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"Magic is the only honest profession. A magician promises to deceive you and he does."
-– Karl Germain
“Theft annoys me more than anything else. The purloining of effects from another magician. Some people think it's massive to steal the secrets of nuclear reactors, but to steal a card move is trivial. They're wrong.”
—Ricky Jay
1. Indian Rope Trick
Detective Tom Chu sat in the driver’s seat of his unmarked police car. He glanced in the rearview mirror to move his dark, straight hair off his forehead. He had thin and narrow eyes that spoke of his Korean ancestry, and his slim fingers grasped the steering wheel. He enjoyed the fact that he was thin and average height, as he was strong and an expert in several forms of combat. This came in handy when he had to take down a suspect.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, just as the sound of a finger ring tapping on his window caused him to raise his head and glance over.
“You takin’ a nap?” the African-American woman at his window said, muffled by the closed glass.
Chu smiled, sat up, and hit the release to unlock the passenger door as his partner, Pro Thompson, came around the car. Chu reached over and opened her door, as she carried two cups of coffee, the white paper emblazoned with the green Starbucks logo.
Pro got in, her gray pantsuit and white blouse giving her the look of a corporate professional. This not only hid her strong, fit body, but the shoulder holster and Sig Sauer P229 sidearm she wore.
Chu knew from his partner’s workout regime that she could handle any situation a cop might face.
She handed him one cup and kept the other for herself. Chu took a sip; it was prepared just the way he liked it. That was the nice thing about having a partner: they knew your habits.
“So, were you sleeping?” Pro teased as she took a swig from her own cup.
“No, just enjoying the calm before the storm,” Tom answered.
“What storm?” Pro frowned and looked out at the spring day. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.”
Chu looked over at his partner, her striking blue eyes in such contrast to her dark skin tone, which was the color of café au lait. “I mean the calm before our day gets busy.”
“I heard that,” Pro sighed and ran her free hand through her hair, which was short in the back and a bit longer in front. It not only looked professional, but with the tight natural curl of her hair, it was a logical choice that required little care or upkeep. “But it might not get busy. We could just have a lovely spring day, sit in our car, and maybe even relax.”
Tom smiled. “That would drive you crazy. You’re an adrenaline junkie.”
“Still, it could be a quiet day.”
“Pro, we’re homicide cops in New York City. Every day is crazy.”
Pro looked out the windshield at the city—her city. Their car was parked at a hydrant on the corner of 52nd and Ninth Avenue. She’d grown up only about thirty blocks north of here. She had to admit, the city never stopped, never slowed down, and she did get a rush from being a part of it, being out there, making a difference.
Chu’s cell phone rang with a very businesslike tone, and he reached under his suit jacket to pull it from his belt. “And so the craziness begins,” he said as he moved it to his ear. “Chu,” he said as he hit the virtual button on his device. He looked to Pro, but she had already retrieved her detective notebook from her pocket and pulled out a pen. “258 West 47th Street? We’re on our way.”
Chu slipped the phone back into his belt and started the car all in one, well-practiced move.
“We got a DB?” Pro asked, using the abbreviation for a “dead body.”
“We do,” Chu said as he glanced into the side mirror and slid the car into the busy traffic. “911 got a call, uniforms got there fast. They have the DB and a suspect in custody.”
Pro considered this. “That’ll speed up the process. Seems like we caught an easy one.”
“Yeah, it’s good work when they catch the perp still at the scene,” Chu agreed, as he weaved the car across several lanes to take a left turn down 46th Street.
Pro had pulled out the small rotating blue light and put it on the dashboard. Since they had a suspect in custody and traffic wasn’t too bad, there was no need for sirens. As a New Yorker herself, she tried to avoid additional noise pollution in a city that was already far too loud.
They drove up 47th Street and pulled over to see an officer in front of a three-story brownstone. The uniformed man appeared younger than the mandatory twenty-one and gave the impression of a teenager playing dress-up.
The detectives came out of the car like a shot, and Pro smiled. She loved the fact that her partner moved as quickly as she did. He was the senior partner in the relationship, though he was only in his mid-thirties.
“Whaddaya got?” Chu requested as they moved toward the brownstone. Pro was happy to let her partner take the lead, though she was perfectly capable of doing so when needed. But her year of working with Tom Chu had taught her how to be a good detective fast. He would expect nothing less of her.
“Right here on the ground floor,” the officer said, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he spoke. “Some kind of magic shop.”
Pro broke into a smile. “Floss’s Magic. I’ve been here.”
Chu gave her a puzzled glance. “You have?”
“When I was a kid,” Pro explained. “It’s well-known in the magic community. The guys who do that stuff hang out in the store all the time, usually showing each other card tricks.”
Chu shrugged. “Let’s see the scene.”
The young officer escorted them up the short flight of stairs, and they took a left into a separate entrance next to the main door.
They passed through a door an
d into a storefront. There were glass display cases filled with flowers made from feathers and paper, and a large bouquet of what appeared to be fifty-dollar bills. However, the glass on several of the cases was cracked and had been repaired with shipping tape. Running up the walls on three sides were bookcases crammed with paraphernalia: there were wooden boxes with large, spotted dice resting on top of them; a small box of clear plastic filled with brightly colored silk handkerchieves; large coins of various currency and holders to display them and possibly make them disappear. However, the shelves had a layer of dust and all the tricks, though still impressive, looked old and dingy. The place was claustrophobic from the total amount of things that were packed in its limited space.
Standing near a red curtain to a back room was a female uniformed officer. She was average height, thin, with a strong, lithe body and short black hair under her hat. She stood at military rest waiting for the detectives.
“Wow, this takes me back,” Pro said, as her partner handed her a pair of rubber gloves. “It is exactly the same as it was twenty years ago.”
“Really?” Chu said, as he pulled gloves onto his own hands. “I can’t imagine you coming to a place like this.”
Her mouth became a hard line. “I didn’t choose it. I was a kid and I was taken to places like this all the time.” She turned to the officer. “Tillie, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The officer smiled.
“Where’s our vic?”
“Behind this counter,” she told them, and stepped back so that Pro could get to the walkway Tillie had blocked with her body.
The pair of detectives looked over to see the man dead on the floor. He was older with white hair and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on his face. He wore cheap clothes that were worn at the elbows and knees.
“That’s Albert Floss, the owner,” Pro stated sadly.
“You know him?” Chu frowned.
“Yes, that case about a year ago? He was one of the magicians at that magic club we busted.”
“Right, Magic Over Manhattan. I remember,” Chu replied, then turned to the uniformed officer. “Tillie, is forensics called in?”
“Yes, sir. They’re coming from another scene. Going to be delayed.”
“All right,” Chu said and walked around the corner of the glass cabinet to crouch low near the body.
Pro leaned in. “Ligature around the neck,” she noted.
Chu carefully opened the collar of the man’s shirt to look at the line of red skin around his neck, and picked up a two-foot-long red rope that lay on top of the man’s open vest. “Here’s our murder weapon.”
