Spoonbenders

If I say yes, Frankie wondered, does that make me more guilty of attempted robbery, or less?

Archibald didn’t wait for an answer. “I advise the government on using science, not blind faith, to separate the gifted wheat from the fraudulent chaff. Don’t you want to know whether you have your mother’s gift, Franklin?”

“I don’t need you or your machines to tell me.”

“Of course not. You believe in yourself! As your mother believed in you, transferring that faith to you in the manner of all family religions. However—” He leaned across a control panel festooned with gauges and dials. “—wouldn’t it be nice to have objective proof, scientific proof of your ability? A stamp of approval, if you will. A diploma to hang on your wall.”

Oh, Frankie did want that. More than anything. He’d grown up feeling like a prince in exile, his entire family denied their rightful place because of skeptics, rule-bound scientists, and a shadow government afraid of their powers.

“It won’t work,” Frankie said. The rubber thimbles were still attached to the fingers of his left hand, and he made no move to take them off. “The scientific method constrains our powers.”

“You’re quoting your father,” Smalls said.

“A skeptical mind-set is like a jammer. That’s how you got us to fail on The Mike Douglas Show.”

“Is that what happened?” Archibald said. “Just me standing there onstage with you caused all your tricks to fail?”

“They’re not tricks.”

Archibald handed him another thimble. “Then let’s prove it. I want you to succeed, Franklin. Agent Smalls certainly wants you to succeed. Ever since 1974, when your mother died, your country has been without its greatest weapon.”

Frankie stared at him. “It’s true?”

Smalls moved around the table and crouched so that he was eye to eye with Frankie. “Listen to me. Maureen Telemachus was the most powerful espionage asset in the world.”

All his life, Frankie trailed behind his father, picking up each of the clues he dropped about his mother’s government work: an oblique reference to the Cold War, a complaint about secret programs, a cryptic comment about submarines and psychonauts. Frankie assembled these scraps into a sci-fi spy movie that ran in his head. James Bond with a purse and mind powers, starring Maureen Telemachus. It thrilled him to think that even if his Amazing Family couldn’t be publicly famous, it was secretly powerful. Only as he grew older, and Irene pointed out that many of their father’s stories were not, in the strictest sense, true, had he allowed himself to wonder if Teddy might be exaggerating about their mother as well. Now he hated himself for doubting him.

“I knew it,” Frankie said, his throat tight with emotion. “I knew she was great.”

“But now she’s gone,” Smalls said. “And we need your help.”

Did they not know that he had no talent for clairvoyance? He moved things around. Little things.

Archibald said, “We’ve come a long way, and all we need is five minutes of cooperation.”

Frankie nodded at the machinery, this torsion field detector. “Is that how you found me?”

“Pardon?” Smalls asked.

“Tracked me down tonight. I mean, you could have found me anytime in Chicago, but you showed up tonight, way out here, right after I—after the problem at the casino.” Which raised another question: How did they get here so fast? It was at least four hours’ drive from Chicago. “Did you come from St. Louis?” Frankie asked. That was only a forty-minute drive.

Smalls and Archibald did not quite look at each other. “We’ve had our eyes on you for a long time,” Smalls said. Which was not an answer at all.

“Come to think of it, how’d you show up at that exact dock in the middle of the night?”

Archibald said, “Why don’t we do the test first, and then we can answer all your questions.”

Headlights lit the drapes. Agent Smalls looked at the window, frowned. “Did you order the Chinese food yet?” he asked Archibald. The gnome shook his head.

Smalls reached behind his back and his hand came up with a pistol.

“Whoa now,” Frankie said, and stood up.

“Stay,” Smalls said again. Frankie was feeling more and more like a dog. “And shut up.”

Someone pounded on the door. “Open up, God damn it! I know you’re in there, Smalls!” It was Teddy.

“He’s got a gun, Dad!” Frankie shouted.

Teddy didn’t seem to hear him, because the pounding continued. Smalls opened the door, the gun at his side.

“Teddy. How in the hell did you find this place?”

“Out of the way, you God damn Kodiak. Is my boy here?” Teddy walked in, looking good despite the hour in a sharkskin suit and matching gray hat. When he saw the rest of the room, he stopped short. “Archibald? You’re working with Archibald?”

Frankie hopped out of the seat and backed away from the table.

The Astounding Archibald stood up, which made only a marginal difference in his height. “Good evening, Teddy.”

“I expect this kind of crap from you,” Teddy said to the man. “But you, Smalls?” He wheeled on the big man. “You made a promise.”