‘It will take forever, trying to decipher all the possible combinations,’ Eliza said.
‘Not with Izzy. First, see, I simplify it for him. Like I pick a sentence, then program Izzy to look for the repeaters. I try the “the” and “and” combination of three-letter words, keep narrowing it down. Finally I get three, four words that begin to make some goddamn sense.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘C’mon, I’ll show you.’
‘By the way, has anybody seen Jolicoeur since we got back?’ O’Hara asked.
The Magician shrugged. ‘He’s probably putting a shine on some new scam.’
Izzy sat humming quietly in his oversized closet. The television monitor was covered with nonsense words. The Magician sat down and studied the screen. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Can you follow me on this? First, see, I pick a trial line, something directly outa the book.’ He pointed to a line on the screen:
Cpl Zbwqn Mfclbngcmwngx Ygnj Xca
‘Looks like Aztec,’ Eliza said.
The Magician ignored her. ‘Next, I ask Izzy to analyse the line for me.’ He typed ‘ANLYZ’ on the keyboard. A moment later the computer began printing out information on the monitor screen:
No of words:
Longest word: 13 ch
Shortest word: 3 ch
Others:
5 ch: I
4ch: 1
Different letters: 15
Capitals: 5
Three-letter words: 2
Repeat frequency:
13:0; 12:0; 11:0; 10:0;
9:0; 8:0; 7:0; 6:0; 5:0;
4: 2—c,n;
3: l-g;
2: 5—b, 1, m, w, x;
1: 7—a, f, j, p. q, y, z
Double-letter combinations: 0
Three-letter words: Cpl, Xca...
The machine paused. Another message appeared:
Holding for sub direct...
‘Okay,’ said the Magician, ‘let’s save old Izzy a little time here. There are no double-letter combinations, so we’ll try the two-and three-letter words, okay? It would also be a fuckin’ fluke, this sentence beginning or ending with the word “and”
- or the sentence ending with the word “the,” right? You with me so far? Okay, now it’s likely, see, that the sentence might start with “the.” So let’s let Izzy recompute the trial sentence, substituting “The” for “Cpl.”
He typed ‘SUB THEICPL’ and hit the return key.
The old sentence appeared immediately:
Cpl Zbwqn Mfclbngcmwngx Ygnj Xca
It was followed by the new sentence with the substitutions:
The Zbwqn Mftebngtmwngx Ygnj Xta
‘Now let’s see what we’ve got with only the new letters.’ He typed ‘LIST SUB ONLY.’
The machine displayed the following:
The te---t —
‘Where do you go from here?’ asked O’Hara.
‘I’ll just put this here in hold. Then I go to the next sentence I picked. It’s trial and error, okay, but Izzy does all the goddamn work, and fast. So what I do, I keep substituting until finally I come up with a word or two makes sense. I’m gonna break this code, Sailor.’
‘Stay in touch,’ O’Hara said. ‘I’d like to keep track of you through the years.’
But Eliza was fascinated. She had worked with word-processing machines and had some knowledge of computer language.
