"Because I'm broke and your producer is paying double my standard fee."

The crowd laughed again, more warmly. Larry Fowler's eyes flashed with an impatient look behind his glasses, and his smile turned into a gnashing of teeth. "No, really, Harry. Why?"

"For the same reasons as Mort-uh, as Morty here," I answered. Which was true. I'd come here to meet Mort and get some information from him. He'd come here to meet me, because he refused to be seen near me on the street. I guess you could say I don't have the safest reputation in the world.

"And you claim to be able to do magic," Larry said.

"Yeah."

"Could you show us?" Larry prompted.

"I could, Larry, but I don't think it's practical."

Larry nodded, and gave the audience a wise look. "And why is that?"

"Because it would probably wreck your studio equipment."

"Of course," Larry said. He winked at the audience. "Well, we wouldn't want that, would we?"

There was more laughter and a few catcalls from the crowd. Passages from Carrie and Firestarter sprang to mind, but I restrained myself and maintained the suppression spell. Master of self-discipline, that's me. But I gave the fire door beside the stage another longing look.

Larry carried on the talk part of the talk show, discussing crystals and ESP and tarot cards. Mort did most of the talking. I chimed in with monosyllables from time to time.

After several minutes of this, Larry said, "We'll be right back after these announcements." Stagehands help up signs that read APPLAUSE, and cameras panned and zoomed over the audience as they whistled and hooted.

Larry gave me an annoyed look and strode offstage. In the wings, he started tearing into a makeup girl about his hair.

I leaned over to Mort and said, "Okay. What did you find out?"

The dumpy ectomancer shook his head. "Nothing concrete. I'm still getting back into the swing of things in contacting the dead."