Asimov's SF, January 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Cabbie, stop here!” I said. (Well, actually I yelled it.)

  We screeched to a stop, and Maury groaned as he practically got thrown into the front seat. “What the hell's going on?” he muttered.

  “You were looking out the wrong window,” I said—for there, on the other side of the street, was Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders, right next door to the shuttered Madame Fifi's Palace of Delights.

  “I'll be damned!” said Maury, getting painfully out of the cab while I paid the driver. “Even I didn't really believe it would be here."

  The cab pulled away, glad to be rid of two crazy old guys, and we hobbled across the street, both of us leaning heavily on our canes. The window wasn't much—a couple of kids’ tricks, and posters of Houdini, Dunninger, and Blackstone—but that made sense. You didn't want to put anything too valuable in your window, not south of the Loop. It had been gentrified a few blocks farther on, but this was still a No Man's Land, not quite the Loop, not quite the elegant condos that had replaced most of the slums between there and Chinatown on Cermak Road.

  I turned to Maury, whose eyes were as wide and bright as a kid who'd just discovered a candy store.

  “You gonna stand out here all day?” I said. “What are we waiting for?"

  He smiled, opened the door, and stepped into the Emporium of Wonders, with me right beside him.

  The guy behind the counter had his back turned to us. “Look around, gentlemen,” he said. “I'll be with you in a moment."

  The place was smaller than the shop at the Palmer House, but it carried the same magical paraphernalia, the same production boxes, the same selection of wands. I felt like I was eleven years old again, and I could see Maury's arthritis almost visibly retreating from him.

  Then the guy turned around, and I did a double-take. He was the spitting image of Alastair Baffle, even down to the little wart at the tip of his nose. He had to be a grandson, or maybe a great-grandson, but he was clearly related to the original.

  “Ah!” he said. “Master Gold and Master Silver. Welcome back! Forgive me for saying it, but Time has not been as kind to you as you might have wished."

  “You know us?” asked Maury.

  “Certainly. You are Morris Gold, and you"—he turned to me—"are Nathan Silver. It is good to see you again. You grew up well, I take it?"

  “We became partners,” said Maury.

  “Gold and Silver. Of course."

  “How old are you?” I asked, frowning.

  “As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.” It didn't get a reaction, so he continued: “Edmund Gwenn said that in Miracle on 34th Street. A sweet man. He used to stop by the old shop in the Palmer House whenever he was performing on the Chicago stage."

  “How can you still be around, and looking exactly the way you looked seventy-five years ago?"

  “I suppose I should say diet and clean living, but in point of fact I love to eat, I smoke Turkish cigarettes in enormous quantities, and I loathe exercise."

  “You haven't got a magic trick for becoming young again, have you?” asked Maury with a smile.

  “You couldn't afford it,” said Baffle.

  “Okay,” I said. “Who are you really?"

  “I've already told you."

  “I know what you told me and it's bullshit,” I said. “No one's that old."

  He stared at me, not angrily, not annoyed, but coldly, like he was studying a bug. I figured I'd just stare him down, but somehow I couldn't meet his gaze.

  “Come on, Nate,” said Maury. “He's the same guy. I remember him like it was yesterday."

  “Yeah?” I said. “Well, he's not supposed to look like it was yesterday."

  “I see you have a wallet in your pocket, Master Silver,” said Baffle. He seemed amused—not like anything funny was happening, but just because he was making me so uncomfortable. “The last time we met you had something else in your pocket. Do you remember what it was?"

  “Sure,” I lied. “What do you think it was?"

  “A very racy paperback,” he said.

  It sounded right.

  “And the very first time?” he continued.

  “How the hell should I know?” I said irritably, because I knew he was going to tell me, and that meant I was wrong and he really was Alastair Baffle.

  “A Milky Way candy bar,” said Baffle. “It was a very warm day, and I told you that you must choose between eating the candy bar and handling a magic trick, but that you couldn't do both because the chocolate was very soft and would stick to your fingers and then rub off on the trick."

  I just stared at him for a minute. “Damn,” I said at last. “I do remember that."

  “And you're still here,” said Maury enthusiastically.

  “The store is my life,” he replied. “Several of them, in fact.” He looked at Maury, whose face was suddenly tense. “I think you had better sit down on purpose, Master Gold, before you sit down by accident.” He produced a chair from somewhere and brought it over to Maury.

  “Thank you, Mr. Baffle,” said Maury, almost collapsing into it.

  “Call me Alastair. We need no formality between old friends. And old friends we are. How long has it been since you two first met in the Emporium?"

  I was still trying to figure out where the flaw was, how he could present himself as maybe 140 years old and how I couldn't disprove it, but Maury spoke right up.

  “Seventy-eight years,” he said.

  “How time flies!” said Baffle. “I would have sworn it was no more than seventy-four or seventy-five years."

  I couldn't tell if he was trying to be funny, or if he meant it. While I was trying to figure it out, he spoke again.

  “Well, what can I show you two today?"

  “I don't know,” I said. “Truth to tell, we really didn't expect to find you still in business.” Or alive. “What have you got?"

  “Everything,” he said.

  I spotted a production box with mirrors on the side, the kind that makes it seem like something is vanishing right before your eyes, rather than the more traditional box where the object simply disappears once it's briefly hidden from view. “How about this?” I said, pointing to the box.

  He shook his head. “We can do better than that, Master Silver,” he said. “When you were a child, you could be amused by a child's tricks. But you are an adult now, and you crave more than a momentary amusement, do you not?"

  “What I crave and what I'm likely to be around for are two different things,” I said wryly. “Maury, this was your idea. What trick do you want to see?"

  “I'll leave it up to Mr ... to Alastair,” said Maury, his fingers starting to twist the way they did whenever the arthritis got really bad.

  “Tricks are for children,” said Baffle, “and you have outgrown them.” He paused. “I think today I shall show you some of my wonders for adults.” He turned to study the shelves behind him. The top shelf was shrouded in darkness, though the rest of the room was well-lit. On the next shelf was a trio of shrunken heads; one of them stuck its tongue out at me, and another giggled.. There was a miniature ping-pong table, not a foot long, with tiny paddles and a ball the size of a bee-bee; as I looked at it, the two paddles started a vigorous volley. There was a candy cane that changed into a snake, then an arrow, and then back to a candy cane. “Cecil B. DeMille should have visited my store before filming The Ten Commandments,” remarked Baffle, holding up the candy cane. “This is much more colorful than the simplistic prop Charlton Heston used.” It morphed into a belt, then back into a candy cane again, and he laid it on a shelf.

  “What else can it do?” asked Maury, as wide-eyed and eager as he'd been seventy-eight years ago.

  “Party tricks,” said Baffle contemptuously. “Nothing for adults.” He walked to the far end of the counter, picked up a small jar, and brought it back, setting it down on the counter next to Maury.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Unless I miss my guess, and I rarely do,
it is something you were discussing just yesterday,” answered Baffle.

  “Jesus!” exclaimed Maury. “Take a look, Nate!"

  I walked over and peered into the bottle.

  “It's him, Nate!” said Maury excitedly. “And he's calling his shot, just like in the ‘32 World Series!"

  And there was the Babe, maybe half an inch high, pointing out to all the fans exactly where he was sending the next pitch. It wasn't static, either. The shortstop was thumping his glove, the umpire was signaling Ruth to stop pointing and take his stance.

  I looked up at Baffle. “How did you do that?” I asked.

  He looked amused, and I felt like an insect again. “With mirrors."

  “What the hell kind of answer is that?” I demanded.

  “The kind you paid for, and worth every penny of it."

  I pulled a five out and laid it on the counter.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now how did you do it?"

  “I'm sorry, Master Silver,” he replied, “but I never offer two answers to only one question.” He pushed the bill back to me.

  “What else have you got?” asked Maury.

  “Any number of things,” answered Baffle. “Now, where is my Morris Gold collection. Ah!” He reached up to a higher shelf, grabbed some sheet music, and held it up for us to see. “The song you never composed.” Then a book. “The novel you never wrote.” A look of infinite sadness crossed his face as he displayed the photograph of a small boy. “The grandson you never had."

  “He looks a lot like Mark,” said Maury. Mark was the son he lost in Vietnam. “Who is it?"

  “I just told you."

  “But I never had a grandson."

  “I know,” said Baffle. “So of course the photo never existed.” He blew on it, and it vanished right in front of us.

  “I thought you weren't going to show us any tricks today,” I said..

  “And I haven't,” he answered. “Tricks are for children."

  “Then what do you call what you're showing us?"

  He pointed to a trio of murky glass jars. “Hopes. Dreams. Regrets."

  “Seriously, how did you pull that off?” I persisted.

  “Seriously?” he repeated, arching an eyebrow and seeming to look right through me to some interior spot that nobody was ever supposed to see. “You take two well-meaning but unexceptional lives, stir in all the might-have-beens and never-weres, baste lightly with the optimism of youth, the cynicism of maturity, and the pessimism of age, add a soupaon of triumph and a cup of failure, heat the oven with vanished passion, sprinkle with just the tiniest pinch of wisdom, and there you have it.” He smiled, as if totally pleased with his explanation. “Works every time."

  It sounded like a salesman's line of bullshit, but I could tell that Maury had bought every word of it. His eyes shone, his face glowed, and he was eleven years old again, hanging on Alastair Baffle's every word.

  “I hate to rush you,” said Baffle, “but it's almost time to feed the banshee and the gorgon."

  “Can we see them?” asked Maury.

  “Perhaps,” said Baffle. “But I rather suspect they will look exactly like cats to you."

  “And to everyone else?” I suggested.

  “It depends on whether they can see past the surface of things."

  “Were you always this quick with a slick answer?” I said, annoyed that even after all these years it all still mystified me. My brain kept saying illusions and something else kept whispering magic.

  “No, Master Silver,” he replied. “But then, you were not always this quick with a sarcastic question."

  “In some circles sarcasm is considered a sign of intellect,” I said defensively.

  “Those aren't circles, Master Silver,” responded Baffle. “You just can't see all the angles from inside them."

  Maury groaned just then. I turned and saw that his body was all twisted up the way he gets when he's in pain. I pulled a couple of pills out of his pocket and popped them into his mouth.

  I waited a minute, then said, “Did that help?"

  He grimaced. “Not much. It's bad this time, Nate."

  “I'll take you home,” I said.

  “Yeah, I think you'd better."

  Suddenly Alastair Baffle was standing between us and the door. “I just want to say what a pleasure it has been to see my two old friends once more,” he said. “And I hope to see you again in the future."

  “Don't count on it,” I said grimly. “I think this was our last foray into the world, such as it is."

  “Then at least let me shake your hand good-bye,” he said, grabbing my hand. He turned to Maury. “And yours, Master Gold."

  Maury looked scared to death—he hated to be touched when he was in this much pain—and I took a step forward to stop Baffle from taking his hand. But he gently pushed me aside—I say “gently” because he didn't seem to use any force, but I had a feeling he could have pushed an elephant aside with as little effort—and he flashed Maury a smile.

  “Have no fear, Master Gold. I'll be very careful."

  He reached out and put Maury's twisted, bony, crumpled hand in his own. I've seen the nurses do that on occasion: Maury always screams, and half the time he passes out. But this time he didn't yell, didn't faint, didn't even groan. He just looked at Baffle with the strangest expression on his face, as if he was watching his first magic show again, and the world was young and filled with infinite promise.

  I escorted him out to the street and flagged down another cab. When I turned around to start helping him into the back seat, I found him standing erect, not using his cane at all. He was holding his hand up and flexing his fingers over and over, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

  I had a lot of questions to ask Alastair Baffle, but I suddenly heard the lock click in the door, and when I turned to face it he'd already hung up his “Gone to Lunch” sign.

  * * * *

  I couldn't believe the change in Maury. That night he skipped two of his strongest pain medications, and the next afternoon he actually shuffled a deck of cards. He hadn't been able to do that in years. The doctors claimed that it was a semi-miracle, that sometimes arthritis went into remission—but never this fast or this completely. Maury listened politely to them, but when we were alone together he told me that there was no question in his mind that it was all due to Alastair Baffle.

  He cashed a couple of bonds—I don't know what he was saving them for anyway—and the next week we went down to the Emporium of Wonders again.

  “Welcome back, my once-young friends,” said Baffle as we entered the shop. “What shall I show you gentlemen this time?"

  “Anything you want,” answered Maury.

  “Let me think,” said Baffle. “Ah! I have just the thing!” He went into his back room and emerged a moment later with a small white lab rat in a cage that could have held a sixty-pound dog.

  “The Neptunian Spin-Devil,” he announced. “One of the rarest creatures in the Solar System, if not the galaxy."

  “Sure it is,” I said in bored tones.

  “You doubt it?” he asked in that tone that made me feel like he was a cat playing with its food, and that I was its meal.

  “Of course I doubt it."

  “Oh, ye of little faith. What troubles you about it?"

  “Other than its appearance, you mean?” I said. “Does it breathe?"

  “Certainly,” replied Baffle. “Why should you ask, Master Silver?"

  “Because Neptune is a gas giant with no oxygen."

  Baffle looked genuinely surprised. “Really?"

  “Really,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Well, they told me it was Neptune, but I suppose it could just as easily have been Pollux IV."

  “Come on,” I said. “It's a white mouse, and it's from the pet shop down the street."

  “If you say so, Master Silver,” said Baffle. Suddenly he leaned over the cage and said "Boo!"

  The mouse became a tawny fifty-pound something in the blink
of an eye, growling, spinning in circles, flapping two sets of vestigial wings.

  “What the hell is it?” I demanded.

  “I already told you,” answered Baffle with a smug smile. “You live in a changing universe, Master Silver. You must never assume that all things change at the same pace."

  He held the Spin-Devil up for Maury to see, then carried its cage to the back room.

  “This guy is half nuts and wholly dangerous,” I whispered to Maury. “Let's get the hell out of here."

  “You do what you want,” he replied. “He's a miracle worker, and I need another miracle. I'm staying."

  I could see it was pointless to argue with him, so I just sat and stared at a tribal death mask that was hanging on the wall, and tried to ignore the feeling that it was grinning at me.

  “You're looking better today, Master Gold,” said Baffle when he'd rejoined us. “I am delighted to see that your condition was not permanent."

  “It was until I met you,” said Maury.

  “I'm flattered that you should think so,” said Baffle, “but I'm just a shopkeeper. And now that I've displayed today's wonder, what trick can I sell you?"

  “I can't see out of my right eye,” said Maury. “Glaucoma, macular degeneration, I don't know. Bunch of long words that don't mean anything. Do for my vision what you did for my arthritis."

  Baffle smiled. “You want a god,” he said. “I am merely a shopkeeper."

  “I want a miracle. You're in the miracle business."

  “I am in the magic business."

  “Same thing,” insisted Maury.

  “Ask for some other trick,” I said, getting annoyed with Maury's worshipful attitude. “I'll bet he could make a blind man lame."

  “Your cynicism does not become you, Master Silver.” Baffle reached into his pocket, pulled out a tiny jar that seemed to be filled with dust, and handed it to Maury. “Put a minuscule pinch of this in a glass of water tonight and rinse your eye out. It may ease the pain."

  “I'm not in pain,” replied Maury. “I'm blind."

  “I am not a doctor,” said Baffle apologetically. “This is the only eye illusion I know."

  Maury took the powder home, rinsed his eye out with it—and the next morning he could see.