Charles opened the door with his smile already in place, a genuine smile, for he liked small children.
‘Hello. So you’ve come early.’ A full hour early.
‘Yes,’ said Justin Riccalo, rocking on the balls of his feet. ‘I’m supposed to meet my parents here. My piano lesson was canceled, and I didn’t know where else to go.’
Not home? Was it possible he wasn’t welcome there?
As though the boy had read his mind, he said, ‘I don’t have my own key. I could go somewhere else. I’m sorry – ’
‘Don’t apologize. I was just on my way to the basement. I’d be happy to have some company. Do you like magic tricks?’
Justin’s response was not what he had anticipated. The rocking ceased as though his store of nervous energy had escaped from a hole which had suddenly deflated the boy. He was a slender child and if he deflated any more, he would be altogether gone.
‘Do I like tricks? Mr Butler, is this your subtle way of asking me if I can make a pencil fly?’
‘Not at all. I think you’ll like the basement.’
With only the lift of one slight shoulder, the boy made it clear that he didn’t care one way or the other.
Charles locked the office door, and they walked down the long hall toward the exit sign which led to the staircase. The boy looked back over his shoulder to the elevator, and Charles explained that stairs were the only way to the lowest level, and he hoped that Justin didn’t mind the walk. Justin trudged along at Charles’s side, walking as though his legs weighed fifty pounds, each one.
Apparently, stairs were a novelty for a child raised in a luxury highrise. When the door opened on to a spiral staircase of black iron, Justin held on to the rail and leaned far over the side. He seemed hypnotized by the winding metal. Bright lights glared at him from bare bulbs at each floor and twisted the shadows of the curling iron.
‘Awesome,’ said Justin, approving the tortured shapes of light and shadow. ‘This is a great old building.’
‘You haven’t seen anything yet.’
Charles led the way, and the boy followed, reluctant hesitance gone from his steps.
‘So what are we going to do down there, sir? You have some kind of spook meter you want me to stick my finger in?’
‘No, nothing that sophisticated. Usually, I just sit around and talk to the subject. Sometimes we do written tests.’
‘What kind of subjects do you specialize in? UFOs?’
‘Nothing that entertaining. Sorry. In my work, the subject is always a person with a unique gift. I find a way to qualify it, quantify it, and then I find a use for it. Lots of people are overdeveloped in some area of intelligence. Take my partner, Mallory. She has a natural gift for computers.’
‘Computers are only mechanical devices.’ Justin’s pronouncement had the peal of middle-aged absolutism, ‘Anyone with a manual can operate one.’
‘Well, Mallory doesn’t need manuals. She does things the designers never thought of. You would not believe the things she accomplishes at a computer.’
Oh, wait. Perhaps Mallory was not such a good role model for a small child.
‘But your partner’s gift already has an application.’
‘Yes. In most cases, I find people with gifts that have no apparent application, and I project the area they’ll do well in. Then I find them a place in a research project. Sounds dull, doesn’t it? But it creates a window for developers of new technology.’
‘All right, Mr Butler. Do you want to start without my parents?’
‘Oh, no. This excursion is just for the fun of it. I was on my way down here to look for an old record album that belonged to my cousin. He was a magician – Maximillian Candle. Have you ever heard of him? No, you wouldn’t have. It’s been a very long time since he was on the stage. Are you interested in magic? You didn’t say.’
They had reached the last floor, and Charles was working the lock on the door. Once inside, he felt at the top of the fuse box for the flashlight. He clicked on the beam and motioned for the boy to follow behind him. They made their way through a canyon of shadowy boxes and crates, old furniture and picture frames. He trained the flashlight beam through a myriad of draped furniture, ghosts of castaway items, boxes and mazes of trunks and cartons.
The pleated back wall was a paneled screen which ran the length of the basement. Charles inserted a key into another lock and this wall began to fold back on itself, a gigantic, silent accordion.
The cavernous space beyond was dimly lit by a wide back window high up on the basement wall. The bars on the window were Mallory’s work, as were the pick-proof locks installed throughout the building. She would have put bars on every window if he had allowed it. It had taken a long time to explain to her that he would rather be burgled than jailed in his own house.
Now the beam of his flashlight shone on a collage of bright satin and silk gleaming through cellophane wrappers. Sequins and rhinestones sparkled through the dust of garment bags which hung in a wardrobe trunk. A portion of the room was obscured by a large fire-breathing dragon on a tall rice-paper screen. A rack of sturdy shelving lined one wall with satin masks, top hats, a silver dove-load, giant playing cards, ornate boxes and small trunks each containing its own magic.
If it was the boy who made the pencils fly, this might be the outlet. The world could use a little more magic.
‘I’ll have a light on in another minute.’ Charles touched one finger to the top of a glass globe and the orb came to life, glowing with eerie pulsations as though light could breathe in and out.
He turned back to the boy, whose attention was focused elsewhere. ‘Oh, that’s Cousin Max.’
‘How do you do,’ said the boy to the severed head which perched on the wardrobe trunk. Justin looked from Charles to the waxwork. ‘It looks like you.’
‘I only wish. He died when I was about your age.’
Charles removed the head from the trunk and held it in one hand. It stared back at him with lifelike eyes and the expression of amazement Max always wore when he lived.
‘Cousin Max saved my childhood for me.’
‘How?’
‘Magic. He was a wonderful magician. Of course, the greatest magician who ever lived was Malakhai. He did an act with a dead woman, a ghost.’
‘Sure, Mr Butler. I think I see her coming now.’
‘No, really. Her name was Louisa. She died when she was only nineteen. She was one of those people I was talking about with extraordinary gifts that – ’
‘Louisa Malakhai? Louisa’s Concerto!’
‘Apparently you’ve learned something at school.’
‘No, I try not to learn anything at the Tanner School. It’s too risky. I’m not sure they know what they’re doing. My first stepmother used to play Louisa’s Concerto. Did you know her? Louisa, I mean?’
‘Well, yes and no.’
‘Do you know why she named the concerto after herself? Was it like a self-portrait in music?’
‘That’s not bad, Justin. In fact, it’s a good theory, but she had given the concerto another title. It was Malakhai who changed it after she died. So you’re familiar with the music.’
‘Not really. I only played the album once after my stepmother died. It was an old record that you played on a turntable like… like…’
‘Like in the olden days?’
‘Yes. It’s probably on disks now. But what we had was the record. My stepmother – the crazy one who killed herself – she loved that album. She used to listen to it all the time.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘I never heard it all the way through. She played it when she was alone. She’d turn it off if anyone else was around, or she’d listen with the earphones. She said the concerto was haunted.’