Robert Heinlein - Expanded Universe

It may amuse you to know that this story was considered to be (in 1945) too risquй; the magazine editor laundered it before publication. You are seeing the original "dirty" version; try to find in it anything at all that could bring a blush to the cheek of your maiden aunt.

In late 1945 this magic mirror existed in a bar at (as I recall) the corner of Hollywood and Gower Gulch; the rest is fiction.

"Anything you get free costs more than

worth - but you don't find it out until later."

- Bernardo de la Paz

An Edison Hill Crime Case

I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing.

I climbed on a stool at the end of the bar in Jack Joy's Joint and spoke to Jack himself, who was busy setting up two old - fashioneds. "Make it three," I said. "No, make it four and have one with me. What's the pitch, Jack? I hear you set up a peep show for the suckers."

"Hi, Ed. Nope, it's not a peep show - it's Art."

"What's the difference?"

"If they hold still, it's Art. If they wiggle around, it's illegal. That's the ruling. Here." He handed me a program.

It read:

THE JOY CLUB

PRESENTS

The Magic Mirror

Beautiful Models in a series of Entertaining

and Artistic Pageants

10 p.m. "Aphrodite" Estelle

11 p.m. "Sacrifice to the Sun" Estelle and Hazel

12 p.m. "The High Priestess" Hazel

1 a.m. "The Altar Victim" Estelle

2 a.m. "Invocation to Pan" Estelle and Hazel

(Guests are requested to refrain stomping, whistling, or otherwise disturbing the artistic serenity of the presentations)

The last was a giggle. Jack's place was strictly a joint. But on the other side of the program I saw a new schedule of prices which informed me that the drink in my hand was going to cost me just twice what I had figured. And the place was jammed. By suckers - including me.

I was about to speak to Jack, in a kindly way, promising to keep my eyes closed during the show and then pay the old price for my drink, when I heard two sharp beeps! - a high tension buzzer sound, like radio code - from a spot back of the 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 the end of the bar it hit me square in the eye. I had to block it with my hand to see the stage.

It was something to see.

Two girls, a blonde and a brunette. A sort of altar or table, with the blonde sprawled across it, volup'. The brunette standing at the end of the altar, grabbing the 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 looking at it; they were looking at the girls.

The brunette was wearing a high show - girl head dress, silver sandals, and a G - string in glass jewels Nothing more. No sign of a brassiere. The blonde was naked as an oyster, with her downstage knee drawn up just enough to get past sufficiently broad - minded censors.

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

It was not just the two fine upstanding breasts nor the long graceful legs nor the shape of her hips an thighs; it was the overall effect. She was so beautiful it 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 quiver and Jack assured me: "They are hostesses between shows." When they showed up at the stairway leading down from the balcony he signaled them to come over and then introduced me.

"Hazel Dorn, Estelle d'Arcy - meet Eddie Hill."

Hazel, the brunette, said, "How do you do?" but the 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 allright - 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 liked you," I said, softly enough to keep it private. "I can't wait for the next show to see more of you."

"You'll see more," she admitted and changed the subject. I gathered an impression that she was proud of her figure and liked to be told she was beautiful but was not entirely calloused about exhibiting it in public.

Estelle leaned across the bar to Jack. "Jackie Boy," she said in sweetly reasonable tones, "you held the lights too long again. It doesn't matter to me in that pose, but you had poor old Hazel trembling like a leaf before you doused the glim."

Jack set a three - minute egg timer, like a little hourglass on the bar. "Three minutes it says - three minutes you did."

"I don't think it was more than three minutes," Hazel objected. "I wasn't tired."

"You were trembling, dear. I saw you. You mustn't tire yourself - it makes lines. Anyhow," she added, "I'll just keep this," and she put the egg timer in her purse. "We'll time it ourselves."

"It was three minutes," Jack insisted.

"Never mind," she answered. "From now on it'll be three minutes, or mamma will have to lock Jackie in the dark closet."

Jack started to answer, thought better of it, then walked away to the other end of the bar. Estelle shrugged, then threw down the rest of her drink left us. I saw her speak to Jack again, then join so customers at one of the tables.

Hazel looked at her as she walked away. "I'd pad that chippie's pants," she muttered, "if she wore an

"A bum beef?"

"Not exactly. Maybe Jack is a friend of yours - "Just an acquaintance."

"Well ... I've had worse bosses - but he is a bit ( jerk. Maybe he doesn't stretch the poses just out meanness - I've never timed him - but some of the poses are too long for three minutes. Take Estel Aphrodite pose - you saw it?"

“Yes?”

"She balances on the ball of one foot, no costume all, but with one leg raised enough to furnish a fig leaf. Jack's got a blackout switch to cover her if she breathes but, just the same, it's a strain."