The Magic Touch (10 page)

Chapter 10

“What do you want, O my mother?” chorused from seven junior djinn’s throats as they flashed into being in puffs of smoke in the Enlightenment showroom early the following evening. Froister and the other senior members gestured them over to join the growing crowd of young men who stood staring straight ahead of them with folded arms aloft, waiting for their first instruction.

“I wish they’d always stay like that,” DeNovo said, glancing at the silent throng. He reached for the next lamp and rubbed the brass surface. A black-clad youth appeared almost on top of him. DeNovo had to stumble out of the way. “Hey!”

“What wouldst thou, O my mother?” the boy asked.

“Oh, this one’s had an education! Stand over there while I deliberate my will,” DeNovo said. “Maybe you’ll be the lucky kid who helps me out of my troubles with the IRS. How about it, Al?”

“This is the last,” Froister said. He palmed the final lamp, a hand-painted china base with a silk shade, one of the best in the store. When the apple-cheeked young black man appeared, he pointed to the others. The youth strode, blank-eyed, to join them.

“Forty-three,” Carson said. “Do you think that will be enough?”

“No, of course not. I think our young friends here will need to help continue the recruiting movement,” Froister said. “It’ll be enough to start with, though, if we can get everyone involved in granting wishes and bringing in prospects. Every time one of them does a deed, we accrue another morsel of power into the master kitty. That way, even if the merger between our organization and the FGU fails, we will still be building to release ourselves.”

“And bolstering our position, so we will take control at the end,” Timbulo said. “First, Chicago, then …”

“Tomorrow the Midwest,” Bannion said sourly. “These kids will be running rampant in the meanwhile. We need to control them more. Did you hear about the rash of liquor store raids? I think that one there”—he pointed at a Riverside Jackal named Vaughan Matthews—“has stolen nearly the city’s entire supply of tequila.”

Gurgin smiled nastily. “Eating the worms is the only way he’s ever going to see God now,” he said.

Froister dismissed their argument with a wave of his hand. “I see our friends here not only as a source of those precious morsels that will someday set us free of our vows, but as a necessary diversion to the transfer of absolute authority. When we are our own masters, it won’t take long before we’re everyone else’s, too,” he said. The others grinned. He did not overestimate their rapaciousness. The assumption that one day there would be seven sharing absolute power kept his associates in line, too. “Something will be needed to keep the people who are currently in power busy while they are being tossed out of office. Everyone!” He clapped his hands, and the teenaged statues came to life.

“Hey, what happened?” asked Louis Fry, a huge, pale, and pimply youth who called himself Razorback, probably to coordinate with his scalloped, almost certainly self-inflicted haircut.

“It’s time for our meeting, gentlemen,” Froister said, smiling pleasantly. “I told you you’d all be called. We called you.”

“Hey, I was on a date,” Speed Guthrie protested. Nervously, he straightened out his jacket collar and yanked the waistband of his baggy trousers up to his rib cage.

“She’ll still be there when you get back,” Froister said, tapping his watch. “It’s seven o’clock, so everybody is on time. Admirably punctual.”

“We didn’t come here. You called us!” asked the chief Backyard Wolf, who was called Federico Morales. He pushed forward through the crowd. “You summoned us up by magic, man?”

“You didn’t
walk
,
did you?” Froister returned. “Isn’t that a more efficient way to assemble? No one knows where you went, or how you got here. Being able to vanish without a trace adds to your mystique.” He waited while the gang members discussed it among themselves. They decided that it was pretty cool after all, though some were still upset that the transfer hadn’t been their idea at the time. The independent recruits just stared in silence.

“Hey, I don’t like you messing me around like that,” Razorback spoke up, the first of the gangbangers to challenge the new status quo. He clenched his big hands into fists, stepping close enough to Froister to threaten him. The guild chairman wasn’t impressed. One spotty youth could not possibly match his long experience, nor his ruthlessness. It was time these hoodlums learned that, if they had any aptitude at all for survival. The others watched, tension showing in their stance. The old members waited, their mouths twisted in amusement. None of them rushed to help Froister. None of them needed to. He’d rubbed this young rascal’s lamp himself.

Razorback closed in. Up close, the young man’s face was a study in acne and neglected dental work. He probably used his appearance on the street to add to his fearsomeness. As he loomed over the guild chairman and drew back his fist, Froister nonchalantly waved a hand.
How dull
, he thought. Every one of them did this,
once.

“You swear to obey the mother of the lamp?” he asked, almost casually.

At the sound of the words of the oath, the young man stopped short and straightened up. His eyes glazed over, and he folded his arms across his chest. The others gasped. “I swear to obey.”

Froister pursed his lips, looking over Razorback’s shoulder at the others. “Then, my lad, dance on the ceiling.”

“What?” Morales demanded, lowering his brows. Razorback was one of his men. “Don’t listen to him.” The big youth paid no attention. Instead, he jumped straight up into the air, did a half flip upside down, and landed on his toes, fifteen feet up. He glanced up at the ceiling, then down at Froister and the others, his mind astounded at what his body had done.

“Now, dance!”

His cheeks glowing with embarrassment, Razorback lurched into a clumsy version of a cowboy line dance. He promenaded, slid, and tush-pushed silently around the chains of the hanging chandeliers. Not one of the other teens made a sound.

“Juggle!” Froister ordered. He took three light bulbs out of a fixture and tossed them up in a bunch to his captive performer. They stayed together and arrowed toward Razorback in a triangle pattern. The bulbs rather than the boy seemed to control the action as his hands tossed, caught, tossed, caught, all defiant of the force of gravity. “And keep dancing! Now, do a back spin!” Razorback’s body obligingly lay down on the ceiling and did a break dance whirl, his hands still juggling the three light bulbs. “Flatten out. Now, kiss your toes.”

Though Razorback’s eyes begged for mercy, he was helpless to disobey even the most impossible-sounding order. He bent over, trying to reach his toes with his lips. The light bulbs continued to whirl over his head in their braided dance, without his hands touching them. One at a time, he grabbed each foot to bring it to his mouth, but he was not flexible enough. He groaned in pain. Then, suddenly, strangely, his body elongated until his torso had stretched enough to bring his face level with his feet. Face contorted with hatred, he kissed the toes of his unspeakably dirty sneakers one by one. At once, his body snapped back to normal. The others stared up at him, stupefied.

“That’s what happens if you don’t cooperate with us,” Froister told them in a terrible voice cultivated for moments such as this. “You retain your free will so long as you don’t presume to question our orders.” He pointed up at Razorback. “And that happened because you have forced us to show you who is in charge here. Out on the street you may have other chains of command, but in here I, the guildmaster, am the sole authority. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I understand,” Morales said. “I understand you just fine.” He cast around, searching the display floor for something. Froister watched him, a little smile on his lips. The gang leader went from one floor lamp to another, casting a measuring eye back at the warehouse owner. He grabbed one and rubbed it. Nothing happened. He pushed it aside and seized the next one.

“Are you looking for mine?” Froister asked, and had the satisfaction of seeing Morales jump and twitch. The gang leader tried to ignore the smooth voice behind his back, and went to the next floor lamp. This time one of the Jackals pushed him away. Morales slid away to face Froister, angry because he had been thwarted. “I’m not stupid. You won’t find it because it’s not here anymore. Do you think I’d risk one of you rubbing
my
lamp? And don’t bother to try and attack me physically. I’ll just vanish.” He snapped his fingers. “Gentlemen, my associates and I are old hands at this business. You wouldn’t believe how old. Cooperate, and you will share infinite power with us. Screw around, and you’ll never stop paying. The lesson isn’t over yet.”

He looked up at Razorback, still whirling in dizzy circles. “Come down here.”

Razorback kicked loose from the ceiling. With another half flip, the big youth stood on the floor with his arms folded on his chest. The three light bulbs stopped their spinning and floated lazily to the floor, their part in the demonstration done. Froister pointed a forefinger at the youth’s nose.

“The first wish: go get the files the IRS has on Mr. DeNovo’s business.”

“The mother commands, and it shall be done,” Razorback said. He put his wrists together and vanished in a cloud of black smoke.

No one spoke during the twelve minutes that Razorback was gone. Morales retreated to the side of the showroom with the rest of the Backyard Wolves, watching Froister and the other old members suspiciously. The Jackals were on the other side, similarly wary. They all knew now that the seven men at the front of the room indisputably held the upper hand. They might have been plotting revenge against Froister and the others, but they were also scared to pieces that a fate similar to Razorback’s public humiliation might befall one of them. Froister knew at that moment that he and the others had nothing more to fear. He might just chance bringing their lamps back, but why risk it? They were safe in their hiding place.

A roar like an approaching freight train filled the room. With a clap of thunder and another burst of smoke, Razorback appeared in the same spot from which he had vanished. His arms were full of papers and computer disks. Floating above the physical impedimenta were numbers and words that seemed to be printed in white on the air. Froister guessed that Razorback had also taken all the data that was currently running through the computers at IRS headquarters. The youth was admirably thorough.

At a signal from Froister, Razorback laid his armload at DeNovo’s feet. When he set it down, the containment spell around it vanished, and the papers scattered in every direction. Razorback dived for a handful, but they swirled out of his reach. The floating numbers whirled away and popped like soap bubbles.

“Smooth move, kid,” the businessman snarled.

“Hey, up yours, mmm-mother,” the young genie strained out in a monotone. His face was sweating, and hate burned at the back of his eyes though his expression stayed blank. He stood erect. With his arms folded, he nodded his chin, and the papers gathered themselves together in neat heaps.

“Very nice,” Froister said, approvingly. The loose data was gone for good, but if DeNovo didn’t have it, neither did the IRS.

Razorback seemed to shake himself all over like a dog, and his eyes returned to normal. Morales came over to peer at him. He judged that his soldier was unharmed, if confused, and turned back to Froister, his posture a study in nonchalance.

“Okay, so what? We’re your robot messenger boys now whether we like it or not. What’s in this deal for us?”

Froister had to admire his gumption in asking, after witnessing such a demonstration of power over will. You just couldn’t faze today’s young. He blamed television for taking all the awe out of life.

“Power, just as I promised,” Froister said. “I didn’t say you wouldn’t like being djinni. Not at all. There’s plenty of scope for your creativity. I’ll show you more.” He turned to Razorback, pointed the finger again. “The second wish.” Razorback straightened up and folded his arms. “Revenge against the IRS employee who came after Mr. DeNovo. Bring him here. You shall be the agent of that revenge.”

“It will be as the mother commands,” Razorback said. Undoubtedly he still felt embarrassment about providing an upside-down floorshow, but the order to be the instrument of vengeance seemed to appeal to his slow-working brain. His eyes slitted like a feral hunting cat’s.

“You know, the command doesn’t specifically require Razorback to leave the room,” Bannion said, standing holding up a display rack with his shoulder. “It’s an opportunity for the others to see the workings of a really powerful wish firsthand. Don’t you go, son. Make him come here.” Bannion pointed to the floor.

“Oh, okay.” Eyes showed signs of enlightenment, when shown even the simplest alternative. The youth straightened up, flexed his shoulders, and squeezed his eyes hard closed. There was a lightning-like flash, followed by the sound of a heavy weight hitting the floor. When everyone’s eyes had recovered, they saw a man kneeling in front of Razorback with his arm outstretched, shoving a videotape forward. He wore an open-necked sport shirt and a pair of beige twill trousers, crisply pressed. His rimless spectacles hung over one ear, as if they had been blown off during the magical tornado.

“That’s him,” DeNovo said, walking over. He took the tape out of the dazed man’s fingers. “Look at that:
Bambi.
I bet you like the part where his mother gets killed, right?”

“Where am I?” the man asked, blinking up at the crowd of men. He recognized DeNovo, and scrambled to get to his feet. Froister nodded to Razorback, who appeared next to the man and pushed him back to his knees. “Mr. DeNovo, what is this?”

“Judgment day,” the businessman crowed. He bent and grabbed a handful of the agent’s shirtfront. “You creep, you kept me waiting in your office for six hours, then you turned my whole life inside out just because of a lousy two-line error on my tax return. You made me crawl back to beg for time, when you sat on my files. You made me waste months finding every damned little receipt I ever got, and then you still disallowed all of my deductions. Confess that you did it out of spite.”