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“I don’t like it,” Brent muttered.
“It’s only for a short time. So how long—”
“Two years,” Williams interrupted. “Mister Shaut has taught me a lot about the business.”
“What is your interest?”
“I want to do my own show. Create effects like your father does.”
Pro looked out the window. “You don’t want to be like my father.”
“But he’s created illusions no one had ever seen before. He worked in Vegas for over twenty years. That’s something of a record.”
“I suppose,” Pro remarked coldly.
“And then to get out of an NYPD cell the way he did—”
Pro’s head snapped back to Williams. “How did you hear about that?”
“It was all on the news. I saw reports about it online.”
Pro leaned back and stared at the roof of the car. “Oh, jeez.”
“You gotta admit that was pretty cool,” Williams said, his fear forgotten in his excitement. “That’s one of the reasons I like working with Mister Shaut. I can tinker in his workshop, come up with ideas. I’m the one who built that mirror box.”
Pro’s head popped up. “You built it?”
“Yes, and it was tricky. I had to glue the hinges to the glass with a special adhesive that can only be used—”
Brent went on, but Pro had tuned him out. The video was all over the news sites online. Her time as a detective was definitely over. The brass would see it tonight, and tomorrow heads would roll, hers first.
But if she chose to resign, she could claim it was all her fault for not securing the prisoner correctly. That way Jacobs, Palos, and her partner wouldn’t lose their jobs. It would all be on her, and as she was the daughter of the prisoner, the brass would buy it.
“And that’s why I am learning to draw scaled plans,” Williams was saying.
“I’m sorry,” Pro responded, pulled out of her reverie. “Did you say you know how to draw plans? As in the ones we are looking for?”
Williams reddened. “Nothing of the sort. I said I am learning to draw them. If you’re going to build illusions, you have to know how to get your ideas out of your head and onto paper.”
He faced front and they rode on in silence.
“Oh, I forgot something,” Pro said. “Can you arrange a ticket for a guest of mine?”
“A guest?” Williams said haughtily, and pulled a paper from his jacket pocket. “Now you’re bringing a guest.”
Shaut spoke from the front seat. “Brent, don’t be an ass. If the lady wants a guest, give it to her.”
“Sir, I meant no disrespect to the detective,” Williams demurred. “But we have a very full house tonight.”
“Stick him in one of the house seats we keep open. What’s his name, detective?”
“Luther Ardoin.”
Williams sighed. “Very well, sir. But we are having that writer from the New York Beacon tonight, and you do know how good press keeps us going.”
“It’ll be fine,” Shaut declared. “So, a friend of yours? Someone special?”
Pro’s voice became businesslike. “He’s a security guard who helped secure the scene at Mister Mystique’s apartment. I wanted to…um…thank him.”
