“What are the dots for?” Rachel asked.
“Instead of using complicated and precise motors to move the scanner around the object, this scanner uses the fixed reflective reference points so that the scanner always knows its exact position. It doesn’t matter if your hand shakes or if you have to move the scanner around the object many times to scan all its surfaces. Software makes all the corrections and eliminates operator error.”
“That’s ingenious,” I commented.
“Well, here goes,” Ward said as he brought over the hand-held scanner.
I expected something smaller when Ward said “hand-held.” It looked like some sort of storm trooper’s hand weapon. Ward’s hand was hidden in the middle of the device, and the front of the device had three large lenses. The left and right lenses were identical, while the center lens, mounted a little higher than the other two, had a bunch of LEDs surrounding it. Below the handle was a fourth, smaller lens that turned out to be the laser beam projector.
Ward began to scan the laser beam up and down the wand as he walked around the table to scan the wand from all sides. On a computer screen, an image of the wand was being painted as the scanning took place. After a couple of minutes, the scan was complete, and Ward turned off the scanner.
“Now we just check the image to make sure there weren’t any mistakes,” Ward said. He sat down in front of the computer screen and, using a mouse, rotated the image up and down and around. All the glyphs that were carved into the wand showed up in exacting detail.
“This software has major editing tools,” Ward said as he proceeded to erase the glyphs on the wand’s handle, but he left the long sigil on the wand’s shaft unaltered.
“We’d better experiment on a piece of paper before we turn the wand,” Ward said. “All these machines are networked together. I can send the digitized 3D scan to the software that controls this lathe, and I can send the scan to a printer. I’ll print out this sigil on a piece of paper.”
Ward printed the sigil vertically on a piece of legal-sized paper so that the point of the sigil was at the bottom of the sheet. Then he cut a strip of the paper so that he had a strip almost as long as the wand with the sigil printed at one end. Next, he drew the Fire Starter Spell on the “handle end” of the strip using a one-minute delay, and he set the paper onto the cement floor of the basement. Sixty seconds later, the strip of paper burst into flame at the “handle end” and burned all the way down to the other end.
“Success, man!” Ward exclaimed. “We can turn the fake wand now. How much time delay do you want for the Fire Starter Spell?”
I looked at Rachel.
“It’s about eight o’clock now,” Rachel said. We’re going to meet Moshi tomorrow morning, most likely. We need to give him time to get home with the wand. If he’s flying, we don’t want to start a fire on the plane. We also don’t want him to have time to show the wand to someone who might be better able to tell the wand is fake. I guess we’d want the wand to self-destruct a little after midnight tomorrow night. That’s about twenty-eight hours from now.”
“OK. That’s one set of broken railroad tracks and four broken wavy lines” Ward said as he drew them on the image of the wand displayed on his computer screen.
Next, Ward went over to a lathe and secured a dowel of dark hardwood between the spindle and the tailstock. He turned on the computer-controlled lathe, and after a few calibrating passes over the stationary dowel, the dowel began to spin and a blade began to carve into the dowel. After the wand was completely shaped, the dowel stopped spinning, and a different blade engraved the symbols into the newly-made wand.
Ward removed the new wand from its holder, and took it over to a sanding machine where he smoothed off the ends where it had been secured. The whole process from start to finish had taken about thirty minutes.
Rachel’s phone rang. “Hello, Willow. How’d it go?” Rachel asked. She listened for a couple of minutes making encouraging comments, and then thanked Willow and said goodbye.
“Moshi called Willow, and she said all the things we agreed on,” Rachel reported.
“What did he say when she asked Moshi where his daughter got the wand?” I asked.
“He smoothly evaded the question. He told Willow that he would call me.”
“Check out your new fake wand,” Ward said as he handed the wand to Rachel.
“It looks and feels great,” Rachel said, “and it smells good, too.”
“Uh oh,” I said, “The real wand doesn’t have a smell. The original is also a little darker.”
“Newly carved wood always has a nice smell,” Ward said.
“We need to get rid of the smell,” I said.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ward said as he left the room.
“Do you think this wand will fool Moshi?” Rachel asked.
“If we can make it look and smell old, and if Moshi hasn’t seen the original, then I think it might fool him.”
“That’s a lot of ‘Ifs’,” Rachel said.
“Yes, our plan is starting to sound iffy,” I agreed.
Rachel’s phone rang again. “Hello,” she answered.
The caller was obviously Moshi. Rachel was agreeing that she had a client who had purchased an old wand from a young woman. No, she wouldn’t reveal the client’s identity. Yes, she would set up a meeting with Moshi.
After Rachel disconnected, I asked, “What happened?”
“You’ll never believe this,” Rachel said. “Moshi is Japanese.”
“Does this mean we’re racists giving him a demeaning nickname?”
“That’s not all,” Rachel said. “You know what he said his name is? Moshi Kiramisu.”
“You mean Moshi’s name is really Moshi?” I said incredulously.
“I told you that you wouldn’t believe it,” Rachel said. “Is this what happens when you start doing magic? Do these weird coincidences start happening?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
About that time, Ward came back in with the finished wand.
“I sanded it and rubbed it lightly with some mineral oil,” Ward said.
“What do you think?” he asked as he handed the fake wand to me.
“It looks and feels good,” I said, “but it still has a smell that the original doesn’t have. We’ll have to disguise the smell.”
“I got just the thing,” Ward said, and he left the room. He came back a couple of minutes later with two carved wooden boxes that had tops with brass hinges.
“Sandalwood boxes,” Ward proclaimed. “You can keep the wands in these boxes and the sandalwood will make them both smell good.”
“Brilliant,” I replied. “Why do you have these nice sandalwood boxes?”
“You know, Gabriel is always asking me to make something or get something for him. Sometimes I try to anticipate what I might need, so I bought a bunch of sandalwood boxes of various shapes. I just happen to have two that were made to hold flutes, so they also work for wands. And here,” he said dramatically, “is some silk cloth you can wrap the wands in.”
“Thanks, man,” I said. “You’re a lifesaver. I don’t know anyone else who could have come up with this stuff on such short notice.”
“Won’t the sandalwood box act like another piece of wood to feed the fire when the wand ignites?” Rachel asked.
“Yep,” Ward said.
“We need to contain the fire,” I said. “We just want the wand to be destroyed. We don’t want to start a conflagration.”
“No prob, man. I’ve got some thin copper sheets I can line the inside of the box with.”
“Wait,” I said. “Before you line the box, let’s hide a homing beacon behind the copper lining.”
“Sure. Whatcha got?”
“Let’s use a coupon like I did with Blackstone,” Rachel said. She fished a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon out of her purse, and wrote “Remember Gregor” on the back. Then she tore the coupon lengthwise and handed one half to Ward and one half to me.�
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“Who’s Gregor?” Ward asked.
“He’s the guy who stole the Witch’s Artifact,” I answered.
“Right. I remember now.” Ward went to another work table with one of the boxes and proceeded to hot-glue some copper to the inside of the box with the torn coupon behind it.
“Here you go,” Ward said, “a fire resistant container. The problem is the wand probably won’t completely burn because it’ll use up all the oxygen in the box.”
“The symbols will burn off though, won’t they?” Rachel asked.
“No doubt,” Ward replied. “That sigil may not completely burn, but the fire starter symbols will definitely burn.”
“Won’t the copper keep the wand from smelling like sandalwood?” Rachel asked.
“Dude, uh dudette, you are one picky customer.”
“Sorry,” Rachel replied.
“I could rub a little sandalwood oil on it,” Ward said.
“You have sandalwood oil?”
“Sandalwood, patchouli, lavender, I got ‘em all. I can even make it smell like Nag Champa if you dig it.”
“Sandalwood is fine,” Rachel said.
Ward took the wand away again and returned with it smelling like sandalwood.
“This is great,” I said. “I owe you one.”
“Dude! Mi casa es su casa. Anytime, man.”
As I drove us home, I asked Rachel more about her call with Moshi.
“Did Moshi sound Japanese on the phone?” I asked.
“No, he sounded like a Californian, but he must look Japanese or he wouldn’t have made up a name like Moshi Kiramisu.”
“So you think the name is an alias?”
“Definitely. It’s not even a very good one.”
“Are we going to meet?”
“Yes, tomorrow morning. He’s going to call me at nine to set up the meeting time and place.”
“Will we meet at your office?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ll see if he can make a ten o’clock meeting.”
“What else did Moshi say?”
“He said that he’s also a collector of occult art and symbology. He said he wanted to talk to you about buying the wand.”
“Can we sell him a fake?” I asked.
“No, that crosses my ethical line. If I knew that Moshi is one of the bad guys, then maybe, but without proof, we can’t defraud him.”
“I’ll guess we’ll have to let him steal it then,” I said.
When we arrived back at the Goose, we agreed to have breakfast in my apartment at eight o’clock the next morning.
Back in my apartment, I used the Coriolis to test the fake wand for magic. Just as Ward had said, the Coriolis swung back and forth for about an inch and a half. This was very similar to the way the Coriolis reacted to the real wand before it was activated for use. This would certainly lend authenticity to the fake wand.
The silk cloth that Ward had given me turned out to be rectangular with a subtle pattern woven into it. It was too large to use for wrapping a single wand, so I cut it in half and used the two pieces to wrap both wands and put each one into its own sandalwood box. I put the box with the real wand into a drawer of my office desk, and I left the fake wand in its box on the coffee table.
We were going to have an exciting day tomorrow, so I got to bed a little early, hoping to get a good night’s sleep.
Chapter 6
I awoke at six thirty the next morning, refreshed and ready for the day. I showered and shaved—even bearded guys have to shave to keep the beard neat—and got dressed. At seven forty-five, I started a pot of coffee brewing. At five past eight, Rachel knocked twice and came in.
“Hello, good morning,” she called.
“Morning! I’m in the kitchen,” I responded.
“As usual,” Rachel commented. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Your choice,” I said, “bagels or PB&J sandwiches.”
“Do you have real bagels?”
“No, I don’t have real bagels. I haven’t had a chance to go to the one bakery in Portland that you said has real bagels. You Jersey girls are sure picky about your bagels.”
“I’ll have a PB&J sandwich. Do you have strawberry jelly?”
“No, I only have blackberry and marionberry jams. I’m allergic to strawberries.”
“That’s too bad, Oregon has the best strawberries in the world.”
“I know. Sometimes I have strawberry shortcake just once in the spring.”
“What happens when you eat strawberries?”
“Hives. They last for about eight hours.”
“I’m sorry, Professor, I feel sorry for you. I guess I’ll have blackberry jam.”
We ate our PB&J sandwiches and drank our coffee and talked about how talented Ward was the previous night making our fake wand.
“I guess I’m too excited to eat the last half of my sandwich,” Rachel said. “It was good, though.”
“I totally understand,” I said.
“I’d like to get to my office before Moshi calls at nine,” Rachel said. “I want to already be there when I tell him where my office is located.”
“Good idea,” I said. “I’m ready.”
I checked the wand inside the box on the coffee table to make sure it was the fake wand, and I put the box into a small backpack to bring with us.
“Should I bring the real wand as well?” I asked.
“No, better to leave it here. We don’t want Moshi to detect more magic in my office. I’m bringing my pistol and stun gun, just in case.”
Rachel drove us to her office, and we arrived about ten minutes before nine o’clock. Promptly at nine, Moshi called, and Rachel gave him the address and directions to her office. Moshi said he could be there in half an hour. Rachel and I went over the plan we had come up with regarding my ownership of the wand and what we wanted Moshi to believe about the situation, so I was ready for the performance to begin.
“Professor, I’d like for you to wait down in the coffee shop for Moshi to arrive. I want you to get the make, model and license plate of his car. Just watch for an oriental man arriving around nine-thirty. After he comes upstairs, wait a minute and then come up yourself. Take your backpack down with you, and we’ll pretend you’re just arriving when you come back upstairs.”
“OK,” I said while picking up the backpack. “I’ll be back soon.”
The coffee shop entrance was off the main downstairs lobby of the renovated old building that housed Rachel’s office, so it had windows on the outside wall of the building as well as windows facing into the lobby. Luckily, there was a small table available in front of a window that faced the parking area. I ordered coffee and sat down at that table. I took a small notebook and pen from my backpack and made ready to write down the particulars of Moshi’s car.
At nine-thirty-five, a late model Toyota Corolla pulled into a parking space, and a Japanese-looking man in a light gray suit got out. He was about my age, forty-five to fifty-five, about five-foot seven with long hair pulled back into a ponytail. I watched him enter the building, and by looking across the coffee shop through a window into the lobby, I saw him go upstairs.
The car had Oregon license plates, and I wrote down the number beside “late-model Toyota Corolla.” Something about the car struck me as odd, so I left a tip on the table, picked up my backpack, and went out to the parking lot to take a closer look. The car had an “Alamo Car Rental” sticker on it. The license plate number probably wouldn’t be of much use to Rachel, but you never knew.
I re-entered the building and went up to Rachel’s office. I knocked on the door, as if I were a visitor, and Rachel opened the door.
“Come on in Professor,” Rachel said. “Mr. Kiramisu is already here.”
We went into Rachel’s inner office where Moshi was standing in front of her desk.
“Moshi Kiramisu,” he said extending his hand.
“People just call me ‘Professor,’” I said as I shook his hand.
Rachel sat down behind her desk; Moshi sat in his chair across from her; and I sat in a chair at one end of the desk.
“We’re all here now,” Rachel said, “so Mr. Kiramisu, would you please state your business for the Professor?”
“I am a collector of tribal and occult art,” Moshi said. “I understand that you are, as well, Mr. Professor.”
“Yes, that’s one of my hobbies,” I replied.
“And I understand that you have recently purchased a wand from a young woman here in Portland.”
“Yes, I did. She thought that it was a replica of a Harry Potter wand, but it didn’t look like a replica to me. I thought it might be older, and it’s more plain looking than a theatrical wand.”
“From the little I know of the wand, I suspect that you may be correct,” Moshi said. “Is it possible for me to see the wand?”
“Of course,” I replied, and I retrieved the box out of my backpack and set it on the desk in front of Moshi.
“I love the smell of sandalwood. You have this wand well protected,” Moshi said as he unwrapped the wand from its silk cloth.
“It might be valuable,” I replied.
Moshi examined the wand, and I examined Moshi’s face hoping to discern if he suspected a fake. He avoided holding it by the handle, but he did look carefully at the symbols engraved into the handle. He spread out the silk cloth and set the wand down on top of it.
“As you may know,” Moshi said, “I am of Japanese ancestry, and I got my love of collecting tribal and occult art from my parents. If I were to purchase this wand, I might give it to them as a present. My parents, however, are superstitious. They would be much distressed if I brought an unlucky object into their house. I don’t believe in their superstitions, but would you mind if I test to see if the wand is unlucky? It’s all superstition of course, but my parents would test it so I must test it also.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’d like to know if it’s unlucky.”
Moshi reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like my Coriolis.
“That’s an interesting pendulum,” I said. “May I look at it?”
“Sure,” Moshi said as he handed it to me.
It was a Coriolis. The shape was slightly different than mine, a result of them both being hand made, and Moshi’s Coriolis had all three symbols permanently engraved around the circumference. My Coriolis had two of the symbols permanently engraved, but I had to draw a third symbol in the blank space to activate it.
Crimes of Magic: The Yard Sale Wand Page 5
