The Magic Touch (20 page)

“See? That sounds good, too,” he said persuasively.

“No, guys, it’s like this,” Bobby said, playing Colonel Steve Cropper’s riff over and over again. The sour notes almost brought Ray to tears, and he could see the frustration on Bobby’s face.

“Come on, we have to put our own stamp on it,” said Shawn, the bass guitarist.

All of them kept glancing at Ray. None of them were comfortable arguing in front of an interloper. In the end they couldn’t agree on one way to play the piece.

“Nuts,” Bobby said. “It’s late. Let’s hang it up for the day.” He took a quick vote, which got unanimous ayes. The others hurried off to their respective houses, and Bobby cleared their chairs and lights to one side of the garage. Ray pulled his mother’s car back in, and Bobby stood by to pull down the door.

“What do you think?” Bobby asked, as soon as Ray killed the engine and got out of the car. They headed back toward the house.

“You’re getting there,” Ray said encouragingly.

“We’re going nowhere,” Bobby said, in a burst of candor. “We still reek, big-time. Part of it is this ratty guitar. I’d bust it up, like Pete Townshend, but who knows when I’ll have the money to buy another guitar? This took me almost two years to earn.”

“I could help you, maybe,” Ray said, studying the guitar. It did look nice. The body was cast in sparkly gold resin, and its neck was inlaid in wood the color of maple syrup. There were no moving parts in an electric guitar, so what was wrong with it had to be in the circuitry. Perhaps he could fix it by magic. He reached out a hand to examine the instrument. Bobby snatched it out of his reach and cradled it. No matter what he said, Bobby prized the guitar as if it was real gold. A lot of his pride was tied up in his musical aspirations.

“How come?” he asked suspiciously. “Why are you suddenly taking such an interest in the Voice Dancers? You haven’t done much to date except make fun of us.”

Ray was casual. He carefully kept his hands in plain sight, not making any sudden moves toward the instrument.

“I want to see my little brother succeed at something he really wants.”

“This something like you did with Chanel?” Bobby asked, relaxing. “She told me you wanted to do a nice thing for her.”

“Sort of,” Ray admitted. And he had. Their little sister was now protected by a luminous shell, which was invisible unless he was holding the wand and concentrating on seeing it. Bobby shook his head.

“You took a whole bunch of those silly girls shopping. That wasn’t just giving a money gift. Are you doing penance? You just learn you’re terminal or something? Figuring how to divvy up your earthly possessions?”

Ray sighed. Chanel had been willing to accept presents as her due. Bobby was more inclined to turn a hairy eyeball on anything that looked as if it might have strings in the future.

“No, bro,” Ray said, having provided himself with all the patience he had, and borrowing some against the future. “I just felt philanthropic.”

“Yeah, but can you spell it?” Bobby said cynically. “Okay, man, if you’re casting bread around, how about a new guitar? I need a studio quality machine if we’re going to cut a demo recording.”

“No offense, but you all need more practice before anyone will want to listen to it,” Ray said.

“Hey, if I have a good guitar, I’ll
practice
,”
Bobby said.

Ray calculated the wish for a really professional instrument against the four brownie points and change left in his head. The total left four and a
half
spots like black holes with bright coronas, like the sun in eclipse. It was just out of his range, magically. “I can fix this one, though,” he said.

Bobby scoffed. “What do you know about guitars?” he asked.

“More than you think,” Ray said. He had enough
pfft
for a custom job on an existing model. Three brownie points stood up to be counted. “Let me have it, and I’ll fix it tonight.”

Bobby started to hold it out to him, then again jerked it back before his brother’s hands touched the neck. “This is part of a plot by Mom and Dad to get rid of my guitar. They hate our band.”

“No. I swear,” Ray said. “I swear by … everything.”

“Okay,” Bobby said. “I’ll let you have it in exchange for hostages. I want your key to Dad’s car.”

“What for?” Ray demanded. “You can’t drive!”

“Yeah, and neither can you if you ruin my guitar,” Bobby said.

People are so untrusting
, Ray thought, trailing behind as his brother marched up to his room and set the guitar down lovingly on Ray’s desk like a sacrifice on an altar. Bobby gave him a suspicious, searching look, then left. As soon as Bobby had shut the door of his own room, Ray went to work on the guitar.

“Okay, wand,” he said. “Fix what’s wrong. Make it sound pretty, for Bobby.”

The next morning, he left the instrument in plain sight, with a pair of wire cutters and a screwdriver beside it, to add weight to his story of repairing it by hand. He didn’t see Bobby before he left for work.

O O O

“Ray? Is that you?” Bobby’s voice shouted, as Ray pushed open the door that evening. Ray followed his voice into the kitchen. Their mother and grandmother were there, looking at Bobby and his guitar with trepidation. Bobby turned the volume on his amplifier up to five. Ray, seeing the worried expression on his mother’s face, strode over and turned the amp down to three. Bobby was too happy to notice.

“Listen, man, listen!” He started to play “Stairway to Heaven.” His mother clapped her hands over her ears, but let them drop in astonishment when the tune sprang forth sweet and pure from the speaker, instead of rough and tinny.

“Beautiful, baby!” she said, wonderingly. She gave him a kiss. “You’ve really been practicing. I’m proud of you.”

“No,” Bobby explained, running his fingers down the neck to try out successive chords. “Ray fixed my guitar. It sounds fabulous now.”

“It certainly does,” Grandma Eustatia said. “Almost like magic.” She gave Ray a conspiratorial smile.

“About that,” Ray said, grinning back.

“I guess I don’t stink as much as I thought,” Bobby said. “Thanks, brother.”

“No charge,” Ray said. He was surprised at how much pleasure he got out of a simple gesture like rearranging a couple of electronic circuits. And yet, this was magic, too. It wasn’t life and death, but he’d granted a wish. There was nothing life-threatening here. He remembered at last how it had felt to grant that first wish for Matthew, the first time the goodness had taken over. That was fun, and so was this.

As usual, Rose had been right. The other night in the hospital had been an aberration. He’d let himself get worked up into an obsession. Fairy-godfathering wasn’t supposed to be onerous and depressing. He was doing a service for children. Sometimes there would be sad moments, but there were just as many times to laugh. Ray promised himself he would keep things in proportion from that moment on. He would never shy away from the hard cases, when kids really needed him, but he’d also look out for the joyful moments like this one.

Bobby strummed another chord or two, enjoying the sweet sound. Then he let his fingers climb over the strings, reaching for more difficult chordings. He tweaked one string and choked a wowing tone out of it, as he thrust out the guitar like Jimi Hendrix. He closed his eyes, and a blissful smile spread over his face. He must be seeing himself on a huge stage, surrounded by screaming fans. Ray knew that in a second he’d start to play the national anthem. His mother must have had the same idea pop into her head.

“Not in the house,” their mother said warningly. That broke the spell. She started to reach for the amplifier cord, and Bobby leaped to protect his equipment. He pulled the plug himself. “Use the garage. Ray can move my car for you.”

“Go practice some more, honey,” Grandma said. “I’ll come and listen to you later.”

“Yeah!” Bobby said, beaming, as he coiled up his cables like a practiced roadie. “That’d be great. You come, too, Ray.”

“I will,” Ray promised. “I’ve got to do something first.”

O O O

“Hello, Rose?” Ray asked, clutching the phone tightly. His fingers were sweating. Why was he nervous? She’d told him to call her whenever he wanted. It was because he’d been a little snot to her the other night, and he knew it.

“Good evening, Ray! How are you?” Her voice sounded surprised but pleased. He guessed she’d forgiven him.

“I’m great,” he said, and realized it was true. “Uh, I’m sorry about the other night.”

“Forget it,” Rose said. “It happens to everybody.”

“Well, uh, thank you. I just wanted to let you know you can bring on the kid with the jelly bean jones. I’m ready for him. I think I’ve got things back in proportion, and I’m itching to boogie.” And, he added casually, “How about it?”

“Absolutely!” Rose sounded delighted, and Ray almost collapsed with relief. “Well, tomorrow evening’s a meeting, so we can go out before that, or on Sunday.”

“Both,” Ray said at once, keeping his fingers crossed. Rose laughed, but she didn’t say no.

“We’ll see. You have a resilient mind, Ray. Everyone is so pleased with you.”

“Yeah. And I’m pleased with me, too,” he said. He hung up the phone, looked at himself in the oval mirror hung over the hall table. “Yeah. I am.”

Chapter 19

“… Every child deserves one miracle!”

Ray stood proudly with the rest of the members and belted out the union song with plenty of vigor. He didn’t have to look at the words, because they appeared in the fairy godmothers manual, which he had finished reading cover to cover. He’d already committed some of the most important parts to memory. A song that rhymed was a piece of cake. Chris Popp, in the seat next to him, gave him a lopsided grin of approval. Ray sat down with his hands behind his head.

The Blue Fairy waved her wand over them, spreading silver light around the room. Ray fancied that he could feel the light touch of the magic as it settled on his upturned face. Rose, on his other side, chuckled low under her breath.

“You’re amazing, you have so much energy left,” she said. “My feet are killing me.”

“I’m terrific,” Ray said, tapping a lively rhythm with his toes on the floor. Rose reached over and smacked his leg in a playfully nagging way.

“Stop that. It’s distracting. Listen to the chairwoman.”

Ray stopped tapping, but he continued to drum an inaudible pattern on his knee with his fingertips. He was in a good mood. Three quickie stops in the afternoon, two of them wishes he’d granted all by himself. Rose had applauded his ingenuity, too. Later there would be a chance to schmooze with the other eff-gee-yews in the bar.

At the rostrum, Alexandra peered around the room. “George still isn’t here yet. Does anyone know if he’s going to be here? Did anyone hear from him?” The audience murmured “no.” “Oh, well, maybe he is going to be late. We’ll get started, and he can take up his duties when he arrives. Mrs. Sayyid, perhaps as treasurer you’ll act as secretary for now.”

“Certainly,” said the small woman in the sari, rising from her place in the third row. Alexandra handed her a pocket tape recorder and a notebook.

“Thank you,” she said. “For the moment we’ll waive the reading of the minutes from the last meeting, mostly because George has them with him. We’ll begin.” She gestured toward the back of the room. Ray turned his head and saw the black-jacketed punk who had been there at the last meeting. He sat with his feet propped up on the back of the chair in front of him. When Alexandra named him, he glanced up from a bored examination of his fingernails.

“We’d like to welcome back Mr. Guthrie, our observer from the DDEG, of course, and we’d like to extend a special welcome to visitors from Local 36, out in the western and far western suburbs.” Four people stood up, an old man who looked like a school principal, a young black girl in very expensive duds and short, beaded dreadlocks, a matronly woman with olive skin, and a young white man with a heroic profile, dark red hair, and light green eyes.

“My, isn’t he
handsome
,”
Rose whispered. Ray nodded, wondering if he had seen the young man on television somewhere, or if he just happened to have that kind of movie star look naturally.

“I hope you will get to know them when we break for coffee,” Alexandra continued. “They’ve expressed a wish to accompany some of you on your rounds. If you have the time, it would be a courtesy.”

Rose and Ray exchanged a glance. Ray thought he knew what she was thinking. Rose wanted to ask the handsome young man. Ray didn’t mind. It would be nice to get to know fairy godparents from another place, and the stranger looked like a nice guy.

Mrs. Sayyid came forward and stood beside the podium. “Is there any old business?”

“Progress on the WGA merger agreement?” Alexandra asked.

“We have a full draft of our suggested changes,” Morry Garner said, standing up. “They won’t like it over there, but in order to preserve our unique quality of service, we have to have some concessions from this proposal.”

“For example?”

“Darn it, we need to keep our specific function areas separate!”

“Mr. Garner! Please stay within the boundaries of parliamentary language.”

“Sorry,” he said, although he didn’t look contrite. “I don’t care if both the memberships answer ultimately to a single central entity that oversees ethical control, but the training and function of fairy godparents must remain intact. Otherwise, we lose our identity, and the goodwill built up over centuries.” He turned to glare at the DDEG representative, who returned his look with bland nonchalance. “If they don’t like that idea, then I think it would be better to scrap the whole thing.”

“Hear, hear!” cried most of the members. Ray added his voice to the hurrah. Mrs. Durja sat with her hands clenched in her lap, holding her tongue. She took the matter personally.

“I’ll have copies of the draft made for everyone,” Alexandra said. “Then, at the next meeting we can take a final vote on the proposal, with our recommendation for or against.” The wand tapped a demand for silence as everyone murmured to his or her neighbor.

Mr. Guthrie sat up and scrutinized each naysayer in turn. Maybe he was thinking of approaching each one in hopes of turning their vote toward the merger. Ray thought it deserved to be a lost cause.

“Any new business?”

“Yes, I have some.” Morry Garner stood up again. “I want to bring to the attention of the chair this bad press we’ve been getting lately.” He took a clipping and his glasses out of his pocket. Putting the latter on his nose, he read aloud from the former. “‘… A man claiming to be a fairy godfather robbed a northside apartment building. Police are baffled as to how the burglar got into the building, which had a functioning security system that was not tripped at the time of the incident.’ What’s going on here? People are starting to talk about us as if we’re nothing but crooks and con artists. I want to make an official complaint. Our reputation is suffering!”

Alexandra stepped forward again. “I saw that, too, Mr. Garner. I called the reporter from the
Chicago Tribune
to ask why we weren’t approached for a statement. She said she based her story on an eyewitness, a young boy who was fooled by the first reported perpetrator. She has promised to print a retraction, and send us a copy of the corrected article.”

“Not that that’ll do any good by the time it appears!” Garner protested. There was a general outburst of agreement.

“It happened right here in this neighborhood,” Mr. Lincoln said, standing up. “Children who know about the incident are acting afraid of us when we make our calls. And it’s still going on! Kids think that one of these illicit invasions is a visit from a tooth fairy or one of us, and their house gets robbed right under their noses.”

“Who
are
these people?” Mrs. Lonescu asked.

Ray stopped tapping on his leg. He had a sinking feeling he knew who was behind the rash of burglaries. It had to be the genie-Jackals, taking advantage of a situation that practically fell into their laps. It was too easy. Kids were so trusting that they’d probably lead the hoods to the family silver if they thought the visitor was a legitimate fairy godmother. The only thing he was worried about was if he might get Hakeem into trouble by telling, but he was sure Hakeem would never lie to little kids, or rob houses. He turned to Rose to tell her, but she shushed him.

“Later,” she said. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and resumed his nervous drumming. He’d wait until the coffee break.

O O O

“Well, I need a break,” Alexandra said, after a long report on the trends of wishes asked and granted, presented by Mrs. Lonescu. “George still isn’t here. How very odd. Let’s call a halt for now, shall we?”

“Seconded!” Morry Garner said, bobbing up like a jack-in-the-box. The chairwoman’s wand tapped down, and the membership scattered. Ray followed Rose toward the coffee urns. He was dry. He also felt like a cigarette, but he didn’t have any, and fairy godparents tended not to smoke. Even he had dropped from his previous total to about one a day. Maybe today would be when he quit altogether. On that cheerful thought, he poured himself a cup of coffee and dumped plenty of sugar into it.

George’s absence was discussed over the mugs, along with the outbreak of burglaries and other magically enhanced crimes. The police were baffled, of course, on how the perps got in and out without signs of entry. A few of the FGs wanted to offer their services, but Ray thought they’d be laughed out of the station house. Most police had enough trouble with ridicule when they tried working with psychics. Fairy godmothers would be the ultimate last straw.

“I tell you, children jump when they see us,” Mr. Lincoln said. Mrs. Durja nodded vigorously in agreement. “As if they’re being haunted by apparitions. We’ve got to put an end to it somehow.”

“But who’s behind it?” the others asked.

Ray turned to tell Rose what he’d been thinking, but she had abandoned him to go to talk to the newcomers, probably to invite one of them to join their rounds. Ray hoped it would be Sunday. He was on a roll of good magic, and wanted to keep the streak running. He started over to find Alexandra and tell her about the gang connection.

“Hey, dude, c’m’ere.” The white man in the black leather jacket gestured to him from the archway at the side of the room that led to the washrooms. Ray glanced around him, but saw no one else. Mr. Guthrie was looking at him. “Yeah, bright boy, I mean you. C’mon.”

“Can I help you?” he asked, very politely. Here it came, the request for unity, a bid to help the DDEG join up with the FGU. Fat chance, he thought. He gave Guthrie a quick once-over, taking in greasy hair, black jeans, new Sports Figure high-top sneakers, a greasy T-shirt, and the jacket. He wasn’t going out of his way toward sartorial splendor for the sake of the FGU, but he also wasn’t wearing any insignia or colors. So he might not necessarily be a gangbanger. It just seemed as if the DDEG admitted grungy types. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, man, I wanted to talk to you in private.” Guthrie glanced over Ray’s shoulder to make certain no one was approaching them. “Look,” he asked, “what are you doing in a group like this?”

“What am I doing?” Ray echoed. “I’m helping kids. I like it. What are
you
doing with the Djinn?”

“You don’t look feebleminded, man,” Guthrie said, shaking his head. “A young guy like you should be more on the ball.”

This discourse was beginning to border on insult and didn’t seem to be going in the direction Ray had predicted. He folded his arms and loomed over the visitor.

“What exactly are you getting at?” he asked, suspiciously.

Guthrie wiped his nose with the back of his hand and leaned closer in a conspiratorial manner. Ray leaned back. Chris Popp had been right about the guy’s B.O.

“Hey, bro, you’ve got to get out of this organization. They’re
using
you. Word is that you’re just a milk cow to them. You know about these brownie points? Uh-huh,” he said, as Ray nodded slowly. “Well, you look out. You get a lot of these brownie points, and slurp! they’re gone.”

“Oh, come on,” Ray said, glancing at the other members. Some of them looked their way curiously over their coffee cups, wondering what the observer was saying. Ray wanted to shout out that the guy was telling him lies and trying to subvert his loyalty. “They told me my brownie points were mine, for use as I saw fit. Nobody’s going to take them away.”

“No, I mean it. This is the
word
,”
Guthrie said, in a low, intense voice. “Everywhere but here, that is. You’re getting led by the nose. In no time, you’ll be jumping when they call. These brownie points are in a pool, see, and some of the bigwigs are draining it dry at their end. Anything you earn is available to them, and when you’re not looking, they’ll sweep you clean.”

Ray immediately checked his mental piggy bank. “They’re still there, man,” he said, scornfully. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah,” the visitor grinned. “Maybe they’re with you now, but they won’t be later. Wait and see. It’s happened in a bunch of other cities. Some of the bigwigs use everyone else as a ‘personal pixie dust repository.’ Think about it. I mean, that guy, George. Hasn’t been around lately, right? I bet he had his fingers in the cash register. You ought to check. See if anyone else is missing a few, huh? He probably had access to thousands. Maybe he’s on a South Sea island somewhere he bought.” Cocking a finger like a gun, he fired an imaginary round at Ray, and walked off. “See you, bro.”

“Boy, he is a jerk, isn’t he?” the visiting fairy godfather from the western suburbs said, coming over. Ray shook his head disgustedly after Guthrie. The man had managed to shake his confidence by starting a niggle of doubt deep inside him, where he had never doubted before. It was a matter he’d have to consider in private. He turned apologetically to the visitor.

“Yeah,” Ray said. “Not my favorite person, but he had some things to say.” What bothered Ray was that the lies sounded plausible. Could he have been set up for eventual betrayal? Surely not by his own grandmother!

The visitor stuck out a hand. “Doyle,” he said. “Jeff Doyle.”

“Ray Crandall. Nice to meet you,” Ray said.

“My God, you people look good here,” Jeff said, casting a quick glance around at the members, who were circulating with coffee and complaints, and ended by smiling at Ray’s tie. “I mean, you can’t believe what crummy clothes some people show up in for meetings out in our neck of the woods. Or for missions, either. You’d think they were going to wash the car, not fulfill a little kid’s fondest dream.”

Ray scowled, trying to remember something he’d heard on his first visit to the Magic Bar. “You’re from out west, right? You weren’t the one who granted a car to a poor kid, were you?”

Jeff Doyle grimaced. “No. That was some babe-ette with mall hair who was admitted to the union because her
mother
had been in the union. A fine fairy godmother, too. Her daughter is a dip. She just went ahead and did what she thought that guy wanted, not what he asked for. Not really. It was a mess. We’re all walking on tiptoe, now, trying to keep out of the papers until the scandal blows over.”

“Too bad,” Ray said, meaning it.

“Yeah, well,” Jeff said dismissively. “Say, your partner was talking to me about coming out on patrol with the two of you, maybe tomorrow?” he asked, smiling his earnest smile. “I’d really like it, but she said it was up to you.”