Evan Hunter - The Moment She Was Gone

“You’d be surprised.”

“Then what would you like me to do, Annie? Tell me what you’d like me to do, and I’ll do it.”

“I know you will.”

“So tell me, okay? What do you want me to do? Go down and break their eyeglasses?”

“They’re not wearing eyeglasses.”

“Break their arms? That’ll cost you more.”

“How much?” she asked at once.

“Arms and legs are a dollar apiece. Or... ” I narrowed my eyes and lowered my voice to a whisper. “I can always terminate them with extreme prejudice.”

“Yes, do it,” she said.

“Later. Meanwhile, let’s put some oregano on these chops, okay?”

“This isn’t funny, I don’t know why you think it’s tunny,” she said, and turned away swiftly and ran down the hall and into her bedroom. We heard her locking the door behind her. The clock on the wall read five-twenty-five.

“I have to go down,” Maggie said. “Will she be all right?”

“Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

“Well... okay,” she said, and glanced at me, and then left the apartment.

Annie did not come out of the bedroom until the signing was over and Maggie brought our guest upstairs. The usual routine was for an author to read for fifteen to twenty minutes, take questions from the audience for the next half-hour or so, and then sign Books for another half-hour. The events usually broke up sometime between seven-thirty and eight. Maggie planned to bring Mr. Zannetti upstairs as soon as the shop cleared, We’d have a drink and then sit down to the sumptuous (I hoped) meal I’d prepared.

Well, the event was a spectacular success. The Q and A went on for forty minutes, and almost everyone in the shop — some fifty people in all — bought books. Moreover, Zannetti was a generous man who chatted up anyone who wanted a book signed, so he and Maggie did not come up to the apartment until almost nine o’clock, by which time I had consumed two glasses of red wine.

Carlo Zannetti turned out to be a rotund little man with a small mustache that curled upward at either end, giving the impression that he was perpetually smiling. He was not, as I’d mistakenly surmised, Italian. That is to say, his grandfather had been born in Italy, yes, but both his parents and he himself had been born in Philadelphia, where he still lived. The “Carlo” was a tribute to the grandfather he’d never met; Zannetti was called “Charlie” by everyone he knew.

Charlie’s eyes were the only indication that he might be a hypnotist. Large and brown, overhung by black eyebrows shaggier than his small smiling mustache, they seemed capable of peering into a person’s very soul. Annie took to him at once.

“Did you hypnotize anyone tonight?” she asked.

“No, no,” Charlie said. “I never do that in an uncontrolled venue.”

“What do you mean, uncontrolled?”

“Well, I don’t think anyone expected to be hynotized tonight. That wasn’t why they were there.”

“We didn’t advertise Charlie as a hypnotist,” Maggie said. “His book isn’t about hypnotism.”

“It isn’t?” Annie said, surprised.

“It’s about making the most of one’s potential,” Maggie said.

“Sounds like Tantra,” Annie said.

“More salad, anyone?”

“Thank you,” Charlie said. “Actually, it’s about realizing the power of the mind.”

“That’s what I meant,” Maggie said. “Potential. Power.”

“Well, that’s hypnotism, isn’t it?” Annie said. “Controlling someone else’s mind?”

“No, no,” Charlie said. “In any case, I meant realizing the power of one’s own mind.”

“But you said you wanted a controlled venue.”

“Yes, it works best if people come with the expectation of being hypnotized. I don’t like surprises, I don’t like secrets.”

“Secrets?” Annie asked.

“I’ll do a corporate speech, for example, and we’ll all be sitting down to lunch afterward, and the CEO will suddenly stand up, and clink his glass for attention, and announce, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you! Mr. Zannetti also hypnotizes people!’ And I’m supposed to get up and turn an account executive into a chicken.”

“But that’s what you do, isn’t it?” Annie said.

“I have on occasion caused people to cackle, yes,” Charlie said, and smiled and lifted his wine glass. “Maggie,” he said, “here’s to you and your beautiful shop and the lovely event you planned for me. I appreciate it sincerely.”

“And here’s to you for providing an unforgettable evening,” Maggie said graciously.

“How about the chef who prepared this unforgettable dinner?” I said.

“Let’s hear it for the chef,” Maggie said.

“Can you make me cackle like a chicken?” Annie asked.

“Now why would a beautiful girl like you wish to cackle like a chicken?” Charlie asked.

“Girl, gee, thank you,” Annie said, and smiled “But seriously. Can you hypnotize me?”

“Annie, please,” Maggie said. “Charlie’s been on for the past two hours, give him a break.”

“Or isn’t this a controlled venue?” Annie asked.

“This is definitely not a controlled venue,” Charlie said. “A controlled venue is a space filled with people who’ve come there expressly to be hypnotized. Or to see someone else hypnotized. The larger the space, the more people there are, the greater chances of success. If I have a hundred people in an audience, I may find ten who are good subjects. That’s a ten percent chance of success. If I have a thousand people in an audience, I’ll get a hundred and fifty good subjects. The odds go up exponentially.”

“Am I a good subject?” Annie asks.

“I have no idea.”

“Well, how can you tell?”

“She wants to be hypnotized, Charlie.”

“I just want to know how it works, Andy. Controlling another person’s mind.”

“It isn’t about control at all,” Charlie said. “A hypnotist enters into a partnership with his subject. In a sense, all hypnosis is really self- hypnosis. All I am is a coach of the imagination.”

“That’s lovely,” Maggie said. “You should have been a writer.”

We all laughed. Except Annie.

She leaned closer to Charlie.

“But if you turn someone into a chicken, you’re actually controlling her mind, aren’t you?”

“There is no way I can turn the CEO of a giant corporation into a chicken,” Charlie said. “He simply will not allow himself to become that. If someone allows herself to cluck like a hen, then deep inside her unconscious there’s a sense of playfulness, perhaps a need for role playing. All I do is help that person tap the unconscious. In much the same way that we all conduct inner dialogues with ourselves...”

“Inner dialogues?” Annie asked at once.

“Self-talk,” Charlie said. “The things we say to ourselves inside our head.”

“I don’t say anything to myself inside my head,” Annie said, and laughed.

“Oh well, of course you do,” Charlie said. “We all do.”

“Not me.”

“What’s this sudden interest in hypnosis, anyway?” I asked.

“I’ve always been interested in it.”

“We’re subjected to hypnosis every day of the week,” Charlie said. “We just don’t realize it.”

“What do you mean?” Annie asked.

“Politicians, religious leaders, faith healers, television commentators, even novelists...”

“Better not invite any more novelists to the shop, Maggie.”

“They all try to sway people through the power of suggest...”

“Television commentators?” Annie asked. “Can you hypnotize a person through a television set?”

“I meant that figuratively.”