Now You See It Read Free Page B

I heard in Brian’s throat. Had Brian made it even worse for himself?
    Noting Harry “on the move” once more, he hastily lit the three black candles and, as though he didn’t notice Harry’s stalking approach, moved swiftly behind the desk and turned on the lamp, the illumination of which was cast only downward.
    Harry stopped again, now looking piqued; I enjoyed the sight. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    A quick and trembling breath in Brian’s lungs.
“Nothing,”
he said.
    Then an idea obviously occurred to him; a rare occurrence, I believed at that time. “Listen, I have to go upstairs for a minute—”
    His voice broke off in utter shock as Cassandra (who had, fortuitously, put
on
a pair of noiseless slippers since the shoes she’d been wearing—always too small by dint of vanity—had been pinching her feet) started into the room, a bottle of champagne in her hands.
    Never have I seen a faster reaction. Catching sight ofHarry, she whirled with the skill of a dervish and vanished in an instant, Harry never noticing; he was moving toward the desk now, saying, still piqued, “Wait a minute, babe.”
    He stopped in his tracks as Brian, growing desperate, moved around the other end of the desk and headed for the entry hall.
    “Wait
a minute,” Harry told him (her). He was more than piqued now, he was positively pettish.
    Brian stopped, not turning; I enjoyed an imagined vision of his heart expanding and contracting like an overdriven bellows.
    “What is
wrong?”
demanded Harry.
    “Nothing,”
insisted Brian.
    “Well then, turn around for Christ’s sake,” Harry ordered her (him).
    Brian hesitated, doubtless fearing that the game was ended before it could start; whatever the game was. Then, slowly, he turned to confront the stern-faced Harry.
    “Look, I don’t like this, babe,” said Harry. “I took a cab here all the way from Boston just because you asked me. I’m not here to sell encyclopedias.” Daresay he thought that was a telling sting.
    Brian’s spirits must have been flagging by then. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I—”
    Again he broke off as a panel in the wall behind Harry opened soundlessly (a frippery I’d had installed when the house was built) and he saw—as I did—his sister signaling to him frantically.
    Brian, by now, was too rattled to hide his reaction, and seeing Brian’s eyes shift, Harry turned to see what he was looking at.
Eureka
, I thought.
    Then I scowled (although my face remained the same) as Cassandra closed the panel instantaneously; Harry saw nothing. Scowling (visibly), he turned back to Brian, really angry now.
“What the hell is going on?”
he demanded.
    Brian clearly had no glimmer as to what he should say or do. Harry starting toward him seemed to petrify his limbs.
    Until, as Harry nearly reached him, a fit of frenzy seized his bones and he moved—lunged might be more the word—to the display poster of THE GREAT DELACORTE and picked it up. “Have to move this,” he muttered, barely in Cassandra’s voice.
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake,”
Harry said, observing Brian carry the poster to the area in front of the moving panel. Abruptly then, he turned away, disgusted. “Screw it, babe,” he said. “I’m going back to Boston.”
    “
No
,” said Brian.
    Hastily, he stepped behind the poster. Harry couldn’t see, but I could; as the panel was reopened quickly, Brian and Cassandra made the switch and Brian shut the panel.
Damn!
I thought.
    Cassandra (now the real) picked up the poster and returned it to its original place. “No,” she said, “Max wouldn’t want it over there.”
    That Harry’s feeling, at that moment, was no greater than disgruntlement tells you how essentially identical Cassandra and the made-up Brian looked. No doubt a close appraisal would have revealed discrepancies but, from the distance Harry had been—the distance Brian had made sure to keep him at—the similarities far outweighed whatever minor differences in