“Coins though; everybody has them.”
“I guess.”
“Can you do magic with coins?”
Corky waggled his hand. “I ain’t Leipzig,” he said, and when she looked puzzled, added, “he was the master when it came to coins.”
“I didn’t know it was so specialized.”
“Listen, there are thimble nuts—guys who spend their whole lives mainly on that. Cigarette guys. You kind of have to be a little weird to be a magician.”
Peg got her wallet out of her purse. “Okay; fool me.”
Corky lit a cigarette; inhaled. “I didn’t know I was going to have to sing for my supper.” He went over, sat on the living room couch, brought an ashtray, put it on the coffee table.
Peg came over, sat beside him. “Here’s a quarter. Be wonderful.”
“That’s all? Thanks a lot.”
Peg watched him. He hesitated, holding the quarter in his right hand. She took one of his cigarettes, lit it, waited.
“I’m trying to think what might be a good way to begin,” Corky said.
She sat, inhaling deeply. The cigarette tasted wonderful after all the wine. Sometimes they tasted like hay, but this one was worth the cancer scare. She inhaled again, and then started looking around because Corky had been smoking but now he wasn’t, and the ashtray was empty, and she didn’t want her very best piece of furniture catching fire.
“Okay,” Corky said, “I’ve got it. Could I have a coin please?”
“I gave you the quarter.”
“No, you said you would but you didn’t.”
She looked at his right hand. He hadn’t moved it or done anything else. But the coin was gone. Peg watched as he inhaled on his cigarette. Funny, she thought, he’s smoking again.
“Have you started doing things yet?”
“I can’t very well do anything until I have something to do it with. Let me have a quarter, huh?”
She gave him a quarter.
And his cigarette was gone. Peg glanced at the empty ashtray.
“If you haven’t got a quarter, give me a dime.”
She looked. The second quarter was gone. And he was smoking again.
“Oh you bastard, you have too started.”
“What?” He looked very innocent.
Peg started to laugh.
“If you’d ever give me a coin and I flipped it all the way to the ceiling and had it land on edge on the coffee table, that would be incredible, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Do it, do it.”
“I don’t know how to do it,” Corky told her. “I told you, I’m not an expert with coins. I think you’re sitting on the quarters maybe.”
Peg got up. The quarters were on the sofa cushion. She looked at Corky. His cigarette was gone. She picked up the quarters, handed them to him. He was smoking again. “Oh wow, that’s wonderful.”
“If I ever get around to doing anything, maybe it will be.” He put the cigarette out in the ashtray, reached over, pulled a quarter from her ear. Then he found another on top of her head. He took them back, closed his fist, blew on it, asked her to stand again. The quarters were back beneath her on the sofa cushion.
Then he really started putting on a show. Peg just sat there staring because she’d loved magic since she was a kid, loved being fooled but knowing it was all going to come out right if you just waited, and after a little she went and got more wine, opening the second bottle, pouring a large glass for each of them, and she put all the change from her purse on the table, nickels and pennies and dimes, and he picked them up idly, talking about whether or not he should try the Sympathetic Coins sleight or maybe Thieves and Sheep would be easier and each time he suggested something he would argue himself out of it because he wasn’t really secure on all the moves and while he was talking the coins seemed to fly, appearing and disappearing and reappearing, jumping from place to place as if they were doing it on their own because he certainly didn’t seem to be doing anything to help them, just sitting there trying to figure out what to do, always deciding against doing anything at all because he could try the Tenkia Exchange, sure, any jerk could try it but any jerk could goof it too, so that was a no-no and maybe the Waiter’s Tip would impress her but not if he blew the flip, if that happened she’d probably laugh at his fumbling, so finally what he decided to do was nothing at all, he really wasn’t a coin man, he’d never really been into coins enough for public consumption, and while he went into his final apology he went into a double roll and Peg stared as the two quarters walked across the back of Corky’s hands—they seemed almost to be doing that, walking, as they went from the second finger across the middle to the ring, then around the pinkie and under on the thumb, then back to the index again, chasing each other around his hands in a final wonderous flourish and he was done.
Peg just sat there.
Corky got up, walked to the window that overlooked the lake, stared down in the direction of his cabin.
“Have you ever considered a career in magic?” Peg said.
Corky glanced over at her, smiled.
Peg watched him. He was looking down toward his cabin again. “Is it getting late for you again? You have to leave?”
“Of course not.”
“Then listen, I know magicians never tell and all that, but how do you do that stuff?”
“If you really thought, you’d figure it. People just don’t much want to know the truth. If they did, we’d all be out of business.”
“I don’t know how you did that with the cigarette—sometimes you were smoking, sometimes it was gone, and you never once moved your hands up to your mouth.”
“If I tell you just the one, can we change the subject?”
Peg waited.
Corky lowered his voice slightly. “That looked like a real cigarette, but actually it was rolled in vanishing paper, you inhale on it a certain way, it gets invisible—I don’t do that one a lot because the paper costs a fortune, you have to cure it for weeks to get it to disappear properly. If you buy the cheap kind, instead of getting invisible it turns green.”
“You’re really a crumb.”
“Think.”
“C’mon, Corky, you said you’d tell me.”
“Changed my mind; you do the telling. If it isn’t invisible and I don’t use my hands, where could it go?”
“Your mouth? You just zap it inside and leave it there, burning and all? That’s got to be it.”
“It’s called tonguing,” Corky explained. “It’s a technique. Like everything else in magic.”
“My God, doesn’t it burn?”
“You can singe yourself pretty good when you’re learning, I’ll admit that.”
“When you say everything, you don’t mean everything. Like sword swallowers don’t really swallow swords.”
“Sure they do.”
“Don’t they get sick to their stomachs?”
“They do that too. If they keep on getting sick to their stomachs, they generally tend to drift into another occupation.”
“Nerts,” Peg said.
“This shouldn’t bother you. You were the one who asked about knowing secrets in the first place.”
“Can you explain everything?”
“Pretty much.”
“Pretty much isn’t the same as everything though—what’s there you can’t explain?”
“You mean what do I know about that’s ‘magic’—impossible, something that couldn’t happen but did?”
Peg nodded, turned her wineglass.
“Hey, I’d really like changing the subject. Right here.”
“How come?”
“Magic’s to entertain—you don’t take it seriously. Don’t look for more than’s there.”
“And you think I’m doing that?”
“I think.”
“I’m really not, I’m having a very good time, it’s just that I get bugged when—” She gestured outside. It was already beginning to darken slightly. Peg looked at her watch. “Thre
e-twenty and the shadows getting longer.”
From somewhere in the surrounding woods now, another cry from the cat.
“Probably got himself a grizzly,” Corky said.
“Tell me about the impossible thing, please?”
Corky came back to the couch, picked up a couple of coins, began fiddling them around. “Okay, briefly. I’ll thumbnail it and then over and out, deal?”
“ ’Course.”
“I didn’t see this, I wasn’t there, ordinarily I would never believe it, except it was Merlin told me.”
“Who?”
“Merlin, Jr. He was my teacher. I guess I kind of worshiped him, if that doesn’t sound too unmanly.”
“What was the impossible thing?”
“First,” Corky said, and he made a flourish; “the mystery of the Alchemist’s Coin.”
“Do that later—come on—why are you putting me off?”
Corky spun the coins on the table. “Because I don’t know where this is going, and it’s bad for magicians when they don’t feel in control.”
“Just stop worrying so much.”
Corky started talking very fast. “Merlin was a great artist, as good as the game, and I know you’ve never heard of him but that’s because he wasn’t successful, not because he didn’t have the skills—he was ugly; fierce-looking. Big, powerful. He frightened people. Kids mostly. He scraped all his life. It made him tough. He was a hard man, you better believe that. So when he told me about this, even though I knew it was bullshit, I wasn’t so sure it was bullshit, if you follow.”
Peg had her wineglass in her hands now, fingers locked.
“I never knew his wife, but he adored her. He called her his ‘dumpling’—you can’t believe how weird that sounded, this giant of a ferocious guy with this dopey tone coming into his voice whenever he talked about his ‘dumpling.’ I’ve seen her picture. She had a sweet face, pretty as hell, at least for those days, and this blimp body. A tub. They made some colorful team, I guess—they worked together in his act—him with this hussar’s face and her looking like a Shirley Temple doll perched on a barrel. Anyway, that’s the cast of characters, the two of them.”
“And the impossible thing?”
“He claimed he could read her mind.”
The coins started dancing over Corky’s fingers again. “Not all the time. And not often. But toward the end, the days before she died, that’s when he said it happened.”
“You really believe it, don’t you?”
Corky shrugged, the coins stopped parading. “I’m not sure. I guess I want to.” He shivered. “I’d love a fire.”
“Finish up, then we’ll have one.”
“Nothing to finish. Merlin and his wife, when they were doing their act, they used to include the standard telepathy crap, with cards mostly, all the fake stuff that works best in the small towns. Then, toward the end, in the hospital, they began passing the time with this and that and they tried it for real. It never worked until just before the cancer got her. The week she died it happened. He always blamed himself for that—he never wanted it badly enough to happen before. He never concentrated enough to try and grab onto what she was trying to send him. Those last days they both wanted it enough; wanted to touch each other enough, was how he put it. They were desperate for something to remember.”
Peg finished her wine, poured some more. She filled Corky’s glass too. “Do you know how they did it? I mean, the exact procedures and everything?”
“Sure.”
“How?”
“Why?”
“Interested is all.”
“Well I’m not and I’d really like a fire.”
“I have lots of cards.”
“I told you already, I don’t want to get into this.”
“We’re not getting into anything, Corky; we’re just two old acquaintances passing the time.”
“That’s not so and you know it.”
“Let me just get the cards. It’ll be fun.”
“You want me to try it.”
“Why would that be so terrible?”
“Because I’d fail.”
“Don’t get so all hot and bothered. You wouldn’t be the first; people fail all the time.”
“You wouldn’t like it.”
“Oh, Corky, I wouldn’t care.”
“Believe me on this.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Of course I’m afraid.”
“Of what, dummy?”
Corky drank half his wine. “Let’s just say I don’t want you thinking bad of me.”
“But I wouldn’t.”
“Good. You say so, I believe you, let’s not push it.”
“I can’t conceive of me ever thinking bad of you—frankly, the only thing that might upset me is if you wouldn’t try, because that would show you didn’t trust me when I said I was only interested in a little fun.”
“I’m under enough pressure without this. I’m trying to get away from pressure, that’s why I’m here, I told you all that.”
“I think we should forget the whole thing.”
“Don’t use that tone, please, Peg.”
“You’re already mind reading me, aren’t you.”
“Don’t use that tone, please, Peg.”
“All I said was let’s forget it.”
“But you don’t mean that.”
“Look at him,” Peg said. “Mind reading me again.”
Corky finished his wine.
There was a long pause.
“Well, what do you want to talk about now,” Peg said, finally.
“If you’re going to disapprove of me, I guess it doesn’t matter if I fail or not, get the cards.”
She got up right away, went for the foyer closet where the cards always were, wondering why she was acting this way, making him do something, why was she being so bitchy. She wasn’t, almost never, it wasn’t her way.
But you are now, she thought as she opened the closet door, started to rummage around. “Any special kind of deck, color or anything?”
“Any two.”
She grabbed contrasting bicycles, a red and a black, brought them to the coffee table, put them down. “How did this Merlin do it?” she asked.
“Shuffle both the decks. Get the jokers out if there are any.”
There were. She put them aside. “Now shuffle?”
“First one, then the other.”
She shuffled, and he sat beside her watching her do it. When she was done she waited.
“Which deck do you want, red or black?”
She surprised herself and picked black.
“The red one’s mine then; push it away from you and leave it there.”
She did.
He got up and walked away, his back to her. His back still turned, he stopped. “All right, pick a card from your deck.”
She reached in, came up with the ten of hearts. “Okay.”
“Now look at it.”
“I did.”
“You must really look at it.”
“I’m looking, Jesus, don’t get mad at me.” Ten of hearts, ten of hearts; she repeated it half a dozen times to herself. “Ready.”
“Put it on the pack and cut the pack.”
Peg did.
“Cut it again, cut it half a dozen times if you want. Then square it up.”
She decided three cuts were enough. Then she made the pack neat. “Ready for orders.”
“Take my pack.”
She picked up the red one.
“Go through it till you find the same card in my pack, then take it out.”
She found his ten of hearts.
“When you’re done, put my pack away, just keep the one card.”
When she was finished she said, “What’s going to happen now?”
“Tell me what’s happened so far.”
“Well, I got out the cards and I shuffled both decks and I picked the deck I wanted and I picked the card I wanted and I cut the cards after that.” r />
“And where was I?”
“Standing with your back turned.”
Corky turned around and faced her. “Well, that’s kind of it. What happened next was Merlin took his wife’s pack with the card in and she held the card from his pack, and she put it next to her heart and cleared her mind except whatever that card was and he went through her pack trying to pick up her card and those last few days, he was able to.”
“What’s my card?”
“I don’t know—I’ve got a one in fifty-two chance of guessing. The reason you go through all the rigmarole—your cards, you doing all the work, me with my back turned—that’s so if it works you know it really did, no one can question any—”
“I’m thinking of my card,” Peg said. Ten of hearts, ten, ten, keep thinking of the ten, Peggy old girl, ten ten ten of hearts ten of hearts. “What is it?”
Corky looked embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“Well you’re not concentrating, pick up my pack, go through it like you’re supposed to.”
He reached over, picked up her pack, looked at the faces of the cards, going through them one at a time.
Peg put the card by her left breast and closed her eyes wondering why she wanted this so badly, she hadn’t the foggiest, but she did, she did want it.
Very badly.
Ten, dammit please, ten of hearts, Christ, just say ten of hearts, Corky, I’m thinking so hard of the ten of hearts the ten of hearts the ten of hearts say it.
She opened her eyes.
“Nothing,” Corky said.
Peg stared at him and pushed the card harder against her body and thought of nothing but the card, the one card, the ten, the red ten the red goddam ten of goddam hearts.
She saw the expression hit his face, and then he was whispering, “… omijesus it’s red, isn’t it? …”
“I—I wouldn’t know, it might be, maybe not, go on.” She started to close her eyes again.
“No,” Corky managed. “We must watch each other. And you’ve got to think harder than you ever thought about anything because I want this to happen now Peg and it will. I know it’s red, I saw the color in my mind now look at me and please think.”
Peg thought. Ten, ten don’t think of anything else but the ten, the heart ten, it must be the heart ten, if it isn’t the ten of hearts get rid of it, banish it, make him see the ten of hearts—