Sure enough, he could see what was different about this pocket: a large bulge at the bottom of the pit suggested that this dummy had been collecting change—the pocket was heavy with smash.
“One coin,” said the Headmaster. “For one pocket.”
“How am I—”
“How are you supposed to know which coin? Oh, Charlie. This is where your lack of education is made painfully obvious. Had you matriculated as a student of the School of Seven Bells, you would’ve spent an entire semester learning the relative weights of every currency in the world—their size and heft, the pattern of their edges. By the end of your second year, you would’ve been able to, blindfolded, properly distinguish a centime from a drachma, a forint from a nickel—by the weight alone.” The Headmaster heaved a satisfied sigh. “Our mannequin, here, is quite the worldly gentleman, what. There is a global community of change in his pocket. Alas, you must find the coin that matches the ones you’ve already pinched.”
Charlie looked down at the coins that lay scattered on the clay floor. He picked one up and studied it. It was a simple peso, nondescript in size and weight. Had he not read the legend, set in relief on the coin face, he would not know from which country it had hailed.
The Headmaster drew even closer. Charlie could feel the man’s balloonlike belly press against the small of his back. His rasp rang in Charlie’s ear: “Best not rummage about too long in there. That bell will be going ding-a-ling.”
Beads of sweat broke out anew on Charlie’s brow. He stared at the coin in his hand. He stared at the bulging pocket on the mannequin.
“Ding-a-ling,” whispered the Headmaster.
Charlie had had enough. Throwing the coin to the ground, he spun around and faced the Headmaster, allowing his chest to press against the man’s bulbous gut. He fixed his eyes boldly on the Headmaster’s; the two remained there for a time before Charlie said, “You gonna let me work?”
“This is part of the test, chump,” said the Headmaster. “You must work under duress.”
“I think you’re trying to put your thumb on the scales.”
“Why on earth would I want to do that?”
“Because you know you’re wrong.”
“And what, pray tell, could I possibly be wrong about?”
“That I’m a cannon,” said Charlie, pushing himself even closer to the Headmaster’s body, if such a thing was possible. “And I didn’t even need your dumb school to become one. That’s why you’re afraid.”
“Nonsense,” huffed the Headmaster.
Charlie gestured to the silent mass of kids who hung in the galleries, watching their stare-down. The Headmaster’s gaze followed his arm. “If I pass,” said Charlie, “it makes their ‘education’ meaningless. It makes the Test of the Seven Bells mean nothing.”
The Headmaster laughed. “Nothing could be further from the truth. The Test of the Seven Bells speaks for itself. It is an exam that has lasted centuries. It is the Rubicon that separates the straight world from the touts. You might ask yourself: Are you prepared to cross that river?”
Charlie didn’t answer. He turned and faced the mannequin. He adjusted the waist of his trousers. He could still feel the Headmaster’s close presence, hear his breath. Charlie recalibrated his attention; he returned to the task at hand. He was to remove a single coin from the right hip pocket of the dummy, one amid a large collection, all without seeing the coin—or ringing the bell attached to the pocket. The Headmaster had been right: he did not have the education or experience required to identify the coin blindly. He could imagine getting to that point, with time, but now his deficits were showing.
An idea occurred to him.
The coin on the ground. The one that he’d had in his hand.
“A curious approach,” said the Headmaster, as Charlie stooped and picked up the coin he’d just thrown to the floor. “Bus fare for the ride home?”
Charlie shot him a glare as he approached the dummy. The Headmaster shadowed him closely. Charlie could feel the rustle in the Headmaster’s suit as Charlie’s hand went for the pocket. His opposing hand delicately held back the hem of the topcoat and the jacket, allowing safe passage for the hand holding the coin.
“What’s your plan, here? Are we kicking the ridge back? Watch that bell. I’ve just had the bells redone, you know. They’d grown a little dull over the years, with the amount of ringing they’d done. Something about the crispness of the silver—the ring didn’t quite have the sparkle it once did. I loved that sparkle. The sudden chiming of the bell, sounding as if it were pealing from some steeple tower, over a wide valley. That’s what it sounds like, Charlie. It rings into your very soul.”
Charlie moved his hand into the britch kick, the coin pinched between his thumb and index finger. He snaked his hand down into the pocket until his fingertips rested at the top of the pile of coins amassed at the bottom.
“Your very soul, what,” repeated the Headmaster, now transfixed on Charlie’s attempt on the pocket. “But they’d lost that chime, you know. Such a shame. Now they’re back to ringing like the bells of heaven, believe me. What are you doing?”
With his middle finger, Charlie was now patiently dragging individual coins from the pile to be pancaked against the one pinched between his thumb and finger. It was tedious work, and his eyes remained steadily affixed to the bell at the opening of the pocket . . .
The Headmaster continued his harangue: “Careful now, Mr. Fisher. No time to second-guess. The mark’s attentions are unpredictable.”
. . . but eventually he found a coin that seemed to match the size and heft of the one in his hand.
“His movements are fluid. Capricious. Are you watching? Are you aware?”
Charlie took an extra moment to rub the two coins together before he determined that they were one and the same. Armed thus, he removed his hand from the pocket with the confidence and surety of a proper class cannon.
DING.
At first, it didn’t make sense to Charlie. At first, it didn’t seem to even come from his current plane of existence, but there it was. The Headmaster had been right: the bell rang with the clarity and resonance of crystal shattering.
DING.
The crowd let out a collective groan of disappointment.
The Headmaster seemed as surprised by the sudden chime of the bell as Charlie had been. They stared at each other in a kind of matching disbelief before a smile broke across the Headmaster’s face. He grabbed Charlie’s wrist and yanked it up to his face.
“Nice work, Charlie,” he said. “Very close. Can I?” He pulled the two coins from Charlie’s fingers and studied them. They were matching.
Charlie had, after all, managed to nick the right coin. But in his zealousness to retrieve the coin and verify his success, he’d lost track of the higher goal—to make the prat without ringing the bell.
The Headmaster threw the coins to the ground with something approaching glee. He looked at Charlie. He clapped his hands five times, slowly, applauding. “Very good,” he said. “But, alas, not good enough. The Cipher remains, as it should, in my possession.” He reached into his coat pit and retrieved the stuffed white envelope, studying it in the glow of the spotlight. “Do not despair, Charlie. Consider this a victory for the downtrodden. A stunning win for the disrupters against the greedy sheep of Western civilization.” Slipping the Cipher back into his pocket, he looked at Charlie thoughtfully and said, “To which do you belong?”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie despondently. He stared at the coins on the ground, willing them all to disappear, to erase the memory of his failure.
The galleries were already emptying; the students began to file out of the arena, back to their classrooms and lecture halls. An air of disappointment hung over them, a mass of circus-goers somehow denied the moment when the tiger jumps through the fiery hoop. What’s more, the supremacy of the Test of the Seven Bells had been upheld—it was and would remain that ultimate barrier between novice and cannon. The structures
and strata of the school were intact. There were no easy bings to be had here.
“You have promise, you know,” said the Headmaster to Charlie. “Brilliant trick there at the end. Perhaps a hint of the know was in there, after all. I’d have to see what our current enrollment is, but perhaps, in a year or two, with some improvements, we could see to your being wait-listed.”
“No, thank you,” said Charlie.
“Suit yourself,” said the Headmaster. “Rachel! Zephyr!”
Two figures approached from the stairs leading down to the arena floor.
“Kindly show Mr. Fisher to the gates,” said the Headmaster. He turned to Charlie. “Per our agreement, you’ll be hooded and returned to the crossroads at El Toro. Apologies for the crudeness of your transport, but precautions must be taken. This is the School of Seven Bells, after all. Secrecy is king. Good-bye, Charlie. It’s been . . . enlightening.”
The man in the rumpled gray suit walked away across the arena floor and up the stairs toward the balcony and the double doors. He stopped, briefly, at the first tier of the galleries and turned to Charlie, saying, “One more thing. It might be best if you didn’t show your face here again, Charlie. I think next time we will not be so accommodating.”
And with that, the Headmaster was gone.
“Hey, Charlie,” came a voice from the galleries. A few of the students had lingered, hanging at the first tier’s balcony rail. Charlie immediately recognized the voice; it was Michiko’s. “Nice try,” she continued. “You’re a real bang-up operator, you are. I was rooting for you.”
“Nearly did it,” came another voice—the Mouse. “I put you at fifteen to one to bing a single coin. You beat the odds there, mate.”
“I make thirty dollars off you, Charlie,” came a voice awash in a Slavic accent. “You make up for bad tip at racecourse.”
“Thanks, but no thanks, Borra,” replied Charlie.
“I thought you were gonna do it, to be honest.” In the dim light, Charlie recognized Pluto, eye patch and all, as he sat down at the edge of the balcony, his legs straddling one of the columnar supports of the guardrail and dangling over the edge. “When I took the test, I failed it three times before I even made it past the fourth pocket.”
Jackie stood behind him. “You put up a good fight.”
“Go away,” said Charlie. “All of you.”
“Is that how you talk to your friends?” asked Pluto archly.
Molly gave him a little kick. “Shut up, Pluto,” she said.
Sembene appeared at the rail, his head just peeking over the top. “See you around, Charlie.”
“Yeah, see ya,” said Fatour, standing next to him.
The Whiz Mob of Marseille, hangers-on at a cinema, watching till the last of the credits scrolled up the screen, saw that the show had truly come to an end and began, collectively, to move their way toward the exit. Charlie was silent as he watched them leave. Only Molly hung back, waiting till the rest of the mob had left and the galleries were empty before she, too, headed for the exit. Just as she was about to disappear, though, she turned and said, “I say you’re a cannon, Charlie. A real class one. Don’t let no one tell you different.”
And then she, too, was gone.
Charlie was escorted down the hall, through the foyer, and across the campus of the School of Seven Bells. Several groups of students loitered on the lawn and, wordlessly, they watched him go by. A black sedan awaited him just beyond the grille of the iron gate. He nodded to the driver before taking in a last glimpse of the gargantuan structure that sat atop the slope above him, the rolling lawn, the idling students.
“Ready?” asked the driver.
A hood was placed over Charlie’s head, and he was ushered into the backseat of the car.
He arrived, two hours later, at the crossroads outside El Toro. His hood was removed and he was ushered from the vehicle. His captors said nothing as they closed the door behind him, revved the engine, and disappeared back along the dirt road. The kiosk’s door swung open, blown by the wind. The ABIERTO sign was off, though Charlie could not tell if it was a mere malfunction. He breathed a sigh and began walking down the road toward El Toro.
He hadn’t walked long before he heard an approaching motor. The mist had cleared; the sun was just beginning to set. From around a bend came a dilapidated truck, its fenders and hood wearing bright stains of rust where the paint had been scraped away. It came to a squealing stop just alongside Charlie; the passenger door was thrown open.
“Get in,” said the driver. Charlie looked up to see it was Amir.
“How did you—” began Charlie, gesturing to the truck.
“You’d be surprised what a silver Rolex will fetch in pesos.” He revved the engine ostentatiously. “C’mon,” he said. “Before the touts catch wind.”
Charlie climbed aboard and threw himself into the seat alongside his friend. Amir wrestled the truck into gear and they headed off down the road.
“So . . . ,” began Amir, glancing over at Charlie. “What happened? How’d it go?”
“Just drive,” said Charlie.
And so Amir did.
THE END
Chapter
TWENTY-FOUR
You didn’t think the story was going to end there, did you?
Of course it doesn’t.
Of course there’s more.
But first, let’s leave our two heroes as they navigate the potholed road through El Toro and out of the jungle interior of Colombia, winding their way toward Cartagena, which, they’d decided, would be the quickest and best route home, there to catch the first steamer leaving the port. Let’s leave them, for now, to their journey. They have a long way to go, and Charlie could no doubt use what little rest is afforded him in the cab of the truck as it bumps along the country road toward the coast.
It’d be better not to disturb them.
Let’s instead return to the School of Seven Bells. Let’s watch the Headmaster.
The Headmaster was tired. He’d had plenty on his plate before the disruption of the impromptu exam had occurred—he still had applications to review, the senior class’s thesis papers to grade, graduation ceremonies to prepare—all with an entirely new freshman class arriving within a few months. What’s more, he’d only just left the arena when he was collared by the Okus Technologies professor, wanting to know the status of his tenure application. He’d scarcely finished the tedious conversation (this particular professor, while talented, was a bit of an irritant) when a group of students had mobbed him, wanting to show a new stall they’d developed. And so it was some relief when he finally, after what seemed like an eternity, was heading toward his office.
It was evening and the classrooms were emptying. The halls were beginning to come alive with students heading to dinner—all happily chattering about the exam they’d witnessed that afternoon. As often happens when a school year is winding down, the smallest bits of drama tend to take on an otherworldly aspect, and Charlie’s exam was the only thing anyone was talking about. To the Headmaster’s mind, he’d given them a bit of a show, putting Charlie up to the exam—a kind of reward for their dutiful hard work that year. Before long, most of them would be off to faraway destinations all over the globe, fully on the whiz for the first time in their lives.
This thought made the Headmaster smile. On the whiz for the first time—think of it. He almost envied those kids, those newly anointed cannons, all wondering at their deployment and what the future would hold for them. Who would they be matched with? What would be their role in the mob, their position? What strange and beautiful city would they be sent to? Oslo? Berlin? Shanghai? Each city filled with its own particular brand of wonder and mystery, each filled with crushes of easy marks, just waiting to be systematically lightened of their wealth. It put him in mind of his first assignment, in ’22. Nearly forty years ago now.
The thought made him chuckle in surprise. Had it been that long? Yes, forty years. Cairo, Egypt. That ancient city on the Nile. He?
??d arrived a fresh-faced graduate of the school, tasked with foldering for a mob he’d not yet even met. The air had been so dry and clear, he’d breathed it in like it was a tonic—could any place have been more different from that gray, embattled industrial town his parents had raised him in? Manchester might’ve existed on a different planet altogether than Cairo, with its swarming avenues and braying street vendors, the air scented everywhere with safflower and rose. The first day of his arrival, he’d arranged transport to visit the pyramids at Giza. He’d made a mint that day, fleecing the tourists. Oh, and the pyramids had been lovely too. He allowed himself another laugh.
Which reminded him: fifteen across! “Head of a pyramid scheme.” It had been a stumper, for some reason, and he’d spent all afternoon hammering himself, trying to unlock the answer. The question had been a dark cloud over the lower right corner of the crossword puzzle—but he’d been going about it all wrong, trying to think of famous grifters (and he happened to know a few), bilking money from chumps in an investment scheme.
“Pharaoh!” he said suddenly, and very loudly.
A student, passing him in the hall, said, “Excuse me, sir?”
“Nothing, Lucy,” he said. “Just thinking aloud, what.”
He quickened his step. In no time at all, he was back in his office, giddy with the anticipation of cracking open a puzzle that had been bothering him for well-nigh twenty-four hours. He whistled to himself as he whipped off his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. He then rolled up his shirtsleeves (was that a tattoo of a pincer-mandibled beetle on his forearm?) in an almost ceremonial fashion before taking a moment to pick the very best pen for the job from his desk drawer. After inspecting the tip, he reached for the crossword puzzle he’d left on the top of his desk.
It was not there.