Djinn Rummy by Tom Holt

accommodate. ‘ Ciao , baby, I gotta fly.’ Which he did. In fact, for the record, he put a girdle round the earth in twenty-seven minutes thirteen seconds and
hid inside a wardrobe until he was sure Jane hadn’t followed him.
    Jane returned to Kiss’s table and sat down.
    â€˜I have enjoyed myself,’ she said. ‘We must come here again.’

CHAPTER THREE
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    T here was a queue.
    You can tell of rationing. You can pontificate about the first day of the January sales. You can boast of your experiences in the line for day-of-performance tickets for Phantom of the Opera . But this was a queue to end all queues; so long that it projected sideways into several quite recherché dimensions, so crammed with repressed potential energy that it hovered on the brink of forming a black hole. It was, of course, an auditions queue; and nearly every genie in the Universe was in it.
    When you have a queue comprising something in excess of 10 46 supernatural beings who can flit through time and space with the reckless abandon of a Porsche with diplomatic plates hurrying to a meeting through the Rome rush-hour, queue-jumping ceases to be bad manners and becomes a challenge to the fundamental laws of physics. The Past became a frenzied jumble of genies bashing each other over the head and locking each other in cupboards so as to preclude their presence on the day in question; while a gigantic troll stood with folded arms in the doorway of the Future to keep back the stream of genies who reckoned
they’d avoid the crush by fast-forwarding through Time. The Present was under the control of an only slightly less formidable young woman with glasses and a clipboard.
    â€˜Next,’ she said.
    At the back of the queue there was a hard core of genies who hadn’t the faintest idea what the audition was for, but who felt sure that they were right for the part. The general opinion was that God was staging Aladdin, with a strong minority faction holding to the view that Springsteen had been taken ill on the eve of the big open-air concert in Central Park, and a stand-in capable of imitating him down to the last chromosome was urgently required. Both versions, although speciously attractive, were wrong.
    The door to the small office where the auditions were taking place opened, and a dejected genie slumped out. A voice from inside called out, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll -’ as the door closed again.
    Next in line was the Dragon King of the South-East. As the girl with the clipboard took his name and nodded him towards the door, he straightened his hair, shot his cuffs, and took a deep breath.
    The Big Time beckoned. He strode through the doorway.
    â€˜Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this . . .’ he said. The three men behind the desk gave him a look.
    â€˜He’s too tall,’ said the bald man wearily. ‘Next.’
    Dragon Kings are nothing if not adaptable. In the time it took for his vast brain to formulate the wish, he had reduced himself by twenty per cent.
    â€˜Too short,’ muttered the skinny man with the glasses. ‘Goddamn time-wasters.’

    The Dragon King cleared his throat. ‘’Scuse me,’ he said, ‘but stature’s not a problem with me. You give me the measurements, I’ll come across with the body.’
    â€˜Voice too squeaky,’ sniffed the freckled man with the cigar. ‘OK, Cynthia, let’s see the -’
    â€˜The voice needn’t be a problem either,’ the Dragon King interrupted, in a pitch that made the foundations of the building quiver. ‘Just give me a hint, and I can -’
    The freckled man looked up for the first time. ‘Can he dance?’ he asked the universe in general.
    â€˜Doesn’t look like he can,’ replied the bald man, raising his voice over the machine-gun cracking of the King’s heels on the parquet. ‘Two left