loosened her garter belt and got out of it modestly, let Jill get her dress zippers. 'I mean if your magic was real like you had made a pact with the Devil. That'd be one thing. But the marks know that it's clever sleight-of-hand. So you give 'em a light-hearted show to match. But did you ever see a fire eater with a pretty assistant? Heavens, a pretty girl would just clutter his act; the marks are standing around hoping he'll set fire to hisself - or blow up.'
She snaked the dress over her head; Jill took it and kissed her. 'You look more natural, Aunt Patty. Sit back and enjoy your drink.'
'Just a second, dearie.' Mrs. Paiwonski prayed mightily for guidance - wished that she were a preacher? or had even the gift of gab of a talker. Well, her pictures would just have to speak for themselves - and they would; that was why George had put them there. 'Now this is what I've got to show the marks? this and my snakes, but this is more important. Have either one of you ever looked, really looked, at my pictures?'
'No,' Jill admitted, 'I guess not. We didn't want to stare at you, like a couple of marks.'
'Then stare at me now, dears - because that's why George, bless his sweet soul safe in heaven, put them on me. To be stared at? and studied. Now right up here under my chin is the birth scene of our prophet, the holy Archangel Foster - just an innocent babe and maybe not knowing what Heaven had in store for him. But the angels knew - see 'em there around him? The next scene is his first miracle, when a young sinner in the country school he attended shot down a poor little birdie? and he picked it up and stroked it and it flew away unharmed. See the school house behind? Now it kind of jumps a little and I'll have to turn my back. But all of 'em are dated for each holy event in his life.' She explained how George had not had a bare canvas to work with when first the great opus was started - since they had both been sinners and young Patricia already rather much tattooed? how with great effort and inspired genius George had been able to turn 'The Attack on Pearl Harbor' into 'Armageddon,' and 'Skyline of New York' into 'The Holy City.'
'But,' she admitted candidly, 'even though every single one of them is a sacred picture now, it did kind of force him to skip around to find enough bare skin to record in living flesh a witness to each milestone in the earthly life of our prophet. Here you see him preaching on the steps of the ungodly theological seminary that turned him down - that was the first time he was arrested, the beginning of the Persecution. And on around, right on my spine, you see him smashing idolatrous images? and next you see him in jail, with the holy light streaming down on it. Then the Faithful Few bust into the jail-'
The Reverend Foster had realized early that, when it came to upholding religious freedom, brass knucks, clubs, and a willingness to tangle with cops was worth far more than passive resistance. His had been a church militant from scratch. But he had been a tactician, too; pitched battles were fought only where the heavy artillery was on the side of the Lord.
'-and they rescue him and tar amp; feather the idolatrous judge who put him there. Around in front here. Uh, you can't see it very well; my bra covers most of it, A shame.'
('Michael, what does she want?')
('Thou knowest. Tell her. ')
'Aunt Patty,' Jill said gently, 'you want us to look at all your pictures. Don't you?'
'Well?it's just as Tim says in the bally, George used up all the skin I have in making the story complete.'
'If George went to all that work, I'm sure he meant for them to be seen. Take off your costume. I told you that I wouldn't mind working our own act stark naked if they'd let me - and ours is just entertainment. Yours has a purpose - a holy purpose.'
'Well? all right. If you really want me to.' She sang a silent hallelujah and decided that Foster himself was sustaining her - with blessed luck and George's pictures she would yet have these dear kids seeking the light.
'I'll unhook you-'
('Jill-')
('No, Michael?')
('Wait')
To her utter surprise and some fear Mrs. Paiwonski found that her spangled briefies and bra were gone! But Jill was surprised to find that her almost - new negligee followed the little costume into wherever and nowhere. Jill was only mildly surprised when Mike's robe disappeared, too; she chalked it up, correctly but not completely, to his catlike good manners.
Mrs. Paiwonski clutched at her mouth and gasped. Jill at once put her arms around her. 'There, there, dear! It's all right, nobody's hurt.' She turned her head and said, 'Mike, you did it, you'll simply have to tell her.'
'Yes, Jill. Pat-'
'Yes, Smitty?'
'You said a while ago that I wasn't a real magician, that my tricks were just sleight-of-hand. You were going to take off your costume anyhow - so I took it off for you.'
'But how? And where is it?'
'Same place Jill's wrapper is - and my robe. Gone.'
'But don't worry about it, Patty,' put in Jill. 'We'll replace it. Two more - and twice as pretty. Mike, you shouldn't have done it.'
'I'm sorry, Jill. I grokked it was all right.'
'Well? I suppose it is.' Jill decided that Aunt Patty wasn't too upset - and certainly she would never tell; she was carney.
Mrs. Paiwonski was not worried by the loss of two scraps of costume, nor by her own nudity. Nor by the nakedness of the other two. But she was greatly troubled by a theological problem that she felt was out of her depth. 'Smitty? That was real magic?'
'I guess you would call it that,' he agreed, using the words most exactly.
'I'd rather call it a miracle,' she said bluntly.
'You can call it that, too, if you want to. But it wasn't sleight-of-hand.'
'I know that. You weren't even near me.' She, who daily handled live cobras and who had more than once handled obnoxious drunks with her bare hands (to their sorrow), was not afraid. Patricia Paiwonski was not afraid of the Devil himself; she was sustained by her faith that she was saved and therefore invulnerable to the Devil. But she was uneasy for the safety of her friends. 'Smitty? look me in the eye. Have you made a pact with the Devil?'
'No, Pat, I have not.'
She continued to look into his eyes, then said, 'You aren't lying-'
'He doesn't know how to lie, Aunt Patty.'
'-so it's a miracle. Smitty? you are a holy man!'
'I don't know, Pat.'
'Archangel Foster didn't know that he was a holy man until he reached his teens? even though he performed many miracles before that time. But you are a holy man; I can feel it.' She thought. 'I think I felt it when I first met you.'
'I don't know, Pat.'
'I think he may be,' admitted Jill. 'But he really doesn't know, himself. Michael? I think we've told her too much not to tell her more.'
''Michael!'' Patty repeated suddenly. 'The Archangel Michael, send down to us in human form.'
'Aunt Patty, please! If he is, he doesn't know it-'
'He wouldn't necessarily know it. God performs his wonders in his own way.'
'Aunt Patty, will you please wait and let me talk, just for a bit?'
Some minutes later Mrs. Paiwonski had accepted that Mike was indeed the Man from Mars, she had agreed to accept him as a man and to treat him as a man? while stating explicitly that she still held to her own opinion as to his true nature and why he was on Earth - explaining (somewhat fuzzily, it seemed to Jill) that Foster had been really and truly a man while he was on Earth, but had been also and always had been, an archangel, even though he had not known it himself. If Jill and Michael insisted that they were not saved, she would treat them as they asked to be treated - God moves in mysterious ways.
'I think you could properly call us 'seekers,'' Mike told her.
'Then that's enough, my dears! I'm sure you're saved - but Foster himself was a seeker in his early years. I'll help.'
She had participated in another minor miracle. They had been seated in a circle on the rug. Jill lay back flat and
