Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

bar. Jack turned away from me, explaining, “That’s the eleven o’clock show.” He

busied himself underneath the bar.

Being at the end of the bar I could see under the long side somewhat. He had

enough electrical gear there to make a happy Christmas for a Boy Scout-switches, a

rheostat dingus, a turntable for recordings, and a hand microphone. I leaned over

and sized it up. I have a weakness for gadgets, from my old man. He named me Thomas

Alva Edison Hill in hopes that I would emulate his idol. I disappointed him-I didn’t

invent the atom bomb, but I do sometimes try to repair my own typewriter.

Jack flipped a switch and picked up the hand mike. His voice came out of the

juke box: “We now present the Magic Mirror.” Then the turntable picked up with Hymn

to the Sun from Coq d’Or, and he started turning the rheostat slowly.

The lights went down in the joint and came up slowly in the Magic Mirror.

The “Mirror” was actually a sheet of glass about ten feet wide and eight high which

shut off a little balcony stage. When the house lights were on bright and the stage

was dark, you could not see through the glass at all; it looked like a mirror. As

the house lights went out and the stage lights came on, you could see through the

glass and a picture slowly built up in the “Mirror.”

Jack had a single bright light under the bar which lighted him and the

controls and which did not go out

with the house lights. Because of my position at th end of the bar it hit me square

in the eye. I had to bloci it with my hand to see the stage.

It was something to see.

Two girls, a blonde and a brunette. A sort of altar oi table, with the

blonde sprawled across it, volup’. Th brunette standing at the end of the altar,

grabbing th blonde by the hair with one hand while holding 2 fancy dagger upraised

with the other. There was 2 backdrop in gold and dark blue-a sunburst in 2 phony

Aztec or Egyptian design, but nobody was look ing at it; they were looking at the

girls.

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The brunette was wearing a high show-girl heac dress, silver sandals, and a

G-string in glass jewels Nothing more. No sign of a brassiere. The blonde wa~ naked

as an oyster, with her downstage knee drawn uj just enough to get past sufficiently

broad-minded cen sors.

But I was not looking at the naked blonde; I wa~ looking at the brunette.

It was not just the two fine upstanding breasts flO] the long graceful legs

nor the shape of her hips an thighs; it was the overall effect. She was so beautiful

i hurt. I heard somebody say, “Great jumping jeepers!’ and was about to shush him

when I realized it was me

Then the lights went down and I remembered t breathe.

I paid the clip price for my drink without a quivel and Jack assured me:

“They are hostesses betweer shows.” When they showed up at the stairway leadin~ down

from the balcony he signalled them to come ove~ and then introduced me.

“Hazel Dorn, Estelle d’Arcy-meet Eddie Hill.”

Hazel, the brunette, said, “How do you do?” but th blonde said,

“Oh, I’ve met the Ghost before. How’s business Rattled any chains lately?”

I said, “Good enough,” and let it pass. I knew her al

right-but as Audrey Johnson, not as Estelle d’Arcy. She had been a steno at the City

Hal1~when I was doing an autobiography of the Chief of Police. I had not liked her

much; she had an instinct for finding a sore point and picking at it.

I am not ashamed of being a ghost writer, nor is it a secret. You will find

my name on the title page of Forty Years a Cop as well as the name of the Chief-in

small print but it is there: “with Edison Hill.”

“How did you like the show?” Hazel asked, when I had ordered a round.

“I likedyou,” I said, softly enough to keep it private. “I can’t wait for