The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda (popular romance novels .txt) 📕

The air was filled with incense and alcohol. The music crept inside me. I lost Toby. I looked across the room and saw his silk robe vanish into one of the corridors. A man dressed as a snake charmer took my hands and twirled me into the air. He set me down and disappeared. I turned in circles until I stumbled out of the room. Soon Olivia and I were moving deeper into the catacombs, stepping over partiers who’d sunk to the floor, staring at tarot cards in the torchlight or drinking hot cups of twiggy tea.

The party spun away from me on all sides. I saw someone swallow a sword. A contortionist squeezed herself through a tiny hoop. The music grew darker, its beat deeper. The light from the torches licked the archways with tendrils of orange flame. I ducked into a corridor and saw bodies slumped on velveteen cushions while a silent movie of a vaudeville act played on the wall.

Toby stood at the deepest point of the catacombs on a stone platform beneath an arch that framed his head. His features were crossed by shadows—his face almost opaque. But even in the dim room, the phoenix robe glowed. The dragons on the front slithered to the music, and I imagined the phoenix on the back rejoicing in the flaming torches.

A crowd had gathered. A ball of fire burst from Toby’s clenched fist, then shot upward and hovered in the air while the magician conjured another. When he had five balls at his command, he began to juggle. He tossed the balls in the air, sometimes shooting them over the crowd so they formed an ellipse that circled into his hands. Then he threw them over his head, and they swirled around him like a halo.

Olivia and I drew closer. Toby gathered the fireballs into one flaming mass, which he stretched into a semicircle. I felt someone move into the space between me and Olivia. A large man dressed in a maroon velvet tuxedo stared at the stage.

“Leo!”

But Leo didn’t answer Olivia.

Finally, Toby clapped his hands. The fire shot out over the crowd in two thick streams, then spread across the ceiling and vanished. Toby stepped off the stage. The audience swayed and twirled to the music.

Olivia and I rushed to Toby, but Leo got there first.

“This robe,” he said, lifting one of Toby’s arms and stroking the silk. “Where did you get it?”

“Mel, my wife,” Toby stuttered, looking my way, “someone gave it to her. To us.” He was not ready for conversation.

“I made this robe,” Leo said. “I made it with my partner, Erik.” He let go of Toby’s arm and offered him a oversized hand. “I am Leo, and this is my party.”

“Toby Warring.”

“A magician,” Leo said.

“And this is Mel,” Toby continued.

“A fabric designer,” Olivia added. “Fabrics sing to her.”

Leo clasped my small palm in both his hands. “Do they?”

I nodded.

“Then we have much to talk about,” Leo said, leading our little group to a stone alcove piled high with velvet cushions.

A lantern swung from the top of the alcove, casting a glow on Leo’s mane of sleek gray hair. His face was long, with plump lips and a hooked nose, rounded at the tip. Despite his ungainly size and his age, his carriage was graceful. Even as he sat, he seemed to radiate a strange vitality. My eyes lingered on his suit.

“You are American,” Leo said, taking four glasses of wine from a passing tray.

Toby and I nodded. “We’ve been here only a few days,” Toby said.

“You are, I imagine, staying with one of Theo’s magicians. Or perhaps with Theo himself.”

“With Piet,” I explained.

“Piet.” Leo let the name hang for a moment. “Piet, I always liked best. He’s the one who didn’t do magic.”

“You don’t like magic?” Toby asked.

“Magic was Erik’s domain. We lived together for more than thirty years. He disappeared during a hiking trip in the Dolomites.” Leo looked out over the room at the dancers watching the snake charmer who’d taken Toby’s place on the platform. “We met Theo and his company in Japan. They had just performed at the Royal Palace. We saw them in Kyoto. There was something odd about Theo’s shows. I found them unsettling. But Erik was transfixed.”

“What did he do?” Toby asked, waving his palm over Leo’s glass, changing the wine from red to white and back again.

Leo laughed and sipped his wine. “The first show we saw was astounding. He made oranges turn into doves in the middle of the air. The doves flew through the audience and turned into smoke. That very night, Erik decided to make this robe. He wanted to make something that captured the flow of Theo’s magic. His idea was that the robe’s design would be choreographed to the illusions. He never imagined that it would take four years to complete.”

“Four years?” I asked.

“Erik’s relationship with fabric is not easy to explain.”

Olivia winked at me.

“And I,” Leo continued, “had to embroider the thing myself.”

“You embroidered this?” I held Toby’s sleeve.

Leo nodded. “Erik designed it. He researched the phoenix and the dragons for a long time. Then he designed it, and I followed his instructions.” He finished his wine and sighed. “I thought seeing it again would bring Erik closer.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t. It reminds me more of Theo.” The snake charmer left the platform, replaced by a burlesque dancer.

“Leo and Erik made many costumes for the magicians,” Olivia added.

“Yes. We did swamis, Sikhs, Chinese mystics. Very old-fashioned costumes. I’m sure Piet has them tucked away somewhere.”

“Oh, he does,” Toby said. “I can’t imagine him throwing anything out. Not even a single set list.”

Leo smiled. “So, you are here to carry on the strange tradition of Theo van Eyck.”

“No,” Toby replied. “I always wanted to be a Las Vegas magician. Although my tricks might seem old-fashioned, Theo’s style is antique. There’s something about the modern grit of Las Vegas that speaks to me.”

“Then why bury yourself