Night Magic (16 page)

Michael started awake and sat up, trying to imagine who the woman in the yellow dress could possibly have been. Had he dreamed a dream of a memory, or was he now recalling the memory of a dream? Thunder rolled in the night, or was he dreaming that too? He listened harder and realized the thunder was not from the sky but low-planed along the streets, where steel axles humped the faulted paving, bounding off stone buildings, cueing windowpanes into quick vibration, echoing in closed alleyways, dying somewhere out there in the heat, distantly, leaving him with the tag ends of thoughts, the selvage of raveled dreams.

After her nap, Lena cleaned the room, emptying the ashtray and picking up glasses. She dusted the tabletops, straightened the sofa pillows, briefly swept. From outside, where the trucks ran on the West Side Highway, she heard rumbling noises: thunder, yet not thunder; it only sounded like it. When she had finished she set aside the broom and cloth and sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap. She sniffed the air, noting a smell of camphor, like mothballs. And she thought she heard someone crying. After a while she rose and put away her cleaning things, absentmindedly munched an apple, then switched off the lights and went to bed but did not sleep. It was too early, and she was too tired. She still heard thunder where there was no thunder, and smelled mothballs where there weren’t any, and heard someone crying when no one was there.

T
HE GALLERY GUARD WAS
hardly conscious of his fixed habit of whistling his boredom away as he rambled in the general vicinity of his prescribed station: Egyptian wing, second gallery, against the wall of the archway. People had come through in droves today, many more than usual, all day long. Since the “Saskia in Tears” affair, the number of museumgoers had trebled, and with the added interest provided by the new Chinese exhibit, visitors were flocking to every section of the museum, including Egyptian antiquities, in greater and greater numbers.

The guard paid them little attention, except for the occasional celebrity he could pick out. Last week Martin Scorsese was there, and yesterday Connie Chung, whom he recognized from television. The rest were merely faces in a crowd, and he wondered if any of them ever came more than once, except for the funny old geezer who was a regular customer.

He was in there now, in the jewelry room, where he frequently hung about, making notes and whispering to himself. The guard felt pride of ownership in the priceless items he guarded, and he liked people who enjoyed them, showed interest in them. Still, he knew he had to keep an eye out; there was no telling what people might take it into their heads to do. Especially these days.

An unescorted group of children came through, jabbering, giggling, and shoving. He busied himself in quieting them, and when they had been reduced to a semblance of orderliness, he allowed them to pass into the jewelry room and followed behind them with a watchful eye. The old man, wearing his usual black outfit—some kind of preacher, maybe?—was bending over one of the glass cases, holding a magnifying glass, closely examining, not the multitudinous scarabs, the major interest of most museumgoers, but a particular Eye of Horus, painted on faience, a large staring eye outlined in black, against a background of azure blue. (An information card affixed to the case explained, in words taken from
The Book of the Dead,
the occult powers attributed to the Eye: it was a mighty amulet, used in casting spells that enabled a deceased person to speak and to know magic formulas, allowed him to retain his memory and his heart, and provided warmth for his head.) The children had scattered at once to all parts of the room, while the guard remained in the center, letting his gaze rove about. Having noted his presence, the man beside the display case glanced up, pocketed his magnifying glass, and left abruptly.

A short while later, upstairs in the European Painting wing, a woman, one Mrs. Arthur M. Mason, who had driven in from Scarsdale to view the famous “Saskia in Tears,” blinked in disbelief. Mrs. Mason was not alone in such an action at this particular instant, but it was she who first voiced the shocked concern that many in the crowd of spectators were beginning to feel.

“Look!” she said, rather loudly, and upon hearing her own voice she became instantly embarrassed. Still, unbelievable though it might seem, she certainly saw what she was seeing. Everyone, of course, had been looking at paintings, but now they all looked at this particular painting in a different manner altogether. Another woman cried out, and immediately the visitors gathered themselves into a tight knot, then began pushing and shoving.

“What’s happening?” someone toward the rear wanted to know. “What is it?” No one quite knew the answer to these questions, but clearly something very strange was taking place.

“Fire!”

Smoke was issuing forth in wispy swirls from the painting, around or behind it. Sinister tendrils were curling upward to the light. No one moved or did anything, they all stood staring.
“FIRE!”
The dread word was shouted again. A guard hurried in, shoved his way through the wall of backs, and stopped before the picture, staring with unbelieving eyes. He began to propel people away from the area, then called out to another guard, who came charging into the group and rammed his way through it imperiously.

A third guard arrived, there was a hasty conference, and even as they looked at the portrait, the canvas seemed to leap into flame. In panic, people started shoving their way toward the exit. The guards spoke in loud, authoritative voices, warning the crowd to move quickly out of the gallery, cautioning order and safety. The odor of burning varnish permeated the room—everyone could smell it. Those intent on escape converged with those who hoped to get a better look, forming an eddying mass; elbows were brought into play, followed by hands, voices were raised to a tumult; one woman screamed, then a second, horrified at the sight of the yellow flames licking at the canvas like hungry tongues. Within half a minute the painted features of the figure dimmed, grew dark, were obliterated entirely, and as the fire engulfed the canvas its carefully judged, harmonious forms blistered, melted, and dissolved before the eyes of the stupefied people in the room.

Then the alarm sounded, loud and long, triggering general pandemonium.

Downstairs, in the Egyptian wing, the guard heard the bell and abandoned his post, hurrying into the Great Hall. He saw people thronging their way down the marble staircase, while others stood about in clusters, looking up. Keeping well to the side, the guard started up the stairs. Halfway along, he was vaguely aware of a familiar figure, tall and somberly dressed, among those rushing downstairs, but it was only in retrospect that he recognized the strange old man, his regular customer.

At the foot of the stairs, the man moved toward the Egyptian wing. It was emptying rapidly; everyone’s attention was on the firemen who burst through the entrance, dragging hoses and equipment. Several museum guards brandishing fire extinguishers preceded them. No one took the slightest notice of the old man as he slipped into the deserted jewelry room and approached the glass case where the Eye of Horus was displayed.

Since the zoo incident a few days previously, Emily had been able to persuade her indefatigable hunter to relax his pursuit a little. The Queer Duck’s game was a blind alley, a brick wall, a merry-go-round, spinning tirelessly but going nowhere. Perhaps the way to win, she had suggested, was to refuse to play. Besides, if they went to the Chinese exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, Michael could always fit in a bit of stakeout after admiring the wonders produced in the ancient land of Emily’s ancestors. He agreed, not so much out of interest in Oriental art as in the belief that a change in tactics might be called for.

So it was that the two of them were strolling up Fifth Avenue, hand in hand, at about the time of Mrs. Arthur Mason’s astonished shout; they paused for a traffic light, seizing the opportunity for a quick kiss, at the very moment when the crowd of appalled visitors watched the canvas burst into flames; and they arrived at the museum simultaneously with the fire engines. Police were already there, holding back the spectators outside, while a TV camera truck disgorged its remote unit, the cameraman shouldering his portable equipment as a crew member guided him through the clamoring, craning throng. Firefighters clutching large hoses attached them to fire hydrants and ran up the steps. No one seemed to know what was happening, other than that there was a fire inside the building. Michael, wild-eyed, leaned away from the building as though struggling to neutralize an overpowering force and turned to Emily. “He’s in there,” he said, “I know he’s in there.”

“Who? The Queer Duck?”

“Yes, I can feel it. You hang around here and watch for him. I’m going inside.”

“But wait.” She hesitated, thinking, He might be right, and thinking, He’s lost his mind. “What happens if we lose one another?”

“Meet you at Dazz’s,” he yelled back to her, already pushing his way up the steps through the crowd. Finally he reached one of the doorways and was so intent on getting through it that he failed to see the old man exiting through another one.

The man started down the steps; then, seeing the television camera trained directly on him, he averted his face and made an involuntary motion with his hand, as if grabbing for something: his umbrella. A look of dawning realization spread across his face, and he turned back to the door he had just come out of.

“Can’t go in there,” a guard said, holding out his hands.

“I forgot—”

“Get it later.”

The man backed off slowly, a dazed expression on his face, and then, as the television camera whirred, he ducked abruptly and jostled his way through the press of people around the door.

Emily had skirted the main part of the crowd and stood on the top step, some distance from the entrance, scanning the tumult in the hope of spotting Michael. She saw someone she recognized, though she wished she didn’t; it was the old man, Michael’s Queer Duck, who burst clear of the obstinate bodies impeding his passage and hurried toward her, without noting her, across the crowded landing. He wasn’t like a duck at all, Emily thought, nor was he, despite the earlier impression he had made on her, as powerful and streamlined as a raptor. He was too disjointed, too bumbling, more in the manner of some dark, gruesome, carrion-eating bird, like a crow or a vulture, jerking across the stone steps while his loose black clothes billowed up around him and his one good eye rolled upward: a creature suited to the air, yet curiously bound to the pavement.

She took one step, then another, as he bore down on her, heedless of her but moving directly toward her. When he looked down to assure his footing, they were standing face to face.

This is it, Emily thought, as she registered the contemptuous, impatient grimace that twisted his thin lips and the dismissive gesture of his hand.

This time she would let him know what she thought of his hide-and-seek game with Michael. But as harsh words rose to her consciousness and she parted her lips to speak, all she could see was his one eye and all she could do was see it. She was frozen in place, helpless, unable to move a muscle. The eye was chilling, like an icy blade; it probed her, recognized her, dismissed her, as though she had been cut open and tossed aside. As the blood thawed around her heart and she came to herself, she felt absurdly ashamed, as if she had waked to find herself standing naked in a public place. The old man was gone. She looked around anxiously and saw him just below her, plunging through the crowd, down the steps, then darting between two fire trucks parked at the curb.

Propelled by an impulse that dismayed her, thinking all the while, Why am I doing this? she pushed her way down the steps after him. People came hurrying from all directions, and she had to struggle to ward them off. He crossed the street, heading east on Eightieth toward Madison. Without waiting for the light, Emily followed him.

In the meanwhile, Michael stood in the Great Hall, looking upward with the rest. The fire, apparently, was somewhere upstairs. A passing guard shouted at him, among others, to get out of the building, then hurried busily on. Michael stepped to one side and looked around. Somewhere in the sea of faces he felt certain he would see the Queer Duck.

A lone fireman was standing against the gallery railing above, waving his arms. A whistle blew, and then the ringing alarm bell suddenly stopped. “It’s all right,” the fireman shouted down.

“What’s goin’ on?” another called up.

“False alarm, I guess.” He shrugged his perplexity and left the railing. In a moment firemen began descending with their equipment. A pair of uniformed guards came down together and spoke briefly; then the first guard walked toward the Egyptian wing, while the second one headed for the information desk. Michael stepped quickly after him.

“I’m with the
News
” he said, fast-talking the guard. “What’s happening up there?”

The guard was dialing a telephone. “Damnedest thing I ever saw—
if
I
saw
it—” He broke off and spoke into the mouthpiece, reporting that the fire was out. A moment later the first guard appeared in the entrance to the Egyptian wing and rushed shouting toward the information desk, intercepting a man in a seersucker jacket as he came. The guard spoke intensely and rapidly, the other listening, and together they came up to the desk. The guard on the telephone was just completing his call. The man in the seersucker jacket took the phone, dialed, and spoke.

“There’s been a robbery in the Egyptian wing.”

The first guard looked at Michael. “What do you want in here?”

“Press. Can you give me some details?”

“You got credentials?”

“Sure.” Michael made a great show of feeling in all his pockets. Avoiding the guard’s eye, he looked past his shoulder in the direction of the checkroom. Through the aperture in the partition, he noted something sitting on the nearly empty rack. Stepping toward it, he said, “Guess I must have lost them in the—” He made a vague gesture, then began moving more rapidly to the checkroom.