There was a crackle of sparks and a loud hissing sound. Gauges spun then returned to normal.
The magician removed the cloth. From the hat he pulled a live rabbit. He put it down on the ground and bowed.
Mishkin applauded. "He does it with mirrors," sneered the robot.
The rabbit tried to climb back into the hat. The magician pushed it away.
"All magicians pull rabbits out of hats," the robot said.
"It's part of the warm-up," said the magician.
"There's nothing supernatural about what I do," said the magician. "I deal in illusions, which are appearances created by careful preparation, skill, and the right equipment. That's all there is to it."
"What exactly is an illusion?" Mishkin asked.
"Everything phenomenal can be considered an illusion," the magician said. "Next, I am going to do a card trick. Don't groan, sir. (This was directed to the robot.) I know that it doesn't seem like much. But my stage effects are carefully planned as to intensity and cumulative effect. Card tricks are amusing, though not fantastical or astonishing, and they allow a heightening of receptivity before the major events of the evening (the afternoon, actually). Accordingly…"
The magician took a deck of cards from his suitcase.
"Here we have a deck of ordinary playing cards. I will now pass these cards among you. You may examine them to your heart's content. You will find them factory sealed, unmarked in any way."
He gave the deck to Mishkin, who broke open the package and looked them over. The robot also examined them. While they were doing this, the magician had opened his suitcase again and had taken from it three parabolic mirrors on tripods, a battery-operated computer complete with batteries, and a small radarscope. He set up the mirrors to face in various directions, and connected them to the radar-scope and the computer. He took the cards and fanned them in front of one of the mirrors. He punched information into the computer. Then he waited until the radarscope gave off a high-pitched beep.
The magician took a rickety wooden folding table from the suitcase and set it up in front of them. He put the deck of cards face down on the table.
"Note that I do not at any time retain any physical hold on the cards, so I cannot be accused of forcing a choice on you. Now I would like you to shuffle the cards thoroughly and select one. Do not let me see the card you select. Remember the card."
Mishkin and the robot did as they were told. Mishkin shuffled three times, and the robot shuffled twenty-seven times, randomizing the cards past any possibility of inherent or adherent patterns. Then they picked a card.
"Look at the card carefully, fix it in your memories. Now return the card to the deck and shuffle again."
Again Mishkin shuffled three times and the robot shuffled twenty-seven times. (The robot would have made an excellent Canasta shuffler and had in fact been offered that lucrative position at the North Miami Beach Community Centre.)
"Now," the magician said, "take the number of your card — counting eleven for all court cards — and multiply by seventeen. If the resultant is even, add seven, if odd, subtract two. Determine the square root of the new number to three places. Take the last digit, add nine, and factor it according to suit — black suits are imaginary numbers, red suits are real numbers. Add to this any real number you please between one and ninety-nine.
Have you followed all that?"
"Easily," said the robot.
"What is the number?"
"Eighty-seven."
The magician fed information into the computer, which began to spew paper. The magician studied the readout.
"Your card is the Jack of Diamonds."
"Correct," said the robot, and Mishkin hastily nodded.
"Still… Everybody does card tricks," the robot said.
"I never claimed not to be everybody," the magician said.
"I suppose he'll saw a woman in half next," the robot whispered to Mishkin.
"For my next illusion," the magician said, "I will saw a woman in half."
"This ought to be something," Mishkin said.
"He does it with mirrors," the robot said.
Years afterward, Mishkin remembered the magician's face: a long American face, putty and rose over hard white bone. His blue eyes were mirrors of the unredeemed landscape; and when the mirrors became windows, they showed an interior landscape identical to the exterior. It was a face turned hopefully towards dreams but shaped irrevocably by nightmares. The face was finally more memorable than the deeds that its owner performed.
The magician reached into his suitcase and took out a black-haired woman with violet eyes, wearing a Piaget dress and carrying a Vuitton handbag. She winked at Mishkin and said, "I'll try anything once."
"She always says that," the magician said. "She doesn't realize that to try something once is to try it always."
Years later the young woman said to a girlfriend, "I was kinda freaky in those days. Man, I even let myself be sawed in half by a crazy magician. What do you think about that?"
The magician took a high-speed portable rotary saw from his suitcase, tried to start it, couldn't. He took an electric outlet from his suitcase, plugged in the saw, and started it.
"Was it one of those fakey sideshow numbers?" the friend asked.
"Like hell, fake! This magician creep, the Great Dermos or Thermos, or something, was strictly on a reality trip. He was about as fake as the Mayo Brothers. He never even thought of faking anything. That's why I dug him. But he was also a creep."
From his suitcase the magician removed a four-man team of surgeons and one anaesthesiologist, all of them scrubbed, gowned, and masked. He then took out trays of surgical instruments, bottles of anaesthetics, and an operating table complete with overhead lights and drains.
The dark-haired young lady stretched out on the operating table. She was very lovely and brave. A moment like that was worth being sawed in half for.
The magician turned on the saw and approached the young lady.
At that moment a man stepped out of the suitcase. He was fiftyish, balding, fat, in no way prepossessing except for his sudden appearance. In a loud, trembling voice he said, "I speak out against this marriage in the name of humanity and common sense!"
"Not yet!" the magician hissed.
The man apologized and crept back into the suitcase.
Orpheus with his lyre made songs; Ronsard with his saw made cuts. Slowly (sadistically?) he lowered the whirling saw until it was poised just above the bare, brave midriff of the girl who would try anything once. The girl said, "Man, I've really gotten myself into it this time." The anaesthesiologist injected Num-Zit into her stomach. The surgeons made squeaky sounds with their rubber gloves.
Cut! The magician lowered his saw and made a tentative cut across the transverse brisket, gritted his teeth audibly and went to work.
The saw bit deep. Blood spurted like water from a garden hose gone berserk. Gouts of gore were thrown into the air in steep parabolas of terror. The surgeons moved in quickly, repairing the rent flesh with bought clamps and sponges and sutures.
"It's a pretty good stunt," said the robot.
"I don't think I like it," Mishkin said.
The saw cut through major veins and arteries. The surgeons, working with the precision of a really good ballet troop, stitched and patched. The lady said, "Ouch," and the anaesthesiologist administered another five ccs of Num-Zit, and a dollop of Payne-Eeze for good measure.
The stomach was cut through and patched with Scotch Brand Body Tape.
"Have I time to fuse this disc?" one of the surgeons asked.
"Stick to essentials," said Dr Zorba.
The spine was cut through and repaired with two plastic shirt stays and half a pint of Elmer's Glue. The magician continued sawing right through the table. The anaesthesiologist pulled a carpenter from the trunk, who repaired the damage on the spot. The young lady smiled bravely. The magician turned off his saw and bowed to Mishkin and the robot.