The Ambitious Card (An Eli Marks Mystery) by John Gaspard Read Free Book Online

then,” he continued, scanning through his notes. “How did he identify people in the audience…he knew their names, what they were wearing, objects they were holding…and he did it all while blindfolded. Can you explain how he did that?”
    “Well, for starters, just because you have a blindfold on doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re blind. But, as for his method, I suspect he and his lovely assistant—”
    “Nova,” the host added, gesturing to the woman in question, who was seated just off-stage.
    “Yes, the lovely Nova. I suspect that the two of them used a fairly simple verbal code to communicate the information. In fact, if you were paying close attention…or even if you weren’t, for that matter…I think you might have recognized they were having a wee bit of trouble with it tonight.” I looked over at Grey, who was glaring at Nova. She looked away and Grey huffed quietly and folded his arms in disgust.
    “All right, fair enough,” the host said, looking down and flipping to a new card in his stack. “What about his second-sight ability…reading the words from books and magazines held by audience members? There clearly wasn’t any code going on there.”
    I nodded in agreement. “No, I think a more sophisticated technology was used for that.” I picked up the wireless handheld microphone that Nova had left on the table. “Remember earlier when Nova got too close to one of the speakers in the audience with this microphone? How there was that loud, annoying feedback?”
    I was saying this to the host, but I could see audience members nodding along with me as I spoke. “Well, that’s because you don’t want to get a live microphone too near a speaker—whether it’s a great big speaker on a stand in front of the stage,” I said, waving the microphone toward one of the distant speakers, “or a little tiny speaker hidden somewhere else.”
    With that, I waved the microphone past the left side of Grey’s head, which produced a loud, shrill electronic shriek from somewhere near his left ear. He leapt up, holding his ear and moving quickly away from the table.
    “Damn it,” he said, rubbing his ear furiously. Then he must have realized that not only was he still in front of a live audience, he was also on live television. Ever the professional, he regained his composure just as quickly as he had exploded. He bowed slightly to the audience, ran a hand through his hair and glared quietly at the host as he returned to his chair.
    “I didn’t come on this program to be insulted,” he said, sitting heavily in his seat. “I have a gift that I have proven again and again, countless times. I don’t need the blessing of this, this…performing monkey.” Grey spit out the last words like a curse. He flinched slightly as I moved the microphone toward him again, and then I set it midway between us on the table as a gesture of truce. The host was still flipping through the cards.
    “Perhaps, Mr. Marks, you could explain how he predicted each of the questions in the sealed envelopes? And, even more impressive than that, there were all the facts he seemed to know about the audience members. People he’d never met before, according to him.”
    “Impressive? Perhaps,” I began. “But not really all that difficult.”
    “What about when he revealed that someone in this room had a relative who died on the toilet? You don’t just pull that out of thin air, do you? And he even knew how the fellow died…a heart attack, if I remember correctly.” He nodded in agreement with several nearby audience members.
    “To begin with, dying while on the toilet may be a unique event, but it’s not as rare as you might think. How many people do we have in this room?” I asked, doing a quick scan of the crowd. “About 200 people?”
    “Give or take,” the host agreed.
    “Well, in a group of 200 people, I would guess you have maybe a one-in-three chance of finding at least one person who knows of someone who