the middle of the empty club. Tightening his grip.

Then came a sound like a wet branch breaking.

She caught her breath.

Reflected in a dozen tiny mirrors, the bearded man hung limply in Vince’s arms.





9

THE PAST




Charlie took to pickpocketing like it was what her fingers were made to do. At twelve, Rand set her up to study with a retired magician who had learned to lift wallets and watches as part of her act, and every Tuesday and Thursday after school, he would drop her off at Ms. Presto’s house. He told Charlie’s mom that it was for piano lessons.

Ms. Presto smoked, and her whole house reeked of it. It was a small place, over in Leeds, with barely any backyard. Inside, it was stuffed with antique memorabilia, including an automaton that had once graced a department store but now stood in a corner wearing a top hat, with half its face missing. “The only magicians people have heard of are men, but some of the greats were women,” Ms. Presto would say, waving her cigarette around. “And let me tell you something, the best grifters were always the females. We know how people think. We’ve got the nerve. And we don’t get caught.”

Charlie liked the way Ms. Presto included her in that declaration. We. And she especially liked the idea that she might dodge any consequences.

“So the first thing you have to understand is the tap. You tap somewhere on the body of the mark while you make the lift. Maybe you bump into them if you’re walking or touch their shoulder if they’re sitting in a crowded restaurant. People think the tap is misdirection, but that’s not it. The brain can’t process the feeling of being touched in two places at once, so it only alerts the mind to the harder hit.

“Tap ’em on the shoulder and they don’t feel your hand in their pocket or purse. There’s no real finesse. Just grab.”

Charlie thought about that. Ms. Presto gave her a cardamom hard candy out of a silver skull on her coffee table. “What if you stick your hand in a purse and there’s too much stuff? Or what if it’s zippered?”

“Ah, now, that’s where misdirection comes in,” she said. “Surprise them. Razzle-dazzle them. Or just pick an easier mark. Lots of fish in the sea. And some of them are wearing solid-gold chains.”

“What about clasps?” When Ms. Presto had first started talking, it had seemed simple. But the more Charlie thought about it, the harder it seemed. It took her three tries to put a necklace on, much less take one off of someone with one hand, all while razzle-dazzling them.

“Hand on the back of the neck, a little pressure, and clever fingers,” said Ms. Presto. “It’s all the same. Let’s start practicing.”

First they hung jackets on the automaton and strapped watches onto the arms of chairs. Then, when Charlie had mastered that, Ms. Presto would walk around her house so that Charlie could pretend to bump into her, or be walking up to her in a crowd.

Finally, they were ready to go out.

One afternoon, Rand drove her to the Holyoke Mall instead of Ms. Presto’s house.

“We going shopping?” Charlie asked.

Rand didn’t even seem to mind her tone. He grinned like the joke was on her. “Your lesson is here today.”

Ms. Presto met her in Macy’s, where she was buying a pair of sneakers. “Never hurts to have a bag on you,” she told Charlie. Then she smiled. “Or an old woman with you.”

They walked out into the main mall.

“Am I going to watch you first?” Charlie asked hopefully.

Ms. Presto shook her head. “No point delaying the inevitable. Let’s go toward the Starbucks. There’s always a crowd there.”

And so Charlie started the first day of on-the-job training. She slid past people in narrow aisles with an “excuse me” and a touch on the arm. It worked in Sephora, and the Apple Store. Easier than she would have thought too, but not particularly precise. She did manage to lift a wallet from a guy, but all the forays into handbags resulted in her getting random things. A key ring. A lipstick. And once, a balled-up tissue.

After five lifts, Ms. Presto bought her a Frappuccino.

“Two things,” she said. “Once you got the thing, you put it in your pocket. What did you do after that?”

Charlie shrugged. “Walked away?”

“In the future,” Ms. Presto said, eyeing her seriously, “you’re going to take out a candy. Or some money. Whatever it is you want people to think you put your hand into your pocket for. Always keep something in there to pull out. Always. Otherwise, you’re giving them two things to notice. The lift itself and the hand coming out of the pocket empty.”

Even though no one had said anything to Charlie, her palms started to sweat at the thought that she’d made such an obvious mistake.

“Oh, and you don’t strike me as much of a hugger,” Ms. Presto said.

Charlie shrugged again. No one in her family was a hugger, except her grandmother, who she didn’t get to see much. Not even she and Posey hugged.

“Get used to touching people while you talk. Hand on their arm. Hand on their shoulder. Embrace them when you see them, and again when you leave. That way when you have to do it, you know how to make it seem natural.”