An opera box was not his normal milieu, but he could not pass up the chance to escort the elderly widow who glittered with diamonds and influence; so, masking his lack of interest and knowledge, he kept an attentive look on his handsome, if rather bland, face and bent his sleek, dark head in response to the widow’s frequent nudges. It was during such a moment, when he did focus on the performance, that the wish occurred to him. He smiled ruefully and dismissed it.
It came back to him the next day, during his yearly lunch with the manager of Wick Industries. The man always recited lists of figures — this year they showed the declining value of the company’s stock — and reminisced at irritating length about the years when Judson’s father had built and run the company. It was Judson’s practice to keep his manner aloof and unconcerned; but this time, when the manager made pointed references to “the leisurely life,” the manner began to show fine cracks, like battered safety glass — until the moment was saved by the sudden return of the wish.
That evening it returned once more when, as a guest of the director, Judson attended the opening of a Broadway play and the party that followed. He ate smoked oysters and listened while the rave reviews were read aloud; over the rim of his champagne glass he watched the director, with whom he had gone to school, standing in the spotlight of success, and the wish came back so forcefully that the champagne soured in his throat and he left the party.
He barely had returned to his apartment when the doorbell rang. His spirits lifted at the thought that the red haired actress had changed her mind about a nightcap, but the person at the door was not female, and the hair was quite gray. The suit was gray too, in both color and spirit, drooping on the man’s shoulders and rounding over his knees. Everything about him seemed tired and sad except for his tie, a strip of vivid orange silk that ran down his shirtfront like a tongue of flame. “Good evening,” he said. “I am advised by my firm that you have some property for sale.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong apartment.”
“I think not. You are Judson A. Wick, you are forty-one years old, and you are interested in selling the balance.”
“Of what?” asked Judson cautiously.
“Last night you attended Gounod’s opera and made a wish, which you have repeated twice. Therefore you are requesting an arrangement similar to Doctor Faust’s. May I come in?”
Judson moved aside mechanically while his mind struggled for comprehension. “I think you’re putting me on.”
“Mr. Wick,” sighed the man, “if I were not what I claim to be, how could I have known about your wish?”
“I don’t know,” said Judson finally. “But you don’t look the part. Who ever heard of you as the man in the gray flannel suit?”
“But I am just a salesman, a mere servant of the firm. Call me John, if you like.” The man shot his cuffs and smoothed his tie. “This is the twentieth century, Mr. Wick. We are no longer a Middle Ages barter service but a modern business corporation. Naturally we don’t ask you to take us on faith. We offer, in fact we insist upon, a twenty-four-hour period in which you sample our merchandise free of charge, with no further obligation. Now, for what did you wish to negotiate? Power? Knowledge? Eternal Youth?” When Judson frowned, he added, “Then there is our most popular offer, Fame and Influence.”
“Ah,” said Judson. “Yes.”
“In which field would you want it?”
Judson shrugged. “I wouldn’t care. No, wait a minute.” Into his mind bubbled the memory of champagne and rave reviews. “Make it show business. Broadway. No, make it bigger. Hollywood.”
The man took out a small, gray pad, made a note, and rose. “When you wake up tomorrow, the twenty-four hours will begin. Incidentally, we’ll be observing you, to insure that satisfaction is achieved. Then I return at the end of the period, with a contract for you to sign.”
Judson’s gaze wavered and slid around the room. “All right,” he said finally. “What have I got to lose?”
Something flickered for a moment in the man’s gray eyes, like matches at the ends of two tunnels. Then the orange tie dimmed out, and he was gone.
When Judson awoke at ten, he heard a voice that seemed to be located in his ear. “Good morning,” it said in metallic, asexual tones. “The observation has begun. We are ready to grant your wishes.” After a moment there was an odd sensation inside Judson’s head: a faint, not unpleasant, echoing, rather as if someone were listening on a telephone extension. “They mean it,” he said softly. “What the hell do you know about that?”
The words made him smile; he lay in bed for some moments grinning, but finally he began to consider what his requests should be. Self-consciously at first, because he was aware of the inner listener, and then with growing pleasure in the fact of an audience, he thought of some of the important film people he had met in the past, during the years when he had been married to Shelley, and she had not yet catapulted to fame. He could, he thought, choose to be like any of them — to be one of those who moved on the edges of the limelight but in the center of power, or even to be an actor, perhaps the top male box office star in the country. Or the world.
The pale green phone on his nightstand rang. In a rather puzzled voice a man introduced himself as a reporter from Variety, said he had just heard there was an important story to be gotten from a Judson Wick, and inquired what it might be.
It took all of Judson’s skill to convince the man there was a story but that it could not be divulged yet; when he hung up, he was sharply aware that the inner listener was still listening. He got into the shower and made a careful list of people he might call, narrowing it to three, one of whom was his director friend of the night before, but finally rejecting all of them. While he was shaving, the thought that Shelley was in town promoting her latest picture kept pulling at his mind. He nicked his chin, swore, and suddenly laughed aloud: why should he worry about finding an excuse to call? Shelley would call him — if he wished.
When he reached the restaurant two hours later, Shelley was just arriving in a cloud of reporters. He detached her and led her to a table, where he insisted that she talk about her new film throughout their first drink. “All right,” she finally said. “I’m the one who called you, God knows why, so I must want to hear what you’ve been up to all these years.”
He took her hand and a deep breath; it seemed to him that the interest of the inner listener had quickened. Picking his way among the words, he said, “I’m on to something big. Very big. Something that’s going to lead me straight to your town.”
“Something in pictures, you mean?”
“What else do you do in Hollywood?”
“But you don’t know anything about the industry.”
“Shelley,” he said softly, “I’ll be able to do anything I want. Anything.”
She studied him, her violet eyes narrowing to points of black light. “Are you serious? You’re going to produce a picture?”
“Yes, I guess you could say that. Of course. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“What picture?”
He raised a hand for the waiter, wishing for him to come immediately, and ordered more drinks. Then he leaned back and said carefully, “Let’s put it this way. I’m in the market for ideas.”
“Are you? That’s a coincidence.” Shelley tapped her glass slowly with one mauve and perfect nail. “There’s a book that Global is planning to buy for Lisa Gordon. But it would be so right for me. If someone else got it, that is. If someone else were able to get it.”
“That’s a coincidence.” He smiled boyishly, the smile she used to say she liked. “Because what I had in mind was to make a great picture for Shelley.”