That Voodoo That You Do So Well
Natasha had counted on very few things for this job, and she had backup plans for all of those. What failed her was the assumption she hadn’t known she was making… that she had long ago killed anyone capable of seeing through her masks or deceiving her in turn.
Thing was, the magician had always been honest with her.
“I’ve got maybe another week at this gig,” Doc Incredible had a terrible stage name, soft brown eyes, and hands that were always in motion, but it read as nerves instead of prestidigitation. “I’m not very good at this kind of thing.”
Her smile had turned genuine, thinking his very discomfort conveyed a strange charm. It was the saving grace of his act. It made him excellent patsy material. “So what are you good at, Doc?”
He’d flipped the Ace of Spades out from nowhere and said, “Physics, Ms. Romanoff.”
Well, what’s a heist if not the expert manipulation of time and space, mass and motion, to relocate a certain poundage of linen rag etched with ink and foil? Distraction, electrons, paper, words, shadows, and expectations deceived.
He played the part she gave him, but then he played her.
She should be grateful the only damage was to her pride, aside from the fifty percent cut he skimmed, and what he’d somehow done to her hair the moment she lifted his sly note from her purloined briefcase, a minty tingle running up her arm to the top of her head. Unnerving as it was, that misdirection allowed her to escape after all.
“Blondes have more fun,” he’d written in shiny green ink on a wrinkled fiver laid atop half the currency and bearer’s bonds she’d expected, “but brunettes live to tell about it.”