“Would you like to come in tomorrow and you can hear all the tapes?”
“I would.” Boyd sighed. “Would you be prepared to sign the Official Secrets Act if it were considered necessary by my people in London?”
“Under no circumstances. I’m a doctor not a civil servant. They take it as it is or they can forget the whole thing.”
Boyd smiled. “Let’s see how it goes.”
17
Stephen Randall had always hated his name being abbreviated to Steve but, as his agent had pointed out, Randall alone took up a lot of space on the posters outside theatres. Put in Stephen as well and all the other acts and their agents would raise hell. He had never been top of the bill but he was always second principal, the last act before the interval.
For years he had done the magic act. Doves, rabbits, cards, and disappearing girl assistants in coffins and sedan chairs, but he had gradually realized that he couldn’t compete any longer. There were the world’s top magicians on TV. Men whose equipment cost thousands of pounds. New tricks, new hardware and a slicker style. Steve Randall hated the need for change. For one thing it meant he would no longer have the pretty girl assistants. They earned good money but all they had to do was clear away the ribbons and livestock and lie in the coffin, so they took it for granted that part of their duties was to spend an hour or two each day in their boss’s bed. Most show-girls were subject to what the trade refers to as “management privileges” and Steve Randall was both good-looking and charming. They all liked him, and several had quite genuinely fallen in love with him. He gave them a good time and was easy-going, and it was all too easy to end up having to open your legs for some skinflint comedian who was all smiles on stage and a foul-mouthed lout when the lights went out.
Steve Randall’s main problem was what to do as an alternative, and it was his agent who suggested a mind-reading act. But not an old-fashioned act. Something slick and modern and involving the audience. Randall had protested that he knew nothing about mind-reading and his agent sent him to a man in Pimlico who could teach him.
The old man taught him the basics of stage hypnotism and memorizing and how to assess quickly people who would be easy subjects, and then he taught him the memory act of names and numbers and all the rest of it. His agent hired a professional script-writer to put together an act and Steve Randall’s name was back on the posters. The memory part was absolutely genuine, so was the hypnotism, but it was elementary and superficial. Show-biz rather than serious hypnotism. But it was a good act. Good enough to get him twice on TV.
Stephen Randall met Debbie Shaw when he was looking for a girl to join him in his act and he had gone to her agency. But although she was aware that the charm was natural and genuine she was experienced enough to surmise that “management privileges” were going to be the assistant’s principal contribution. She told him so, tactfully but firmly; and, smiling, he hadn’t denied it. She also advised him not to have an assistant, not even a man. It could look like collusion and rob his act of its authenticity. He recognized the shrewd mind behind the pretty face and invited her out to dinner that night. And to his surprise, and hers, she accepted.
He took her to the Savoy after she had watched his performance at The Talk of the Town and she enjoyed the meal and was amused by the man. It had been a long time since anyone had made her laugh. She invited him back to her flat for coffee and made quite clear that the only thing beyond the coffee would be a whisky or a brandy, and he would have to be very good to get either.
He had been very good and she realized that he had probably never needed to persuade very hard to get the girls into his bed. And as they were sipping their whiskies she made the point.
“You shouldn’t need to take advantage of your pretty girl assistants, Steve. Just a few words and your charm should be enough.”
He smiled. “You don’t understand, sweetie. If they’re in the act the taxman pays. All of it. Clothes, flowers, meals—the lot.”
She laughed for long minutes as she realized that behind that elegant debonair façade there was a sort of innocent shrewdness that she found tolerable and amusing. And, as if to prove their mutual points, she let him stay the night.
Of the several men she went out with the only one she really cared for was Steve Randall. The others were intelligent and amusing but she was well aware that what they really wanted was her lithe young body. She let them make love to her from time to time but Steve Randall was the only man she let stay the night.
He seldom bought her presents or flowers as the others did regularly. But he gave her something that she valued far more. A feeling of security and being cared for. He remembered things that she told him. Little things. Her likes and dislikes, and her modest pleasures. When the others took her out for the day it was to well-known out-of-town hotels and restaurants. The Compleat Angler at Marlow, Skindles at Maidenhead. But Randall took her to the Zoo and the museums. Children’s places. But children’s places that had not been part of her grim childhood. He was twelve years older than she, and in some ways he seemed older still, but when she was happy they seemed much the same age. When they made love he was as avid for her body as the
