“Linda darling, are you trying to suggest . . . ?”
She gathered her breath. “I’d sooner share you with that Miss Krumpig than not have you at all,” she blurted out, almost as one word. “There. I said it.”
“I couldn’t,” he said flatly and honestly.
Her fingers lifted a kiss gently from her mouth to his swollen lips. “I’m glad. Because,” she said with equal honesty, “I’m not quite sure if I really meant that or not. But I have one more idea.”
“Yes?”
“Get out the car. We’re going down to the beach and find your fringe-bearded magician and fight magic with magic.”
The bartender at the beach said, “Naw, he ain’t been around here since that night you was with him, and that’s O.K. with me. Every time he’d grab him a cigarette out of the air, some drunk’d get to thinking that was some screwy gadget we had here and get sorer’n hell ’cause he couldn’t grab ’em, too. Tell me, mister: How did he work that trick?”
“He was a magician,” said Gilbert Iles. “Do you know where he lived?”
“Seems to me it was down the beach a ways at the Mar Vista. Have another round?”
“No, thanks. Drink up, darling.”
The clerk at the Mar Vista said, “Little man with a fringe beard? He was registered under the name O. Z. Manders. Left here about ten days ago.”
“Leave any forwarding address?”
“No. He left in quite a hurry. Got a cablegram, and whoosh! he was gone.”
“A cablegram? You don’t know what—”
“I just noticed it was from Darjeeling. That’s in India, isn’t it?”
The clerk at the travel office said, “Little man with a funny beard? Yes, he was here. I explained to him that in times like these you couldn’t guarantee any kind of rush accommodations for travel—he’d have to take his chances. So he got mad and went away.”
“Thanks.” Gilbert Iles started to leave, but Linda held him back.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, “but how did he go away?”
The clerk stammered. “I . . . I don’t know. How should I?”
“Please. We understand. Did he just vanish—pouf.—with smoke and stuff?” The clerk said, “I am not a drinking man. But you seem sympathetic, madam. I assure you that he took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and spread it on the floor, where it grew to the proportions of a carpet. Then he said some strange word and I swear that I saw the handkerchief fly out the door with him on it. But if you ever mention that to my employers—”
“So that’s that,” Linda observed. “You said your little man kept talking about Darjeeling, and now he’s had to go back there. We can’t get any help from him.”
“I hope,” said Gilbert, “he isn’t too much of a problem to the coastal antiaircraft batteries. What would happen to a spotter who reported a magic carpet? But now what can we do?”
Linda held her head high and resolute. “We’re going to call up your demon and talk this over with him. If my husband has to commit a sin a day, I want to know just what kind of sins.”
They drove for miles up and down the beach. It was not easy in full daylight to find a suitably quiet spot for calling up demons.
“People,” Linda sighed at last. “They swarm—”
“Shall we go home?”
“But it’s so nice here at the beach— I’m so glad to have a day off with you even if you have to be cursed and beaten to make it. I know! We can call him up in a hotel.” They drove back to the Mar Vista. There was something appropriate in calling up a demon in the magician’s former home. The clerk was puzzled by their return and looked suspiciously at Iles’s battered face.
“I’ll bet,” Linda whispered, “he thinks I got this wedding ring at the five-anddime. I hope.”
When they were alone in the drab and scantily furnished room, Gilbert Iles said: “Sriberdegibit!”
The fluctuant form perched itself on the dresser.
Linda gave a little gasp. lies took her hand. “Afraid, dear?”
“Heavens, no!” Her voice tried valiantly not to shake. “He . . . he’s different sizes all over, isn’t he?”
“In my kingdom,” said the demon, “everything is in an eternal state of flux. It’s only mortals who have fixed flesh; it must be very dull.”
“I like it,” Linda protested. “How could you buy stockings if your legs— But then you don’t wear any, do you? Or anything—” She snuggled close to her husband. “See? I can talk back to him.” But her voice was on the verge of sobs.
“What is it now?” said Sriberdegibit mournfully. “Did you summon me just to show me to this female?”
lies settled his wife onto his bed and stood facing the demon as he might have confronted a hostile witness. “I want to know what is a sin?”
“Why bother?” Twang. “You’re doing all right.”
“But I don’t like it and I’m not going to take it much longer. Man’s a free agent. That’s what makes him Man.”
“Ha,” said Sriberdegibit.
“I warn you, I’m going to break this curse as soon as I can. And in the meantime, I want to know just what I’m up against. What is a sin?”
“Well, you see,” said the demon, “that all depends on what you believe. A sin is an offense against yourself, your God, or your fellow man.”
“Then blasphemy is a sin?” lies grinned and let loose a five-minute tirade. Linda covered her head with a pillow. Even the demon blinked once or twice.
“There.” lies brushed the palms of his hands together. “That should do for today.”
Sriberdegibit’s tail twitched. “But you don’t believe in God, do you?”
“Why, I conceive of—”
“Don’t bluff
