The Amazing Harvey (11 page)

“Dad got him off. Despite all the publicity. Despite all the cries for his blood.”

I wondered if I should ask whether he was guilty. Not much upside in that question. “Your dad must be amazing.”

She beamed. “He's the best. When I was about ten, Mom took me to court to watch him. He has this deep, resonant voice. He looks directly at whoever he's addressing. Puts his whole focus on them.”

I nodded. Why's that sound so familiar? Ah. Michael Nadler.

Hannah swiveled toward me on her stool.

Have we ever sat this close to each other?

She said, “I still remember sitting in that courtroom. I saw how his clients looked at him. They knew he was the only thing between them and jail. I saw the respect he got from the judge. I saw how the jury watched him. I knew right then I was going to be a criminal lawyer. I never once wavered from that decision.”

I took my black plastic straw out of my drink and rolled it between my fingers. “I was ten when I decided to be a magician.” Well, actually, I was torn between being a magician, an astronaut, and a rock star.

“Why magic?”

I scooched a little closer to her. She smelled like vanilla. Was that perfume? Shampoo?

I said, “My mother took me to something called the Renaissance Pleasure Fair. It's this medieval festival that goes on for a few weeks every year. Mostly it's a bunch of booths selling quill pens and harlequin hats and other crap from the Middle Ages. But they've also got entertainers walking around, like minstrels playing lutes, white-faced mimes, and beanbag jugglers. So while we're wandering around, I see this guy wearing one of those poofy red Rembrandt hats.”

Hannah picked up her glass and tried to get another sip of Diet Coke. The straw sucked air. She set it down and ran her tongue over her lips.

“This guy had a little table in front of him. It was covered in black velvet with long gold fringe. He put green and red balls on the table, covered them with clay cups, and made them change places. He took out a blue metal bucket that was painted with red stars, then pulled coins from the air and clinked them into the bucket. He finished by putting an egg into a multicolored patchwork bag, then taking out a live chicken that was flapping its wings.”

Hannah leaned her elbow on the bar, put her chin on her palm.

I said, “I wouldn't let Mom take me away from the magician. I watched his show over and over. I couldn't figure out how he did it. After an hour, Mom gave up and left me there. When she came back, I insisted on seeing it just one more time. The magician, who'd noticed this little twerp watching him, asked if I wanted to learn a trick. I practically jumped in his arms.”

She smiled. “Do you remember which trick it was?”

I gave her an “Are you kidding?” look.

Hannah said, “Show me.”

I reached into my pocket and took out one of the vintage fifty-cent pieces. “He used a quarter, because my hands were so small. It went like this.” I did a simple palm, pretended to drop the coin in my other hand, then opened my fingers to show it was empty.

She shook her head, smiling. “It's in your other hand.”

“Well, it amazed a ten-year-old.” I made a move that disguised my dropping the coin into my shirt pocket. Then I showed her both hands were empty.

She widened her eyes.

I said, “I've improved since then.”

She smiled. “That was cool. How'd you learn more tricks?”

“I bugged my parents for months, until they got me a magic set for my birthday. I showed my appreciation by making them watch the same magic show six hundred times.”

“What kind of tricks were in the kit?”

“The usual joke-shop cheapos. A little slide drawer that makes coins disappear. A red plastic thing that looks like a chess bishop but opens at the top. You put in a black ball, and when you open it a second time, it's gone. I also got these little twisted metal puzzles that came apart if you knew the secret. They weren't really magic, but they came with the set. I could never get them apart.”

Hannah wriggled forward in her seat. “Show me another trick.”

I got another coin and held it up in my fingers. Then I pulled out a silk handkerchief, draped it over the coin, and let her feel it was really inside. I twisted the handkerchief around it, then pulled the coin through the fabric. She squinted skeptically. I opened the handkerchief to show there was no hole in the middle.

She started clapping. “You're good.”

The bartender appeared. “You done with the news show?”

I said, “Not quite.” I figured we'd only gotten about four dollars' worth.

When he walked away, I said, “This is just the small stuff. I've invented some big tricks that'll blow away the professionals. I've got one being built right now. All I need is a break, and I'm on my way.”

She nodded. “You'll do it.”

I felt my face flush. “Thanks.”

Hannah upended her glass, shook out an ice cube, and started crunching it in her mouth. She said, “I hope Oliver Desmond's case will be my big break.”

“How good is his case?”

Hannah swallowed the ice. “It's got problems. The cops claim they stopped him for driving without headlights, then found incriminating evidence.”

“How incriminating?”

“Incriminating enough.”

“Like the murder weapon?”

She shifted in her chair. “I can't say what it was.”

Bull's-eye!
I said, “How can you knock out the evidence?”

“I think they really stopped him for DWB.”

“What's DWB?”

“Driving While Black. He was in an expensive car in an upscale neighborhood late at night. If I can show they had no probable cause to stop the car, then nothing they found can be used as evidence at the trial.”

“How do you prove they didn't have the right to stop him?”

“He says his lights were on, so at the moment, it's his word against the cops'.”

I nodded. “He doesn't exactly look like the best witness.”

“I would never put a murder defendant on the stand, even if he was a church bishop. I'm trying to figure another angle.”

I grabbed some peanuts, felt her eyes on me, and put them back. “How's it going?”

Hannah said, “I called my father and kicked around some strategies. He says it's not important whether or not I win. The main thing is that the publicity will build my reputation.”

There's a fine view of the American legal system.

Hannah said, “Dad coached me on how to talk to the press. He even made a few calls to make sure I got reporters down there.”

Aha.
Maybe the announcer's mention of Dad wasn't a coincidence.…

Hannah leaned forward. “He may be right about the publicity being more important than the case, but”—she narrowed her eyes—“I'm going to kick the DA's ass.”

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

After the bar, I left Hannah to her ass-kicking and drove toward Herb Gold's warehouse in Valencia. Herb is the top builder of magical illusions in the world. Fortunately, he keeps rock-star hours, opening at noon and running until eight or nine, or whenever he feels like knocking off. His warehouse is about forty-five minutes from my apartment on a good day.

This was not a good day. The 405 freeway was moving about six miles an hour, which turned out to be NASCAR speed compared to the traffic when I hit Interstate 5. Not that I was in a hurry to deliver the news I had for Herb.

Well over an hour later, I parked in front of Herb's two-story concrete warehouse and looked at my watch. A little after eight. The sonofabitch better still be here.

I climbed the concrete steps to a gray metal door and shoved the intercom button. An overhead security camera glowered at me.

Herb's voice came through the intercom. “Yeah?”

“Herb, it's Harvey.”

“Password?”

“Stuff it up your ass.”

“Close enough.” The lock made a loud buzz.

As I grabbed the handle, I noticed Herb had installed a shiny new lock—an expensive tubular one. Couldn't pick that with my simple tools.

I pulled open the heavy door and stepped into a high-ceilinged warehouse that was as long as a football field and smelled like wet paint. In the distance, I heard the
thoop-thoop
of a nail gun.

I looked for Herb among the magic props in various stages of construction: a ten-foot-tall guillotine, a red-and-gold mummy case, a chrome-barred tiger cage, and a silver-specked pyramid.

There.
I spotted Herb at the far end of the building, wearing a dust mask and working a pneumatic drill whose orange hose coiled to the ceiling. He was a big man, weighing maybe two fifty or so, with drooping gray eyes and jowls like Jabba the Hutt. He laid the drill on a table, pulled his mask down around his neck, and lumbered my way. I tried to smile. As he walked, the hammers dangling from either side of his leather tool belt flopped like the ears of a bull elephant.

When Herb got to me, he stuck out a huge calloused mitt. I grabbed hold and watched my hand disappear into his. It felt like I was shaking hands with a rawhide chew toy.

Herb said, “Wait'll you see this.” He turned and yelled something in Spanish. Three men scrambled to an area near us and grabbed hold of chains that ran up through pulleys attached to the ceiling I beams.

I said, “Herb, I need to tell you—”

He yelled at the men, waving his hands like an ape conducting an orchestra. The men heaved the creaking chains. A glass trunk leaped into the air, then swayed on the chains, like the pendulum of a stopping clock.

I felt my eyes widen.

My Crystal Fantasy trick! The aluminum wasn't polished. One of the glass panels was cracked. But this was
my
trick. The trick
I
invented. For the first time ever, I'd be able to make an assistant vanish from a glass trunk hanging right over the heads of the audience.

A shot of laughter burst out from my throat.
My
trick. Something that came from a spark in my head. No one in the thousands of years of magic had ever thought of this. My idea. Months of perfecting the design, working with Herb on the plans.

Now it was
real.
Hanging right there in front of me. I could touch it. Perform it! I shook my head.

Herb pointed at the trunk with a thick finger. “Look at that damn thing. I defy anyone to see the gimmick. Even some schlub who's ten feet under it. Whaddaya think, Harvey? Huh? Huh?”

“It's … it's … Wow!”

Herb grinned. He gave the workers a sign to lower it. The chains rasped against the pulleys as the trunk seesawed to the floor. Do they have a good grip on those chains? It clunked against the concrete harder than I would have liked.

Is it okay? Did anything break?

I turned toward Herb, who was still staring at the trick, grinning. In the background, I heard the whine of a band saw. The air suddenly smelled like sawdust.

I said, “Herb, we gotta talk.”

He looked at me. “Huh?”

“We gotta talk.”

“So talk.”

“Not here.”

He clopped a hand on my shoulder and steered me across the floor, into a small woodshed in a corner of the warehouse.

Inside was a metal desk, scattered with ballpoint pens that carried advertising slogans, a broken yardstick, and a splay of loose nails. On the wall behind the desk was an electric wall clock that said
Pechowski's Plastics.

Herb closed the door. “Talk to me.”

I swallowed. “Herb, I've run into some financial problems.”

His eyebrows lowered. “Meaning…”

The wall clock hummed loudly.

I said, “I can't give you any more money for the trick right now.”

Herb crossed his arms over his chest. He half-sat his butt against his desk. “You know, Harvey, I started building your trick ahead of other guys who pay full boat.”

“I promise I'll pay you. I came out here to tell you this personally, right? I'm not some flake.”

“Nice manners don't keep my lights on.”

Herb's eyes burned into me. I heard the scrape of his desk moving backward under his weight.

I said, “I wanted you to know right away. You know, so you could stop work for now.”

“I already spent more for parts than you gave me.”

“I'm good for it.”
Assuming I'm not in San Quentin.
“You know how great my trick is.”

Herb shook his head. “Kid, you got your priorities wrong. This trick is your ticket to the top. Hell, my workmen have been jabbering about the damn thing ever since they saw the plans. Those guys ain't even impressed by forty-four-inch tits.”

“Yes, but—”

“David Copperfield was in last week to pick up his new trick. Even he was blown away. I dunno what else you're doing with your dough, but you're a horse's ass if you don't put it here. It'll pay you back fifty times.”

“Copperfield liked it?”

“
Loved
it. David Blaine's coming in two weeks. Betcha dollars to donuts he'll feel the same.”

I sighed. “I know you're right. I just don't have the money right now.”

Herb pushed up from the desk and took a few steps forward. I felt myself take a half step back. He said, “You know this won't be good for our future relationship.”

My eyes went to the claw hammers on his belt.

He took another step toward me.

I forced myself to stay put.

His breathing grew louder.

Should I run?

No. I'm a dead man, no matter what I do.

But I don't have to be a wimp about it.

May as well get in his face.

I straightened up, looked directly into his eyes, and took a step forward. I said, “Herb, I can't be the first magician to have money problems. I'm going to make it big, and if you work with me now, you'll be my builder for life. If you don't, I'll remember that. And I agree with you. It won't be good for our relationship.”