Touch of Magic (7 page)

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. Ly
ing 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
Yus
suf's
gun last night -- with skill.

The negative stuck to her flesh. She wiped her
fingers and tried again. Static. That was one prob
lem. 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. Some
times she could get the film to vanish, but some
times 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 pro
claiming her ancestors and their skills: "The Amaz
ing Dr. Stuart," her great-grandfather, in his flow
ing white beard and garb of the 1890s; "The Great
Sebastian, illusion and sleight of hand," her grandfa
ther; "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 became 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, any
way. 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 un
likely. 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 ran
sacking 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 neighbor
hood, 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 any
more, 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 detec
tive."

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 Sovi
ets (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 leak
ing 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 skate
boards, 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, meet
ing 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 hu
mor 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 recov
ered. 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.