If I saw two hands, I saw nine. Her hands, an aviary, flew, rustled, tapped, soared, petted, whirled, tickled as Miss Quick, her face blank, swarmed coldly over her victims; touched without touching.
«What's in this pocket? And this? And here?»
She shook their vests, pinched their lapels, jingled their trousers: money rang. She punched them lightly with a vindictive forefinger, ringing totals on cash registers. She unplucked coat buttons with mannish yet fragile motions, gave wallets back, sneaked them away. She thrust them, took them, stole them again, while peeling money to count it behind the men's backs, then snatched their watches while
holding their hands.
She trapped a live doctor now!
«Have you a thermometer!?» she asked.
«Yes.» He searched. His face panicked. He searched again. The audience cued him with a roar. He glanced over to find:
Miss Quick standing with the thermometer in her mouth, like an unlit smoke. She whipped it out, eyed it.
«Temperature!» she cried. «One hundred ten!»
She closed her eyes and gave an insincere shake of her hips.
The audience roared. And now she assaulted her victims, bullied them, tugged at their shirts, rumpled their hair, asked:
«Where's your tie?»
They clapped their hands to their empty collars.
She plucked their ties from nowhere, tossed them back.
She was a magnet that invisibly drew good-luck charms, saints' medals, Roman coins, theater stubs, handkerchiefs, stickpins, while the audience ran riot, convulsed as these rabbit men stood peeled of all prides and protections.
Hold your hip pocket, she vacuumed your vest. Clutch your vest, she jackpotted your trousers. Blithely bored, firm but evanescent, she convinced you you missed nothing, until she extracted it, with faint loathing, from her own tweeds moments later.
«What's this?!» She held up a letter. «'Dear Helen: Last night with you-'»
A furious blush as the victim tussled with Miss Quick, snatched the letter, stowed it away. But a moment later, the letter was restolen and reread aloud: «'Dear Helen: Last night-'»
So the battle raged. One woman. Ten men.
She kissed one, stole his belt.
Stole another's suspenders.
The women in the audience-whinnied.
Their men, shocked, joined in.
What a magnificent bully, Miss Quick! How she spanked her dear, idiot-grinning, carry-on-somehow men turned boys as she spun them like cigar-store Indians, knocked them with her brontosaur hip, leaned on them like barber-poles, calling each one cute or lovely or handsome.
This night, I thought, is lunatic! All about me, wives, hilarious with contempt, hysterical at being so shabbily revealed in their national pastimes, gagged for air. Their husbands sat stunned, as if a war were over that had not been declared, fought and lost before they could move. Each, nearby, had the terrible look of a man who fears his throat is cut, and that a sneeze would fill the aisle with heads .
Quickly! I thought. Do something!
«You, you onstage, my twin, dodge! Escape!»
And she was coming at him!
«Be firm!» I told my twin. «Strategy! Duck, weave. Zigzag. Don't look where she says. Look where she doesn't say! Go it! now!»
If I shouted this, or merely ground it to powder in my teeth, I don't recall, for all the men froze as Miss Quick seized my twin by the hand.
«Careful!» I whispered.
Too late. His watch was gone. He didn't know it. Your watch is gone! I thought. He doesn't know what time it is! I thought.
Miss Quick stroked his lapel. Back off! I warned myself.
Too late. His forty-dollar pen was gone. He didn't know it. She tweaked his nose. He smiled. Idiot! There went his wallet. Not your nose, fool, your coat!
«Padded?» She pinched his shoulder. He looked at his right arm. No! I cried silently, for now she had the letters out of his left coat pocket. She planted a red kiss on his brow and backed off with everything else he had on him, coins, identification, a package of chocolates which she ate, greedily. Use the sense God gave a cow! I shouted behind my face. Blind! See what she's doing!
She whirled him round, measured him, and said, «This yours?» and returned his tie.
My wife was hysterical. She still held the glasses fixed on every nuance and vibration of loss and deprivation on the poor idiot's face. Her mouth was spoiled with triumph.
My God! I cried in the uproar. Get off the stage! I yelled within, wishing I could really yell it. At least get out while you have some pride!
The laughter had erupted a volcano in the theater, high and rumbling and dark. The dim grotto seemed lit with unhealthy fever, an incandescence. My twin wanted to break off, like one of Pavlov's dogs, too many bells on too many days: no reward, no food. His eyes were glazed with his insane predicament.
Fall! Jump in the pit! Crawl away! I thought.
The orchestra sawed at destiny with violins and Valkyrian trumpets in full flood.
With one last snatch, one last contemptuous wag of her body, Miss Quick grasped my twin's clean white shirt, and yanked it off.
She threw the shirt in the air. As it fell, so did his pants As his pants fell, unbelted, so did the theater. An avalanche of shock soared to bang the rafters and roll over us in echoes a thundering hilarity.
The curtain fell.
We sat, covered with unseen rubble. Drained of blood, buried in one upheaval after another, degraded and autopsied and, minus eulogy, tossed into a mass grave, we men took a minute to stare at that dropped curtain, behind which hid the pickpocket and her victims, behind which a man quickly hoisted his trousers up his spindly legs.
A burst of applause, a prolonged tide on a dark shore. Miss Quick did not appear to bow. She did not need to. She was standing behind the curtain. I could feel her there, no smile, no expression. Standing, coldly estimating the caliber of the applause, comparing it to the metered remembrances of other nights.
I jumped up in an absolute rage. I had, after all, failed myself. When I should have ducked, I bobbed; when I should have backed off, I ran in. What an ass!
«What a fine show!» said my wife as we milled through the departing audience.
«Fine!» I cried.
«Didn't you like it?»
«All except the pickpocket. Obvious act, overdone, no subtlety,» I said, lighting a cigarette.
«She was a whiz!»
«This way.» I steered my wife toward the stage door.
«Of course,» said my wife blandly, «that man, the one who looks like you, he was a plant. They call them shills, don't they? Paid by the management to pretend to be part of the audience?»
«No man would take money for a spectacle like that,» I said. «No, he was just some boob who didn't know how to be careful.»
«What are we doing back here?»
Blinking around, we found we were backstage.
Perhaps I wished to stride up to my twin, shouting, «Half-baked ox! Insulter of all men! Play a flute: you dance. Tickle your chin: you jump like a puppet! Jerk!»
The truth was, of course, I must see my twin close-up, confront the traitor and see where his true flesh differed from mine. After all, wouldn't I have done better in his place?!
The backstage was lit in blooms and isolated flushes, now bright, now dark, where the other magicians stood chatting. And there, there was Miss Quick!
And there, smiling, was my twin!
«You did fine, Charlie,» said Miss Quick.
My twin's name was Charlie. Stupid name.