Spoonbenders

“I’m right!” she said. “That’s the only time I saw your fingers inside the hat at the same time as the papers.”

“Caught at the scene of the crime,” he admitted.

“And that’s when you nab one of the squares,” she said.

“And substitute one of my own, yes.”

“Where did yours come from? When did you fold it?”

He opened his hand. “Right here.” A folded square of paper rested in his palm. “I always keep a couple around.”

“All the time? You just walk around with paper in your pants—I mean, your pockets?”

“And a few other things. It only works if the trick’s over before the audience knows it’s started. It’s all about preparation.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“And you just, what? Improvise?” In all their time alone together—which wasn’t much, only the minutes stolen during breaks and the few more after the day’s experiments were over—she’d never once given him a hint of her technique. It was a level of secrecy that he’d previously found only in paranoid, embittered cardsharks.

“How do you know what to write on your square?” she asked, refusing to be distracted.

“There’s nothing on mine. It’s blank.”

“But why would—?”

“Wait for it. When I dump the squares onto the table, two of those are the mark’s, and one’s mine.”

“I don’t like you calling Dr. Eldon a mark.”

“Shush,” he said, in the same tone she’d used with him. “I know which billet is mine because I put a little top crease in it. Barely noticeable unless you’re looking for it.”

“That’s why you have the squares—so your little imposter can sneak in.”

“And so the mark—excuse me, the honorable victim—can’t accidentally see that one’s blank.”

“But why the triangle business?”

“Because while everybody’s looking at him push the squares around, I’ve got one hand unfolding the first billet. It takes just a glance to read it—that’s why I only have him put two words down. And now the moment that seems to be the meat of the trick, from the audience’s point of view.”

He stopped talking. He was following a piece of advice given to him by his first magic teacher: whether it’s an audience or a woman, you have to make them ask for it.

But of course that didn’t work with Maureen. “That’s the read-ahead,” she said. “You’ve got one on your forehead, but you’re just pretending to read it—you’re telling us the one you’ve already read.”

“You’ve got it,” Teddy said, only slightly disappointed that he couldn’t do the reveal himself. “Then, after they confirm I got it right, I open the paper, nod knowingly, crumple it nonchalantly, and toss it in the hat.”

“By which point you’ve just read what the next wish is.”

“Always stay one step ahead of the audience,” Teddy said.

“And the last square on the table is the blank,” she said. “That’s very clever.” She looped her arm through his, and his blood whooshed like hot water in a Kenmore. They resumed their stroll.

“What if they look at the messages afterward?” Maureen asked. He could barely hear her over the roar in his ears. “They’ll notice the blank.”

“Oh, I never throw that last one in. I throw in the first message, suitably crumpled, and palm the blank.”

“You’ve got quick hands, Mr. Telemachus.”

If there is one thing more glorious than to walk arm in arm with a beautiful woman, it is doing so with one who’s flirting with you. He thought of the professor’s three wishes: “repaired furnace,” “grant approval,” and “publication permission.” So boring! God he hoped he never lived a life as small as Dr. Eldon’s.

“Now tell me your secret, Miss McKinnon,” he said. “How’d you do the photograph?”

Just before the break, Dr. Eldon had handed them a small photograph of a man sitting on a park bench. The picture had been taken from some distance away, but his short, triangular beard and slashing dark eyebrows made him as vivid as a Dick Tracy villain.

“I’d like you to concentrate on this man,” the professor had said. He was leaning over his desk, notepad and pen at the ready.

“Who is it?” Teddy had asked.

“I can’t tell you,” Dr. Eldon said. “That’s part of the test.”

Which was unusual. The professor hadn’t given them a test of his own devising in weeks. “What I need you to do is try to picture where this man is now.”

Teddy studied the photograph for half a minute, and then passed it to Maureen.

“Hmm,” Teddy said. “I’m sensing…a large building. An apartment? Or an office building?” Whenever Teddy was forced to do a cold reading, he just kept throwing out words until the mark gave something away. This time, though, the professor seemed to not know himself. Everything Teddy said he jotted down on the notepad.

“It seems to be an eastern city,” Teddy said. “Or southeastern? I can picture the sun coming up—”

“He’s on a submarine,” Maureen said.

Dr. Eldon looked up. “Pardon?”

Maureen’s eyes were closed. “Right now. He’s on a submarine, deep underwater. Near the Arctic Circle.”

The professor glanced toward the one-way mirror, then addressed Maureen more formally. “Perhaps you’d like to concentrate a bit more. Teddy, do you sense anything else?”