‘‘Finally she dismissed her servant, leaving us alone in her chamber. We kissed. We . . . well, we got to know each other better. Dusk fell. The room filled with shadows. I had stayed too long, but I lay there in a stupor. I was intoxicated with more than wine and careless when I should have been cautious.
‘‘The lady’s servant reappeared suddenly, throwing aside the curtains that surrounded the bed. The old hag warned that Herod was approaching. I must flee. I grabbed my sword and my toga. I was in the act of putting on my sandals when the palace guards crashed into the room and seized me.
‘‘King Herod himself came in behind them. ‘Kill him,’ he said without any emotion. ‘Bring me his head on a platter,’ he added.
‘‘The sweet lady’s hair was a mass of tangled curls and her feet were bare—as was the rest of her, to tell the truth. She threw herself at the king, falling to her knees before him. I didn’t see what followed because the guards were dragging me away. I fought like a madman although I knew escape was futile. I felt humiliated. I should have died on the battlefield, with honor, not because I was dipping my . . .’’ The genie remembered he was speaking with Hildy and stopped himself mid-sentence.
‘‘I’m not a child,’’ Hildy said, her voice cross. ‘‘I know what you two were doing. Go on, please, with the story.’’
Tony G. gave her a wink, some of his good humor returning. ‘‘I was more angry with myself than with Herod, to be honest. I had been drunk on lust and desire. Now I was determined to go down fighting, not be executed like a common criminal. I lashed out with my feet. I struggled with the strength of ten men, conscious of nothing but the need to break free.’’
Tony G. puffed up his chest as he spoke.
‘‘Then in the midst of the melee, I heard the old servant’s voice shouting at the guards to return me to the chamber. She screamed out that Herod had changed his mind. Bloody and battered, I was brought before the king and thrown down on the hard stone floor. A guard put the point of his sword in the middle of my back, its tip piercing my flesh. He put his foot on my neck so I could not lift my head to see, but I smelled the woman’s perfume. I knew she was there.
‘‘Herod began to speak. He was just a puppet ruler, appointed by Rome after all, and I was a Roman centurion, as the lady must have told him. ‘You aroused my anger, perhaps too quickly,’ the king said. ‘You are a Roman citizen, I understand, and well-connected in the senate. Explaining your execution would be tiresome; you do have such bothersome laws in the empire. Besides’—his voice became taunting—‘being served another head on a platter has lost its satisfaction.’
‘‘He laughed then, a cold, cruel laugh. ‘My lady here has suggested it would be more amusing to give you a different kind of fate, worse than death perhaps.’
‘‘My heart froze at his words. I did not fear beheading, which would have been quick. I cursed myself and my stupidity as I wondered what vile torture he had thought up in the few minutes since I was seized. He soon told me.
‘‘ ‘I have a visitor from Egypt, a famous magician, or so he says. So far his tricks have been rather ordinary. He claims he casts spells and enchantments. Let’s find out if he can entertain me with your fate.’ ’’
The genie looked at Hildy then, his eyes sad, his shoulders sagging. ‘‘The magician put on quite a show for Herod the Great. First he drugged me, assuring my cooperation. Then he produced clouds of rainbow-colored smoke and made marvelous music from invisible instruments ring through the ether. He opened a great book and began reading out a spell. Suddenly I was a few inches tall and imprisoned in a bottle.
‘‘Herod himself was the first to pull the cork and request three wishes. As he already had great wealth and power, his wishes were grandiose, but frivolous. After his third wish—a golden chariot pulled by golden horses—I found myself back in the bottle, adrift in a vast blue sea, the Mediterranean, I believe. And that, Ms. Caldwell, is my tale.’’
‘‘Is it the truth?’’ Hildy challenged him.
A twinkle lit up the genie’s eyes, which were as blue as the sea he had just mentioned. ‘‘For the most part,’’ he said. ‘‘I was not executed as you can plainly see. And I truly am a genie, created by enchantment and cast upon the waters to wander forever.’’
Hildy gave him an appraising look. This Tony G. was not a figment of her imagination, of that she was certain. She had always been a sensible person, not given to visions or flights of fancy. But her belief system most definitely had not included genies. ‘‘I always assumed genies were mythical creatures,’’ she offered, feeling uneasy.
‘‘People assumed Troy was a myth too,’’ Tony pointed out.
‘‘Yes, until Heinrich Schliemann followed the clues in Homer’s
Iliad
, found the original city in Turkey, and dug it up.’’ Hildy talked more to herself than to Tony. She looked at him then. Anxiety spread like a sudden frost inside her. The appearance of this genie had shaken the very foundations of her world. And right now she had other priorities in her life that she wanted to deal with. She straightened her shoulders, determined to dispose of the whole problem.
‘‘I’m really very sorry, but this is absolutely one of the worst times you could have showed up. I may be on the verge of—’’ She stopped. She had no intention of revealing her deepest hopes. ‘‘Never mind that. In any event, I feel very uncomfortable having you here, even if you are a genie. What am I supposed to do with you?’’
‘‘Help me escape.’’
‘‘From the enchantment? Of course, I’d be glad to.’’ Hildy felt an immense relief. She’d do whatever she had to and this unusual man would be on his way or disappear, or whatever, but he’d be gone.
‘‘Ummm.’’ Tony cleared his throat and avoided eye contact. ‘‘Not from the enchantment. I need you to help me escape Jimmy the Bug.’’
‘‘You need to escape a bug? What are you talking about?’’ A bad feeling started blossoming inside Hildy even before the genie began to answer.
Her misgivings grew progressively greater after Tony G. started talking. According to the genie, his previous master, who had found the bottle while vacationing in Miami, was Jimmy ‘‘the Bug’’ Torelli, a convicted murderer, thief, racketeer, extorter, and well-known mob boss. Earlier today Torelli had taken Tony G., riding inside the bottle, to the slots in Atlantic City so that the genie could help him win a jackpot.
That piece of information brought Hildy up short. She interrupted the genie. ‘‘You could do that? Make the machine hit the jackpot?’’
‘‘The machines are already programmed by the casino, you do know that?’’ Tony G. talked with hand gestures and body language. He turned his palms up and shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘If it was going to hit the jackpot it would without my help, but I can nudge my master to the right machine and help things along a little, you might say.’’
‘‘I hit the jackpot. After I put you in my bag.’’ Hildy became quite agitated. She never cheated at anything, ever, not even her income tax. ‘‘Did you? I mean, I didn’t wish—’’
Tony G. looked at her and cocked his head. ‘‘ ‘I am fortunate in every way and I wish to be lucky today.’ I am quite sure I heard you say that.’’ He spoke without guile.
‘‘Oh no, I didn’t mean . . . now I feel terrible. I won the jackpot because I wished it. I will have to return the money. It’s only right.’’
Tony G. gave her a pitying look. ‘‘You do not have to return the money. You won it fairly.’’
‘‘No, I didn’t. I wished it to happen!’’ Hildy protested.
Tony G. laughed. ‘‘And don’t you think that everyone playing the machines also wishes it to happen? How do you know that’s not why they win?’’
‘‘Because—because—you just told me you did it.’’
‘‘I said the machine was already programmed to win. You chose to sit there. I had nothing to do with that. And what would you tell the casino, ‘I’m returning the jackpot because I wished I’d win and I did’? That’s ridiculous.’’
Hildy felt confused. His reasoning was flawed and self-serving, but she couldn’t get her mind around exactly how to counter his argument. ‘‘I still think it was cheating somehow.’’
‘‘You are definitely splitting hairs about this. Are you always so tiresome? Besides, worrying about that win is the least of your problems. You need to focus on what is really important here.’’
‘‘What do you mean?’’
‘‘Your ownership of the bottle has put you in harm’s way.’’
Hildy felt her heart start to race. ‘‘What exactly do you mean by that? How am I in harm’s way?’’
‘‘Because the well-known South Jersey Mafia boss, my former master, Jimmy the Bug, who not only has eyes that pop insectlike from his head but is what you in this century might call ‘one can short of a six-pack,’ is going to be looking for me.’’
‘‘How hard is he going to be looking?’’ Hildy asked, but thought she knew the answer.
‘‘I imagine he’s working on it already. He had big plans for using me to expand his territory, to become the boss of bosses. He sees me as his ticket to taking over Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and who knows what. The world? He dreams big.’’
The blood had drained from Hildy’s face.
‘‘You’re not going to faint again, are you?’’ Tony G. asked, ready to grab the paper plate again.
Hildy shook her head no. ‘‘Could you do that? Make him that powerful? I’m afraid I don’t know what you can do and can’t do.’’
Tony G. nodded yes. ‘‘I can make him
capo di tutti capi
, boss of bosses. I don’t want to. It goes against my nature, and to tell the truth I think he’s an idiot, although a very dangerous one. But if he possesses the bottle, I have to obey him. He gets three wishes in any event—you’ve already heard about genies and the three wishes. Everybody knows that.’’
‘‘Don’t be patronizing. I heard about that in fairy tales. My life never depended on what I thought was a story. Please spell it out for me.’’ Hildy felt agitated. She needed all the details she could get.
Tony G. gave her a little nod. ‘‘As you wish. As a genie, I have to obey whoever owns the bottle. I can do errands, grant petty desires, that sort of thing, and it doesn’t count against the three wishes my master gets. Maybe I should call the three wishes ‘big wishes.’ A big wish might be if you said, ‘Tony G., I wish to be president of the United States.’ That’s huge, a life-changing desire. Do you see?’’
‘‘Was my jackpot win a big wish? I mean, I didn’t even know I was making a real wish at the time.’’
Tony G.’s manner became gallant, charming even. ‘‘No, it wasn’t. You weren’t asking me directly for anything. I just felt like giving you a smile. I like seeing those dimples, by the way. Just like that Mike fellow does—’’
‘‘Mike! Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I wished I’d see him—and I did. Don’t tell me—’’
Tony G. studied his sandals as he answered. ‘‘You might call your meeting him a coincidence, you know.’’
Hildy’s face turned dark. ‘‘But it wasn’t, was it?’’
Tony G. looked up and his bright blue eyes begged for understanding. ‘‘This fellow Mike was already in Atlantic City. In fact, he was already down on the beach. I just had to get you down there—’’
‘‘And knock me over with a wave, and nearly drown me?’’ Hildy felt manipulated. She didn’t like it.
‘‘It turned out well, didn’t it?’’
Hildy’s emotions churned. Her thoughts became chaotic. ‘‘I want to sit down. Let’s go into the other room.’’ She walked into the dining room and pulled out one chair from under the Formica table, motioned for Tony G. to take it, then sat down in another.
‘‘Look, Tony, I need to know something. Did you have anything to do with—with what happened between Mike and me? After he pulled me out of the water, I mean.’’ Her hands had started shaking and she pressed them down on the red tabletop to still them.
‘‘Oh, you think I— No. Not at all. You didn’t wish for anything beyond meeting this guy. Anything that happened between the two of you had nothing to do with me.’’
Hildy let out a deep sigh and closed her eyes for a moment. ‘‘Thank goodness. I suddenly felt worried that none of it was real, genuine I mean.’’
Tony G. gave her a look filled with compassion. ‘‘You’re in love with this fellow, aren’t you?’’
Hildy nodded. ‘‘I am. I wasn’t sure until I saw him again, but I am.’’ She let out another shaky breath.
‘‘Does he feel the same way?’’
Hildy shrugged. ‘‘I don’t know. I don’t imagine he does. He’s engaged to marry someone else.’’
‘‘Ms. Caldwell, if you don’t mind my saying it, I could take care of everything for you. You want this guy to fall in love with you, I can do it. Believe me, it’s easy.’’
Hildy looked horrified. ‘‘No! I want Mike to really love me, because I’m me, not because of some trick.’’
The genie gave Hildy another look, this time one with more pity than compassion. ‘‘Didn’t you ever hear that all’s fair in love and war? I could make him love you with the same intensity, the same passions, as if he decided to all on his own.’’
Hildy pressed her lips together tightly. ‘‘No means no. Look, maybe it was okay that you set up Mike and me running into each other. But stay out of my love life from now on. I mean that.’’
‘‘As you wish. I live to obey you. I belong to you, at least at the moment.’’
‘‘And I do not want you to belong to me.’’ She sat silent for a minute, then spoke her thoughts aloud. ‘‘But it would be unethical to return you to someone who intends to commit criminal acts with your powers. No, that is out of the question. And you did ask me to help you escape—’’
‘‘Ms. Caldwell, you need to understand what you’re committing yourself to. Mr. Torelli is a convicted murderer, and he is going to do whatever is necessary to retrieve that bottle and get me back— and that might include killing you.’’
The words burst from her lips. ‘‘Killing
me
!’’ Hildy yelled loudly enough that she terrified the cats, who ran as fast as they could out of the room.
‘‘That about sums it up,’’ Tony said.