Dark Maze

read and also the stuff in the distance was sort of fuzzy. So, I go to the eye doctor. He don’t even give me the chance to first read him the letters off the wall; he right away asks how old I am. I tell him. Then he smiles this big irritating smile and guess what he says?”
    “I don’t like to guess.”
    “He says, ‘I’ve been waiting for you!’ ”
    I shook my head and put back half a red. I squinted and tried reading the wooden sign again, but my luck was no better. I looked at the magician and somehow he was familiar. I hoped when my time came, I did not have to draw Benny’s eye doctor.
    “Who’s the magician?” I asked.
    Benny groaned.
    “My genius partner,” he said. “The Great Morris.“
    “Your partner?”
    “Sure. Me and the prestidigitator, we own this dive. But like I say, it ain’t what it used to be. I mean, look around. You think this raggedy old clip joint still has the draw to shell out for a floor show?”
    “I guess not.”
    “You guessed correct. Around here, we even sweat the juice it takes to keep running them neon boobs over the door. We gotta cut comers someplace, so I run the bar and my partner Moe Stein’s the entertainment, such as it is.“
    “Who’s the charming assistant?”
    “Oh, that’s a lovely old broad who used to strip here and some other places, too. Called herself Delilah in her prime. Maybe you won’t believe it, but next year she starts collecting on her Social Security.”
    “Well, I don’t know... my eyes.” I squinted at Delilah and could just make out that her bathing suit, such as it was, was tight around the beam. I looked at Benny’s partner, too. Where had I seen this guy?
    “Peeling’s not your big draw no more,” Benny was saying, “and it’s very labor intensive like the economists say. So we had to fire everybody, except for Delilah. Hell, everybody who wants to watch puss all night sits at home these days with a six-pack in front of a goddamn VCR, you know?“
    “Is he any good?” I asked. “The Great Morris, I mean.“
    “As you can tell, he tries. He’s doing this mentalist act he done back when Hector was a pup. Somebody told him mentalist acts was all the thing with the Jap tourists like we got throwing money all over town nowadays. So, Moe trots out his old schtick. He even talks me into stocking saki and plum wine. But so far, no Japs. My genius partner.”
    The Great Morris’ blindfold was now firmly in place. Delilah flounced herself out into the audience, which inspired some of her customers to sit up straight and pay attention. She picked on one lonesome clyde in the thin crowd and wiggled at him to make him laugh. Then she bent over and picked up a dollar bill from his table, then led him back up on stage and had him hold the dollar. Some of the other clydes clapped and whistled.
    I watched intently.
    Benny groaned again and said, “Here’s where he gets mental.”
    The Great Morris raised a hand and set it dramatically against his forehead. There should have been a drum roll, but I suppose the cost of that was prohibitive. Clyde grinned at the audience while The Great Morris issued instructions, which I could not quite hear.
    “What’s he going to do?” I asked Benny.
    “He’s going to do a number so old it’s got arthritis,” Benny said. He pronounced it arthur-itis. “See the dollar bill the goof is holding?”
    I said yes.
    Benny stepped to the cash register and picked up something and returned to me. He was holding a red grease pencil.
    “See this?” he asked. “The deal of this number is, you wind up making a shill out of some unsuspecting dork in the audience. And how do you do this? You take a dollar, any dollar, and before the show you give it to The Great Morris, and he memorizes the serial number. Then, you make two little red spots on comers of the bill with the pencil—one spot on a side and a little different from each other, so it ain’t too overly obvious. You get the drift?”
    I said, “Then you make sure the marked bill eventually winds up as change on somebody’s table and all Delilah has to do is look around until she finds the perfect volunteer.“
    “And shazzam! The Great Morris, even though he’s blindfolded, can read off the serial numbers from the bill the schmuck on the stage is concentrating on with all his mind, such as it is.”
    Up on the stage, this looked to be exactly what was happening. Every so often, the clydes would ooh or aah.
    “He’ll toss a rib