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  “Ah, Milton!” he says, looking up from his meal, which seems to consist entirely of chopped liver and rye bread, plus a couple of cheese blintzes. “How nice to see you again! Sit down. Have a knosh.”

  “‘Have a knosh?’” I repeat. “What kind of language is that for a wizard?”

  He stares at me. “How many wizards do you talk to on a daily basis?” he asks at last.

  “This is my friend Jacob,” says Milt hastily. “Can he join us?”

  “Got no room at this table for Jacobs,” says the Wizard. He turns to me. “You want to sit at an informal table like this, you got to be Jake.”

  “Okay, I’m Jake,” I say, sitting down.

  “You look like you are,” he says. I frown, trying to figure out what the hell he’s talking about. “Forget it,” he adds. “It’s an old expression I found lying on the floor.”

  “Have you got a name?” I ask.

  “You couldn’t pronounce it,” he replies. “Just call me Wiz.”

  The waiter comes up and hands the Wiz a folded note. He opens it, reads it, and shakes his head. “It’s gonna rain Tuesday morning, and this horse can’t stand up in the mud, let alone run six furlongs on it. Tell him No.”

  “I heard the forecast just before I left the house this morning,” I say. “It calls for clear weather all week.”

  “Amazing how these guys can stay in business when they’re wrong so often,” comments the Wiz, pouring some cinnamon sugar on his blintzes. “So, my friend Milton, what can I do for you today?”

  “I’ve got a bit of a cash flow problem,” says Milt.

  The Wiz closes his eyes for a few seconds, and he frowns like he’s concentrating on something. “You don’t have to sugar-coat it, Milton, not with me. You’re in deep shit.”

  Milt nods uncomfortably.

  “Could be worse,” says the Wiz. “You could live in some town where you needed a car, because if you did they’d sure as hell have repossessed it if you’d waited this long to see me.”

  “I kept waiting for the market to turn,” answers Milt miserably. “My broker kept saying it would happen any day.”

  The Wiz makes a face. “Brokers!” he snorts contemptuously. “They’re almost as bad as weathermen.” He pauses and stares at Milt. “How much do you need?”

  “Don’t you know?” asks Milt, surprised.

  “My mistake,” amends the Wiz. “How much do you want? We both know how much you need.”

  “Twelve, thirteen grand?” says Milt, though it comes out more as a question.

  “How soon?”

  “By Friday.”

  “Too bad,” says the Wiz. “There’s a really nice filly who’ll be running for a big price on Saturday.” I must have made a face, because he turns to me. “You don’t think she’ll win?”

  “I don’t even know who the hell she is,” I say. “But somehow I thought a wizard was more than a racetrack tout.”

  “I’m not a racetrack tout,” he replies. “I haven’t been to Belmont or Aqueduct in years.”

  “You know what I mean,” I say.

  “Yes, and I want you to remember that I didn’t take offense at it.” He turns to Milt. “Give me a pen.” Milt supplies one, and he begins scribbling on a paper napkin. “You still have a little over seventeen hundred dollars in your bank account. Take it out—”

  “All of it?” interrupts Milt, his voice shaking a little.

  “Take it out,” repeats the Wiz firmly. “Give it to your broker, and tell him to go to the commodities market and invest it all on what I just wrote down.” He looks up at Milt. “Now, this is important, Milton, so pay attention. He has to buy between noon and 1:00 PM on Wednesday, and he has to sell it between 10:00 and 11:00 AM on Friday morning. If one or the other of you fucks up either end of it, don’t come running to me.”

  “And that’ll give me thirteen grand?” asks Milt.

  “After my fee,” says the Wiz.

  “Oh, of course,” agrees Milt promptly. “Thank you, Wiz.”

  The Wiz shrugs. “It’s my job.”

  “Your job?” I say. “Who do you work for?”

  “I’m a freelancer.”

  “Are there any other wizards in Manhattan?” I ask.

  “Not to my knowledge.” A brief pause. “I sure as hell hope not.”

  “Don’t want any competition, eh?” I say with a smile.

  He stares at me with suddenly sad eyes that have seen too many things. “If you say so, Jake,” he says at last.

  Milt gets to his feet. “I owe you big time, Wiz,” he says.

  “I’ll collect, never fear,” the Wiz assures him. He sighs, suddenly deflated. “I always collect.” It sounds like anything but a brag.

  “You won’t be offended if I leave?” continues Milt. “I want to get by the bank before I go back to the office.”

  “Not a problem,” says the Wiz. He nods toward a woman who is wearing a dress that just doesn’t belong in a cheap deli, along with furs and diamonds that would be ostentatious even fifty blocks north of where we are. “I have someone else waiting to see me.”

  “Nice meeting you,” I say, getting up and trying not to sound too insincere.

  “May I offer you a suggestion, Jake?” he says, and then adds: “Freely given.”

  “Sure, why not?” I say in bored tones, waiting for him to tell me what horse or boxer to put some money on.

  “I have a feeling that you were planning on having dinner at Rosario’s tonight.”

  “Now, how the hell did you know that?” I ask, surprised.

  “Just a guess.”

  “Damned good guess,” I admit. I turn to follow Milt to the door.

  “My suggestion?” he says, and I stop and turn back to him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t eat there this evening,” says the Wiz.

  Before I can answer, he signals the bejeweled lady to come to the table, and I join Milt in the street.

  I don’t go to Rosario’s Ristorante that night. I don’t know why. Maybe I just have a taste for Greek food instead. I really don’t think what the Wiz said has anything to do with it.

  But the next morning, as I am getting dressed, I hear on the news that Rosario’s has burned down to the ground, and that six diners have died in the blaze.

  * * *

  I am back at the deli at noon, but he’s not there. I walk up and down 34th Street, peeking in windows, and I finally see him in a bar that looks even grubbier than the deli. He is sitting in a booth, smoking a bent cigarette and talking to someone who looks like a male version of the lady in the furs and diamonds. I don’t want to interrupt him, but I am damned if I’m going to just turn around and go back to the office, so I enter the place and sit down on a bar stool in the corner, right below photos of Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath, Willis Reed, Secretariat, and Tuffy Bresheen, a lady Roller Derby star from before I was born.

  I nurse a beer for about ten minutes. Then the well-dressed guy gets up and leaves, but before I can even climb off my stool a tiny man—in the dim lighting I can’t tell if he’s a dwarf or a midget—climbs onto the booth opposite the Wiz, asks a single question, looks damned pleased with the answer, and walks right back out.

  “Ah, it’s the Real Jake,” says the Wiz. “I appreciate your patience. Come join me. Bring your beer.”

  I walk over and sit down, placing my beer on the stained tabletop.

  “What can I do for you, Jake?” he asks.

  “How the hell did you know Rosario’s would burn down?” I demand.

  “What difference does it make?” he responds. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

  “You know you were,” I say. I stare long and hard at him. “Did you set the fire?”

  “Of course I didn’t,” he says. “We’re not going to be friends if you say things like that, Jake.”

  “Are we going to be friends?” I ask rather pugnaciously.

  “Absolutely,” he replies. “I don’t do favors for just anyone, you know.�
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  “No,” I say. “They have to pay you.”

  He almost winces. “Did I charge you a penny?” he asks in hurt tones.

  “Why me?” I say.

  “Because there’s enough pain in the world,” he answers. He stares at me. “I do you a service, I save you from second-degree burns, and I don’t charge you a thing. Why should that bother you?”

  “Second-degree burns?” I repeat.

  He nods his head.

  “Not first-degree or third-degree?” I say.

  “No,” he answers mildly but with absolute certainty. “Second-degree.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I never lie,” he says.

  “So you saved my life …” I begin.

  “Not your life,” he answers. “But a considerable portion of your skin.”

  “And you didn’t charge me a thing,” I continue. “But you charge people for giving them winners at the track, or telling them what stock to play.”

  “Oh, I do more than that,” he says. “I tell actors which plays to try out for and which ones won’t run a week. I tell fishermen where they’re biting and where they’re not.” A sudden smile. “I even tell Tootsie La Belle when to tone down her strip routine because a couple of cops are waiting to arrest her if she goes too far.” He takes another sip of his beer. “It’s much more than stocks and horses, Jake. I’m not a tout or a prognosticator. I’m the Wiz.”

  “What else can you do?” I ask.

  “What else do you want?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” I admit. “I should be thanking you for saving my life—”

  “Your skin.”

  “Okay, my skin. But instead, I’m getting more and more frustrated because I don’t understand you.”

  “What’s to understand?” he says. “I’m the Wiz. I see suffering, now or in the future, and I do what I can to cure it, or at least alleviate it. People come to me with their problems, just like they go to a doctor or a dentist.”

  “Or a priest,” I say.

  He smiles. “Well, in this neighborhood, it’s more likely to be a rabbi.” He stares at me. “So what is it that troubles you?”

  “You can pick winners. You can pick stocks. You can pick hits and flops. You can probably pick political races. So why aren’t you worth billions?”

  “What would I do with billions?”

  “You could start by getting a shave and haircut, and maybe taking a bath. You could dress a little better, and live a lot better,” I say. “Hell, you could buy the Empire State Building.”

  “Probably,” he agrees. “But what would I do with it?”

  “Didn’t you ever want to be something else?” I ask, and the second the words are out of my mouth I realize what a damnfool stupid question it is. After all, he’s the Wiz.

  And suddenly there’s a very wistful smile on his face. “More than you can possibly imagine.”

  “Well?” I say.

  He utters a deep sigh. “It’s not as easy as you think or I wish.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s your friend Milton, and a thousand other Miltons,” he answers. “Where would they go if there wasn’t a Wiz?”

  “That shouldn’t be your concern,” I respond.

  “Oh?” he says curiously. “Whose concern is it?”

  “Theirs, of course,” I say.

  He shakes his head sadly. “They’re not up to it, Jake,” he replies. “That’s why they come to me.”

  “So the noble Wiz saves them all,” I say.

  “No, Jake. I can hardly save any of them,” he says. “Look out the front window.” People are walking past, and he starts pointing at them. “Heart attack. Cancer. Cancer. Mugged in the subway. Alzheimer’s. Aneurism. Cancer.” He turns back to me. “I can’t save, or even help, more than one of them, and only if he asks me.”

  “There are rules to being a saint?” I ask sarcastically.

  “I’ve no idea,” he answers. “But there are rules to the Wizard game.”

  “So am I going to read about those seven people tomorrow?”

  He shakes his head. “Some of them will live another twenty or thirty years. The man in the blue coat won’t make it past the end of the week.”

  “You’re sure of all that?” I say.

  “I’m sure.” He lights another cigarette. “I’m sure of something else, too.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “No matter how it appears to you, it’s not a blessing.”

  I check my watch. “I’ve got to get back to the office.”

  “Stop by again, Jake. We could become friends. I’d like that.”

  “There’s probably a thousand men and women who want to be your friend,” I say. “Why me?”

  “Because you don’t want anything from me.”

  “No, I don’t,” I say, getting up from the booth. “Keep your millions. I won’t even envy you until I’m back at the office.”

  “Never envy me, Jake,” he says seriously.

  “Okay, as soon as I’m at my desk I’ll go back to envying LeBron James, or maybe Tom Cruise.”

  “What floor is your office on?” he asks.

  “The 27th. Why?”

  “Can I make a suggestion?” he says.

  I just stare at him.

  “Take the freight elevator.”

  “Why?” I demand.

  “Just a hunch.”

  “Bullshit,” I say. “Whatever’s going to happen, you know exactly what it is.”

  “I don’t want to rush you, Jake, but the lady who just came in is worried about her son, who’s seeing some action in the Middle East. She’s very distraught, and I don’t want to keep her waiting.”

  So I go back to the office, and I take the freight elevator, and an hour later Milt enters and sits down at his desk.

  “Long lunch?” I ask, though I knew it wasn’t.

  “Circuit on the fucking elevators blew,” he mutters. “We were stuck in the damned thing for over an hour.”

  * * *

  On Thursday I find him sitting on an ancient wooden bench that’s been set up outside a small grocery story on Tenth Avenue, just around the corner from 34th Street. It’s forty degrees and windy, and he hasn’t got an overcoat, but he doesn’t seem uncomfortable. He’s smoking a cigarette, and I sit down next to him.

  “Those things’ll kill you,” I say, indicating the cigarette.

  “No such luck,” he answers.

  “Thanks for saving me from a couple of hours of being stuck in an elevator.”

  He shakes his head. “An hour and ten minutes. Hour and a quarter, tops. Depends on which elevator.”

  “Milt was stuck in one of them.”

  “Poor guy,” says the Wiz, not without compassion.

  “If you’re half as good as I think you are, you knew when he visited you in the deli that it would happen,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Anything’s possible.”

  “Then why didn’t you warn him?”

  “He’s going to use up all his extra money just thanking me for putting him in the right commodities at the right time.” answers the Wiz. “And where would I be if I worked for free?”

  “But you told me for free!” I yell.

  “Keep your voice down, Jake. If we disturb enough people, Homer the cop will chase me back inside”—he indicates a grubby coffee shop three doors down—“and it’s too damned stuffy in there.”

  “Then answer me!” I insist.

  “It was an act of friendship,” says the Wiz.

  “Why me?” I say, and realize I asked that the day before too. “What have I got that Milt and a thousand other supplicants haven’t got?”

  He smiles. “For one thing, you’re not a supplicant.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  “Funny,” he says. “I could have sworn it was.”

  “So all someone has to do to be your friend and get free use of your services is to not ask for them?” I say.

  “No, J
ake,” he says. Suddenly he stares intently at me. “I helped you because I have a feeling that we’re kindred souls.” His cigarette goes out and he pulls a semi-crushed pack from his pocket. “I take it you don’t want one?”

  I shake my head. “I had a father and an aunt die from cancer.”

  “You won’t die from cancer, Jake.”

  “You can see that far ahead?” I ask.

  “Just take my word for it.”

  “What will I die of?” I continue.

  “Most people don’t want to know.”

  “I just want to know what, not when.”

  “Let it go, Jake,” says the Wiz, and suddenly he looks very old and very tired. “I don’t like talking about the end of things.” He taps his temple with a forefinger. “I see enough of them in here.”

  I stare at him for a minute. “I never thought of that,” I say at last. “I guess the Wiz business isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “You see?” he says with a sad smile. “I knew you were a kindred spirit.”

  A guy who’s dressed even worse than the Wiz approaches us.

  “Go away,” says the Wiz.

  “Goddamn it!” whines the man. “You help everyone else! I really need it, Wiz!”

  “If you’re still here when I count to five, I’m calling Homer over and telling him you’re harassing me.”

  The guy mutters an obscenity and wanders off.

  “He looked pretty desperate,” I say.

  “He is,” agrees the Wiz. “He’s panhandled enough money for a ten dollar bet at his bookie’s. He’s looking for a longshot, and if it comes in, he’ll just spend it on crack.” He grimaces. “Let him learn how to read a Racing Form, or maybe even work for it.”

  “So it wasn’t that you couldn’t help him …” I say.

  “I have an unwanted gift,” he explains. “I didn’t ask for it, and I don’t want it—but as long as I’ve got it, I’ll use it the best way I can. And that doesn’t include helping a guy cheat on his wife, or a druggie score with his pusher.”

  “Did you just wake up one day and suddenly you were the Wiz?” I asked.