Touch of Magic

by M. Ruth Myers

  Roughly he pushed himself free and turned, straightening his collar.

  "Do exactly as you're told from here on out," he warned, "or I'll kill you myself."

  She twisted onto her side, her voice calling harshly after him as he reached the door.

  "I am your surprise against them, Ballieu. You need me."

  Ballieu smiled to himself. Her voice lacked conviction.

  * * *

  The episode in the restaurant was fading because she willed it to fade. Channing sat in a chair in her room with her feet up and fingertips pressed lightly to her forehead. Serafin sprawled on her bed. The draperies were drawn against the afternoon sun. Their surroundings were dusky. On the floor between them a small tape recorder filled the room, and their thoughts, with Yussufs voice.

  "... and the king of hearts is upside down."

  Channing still felt shaky, her mind filled with an image of flying glass rather than the words she was hearing. Had there been something in her drink? Had Ballieu intended to kill her and then changed his mind for some reason? Or had it been some sort of test?

  Worse than the unanswered questions, she kept rechurning the knowledge that Ellery had witnessed her lapse in composure. He'd have two reasons now to doubt her ability to carry out the job entrusted to her: today's reaction after Ballieu swept the glass away; and yesterday's snag with the practice film.

  She listened to Yussuf's instructions trail off for a third time, as disturbing now as they had been when she'd first listened. Disturbing because they sounded so innocent and summoned such recollections of good times shared, she thought, rubbing her forehead. Disturbing because they were so innocent -- a cherished magic trick. Whether Yussuf had felt some premonition that he was in over his head, or whether he'd planned to disappear, he'd wanted to leave her this legacy.

  There was only the scratch of the tape winding toward its end to break the silence.

  "Maybe if we played it backwards or something," ventured Serafin. There was a waver in his voice.

  "No." Channing scooted down in her chair and looked toward the ceiling, its actual margins softened and obscured by the dimness. "It's what he said it was. His special trick, which he invented and no one has ever figured out. That's all."

  Along with sadness she felt relief. Serafin would start to heal now. He would see Yussuf had been something more than the deceiver painted for them by recent events. He would see that he himself hadn't been just some sort of dupe.

  "Part of him was really good, then?"

  "Yes," she said softly.

  A lie? Channing wasn't sure. She didn't know what to think anymore, didn't know how you measured things.

  She recalled what she'd said to Ellery that morning. In the course of their lives everyone did some variety of sleight of hand. The thought depressed her now. Yussuf had hidden what he was -- under glitter, under laughter. He'd deceived people who had admired him; he'd betrayed an entire profession.

  The tape snapped off. She roused herself for Serafin's sake.

  "Part of Yussuf was really good," she reiterated. "The part that was your friend. The part that was my friend. I think he probably would have taken you with him the way he promised -- just as he left me this tape."

  She needed to affirm it for the boy, to help him accept what had happened.

  Or did she need the affirmation herself?

  She was thirty-two years old and felt every day of it just now, she realized, closing her eyes and pressing them. The backs of her arms ached from their hours of unaccustomed practice. Her confidence in her own ability ebbed and flowed, then ebbed again. She was disgusted with herself for letting Ballieu rattle her.

  Maybe Ellery had been right to consider her a liability. Yet when she'd been a child, performing under Gramps's proud tutelage, she'd occasionally blown a sleight or a trick she'd thought perfected. She'd learned you didn't just quit. You didn't crawl into a hole. You studied what had gone wrong and you worked harder. You went on.

  "Channing?"

  In the dimness of the room she could hear Serafin move closer. She opened her eyes and met the bright, childlike anger in his.

  "The man you're after is the one who killed Yussuf, isn't he? I want you to get him, Channing!"

  "I want that too," she said, and meant it.

  Henri Ballieu had robbed both of them of Yussuf in a way that merely killing him could never have done. She might be older than Serafin, but she shared his feeling.

  Reaching out to turn on a light, she brought a piece of film to her fingertips and gave it a practice snap. She was worried. The card shaver hadn't arrived. Rundell should have found it and had it on its way to her this morning. She'd tried calling him several times but had gotten no answer. There was nothing for her to do except wait -- and practice.

  Matching action to thought, she rose and walked toward the draperied window. The change in position gave all the privacy she required. Her hand moved almost automatically, performing the substitution. She'd accomplished it flawlessly hundreds of times since yesterday's snag. It had to have been a thread in the jacket she'd worn. Or the edge of the film.

  "Have we been resting long enough to go to the pool again?" Serafin asked.

  She shook her head.

  "We're supposed to stay in the room until three o'clock. Ellery said."

  Either he wanted a break from baby-sitting, she thought, or he had something else to do.

  * * *

  It was hot in the back of the van, and Oliver Lemming sounded tenser and more irritable than usual.

  "There are houses up in the hills in that direction," he snapped, gesturing. "Not lots, but maybe thirty or so. And a town ten miles away, even if it's not much. This safe the film's supposedly in could be anywhere -- if it's all not a lot of baloney. What do you think, Bill? I can get some sort of general search warrant so you can go poking. I thought you'd studied law!"

  They glared at each other. Ellery blotted sweat from his chin. The van they were meeting in was painted with the name of a commercial linen service, and Oliver wore the coveralls of a delivery man. No question he rolled up his sleeves and worked with his troops when he deemed it necessary. Whereas other field supervisors were content to run an operation from a command post, Oliver left nothing to chance. He assessed the territory. He assessed his people. He checked in once a day to sift through the nuances that could be missed by relying on radio contact. The only thing he wasn't doing was giving them a hell of a lot of help, thought Ellery.

  His resentment spilled out in words.

  "For chrissake, Oliver! You can't get a warrant. You can't get us more help. You haven't even gotten us an ID on those photographs -- "

  Oliver exploded, his silver brows drawing together. "What the hell's the matter with you? We only got the frigging photographs four hours ago! You're sounding like a mother hen. Maybe it was a mistake to put you with a woman."

  "Yeah. Maybe it was."

  Their eyes locked.

  Ellery felt the heat beating in through the roof of the van. Oliver looked away first and started to pace as well as he could in the cramped space.

  "Sorry," he said abruptly. "You know as well as I do how things work."

  Ellery nodded. What Oliver had said about trying to locate the film was reasonable. They both knew it. He was being too protective of Channing. They both knew that too.

  Still, if they put their minds to it, the alternative he was suggesting was surely feasible.

  "She's nervous." He pressed his argument, anyway, not mentioning Channing's name. He wondered why that was. "If we could find where they've stashed the film, we could switch it ourselves. No risks involved."

  "And miss who's selling the film." Oliver brought his sharp scrutiny to bear on Ellery. "How do you rate her? Apart from nervous."

  Ellery tightened his jaw. He'd always respected Oliver, and every decision made depended on candor between them.

  "Good. She's damned good. She's got a knack for playing off people and situation
s that's plain uncanny -- the entertainer in her, I guess. Ballieu threw her a real curve when he asked her about the timing device, but she held her own.

  "You were right. She's smart. And she doesn't panic. But yesterday she muffed the film once. What if that happens when it's for real?"

  Oliver grunted.

  "She practicing?"

  "From what I've seen of her, I'd guess that's all she's doing. She could be doing it under my nose, for all I know."

  He thought about how she'd pulled that button off his shirt and then reattached it.

  "Then we take our chances," the older man said. "One slip in a thousand's pretty good odds." He looked at his watch, a hint that they ought to wrap this meeting up. "If you get a fix on the film tonight, I'll get a warrant," he conceded. "Be careful tailing Ballieu."

  Ellery nodded stiffly. He'd gone into situations without a backup before. It was part of the game. Things weren't always perfect.

  He reached for the door and felt Oliver's hand on his shoulder.

  "I've had some second thoughts about this plan myself," said Oliver. "Every time I send people on an assignment I know could turn nasty, I have a few. Watch out for yourself, Bill. And watch out for her."

  * * *

  Khadija fingered the cut on her face and then the sack of plastic explosive hidden beneath stacks of underwear. She was glad she hadn't disposed of the plastique when Ballieu told her to. She was glad she hadn't obeyed him. Her head hurt from its pounding against the wall. Ballieu thought he had broken her. He hadn't.

  The arrogant old man had been entirely unmoved by her revelation. The news of their relationship hadn't shaken him. It hadn't pushed him to anger; or to the denial she'd been eager to refute; or to the surprised, then patronizing, acknowledgment of her which she could have scorned. It simply hadn't mattered to him. He hadn't even asked about her mother.

  Pig.

  Lighting a long, dark cigarette, she sucked its strength in. Another breath and she irritably ground out the burning end against a table. She let the idea that had started to come dance through her mind. She dressed it in details, then came back to present resentments.

  They could be on their way already. She could have opened the vault and they could have stolen a car and gone across the Mexican border. But Ballieu waited.

  He didn't believe in her competence, she thought angrily. Or he couldn't acknowledge it. That was how it happened when a man got old. He held jealously to his power. It was why she didn't dare act entirely on her own. Ballieu would discredit her.

  But surely she would be applauded if she accomplished more than smuggling out the piece of film. With jerky motions Khadija again lit the end of the cigarette. She had been trained not to waste. It seemed such a waste not to use the sack of explosive in the drawer by her elbow.

  In her own group she was a leader. There were many, in other groups as well as her own, who said she was as good as Ballieu himself had been at her age. She was ready to move into the sort of job that Ballieu performed. But Ballieu wasn't giving her a chance to prove herself.

  Like needles of blowing sand, a sense of powerlessness stung at her. She must do as instructed tonight. Still, she would see her name was not disgraced. While Ballieu played his waiting game she would show some initiative.

  After washing her face she combed her hair carefully over the small cut that was coming to be a reminder of her personal mission. She glossed her lips and sprayed herself with cologne. Now she was ready to go downstairs.

  It should not take long to determine where, in this place clogged with unobservant vacationers, the most Americans could be found at any one time, she thought. It should not take long to discover where her sack of explosive could do the most damage.

  Fifteen

  Here're the ID reports on those photographs you sent in," said Walker, tossing them at Ellery. "Came in while Max was in the can. Good thing I was here."

  "Jesus. Do I have to listen to this for the rest of my life?" objected Max. He was hooked to the headset.

  Ballieu had just returned to his room, presumably to dress for dinner, so Walker was unexpectedly free to touch base with the rest of them. They'd have a full house when Channing arrived.

  Ellery scanned the sheets in front of him. A student, a dance instructor, and a wealthy widow. Not a scrap on any of them. A dead end. He looked up to see Walker pouring a shot of cold coffee and Max watching the back of the ID sheets with the face of one who'd already seen their contents.

  "Can't always count on hunches, Billy," he said with a shrug. "We knew it was a long shot. Ballieu's always worked alone."

  Dropping the papers back on the desk, Ellery nodded. His mind wouldn't let it go.

  There had to be some purpose behind Ballieu's socializing. A man who pulled off the sort of things Ballieu had simply didn't enjoy himself. Not on the job, anyway.

  It occurred to Ellery that maybe he was grasping at straws, so determined to tip the odds in their favor that he was deceiving himself. What did he know about a man like Ballieu? Sure, he could name the man's habits and ways of operating, but maybe he'd fallen into the trap of otherwise thinking of people like Ballieu stereotypically -- no feelings apart from fanaticism, no vices.

  He heard the door opening. That would be Channing. She came in twiddling a coin through half closed fingers. Max leaned closer, dropping his voice.

  "What do you think about our lady? She looked pretty shaken up over what Ballieu pulled in the restaurant."

  "Yeah, well, you didn't look so good yourself," Ellery shot back.

  Max grinned.

  "Lunch in the service of my country set my recovery back by a good couple hours. I was being serious, Billy."

  Ellery watched the woman they were talking about. This was the second time today someone had asked him to evaluate her. It struck him that maybe that was how life was for women: always being evaluated, either on looks if they were being judged as bed or marriage fodder, or because of some unvoiced belief that they weren't quite equal to men if they were being eyed for the workplace.

  "She'll do," he answered.

  He felt a little guilty understating it but figured anything else would be wasted on Max. Max stirred his elegant form.

  "Hey, Channing. Special stock, just for you."

  Reaching over, he opened a can of V-8. He poured the contents over ice and held it toward her. She looked surprised.

  "Thanks," she said, joining them.

  "She brought me a present," said Walker. Sourly he displayed the expensive-looking cigar in his hand. "The question is, will it blow up when I smoke it?"

  "Try it," urged Max.

  "So what do we do now? Synchronize watches or what?"

  Channing sounded nettled -- or maybe hurt -- by Walker's suspicion, Ellery noted.

  "Just checking for loose ends before we head into the evening," said Max.

  Ellery saw her flinch. She'd theorized that her slip with the film had been the fault of a loose thread, and this was reminding her of it.

  "Any more trouble with that new trick you're trying?" he asked.

  Her eyes shot to his. She'd understood. She knew he was asking about her practice, but she'd misinterpreted his meaning.

  "Not a bit."

  Her shoulders were rigid.

  Annoyed with her as well as with himself, Ellery took her elbow. He turned her away from the others.

  "Look, I wasn't riding you," he said.

  She tried to withdraw. He didn't let her.

  "You have a right to. You're the one who'll be on the spot if I screw up," she said.

  "We'll both be on the spot," he said, correcting her grimly.

  He let her go. It bothered him that he liked touching her.

  She glanced back at the others, then plunged her hands into her pockets.

  "You're still going out by yourself tonight?"

  Ellery nodded.

  She looked at him a long moment, and he knew she wanted to argue. Instead she shrugged.

/>   "Then there's not much point in my sticking around here, is there? Thanks for the juice, Max," she called, heading toward the door.

  It slammed behind her, shaking the whole wall. Walker looked up questioningly from his still unlighted cigar. Ellery felt an urge to drag her back and chew her out about making a scene, but he felt a contradictory urge to kick himself.

  "Lovers' quarrel?" asked Max with a grin.

  * * *

  "You're worried about Ellery, huh?" asked Serafin, making swishing moves with a wand Channing had given him.

  He didn't have any technique as yet, but he showed a great flair for showmanship, Channing thought. She applied a stroke of eyeliner and methodically blurred its edges. Their dressing room was cramped and felt stuffy tonight.

  "Why should I worry about Ellery?"

  She stole a look at Serafin, a little annoyed, as she was from time to time, that he somehow knew more about what was going on than he should. About the plans laid to keep track of Ballieu's movements tonight, for instance. His eyes blinked back at her as if they were an owl's. Or camera lenses. He shrugged, apparently dismissing the subject.

  Channing busied herself with the rest of her makeup. The fact was, she had been thinking of Ellery. It made her uneasy that he was going out alone tonight. It incensed her she still was deemed unsuitable to help somewhere along the line. She wondered if Ballieu had possibly seen through her act about Yussuf, and if he'd put something in her glass at noon. She wondered if she'd ever drink iced tea again.

  "He likes you," said Serafin, still on the subject of Ellery.

  "That's nice." She whisked away the towel at her neck to reveal the long unused costume she'd dragged out of mothballs for this engagement. The jacket was shimmering gold, banded with black on the cuffs and lapels to match the high-necked blouse she wore beneath. The flowing black pants looked vaguely Oriental.

  "Aw, come on. You don't want to wind up an old maid, do you?" Serafin pressed.

  "That," said Channing, wiping her palms with a towel and putting it carefully aside, "is an archaic term."