Night Magic (4 page)

Caught in her spell, the viewers gazed in awe. They spoke in hushed tones. They peered closely to examine details or stood well back to appreciate the whole, lost in the reverie that an indisputable masterpiece can evoke. And, strangely, so substantial was the artist's talent that he was able to lend that thoughtful expression a lachrymose, grieving air, a quality falling just short of tragedy. It was as if Saskia, in the bloom of youth and health, already contemplated her impending decline into illness and death: the tear just there, in the corner of the eye, how real it seemed, how wet, a single, sparkling drop of moisture, poised at the duct to roll down the face. And—more strangely—it fell, leaving behind a shining trickle visible on the canvas. It fell, to be replaced by another tear, and yet another. Tears in both eyes, and those falling. Saskia was crying. The sitter in the portrait, Rembrandt's wife, was crying.

Astonishing.

Incredible.

Miraculous.

“Saskia in Tears” was what she would be called before evening, the famous “weeping painting.” The curious spectators surged forward, their voices rising in volume. In the general confusion, guards from opposite ends of the gallery hurried to restore order among the crowd. The guards halted, also staring in disbelief. In the hubbub no one noticed the bearded man with the red nose who likewise had been viewing the work, aloof from the rest, standing to one side, one eye askew, the other fixed not precisely on the portrait itself, but obliquely, possibly upon the faces of those looking at it.

Soon after, he left. Presently he would arrive at the place where he was meant to be.

I
T WAS THE THURSDAY
after Labor Day, a noontime of record-breaking temperatures, when the city lay sprawled as though poleaxed under the stunning heat, when people's clothing stuck like wet wash to their backs, and under a poisoned sun New Yorkers were already exhausted and cranky. Michael Hawke was performing at the corner of the park, on the plaza, under the blindingly golden statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman.

While Saskia is weeping, while the minutes are ticking by and Hawke’s own wristwatch recording them, while the man with the black umbrella is approaching and Michael is working the lunchtime crowd, it will not hurt to use this time to discover some facts concerning him. Name, Michael Hawke. Age, twenty-six. Born, Buffalo, New York. Tragic childhood, parents believed dead. Brought up in Ohio by mother's older sisters. Resident of New York for almost five years. One more aspiring actor lacking prospects. His greater aspiration: to be a magician. Not merely a magician, but the Greatest Magician in the World. He bills himself as Presto the Great and dreams of doing presentation shows for large corporations; what more fitting employment for the Greatest Magician in the World? An appealing young man with an engaging smile, earnest in his belief that he has overcome his past and is on his way to Great Things, he is confident, possessed of all the requisites: talent, dexterity, imagination, audacity. Plus the necessary guts and fortitude, and a nervy ambition to succeed. Last but not least, he has a deep-seated curiosity, a personality trait that, as we know, killed the cat.

Today, Michael was in whiteface, doing mimes. He was a street artist worthy of the name and a not uncommon attraction in this quarter of the city. Since returning from a season of summer stock, he had staked out his turf at the southeastern tip of Central Park, across Fifth Avenue from the Sherry Netherland, across Central Park South from the Plaza Hotel and the fountain, its rim dotted with idlers defying the heat, while here, in the brick-paved area margined with low hedges, the benches were filled, and all around the side gathered a catch-as-catch-can audience of watchers.

Here was Michael: an enviable helmet of dark hair, thick, shaggy, glossy, looked-after. A trained-down body, lithe, agile, quick to respond to the mental impulse, controlled by the sharply honed precision of the athlete and nurtured by the vital enthusiasms of the young. He was dressed and accoutred for his trade in close-fitting black trousers, soft black shoes, a top hat, and an oddment of costume resembling a grenadier’s jacket, with gilt frogging front and back. This coat was a necessary part of his act, for the lining was a labyrinth of sewn-in pockets and cunning flaps where he had cached his store of sleight-of-hand materials, including his trick wallet, one compartment of which held the money he had saved all summer and which must that afternoon be deposited in his account before the bank’s closing time.

He had a thin, almost feral face, washed out with a coat of dead-white makeup; its sweating planes and turnings were smoothed to a matte glaze, its features accented with dark pencil, outlining, widening, exaggerating the size of his eyes, his mouth painted a dark carmine, which did not precisely follow the beveling of the lips: the classic tradition of the pantomime mask, followed in every detail.

Moving, darting, dancing even, his shadow a perfect replication in this hot city high noon, he was by turns antic, doleful, mocking, manic, outrageous; but in its brief moments of repose his face reflected the look of one in control of serious, even important, matters. His talent was not in question, only his ambition, and it required but scant perusal of his audience to determine that they were responding here not to the hack but to the artist at work.

They had encountered him, a stranger, some in hilarity, some in mild humor, some against their wills, even in apathy, and from their remoteness and boredom he had fashioned—for this was his true métier—something they would remember for a moment, an hour, a day, but something that in some infinitesimal way would alter them, reveal them to themselves. For it was not Michael’s desire that they should see him but rather themselves; he wanted to ignite the flash of insight that would awaken them to their own persons. It was a combination of his natural intuition and his intellect that made him a keen perceiver of individual natures and foibles, but in another fifteen minutes now, twenty at the most, he would commit a grave error regarding the man with the umbrella.

Until then, however, there was time enough for him to have some fun, and collect a little money in the hat, too. The pretty girl on the steps of the statue, the one with the flute, was Emily Chang, Michael’s girlfriend; that is to say, Emily was in love with him, though Michael, whose intuitive gift for reading emotions, inclinations, desires did not always extend to his own, was not certain that he totally reciprocated Emily’s feelings. He loved her; he was sure of that. But “in love”…? That was a different matter and called for commitment he wasn’t sure he was ready to make. Yet he appreciated her generous heart, her loyalty, her exotic good looks, her talent. She played the flute beautifully, and Michael enjoyed having his mimes orchestrated. But like all pipers, Emily must be paid; Michael thought he’d been spending more and more time with her by way of making up for the paltry sums that fell to her share, but the truth was that he enjoyed her company more than anyone else’s, even his own. So they spent many of their nights together, and two or three days a week she was there with her flute, improvising accompaniments for his act and passing the hat afterward. She was bright and willing and nice to have around. Everyone in New York should have someone around.

Michael was doing one of his slow-motion routines, Emily was making music, and down the steps of the Metropolitan Museum the tall man in black was coming, holding his umbrella above him as though the sun were anathema, turning right and beginning his journey south, down Fifth Avenue, lost in thought, moving with his odd, splattering gait, halting for the light, heading toward the plaza and the eventual, inevitable encounter.

Michael and Emily working, then, and the man approaching, still unseen. And someone else en passant: a matron come from shopping at Bergdorf’s. Middle-aged, stout, carelessly dressed, perfunctorily accessorized, hot and tired—and how long since a man had kissed her, publicly kissed her? Unaware of what was about to happen, she passed through the crowd, Michael’s audience. In a trice he lunged for her in wolf-prowl crouch, spun her to him, and made a mock assault on her person, becoming a lecher, Groucho Marx, flicking an imaginary cigar, wiggling an imaginary mustache, leering, then Harpo, squeezing obscene quacks from a rubber duck produced from his jacket. Then he embraced her with comic passion, while she, first alarmed, then with a flush of embarrassment, swatted at him with her plastic bag, yanked away in anger, looked around at the faces, feeling a fool. Emily, trilling her flute, bobbled three notes as she laughed. Everyone was laughing except Michael, looking innocently rueful behind his makeup. In spite of herself the woman laughed too. Michael swept her a bow and regally escorted her on her way, Emily interpolating eight or so bars from “Pomp and Circumstance.”

In a flash, Michael abandoned his victim for another, darting through the crowd to sidle up beside an Uptown hipster shagging along on stiltlike platform shoes, black and sassy, a cat, and Michael in whiteface mimicking his slouch, his sassy blackness, his feline self. The man, unoffended, showed a row of pearly teeth and good-natured recognition of this unexpected mirror image, stopping for a fraternal exchange of Harlem Hi-Baby hand slaps, elbow knocks, hip swings, butt bumps, while Emily piped out some jive. She finished the riff and noodled some off-key notes as Michael attached himself to a derelict drunk, instantly making himself a pal, a fellow inebriate, jabbering soundless inconsequentials, staggering, nodding, listening in blind stupefaction to the drunk’s sodden queries, agreeing and disagreeing alternately, until, taking his cue, the drunk produced a pint of Four Roses and offered it, but Michael-drunk had his own, an imaginary bottle from which he guzzled blissfully.

Abandoning the drunk, Michael-sober sped to the curb to lie supine on the fender of a limousine, arms locked behind his head, knees crossed, a man of leisure. The chauffeur, concerned about the paint job, honked his horn, and a rear window rolled down, a face appeared.

“Hey, babe, get out of the sun, the heat's getting to you.” Off the fender, Michael ran around to the window. It was his friend, Dazz, and next to him, a gorgeous redhead, and in the corner, a weird character, grotesquely fat, wearing about three million dollars’ worth of rocks on his fingers. Michael figured that Dazz, a painter, was probably hustling the guy for a portrait commission. Out came the rubber duck again, quack, quack. The redhead laughed, tossed her hair, clanking bracelets on her arm. What a laugh, Michael thought.

“Write when you get work,” Dazz called.
“Ciao, hello.”
Then, an afterthought, he held up his hand as a signal to wait, quick consultation with the bejeweled mountain in the corner, at the end of which he spoke again: “Come over tonight, seven-thirty. Bring the band. Don’t worry about dinner—we’re going to a party. Eat, drink, and be merry.” He rolled up the window, sealing himself in air-conditioned luxury while the limousine moved on, and the big guy limply waved his rich rocks at the rear window.

The tall, thin man in black, still carrying his umbrella open above his head, observed this exchange as he approached, and with a spark of interest he watched the young mime as he turned back to the crowd, which the man himself now joined, umbrella and all.

Michael watched the car turn in at the Plaza, where Dazz would be having lunch in the Oak Room again. You sly bastard, he thought, grinning. Then, like a shot, he was back on the sidewalk. The crowd was breaking up. Had enough? Okay, magic time. He stuffed the duck back in his tunic and signaled Emily, who ran up carrying his little magician’s stand with the sign:
PRESTO THE GREAT
. From nowhere he produced a silver half-dollar, sent it rolling across his knuckles, made it disappear, drew it again from his elbow, changed it before their eyes into a nickel the size of a small saucer. Applause. Like it? Get this one. He produced a pack of cards, fanned them expertly, offered them to the closest member of the audience, a woman. Take a card, any card; she complied. He shut his eyes while she showed it to the rest—the three of hearts—then returned it to the pack. He closed the deck again, tapped it, thinking hard. Zip, he slipped his wallet out of his inside jacket pocket, unzipped a compartment, and produced the three of hearts from within. He showed the compartment empty, returned the wallet to his pocket, repeated the trick with another person, this time having him sign the chosen card—the nine of spades. Another cut and shuffle, and the deck was closed up. Out came the wallet again; the autographed card was inside. More applause.

Like it? Terrific. Next, the silks, colored handkerchiefs magically flying from his fingertips, he knotted them, pulled them from his fists, one by one, all unknotted, then balled them up and from them snapped out an American flag, while Emily played “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

It was at this point that Michael noticed the black umbrella above the crowd. There was something in the way the umbrella was held, in the idea of an umbrella at all on such a day, that intrigued him. He took a closer look.

The tall man’s ludicrousness was apparent, something just short of grotesque. Michael’s practiced glance quickly noted and recorded physical characteristics, posture, clothes, mannerisms. This one was a seedy character indeed, Jack Nicholson after a bad night. The length of his trousers was inadequate for his long shanks; four inches of ankle and shin were covered only by dingy white socks. The coat pulled badly away from its single button in radial folds, and in the black lapel a touch of red; Michael failed to note it precisely, but it was a small detail. A lack of fastidiousness, a rumpled carelessness about his whole person, as though what he wore were of little consequence to him. His face long and dour behind a beard, a W. C. Fields nose too phony looking to be real but almost too real looking to be phony. Why would he wear a false nose? And the hair, like a cartoon symphony conductor’s, gray, somewhat combed, but greasy, spilled over the soggy collar. Big feet, ridiculous shoes, a funny ducklike stance about him. A queer duck.