Latest / Long Odds / Off the Books: The Remarkable Raymond

Transcript

Off the Books: The Remarkable Raymond · Long Odds

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Long odds off the books.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: The Remarkable Raymond.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Major Inez Carvalho had a rule about crossings and full stomachs, which was that Luis Ortega was not allowed to cook before one.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: She also had a second rule, which was that she never enforced the first.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: By half past three on Thursday afternoon, she had a camp stove going on the tailgate of the van behind the Hancock station, a cast iron skillet full of chorizo and eggs, and a stack of tortillas warming in foil at the edge of the burner.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: The smell drifted across the gravel pad and up into the oaks on the ridge, where the leaves had just started to turn, and a pair of crows sat on the radio mast, watching him with professional interest.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Bambi, come eat.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Owen Tate was standing in the weeds at the edge of the pad, with one pant leg rolled to the knee, bent nearly double, examining his own shin through a magnifying glass.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Louise cooked.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Owen inspected himself for parasites.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: She laced her boots very slowly, and listened to the two of them, the way you listen to a radio in another room.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Her phone buzzed in her jacket.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: She looked at it, sighed, and answered.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_05: Oi Mai.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Her mother was calling from Newark, as she did every Thursday, to talk about Brazil.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: There was a presidential runoff at the end of the month, and Inez's mother had opinions about it, and Inez's aunt in Belo Horizonte had the opposite opinions, and the two sisters had stopped speaking until the twenty fifth, and both of them were calling Inez to complain about the other.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Inez had stopped having opinions about Brazilian politics at about the age of twelve, out of self defense.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: She said yes, my and I know, my and I'm at work, my and I love you.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And tell Tia Grassa, I love her too.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then she hung up and sat looking at the phone for a moment.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_07: Your mother, my My mother The election.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_07: The election She says if it goes the wrong way, she's moving back to Minascerace.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_07: My aunt says if it goes the other wrong way, she's moving to Newark.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_07: They're going to end up living in the same house again, and it's going to be my fault somehow.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: She got up, walked into the station, and locked the phone in the steel box by the door, where everybody's phones went before a crossing.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing newer than about nineteen eighty five went through the cases unless it was medicine or the cases themselves.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: A smartphone in a world that didn't have them was a confession.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: A smartphone in a world that did have them was a tracking device.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: When she came back out, Owen had finally come to eat.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: He sat on the tailgate with a burrito in each hand, and Luis was telling him about Sophia.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_04: Fifteen years old, at a summer camp in Wisconsin.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_04: Comes home, she's tired.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, teenagers are tired.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_04: Then she gets a fever.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_04: Then her knee swells up like a grapefruit.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_04: Three weeks, three different doctors before anybody says the word Lyme.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: By then it's in the joint.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_04: She missed the whole volleyball season.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_04: She's fine now mostly.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_04: But every time she gets a headache, Marisol looks at her like she's a bomb.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: There used to be a vaccine.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Did you know that?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: For Lyme.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: For Lyme.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Approved in 1998.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't perfect.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: You needed three shots, but it worked pretty well.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Then there were lawsuits and some scary stories on the news, and not very many people bought it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And in 2002 the company just pulled it off the market.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Gone.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's a new one coming now, maybe by the end of next year, if the regulators say yes.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: The big trial came out close.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Close is the word everybody's using.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: He looked down at the burrito in his hand as if it had personally disappointed him.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Twenty five years, Luis.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: We had one and we let it go.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Luis didn't say anything.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: He scraped the last of the eggs out of the skillet onto a tortilla and handed it to Inez without asking, and she took it without asking, and the three of them ate in silence for a while, looking out over the valley, where the town of Hancock sat in its bend of the potomac, with the canal running beside it like a pencil line.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: The job was a dial two, a shopping trip, Walt called it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Two was close, a world very like this one, with its own Hancock and its own Washington and its own Thursday afternoon.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Things would be different there, but not much.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: A drug approved that wasn't approved here, a company that went under here and lived there.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: The team would walk in like anybody else, with cover stories and American cash, look for whatever was different, buy what was useful, and leave.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Dial two was the easiest work the survey did, and Inez distrusted it for exactly that reason.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Close worlds made you careless.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Close worlds made you think you knew where you were.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: At four o'clock, they stood in the white painted circle on the gravel behind the station, with case one at Inez's feet and case two in Luis's hand.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Inez set the dial to two and turned the key.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: The hum came up through her back teeth.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: At two, the needle hardly hunted at all.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Close worlds were crowded, Femi always said, a whole band of stations right on top of each other, and the case found one almost at once.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: The needle swung, wobbled, and settled.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: The lamp went green.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody in pressure in the ears, cold up through the boots, a little over a second.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: And now, boys and girls, by the power vested in me by the ancient and remarkable order of Magerstown, Maryland, I command Mr.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Buttons the Rabbit to vanish.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ins opened her eyes to a purple tablecloth, a bouncy castle, and twelve seven-year-olds screaming their heads off.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: They were standing on a lawn, a backyard, a big one, behind a split level house with a deck and a swing set, and a string of paper bunting across the deck rail that said Happy Seventh birthday Mason.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Folding chairs, parents, a table with a cake shaped like a dinosaur, and directly in front of them, close enough to touch, a man in a purple cape covered in gold stars, and a black top hat, frozen in the middle of a tremendous flourish, holding a silk sheet he had just whipped off a cardboard box painted with moons.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: The box was empty.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: The rabbit was gone, as advertised, and the man in the cape had turned at the sound of the screaming, and was looking at three people in canvas work clothes with two grey footlockers standing on a patch of lawn that a second ago had held nothing but lawn.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was about sixty, with a grey mustache and a face like a friendly basset hound, and his mouth was open, and no sound was coming out of it.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Inez would think about the next four seconds for a long time afterward.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: She would think that she was a trained officer of the United States Army with twenty years of service, two combat tours, and six years of leading people into worlds nobody had ever seen, and that in a moment of total surprise, all of that training had failed her completely.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was Luis who saved them.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Luis, who had coached Little League and survived four children's birthday parties a year for fifteen years, flung both arms wide and shouted the only thing there was to shout.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tada The children lost their minds.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Owen, beside her, panicked and bowed deeply from the waist like a butler.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Inez heard her own voice, calm and warm, the voice she used on frightened villagers and congressional staffers.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_07: You've been wonderful.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: The parents applauded.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody whistled.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: The magician closed his mouth.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Inez watched him do it, watched about thirty years of professional experience arrive in his face all at once, like a crew running onto a stage between acts.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: His eyebrows went up, his chin went up, he swirled his cape.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: My assistants, ladies and gentlemen, the mystic brotherhood of Cumberland, who have traveled across time and space at great personal expense to be with Mason today.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: Let's hear it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: More screaming.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: A small boy in a paper crown, presumably Mason, was jumping up and down in front of them with his fists clenched.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted them to do it again.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted them to do it again right now.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to know where Mr.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Buttons went and whether Mr.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Buttons was in Cumberland too.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_03: The Mystic Brotherhood can only travel once a day, Mason.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_03: Union rules.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Very strict union.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: Now who wants to see a dove come out of their daddy's ear?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone did.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: In the uproar, the magician leaned close to Inez without moving his smile one millimeter, and spoke out of the side of it like a ventriloquist.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know who you people are.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what you just did.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: But that father over there in the Raven's jersey has been filming my entire show on his phone.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: So if you'd like to stay out of the newspaper, you'll stand very still and smile and let me work.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then he turned and swept his cape, and advanced on the man in the Raven's jersey with both arms outstretched.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: Kevin.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: Don't worry, it's insured.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: By the Mystic Brotherhood.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: What happened next took about ninety seconds, and Inez watched every one of them, and could not afterward have told anyone exactly how it was done.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: The phone went into a paper bag.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: The bag was crumpled into a ball and handed to Mason.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Mason was asked to make a wish.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: The bag was opened and was empty, and the magician looked stricken, and Kevin looked stricken, and the children shrieked.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then, after a great deal of searching, the phone was discovered inside the dinosaur cake box, on top of the cake, wrapped in a napkin, perfectly clean.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Kevin held it up to tremendous applause, and somewhere in the middle of all that, Inez was quite sure, though she never saw it, somebody had deleted a video.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Behind her she heard Luis murmur Effa.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Case two.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Case two went within a hundred meters of the arrival point.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: That was the rule, the oldest rule, the one that kept people alive.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Lose case one, use case two.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: But a hundred meters from here was a suburban backyard full of parents and a bouncy castle, and there was nowhere to hide a footlocker the size of a coffin for a large dog.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Except under the deck.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: The deck was high on this side, where the lawn sloped away, and the space under it was closed in with white plastic lattice panels, the kind you snap in and out.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Luis was already drifting toward it, carrying the case casually, like a man looking for a bathroom.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_07: Owen, distraction.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: What, me?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_07: You now.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Owen looked at her, and looked at twelve seven-year-olds, and swallowed.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Then he stepped out onto the lawn, copped his big hands together around his mouth, tipped his head back, and hooted.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was a barred owl.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was a perfect barred owl, that rich, rolling, ridiculous call.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: The one bird people swear is saying, Who cooks for you?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Who cooks for you all?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: It rolled across the yard and off into the trees, and every child at the party turned to stare at him.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's a barred owl, they live right here in these woods.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: You can tell it's a barred owl because it sounds like it's asking Who's making dinner?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Who cooks for you?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Want to hear a screech owl?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Screech owls sound like a horse having a bad dream.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: He did a screech owl.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: The children howled.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: He did a crow, and the real crows answered him from the trees, and the children went silent with awe.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Behind them Inez heard the faint snap of a lattice panel coming loose, and the scrape of something heavy sliding over dry dirt, and the snap of the panel going back in.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Luis strolled back across the lawn dusting off his hands, and accepted a paper plate of dinosaur cake from Mason's mother, and said, Thank you, ma'am.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: It looks delicious.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: The magician's van was a maroon Ford Aconnoline, at least thirty years old, with a dent in the back door and gold letters along the side, peeling a little, that said, The remarkable Raymond, magic for all occasions.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: He drove it two streets over, very carefully, at exactly the speed limit, and pulled up under the town water tower, and turned off the engine and turned around in his seat.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: Who are you?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_07: We're with a production company, Television.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_07: We're testing a new illusion, and we got the address wrong.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_07: We're very sorry about your show.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: The magician looked at her for a long moment.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then he took off his top hat and set it on the dashboard.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And ran his hand over the top of his head, where there wasn't much hair.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: Ma'am, my name is Raymond Sabo.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: I have performed at 412 birthday parties in Washington County, Maryland.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: I have performed at rotary clubs and church picnics, and one funeral, which is a long story.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: I opened for real headliners in Atlantic City in 1991.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: And before every single show I have ever done, I walked the yard.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: He held up a finger.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: Every show.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know why?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: Because in 1997, a kid's uncle hid in a hedge to jump out during my dove routine as a joke.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: And my dove went up a tree and never came down.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: Her name was Lola.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I walked the yard.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: I walked that yard today at 3.45.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: There was nothing on that lawn.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: No trapdoor.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: No tent.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: No smoke.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: No mirror.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: No hedge.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: You didn't come out of anything.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: You came out of the air.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody said anything.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Owen made a small noise.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Luis ate a bite of cake.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_07: Kevin's video.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: Gone.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Don't worry about Kevin.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: And if I hadn't gotten it, it wouldn't have mattered much.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: You want to know the secret of magic.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: The whole thing, I'll tell you for free.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: He leaned over the back of his seat.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: People want to be fooled.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's the whole secret.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: I could saw a lady in half for real, blood and everything, in front of the Hancock Rotary Club, and they would go home and argue about how the box worked.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Kevin would show that video at Thanksgiving, and his brother-in-law would say it's obviously a trapdoor, and they'd fight about it, and they'd both be happy.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody believes anything they see at a magic show.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's why it's a magic show.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: He sat back.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm not Kevin.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: I don't believe in anything.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's my job.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I have just seen the first thing in 31 years that I can't explain.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: So you are going to tell me how you did it, or I'm going to drive you straight to the state police barracks out on the highway and let them ask.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Inez looked at him.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: She looked at the gold stars on his cape, and the top hat on the dashboard, and the paper bag folded neatly on the seat beside him.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And his hands, which were very good hands, quick and square and steady, and which were shaking just slightly.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: She made a decision.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_07: Mr.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_07: Sabo Ray, Ray Ray, we're not from around here.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: No kidding.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_07: We need to be gone by tonight, and we left something back at that house.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: Under the deck.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: I saw your big friend.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not that big.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: You're the size of a soda machine, pal.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_07: Help us get it back.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_07: Help us with one other errand in town.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_07: And tonight I'll do it again for you.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_07: Up close.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_07: Anywhere you want.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_07: And you can tell everybody it was your trick.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Ray Sabo looked at her for a very long time.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: A school bus went by.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: A dog barked somewhere.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Up on the water tower, a pigeon cooed.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: Anywhere I want.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_07: Within reason.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: I do a show tonight, 9 30.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: Thursdays at the Topath Tavern on the back deck, between the band sets, for tips.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's not much of a show anymore.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's mostly a man in a cape, losing.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: Something moved in his face.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: My closer is called the Vanishing Veil.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: I've been doing it for 31 years.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_03: You want to know what it really is?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's a guy standing behind a sheet and then walking away behind a second sheet.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody knows it.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: They clap to be nice.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_07: Then tonight it won't be.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Ray picked up the top hat and put it back on, and settled it, and looked at himself in the rearview mirror.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then he started the van.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: Where's the other errand?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hancock was Hancock.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was the first thing Inez noticed, and it unsettled her more than strangeness would have.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: The same old brick buildings on Main Street, the same canal, the same towpath, the same green iron bridge over the river into West Virginia.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: The same place where two interstates met, and the trucks came grinding down off the mountain.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Close worlds were like that.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: You had to look sideways to see the difference, like a faint star.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it was there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: A diner where, at home, there was a vacant lot.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: A bank with a name she'd never heard.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: The little league field named after somebody else.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Gas at the station by the interstate was almost$2 a gallon cheaper than at home.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Luis stared at the sign as they drove past like a man seeing a ghost.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_04: Look at that price.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_04: Somebody's oil is having a better year than ours.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ray said nothing.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ray was watching them in the mirror, the way they looked at his town.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Inez saw him notice it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: They were looking for a library or a newspaper or anything that would tell them what was different here.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: They found it at a red light on Main Street, in the front window of a small pharmacy with a green awning.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was a poster, a cartoon tick, fat and grinning, with a big red X across it.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in cheerful letters underneath, tick season isn't over.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Get your fall Lime Booster.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Walk-in's welcome.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And at the bottom, in smaller print, a brand name, followed by the number three.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Stop the van.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a red light.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Stop the van anyway.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Owen got out at the red light and walked to the pharmacy window and put both hands flat on the glass, like a kid at an aquarium.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Inez got out after him.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Up close, she could see the smaller print.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: A third-generation vaccine.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Wider protection against more strains.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Covered by most insurance plans.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ask your pharmacist.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_07: Owen.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_07: Talk to me.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it's the one they pulled.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Here, they never pulled it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Look, the same name, version 3.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: They kept it, they kept making it, they kept improving it for 28 years.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: They give it at the drugstore here every fall like a flu shot.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: His voice cracked a little.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'll bet you in this world doctors in Maryland have to look it up.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Behind them, the light had changed, and Ray had pulled the van to the curb and was sitting behind the wheel, looking up at the green awning with an expression of deep personal dread.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Luis climbed out of the side door and came to stand beside them at the window.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: He read the poster.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: He read it again.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't say anything at all, but Inez saw his jaw work.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh no.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: Oh no, no, no.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: Not this one.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: Any other pharmacy?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_07: Is there another pharmacy?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: Not for eleven miles.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_07: Then what's wrong with this one?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ray took off his hat and put it back on again.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: My ex-wife owns it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: The bell over the door jingled.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: The pharmacy was small and bright, and smelled of cough drops and floor wax, with a greeting card rack and a shelf of reading glasses, and, at the back, a high counter.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_05: Is that a cape?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I came from a party.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Linda Sabo finished counting, slid the pills into a bottle, snapped the cap on, and took off her glasses.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: She looked at Inez and Luis and Owen, and then back at Ray.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Who are your friends?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: My friends are interested in your lime shot.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: It went better than Inez expected, and that was entirely Owen's doing.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Owen asked Linda Sabo how long the protection lasted, and how many strains the new version covered, and what the reaction rate was in children compared to adults, and whether they'd seen any change in the deer tick population since it went on the market.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he asked it all with such naked, joyful, nerdy enthusiasm that within five minutes Linda had come around the end of the counter and was talking to him like a favorite nephew.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: She printed him the full prescribing information, twelve pages, stapled.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: She took the poster down out of the window and rolled it up and gave it to him with a rubber band around it, because she said, she'd never seen anybody so happy about a tick.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then Luis said that he would like the shot today.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now Inez looked at him.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't look back at her.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was looking at the rolled up poster in Owen's hands.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_05: Insurance card and a photo ID, hun.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll pay cash.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: He handed over his driver's license.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was a real Maryland license from home with his real name and his real face.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Linda typed it into her computer, and waited, and frowned at the screen, and typed it again.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: The computer beeped, an unhappy little sound.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_05: That's funny.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_05: It says there's no record.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Inez felt the back of her neck go cold.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: In a close world, there was a real Maryland, with a real Motor Vehicle Administration and a real database.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in that database there was either nobody with Luis's license number or somebody else entirely.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: She opened her mouth to say something.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: She had no idea what.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: Linda.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: Do you remember the 4th of July 1994?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Linda turned and looked at her ex-husband over her reading glasses for a long, long moment.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_03: Don't you dare on the roof of the Hagerstown Hotel.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: With the sparklers.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_05: Raymond Sabo, I will put you through that window.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: You said, Ray, someday you're going to make something disappear for real, and I'm going to be right there.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Inez was watching Luis, and Ray was standing by the greeting cards, flipping idly through a rack of get well soon.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was all she saw.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: She would remember later that that was all she saw.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: At the door, while the others went out to the van, Linda caught Ray's sleeve.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_05: Ray, are you okay?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_05: You look like you've seen a ghost.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Three of them.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_05: Are you eating?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm eating, Lynn.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: She held onto his sleeve a moment longer than she needed to.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then she let go.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the van, Ray started the engine, looked over his shoulder, and reached casually back between the seats toward Owen's head.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Owen flinched.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ray's hand came away from behind Owen's ear, holding a small glass vial with a blue cap and a printed label.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Professional courtesy.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Owen took it as if it might explode.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Single dose.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: The brand name.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: The number three.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: A lot number.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: And an expiration date 18 months away.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_07: Ray?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: She'll write it off.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: Breakage.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: Happens all the time.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_07: Ray.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_07: She was kind to us.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_07: She was kind to you.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Ray's hands tightened on the wheel.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't say anything.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Inez took$200 out of the cover money in her jacket, and found a pharmacy envelope on the floor of the van, and wrote on the back of it, in block capitals.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: For the vial.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Ray says hi.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then she folded the money inside and held it out between the seats.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_07: You'll give her this tomorrow?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: She'll know it was me.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_07: Ray, she has known it was you for twenty years.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was a pause.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then Ray Sabo laughed.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: It started small and got bigger, and he put his forehead down on the steering wheel and laughed until he had to wipe his eyes with a corner of his cape.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: He tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of his cape.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Then, more quietly, still looking down at the wheel, he said something Inez would remember.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's going somewhere it doesn't exist.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't it?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Wherever you're from.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: They don't have it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Inez didn't answer.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ray nodded slowly, as if she had.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: At eight o'clock, with the sky gone dark and the porch lights on all down the street, the remarkable Raymond rang Kevin and Brittany's front doorbell in full cape and top hat, carrying a bouquet of paper flowers, to explain that he had left his rabbit.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: This was true.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: In the confusion of the afternoon, Mr.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Buttons, a stuffed white rabbit with one ear patched in blue corduroy, had never come back from wherever Mr.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Buttons went.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Ray had been doing the vanishing rabbit with him since two thousand seven.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Around the back of the house, in the dark, Inez stood at the corner of the deck and watched the kitchen windows while Luis and Owen knelt at the lattice.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: The dog came out of nowhere.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: A beagle, low and fat and furious, barking her head off at the end of a long cable run, every bark ringing off the houses like a bell.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Luis froze with his fingers in the lattice.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Inez froze at the corner.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the kitchen a light came on.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Owen got down on his knees in the wet grass and held out his hand, low, palm down, and started talking to the dog in a voice Inez had never heard him use, soft and slow and silly.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Hi.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: Hi there.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, sweetheart.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I know, we're strangers in your yard.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's very rude of us.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: You're doing an excellent job.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, your great great great grandmothers have been doing this job for fifteen thousand years, barking at strangers in the dark.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: You're a professional.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: I respect that.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Beagle stopped barking.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: She considered Owen.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: She came forward on her cable, step by suspicious step, and sniffed his fingers, and then all at once flopped over onto her back with her legs in the air and her tail sweeping the grass.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh you're a good girl, you're such a good girl.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Up at the front of the house, Inez could hear Ray's voice booming.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: He was in the front hall now, and Kevin was laughing, and Ray was saying something about the vanishing car keys, and Kevin was saying, Wait, how did you?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Those were in my pocket.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: The lattice panel came out with a creak.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Luis reached into the dark under the deck and grunted, and slid case two out across the dirt, gray and dusty and humming faintly with the small sound it always made when it was asleep.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: He snapped the panel back in.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: The beagle upside down watched him with deep interest.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: They went out through the side gate, carrying the case between them, and down the dark street to the van.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: A few minutes later, Ray came down the front walk, waving goodbye, and climbed in behind the wheel.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't carrying a rabbit.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_07: No luck?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: Kid was asleep with him.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: Kid had him in a headlock.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_03: Little Mason, pajamas with rockets on them.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: He started the engine and sat for a moment with his hands on the wheel.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: I told Brittany to let him keep it.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: Mr.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: Buttons likes kids better than me anyway.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: Most rabbits do.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody said anything for a while.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ray pulled away from the curb.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: After a block, he cleared his throat.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: Nineteen years that rabbit.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: The Towpath Tavern sat on the edge of town, where the canal ran close behind the buildings, and its back deck hung out over the water, strung with white lights and warmed by tall propane heaters that ticked and hissed.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: There was a small raised stage at the far end, against the railing, where a band called the Mule Drivers had just finished their first set and gone inside for beer.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: About sixty people sat at picnic tables with pitchers and baskets of fries.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Through the window behind the bar, a ball game played on a television with the sound off.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Before anything else, Ines walked to the far end of the deck, alone, and stood on the little stage and looked down at the dark water of the canal below, and thought about home.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: The case would take them home from exactly where they stood.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Same day, same spot on the map.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it would only go if the spot on the far side was open air, nothing solid in the way.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: She knew this stretch of the canal at home.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: She had walked the towpath here a dozen times, early in the morning before crossings.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: At home there was no tavern here.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: There was a strip of mown grass beside the towpath, and a picnic table, and a trash can, and a sign about the history of the canal boats.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Open air.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: She walked it out in her head twice, to be sure.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then she walked back down off the stage.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Ray found them by the railing.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: He had changed into a black suit, old and carefully pressed, with the purple cape over it and the top hat in his hand.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: In the string lights, he looked older and smaller, and more nervous than he had all day.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Can I ask you something?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can ask.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: Today, in the yard, was it real?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Inez looked at him and thought about all the things she couldn't say.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: She smiled.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_07: Ray.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_07: The secret of magic is that people want to be fooled.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ray looked at her.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then he laughed, a short surprised bark, and shook his head, and pointed his top hat at her.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's very good.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: You should steal that.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: He turned the hat around in his hands for a while.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: Wherever you're going.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: Is there a me there?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: Another one?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know, Ray.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_03: If there is.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: If you ever run into him.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: He put the hat on.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: Tell him to call Linda.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: The show was what Ray had said it would be.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: A man in a cape.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Losing.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: He did the cups and balls, very well, to a table of women from a bowling league who were mostly talking to each other.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: He did the linking rings, and somebody's phone rang in the middle.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: He did a card trick for a young couple on a date, and the young man said he knew how it was done, and Ray said, I'm sure you do, son, and moved on.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was competent and tired and kind and sad.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Inez found that she couldn't watch his face for very long at a time.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then he came to the front of the little stage and took off his hat.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: Ladies and gentlemen, for thirty one years I have closed my show with an illusion called the Vanishing Veil.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: And for thirty-one years, let's be honest with each other, it has been a man hiding behind a sheet.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: A few laughs.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody at the bar said, We know, Ray.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: Tonight, for the first time, and for the last time, the remarkable Raymond will make three perfect strangers disappear from this deck.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: Volunteers, please.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_03: You, sir.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: And you, sir, the tall one.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: And you, ma'am.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: More laughter, warmer, as Luis and Owen and Inez made their way up between the picnic tables, carrying two heavy grey foot lockers.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: My volunteers have brought luggage.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: They're optimists.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Inez set case one down in the middle of the little stage and knelt beside it.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Luis stood over her with case two.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Owen took hold of Luis's sleeve with one hand and Inez's shoulder with the other, and she could feel him trembling.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Ray unfolded the veil.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was enormous, purple silk with gold stars, faded at the folds, the most beautiful and worn out thing Inez had seen all day.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: He swept it up into the air, and it billowed in the heat of the propane lamps, and settled over the three of them like a tent, and the world went soft and purple and dim.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Through the silk Inez could hear the crowd murmur, and the propane heater's hiss, and the canal moving below.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then the drummer from the Mule Drivers, who had come back out with a beer, sat down at his kit and started a roll.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: Inez step the dial to home.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Home was always findable.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: That was the one thing Femi was sure of and could never explain.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: She turned the key, and the hum came up through her teeth, and the drum roll swallowed it whole.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Outside, Ray was talking, his showman's voice big and round and slow, buying time, the way he must have done a thousand times before.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you for complete silence.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: The Mystic Brotherhood requires concentration.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: The Mystic Brotherhood is very sensitive.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: The Mystic Brotherhood is from Cumberland.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Laughter.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: The needle settled almost at once.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: The lamp went green.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: Inez reached out from under the edge of the silk and tapped the toe of Ray's shoe twice.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: She felt his foot go still.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_03: One.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Owen's hand tightened on her shoulder.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Two.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_07: Everybody in.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Three.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Pressure in the ears.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: Cold up through the boots.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in the last instant, the purple silk lifted away above her, sweeping up into the light.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: And through the gap, for a quarter of a second, Inez saw Ray's face.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: He was holding the veil high over his head with both hands and looking down at the place where they were.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: And his face was lit up like a seven-year-old's at a birthday party.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Dark.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: The sound of moving water.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: They stood on a strip of mown grass beside the towpath, next to a picnic table and a trash can, and a sign about the history of the canal boats.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: There was no tavern.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: There were no string lights, and no heaters, and no sixty people, and no remarkable Raymond.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was the canal, black and still, and the river beyond it, and the lights of the Hancock Bridge, and a sky full of stars.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: A man was coming down the towpath toward them, walking a golden retriever, with a headlamp on his forehead.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: He stopped, and The beam of his headlamp moved slowly over three people in canvas clothes and two grey footlockers standing on the grass where, a moment ago, there had been no one.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: The man looked at them for a long moment.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: The retriever wagged its tail.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_04: Evening.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: The man thought about it.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: He said evening and kept walking.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: They stood there until his light was gone around the bend.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then Owen let out a breath that seemed to go on for about a minute.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think it worked?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_04: For him.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_04: Bambi.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_04: That was the greatest magic trick ever performed in Western Maryland.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_04: That man is going to be telling people about it until the day he dies, and nobody is ever going to believe him.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: He was quiet a moment.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_04: He'll like that part best, I bet.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: The quarantine ward in the basement of the records annex had four small rooms with windows onto the hall and an intercom in every wall.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: At a little after midnight, Dr.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Clara Benning finished reading Inez's report through the glass, set it down on her clipboard, and pressed the button.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_06: Let me make sure I understand this.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_06: Sergeant Ortega allowed a woman in another universe to inject him with an unlicensed biological product.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_04: She was very professional.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_06: And then a magician stole a vial from his ex-wife.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_07: We paid for it.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_06: Out of the cover fund.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_06: Fine.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_06: And the biologist who vacuums people's pockets before every crossing let this happen.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: I've checked myself for text fourteen times since we got back.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_06: Make it fifteen.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: She was quiet for a moment.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then Inez saw her pick up the vial in its sealed sample bag and turn it over under the light and read the label for a long time.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_06: My sister lives in Frederick.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_06: She had it, you know.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_06: Lyme 2011.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_06: Took them a year to figure out.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_06: She still can't open a jar of pickles.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: She set the bag down very gently.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_06: Roll up your sleeve, Louise.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_06: I'm going to take so much of your blood, you'll be able to read a newspaper through your hand.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_04: Can I keep the dinosaur band-aid?
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_06: The dinosaur band-aid is evidence.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Inez didn't sleep.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Around two in the morning, Clara slid their phones through the pass through, wiped down and sealed in plastic.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Inez lay on her cot in the dark, with hers held over her face.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: And after a while, she typed in a name.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: She hadn't meant to.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: She told herself she was just curious, that it was harmless, that it was what anybody would do.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: Raymond Sabo, Hancock, Maryland.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: There was a hardware store on Main Street, Zabo's Hardware.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: Family-owned since 2003.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: It had a little website, the kind a nephew builds, with a page about their paint department and their key cutting and their Christmas trees.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: And on the About Us page, there was a photograph.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: A man of about 60, with a gray mustache and a face like a friendly basset hound, in a red apron, standing behind a counter, with his arm around a woman with short gray hair and reading glasses on a beaded chain.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: They were both laughing at something outside the frame.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: Ray and Linda Sabo, the caption said, married 34 years.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Inez looked at the picture for a long time.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: On the shelf behind the register, over their shoulders, among the boxes of nails and the rolls of tape, there was a black top hat.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: And next to it, slumped against a can of wood stain, a little stuffed white rabbit.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: She looked at that for a long time too.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then she turned off the phone and lay in the dark and listened to Luis snoring through the wall.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: She knew a little about promises you couldn't get back to keep.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: She knew that every close world had a version of you that took the other road, and that there was no way to know, ever.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Which road had been the better one?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere out there tonight, a man with a gray mustache was closing up a hardware store with his wife.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere else, a man in a purple cape was standing alone on a little stage over a canal, holding a sheet up in the air, while 60 people stood on picnic tables and screamed.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: She decided they had both done all right.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: She decided she wouldn't tell anyone.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not Walt, not Clara, not the report.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some things belonged to the people they happened to.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she didn't need to call anybody because somewhere, apparently, somebody already had.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Off the books.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Dial setting two.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: Six hours on the ground.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: Brought home.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: One single-dose vial of a Lyme disease vaccine that our world gave up on in 2002.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: 12 pages of prescribing information.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: One pharmacy poster, half a dinosaur birthday cake, and Luis's left arm, which Clara is keeping.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: Contact.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: One magician, one pharmacist, one beagle, and 12 seven-year-olds.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Seen by about 60 people who applauded.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: Disc, none set.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Return odds, as of this writing, one hit in 11 tries.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Fammy says, don't round it.