The Magic Touch (24 page)

O O O

“Well, I’ve enjoyed myself,” Jeff said, after they had walked back within a few hundred yards of the Assembly Hall. “I’d better get home. It’s a long drive back. Come out our way soon, and I’ll try and show you a good time. Ray, stay in touch, huh?”

“You bet,” Ray said. He watched Jeff drive off, thinking he’d made a new friend. Rose waved good-bye until Jeff’s car was out of sight.

“What a nice young man,” she said, turning them around toward their part of the neighborhood.

“Yeah, he is. So, how about Monday?” Ray asked, starting the familiar banter, as he walked Rose home. He knew she’d say Wednesday, and he could start negotiating. He was feeling pretty good about things. The betrayal Guthrie had suggested had turned out to be just a ploy to divide him from his peer group, and they’d had a really good day.

“Tomorrow,” Rose began with significant emphasis, and Ray felt his hopes soar, “my son and his family are coming over to spend a few days visiting the old lady.” Ray felt his spirits plummet. “So I’ve got to do some fairy-
grand
mothering.” She laughed. “And my son is going to install my new air conditioner. It’s been so hot these last few days I hate to go home. It’ll be nice to have it in for August. The
Farmer’s Almanac
said it’ll be the hottest month in ten years.”

Ray felt bereft. “For how long?”

“Oh, a week. No longer than a week. They can’t stand my little apartment for that long.” Rose chuckled. “And I need my privacy. I never thought I’d say that after raising a houseful of children, but there you are. People change.”

“What am
I
supposed to do?” Ray asked. The question came out a wail, and Rose looked sympathetic.

“I know! How about coming over on Tuesday for supper? It’s the fourth. We can watch the fireworks together.” Ray shook his head, too disappointed to accept a substitute for fairy-godmothering. A whole week! “No?” Rose asked, watching his face, and completely misinterpreting his unhappiness. “How about cookies and lemonade? My son would like to meet you. You’re both so smart.”

“Okay,” Ray said, accepting a compromise. A snack wouldn’t take up much time. He liked Rose, but he didn’t want to spend hours talking to her kids, since they weren’t interested in fairy-godparenting. He’d rather be out with her, granting wishes. “We can go out after that?”

Rose frowned. “Not really, sweetheart. Not with them there. But you don’t need me. Go ahead and practice on your own. You’re developing good judgment. Or you could always hook up with one of the other senior members for a day or so.”

Ray kicked the pavement, and a pebble, invisible in the dark, bounced off into traffic. “I’d rather wait until you’re free. I’m more comfortable with you.”

“I like you, too, dear, but sometimes I have to do family things. I really cannot go out granting wishes while they’re around.”

Ray sulked. “You don’t want your family to hang with me because I’m a kid. Or because I’m black.” He knew that was dishonest and untrue, but it escaped his lips before he could call it back. In the pale neon light of the next store front he saw that Rose looked very hurt.

“No, dear, dear Ray,” she said, very gently. “For the same reason you don’t want to haul your little sister with you everywhere you go, I don’t want my son hanging over our shoulders. He complains about everything. He thinks magic is uncontrollable and unpredictable. And he would worry! ‘Where are you going?’ he would ask us. ‘When will you be back? Mother, you can’t go out walking at night! The streets are dangerous!’” Her mimicry had so many characteristic gestures it was obviously taken from life. “And it’s too bad he’s so skeptical about magic. I think he’d make a wonderful tooth fairy.” Ray grinned in spite of himself.

“Okay, I’m overreacting. I’m sorry I said that. Really. I’m just tripping over my tongue today.”

“Yes, you are overreacting, but I understand,” Rose said, reaching up to pat him on the cheek. “Look, you don’t need to hang around the old lady to have fun. The summer is so short, you’ll be back in school before you know it. Go be with your friends. Enjoy.”

“You’re my friend,” Ray said softly.

Rose squeezed his hand. “And you’re my friend, too. But I meant the friends who are your age. We’ll be together again very soon. You know that.”

Ray wasn’t completely satisfied. “What about clients who come up while you’re ‘doing family things’? Emergencies?”

Rose said briskly, “You can go out and take care of any cases you think you can handle on your own. You’re very capable. I trust you.”

Well, that did it. Ray wouldn’t dare to take on a major wish-granting session on his own, particularly not emergencies. He’d sooner call in one of the bigwigs to do the job for him. “I’ll take the week off,” he mumbled, as they got to her door. “See you next week, I guess.”

“Monday,” she said, pulling open her purse. She put the wand inside, and extracted her house key. “That’s a promise.”

“Monday?” he asked, surprised. “Don’t you have to grade papers or serve juice or something?”

“No school,” Rose said. “Summer vacation. It’s July. Remember?”

“Right,” Ray said, shaking his head at his own obtuseness. “Great! See you soon.” He glanced at the dial of his watch, and gulped. “I’ve got to roll. I’ve got to get home for dinner, or Grandma will skin me.”

O O O

Ray threw her a quick wave and dashed away into the night. Rose felt sorry for him. He was such a good, eager pupil she hated to deprive him of any opportunity to practice, but there it was. She could not be in two places at the same time. Soon enough he’d be out on his own, and he wouldn’t want her hanging around him while he worked.
He was going to be a star
, Rose thought, as she closed the door and locked it. What a terrific kid. She was very angry at that Guthrie person for filling his head with lies. Rose promised herself she would see to it that Alexandra evicted him from the next meeting.

She dropped her purse on the floor next to the telephone table and hit the button on her answering machine. Nothing special, except for the message from her son.

“Mother, we’ll be coming by about three. I have reservations at Le Chat Noir for dinner. The kids are looking forward to seeing you.”

“Me, too, sweetheart,” she said fondly. The rest of the messages were trivial. As she was about to go to the kitchen and get herself a cold soda she heard the doorbell ring. It must be Ray. He probably forgot to ask her something about going out on his own. He’d like a soda, too. She opened the door.

The caller on the doorstep was about the same size and build, but it was not Ray.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Mrs. Feinstein?” the young man said. She nodded. “Uh, I’m a friend of Ray’s. Can I talk to you for a second?”

Was this Hakeem? He didn’t look like the picture Ray had in his wallet of the two of them.

“I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “I’m a little busy. I’m waiting for my son to come back.…” She smelled the burning ozone smell, saw the wristbands. It was the genie-Jackals Ray warned her about! She started to back away and close the door, but the grasping hands came right through the wood and grabbed her wrist. Rose fought madly, but she was outnumbered. More boys piled into the apartment, through the doors, the walls, even the floor, until she was surrounded. She kicked one of them in the shins, and two of them sank deeply enough to seize her legs. One of the brutes picked up her purse, and opened it.

“Hey, young man,” she said indignantly, struggling with her captors, “that’s personal!”

“The wand’s in here,” said the boy who had rung her doorbell, ignoring her. The other youths nodded. A black fume rose around them until it obscured the walls of her apartment. Rose heard the ceiling smoke detector howling as they all vanished together.

Chapter 23

Ray strode quickly down Madison Street, heading for Michigan Avenue. It was bright and very hot. Sweat ran down his body under his coveralls. He had just enough time to get to Roosevelt College and pick up his placement papers for the fall semester. His boss wanted him back in double time to keep working on getting Grant Park and the area around Buckingham Fountain in shape for the fireworks display on Tuesday night.

“Every minute counts,” Landis said. If Ray had not wanted to go do something that was involved in furthering his education. Landis would have insisted he eat his sandwich and go back to work right away with the others, skipping the rest of his lunch hour. Thank heavens for small mercies. Ray put a new CD he’d bought at a used disc store onto the thumbtack player in his pocket, and timed his walk to the rhythm in his head. He was so intent on the music he hardly noticed when Hakeem fell into step beside him.

“Hi, brother,” Ray said, surprised. He dislodged the disc with his thumb to turn off the music. “I haven’t seen you around lately. Where have you been?”

“Around,” Hakeem said casually, but Ray could feel tension in him. Hakeem walked scrunched over with his hands in his pockets, always a bad sign.

“Me, too,” Ray said. They walked in silence for a moment. Hakeem seemed to want to say something, but he was having trouble getting it out.

“Uh, hey, you want to do something sometime?” he said at last.

“Yeah. I’ve missed seeing you,” Ray said, hoping to elicit more details with a hopeful attitude.

“Me, too,” Hakeem said. Suddenly, he wheeled to a stop twenty feet from the corner. Ray stopped, too, and let the lunchtime crowds part to walk around them. “Look, man …”

“Hey, Hakeem,” Zeon said, appearing next to them from out of the ground. Ray guessed his entrance was intended to keep people from noticing the puff of smoke that seemed to accompany the entrances and exits of all genies. “When you’re finished associating with the bottom-feeder, we’ve got more places to go.”

“You don’t have to go with this dude if you don’t want to,” Ray said, getting between his friend and the gangbanger.

Hakeem gave him a sad, pathetic look. “You just don’t understand, man,” he said, looking as if he desperately wished Ray could.

Worried, Ray asked in a low voice, “Are you in some kind of trouble, brother?”

“See you around, man, all right?” Hakeem asked, pushing past him to stand by Zeon. “I’m sorry what I said about your friend, the old lady.” He held up his hand to catch Ray’s in a clasp. Ray caught the glint of the djinn bracelets and a matching glint in his friend’s eyes. He started to ask again, when Zeon gave Ray a tremendous shove, catapulting him into a knot of businessmen in shirtsleeves. While he made distracted apologies, Hakeem and Zeon vanished in a cloud of choking black fumes.

Ray straightened up, too late to pull his friend back. He had to get Hakeem away from those genies. Maybe Rose had some advice on how to help.

From the college, he called Rose’s house. The phone rang several times, but only the answering machine picked up. Ray hung up before her message finished. Rose was probably out buying presents for the grandchildren. He’d go there after work and ask her in person. He wondered how much it would cost him in brownie points to pull Hakeem away from the DDEG. Too much. Would Rose lend him some? Discontented and frustrated, he collected his documents and went back to work.

O O O

“Damn you, let me out of this filthy jar!”

The shrill voice was beginning to eat away at Hakeem’s eardrums. He was having reality-check problems. All right, so it wasn’t all that normal to be flying through the air granting wishes, or chasing fairy godmothers who waved wands, but in a million years he would never have believed in the teeny little woman he and Zeon had between them, trapped in a pickle jar. Zeon carried the butterfly net proudly over his shoulder like a hunter’s gun.

It had been a piece of cake to capture the first fairy. They caught a whiff of the air-freshener scent while looking for a different prospect, and followed it until they saw the little woman sailing along like a luna moth. She was as beautiful as a dream, tiny, delicate, almost translucent, with her glistening, jewel-colored dress. She dematerialized to go through the wall of a house. The djinni were right behind her. As she was identifying herself to the wondering child, they dropped Zeon’s jacket on her and brought her back.

The other thing he couldn’t believe was how such cute little creatures could have such dirty mouths. Each of them had sworn a bright blue streak when they had laid hands on her, and kept it up all the way back to the warehouse. As they added the third fairy to the birdcage under the eaves of the building, the other two spouted expletives directed at them until Hakeem felt his ears burning. Zeon only grinned.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Hakeem whispered, as he shut the door on their captive.

“If you deserved the soul you have, you’d let us go!” the first fairy pleaded. She turned big blue eyes on him in desperate appeal. His stomach tense with sympathy, Hakeem almost released the latch, when Zeon’s hand dropped down on his arm.

“The Big Bulb says no,” he said flatly.

“I’m sorry,” he told the fairies. At that moment, if he had it in his power to quit the DDEG, he would have turned his back and never returned. They screamed obscenities at him as he and Zeon settled down to the floor of the warehouse.

The pretty chairwoman, or so Speed had identified her, was trying to calm everyone down. There were dozens of people trapped in the enclosure that he had made. The place was full of camp beds and chairs. In spite of the rough conditions, most of the fairy godparents were really nice people, who were polite and gracious to their captors. They made him feel even more ashamed of himself than he already was. As he passed a short, plump woman with graying dark hair seated in an overstuffed armchair, she smiled at him in a friendly way. She was one of the ones that had been brought in the night before. She looked familiar to him, but for a moment he couldn’t place her. He’d seen her—where? On the street. Walking with Ray. Walking with
Ray?
Was he … was his best friend one of these people? He had to get out of here, and ask him, warn him!

“Hakeem? Is that you?”

A stentorian female voice dragged his attention away from the first woman. He’d know it a million miles or a million years away.

“Grandma?”

Hakeem spun around and searched the crowd for the rounded, bronze figure. She beckoned to him from a deep, overstuffed armchair at the back of the open square. He was so shocked he didn’t even feel his feet hit the floor as he walked to her.

“There you are, son!” she said. “What are you doing involved with these skunks and ruffians?”

“I … I kind of fell into it, Grandma,” Hakeem said, his head bowed. He was ashamed to have anyone he knew see him under these circumstances. The big djinn who looked like a genie from the movies appeared next to him.

“Is this your grandmother?” Gurgin asked.

“No, she his friend’s grandma,” Zeon said, who followed Hakeem across the floor. “His friend the spineless piece of crap, right?” He nudged Hakeem in the ribs with his elbow.

Grandma Eustatia rose to her feet and sailed over to slap Zeon across the face. Clutching his cheek, he gaped at her.

“Don’t you call my grandson names,” she said, gliding back to her chair. She seated herself like a queen. Zeon lunged at her. Hakeem pulled him back and bent over her protectively. Zeon glared. Gurgin jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and the Jackal went off to join the others on top of a heap of cartons. Hakeem watched him, feeling his cheeks burn.

“I’d let you go if I could,” he whispered. “I … I can’t do anything.”

“I’ll be all right, but you ought to go, Hakeem. You’re above this nasty crowd,” Mrs. Green said loudly.

“Please, Grandma, not in front of the others,” he begged her.

“What’s the difference?” Grandma Eustatia said, raising her voice to concert pitch. It rang off the concrete ceiling and dented his eardrums. “They should hear this, too! Shame on them! Shame on you!”

It was impossible to ignore her. Every fairy godmother in the room turned around to look at them. Even Mr. Froister emerged from his little office in the corner to see what all the fuss was.

“If I could get out, I would,” Hakeem whispered. Grandma Eustatia gave him a tender look, as if he were six years old again.

“It’s always your choice, honey.” She patted his hand. Hakeem resolved that now would be the moment he would take charge of his own life.

He marched up to Froister, who was standing, arms folded, on the perimeter of the enclosure. The guildmaster looked curiously at Hakeem, and raised a hand to permit him to speak.

“I don’t want to do this anymore, sir,” Hakeem said. “I want out.”

Froister’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline. “This is an
inconvenient
time for you to quit, young man.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Hakeem said. “I’ve got to go. I can’t do this anymore. Please.” He was begging now, but he didn’t care. If he didn’t get it all out at once, he never would be able to again. He was already starting to feel his resolve ebbing. He glanced back at Grandma Eustatia, who nodded encouragement at him. “Let me leave. Please.”

“He’ll rat,” Zeon shouted from the skidload of lamps.

“Zeon!” Hakeem exclaimed, staring up at him in horror. The rest of the fairy godmothers were still silent, watching.

“You can tell he’s not really your friend,” Grandma Eustatia said, from across the room.

“He’s not steady, Mr. F.,” Zeon complained. “He must have known about that old bitch, and he didn’t say. He’ll split if he can. He’ll bring the cops.”

“No he won’t,” Froister said assuredly. Hakeem hated him for his complacency. He’d sweep-kick the oily bastard off his feet, but the important thing was just to get out. If he could go get Ray, they could think of some way to free his grandmother, and get the others out, too.

“I should have refused in the first place,” Hakeem said bitterly, “like Ray’s been doing all along.”

Froister’s eyebrows went up again. “I’m sorry I don’t know your friend. He sounds like a man of integrity.”

“He is! I won’t do this anymore,” Hakeem said, squaring his shoulders. He held up his hands. “Please take these things off me. I quit!”

“No,” Froister said with a half smile. “You can’t quit. You swore an oath. You’ll perform your tasks with dignity, or without. You have no choice. Go.” Hakeem folded his arms and stood his ground. Froister sighed. “Pity. Well, I can’t have you defying me to my face. Kneel.”

Hakeem paused, just for a moment. He knew Froister had used up three wishes on him, so he thought that there was nothing else that could happen. Hakeem was bigger and stronger than the guildmaster. If no one got in the way, he’d be able to take the man down by himself.

Then Froister asked, very deliberately, “You swear to obey the mother of the lamp?”

Hakeem could no longer help himself. The magic took over, weighing down his limbs and chest. He dropped to the floor on his hands and knees, gasping.

“That’s better,” Froister said, that maddening smile on his lips. “Into the lamp, young man. Think of your sins and promise to be a better djinn in future.” The guildmaster seemed to go all misty, but Hakeem knew it was his own eyes turning to smoke. The faces around him got larger and larger.

The magic hurt horribly as it sucked him in, but Hakeem bit his lips, refusing to give Froister or Zeon the satisfaction of a scream. The spell kept twisting him into a smaller and smaller package until he saw the milk-white walls of his prison around him. The squeezing stopped. Jumping up, he hammered on the sides of the lamp. He could hear voices outside. No one could hear him. He tried to dematerialize and solidify outside the lamp, but for some reason the spell wasn’t working.

Ray Crandall and his grandmother were fairy godparents! Hakeem kept thinking over and over. At that moment he knew the most remarkable fact of his life, and he couldn’t tell anybody except the people he didn’t want to hear it.

O O O

Froister picked up the painted milk glass lamp and hefted it. A show of defiance, but he should have expected something of the kind. These young men didn’t grow up in a vacuum. There was bound to be an overlap in membership of affiliated organizations. The only thing to do was to prevent any more fraternization in future. And with luck, this ordeal would be over very soon. By sequestering the troublemaker, he hoped to demoralize the fairy godparents still further.

“Keep getting them in here!” he ordered his gang of apprentices. “I want every fairy godmother in the Local 3-26 in this warehouse by nightfall. No exceptions!” He carried the lamp away to his office, and locked it in.

O O O

Ray leaned on the bell marked “Feinstein” at Rose’s three-flat. Nobody answered the door. No Rose. Just when he really needed her advice, she wasn’t around.

He sat down on the stoop to think. Her family had probably taken her out to dinner, in which case it would be hours before she came back. Or maybe they had taken her off on vacation, in which case he would be waiting days to talk to her. No, she had offered him a meal on Tuesday, so she must still be around. He’d come back later, after dinner, and beg a few minutes alone to talk.

O O O

Ray headed for home. He wished he wasn’t going to be inactive for a week. The wand told him there were need strings here and there, coming from houses, apartments, parks, and passing cars. He thought about getting involved, but none of them pulled him so hard as that little girl in the hospital had, so he made a judgment call that they weren’t urgent enough for him to intervene. There’d be another fairy godparent along in a while, to take care of these. He would rather have had Rose overseeing his efforts than blowing a child’s one miracle with overkill or underkill.

As he turned the corner into his block, he heard the hubbub of many voices. Warily, he craned his neck to see who was there. About halfway down the street was a bunch of neatly dressed men and women. Ray recognized them as guardian angels. Some of them had been here the night of the car fire, but some were the crease-trousered bunch from Edwin’s bar. They were casting around as if looking for someone or something. One of them looked his way and pointed. As one, all the heads turned toward him. He felt nervous at the attention, but it must be okay: these were the good guys. Most likely they wanted to ask questions about the genie gangbangers.