Chapter 2
“Order, blast it, order!” The thin, tall man in the expensive charcoal gray suit hammered on the glass-topped table. The sharp, thin sound rang throughout the showroom, and echoed off the shades and pendant crystals of dozens of lamps. He glared around. “Dammit, shut up!”
After a while, the thirty or so young men and boys crowded in amid the displays of lighting fixtures quieted down enough to stare at him. They looked decidedly out of place in the elegant shop. Of every skin color, height, and appearance of prosperity, they were dressed mainly in black. The only variation in the uniform was flashes of gang colors or patches depicting the logos of professional sports teams. Much of their clothing was deliberately torn, and in the current deplorable fashion, oversize to the point that another teenager could have shared the same pair of trousers with the wearer, without the two of them bumping cheeks. Froister caressed the stem of the brass Stiffel floor lamp that stood beside him, and wondered if it was not too late to truck in a supply of ordinary lightware, perhaps from, he shuddered, Kmart, so as not to waste the good merchandise.
“My compliments, by the way,” Froister said, turning his head slightly and speaking out of the corner of his mouth to the man at his shoulder. “When you said you’d be stepping up the membership drive, I should have taken you seriously.”
“To hear is to obey,” Gurgin replied, leaning forward with a grin on his swarthy face. He reached forward with one wrist out and clashed bracelets with Froister, a little too energetically, then crossed his arms over his chest. A formidable figure, he towered over the warehouse owner by almost a foot. He was an ancient type. The three-piece suit he wore only seemed a costume, as if he was used to appearing in more exotic clothing.
“Yes, well,” Froister said, shooting his French cuffs down over the metal bands to conceal them. The other five old members, DeNovo, Timbulo, McClaherty, Bannion, and Carson, did the same. Froister clapped his hands.
“Let’s get going. Welcome to Enlightenment, everybody. I am Albert Froister. The others and I are members of a … benevolent organization, the Djinni, Demons, and Efreets Guild, local chapter 19.” A couple of the youths laughed at the name, and Froister stared them down, making certain they understood he was offended. “We offer opportunity to those we think worthy to receive it. You all know why you’re here? Or what it is you came looking for?”
One of the young men in black leather shuffled uncomfortably and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “The big dude said something about power. I want power.” He looked around quickly, as if daring someone to make fun of him.
“Yeah,” another youth laughed. “All of us want power. You’d have to be a dope to say no when somebody offers you something like that.”
Froister smiled at them. “No one gives it to you. You have to earn it, but it’s real, I promise you that.”
The first young man used the side of his hand to wipe his nose again, then aimed the same forefinger at Froister. “Then show us, man. We see, we believe. Got that?”
“Of course.”
With the merest flick of will, Froister turned into a puff of smoke.
The newcomers gasped. A couple of them broke for the door, but were easily restrained by Gurgin and the old members. Froister regarded them through the haze with pleasure, seeing them tremble but with fascination growing in their eyes. As the astonished youths watched, he turned from a formless cloud into a stream that poured itself into the decorative chimney at the top of the Stiffel lamp. Froister had a cloudy view through the translucent white shade as a few of the boldest rushed forward to paw the air where he had stood, and to examine the lamp itself. Gurgin kept all of them from handling the lamp too much. They exclaimed over it, jostling each other to get close, scared but more impressed by the moment. After allowing the wonder time to sink in, Froister re-manifested the smoke and solidified on the other side of the crowd.
“Well?” he asked, hands out for applause as they spun to face him. There was a moment when the young men breathed in and out, then shouted all at once.
“I want to do that, too!” the shuffler exclaimed. “That’s ba-ad!”
“Me, too!” “Way cool!” “Me, man, listen to me. Me first!”
Froister smiled. He nodded to Gurgin, who stepped forward with a box full of wristbands.
“Very well, then, if you want to join our little group, we would be delighted to welcome you,” Froister said. “Here is the insignia of your membership, your union card, so to speak.” Boys jostled each other to grab pairs of the steel blue wristlets out of the box. “In a moment, I’ll ask you to put them on, and repeat after me the guild oath. ‘I, your name, swear eternal fealty to the spirit of the lamp, and will obey the words of my master in exchange for eternal life and eternal power as a duly sworn member of the Djinni, Demons, and Efreets Guild.’”
“Master? I don’t like this ‘master’ stuff,” said one dark-skinned youth, edging back to the wall next to a verdigrised bronze sculpture of a cherub and dolphin on a seashell. The cherub looked up at him, blank-eyed. “I ain’t never gonna call no one master.”
“Well, it’s part of the oath, young man. Who will you take orders from?” Froister asked. He took up a pair of bracelets and held them out temptingly, easing closer to the young man with the grace of a stalking panther. “You can’t turn into smoke or do any other wonders without taking the oath of membership.” He stopped at arm’s length and jingled the steel rings in his hand. The young man stared at them, fascinated.
“I dunno, my parents, my teachers—sometimes,” he admitted, with a sheepish turn of his head. “My mama, mostly.”
“That’s easy,” Froister said understandingly. The bands clinked together sensuously. “Swear to obey the orders of the mother of your lamp. So long as it is an oath you will keep, the lamp will not care.”
“I guess that’s okay,” the young man said. He snatched the bracelets off Froister’s palm and weighed them in his hand. “I can really turn into smoke with these?”
“Every time.”
The young man’s face split in a brilliant white grin. “Cool.”
The change of wording in the oath seemed to be acceptable to a lot of the newcomers. All of them had mothers. Froister and a couple of the old-timers exchanged meaningful glances. Things had changed a lot since the old days. There were improvements, like being able to choose any lamp as one’s domicile. Froister vastly preferred a clean electric fixture instead of the traditional brass Persian slipper shape filled with rancid oil. But there were also departures, like having to change the ancient oaths to suit the new sensitivity. With the deepest misgivings in his heart, he continued.
“Choose a lamp that no one else is standing beside.” He waited until the crowd sorted itself out. He thought there might be a violent argument over a handsome French table model, but DeNovo steered the second competitor toward an identical lamp in a corner. “Everyone ready? Put the bracelets on your wrists, and touch both of them to the lamp while reciting the pledge.”
Froister listened as all of the young voices chanted haltingly in unison. As they spoke the last words, “… The Djinni, Demons, and Efreets Guild,” there was a brilliant flash of light and a loud bang. Suddenly the huge room was empty of everyone except Froister, Gurgin, the other five members, and hundreds of lamps. The seven men smiled at each other.
“It is done,” Gurgin said, folding his arms over his chest.
“Good,” Froister said, rubbing his palms. “Now we have the manpower to begin covert operations, just as we planned. Everybody!” He banged his wristbands together. “Out here, please, gentlemen! Just imagine yourselves standing on the floor again. Come on, now. I want to talk to you!”
One by one, the new recruits steamed out of the tops of Tiffanys, and Stiffels, and Beaux Arts reproductions, and stood beaming at each other. Even members of rival gangs gave each other high fives and complicated salutes.
“That is the meanest thing that has ever happened in my life!” one youth exclaimed, his eyes alight. “I’m a genie! I love it!”
“And you can do it every day, any time,” Froister assured him smoothly, “during store opening hours, or whenever we have a guild meeting. We did things a little out of order tonight, by starting with new business. We’d like to go back and begin the meeting properly. May we?” He glanced around for approval, not much caring if any of the newcomers was paying attention. Many were smoking in and out of their lamps over and over, like children playing with a wonderful new toy.
“May we have the minutes of the last meeting?” Froister asked. Nick Timbulo stepped forward with a crumpled sheet of paper, probably disgorged from his toolbox. “We shall enter them into the records without reading, unless anyone objects?” Froister looked around at the young men, who paid him little heed. “Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet our recording secretary. Mr. Timbulo is worth your attention.” Timbulo tipped them all a cocky bow. Except for the gray in his tightly curled brown hair, he looked younger than the fifty years he claimed. “He was once a lowly carpenter in my employ. But now, through the workings of the guild, he has his very own successful business. He should be an example to you all.”
“How?” the shuffler asked.
“Your name?” Froister asked.
“Guthrie,” the young man said, looking shamefaced. “My friends call me Speed.”
“Well, then, Speed,” Froister said, showing that he, too, could adapt, and that they were all mates here. “As members in the DDEG, we help one another. You can grant wishes now.”
“We can?” This gave rise to another outburst, which Froister put down with difficulty. It took Gurgin’s looming presence to quell the noise.
“Quiet! You can’t grant wishes to yourself. You can use them for one another’s good.”
“I get it,” said the young black man next to the cherub. “This is like those stories, where someone rubs on our lamp, and we have to do what they say.”
“That’s essentially it,” Froister said. “That is why we have a guild to protect our interests—so not just everyone rubs your lamp and gets magical service out of you. We help one another.”
The rival gang members began again to eye one another suspiciously.
“Then how come there’s only seven of you?” asked a short, chunky youth with milk-chocolate skin and light brown curly hair.
“Do you really want to know?” Froister asked, showing his teeth ferally. He watched them shudder, then relented. “Too many of them decided that it wasn’t worth it to have the magic under any circumstances. They couldn’t abide by the rules. They gave up the bracelets—can you believe it? And without them, the magic is gone.” He swept his hands in an arc. A few of them jumped, clutching their wristbands protectively. They were still enjoying their newfound ability, and couldn’t imagine giving it up.
“I don’t want to grant no wishes for no Backyard Wolves,” said a thin-faced white boy wearing his sports team cap around backward.
“I ain’t doing no deals for Riverside Jackals,” said a Hispanic youth, glaring back at him.
“You are all bound in the Brotherhood of the Lamp now,” Froister said, stepping between them. “You have to give aid and assistance to one another in need. Got that? Follow the rules, or you don’t get any power. It’ll disappear, like smoke!” He snapped his fingers, turning his hand into a cloud just for a second. The youths all gasped. The effect still wowed them, Froister reflected. And it was easy, the least difficult thing of which all of them were now capable.
“The chance to have real power, not Hizzoner the Mayor kind of power, but the thunder and lightning kind,” said McClaherty, in a ringing voice that made them all pay attention, “has made friends out of the bitterest of enemies before this.” The redheaded man gave the youths a moment to think it over. “You’re not used to being allies, but I think you’ll find it worth the trouble.”
“We’ll make it work,” said the Riverside Jackal confidently.
“I don’t want just anyone rubbing on my lamp,” the young black man said. “How come we still using lamps nowadays? That’s old. Why not something modern?”
“What about bottles?” another one asked. “They’re more portable.”
“Or rings?” chimed in a third.
“Tradition, my friends,” Froister said, holding out his hands to them. “You’d be surprised how safe a lamp is. There’s hardly any fear of discovery. If you were inside a VCR, you’d change hands six times a week in your neighborhood, wouldn’t you? Yes, of course you would. A bottle? What if someone turns it in to a grocer for the deposit or, horror of horrors, sends it to the recycler to be melted down! Rings? How many people your own age do you know who have been gunned down for a piece of cheap jewelry? And don’t you dare let me hear you suggest that you conceal the essence of your souls in something edible! Ah, but with lamps—lamps are furniture. People ignore them, knock them over, change the bulbs, push the switch, plug in, click, turn on, turn off, and even occasionally dust their lamps, but they hardly ever rub them. Our membership seems to appear accidentally these days only to Polish or Puerto Rican cleaning ladies, and though it takes a lot of … persuasion to run them through their three wishes and get our members out of their thrall,” Froister sighed, “that’s a minimal annoyance. Lamps are safe.”
“Hey, do you hear something?” Guthrie asked. They all quieted down to listen. A rattle of keys against glass became audible, followed by the creak of door hinges and the slow pace of footsteps.
“Sst!” Froister said. “My night watchman! I didn’t realize it was so late. Everybody into their lamps!”
In a moment, the room was empty. A man in an army green uniform shuffled through, looking around suspiciously. He shook his head and kept going out of the showroom toward the door that led into the warehouse. The footsteps diminished in volume.
Froister manifested himself immediately. “Let’s wrap this up, gentlemen. He’ll be back again.”
“How come you don’t want him to see us?” the Backyard Wolf asked suspiciously. Froister shook his head patiently.
“Do you want him telling anyone that the Backyard Wolves and the Riverside Jackals were having a secret meeting in a warehouse? What do you think would be the reaction if word got downtown to the Scarlet Dragons?” he asked reasonably, watching understanding dawn on their gape-mouthed faces. “They’d think you were forming a secret alliance, probably in preparation for a total turf war. They wouldn’t believe the idea that you had been buying a lamp for your girlfriend.”
“Hey, women! Yeah, women!” another youth asked. “How come there’s no women in this club? Ain’t they allowed?”
“Oh, certainly. They come and go,” Froister said offhandedly. “It’s rare that a woman of sufficient character appears and wants to join. It takes strength to handle power like ours. You’re welcome to bring in anyone you think is … worthy.” He accompanied this assurance with a feral grin. A few of the young men who thought they understood what he meant, grinned back.
“Naw, I don’t want to share it with anybody,” Speed, the nose-wiper, said. He clashed bracelets with the man next to him the way they’d seen Froister and Gurgin do. “You give everybody power, where’s your edge? Come on, dudes, let’s go out and score some booze.”
“Hey, we can score anything!” the Backyard Wolf said. “We can slip under doors when we’re made of smoke.”
“Yeah,” the Riverside Jackal said, the light of avarice dawning in his eyes.
The young black man paused. “We gotta be back in the lamps by sunrise, or something? I mean, do we melt or burn up if sunlight hits us?”
“Why, are you that sensitive to UVA?” Froister asked blandly, and the others laughed. “No. Live your lives as you always do. You’ll come when called—I mean, needed.”
“Cool, man,” he said. He bent to unplug the cord of the lamp beside him. Bannion grabbed his arm.
“Hold it. You can’t take that with you.”
The young man shook loose and bent an uneasy eye toward Froister. “I thought you said these were our lamps.”
“They are. But they stay here,” Froister said in a tone that brooked no argument, then he softened his voice. “This is a lamp warehouse. Where could they be safer than among thousands?”
“Yeah, but what if someone tries to rub on us? Or buy them?”
“I will look after your lamps,” Froister said smoothly, “as I look after my own. Lamps are my business. There’s a top-grade security system here, and no one buys the floor displays without my specific permission. But any of you are welcome to arrange a rotation of standing guard on the lamps if you wish. That would be fine with me.” He looked around amiably from face to face. As he had made no mention of compensation for the service, the initial enthusiasm was not sustained.
“We don’t have to do that,” the Riverside Jackal said, with a look at the Backyard Wolf to make sure there had better be no reason to have to stand guard. The Wolf nodded, arms folded.
“I don’t like it, but I get it. The lamps are okay here.”
“Fine, fine. Come back next week at this same time,” Froister said. “Then, we’ll begin to show you how to make use of your new power. In the meantime, enjoy.”
The young members went out into the night air, talking in low voices, pushing each other, lighting cigarettes. One or another would occasionally turn into smoke, and re-solidify on the other side of his group of fellows, cackling at his newfound ability. Froister locked the door behind them and set the alarm.
“Young hoodlums,” he said. “But they’ll be useful.”
Gurgin smiled. “New blood,” he said avidly. “Get them to swear allegiance before they start asking questions. By then, it’s too late. We have them to do our bidding now.”
“It’s about time,” DeNovo said. “The IRS is looking into my business again. I need a wish to get them off my back.”
“You think small.” Gurgin shook his head. “We have bigger plans. We’re going to wish ourselves free. That’s something I’ve been wanting for two hundred years.”
“We need more kids,” Bannion said. “Thirty is good, but it won’t be enough.”
“Patience!” Froister said. “It’ll take some care to make use of their power. We have to go slowly so we don’t frighten off the others while they’re waiting their turns. I still think we should have gone for young schoolchildren, more easily controllable. Not these gangbangers.”
Gurgin smiled again, showing the points of his teeth. “No one will come looking for these if they go missing.”
Timbulo grinned. “That’s true, Allie,” he agreed, poking Froister in the ribs. “If they become inconvenient, you can ship them off to Taiwan in a container ship.”
“Not right away,” Froister reminded them. “We need them, and more like them.”
DeNovo crossed his arms. “The system’s worked just fine for hundreds of years. Why change things now?”
Froister banged his hand down on the glass-topped table. “That one boy brought up the same point that’s always troubled me: security. I don’t like my fate being so casually affected by others. I’m tired of having to safeguard my lamp day in and day out. I want to be free of the lamp, or any object, free to use our vast magical power for ourselves. To do that, we need power from another source, and we’re moving in on it.”
“How soon?” Timbulo asked.
“Soon enough,” Froister said. “You and I just have to be patient, but vigilant. We have to control our new recruits, and be ready to move as soon as I give the word.”
“That was a smooth move of yours,” Bannion said, “proposing an official merger with the upper-ups from both sides. It almost sounded legitimate.”
“Well,” Froister said, showing his teeth. “I want access one way or the other. If fair means don’t work, we’ll be ready with foul.”
“I’m betting on foul,” said Timbulo. He looked up. “Did you hear something?” The beam of the flashlight appeared near the open door to the warehouse.
“He’s coming back,” Froister said hastily. “Meeting adjourned.” The seven men vanished in their disparate puffs of smoke.
The night watchman hurried into the showroom, and looked around at the twinkling crystal and gold fixtures hanging or standing everywhere. He couldn’t see a single living being.
He pulled the shortwave radio out of the loop on his hip, flicked it on, and spoke into it.
“Yeah, Charlie, it’s Dave over at Enlightenment. I heard those voices again, men’s voices. No, nothing’s gone. No signs of a break-in. All the doors were locked. There’s nobody here at all.… I know, I know.… I swear the place must be haunted. I’m quitting this danged job.”