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dybbuk.
    â€œWhat now? We’ll be late for our show.”
    â€œThe world will end? Don’t you rich Americans have eyes?”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Freddie asked.
    â€œThat kid at the window. He’s hungry.”
    â€œHow can you tell?”
    â€œWhat’s he looking at inside? Suits, the latest styles? His stomach is growling.”
    â€œYou heard it?”
    â€œI can hear an empty stomach at ten kilometers. And see how his pockets are bulging? He has everything he owns in those pockets. Give him a few francs so he can eat.”
    â€œAvrom, what do you want me to do, feed every street kid and beggar in Paris?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWe’re going to miss our curtain.”
    â€œLet them hold the curtain,” said the dybbuk. “If you can’t spare a few francs, take it out of my account.”
    â€œWhat account?” Freddie replied scornfully. He supposed Avrom Amos was seeing himself hungry at a café window, with everything he possessed in the world stuffed inside his pockets.
    Freddie dug wrinkled paper francs out of his pocket and shoved them into the hand of the street kid.
    â€œHere. Get something to eat.”
    When Freddie reached the Crazy Horse, and after hastily pinning a fresh flower in the buttonhole of his tailcoat, he strode center stage. The curtains parted. He rested a polished black shoe on a chair and sat the dummy on his knee.
    The puppet looked at him. “Do I know you?”
    Here we go, thought the ventriloquist. “I’m The Great Freddie.”
    â€œWhat makes you so great?”
    â€œI can throw my voice upstage into that barrel.”
    â€œYou get paid for throwing up?”
    â€œI didn’t say that,” protested The Great Freddie. “I can toss my voice anywhere.”
    â€œHow about my pocket?”
    â€œWhat do you want your pocket to say?”
    â€œKeep out!”
    â€œWhy are you all dressed up?” Freddie hoped to get the dialogue back on track. “Aren’t you Count Dracula?”
    â€œThat shlemiel of a vampire? I’m a dybbuk.”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œA nice Jewish demon. I haunt people.”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound nice to me.”
    â€œIs fighting wars nice?” replied the dybbuk.
    â€œThe war’s history. Yesterday’s newspapers.”
    â€œNot for me. I placed a want ad. Let me look at the audience.”
    â€œAre you searching for a friend?”
    â€œA rat.”
    â€œThere are no rodents in this cabaret,” Freddie said. Where was this dialogue going?
    The dybbuk said, “Keep your eyes peeled for a rat with two legs.”
    â€œAn unfortunate pet? Did you name him?”
    â€œNo. He already had a name.”
    â€œWhat was it?”
    â€œSS Colonel Gerhard Junker-Strupp. You’ve heard of him?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAha!”
    â€œWhat do you mean, aha?”
    â€œHe was the worst of the Jewish childkillers, and you’ve never heard of him.”
    â€œI have a feeling this is something personal.”
    â€œHe caught me. He shot me, personally.”
    â€œI hope you find him,” said Freddie, eager to change the subject. “What do you know about vampires?”
    â€œVampires are a pain in the neck.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI think I’ll buy a pair of platypuses,” the dybbuk continued.
    â€œWhy on earth would you want a pair of platypuses?”
    â€œBecause they’re so hard for a ventriloquist to say without moving his lips. Hey, you did good, Professor!”
    Applause, at last. Freddie survived the act somehow, took a brisk bow, and fled the stage. He put the dummy away for the night, forgetting to cover its eyes with the black cloth.
    What was it with the dybbuk? This was show business. No place to get even with the Nazis. It was now clear why Avrom Amos Poliakov had chosen a ventriloquist to possess. To play the mouthpiece. To bear