Magician's Fire (3 page)

“Yes, of course…” Arthur's voice had gone very quiet indeed. “Thanks, folks…”

For some time, he said nothing more. He just sat there, staring at the cake. Uncertain what to do next, Harry didn't move either. The silence went on for so long that the icing melting under the top layer of the cake began to tilt it to one side. Harry and Billie exchanged worried looks. Then, finally, Arthur reached out a hand and picked up the knife.

“Father can ignore me as much as he likes and send as many messages as he wants about boarding schools too.” He smiled. “The three of us—we've got some serious eating to do.”

The cake flew apart. Arthur cut the first slice, and then cut two more for Billie and Harry, and then kept cutting more slices for all three of them, in between gobbling down what was on his plate. Spoons flashed, hands grabbed, bits of sponge cake bounced across the table, and Harry saw one of the customers at a nearby table duck as a blob of icing hurtled right by him.

Finally, no more slices were left, just a few crumbs and smears of icing, and these were busily devoured as well, Billie even holding her plate up to her face and rotating it so that her tongue could lick up every last trace. At last, they were done, and they tilted back their chairs and wiped a few last smears from their mouths.

“Deee-licious!” said Billie.

“The best cake I've ever tasted.” Arthur nodded. “And it's the best birthday I can remember as well.”

“And that, Artie,” said Harry, leaning back in his chair farthest of all, “was well worth standing in front of a hurtling train for!”

He meant every word. He had meant the words earlier too. And he wasn't the only one who felt that way, it seemed, because just then he felt his hand grow warm and realized that Arthur had taken hold of it. The tweed-suited boy also took hold of Billie's hand, and then Billie reached across and grabbed the only hand that remained on the table, Harry's other one. The three of them sat there, the business of the diner clattering around them. No trace of sadness on Artie's face now. It was smiling all over, and Billie was smiling as well, and Harry felt his own face break into a grin.

His eyes flicked up to the diner's clock. Then to the grimy window. Through it, a familiar spindly shape could be seen, hovering by a lamppost.

“Your birthday treat's not over yet, Artie!” Harry scraped back his chair. “It's only just beginning!”

“Really?” Arthur looked around, confused.

“I think
I
know what Harry's talking about.” Turning, Billie could clearly see the spindly shape too. “I see him,” she said.

“See him? See who?” Arthur swiveled around in his seat, trying to see.

“Herbie,” said Harry. “He came!”

Harry, Arthur, and Billie raced across the street toward the elderly figure by the lamp post.

“Hello, Herbie!”

The old man turned around. His gray hair drooped, his movements were slow, and his clothes billowed around his limbs as he gripped his walking cane. Harry leaped onto the curb, balanced there, and waited for the complicated wrinkles of Herbie's face to arrange themselves into a smile.

“Harry.” There it was. “Half past six, just as we agreed.”

“Did you bring the tickets? It's Artie's birthday, remember!”

“Of course.” The smile hung there as three rectangular stubs of paper flowered in Herbie's hand. He handed them over and started walking slowly down the street, his cane tapping. “Three tickets for tonight's performance. I assume you wish to watch me for the usual reason?”

“You bet, Mr. Lemster!” Billie hurried up, Arthur just behind. “Why else would Harry want to see a magician?”

“Maybe we could go into the theater with you? Seeing as it's my birthday?” Arthur walked along, trying to sound innocent. “Just to have a look backstage…”

“Ah, that would be quite against the rules, Arthur.” The old man gripped his cane. “I never let anyone behind the curtain. You know that. You won't attempt to meet me at the stage door after the show either, I trust?” He stopped. “That is our agreement. What if your keen eyes spotted some trace of a trick, a clue, that might remain upon me… That would be most unfair…”

“Harry'd be looking, that's for sure.” Arthur nodded. “He's seen a whole bunch of other magicians since we last met, Herbie—Chinese conjurers, Russian tricksters, Indian illusionists, you name them. Discovered something from pretty much every one of them too.”

“
Stole
, you mean,” said Billie, laughing.

“Oh, it's not stealing, young Billie.” Another smile from Herbie. “It's the whole business of trickery. A game that's been going on nearly a thousand years, I'd say. We magicians, we're all studying each other, watching each other, keenly hunting for the slightest clue, the slightest trace of each other's devices. The flick of a thumb? The dart of an arm? An ingeniously placed trapdoor? Whatever it is, if we find it fair and square, it's ours to use.” A scratching sound from his pocket and his hand rose, a flaming match gripped between finger and thumb. “A game. And young Harry's got the knack for it.”

“Sure do.” Harry watched as the flame quadrupled in size and then flew into the magician's mouth. He also saw the tiny flutter of a finger, which snuffed out the flame just as the lips closed. “I spotted that trick first time I met you, Herbie.”

“Ah, but perhaps I saw you looking?” The old magician winked as he drew the match, flaming even more brightly, out of his ear. “Perhaps I spotted you in the crowd, with your ragged clothes and shoeshine box. Perhaps I observed, from the shape of your face and the accent in your voice, that you might come from the east of Europe too, a region most famous for its tricksters and illusionists.” Another wink. “Perhaps I decided to angle myself so that you saw the device. To introduce you to the world of magic and all that it can be…”

“Doesn't explain how I picked it up so quickly.” Down by his side, Harry's fingers were twitching, mimicking the device, that deft finger flutter, and his body flinched too, as he remembered the time of that first meeting in the middle of last winter, just a few weeks after he had arrived in New York. A penniless shoeshine boy, that was all he had been then, without a friend in the whole city, struggling to earn a living on the freezing sidewalks.

“Stayed up late that night, practicing the trick, and woke up with a few scorch marks on my lips the next morning. Right away, I started doing it! Bit of a shock for the gents whose shoes I was shining, to look down and see… Herbie?”

He peered closely at the old man. He always seemed a bit frail, but this was something different. Herbie's collar was damp with sweat, even though the evening air was perfectly cool, and the tips of his fingers were trembling. Tiny signs, and neither Billie nor Arthur seemed to have noticed them. But Harry had, and he tried to look for more, only to find the old magician staring straight back at him. The trembling stopped, and Herbie Lemster's eyes started flicking over Harry instead.

“Miraculously escaped from an oncoming train, did we?” The old man walked on.

“How'd you know that?” Billie butted in.

“Faint bruising around Harry's wrists, Billie. Some tightly looped chains, I'll wager…” Herbie lifted a finger, almost steady now, and pointed. “Although the main clue is the distinct smell of engine oil drifting from young Harry's clothes, mingling with the usual boot polish. Given that, and knowing our young friend's tastes for excitement…” He managed a smile. “Spotting little clues, tiny traces—that's what we magicians are good at, you see.”

“He only just got away with it, Mr. Lemster!” Arthur said. “The crowd went totally wild!”

“Ah yes, the threat of genuine danger…” Herbie nodded, his cane tapping ahead of him. “Mind you, danger can enter a magician's life in so many ways.”

Something was definitely up. The old man's fingers were trembling again, and more perspiration gleamed on his skin. These signs seemed to become even more pronounced, Harry observed, the further Herbie shuffled along the street. Glancing across at Billie and Arthur, he saw that they had noticed Herbie's distress too, because they had fallen silent and were staring at the old man closely. Reaching the end of the street and turning the corner, Herbie covered the last few yards toward the rickety old building looming across the street.

The Wesley Jones Theater. Its walls were crumbling, its windows lopsided, and faded posters hung on its signboards advertising its regular acts, one of which was a certain Herbie Lemster, Magician. An excited crowd was already gathered outside, forming a line to buy tickets, as Harry watched his elderly friend heading off toward the theater's stage door.

“Mr. Lemster?” Billie called out after him. “Are you feeling all right?”

Herbie swung around to face them. No question that something was up now. His clothes shuddered, drops of sweat gathered in those complicated wrinkles, and Herbie's face had turned strangely pale. And yet, obvious though those signs were, the words the old magician said next did nothing to explain them or even acknowledge that they existed.

“Good luck… Good luck with the world of magic…” he stammered, eyes wide and shimmering. “And all that it can be.”

And with that, the old man turned and disappeared into the Wesley Jones Theater.

Harry sat down in the theater. The insides were dilapidated, the seats broken, the curtain grubby and moth-eaten, but the audience was bustling and excited, waiting to see their favorite acts. Harry dropped his shoeshine box by his feet and prepared to go to work which, given what had just happened, wasn't going to be easy.

“So what do you think is up with him?” Billie dropped into the next seat and kicked her boots up onto the back of the one in front. “He looked really odd.”

“I hope he's all right.” Arthur settled himself too. “Herbie got you started, Harry. If he hadn't done that, maybe none of us would have met.”

“It's true.” Billie turned to Harry. “You might never have practiced tightrope-walking on that park bench, and I'd never have picked you out.”

“Same for me and the streetcar-jumping stuff.” Arthur nodded.

“It could all be part of the act. Herbie could be doing it deliberately as a distraction.” Harry had cobbled this explanation together on the way in, and he was trying to get used to it. “He thinks that I'll worry about how he's acting and miss any little clue that might give his tricks away. It's pretty clever of ol' Herbie if you think about it.”

His friends looked at him. Billie's eyebrows were raised rather high and Arthur was frowning, but at least they weren't saying he was completely wrong. Maybe his explanation wasn't a bad one after all, and Harry decided to act as if that was the case.
The
game
. Adjusting his position, he prepared to observe the old man's act.

“By the way, Artie, have you thought any more about what you said yesterday? About my new name?”

“Ah, yes.” Still looking worried, Arthur adjusted his tie as the lights sputtered out. “A fair number of magicians invent a new one. Something that catches the attention…”

“Had any more ideas?”

“I was doing some research earlier today, actually,” Arthur continued. “Magicians sometimes name themselves after really famous magicians from long ago—that way they grab some of their reputation. Now there's this old French magician, very famous when he was alive, called Jean Robert-Houdin—”

“Quite a mouthful,” Billie commented. “And Harry doesn't speak a word of French.”

“Yes, but you could make it shorter. And change it a bit, so it's more like a name in Hungarian, which Harry obviously does speak. So
Houdin
. Stick an
i
on the end—
Houdini
.”

“Interesting—” Harry began, but by then the curtain was rising. Prettily dressed ladies sang songs, acrobats tumbled, and Harry sat with his friends, watching the show. A new act followed, in which dancers pretended to be pearl divers, floating in front of a rippling blue backcloth as if under the sea. Harry enjoyed that too, even though he immediately spotted the wires that held the dancers up and saw that the huge shark was just a shadow.

The other acts trooped on—some Cossack dancers, a man who told jokes while dressed as a parrot, the pearl divers again, and then a leopard-skin-wearing strongman named Bruno, who made three of the prettily dressed ladies sit on a chair and then lifted it.
Another wire,
Harry observed. But then Herbie appeared and Harry leaned forward, concentrating.

The tiniest twitch of Herbie's trouser pocket, the faintest bulge of a sleeve, or the tilt of a shoe could give something away. Harry glanced down at his own hands, at his knees, at his whole body. Any minute now, bits of it would start twitching to life, practicing and mimicking whatever intriguing new move was about to be discovered.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” The old man bowed before the crowd. “Observe…”

From out of his jacket, he took a large knife. He quickly peeled a potato with it, proving the blade was razor-sharp. Then he tossed the knife high in the air, and as it plummeted back down, he held out a bare hand and caught it blade first between thumb and finger. No blood on the stage, no injury of any kind.

Dazzling enough, but then other knives started hurtling toward the old magician from the back of the theater, from the boxes, from the wings of the stage, only for Herbie to catch them, one by one, in his frail, bare hands. The audience gasped, and he held the knives aloft, looking up at their glinting steel. Harry leaned even further forward in his seat, searching for a clue.

But all he could see was that Herbie was trembling again. The old man had held it together during the trick, but now that the applause was thundering around him, he was giving way, his clothes shuddering, his wrinkles glittering in the light as perspiration coursed along them. Harry glanced at his friends and saw that they also had noticed, their faces staring worriedly in the dark.

It was like that for the rest of the act. Herbie performed his flower trick, in which not only did a flower grow out of his open hand, but a huge tropical spider scampered out, danced around the flower, and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Impossible to work out, but Harry wasn't even trying now, too distracted by the return of the trembling. Next the old man shut himself in a large crate. Although a large sack of stage weights plummeted onto the crate, crushing it flat, Herbie shuffled in from the wings unharmed.

Normally he walked in quite confidently, but there was no sign of that tonight. He seemed hardly able to walk at all, staying right at the edge of the stage and clinging to the proscenium arch for support. Finally, Herbie performed his floating trick, rising into the air and drifting off over a bed of vicious-looking spikes, while moving his legs as if he were pedaling a bicycle. But still Harry found it impossible to concentrate, too troubled by the terrible paleness of the old man's face as he cycled off into the gloom.

The curtain flew down. The audience clapped, hooted, and stamped. The curtain rose again, with the performers taking a bow, and then it lowered for good. The audience started shuffling out. But Harry remained in his seat, perfectly still, and Billie and Arthur were motionless beside him.

“I suppose you could be right about Herbie's behavior being a distraction, Harry,” said Arthur after a while. “But it seems unlikely.”

“Completely unlikely,” said Billie.

“I agree,” said Harry. What was up with Herbie? What was this strange weakness that seemed to be taking him over? Harry's fingers drummed on the rickety arms of the theater seat.

“Come on, we'll find him outside. He'll be leaving by the stage door.”

“But that's against our agreement.” Arthur looked uncertain. “He doesn't want us to meet him there. He's always said—”

“That's about us discovering his tricks! This is different—we're making sure he's all right! Come on!”

Harry sprang up, his shoeshine box flying up with him. He vaulted over the back of the seats, leaving Arthur and Billie floundering behind. Marching up the aisle toward the foyer doors, the only other member of the audience who had lingered behind.

A bulky figure, swathed in a dark cape. The man was hunched over a briefcase, an arm delving inside it. The face that glanced up at Harry had an oiled and curling red mustache, two piercing eyes, and a long, thin nose. On the collar of the cape, a silver brooch with a snake spiraled around a silver sword. From the briefcase, a wisp of purple smoke.

Odd
. Harry's pace slowed. But Billie and Arthur were hurrying up the aisle behind him and slammed into his back.
Need
to
find
Herbie
, Harry thought as he snatched his gaze away from the strange figure and swept on, out of the theater.