Touch of Magic Read online

  She toyed with the smooth old wand she’d picked up. Gramps’ wand. What the men who’d just left wanted from her wouldn't be easy. Could she do it?

  Behind her she heard the soft whisper of the door opening. She turned to see Serafin standing motionless just inside it.

  "You're going to dump me, aren't you?" he said. "So you can help them."

  Channing caught in a breath.

  "You were listening!"

  "It's okay." His voice was flat. "It doesn't matter."

  Hard on the heels of her anger came a realization that he'd heard about Yussuf. If it had shocked her, how much harder had it hit him? Channing moved quickly, catching his shoulder and spinning him as he started to leave.

  “Serafin. Listen to me. I have to help them. I've seen what people like the man they're after do. I don't mean to Yussuf, I mean to innocent people. To someone I cared for, who could have saved thousands of lives -- "

  She heard, suddenly, the vehemence of her own anger. As though it had lain hidden, like the water she often sought, it came rushing to the surface, tapped by the visit from the State Department men. Channel it. Capture it. Pipe it to where it served some purpose or it would be wasted.

  Her voice softened. The boy before her had been betrayed by Yussuf. He wouldn't be betrayed by her. She wasn't going to vanish on him like some dove turned into a silk scarf.

  "I'm not going to dump you, Serafin." She searched for the words that would make them both comfortable. "I figure we were sort of meant to be a team. You keep Rundell out of my hair and I'll teach you magic. Right now I need to practice. I'm not sure I can do what those men want me to do, and I've got to find out. What do you say?"

  His face relaxed into the precursor of a smile. He looked almost as boyish as his twelve years. As she retreated toward the desk he nodded shy encouragement.

  "Your grandpa's notebooks would probably tell you all kinds of things. Hints and stuff."

  In the midst of scrabbling through the central desk drawer, Channing jerked to attention. How did he even know the notebooks existed? Or that she'd been hunting the key to the very drawer where they lay?

  As though she'd spoken the questions aloud, he shrugged, his dark eyes on her.

  "I can tell what people are thinking sometimes, that's all. Mr. Yussuf said I have a gift."

  She let her breath out slowly. No. Growing up in this house, she certainly knew what was possible and what wasn't. She pointed the wand that was still in her hand to underscore her words.

  "Nothing occurs that can't be explained by natural phenomena. No good magician claims they do. So no more of that. And no more eavesdropping. Understood?"

  She tossed the wand to him, releasing the bright bouquet of flowers that popped free as he caught it, startled and delighted.

  "Now," she said, "tell Rundell if he lets anyone else in to see me today, I'll fire him."

  Not that Rundell would believe the threat, but it sounded good.

  She'd look at her grandfather's notebooks; call a friend at the State Department to confirm that these two men who'd visited her were really employees, though they'd probably be listed as archivists or something; think about what she could put together for a twenty-minute act. Then she'd better find a piece of film to practice with.

  * * *

  It was like stepping into another world, one viewed through glass yet never experienced, as Channing immersed herself in hours of practice. Of course she'd put together little shows in her youth. She'd performed at hospitals with her grandfather, appeared in school talent extravaganzas, been booked at a nightclub or two while she was in college. Yet she'd never felt driven like this, never felt this compelling need to pull something from inside herself that went beyond skill.

  It was that consuming force that had burned in her grandfather.

  And her father? He'd died when she was five. She could hardly remember him. His car had gone off a bridge and he, a renowned escape artist, and her mother, an accomplished swimmer, had both drowned while she floated free.

  Twenty years later, in Beirut, she had been a survivor once again. Inexplicably. Through some whim of fate. And she'd cursed deaf gods, asking, Why? Why was she spared? For what had been requested of her this morning? she wondered as she tried to knot two silks of different color together, producing a larger, checkered one. Her skill and interest lay in close-up magic, but she needed flashy tricks for stage work, some she hadn't tried in years.

  "You have to eat!" protested Rundell, marching in on her at two that afternoon.

  "All right. Outside," she said. She had polished several tricks with silks now.

  In the garden behind the house she walked, a sandwich in one hand, one of her grandfather's notebooks in the other.

  "This is what it's like?" asked Serafin in bewilderment.

  "This is what it's like. All day. Every day. If you want to do it."

  He followed her back to the study, and she showed him the simplest palm while she practiced her coins. He still was trying it, by lamplight, when he fell asleep.

  "Just what are you going to do with him?" hissed Rundell as they walked the boy to bed.

  Channing grinned.

  "I've got friends in high places, Rundell. I expect everything to be ironed out."

  "I expect to see you in jail!" he said crisply. "And I don't understand this practicing for a magic show. Aren't you gone enough?"

  "Charity gig," said Channing. "I want you to check the thread in that gold jacket Gramps had made for me aeons ago. I'll fit it tomorrow."

  Rundell, at some point before she'd been old enough to remember, had been Gramps' assistant. He understood the fitting and rigging of jackets. He sniffed and went off muttering to himself.

  As soon as she turned back toward the study, her pretense of levity faded. Why couldn't Gramps, at some point in his life, have made just a few notes about the palming of film?

  She knew why, of course. Film had no eye appeal. It wasn't shiny like coins or large and familiar like cards. No magician would think of using it.

  But if she agreed to what those men from the State Department wanted, she'd have to use it. Lying back on the couch in the study, she brought out the piece of 35mm negative she'd been working with on and off all afternoon. She tried to maneuver it with fingers that worked coins, cards -- even Yussuf's gun last night -- with skill.

  The negative stuck to her flesh. She wiped her fingers and tried again. Static. That was one problem. Another was the very thinness of the film itself. Another was the way it curved.

  After half an hour she could see hardly any improvement in the adroitness of her motions. Sometimes she could get the film to vanish, but sometimes she fumbled it. Any trick, to be successful, had to be successful one hundred percent of the time. In this case the figure ought to be one hundred and fifty percent.

  Bone-weary, she looked up at framed posters proclaiming her ancestors and their skills: "The Amazing Dr. Stuart," her great-grandfather, in his flowing white beard and garb of the 1890s; "The Great Sebastian, illusion and sleight of hand," her grandfather; "Charles Stuart, escape artist extraordinaire," her father. Three generations waiting on her.

  For the first time in a long time she yearned for the moral support of Tony's arms around her. She burned with loneliness, the unleashed emotions angering her. She'd stretched herself so tightly since then, determined not to let her life become entwined with anyone else's, determined not to know loss again. And now those men who'd come this morning had made her think of things, had made all the old pain come flooding back.

  Too discouraged to move, she reached up and snapped off the single light that glowed above her. If she napped for a few hours, she could try again

  She was deep in slumber, lost in a land of restless and vaguely unpleasant dreams, when she began to realize that something moving on the fringes of them wasn't a dream. She tried to fight her way free, back to a memory of where she was and to wakefulness. Even as her surroundings came into focus, Channing b
ecame aware of a presence in the room. A shape. A figure. There at the desk.

  It was too tall for Serafin, the set of the shoulders wrong for Rundell, who wouldn't be prowling, anyway. And she didn't have her kunjar. Always, when she was far from civilization, she slept with it under her mattress.

  The figure was hunting for something, opening desk drawers. Channing's fingers searched the floor beside her for a weapon. All they found was a heavy jade bookend that Serafin must have moved from the lower shelf of a table at the head of the couch. Its uneven shape made the chance of good aim unlikely. She grasped it, anyway, planning.

  "Hunting for something?" she asked in a clear voice.

  The figure snapped upright. Channing let fly the bookend. The figure dodged. As Channing sprang, groping futilely for the light, the intruder dove through the open window.

  Yelling to summon Rundell, Channing crossed the room. She'd barely had time to reach the window when the houseman came huffing in with a flashlight he brandished like a club. In his other hand was a can of Mace.

  "Someone was in here," Channing said grimly.

  That someone wasn't lying on the ground below, either. He'd survived the two-story drop. He'd been agile and skilled.

  "I'll call the police," said Rundell.

  "Let's see what's missing first."

  A gnawing in her stomach told her there might be some connection between the intruder and the visitors she'd had that morning. If there was, she'd better not contact the police. At least not until she could discuss it with Bill Ellery, and that wouldn't be until four that afternoon.

  The house had been gone through thoroughly: drawers opened; pictures moved back in hopes of finding a safe; books, records, and tapes pulled off the shelves that held them. Her own bedroom was a particular disaster. Whoever had done the ransacking must have been a professional not to have roused anyone. Whole bureau drawers had been upended. But nothing was missing.

  "Perhaps someone thinks you bring back drugs from those trips of yours," Rundell suggested.

  Channing shot him a look. He could be a shrewd old prune at times. And a good one -- he'd gone to check on Serafin as soon as they'd left the study. She supposed what he was suggesting was possible. There were occasional break-ins in this neighborhood, just as there were in so many other areas these days.

  "Not that things look that much worse than they usually do when you get back," said Rundell. He grunted, retrieving a pair of shoes and the black magician's dress she'd discarded on the back of a chair two nights ago. Last year he'd served notice that he didn't intend to pick up her clothes anymore, but now he carried them methodically to the closet. "You know, I won't always be here to pick up after you, madam. Shall I fix you a nightcap?"

  Channing caught the concern in his sideways glance as he smoothed her dress on its hanger.

  "Make one for both of us," she said. "And don't worry, I'll call the police tomorrow. I know a detective."

  The lie didn't seem to persuade Rundell, so she pecked his cheek. That always unhinged him.

  * * *

  Bill Ellery shoved aside the file he'd picked up from the Federal Building that morning. He paced his hotel room wishing he knew less than he now did about Channing Stuart. The reports filtered in through the U.N., State Department, and FBI made a bright mosaic of a woman such as he'd never met before. Her skills at magic would have been enough. Or the crazy job. But now he knew that she'd once pulled a knife and driven off two men attacking a girl in an alley; that she'd reported an engineer she suspected of passing things to the Soviets (she'd been right); that her fiance had been blown apart in a restaurant in Beirut.

  He figured it was the fiance that was motivating her to do this. Dumb, her taking this risk because of something in the past. But he figured he didn't have any right to mention that. It was personal. Like when he'd turned his back on the bar exam he'd never wanted to take in the first place, kissed a law degree and his share in the family fortune good-bye, and found himself in this job.

  Part of the job was following orders. If Oliver and the powers-that-be thought using Channing Stuart was the best way to get that film back, then he'd give the sort of backup he was supposed to. All the same, he didn't like feeling responsible for her. She was inexperienced, no matter how gritty, no matter how sure of herself she looked when she stood with her hands on her hips. He'd hate to see blood leaking out on that creamy, freckled skin.

  With a frown he realized he was growing interested in Channing Stuart. No time for that, Ellery. No sense risking it, either.

  He picked up a light jacket that would hold the items he had to carry and set out to meet her. Maybe she'd change her mind. After all, she'd taken in that kid and might be getting all wrapped up in mothering him.

  * * *

  At four o'clock the breeze off the ocean was cool. He was glad for the jacket. As he made his way toward the boardwalk he was jostled by the usual assortment of girls in beachwear, kids on skateboards, teens with boom boxes. He grinned to himself. While privacy had been his first consideration in picking this site, he'd also thought the well-heeled lady Ph.D. might feel a little off-balance here. If they did work together, he wanted it clear from the start who was in charge.

  A pair of kids on roller skates zoomed toward him, splitting to pass. He was in an area lined with open-air stalls selling handbags, sunglasses, tie-dyed dresses and other assorted merchandise. Directly ahead, a booth displayed chunky jewelry made of seashells and hammered metal.

  There was no one at the jewelry stand but a young couple holding hands and a woman in an oversize beach hat, her back toward him. She had great legs. And no freckles.

  "Free drink at the Sand Flea?"

  A seedy youth pushed a coupon at him as Ellery debated whether to wait there or press on toward another jewelry stand.

  "No th--"

  The rest of the word dangled off his tongue into midair. The body beneath the beach hat had turned. It was Channing Stuart, in as brief an orange bikini as he'd ever seen. The white shirt she wore over it, which from the back suggested sedate-ness, in front framed curves that were lithe and youthful. She grinned at him, and the laughter in her eyes told him he must be gaping at her exactly as other men had at finding her so unmistakably female.

  That grin set her apart, somehow. It wasn't a smile drawn carefully to placate or attract. It was easy, natural, and went all the way to her eyes. It expressed nothing more than amusement -- and maybe a warning of sparks if she got crossed.

  She took the first step, and Ellery moved, meeting her halfway. She wasn't out of her element here at all, he realized irritably.

  "I'm going to do it," she said, falling into step beside him. She kept her voice low. The quick humor on her face didn't hide its determination.

  Ellery felt an unexpected frustration.

  "Do you know what you're getting into?"

  "I think so. Look."

  Reaching into the pocket of her voluminous shirt, she produced a piece of 35mm negative, displayed it to him, and arched an eyebrow. Her hand turned lazily in a half circle, palm up, and the film was gone.

  It was unsettling how she could do that. Some kind of trick, of course. Ellery freed himself from the brief, trancelike state the act had created in him and reached inside his jacket.

  "Why don't you try this?"

  The blank film he extended to her was three inches by five, the same size as the one to be recovered. He could see her dismay. It was bigger than her whole palm. Surely now she'd back down.

  One quick glance at his face, and her own filled with resolve.

  "Almost the size of a card. It'll be easier."

  The kids on roller skates shot by again. He could feel his frustration mounting. He caught her arm, intending nothing more than to steer her and to keep their conversation confidential.

  "Why? When you stand a very good chance of getting a hole in your neck like Yussuf did? Just tell me that."

  She pushed his hand away.

  "Becau
se I'm going to do it! That's all. And I'll need another piece of film just like the one you brought."

  They were passing a T-shirt stand. She stopped and unfolded a pink shirt, holding it up so they'd look like anyone else just here for an afternoon of fun.

  "So where do I go? And when? I gather you're not thrilled about working with me. I can't help that. I'll do what you tell me, how you tell me, and if something goes wrong, I knew what I was getting into. It's not on your conscience. Okay? I've made financial provisions for Serafin."

  Her control impressed him more than emotion could have. Anyway, it was her decision to make. He took the pink shirt from her and tossed her a green one.

  "You go to the Palacio Sol. Tomorrow."

  "He was booked there?"

  No names. She was good at this,

  "Right. You're picking up his schedule, starting the next day. Management's expecting you. I'll be there the morning after you get in."

  They began to walk again.

  "And the man I'm to meet?"

  Ballieu, she meant.

  "Yussuf had two suites reserved for people beginning the day I arrive." He frowned. The suites were reserved for two nights. He didn't understand that part. Why wait around? "We'll be just north of the Mexican border," he said. "Easy run if Ballieu needs to make it. Have fun in the sun, but don't drink the water."

  "I thought it was throat problems I was supposed to watch for," she said.

  The tart humor, bouncing off his heavier effort, startled him. He relaxed a little.

  "Here," he said, sliding a photograph out of the envelope that had held the film he'd given her. "Take a good look at Ballieu. Make sure you recognize him."

  She took a long, thoughtful look and then nodded.

  They stopped in front of the Venice Beach Athletic Club, an outdoor affair where a few men in sweatbands were working out inside a pen. Beyond, across a stretch of sand, surf crashed and children squealed happily, making what they were discussing seem all but unreal. Time to separate, he thought.