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worry about dinner—we’re going to a party. Eat, drink, and be merry.” He rolled up the window, sealing himself in air-conditioned luxury while the limousine moved on, and the big guy limply waved his rich rocks at the rear window.
    The tall, thin man in black, still carrying his umbrella open above his head, observed this exchange as he approached, and with a spark of interest he watched the young mime as he turned back to the crowd, which the man himself now joined, umbrella and all.
    Michael watched the car turn in at the Plaza, where Dazz would be having lunch in the Oak Room again. You sly bastard, he thought, grinning. Then, like a shot, he was back on the sidewalk. The crowd was breaking up. Had enough? Okay, magic time. He stuffed the duck back in his tunic and signaled Emily, who ran up carrying his little magician’s stand with the sign: PRESTO THE GREAT . From nowhere he produced a silver half-dollar, sent it rolling across his knuckles, made it disappear, drew it again from his elbow, changed it before their eyes into a nickel the size of a small saucer. Applause. Like it? Get this one. He produced a pack of cards, fanned them expertly, offered them to the closest member of the audience, a woman. Take a card, any card; she complied. He shut his eyes while she showed it to the rest—the three of hearts—then returned it to the pack. He closed the deck again, tapped it, thinking hard. Zip, he slipped his wallet out of his inside jacket pocket, unzipped a compartment, and produced the three of hearts from within. He showed the compartment empty, returned the wallet to his pocket, repeated the trick with another person, this time having him sign the chosen card—the nine of spades. Another cut and shuffle, and the deck was closed up. Out came the wallet again; the autographed card was inside. More applause.
    Like it? Terrific. Next, the silks, colored handkerchiefs magically flying from his fingertips, he knotted them, pulled them from his fists, one by one, all unknotted, then balled them up and from them snapped out an American flag, while Emily played “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
    It was at this point that Michael noticed the black umbrella above the crowd. There was something in the way the umbrella was held, in the idea of an umbrella at all on such a day, that intrigued him. He took a closer look.
    The tall man’s ludicrousness was apparent, something just short of grotesque. Michael’s practiced glance quickly noted and recorded physical characteristics, posture, clothes, mannerisms. This one was a seedy character indeed, Jack Nicholson after a bad night. The length of his trousers was inadequate for his long shanks; four inches of ankle and shin were covered only by dingy white socks. The coat pulled badly away from its single button in radial folds, and in the black lapel a touch of red; Michael failed to note it precisely, but it was a small detail. A lack of fastidiousness, a rumpled carelessness about his whole person, as though what he wore were of little consequence to him. His face long and dour behind a beard, a W. C. Fields nose too phony looking to be real but almost too real looking to be phony. Why would he wear a false nose? And the hair, like a cartoon symphony conductor’s, gray, somewhat combed, but greasy, spilled over the soggy collar. Big feet, ridiculous shoes, a funny ducklike stance about him. A queer duck.
    At this moment their looks connected, and Michael noted the uncanny, walleyed stare, one eye going off at an angle, but the other riveted on him. The man’s expression was startled, puzzled, as if seeing something there he had not expected to see. A perceptive look, one even of recognition. Kindred spirits? Michael didn’t think so. In any case, he was going to get him.
    The crowd moved back as he sidled up to the man. Michael produced the pack of cards, which he offered with a confidential leer: a peddler of French postcards. He winked slyly, rolled his eyes,