I watched Erza closely now. One intermission, I saw her staring at my manipulation deck on its crystal platter backstage, her lips parted as her hand hovered over the deck. But in an old drafty playhouse of a copper mine town my fears were confirmed. Erza sat backstage feverishly tearing out the lining of her jacket, a spool of black thread in her lap.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

She took a pin out of her mouth and snapped at me. "Pockets, don't you see? I must have more pockets."

I plopped down on my stool, peeked at her from behind my trunk, and fell deep into thought. No doubt now. A magician's assistant taking up conjuring. I'd never heard of such a thing. I remembered her face as it appeared each night through the smoky white drifts—etched in triumph. She was like a newly chiseled stone statue rising from the dust of a work pedestal.

The Woman by Chemistry was nothing more than plywood and plexiglass, I assured myself. A secret compartment, a box of dry ice and a double cylinder—the outside to hold the liquid, the inside to hold the girl. But that night I knew otherwise. While on stage performing my card routine, I glanced into the wings and saw a chilling sight: Erza in a top hat and black tails spinning madly in a circle. Cards spewed from her fingers and pockets, showering her in a cascade of aces and jacks, flying and circling around her. From out of a bundle of silks she produced doves, one after the other, each one leaping into the air and fluttering away. Throwing back her head she looked directly at me and with a grand flourish, produced a skinned rubber chicken.

That night we checked into a motel of sun-cracked cabins in a field of creosote near the highway. After waiting a half hour I walked to her cabin. A loud and labored snore sounded behind her door. Sliding a twenty dollar bill under the crack, I headed down the road.

*

I could never look at the Woman by Chemistry without thinking of Erza and what might have been. To ease my heartache I had to sell it. A young magician and his nice wife were happy to get it.

I thought I saw Erza a few months later. I was driving through one of those sleepy farming towns in California's central valley late at night and saw a woman step off a bus wearing a man's fedora with a card stuck in the band.

My heart lunged against my ribs as I watched her. She was still my Erza. Blazing across her suitcase were the words, Queen of Cards. As she dashed across the street, she seemed to be heading some place important, even though all I saw were dark empty storefronts. She hurried down the sidewalk before disappearing into the night, away from me and—I am sure—on her way to see Cardini.

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