would reveal every one of Peter’s and my illusions.”
“So he’s just jealous,” I said.
“Not just of me, but I do seem to have become his obsession. I did not like the way he recovered in there.”
Blackstone looked back at the house.
“Wednesday night,” he said. “Gentlemen, you have work to do.”
“You knew all those people who were here tonight?” said Phil.
“Yes,” said Blackstone. “Local magicians, not professionals.”
“Can you give us their names? Full names?” asked Phil.
“I’ll have a list in your office in the morning.”
Blackstone got in the car with his brother and they drove off. Phil and I did the same. We didn’t talk. There was nothing to say except good night when he took me back to my car parked behind the Bluedorn Apartments.
I got back to Heliotrope and parked half a block down from Mrs. Plaut’s at a little after two. There was one more surprise waiting for me before I got to bed.
Chapter 7
Announce that you are about to demonstrate a magic detector. Take a quarter. Place it on table. Turn your back. Tell the person to pick up the coin with either hand. Have them hold the hand to their forehead for about fifteen seconds while you concentrate. Tell the person to put the coin back on the table. Turn and have them place their hands on the table. Look into the person’s eyes and then point to the hand that held the coin. Tell them you can repeat the trick and do so a few times. Solution: Before looking into the person’s eyes, look at their hands. The whiter hand will be the one that held the coin. Being held to the person’s forehead causes the blood to drain enough from the hand to make it whiter than the other. Be sure to glance at the hands the instant you turn around. Take as long as you like looking into the other person’s eyes. You already know which hand held the coin.
I got up the porch stairs, through the door, and past Mrs. Plaut’s door. No problem. I got to my room. Still no problem. I turned on the light. Problem.
I saw it on the small table near the open window. Dash, the orange cat who sometimes permitted me to share the room with him, was sitting on it. The black cardboard covered composition book lay next to the salt and pepper shakers. A sheet of cardboard stood propped between the shakers. On the cardboard was written, Please read before morning. Breakfast at eight. It was signed, Irene Plaut.
“No way out of it,” I told Dash, who licked his left front paw.
I undressed down to my underwear, felt the stubble on my chin, filled a bowl with milk for Dash, and poured myself a big helping of Wheaties and milk.
Then I sat to eat, read, and wonder about the latest addition to Mrs. Plaut’s family history.
WOOLEY AND THE BEAR
Brother Wooley was not one to shrink from his duty or a battle with fists or bottles or anything that was helpless. Wooley toward the end of the days the good lord had given him on this orb of woes and frequent joy did shrink a bit but that was because of lumbago.
Be that as it may my brother Wooley who was as skinny as a dandelion stem was at the London Zoo. In truth Wooley had yellow hair and looked much like a dandelion if one applied one’s imagination. This may account for why my aunt Evangeline called Wooley “the wilted flower of the family.” Aunt Evangeline was a tsk-tsker. To Aunt Evangeline everything was a shame or a sin or both. Aunt Evangeline simply called me “Poor Irene.” Then she would shake her head and tsk-tsk. Aunt Evangeline was loath to explain. Aunt Evangeline would not say. This concerned me for many a year but a distant cousin named Sarah Free-homver from Sandusky Ohio did later tell me that Aunt Evangeline had met her but once and said to her upon taking her hand, “I’m so sorry.” Sarah Freemhover was not at all sure what Aunt Evangeline was sorry about and she never did explain.
Wooley had a greasy order of fish and chips wrapped in newspaper that he ate as he ambulated around the zoo. He ate the fish and chips not the newspaper. Do not misunderstand. Wooley was thin and bemused but he was not a simpleton.
He stopped before a cage behind whose bars sat a very large brown bear. People passed pausing only to glance upon the poor creature. It was a hot summer day. The bear just sat. When no one was about Wooley said, “Like some fish and chips?”
The bear looked at Wooley and Wooley threw him the wrapped-up newspaper containing one reasonably sized piece of cod and some fried potatoes. The bear picked up the newspaper and said “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said Wooley and walked away so the bear could eat with some privacy. It was only after he had walked approximately forty paces and was looking at nervous wolf that Wooley realized that the bear had spoken.
Wooley turned and went back to the bear’s cage. The creature had finished the fish and chips and the newspaper it had been wrapped in was nowhere in sight which led Wooley to the immediate conclusion that this talking bear had eaten the newspaper as Wooley had not done.
“You spoke,” said Wooley.
Three people in addition to my second eldest brother were now standing in front of the cage. The three people were a man and a woman and their small daughter. It might have been their granddaughter. Wooley was not concentrating on them. They were concentrating upon him after he had addressed the bear.
The bear looked at Wooley and licked its paw.
Wooley looked at the three other people before the cage and said “He talked. I gave him fish and chips and he talked. He said ‘thank you.’”
“Polite bear,” said the man ushering wife and daughter or granddaughter away. The child may in fact have been a niece or a neighbor’s child or even a foundling they had taken in but that is no matter.
When they were gone Wooley again addressed the bear. “You can talk?”
The bear looked at the roof of his cage.
Wooley urged the bear to talk again, even promised him more fish and chips. Wooley believed the bear was considering the offer. Wooley pleaded.
“If you don’t talk I’ll spend my life thinking I am a lunatic.”
The bear didn’t answer.
Wooley believes he raised his voice to the creature. So intent was he that he would not have noticed the three men in blue zoo uniforms running toward him. He turned only because the bear said, “Look out,” and looked toward the men in blue zoo uniforms who now took hold of Wooley’s arms.
“Did you hear that?” Wooley asked the men, one of whom smelled of something vile, perhaps a Dromedary, which I understand is one of the most vile smelling of God’s creatures.
“Heard what?” asked the man with bad breath.
“The bear spoke,” said Wooley. “He told me you were coming.”
“And here we are” said the man with bad breath. “Let’s go to the office and discuss this curious phenomenon.”
Wooley was taken to the office of the keeper of the London zoo who was fat and sassy and grumpy. Wooley was a man of great conviction and determination and given to the truth that our mother had told us would keep us in good stead with the Lord and with our fellow man because once you started lying it was close to impossible to remember all of your lies.
Only a part of an hour earlier Wooley had been thinking of getting to a job interview. Wooley was an accomplished mandolin player. He could play the banjo too and was known in the family and beyond for his fast moving version of Waiting For The Robert E. Lee alternating between instruments.
