Michael couldn’t afford to eat in any of the places around the store, so Emily brought him sandwiches and juice, and when she had time she stood watch at entrances he couldn’t cover. On Thursday evening, when the store was open late, they both stayed until nine and were the last to leave. Even the nun was gone by then.
Emily was by no means an enthusiastic accomplice in this operation. She had been opposed to Michael’s stakeout project from the start, but all her efforts to argue him out of it, to persuade him of the illogicality of such a hunt, to point out that he could ill spare time spent in what must surely prove a fruitless search, to express the nameless dread she felt at the prospect of success, however unlikely, collided with his obstinate determination to confront the strange old man who had undone him. As far as Emily was concerned, Michael’s understandable curiosity had grown into a dangerous obsession; it was beyond reason, and no good could come of it. She told herself the Queer Duck would never reappear; he had, after all, stolen Michael’s wallet and a considerable sum of money. And then she told herself that if he did show up, Michael would need her help. That rationale, working in tandem with love, did the rest, and so against her better judgment she stood at the entrance to the store, a loyal sentinel, conscientiously scrutinizing the passing throngs for a bizarre figure she hoped she’d never see again.
On the days when Emily couldn’t help him, Michael would go home by himself, hot, frustrated, and exhausted. He resolved to abandon the search, get back on the street in whiteface, pick up some cash. The whole idea was crazy, the proverbial haystack was too large, no matter how precious the proverbial needle. But then he would remember man-into-frog, the weird, almost obscene thrill he’d experienced, the total “frogginess” of those moments.
Ga-dunk.
On the Saturday night, sluggish from more useless searching, five glasses of wine, and an hour of lovemaking with Emily, he lay in the dark beside her sleeping form. Gazing at the smoky blue halo the dim outside light spread across her black hair, he relaxed completely and let fantasies shimmer across his mind. All over again, he allowed himself to be seduced by the idea of the power he sought, surrendering to the allure of the undiscovered mystery, offering himself false hopes, false promises. Yet, despite his weariness, and perhaps because he could hear Emily’s gentle breathing, he saw with total clarity that he was falling in thrall to a mania, becoming a slave to a dream.
Because Bloomingdale’s was open only during the afternoon on Sunday, Michael yielded to Emily’s pleas and agreed to hang around the brightly gilded Sherman statue at the foot of Central Park. She played her flute while he, not bothering with makeup or miming, performed some simple magic—the cut-and-knot rope trick, the water-in-the-bottle number—and earned a few dollars in the process.
Michael knew, as did any street performer, that working the streets, especially in a city so diverse as New York, was a great challenge. Faced with a crowd whose moods were unpredictable, and over whose movements he had no control, the street magician had to be brave, quick witted, coolheaded, and highly skilled, or he should consider other ways of making a living. But Michael had great confidence in his artistry, and he delighted in winning over a crowd, the more heterogeneous the better. He loved doing the water number, it always got the kids, and he liked the kids best. Kids and magic were made for each other.
First he’d fill an empty Coke bottle with water from a paper cup, then upend the open glass mouth on his palm, announcing that he could “control” water; and so it seemed he could. He would slide the mouth of the bottle off his hand and command the water not to pour, and it would not. Or order it to pour, and it would. Stop. Pour. Stop. Pour. The kids would take it up, chanting and laughing, until the bottle was finally empty. Even the sandwich-board man wearing an ad for the latest Donald Trump book stopped his march up and down the sidewalks and seemed to be enjoying Michael’s performance.
Or the rope trick. Cutting it in lengths and bringing it out whole again from behind his palm. But those were easy dodges; he’d done them ten years ago for the Elks Club of Genesee, Ohio. Crowd pleasers, but trifles.
Michael knew he should have put on whiteface and given them the Mechanical Man number. There was more money in that, but it was too hot for makeup and all those physical gyrations.
And still no sign of the Queer Duck. Sundays at Veterans Plaza in a heat wave evidently wasn’t his style. The sandwich-board man, on the other hand, had stayed on to the very end, hugging the edge of the plaza or General Sherman’s pedestal, watching from behind his dark glasses. Only when it was clear that Michael planned no more tricks did he return to his job of silent sidewalk salesman.
According to an old joke, on any Sunday night in New York, the city’s entire Jewish population could be found having Chinese food. The old rabbi riding the subway with Michael and Emily, however, seemed to be an exception. And then again, maybe he was on his way, Michael thought. They were going downtown on the Lexington Avenue line, headed for Chinatown’s Mott Street and Sunday supper with Emily’s parents, the Changs.
Emily had been raised in Chinatown, where her father imported plum sauce and other delicacies from Hong Kong. They were a large, wealthy, handsome family, the boys slim and somewhat aloof, American slang sounding strange in their mouths, and the girls elegant and poised.
Michael could tell that Mr. Chang objected to him, didn’t approve of his not having a proper job, nor of Emily’s joining him in the mimes. Her oldest brother felt the same way. Charlie Chang (Number One Son, as Michael privately called him) was coolly polite, but Michael knew Charlie knew he was sleeping with his sister and didn’t like it. This veiled but palpable hostility bothered Michael only slightly. He by nature sought the approval of others, yet when forced to make a decision, he would always choose in his own behalf, even if it meant alienating others. He loved Emily, and she loved him—he was secure with that. If her family didn’t approve, well, too bad.
Michael’s recent general unease had made him feel more uncomfortable than usual tonight. As soon as it was feasible, he had suggested that he had a busy day tomorrow—a pronouncement that drew smirks from Mr. Chang and Charlie—and had made his escape with Emily. They walked the few blocks north to Houston Street, where they could catch a subway that would take them uptown to the West Side.
The D train was unusually crowded for a Sunday night. Emily and Michael found adjoining seats, but they were soon knee to knee with a young man who stood before them, holding onto an overhead rod and listening to his Walkman. He loomed above them as though enraptured, his eyes half closed, his lips parted, his head thrown back. His earphones fit loosely, and the volume was so high that the sound cut through the whoosh and clatter of the subway. Michael wasn’t sure what the man was listening to, but he was sure it wasn’t Kenny G. The added irritation of malfunctioning air-conditioning in their car served to make what was in fact a relatively brief trip seem interminable. He sat with his eyes closed, clutching Emily’s hand tightly, his only goal to reach Emily’s apartment as soon as possible so they could shut themselves away from the rest of the world. He was too excited by the prospect, too absorbed by his need to escape the subway with its heat and clatter to notice the same rabbi they’d seen before, sitting with his newspaper at the rear of the car.
Emily’s father’s money made it possible for her to live in what Michael considered luxury, a few blocks from Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School, where she studied music. They got off at the Columbus Circle station and by an unspoken agreement hurried along the sizzling streets until they were safely inside the apartment.
They made love once, urgently and athletically, in the shower, and then again, languidly and deeply, on Emily’s bed, while the ceiling fan ticked like a slow metronome above them. Afterward they cuddled in contented silence. He put his nose against her neck, smelling her skin and her hair, remembering their first night together, in New Hampshire, a little over a year ago. They were both working at the Rustic Theater in a modest little
summer musical production, she as part of the small orchestra and Michael as the leading man, and staying at the same boarding-house. One night, sleepless with desire and praying that the feeling was mutual, he’d simply gotten up, tiptoed to her room, and slipped into bed. She’d started awake, raising herself on her elbows and looking at him; then she’d murmured, “My dream come true,” and rolled into his arms.
Everything between them afterward had been equally smooth and trouble-free, all year long. Michael had at first thought that this was a temporary liaison, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. The relationship was still undefined, still in flux, but Michael was sure that it was based on more than physical attraction and sexual energy. He felt at peace with Emily in a way that he had never known before.
As he lay next to her, hanging on the edge of sleep, each of his dwindling senses still filled with her presence, he allowed himself to realize that he was crazy about her, and for the first time in many nights it was Emily’s sunlit, smiling image, and not the frightening memory of an ominous black-clad figure, that accompanied Michael into unconsciousness.
Emily was busy the next day, with classes and related matters, all neglected that past week, so Michael staked out Bloomingdale’s alone, foregoing his performance and once again wandering the store’s aisles. And once again he failed to see the Queer Duck. Afterward, alone in his apartment, and despite his exhaustion, he couldn’t sleep, so he went for a walk, wandering aimlessly for a while through the small, triangular plot of Needle Park near the Ansonia Hotel. Though it was after midnight, it seemed that half the population of the city was still outdoors, plastered flat by the heat, lolling like melting statues on the benches, dull eyed, listless, stolidly resentful, as if come together in maleficence, felons waiting for doomsday. He passed people with fast food, eating, dropping papers and garbage; people with radios, listening; people with ice-cream cones, licking; the homeless, limp with sleepless despair.
He walked several blocks south on Broadway, stalking nothing but the night, eventually turning back north on Columbus Avenue. As he shuffled down Seventy-second Street to his apartment, having covered a lot of distance and gotten nowhere, he never noticed the man wearing an eye patch and leaning in a doorway across the street.
Upstairs, Michael stretched out on his wrinkled sheets, staring at the ceiling. His head felt fuzzy, and his thoughts jumped erratically from subject to subject, but he found that he didn’t want to dwell on any of them and descended at last into a troubled sleep.
On Tuesday it was back to Bloomie’s, again without Emily, again on the in-store patrol, and again without luck. Bored and fatigued by his own doggedness, he stopped at the notions counter, imagining how easy it would be to fill his pockets with shoplifted goods. He even went so far as to test his skill on a pair of small, blunt-edged scissors, taking them in his fingers, trying them out, examining them for flaws as though trimming nose hairs was a very serious business, then sliding them up his sleeve and back down again, fast, smooth, undetected. But as he replaced the scissors an uneasy feeling passed over him like a hot breath, and when he turned, he saw someone watching him: a rabbi, much like the one he’d seen on Sunday, complete with black suit, black hat, earlocks, tieless collar, and a hairy face, the eyes hidden behind dark glasses. As the man moved up the escalator, peering down over his shoulder, an amused smile seemed to play about his dark lips.
That night Michael used his dwindling funds to treat Emily and himself to Cuban food at Victor’s Cafe, followed by a movie. Paying for the dinner check and the movie tickets was only a gesture; he knew Emily would reimburse him. She did, and he took the money under protest.
Back at her apartment, they made love in the dim bedroom. Later she brought him lemonade, and they lay chatting. Inevitably the conversation came around to the Queer Duck, and once again she tried to dissuade Michael from continuing his search. “You can’t win. If you don’t find him, you’re wasting your time, and if you do find him, you’re in serious trouble. Can’t you give it up?”
“You know I can’t. What kind of trouble?”
“I don’t know—danger, something bad. The guy's spooky.” Emily sat up. “Michael, what he did to you was frightening. Terrible.” She paused. “And evil, Michael. Evil. That man is evil. Oh, please give this up.”
Michael tried to tease her out of her anger and fear, but she was too upset to yield easily. Finally she responded to his calming entreaties, and at last she slept.
The next morning, Emily still had some practicing to do, so Michael left and prowled the streets again, as if suddenly, from around the corner, out of nowhere, the Queer Duck would miraculously appear. This was what he hoped for, all he could hope for now, really. He knew it was pointless to return to Bloomingdale’s. All he could hope now was that one day he would look up and the old man would just be there.
But the days came and went, and he wasn’t. Money was becoming a more urgent matter. Michael’s last reserves were about to vanish, and if he didn’t get back to his street act, he didn’t get to pass the hat. No hat, no dough, and his landlady was beginning to hassle him.
The clue to finding the Queer Duck, of course, was the button, the thing in the old man’s lapel. But what was it? Why couldn’t he dredge it up? He remembered it as a common object, something he’d seen before. The trick was in remembering where.
Michael struggled to drive all thoughts from his mind but this one, and he did so successfully. In doing so, however, he entered a kind of dreamworld of exhaustion and frustration, and his actions became more and more automatic, as if he were indeed performing as the Mechanical Man, all day long. Classes were taking up a lot of Emily’s time, and at night she was busy with rehearsals for a concert, so he often returned alone to his own apartment, paying little heed to the Italian beggar who had lately been hanging around his block with an outstretched hand and a whining voice: “Niente da mangiare, cinque bambini, niente da mangiare, cinque bambini.” Five kids? Surely the man was too old, Michael thought. He would slip him a quarter and head for his doorway, not noticing the toes of the shiny patent-leather shoes that protruded below the pants cuffs.
Alone in his unairconditioned apartment, he would try to sleep. And he would fail.
In those unsettling hours, when this alien city roared and screeched outside his open windows, Michael allowed himself a rare moment of doubt. Would anything ever come of this? Had this small-town boy, abandoned by his mother and father, finally pushed too far? And it wasn’t just the Queer Duck. He would or he would not find the strange old man. In the end, that would take care of itself, probably already had, for Michael sensed the chase was somehow over. Only he wasn’t sure who had found whom.
And so he sat alone, waiting—for whatever it was that would happen next. And obsessing about being ready. To stay alert, as well as to sharpen his skills, he spent much of his time working his card drills. Half-fanning or full-fanning, split-decking or under-carding, single-cutting or double- and triple-cutting, refining spreads, shuffles, pinky breaks, side-jogs, fixes, flipping up the aces where they should appear, losing and finding them again, making black red and red black, moving his fingers like machine parts, keeping them in perfect working order, improving the flow of the cards, always, always improving. Or perfecting a variation on a triple split, making the cards do everything but walk by themselves and all the time pondering how he might do even that. Or switching to half-dollars, palming and repalming, under-knuckling them, losing them, finding them, pulling them from elbow or ear or thin air, making them disappear back into elbow or ear or thin air again. Hour after hour, devising a new subtlety for an old sleight, something that would make it just a shade different, that much better, more clever and adroit.
Presto the Great, that was him. The Greatest Magician in the World.
But cards and coins weren’t enough. So once more he would be reminded of his tormentor, the Queer Duck, and once again he was dazzled by the idea of utter mastery and envied it with his entire being. He felt
mounting excitement, as always when he let his mind surrender to the lure of such uncanny power. What if he could acquire it, learn to exercise it—whatever it was? It seemed somehow as if it were there for him, waiting to be discovered; hypnotism, perhaps, but of a range and intensity nobody had ever seen before.
But how was it done? he kept asking himself. How do you learn something like that? You wouldn’t find it in books. Then how? Of course…
Find the man.
One afternoon, walking toward Fifth Avenue on East Fifty-second Street, he saw Dazz coming out of La Grenouille, a restaurant Michael knew to be far too rich for his own means. Dazz was accompanied by a plump, swarthy, expensively dressed man Michael didn’t at first recognize, and by the unmistakable Beulah Wales. Only as Michael approached the three, who were absorbed in animated conversation, did he realize that the other man was Samir Abdel-Noor himself, all flashing teeth and jewelry, but changed in some indefinable way.
Dazz, ushering his companions into the waiting limousine, looked up and saw Michael coming. He smiled broadly, leaned over to speak a few words inside the car, and then stepped gingerly aside to avoid being flattened by his patron, who came bursting out of the vehicle with surprising agility. Ululating joyously, he charged Michael with open arms, engulfing him in an embrace and kissing him with disconcerting enthusiasm on both cheeks. “My friend, the worker of miracles!” he exclaimed, pummeling Michael’s shoulders while Dazz and the rather more ponderously emerging Beulah Wales beamed approbation. “You have made me a new man,” Samir was gushing. “I am born again!”