Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

Across Market Street there’s a boarded-up gaming parlor — FORTUNE BRIDGO in faded letters on its southern wall — and this is where the boy has set up his game. The king of hearts, the seven of hearts, the seven of diamonds, each creased lengthwise up its middle. Three tiny roofs, gliding across a flattened Wheaties box.

Picture him there, kneeling under the roman arches: small and muscular, maybe sixteen years old, cropped curly head already balding. He’s dressed in bluejeans and a freshly stolen pair of crepe-soled Pedwins; his pink seercheck sleeves are rolled past his elbows. A battered workjacket rests within easy reach, but though the evening air is cool and gooseflesh rises on his arms, the boy doesn’t put it on. The pavement is gritty with sand, littered with shards of windowglass and chunks of stucco from the crumbling façade. The boy rests his knees on a folded-over tabloid, a Mirror-News from last week. FAISAL, HUSSEIN PROCLAIM ARAB FEDERATION, it reads. DODGERS CLOSE TO COLISEUM DEAL. It’s seawater-warped, already yellow from the sun.

The boy has lately taken to calling himself Stanley. When he hopped the southbound B&O in Staten Island last April he began using the alias Adrian Crivano, and that name carried him as far as Little Rock before he was rousted by cops twice in five hours and had to come up with something else; he pulled STANLEY off the side of a Rollorama coach parked at a mechanic’s shop. He was Adrian Stanley in Oklahoma and Missouri, Stanley Welles in Colorado and New Mexico, and when he finally crossed the California state line in mid-December he briefly considered taking the name Adrian Welles — like certain spiders that lure their quarry by resembling it — before deciding that that could only cause problems for him.

Most of his names have come from a book in his jacket’s inner pocket, a book of poems that he has read many times and now knows by heart. It’s a strange book; there’s very little in it that he can claim to fully understand. But it has taught him one rule about which he has no doubt: calling a thing by its name gives you power over it. Therefore you must be careful. The boy’s own given name he does not use and never has.

The boardwalk fills as the beach empties. The shadows of passersby lengthen and strobe, and the shuttling cards seem at times to hang in midair.

You are thinking these things; the boy is not. His mind contains nothing but the sensation of regular motion, the steady click of the falling cards. Memory is a skill, as well as a habit. The boy is still young. What do you remember?

The sun is gone. The cloudbank, now solid, erases the mountains, blotting out the lights of Malibu across the bay. The amusement pier on the Ocean Park town line is quiet, closed for renovations, but Lawrence Welk is packing them in at the Aragon Ballroom: stocky Rotarians and their wives from Reseda and Van Nuys, pulling up in Imperials and Roadmasters, hurrying through the shabby streets in the hope of getting themselves on television. A mile to the south, the boardwalk swarms with a different crowd — roughnecks from the oilfield, airframe welders from the Douglas plant, dredger deckhands from the new marina, furloughed airmen from Edwards AFB — looking for different entertainment.

Stanley keeps a wad of bills in his breast pocket — singles, plus two fins — and he takes small bets from people who stop, moving their money around, working the throw to keep his bankroll steady. It doesn’t take him long to spot a mark: a broad-shouldered hotrodder with a duck’s-ass haircut, a little too old for the style. The guy’s getting towed around by a fast-looking teenage girl in a neckerchief and pirate pants; he seems sober enough to be alert, drunk enough to be cocky, in the mood to spend some cash. Stanley leans back, cracks the knuckles of his right hand.

Under a lamppost about fifty feet away, a young man has been smoking a cigarette; now he walks toward the arcades. He takes measured, unsteady steps — although he has not been drinking — and he buttonholes the hotrodder and his young date at the boardwalk’s edge. He speaks to them for a moment, gestures at Stanley, then closes the rest of the distance, flicking his smoldering stub into the shadows as he staggers to a stop.

You want another shot, chum? Stanley says, not looking up from the three cards.

I feel lucky now, the young man says. I will win it back.

He pulls a new IN GOD WE TRUST dollar bill from his pocket, drops it, and it flutters onto Stanley’s cereal box.

The young man — his name is Claudio — is slim and angular, with large dark eyes and a neat black pompadour; he wears a thin tie, a crisp Van Heusen, and a brown-flecked gray sportcoat that hides the deep creases in the shirt. The fingers of his right hand tap nervously against his thumb, one at a time, ascending and descending.

Stanley flattens Claudio’s dollar on the pavement, spreads out one of his own, and puts the cards in motion. His hands rise and fall languidly. The cards stop. Claudio picks one of the red sevens, and a dollar bill goes back into Stanley’s pocket.

I will play again, Claudio says.

The girl walks over as Claudio is losing his second dollar; her date lags a bit behind. They watch as Claudio wins one, loses two more. The hotrodder is getting interested now.

The left, Claudio says.

No, the middle, the hotrodder says. The one in the middle, jack.

Stanley turns over a seven on the left and takes away Claudio’s dollar.

Enough of this, Claudio says. Enough. He puts a five-dollar bill down on the Wheaties box, and the hotrodder’s eyebrows rise a bit. Stanley matches Claudio with a second fin, then holds up the cards — the king in his left hand, both sevens overlapped in his right — and starts his shuffle.

The hotrodder points, whispers something to his girl.

Claudio stares hard at the three peaked rectangles, blinking, shaking his head.

The one on the right, the hotrodder says.

Stanley shoots the guy an angry look.

Claudio bites his lip, looks around. The right, he says softly.

Stanley turns over the king, hands Claudio the two bills, looks up at the hotrodder. Listen, buddy, he says. You better show me some cash, or keep your damn trap shut.

The hotrodder digs out his wallet.

The guy’s following the king easily, and Stanley lets him win a couple of singles. Can I bet on him? Claudio asks. Can I bet on this man?

Stanley leans back, looks away, pretends to think about this. A short distance down the boardwalk, next to an icecream cart, a couple of greaser kids are watching him work. Slouching and smoking. Hard-faced and hungry-eyed.

Okay, Stanley says. But you gotta keep quiet. It’s his play.

Claudio puts down another five. The hotrodder hesitates for a moment, then puts down a fin of his own.

Stanley holds up the cards: the king and the seven of hearts in his right hand, the king in front. On the throw he switches their positions. So fast that not even somebody watching for it could see. The cards float like gulls in the shuffle. Stanley arranges them on the cardboard and looks up.

It’s the one on the right, the hotrodder says.

Stanley turns the card over. It’s the seven.

Shit! the hotrodder says.

What? Claudio says. How did this happen?

The hotrodder looks at Claudio, at Stanley, at Claudio.

My money! Claudio says.

Stanley takes another five from each of them on the next throw. Claudio curses the game, curses the hotrodder, and stalks off, reeling. The hotrodder stares after him, confused, his mouth working silently. Stanley takes a moment to look around. Down the boardwalk, the two greasers have disappeared. He gathers his cards and rocks back into a crouch, as if he’s about to leave. Hey! the hotrodder says. Wait a sec, buddy!