The Magician Read Online Free PDF Page B

it.”
    Urek shot a glance at the audience.
    “Put your hand in,” Ed challenged.
    He could hear Urek’s breathing.
    “Come on,” said Ed quietly.
    “Fuck you,” said Urek, and jumped off the stage.
    The audience howled, then stomped and applauded.
    It was the gym teacher who joined Mr. Fredericks in quieting everyone down. “I’m sure,” he said, “we’re all grateful to Ed Japhet for a fine magic show. It must have taken a lot of rehearsal and practice. I personally enjoyed it, and I hope you did too.”
    The applause, rhythmic and formal, came like waves. Ed went forward to the edge of the platform. He could just see Urek’s face in the near-darkness below him. Lila must have been sitting away out back. He couldn’t see her.
    It took fifteen minutes for Ed to get the equipment packed away into the suitcases backstage. He could feel his shirt soaked in sweat. He didn’t want to dance or anything except go home and take the damn tux off and get into the shower and then go to sleep.
    He put the suitcases into the faculty room and changed into a dark blue suit. He was buttoning his shirt when he heard Lila.
    “It’s okay,” he said, “I’m almost dressed.”
    “I figured out the milk, I think,” Lila said. “And I got an idea about the rope trick, though I don’t think the others caught on, and I know how the tie thing had to work, but the guillotine trick—are you going to tell me how you did it?”
    “You’re not supposed to ask.”
    “You can tell me ,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone.”
    Ed thought a moment, then shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Chapter 4
    If Hieronymus Bosch had painted the city room of The New York Times in all its cluttered detail—the scramble of desks, three jammed together, two facing each other with no space between, desks dropped into place like a child’s blocks in no regular order, and everywhere on them the long sheets off the teletype machines with the day’s happenings all in monotonous capital letters, the insane black telephones ringing for someone who was bound to be away from his desk and would never find the message telling him about the call he didn’t want to receive—Bosch would not have overlooked the cigarette packs, the smoking plug end of newsmen’s nerves, the match folders, most of which were frustratingly matchless (“Who in hell has a light?”), the chewing-gum packs and balled-up wrappers from those who were chewing more instead of smoking less, the cartons of no-longer-warm coffee, and, most important of all, the blank sheets of typing paper in small piles on every desk, and near them the men waiting for something to happen somewhere.
    At this late hour, in the left center of this Boschian canvas, one would have seen Avram Gardikian, rubbing the skin of his head, which was regretfully bald at age thirty-four. Avram’s eyes skimmed through the typed-up messages from student stringers. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
    The message from Jerry Samuelson took him by surprise. He reached the sleepy stringer only after persuading an awakened adult intermediary that it was indeed The New York Times calling.
    “What is it, kid?”
    Samuelson could barely restrain his excitement. He had a standing deal with one of the girls in the emergency room at Phelps. Ten dollars for a tip, something he could get to before a regular could cover it.
    Gardikian listened carefully. After half a minute, he started taking notes.
    “You’re in luck,” he said finally. “Get down there in the morning and get all the facts straight. If you can’t handle it, call and we’ll send someone. Okay, okay, big man. Take this name. George Hardy. I’m off Sundays. I’ll leave this for him. He’ll pick up.”
    Gardikian thought about the time when he had hit on his first real story. “Listen, kid,” he said. “I think you’ll make Monday.”
    Jerry Samuelson’s head was full of bells. He knew that first jobs, full-time jobs, were out in