The Magic Touch (2 page)

“Very well, thank you,” the woman said, briskly clasping his hand in a warm grip and pumping it up and down before he could pull it back. “We’re going to get along fine, you and I, don’t you think?”

“No,” Ray said truculently, looking down at her. She must have been a good eight inches shorter than his six feet. “Why should I think that?”

“What’s the matter?” Rose asked, wrinkling her brows. “Didn’t your grandmother tell you about me?”

His grandmother?
Raymond thought, all the starch knocked out of him. He immediately pictured Grandma Eustatia: a short woman, but broad and wide, with a hearty singing voice she occasionally used to raise the roof. In fact, Grandma didn’t talk much to anyone. She was always singing, either out loud or to herself, around the house.

“That’s right,” Rose said, as if he’d said something. “I know your grandmother. Mrs. Green is a fine woman. She told me about you, and I thought you sounded perfect for us. She has all the qualities you’d ever want, and she thinks you have them, too, so here you are. I recommended you myself for membership.”

“Want? Want in what?” Ray asked, annoyed by Rose’s circumlocutious style of conversation.

Rose gazed at him as if he hadn’t spoken. “So young. Maybe everybody looks so young when they first come in, eh? And such a chip on your shoulder, it’s a wonder one side of your body isn’t higher than the other. You’re here because you’re going to be a fairy godfather, sonny.”

Ray stared at her goggle-eyed. Whatever he was expecting her to say, it wasn’t anything like that. “No, I’m not. You must be out of your head. My grandmother sent me here to learn something, not to participate in some weird make-believe.”

Rose tilted her head to one side to study him. Raymond was quite handsome. He had warm, deep brown eyes just two shades darker than his skin. His nose had character. His hair was cut in one of the modern styles that was becoming with his long oval face: very short on the sides and back, but a couple inches high on top of his head, and eschewing the idiosyncratic razor cuts that simulated plaid, sculpting, a side-parting, or other symbols. Though his shoulders were broad, his arms and legs seemed awkward and gangly, as if he hadn’t finished growing into his body yet. This child was bursting with promise, so much it was squirting out of him in every direction but the right one. She took his arm and squeezed his hand lightly. To his credit, he didn’t pull away.

“You want to help people?” Rose asked gently, trying not to frighten him. He looked ready to run away. “You want to do good?”

Raymond started, as if she’d been reading his thoughts. She’d only been reading his face.

“Uh, I guess so.”

“Well, that’s what we do,” Rose said. To her it sounded self-evident.

“What do you mean by good?” Ray asked. “I mean, exactly.”

A shrug. “Whatever really needs doing. You heard our motto: Every child is entitled to one miracle. We provide the miracle, one to a child.”

Raymond gestured around him at the hall full of people. “But you’re a union! That’s no help to anyone I’ve ever heard. Not to children anyhow.”

Rose sighed impatiently, and Ray wondered what he’d missed.

“Try to think of us as a guild, rather than a trade organization. We’re a teaching society, a mutual assistance collective. We help each other to help others. Anyone can join who has the right attitude, the right
aptitude.
Honest, helpful, smart,
caring
,
that’s the important one. That’s you.”

Raymond felt his cheeks burning. “What about it?” he asked, defensively.

“
So
,
you’re going to make use of all those wonderful qualities. So you don’t
waste
them.” Rose put a fingertip almost to Ray’s nose. He pulled back, but not too far. “Aha, that intrigues you, doesn’t it?” The fingertip pointed up to the ceiling then arrowed down toward the floor. “See here. As of right now, you’re my apprentice. As your senior Fairy Godmother I’m supposed to teach you how to do good for children who need you. You’re going to have to do what I tell you. Can you handle that, or not?”

She was throwing a challenge up to him. Would he let an old woman be his boss, a white woman, a Jewish woman at that? Raymond narrowed one eye at her, trying to stare her down. She glared back, as she had during the meeting. The old girl had guts, no question. She might well be a friend of Grandma Eustatia. And he liked the idea of helping out kids, whether or not he understood yet just exactly what was going on here.

“I can handle it,” he said, in a flat voice.

“Good,” she said, beaming, and clapping her hands together. “No time like now to get started, eh?”

“Started?” Raymond asked. He looked at his wristwatch, then at the clock on the wall. “But it’s after eight o’clock!”

Rose patted his arm. “That’s when our work really begins most of the time, young man.” She turned to the Blue Fairy. “We’re going, Alexandra. Where can I pick up his manual and wand?”

The chairwoman smiled and nodded toward the side of the room where there was a long table stacked with flyers and a pile of long, narrow boxes.

“Just take them, Rose. George will take care of administrative,” the Blue Fairy said, checking off Ray’s name on her roster. She smiled at him over her poised pencil. “Ray, welcome. I hope you’ll be with us for a long time.”

His face said “don’t count on it, lady,” but his mouth said, “Uh, thank you, ma’am.” Rose smiled. The child had beautiful manners, and the curiosity had already gotten the better of him. He was hooked. He just didn’t know it yet.

Chapter 2

“Order, blast it, order!” The thin, tall man in the expensive charcoal gray suit hammered on the glass-topped table. The sharp, thin sound rang throughout the showroom, and echoed off the shades and pendant crystals of dozens of lamps. He glared around. “Dammit, shut up!”

After a while, the thirty or so young men and boys crowded in amid the displays of lighting fixtures quieted down enough to stare at him. They looked decidedly out of place in the elegant shop. Of every skin color, height, and appearance of prosperity, they were dressed mainly in black. The only variation in the uniform was flashes of gang colors or patches depicting the logos of professional sports teams. Much of their clothing was deliberately torn, and in the current deplorable fashion, oversize to the point that another teenager could have shared the same pair of trousers with the wearer, without the two of them bumping cheeks. Froister caressed the stem of the brass Stiffel floor lamp that stood beside him, and wondered if it was not too late to truck in a supply of ordinary lightware, perhaps from, he shuddered, Kmart, so as not to waste the good merchandise.

“My compliments, by the way,” Froister said, turning his head slightly and speaking out of the corner of his mouth to the man at his shoulder. “When you said you’d be stepping up the membership drive, I should have taken you seriously.”

“To hear is to obey,” Gurgin replied, leaning forward with a grin on his swarthy face. He reached forward with one wrist out and clashed bracelets with Froister, a little too energetically, then crossed his arms over his chest. A formidable figure, he towered over the warehouse owner by almost a foot. He was an ancient type. The three-piece suit he wore only seemed a costume, as if he was used to appearing in more exotic clothing.

“Yes, well,” Froister said, shooting his French cuffs down over the metal bands to conceal them. The other five old members, DeNovo, Timbulo, McClaherty, Bannion, and Carson, did the same. Froister clapped his hands.

“Let’s get going. Welcome to Enlightenment, everybody. I am Albert Froister. The others and I are members of a … benevolent organization, the Djinni, Demons, and Efreets Guild, local chapter 19.” A couple of the youths laughed at the name, and Froister stared them down, making certain they understood he was offended. “We offer opportunity to those we think worthy to receive it. You all know why you’re here? Or what it is you came looking for?”

One of the young men in black leather shuffled uncomfortably and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “The big dude said something about power. I want power.” He looked around quickly, as if daring someone to make fun of him.

“Yeah,” another youth laughed. “All of us want power. You’d have to be a dope to say no when somebody offers you something like that.”

Froister smiled at them. “No one gives it to you. You have to earn it, but it’s real, I promise you that.”

The first young man used the side of his hand to wipe his nose again, then aimed the same forefinger at Froister. “Then show us, man. We see, we believe. Got that?”

“Of course.”

With the merest flick of will, Froister turned into a puff of smoke.

The newcomers gasped. A couple of them broke for the door, but were easily restrained by Gurgin and the old members. Froister regarded them through the haze with pleasure, seeing them tremble but with fascination growing in their eyes. As the astonished youths watched, he turned from a formless cloud into a stream that poured itself into the decorative chimney at the top of the Stiffel lamp. Froister had a cloudy view through the translucent white shade as a few of the boldest rushed forward to paw the air where he had stood, and to examine the lamp itself. Gurgin kept all of them from handling the lamp too much. They exclaimed over it, jostling each other to get close, scared but more impressed by the moment. After allowing the wonder time to sink in, Froister re-manifested the smoke and solidified on the other side of the crowd.

“Well?” he asked, hands out for applause as they spun to face him. There was a moment when the young men breathed in and out, then shouted all at once.

“I want to do that, too!” the shuffler exclaimed. “That’s ba-ad!”

“Me, too!” “Way cool!” “Me, man, listen to me. Me first!”

Froister smiled. He nodded to Gurgin, who stepped forward with a box full of wristbands.

“Very well, then, if you want to join our little group, we would be delighted to welcome you,” Froister said. “Here is the insignia of your membership, your union card, so to speak.” Boys jostled each other to grab pairs of the steel blue wristlets out of the box. “In a moment, I’ll ask you to put them on, and repeat after me the guild oath. ‘I, your name, swear eternal fealty to the spirit of the lamp, and will obey the words of my master in exchange for eternal life and eternal power as a duly sworn member of the Djinni, Demons, and Efreets Guild.’”

“Master? I don’t like this ‘master’ stuff,” said one dark-skinned youth, edging back to the wall next to a verdigrised bronze sculpture of a cherub and dolphin on a seashell. The cherub looked up at him, blank-eyed. “I ain’t
never
gonna call no one master.”

“Well, it’s part of the oath, young man. Who
will
you take orders from?” Froister asked. He took up a pair of bracelets and held them out temptingly, easing closer to the young man with the grace of a stalking panther. “You can’t turn into smoke or do any other wonders without taking the oath of membership.” He stopped at arm’s length and jingled the steel rings in his hand. The young man stared at them, fascinated.

“I dunno, my parents, my teachers—sometimes,” he admitted, with a sheepish turn of his head. “My mama, mostly.”

“That’s easy,” Froister said understandingly. The bands clinked together sensuously. “Swear to obey the orders of the
mother
of your lamp. So long as it is an oath you will keep, the lamp will not care.”

“I guess that’s okay,” the young man said. He snatched the bracelets off Froister’s palm and weighed them in his hand. “I can really turn into smoke with these?”

“Every time.”

The young man’s face split in a brilliant white grin. “Cool.”

The change of wording in the oath seemed to be acceptable to a lot of the newcomers. All of them had mothers. Froister and a couple of the old-timers exchanged meaningful glances. Things had changed a lot since the old days. There were improvements, like being able to choose any lamp as one’s domicile. Froister vastly preferred a clean electric fixture instead of the traditional brass Persian slipper shape filled with rancid oil. But there were also departures, like having to change the ancient oaths to suit the new sensitivity. With the deepest misgivings in his heart, he continued.

“Choose a lamp that no one else is standing beside.” He waited until the crowd sorted itself out. He thought there might be a violent argument over a handsome French table model, but DeNovo steered the second competitor toward an identical lamp in a corner. “Everyone ready? Put the bracelets on your wrists, and touch both of them to the lamp while reciting the pledge.”

Froister listened as all of the young voices chanted haltingly in unison. As they spoke the last words, “… The Djinni, Demons, and Efreets Guild,” there was a brilliant flash of light and a loud bang. Suddenly the huge room was empty of everyone except Froister, Gurgin, the other five members, and hundreds of lamps. The seven men smiled at each other.

“It is done,” Gurgin said, folding his arms over his chest.

“Good,” Froister said, rubbing his palms. “Now we have the manpower to begin covert operations, just as we planned. Everybody!” He banged his wristbands together. “Out here, please, gentlemen! Just imagine yourselves standing on the floor again. Come on, now. I want to talk to you!”

One by one, the new recruits steamed out of the tops of Tiffanys, and Stiffels, and Beaux Arts reproductions, and stood beaming at each other. Even members of rival gangs gave each other high fives and complicated salutes.

“That is the
meanest
thing that has ever happened in my life!” one youth exclaimed, his eyes alight. “I’m a genie! I love it!”

“And you can do it every day, any time,” Froister assured him smoothly, “during store opening hours, or whenever we have a guild meeting. We did things a little out of order tonight, by starting with new business. We’d like to go back and begin the meeting properly. May we?” He glanced around for approval, not much caring if any of the newcomers was paying attention. Many were smoking in and out of their lamps over and over, like children playing with a wonderful new toy.

“May we have the minutes of the last meeting?” Froister asked. Nick Timbulo stepped forward with a crumpled sheet of paper, probably disgorged from his toolbox. “We shall enter them into the records without reading, unless anyone objects?” Froister looked around at the young men, who paid him little heed. “Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet our recording secretary. Mr. Timbulo is worth your attention.” Timbulo tipped them all a cocky bow. Except for the gray in his tightly curled brown hair, he looked younger than the fifty years he claimed. “He was once a lowly carpenter in my employ. But now, through the workings of the guild, he has his very own successful business. He should be an example to you all.”

“How?” the shuffler asked.

“Your name?” Froister asked.

“Guthrie,” the young man said, looking shamefaced. “My friends call me Speed.”

“Well, then, Speed,” Froister said, showing that he, too, could adapt, and that they were all mates here. “As members in the DDEG, we help one another. You can grant wishes now.”

“We can?” This gave rise to another outburst, which Froister put down with difficulty. It took Gurgin’s looming presence to quell the noise.

“Quiet! You can’t grant wishes to yourself. You can use them for one another’s good.”

“I get it,” said the young black man next to the cherub. “This is like those stories, where someone rubs on our lamp, and we have to do what they say.”

“That’s essentially it,” Froister said. “That is why we have a guild to protect our interests—so not just everyone rubs your lamp and gets magical service out of you. We help one another.”

The rival gang members began again to eye one another suspiciously.

“Then how come there’s only seven of you?” asked a short, chunky youth with milk-chocolate skin and light brown curly hair.

“Do you really want to know?” Froister asked, showing his teeth ferally. He watched them shudder, then relented. “Too many of them decided that it wasn’t worth it to have the magic under any circumstances. They couldn’t abide by the rules. They gave up the bracelets—can you believe it? And without them, the magic is gone.” He swept his hands in an arc. A few of them jumped, clutching their wristbands protectively. They were still enjoying their newfound ability, and couldn’t imagine giving it up.

“I don’t want to grant no wishes for no Backyard Wolves,” said a thin-faced white boy wearing his sports team cap around backward.

“I ain’t doing no deals for Riverside Jackals,” said a Hispanic youth, glaring back at him.

“You are all bound in the Brotherhood of the Lamp now,” Froister said, stepping between them. “You have to give aid and assistance to one another in need. Got that? Follow the rules, or you don’t get any power. It’ll disappear, like smoke!” He snapped his fingers, turning his hand into a cloud just for a second. The youths all gasped. The effect still wowed them, Froister reflected. And it was easy, the least difficult thing of which all of them were now capable.

“The chance to have
real
power, not Hizzoner the Mayor kind of power, but the thunder and lightning kind,” said McClaherty, in a ringing voice that made them all pay attention, “has made friends out of the bitterest of enemies before this.” The redheaded man gave the youths a moment to think it over. “You’re not used to being allies, but I think you’ll find it worth the trouble.”

“We’ll make it work,” said the Riverside Jackal confidently.

“I don’t want just anyone rubbing on my lamp,” the young black man said. “How come we still using lamps nowadays? That’s old. Why not something modern?”

“What about bottles?” another one asked. “They’re more portable.”

“Or rings?” chimed in a third.

“Tradition, my friends,” Froister said, holding out his hands to them. “You’d be surprised how safe a lamp is. There’s hardly any fear of discovery. If you were inside a VCR, you’d change hands six times a week in your neighborhood, wouldn’t you? Yes, of course you would. A bottle? What if someone turns it in to a grocer for the deposit or, horror of horrors, sends it to the recycler to be melted down! Rings? How many people your own age do you know who have been gunned down for a piece of cheap jewelry? And don’t you dare let me hear you suggest that you conceal the essence of your
souls
in something edible! Ah, but with
lamps
—lamps are
furniture.
People ignore them, knock them over, change the bulbs, push the switch, plug in, click, turn on, turn off, and even occasionally dust their lamps, but they hardly
ever
rub them. Our membership seems to appear accidentally these days only to Polish or Puerto Rican cleaning ladies, and though it takes a lot of … persuasion to run them through their three wishes and get our members out of their thrall,” Froister sighed, “that’s a minimal annoyance. Lamps are safe.”

“Hey, do you hear something?” Guthrie asked. They all quieted down to listen. A rattle of keys against glass became audible, followed by the creak of door hinges and the slow pace of footsteps.

“Sst!” Froister said. “My night watchman! I didn’t realize it was so late. Everybody into their lamps!”

In a moment, the room was empty. A man in an army green uniform shuffled through, looking around suspiciously. He shook his head and kept going out of the showroom toward the door that led into the warehouse. The footsteps diminished in volume.

Froister manifested himself immediately. “Let’s wrap this up, gentlemen. He’ll be back again.”

“How come you don’t want him to see us?” the Backyard Wolf asked suspiciously. Froister shook his head patiently.