David Hawes

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The ornate golden harp lay on its side where it had fallen. Two strings were broken. He did not know which two strings, as he did not play the harp. “Maybe next time around,” he thought. For several reasons, it was no surprise the harp had fallen: for one, it had been balanced on a tiny black book. The miniscule book was hardly larger than a postage stamp, no thicker than a doubloon, and had a capital “O,” in ornate gold script, embossed on the cover. The book lay where the base of the harp would have been, in plain sight, but as the detective put him in handcuffs, and he said, “Do you see that?” the detective said, “See what?” And when he looked again, the book was gone; but he had a sense of a swishing movement out of the corner of his eye. He threw the detective a puzzled look, but then they were hustling him away and he had no chance to ask further. “Could you grab my coat, please?” he asked over his shoulder of the other detective, who then picked up the tuxedo coat and draped it through the cuffed hands of the prisoner. They ushered him outside and into the waiting clown car. It was overcrowded inside, of course. And it smelled funny.