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Martin as Emilio crossed his eyes and squashed his nose flat with his finger.
    ‘Hey, that’s my grandson you’re talking about,’ Mr Capelli protested. ‘He’s a good-looking boy.’
    ‘That’s because he doesn’t take after his grandfather,’ Martin said, grinning.
    ‘Treble the rent!’ retorted Mr Capelli.
    ‘Watch yourself, Emilio,’ Martin warned. ‘This mirror’s real heavy. You don’t want to get squished.’
    ‘I do too want to get squished,’ Emilio told him cheekily.
    ‘That can be arranged,’ said Martin under his breath.
    When Mr Capelli had gone, Martin carefully took down all his Boofuls photographs and cuttings. Then he dragged the mirror noisily up against the wall beside his desk. There were four brass plates at the side of the mirror, two on each side, which had obviously been used to screw the mirror firmly into the chimney breast over Boofuls’ fireplace. Martin rooted around in his desk drawer until he found four two-inch screws and half a dozen wall plugs. Jane had taken his electric drill, but the wall was quite soft, and he was able to gouge out four holes in the plaster with his screwdriver.
    It took him nearly an hour to fix up the mirror. But when it was screwed firmly into place, he stood back and admired it and didn’t regret for one moment that he had spent all of his savings on it, even if Mrs Harper had probably screwed him for two or three hundred dollars more than it was actually worth. With its gilded frame and its brilliant glass, it gave his apartment a whole new dimension, adding light and space and airiness.
    He poured himself a glass of wine. Then he sat down at his desk. Portrait of a successful young screenwriter feeding a sheet of paper into his typewriter. Portrait of a successful young screenwriter knocking next season’s
A-Team
into shape.
    He worked all afternoon. The sun began to steal away, sliding out of the room inch by inch, lighting the building next door, then shining on nothing but the tallest yuccas in the street outside.
     
BA: I swear – if this fruitcake don’t stop – I’m going to take him apart
.
Hannibal: Come on now, BA, we’re talking comradeship here. Shoulder to shoulder
.
     
    It was well past seven when Martin switched off his typewriter and sat back in his chair. He knew that he was going to have to rewrite the scene in which Hannibal disguises himself as a monk, but apart from that he was just about finished. He was particularly pleased with the moment when Murdock starts juggling pool balls and BA joins in the juggling act in spite of himself. He jotted on his notepad, ‘
Can Mr T juggle? If not, can he be taught? Are there any brilliant black jugglers? There must be! But what if there aren’t? Can some white juggler black his hands up and stand right behind him while he dummies it?
’
    He poured himself another glass of wine. Maybe his luck was going to change, after all. Maybe some of Boofuls’ success would radiate out of his mirror and bless Martin’s work. Martin raised his glass to himself and said, ‘
Prost!
’
    It was then, in the mirror, that he saw a child’s blue and white ball come bouncing through the open door behind him, and then roll to a stop in the middle of the varnished wood floor.
    He stared at it in shock, with that same shrinking-scalp sensation that he had felt this afternoon when he had seen Mrs Harper floating in midair. ‘Emilio?’ he called. ‘Is that you?’
    There was no reply. Martin turned around and called, ‘Emilio?’ again.
    He got up out of his chair, intending to pick the ball up, but he was only halfway standing when he realized that it wasn’t there anymore.
    He frowned, and walked across to the door, and opened it wider. The passageway was empty; the front door was locked. ‘Emilio, what the hell are you playing at?’
    He looked in the bedroom. Nobody. He even opened up the closet doors. Just dirty shirts and shorts, waiting to be washed, and a squash racket that needed