The Magic Touch (13 page)

“How many are there?”

“How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? C’mon.”

With occasional glances over his shoulder to reassure his brain he had really seen what he thought he saw, Ray maneuvered his burden through the crowd standing around in the aisle.

At the table were some fairy godparents Ray recognized from his two meetings, and some who were strangers. They paused in the middle of spirited stories about granting wishes long enough to greet the newcomers and take beverages, but swept right back into the midst of their conversation. Ray wiggled into a seat, trying not to drown out the voices with the groan of his chair shifting on the wooden floor.

“… And so, the child said she wanted a pony,” said the man who looked like a used car salesman. Clad in a sharp summer suit, he was big, red-faced, muscular, and talked with his hands. They were sketching out the dimensions of a horse. “I mean, she really,
really
wanted a pony. Talk about your heart’s desire. I know when I’m listening to the be all and end all of existence. All she could talk was ‘horse, horse, horse.’ So,” he shrugged massive shoulders, “I put in the fix. Last thing I know,” he slapped the table, “I hear from the girl. Her daddy’s been transferred to Montana!”

“Promotion, I hope?” asked an Oriental woman in a nurse’s uniform.

“Sounds like it,” said the used car salesman, cheerfully saluting her with his glass. “So, watch out what you ask for; you might get it.”

His tablemates chuckled. “So true,” said a man in an expensive-looking sport coat. “
So
true.”

George, the recording secretary, leaned forward in a confidential manner. “Speaking of getting what you ask for, did you see that boy from the suburbs on the news?”

“I blame the fairy godparent,” Alexandra said. “What poor judgment she or he must have used. He couldn’t have gotten that car any other way but by magic, but it had to look like grand larceny. The whole situation just put his poor father into the midst of so much trouble.”

Ray, not knowing who or what they were talking about and unable to pick up enough from context, lost interest. Rose, Mr. Garner, Chris Popp, and Mrs. Durja were having a quiet conversation at the far end of the table. He abandoned the animated conversation to his left and waited for the three of them to pause and acknowledge him.

“So what’s the problem with genies?” Ray wanted to know. “That guy in the back of the Assembly Hall didn’t seem so bad.”

“Mr. Guthrie didn’t pay attention well,” Mrs. Durja said, her nostrils flaring. “He did not behave in a respectful manner. I do not think that this local guildhall is good, if this is the person they send to us as a liaison.”

“You see what I mean, Ganya?” Morry Garner asked. “Your cousin Raj might be the exception. I don’t like the way they’re pressuring us to merge, when we know so little about them.”

“Don’t start with that,” Rose warned. “Not when we’ve all made friends again. The problem is they don’t
seem
to be very nice people, Ray, and not just because of this one fellow’s appearance.”

“Or smell,” Chris Popp put in.

“He seemed to be friendly,” George put in, from Mrs. Durja’s other side. “He wanted to know everyone’s name.”

“Hmmph! So do salesmen,” Morry said, with a snort.

“This three wishes stuff,” Rose continued, waving the peripherals away. “It’s good in principle, but it’s basically an all-over control issue. It sounds to me like this is one of the fundamental sticking points in the paper the committee has been discussing: the lack of free will to act on one’s own behalf.”

“That’s exactly it,” Morry Garner said, putting his forefinger down hard on the tabletop. “It makes you look too hard at the bottom line, and not at the welfare of the people you’re helping.”

“Right,” Rose said. “One wish, they have to focus all their desires in one single phrase, however complicated it might be.”

“Yeah, like the way you talk,” Ray said, raising his eyebrows at her.

“That makes me a natural, honey,” Rose said, unperturbed. The others chuckled. “But with three wishes, you’re all over the place. They don’t have to concentrate on what’s really bothering them, which is what I see as one of the aims of our federation: to help them get back on the road of life. Your client just gets greedier and greedier, and in the end, all they have are
things
,
not a solution.”

Ray thought that he could easily do with some
things
,
and get back on the path to happiness afterward. Rose easily guessed what was going through his head.

“With a merger like this, as I understand, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to have a fairy godmother, too,” she said. She turned to Morry Garner and Ganya Durja for confirmation. “It sounds like they want it to be an all-or-nothing proposition.”

“That’s why I don’t like it,” Garner said. “It blurs our purpose too much. The children fall between the cracks, and I would never hand three unlimited wishes to a child.”

“That, too. Besides, the terms of membership in the DDEG amount to virtual indentured servitude. A lot of fairy godparents would rather not join up with them. They’re out for different things. And yet, it might cover some other gaps in service, for example the children whose wishes get bungled, like that incident in the western suburbs with the car.” Rose shrugged toward the group at Ray’s other elbow. “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out what I think. I’ve heard the same rumors about how unscrupulous they are.” Mrs. Durja started to protest. Rose held up a hand. “It may be like Ganya says, that it’s a problem with the local chapter, but I don’t know. That’s why we welcome a liaison from the DDEG, to answer our questions.”

“But this one knew nothing,” Mrs. Durja said. “Can we perhaps request a different delegate?”

“That’s a good idea,” Garner said. “Let’s get one who can talk.”

Rose looked around at the surrounding tables, then raised her voice to get Alexandra’s attention. “Has anybody seen Mary Hodge or Paul Sanders?” she asked.

The Blue Fairy glanced around, too. “No, not since the last meeting,” she said. “I think she might be on vacation this week.”

“Rose, I’m sorry,” George said, pushing up his little eyeglasses with one hand. “She phoned me this afternoon. They’re having company tonight. She’ll be around after the next meeting. I don’t know where Paul is. I thought he’d be here, too. It’s after eight already.”

“I wanted to talk to him,” Rose said, flicking her fingers through a bead of water on the table. “It’s not important.”

The door slammed open and Ray turned around to see. A party of large, hearty men and women walked in, talking loudly among themselves. They wore white berets with a small round badge depicting a pair of wings and a halo, crisp short-sleeved shirts, knife-edged trousers, and brand new cross-trainers. Otherwise, the individuals had little in the way of common characteristics. Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, male, or female, they all walked with a confident swagger, a manner that made you want to back out of their path—but in a nice way. Ray looked a question at Rose.

“It’s the Guardian Angel Society,” she said, with a shrug.

“Yes,” George put in, sourly. “Read the initials: G-A-S. Don’t confuse these folks with those brave people who ride the El at night.”

“Now, George, the GAS does good work,” Mr. Lincoln said, catching the last part of the conversation.

“The real ones do. These are effete snobs,” George sniffed. “There are plenty of Guardian Angels who do their job, but that’s the difference: they just do it. They don’t talk about it endlessly, bragging about the one good save they made a year ago. You don’t see the
real
ones in the bars so much.” He lowered his voice as one of the men ordered beer for the table in a booming voice that could be heard clear to the pool table in the back of the room. One of the players glanced up, then went back to his game, shaking his head. “For one thing, their morals don’t let them drink much, or idle around. Idle hands are the other fellow’s province, you know.”

“I’ve heard,” Ray said, amused. These Guardian Angels sure seemed to be having a good time, or at least, they wanted everyone in the room to think they were having a good time. He had a sudden vision of the “cool” kids in his school cafeteria, who talked loudly to attract the attention of the others, whom they’d never consider letting sit down or hang out with them. Yeah, he understood what George meant. “Do we ever see the real ones, not the wannabes?”

“Oh, sometimes,” Mr. Lincoln said. “Mostly when you least expect them.”

“Wannabes,” George said, liking the word. He glanced over at the white-capped group, hiding his sudden smile. “Yes. These people don’t like to get their hands dirty. Look at those fancy quasi-uniforms. Those outfits would cost me a week’s pay.”

“What’s the harm, if they want to look nice?” Morry Garner asked, dismissing them with a disdainful snap of his fingers. “The paint job doesn’t improve the performance a hair, and everyone knows the difference.”

George rose to his feet and picked up his briefcase. “The air has suddenly become too rarefied for me,” he said. He reached into his pocket for his wallet and flattened out a couple of bills, which he weighted down under an empty glass. “I’ll see everyone next time. Good night.”

“Good night, George,” Alexandra said. The rest of the table offered good wishes, and the secretary made his serious way out into the night.

“See you, George,” Edwin called from behind the bar. George turned to wave a brief farewell as the door closed behind him.

“What’s with him?” Ray asked Rose in a low voice.

Rose’s eyes snapped back to meet his. She’d been watching George leave. “Oh, it’s personal. He had to pick up the pieces when one of the ‘wannabes’ tried to be a hero on the El last year. Nasty.”

“That’s too bad,” Ray said, sincerely.

“It certainly is,” Rose said. “Sometimes I think he chose the wrong organization. He could have whipped those big blowhards into shape.”

O O O

“Ssst!” Speed Guthrie said, motioning to the other djinn clustered behind him in the alley. “I told you they all went into one of those places and magicked the door away. That’s why we can’t find them.”

“Who’s that one?” Mario asked, crowding him until Speed elbowed him in the ribs. He turned the lower part of his body into smoke and hovered over the other.

Speed squinted through the gloom. Mr. Froister would be pleased. The meeting had been long and boring, but at least it gave him a lot of time to study faces. He was certain he could identify almost anyone from the FGU group on sight. The short man who appeared almost out of nowhere stumped along, scowling at the pavement a few paces ahead of him. They caught a glimpse of eyeglass lenses that reflected glints from the pale streetlamp and passing car lights.

“That’s George,” he whispered. “They call him the recording secretary.”

“Don’t look like no secretary,” Razorback chuckled weightily from farther back in the dark passage.

Speed waved frantically for silence as the man passed in front of them almost close enough to reach out and touch. “Shh! He’s the one who took attendance. He has the list Froister wants.”

“Perfect,” Mario said, his voice triumphant. “He’s all alone.”

When the secretary was several yards farther up the street, the three apprentice djinn strolled casually out of the alley. There was no hurry. An old man like that couldn’t outrun them, no matter how many magic wands he had up his sleeve.

O O O

George made his way toward the El stop. He looked up in alarm as a train screeched its way along the old tracks, then nodded to himself when it turned out to be going the wrong way. He smiled. He never missed one going the right way. A fairy godparent had that little extra bit of good luck going for him.

His wife would be waiting at home, probably watching television. Too bad he could never interest her in joining the union, but she disliked being outside so much, whereas he liked to get his exercise.

The sound of footsteps made him glance back over his shoulder and reach in his pocket for his bunch of keys. A body couldn’t be too careful in this day and age, and he wasn’t getting any younger. There was only one person on the street, about twenty feet behind him: a thin white boy with a red nose, clad in a black leather jacket. He was too far away in the dark for George to get any better look, but he could mean trouble. George reached the violent yellow light of the El station and reached out for the banister of the stairs up to the tracks. There should be an emergency call button at the top he could push for assistance, if need be.

Somehow, the skinny boy closed the distance between him in an instant. Two more youths, one white and one black, came out of nowhere and grabbed George’s arms. The skinny boy reached into his coat and took his wand out. George cried out a wordless protest.

“Don’t want you busting out through any walls, grandpa,” the skinny one said. George took in a deep breath to call for help. A hand with a sleek metal band around the wrist clamped down over his mouth before he could make a sound. He jerked his arms free, and struck out defensively with his briefcase, connecting with soft flesh. He had the satisfaction of hearing his assailants cry out in pain before everything went dark.

Chapter 12

“What on earth did you do?” Albert Froister asked, peering through the warehouse window. The dark-haired, stocky, bespectacled man with the briefcase sat on a box, looking around with a look of distaste. Froister recognized him with dismay as George Aldeanueva, the recording secretary of the FGU.

“You wanted fairy godparents,” Speed said, wiping his nose. The others shuffled their feet on the tile floor. They looked hurt. Clearly, they had expected their initiative to be rewarded.

“I wanted their
power
,”
Froister said, exasperated. “You’ve changed us from a legitimate organization to one of kidnappers.”

Speed was undaunted. “You want his power, ask him. He’s got some brownie points. He’s got access to the rest, right? You said it’s a pool. And they’re going to say no. I heard them say so in the meeting.”

Froister sighed, straightened his tie. “I suppose it’s worth a try.
You
stay here.” He pushed through the door and strode up to meet his unwilling and unexpected guest. “Mr. Aldeanueva, how very nice to see you.”

O O O

Froister pushed back through the door, his ears still ringing from the tirade to which George Aldeanueva had treated him. Speed, who had been seated on the floor next to the door with the other gang members, stood up.

“Nothing doing,” Froister said, to answer their unasked question. “You’ve torn it now. We can’t let him go, or he’ll tell the rest of the membership what we’re up to. We’ll have to keep him here until after the vote is taken.”

“Sorry I jumped too fast,” Speed said. “But hey, that’s why they call me Speed.”

Morons
, Froister thought, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “Well, in that case,
Speed
,
you take care of him. From now until we let him go, you’re in charge of feeding and caring for him, and preventing him from going anywhere or making contact with anyone else. He stays in that part of the warehouse, away from everything, until I say so.”

“Man, I got better things to do,” Speed protested.

“Do you want me to make it a wish?” Froister demanded, and had the satisfaction of seeing the big youth quail. “I thought not.”
Lie down with dogs, rise up with fleas
, he thought unhappily. He took George’s wand back to his office and locked it in his safe.

O O O

The conversation at Ray’s left elbow shifted to new apprentices, and Ray suddenly found himself the center of attention.

“So how are you doing, Ray?” the Blue Fairy asked. “Are you enjoying your work?”

“I like it. I guess I’m doing fine,” Ray said, with a glance at Rose, who nodded emphatically and reached over to pat his hand.

“He’s a prodigy,” Rose said, proudly. “He’s very caring, and creative—you wouldn’t believe some of the clever solutions he’s come up with. I wish he was my grandson so I could
kvell
properly, but I’m doing the best I can. It’s nice to have a fine, new mind at work on the same old wishes.”

Alexandra smiled. “Really, I’d expect nothing less from a member of your family,” she said to Ray. “We’ve heard all about you since you were all born.”

Ray shook his head. “I never knew any of you even existed. Grandma has never talked about the FGU at all.”

“Oh, well, it’s easier that way sometimes. People do get jealous of one’s involvement, just like any other activity. If you exist in a trusting environment, where you can be absent without question for hours at a time, that’s best.”

“This is,” Ray started to say, then felt silly voicing his thought. Rose leaned toward him encouragingly. “This is almost too good to be true, with the brownie points, and everybody being nice.”

Everyone at the table looked puzzled. “Of course! You don’t get to be a fairy godmother by snapping people’s heads off.” Rose asked, breaking the embarrassed silence that followed, “By the way, I’m curious. What have you done with the brownie points? You were absolutely on fire to try them out last week. What did you do?”

“Well, nothing,” Ray admitted at last. “I couldn’t work up my nerve to try one out, and then when I did, I couldn’t decide on what I wanted to do with it.”

“Oh, go ahead,” Chris Popp said encouragingly. “Indulge yourself a little. There’s plenty more where those came from.”

Ray did think about it again, more seriously. He tried to picture the brownie points, as Rose had told him. There were four, plus a scatter of tiny sparks. They rushed toward him, all willing to become good wishes. What should he do with them? They bobbed up and down eagerly in his imagination, all wanting to be first.

“No!” Ray said. “I can’t. I’ve got to think about it some more.”

Alexandra searched his face carefully. “You’re not doing it just for the brownie points, Ray. I see you aren’t. There’s a lot of hard work involved, a lot of thought and caring. You have to do it for the love of it.”

“No, ma’am,” Ray said. “It makes me feel good to help kids. I thought I might like to be a pediatrician when I graduated, but there’s no way I can get into medical school. I guess I’ll try something else, but in the meantime, I can do this.”

“He’s community-minded,” Rose said. “I admire that.”

“It’s too bad it doesn’t pay,” Chris Popp said, leaning back heavily in his chair. “I’d be happy to give up my job. I hate it, but I’ve developed this addiction to eating, and darn it, try as I may, I can’t seem to give it up.” He patted his round stomach.

“He’s not doing it just for the brownie points,” Rose said, just to make certain everyone understood.

“I sure wouldn’t be if it was all like last Friday,” Ray said, remembering, and his cheeks got hot. Luckily it was too dim in the room for anyone to see clearly. At Rose’s prompting, he told the others about his misadventure with the orchid, and how Rose was forced to come in at the last minute because the wand was no good.

“The gain was on too low,” Rose added, when he paused for breath. “It’s been all right all this week. I told him it’s okay.”

“Maybe,” Ray said, feeling as if he was betraying a confidence, “but I don’t
trust
it now.”

The others looked very concerned. Alexandra held out her hand and Ray gave her the training wand. She peered at it closely as if she was not only looking at it but
listening
to it.

“It seems all right,” she said.

Ray leaned forward earnestly. “Yeah, but this little stick doesn’t do the job,” he said, giving her his most serious and persuasive look, hoping that she might give in and promote him to a real wand. “If you want me to really learn, I need a good one.”

“Hey, sonny, you know better than that!” The used car salesman distracted everyone by giving him a big wink and nudging his neighbor with his elbow. “It’s not the size of the wand, it’s how you use it.” He laughed uproariously, and the other men joined in. It seemed to be an old joke.

Ray, who honestly hadn’t thought of the comparison between wands and other things yet, and wondered why not, sat up and grinned like a jack-o’-lantern. Rose looked prim.

“I wouldn’t say a thing like that,” she insisted.

“Oh, you were born an old fuddy-duddy,” Garner said, scowling. “The doctor smacked your rump, and said, ‘this one’s going to be a drag.’”

“You should know. You were there for comparison,” Rose retorted.

Ray looked around at all of them, realized he didn’t have a clue as to how old they were. Did you maybe live hundreds of years being a fairy godmother? Live longer, anyway? Even the oldsters seemed healthier and happier than usual folks.

“Where’s your grandmother, Ray?” Mrs. Durja asked.

“She’s at choir practice,” Ray said. “It’s always on Wednesday and Saturday nights.”

Garner snapped his fingers. “I should have remembered. Are we ever going to change the day, Alexandra? Saturday is damned inconvenient for anybody with a social life.”

“I can’t win,” the chairwoman said, throwing up her hands. “If we meet on a weekday, everyone with a day job gripes. If we meet on a weekend, everybody else gripes. Saturday still seems to be the best compromise, even if everyone who wants to go out of town misses a meeting now and again. If you want to change the
time
to a rotating schedule during the day so we can pick up those members who keep missing because of evening commitments, I’ll raise the issue. What’s everyone think?”

She looked at each person in turn, seeking his or her opinion. She turned to Ray, and when he demurred, tilting his head so she would go on to the next godparent, she continued to wait, smiling. The other adults waited, too. They really did care what he thought, even though he was the youngest member of the group. They thought of him as a part of this community.

“I’d like to be able to go out on Saturday nights once in a while. My girlfriend …” His sentence ground to a halt, but he saw that she understood anyhow.

“Of course,” Alexandra said, gently, and went on to the next person. “All right, that’s settled. I’ll bring it up next time as new business.”

He gave Rose a look of joy, which she met with confusion, since it was all out of proportion to having his Saturday evenings freed up. He liked being accepted like that. There was a real interest, a real involvement with him and what he said. They chuckled over his retelling of his escapades, and sympathized when he was upset at having failed. This was a kind of family, where they squabbled and resolved differences, but didn’t let it interfere with their mission.

“I’ll check with the others who have training wands,” Alexandra promised. “No one else has complained, Rose, but from what he said about that client, you might be letting Ray take more advanced cases than the others. I’ll check. I’m so sorry, Ray. I should have checked each wand personally.” She got up to order another round of drinks for the table.

Ray glanced over sheepishly at Rose.

“You’re not holding me back, you’re pushing me?” Ray asked. Rose made a modest little face, and raised her hands to the level of her shoulders.

“Is that worse?” Rose asked.

“No! That’s good,” Ray said, feeling a warm glow in the middle of his chest, almost as nice as the wand’s goodness. “I guess that means you think I can take it.”

“Absolutely,” Rose said.

“Then I want to do more,” Ray said, stretching out his arms. “I’ll take any assignment. Let me try
everything
.”

“Hold on, hold on!” boomed the big salesman at the end of the table. “Don’t put the punkin carriage before the mice, kid.”

“I won’t,” Ray said. “Rose won’t let me.” It was daring, to make the others laugh at one of their own, but they did laugh, and no one seemed to mind. He was allowed to banter, like one of the old-timers. He felt happy.

Rose looked at her watch. “Well, it’s too late for our rounds tonight. I think I’d better get on home.”

Ray rose at once when she did, but more reluctantly. “Me, too,” he said.

Everyone wished them a good night and promptly went back to their discussions. Within moments, Mrs. Durja and Mr. Garner were at it again over the same old argument, speaking in staccato phrases and waving their arms heatedly. Chris Popp and Mr. Lincoln moved in at once to try and separate them.

Ray returned Edwin’s parting salute. The fairy godmothers were long gone from their tiny barstools. More people, some of them with fancy berets and some without, had joined the throng of Guardian Angels, who had pushed more tables and chairs into a rough circle just in front of the bar. Ray and Rose had to squeeze behind them to get out.

As they left the bar, Ray felt that secure feeling of the wards slip out from around him, and shivered, even though the night was still very warm. Rose’s shadowy figure turned to him.

“Always remember, if you’re ever afraid or in trouble, get to the bar. It’s the best safe haven we have. You’ll be protected there.”

“I’ll remember,” he said. He turned his head to peer in the windows. Already, the cozy lounge felt like a second home. He had family there.

O O O

Traffic was light on the side street. By this hour of the night, anyone who was going out was out, and anyone who was staying home had found a parking place. They saw only a few pedestrians, walking in ones and twos, their shoes loud on the empty pavements. They didn’t know that there were magic people only a few paces away, and a magic bar just behind the innocuous-looking window to their left. Ray found it hard to keep his voice down in his enthusiasm.

“So can we go out again tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sorry, honey. Normally, Sunday is all right, but my daughter’s coming for dinner,” Rose said, her brows wrinkling upward apologetically. “She’s bringing the grandkids. I don’t know when they’ll leave.” When he looked dejected, she took his arm. “You can come, too, if you like. You’d be very welcome.”

“No, thanks,” he said, pulling away. “I’ve got family stuff of my own, I guess. How about Monday?” Rose shook her head. “Tuesday?”

“I’ll be knackered on Tuesday evening. I do my volunteer day at the local grade school every Tuesday.” She tapped him on the chest. “That’s where I met your grandmother, you know.”

“Grandma doesn’t do volunteer days there,” Ray said, with a quizzical look.

“Oh, no,” Rose’s eyes twinkled in the streetlamp light. “We met when we used to go to parent-teacher meetings, back when we both had children there.”

“My mama and Uncle Bradley and Aunt Selena?” Ray asked, astonished. “That was a long time ago!”

“Yes, indeed,” Rose said, wryly. “Back at the dawn of time. My sons and daughters used to play with your mother and aunt and uncle. ‘Creative’ is the term the teachers used then, to describe the kind of hijinks all of them got up to. Since then, everybody’s moved away except your mother.” Rose sighed, reminiscing. “Your uncle was a sweet little boy. You look a lot like him. Mrs. Green was very proud when he was put on the honor roll for a whole year, back when he was in seventh grade.”

“About when it happened to me the first time,” Ray said thoughtfully. “How come you know my grandmother more than forty years and you still don’t call her by her first name? Plenty of her friends do.”

Rose shrugged. “She never asked me to. In my generation, you didn’t push for the instant intimacy you see all the time now. I guess it’s a hard habit to get over. But a little formality didn’t hurt anyone.”