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time she’d turned the poodle trainer’s entire curly pack loose. The vicious little ankle biters had spent hours terrorizing the entire carnival until they’d been cornered after they took the Dog Boy down. Ten tiny sets of furry hips humping against both of his legs, Artie had never quite been the same. For that escapade, Abby had been sent to bed an hour early. With a big piece of cheesecake.
    Shaking my head, I repeated, “Go on, Amazing. Be nice to your parents; they’re damn nice to you.”
    She slid out of the chair and rocked back and forth on her heels. “Will you …” Chewing her lip, she scowled and tried again. “Will you write me?”
    It would’ve been easier to lie, kinder, too, like I had done to that kid Charlie at Cane Lake, but I didn’t. My entire childhood had been a house of cards built of lies. I was tired of it. I wasn’t going to build my own house of the same. “I don’t know.” The flash of utter hurt in her eyes was a harsh kick, to the head, to the stomach, to the balls. It didn’t matter. It was still painful as hell. “I’ll try,” I amended. “I can’t make promises, though, Amazing. I’m …” I was what? An outsider deep down? Someone better off alone? A psychological study that would have a grad student pissing his pants in joy? A screwed-up son of a bitch who already hadsisters, one dead and one lost, and didn’t want to take that risk again? I didn’t have a clue. But I did know I couldn’t make promises I didn’t have the inner resources to keep. “I’m not much of a letter writer,” I finished with a faint curl of my lips. “But I’ll give it my best shot, Amazing. For you.” She wasn’t Charlie, not old enough to know that sometimes things don’t work out. After a few months, she would forget me, anyway, mostly. She’d find a boyfriend or discover some new hobby besides a messed-up psychic. She would pass the way of all sisters, one way or the other. I could write a letter or two until then. It wouldn’t kill me.
    “You’d better. You’d better write.” She moved toward the tent flap and slipped through, trailing hair and unicorn tail behind her. A split second later, she stuck her head back in and said, “Oh, I almost forgot. I hate you.” And then she was gone.
    I returned to the cards. They didn’t talk to me; they never would. I wished the same could be said about other things. “So long, Amazing,” I murmured, the comforting flow of a solitaire game dealt out before me. “I’m sorry, but I have plans.” I did, too. Plans for a house that didn’t smell of booze and cabbage. Plans for money and independence. Plans for a life where I could walk down the street and not automatically be labeled white trash. Plans where I was somebody. A big fish in a small pond, it didn’t matter. I would be somebody. I would be Jackson Lee, the All Seeing Eye.
    Not the redheaded bastard from down Rooster Pike way. Not the boy with thrift-store clothes and the homegrown haircut. Not the kid with the occasional black eye and the smart mouth. No, I was done being that kid. I was going to change that for good. I had plans, all right.
    I never thought that Abby did, too.

4
     
    There’s a sucker born every minute.
    Someone really on top of their shit had said that once. Some said it was the great con artist of his or any time, P. T. Barnum. Others said it was one of his competitors who coined the phrase. Not that it mattered. What mattered was the message, the inner truth of the words. There’s a sucker born every minute. It was staggering in its simplicity, heart-stopping in its beauty. It was also a personal mantra, my nightly prayer. Picture it, if you will. Me, on my knees beside my bed, hands clasped earnestly as I asked for nothing more than people as dumb as a box of hair to chase me down the street and throw money at me. More angelic a picture you couldn’t find.
    Of course, it was a nice image but not strictly true. I didn’t have to beg.