The Magician's Legacy Read online

  The Magician’s Legacy

  by

  Gene Grossman

  1

  Several years ago a network television station aired some shows that featured a masked magician who dared to reveal secrets about how the most popular magic tricks and illusions are performed. He wore the mask as protection from alleged physical threats made by angry magicians, who felt betrayed. I watched part of the first show, but skipped the rest of it and its several sequels because I just don’t want to know how it’s done.

  I love magic. Every time I watch a magician perform, I turn into a little kid, with my mouth and eyes wide open. I enjoy being fooled, and the more I’m tricked, the more I like it. Knowing how it’s done would spoil the fun for me, and I don’t want that to happen.

  It looks like not everyone is like me. They’re nosy. They want to know how the magicians do it. People like that suffer from a personality disorder that prevents them from believing someone is smarter than they are. They refuse to accept the fact that they can be fooled by another mere mortal… they selfishly push to find out what the ‘trick’ that confused them was, so they can then regain their fragile confidence and once again believe that they are superior beings, only having been temporarily fooled by some unfair gimmick that they now know about.

  And as for the people who do the tricks, whenever I encounter some guy with the adjective ‘great’ preceding his name, one that invariably ends with an ‘i,’ I want to be entertained. I want to be fooled. I want to see that rabbit come out of a hat, the colored silks, the self-repairing rope and the three rings that come apart and go back together again. I love it. And of course at my age, it’s even better if the magician has some long-legged female assistant in high heels that helps in the misdirection. It certainly works every time with me, but I’m a normal forty-three-year-old male lawyer. It doesn’t work for Suzi, the little Chinese cupie doll I live with.

  She’s a computer genius and the brains behind our law firm… the one that was started by her stepfather and is now headed up by me, due to a fatal airplane accident that not only left me in charge of the law practice, but also as her legal guardian. We both live aboard a 50-foot Grand Banks trawler yacht here in Marina del Rey California, along with Suzi’s huge Saint Bernard that I call Bernie, because he’s got some Chinese name that I can’t pronounce.

  The kid doesn’t have many friends her age, but she does see another little girl named Lotus Chang, whose mother Michelle is a customer at the Murray’s Chinese restaurant, just around the corner on Washington Boulevard, where Suzi’s mother Jasmine was the manager. Jasmine was having trouble with her citizenship status, so a customer at the restaurant, and old law school classmate of mine named Melvin Braunstein, helped out by marrying her. When Jasmine was killed in an automobile accident about a year later, Melvin did the legal work for his stepdaughter and succeeded in settling it for quite a bit, and as a result, Suzi is the richest little girl in the Marina.

  When Melvin perished in that private plane crash, his Will appointed me as Suzi’s legal guardian. A year later, I succeeded in getting a huge settlement for her from the distributor of those counterfeit airplane parts, that enriched the kid’s trust fund by another couple of million dollars. As official administrator of her bank accounts I get paid a whopping CEO salary of one dollar per year, and our little law practice seems to be thriving, so we’re living on a beautiful yacht named the ‘Suzi B’ that I don’t even know how to start the engine of. The fees keep coming in, I have my big Yellow Hummer to ride around in, and there’s an alcoholic broad named Laverne living on a houseboat near us who is an altogether different kind of hummer that I ride occasionally. Life is good.

  Michelle Chang invited Suzi to Lotus’s surprise 11th birthday party, so I’m all alone on the boat tonight with a 200-pound Saint Bernard asleep across my feet, while I try to get some reading done. Unfortunately, I wasn’t invited to the party, which is too bad, because I understand that Mrs. Chang hired a professional magician from the Magic Castle to come and entertain the kids. I tried to tell her that whenever a magician is around, I’m a kid too, but it didn’t work.

  When the kid’s here, we often have some gourmet Chinese dinners delivered from Murray’s, by a group of four young fellows nicknamed the ‘Asian Boys,’ who work at the restaurant evenings and varnish boats during the day. With no kid and no Asian Boys, my dinner tonight will consist of the usual pot of gruel that I’ve perfected over the years. The recipe involves eight ounces of elbow macaroni plus the addition of one or more of several flavoring items that can vary between non-fat cottage cheese, non-fat baked beans, non-fat butter, green peas, low-fat cream of mushroom soup, non-fat vegetarian chili, or whatever else I happen to find within reaching distance.

  Whatever the final mixture is, it all gets topped off with a generous sprinkling of imitation Parmesan cheese and some garlic salt, and most of it never makes it to the table because it gets eaten right near the stove. I’ve been told that single men are the only variety of humans that are known to eat standing up.

  This time there’s enough ‘Pasta ala Peter’ prepared to be finished up sitting down in the yacht’s main saloon. Like so many other uninformed boaters, I used to call it the ‘salon,’ but some balding old jerk with a fifty-foot sailboat on our dock bawled me out when he heard me call it that, and demanded that I use its correct designation. I try to show respect to my know-it-all elder, so now it’s the main ‘saloon.’

  The dog is always alert whenever I’m eating, because he’s on constant ‘crumb patrol,’ but I don’t mind him around on evenings like this because he’s an excellent listener. Tonight’s seminar is on the double job that’s usually required whenever a lawyer takes on certain types of cases, one of them being for legal malpractice. The extra work is because not only does the new lawyer have to prove that the original lawyer was guilty of screwing up, but he must also show that if the case was handled properly, that the client would have actually won. This means that not only do you have to destroy the first lawyer, but you also have to go ahead and almost completely re-create the first trial, showing how it should have been won. And that’s the reason I don’t take cases like that.

  Both the dinner and the dissertation have been completed and not one living thing in the room disagrees with me about either… another successful dinner lecture.

  The birthday party must be over now because Mrs. Chang just called to let me know that she’ll be bringing Suzi back to the Marina. I was supposed to pick her up, but I like to think that this favor is motivated by a combination of her wanting to give Lotus more time with Suzi - and her desire to see me. Ego self-inflation has always been one of my strong suits.

  When they all arrive at the boat and dump some party stuff on table I see that once again my thoughts were wrong, because it’s Mrs. Chang who’s the one spending more time with Suzi. Michelle is in the IRS’s Intelligence and Enforce-ment Division, and is fascinated by all the crime-fighting software that the kid has amassed on her computer, as a result of being so closely associated with my ex-wife (who is now the elected District Attorney of Los Angeles County) and all the cops who consider her a mascot. This mascot status is because of the kid’s daily noon appearances at the Murray’s Chinese restaurant around the corner, where her mother used to work. It’s also the place where squad cars from all the local police agencies converge for lunch, or as Suzi informs me, a ‘Code 7,’ which in police-speak means ‘out of service, to eat.’

  One remarkable feature about this Chinese restaurant is an official-looking sign posted in the men’s room that reads ‘employees must wash hands before returning to work.’ Good idea, but in a Chinese restaurant with Chinese immigrant employees, you’d think they might have the si
gn in some language other than Spanish.

  Word about Suzi’s computer skills and searching abilities have gotten around and enabled our firm to pick up quite a few clients, and gather some future favors from local law enforcement groups. Her popularity is also due to some of the missing forms from our file cabinet that were probably used to help many of those cops defend the divorce actions that police wives are wont to file.

  Unlike Suzi, little Lotus Chang is quite talkative around me, so while her mother is busy with my boatmate in the foreward stateroom, I get a full narrative about how the birthday party went. Listening to this little girl rattle on and on makes me more appreciative of the fact that Suzi rarely talks to me, opting instead to make most communications by ‘dog-mail,’ which consists of tucking a message into the Saint Bernard’s collar and sending him to me.

  Most of Lotus’ story is about the other kids that attended the party. Not interested. She goes on to provide me with a detailed list of every present she received at the party, complete with a full description of each and every gift-giver. Still not interested. My eyelids are now getting heavy.

  Among the party debris still defacing our beautiful expensive teak table are some Polaroid photos taken at the party, and one of them I find particularly interesting because it shows a strikingly attractive woman standing next to an older man. At first I thought that they must be the mother and grandfather of one of the kids attending the party, but as Lotus drones on, she informs me that the photo in my hand is Mister Robert Balscomb, previous owner of the Changs’ house.

  Lotus says that Balscomb stopped by with Marian, his maid. The reason for their invitation to the party was that Marian is Michelle Chang’s former porcelain-painting teacher, and the person who originally told Mrs. Chang about Balscomb’s house being for sale. Michelle wanted to show off how her porcelain collection is displayed, so Mister Balscomb came along to do the driving and give Mrs. Chang some pointers on features of the ‘safe room’ where she keeps her collection. When Balscomb owned the house he paid big bucks to convert the den into what security experts call a ‘panic room,’ complete with bulletproof walls and emergency communication devices. He’s obviously either paranoid, or has a very checkered past he’s afraid might catch up with him.

  Lotus notices that I can’t seem to stop looking at the picture of Balscomb and his maid, and surprises me.

  “Gee, that’s funny… Marian kept looking at your picture too.”

  “What are you talking about Lotus?

  “That picture of you and Suzi. You know, the one you guys took at her birthday party last year. She gave it to me for my ‘friends’ collection, and when Marian, the lady in the picture with Mister Balscomb, saw it, she kept looking at it the same way you’re looking at that picture of her.”

  This is interesting. It’s almost like computer dating, because we seem to have been interested in each other’s pictures. Maybe I should call her. This might present a slight problem. Somewhere in the back of my mind I get the feeling that Lotus’ mother Michelle might be interested in me. That’s flattering, but I could never get involved with anyone connected with the IRS… but at the same time, I don’t want to hurt her feelings. I’m going to see this Marian, but it will have to be a covert operation at first.

  Lotus says that Suzi didn’t think much of Mister Robert Balscomb. If you’re not a uniformed law enforcement officer it’s tough to get her respect. She’s a cop groupie, so it’s not surprising to hear she didn’t warm up to Balscomb. What does surprise me is hearing that Balscomb was so impressed by the magician entertaining the kids that he stayed for the whole performance and seemed to enjoy it as much as the kids did. He also made sure to get one of the magician’s business cards before leaving.

  The Changs are leaving the boat now and my phone is ringing. It’s my close friend Stuart, who rarely calls just to say hello. He’s the most entrepreneurial person I know, and now has at least five successful businesses going that I’m aware of. Whenever I see his familiar telephone number on my caller I.D. display I assume it’s either because he needs some emergency legal advice, or wants to tell me all about some new business he’s going to start up.

  “Hello Stuart, what’s up?”

  “Peter, I’m angry.”

  “Okay Stu, why don’t you just calm down and tell me about it.”

  “You’re going to think it’s too trivial and you’ll probably laugh at me.”

  “Stuart, I promise I won’t laugh. I’ve been practicing law and listening to clients for over twenty years now, and my legal bedside manner has developed to the point where I can control any urge to laugh at what I’m being told, so go ahead, let’s hear about it. Does it have anything to do with money?”

  “Yes Pete, it does.”

  “All right, now we’re getting to the heart of the matter. What’s the amount?”

  There’s silence on the line as Stuart hesitates with his answer. This probably means that the amount he got screwed out of is so large that he’s embarrassed to tell me. “C’mon Stu. You called me, so if you won’t tell me the amount, then I’d like to get off the phone and go back to some things I’m doing around the boat.”

  “Seventy cents.”

  Stuart never fails to surprise me. “Stuart, I know in my heart that the amount can’t be bothering you, because next to Suzi you’re one of the richest people I know. There’s must be something else that’s bothering you about that trifling sum, so please, let me know what it is.” “You’re right Pete. It’s not the amount, it’s the principle of the thing. I picked up a chopped salad to-go at a restaurant. It was eight dollars and fifty cents.”

  “So?”

  “So, they charged me sales tax on it!”

  “What’s the big deal? You pay sales tax on everything else you buy that’s not for resale, so why complain this time?”

  “Peter, you went to law school. Didn’t they teach you that there’s not supposed to be sales tax charged on food to-go?”

  “Sorry Stu, I must have been absent that day. Are you sure about the law on that matter?”

  “Not exactly, but I pick up a lot of carryout food, and to the best of my recollection, this is the first time I’ve ever been charged sales tax on it. I should think that while the exact percentage amount might vary between jurisdictions, the main policy decision of whether or not it’s due on food-to-go is a statewide decision and should be consistent.”

  “So what do you intend to do about it? Turn them in to the State Board of Equalization, or Franchise Tax Board, or whatever agency handles that stuff? Or are you planning some huge class action on behalf of all the taxpayers in the State? Either way, I don’t think I’m with you on this one. At least not with the facts the way they are to this point.”

  “Oh yeah? Well what would you do if you were me?”

  “First, I’d go back to that restaurant and show them two receipts: one from another nearby restaurant that didn’t charge the tax on a similar item to-go, and also the receipt from their own register on which the tax was added. I’d also make sure that I talked to someone in the restaurant who was in charge, because there’s always the possibility that the sale was rung up by a new employee or someone else there who just made a common mistake and pressed a wrong classification button on the cash register.

  “If you handle it like a gentleman, I’m sure you’ll get a happy conclusion. If a mistake was actually made, any competent manager should probably apologize to you and might even offer you a dinner on the house for pointing it out to them. But first and most important, please go to the State’s local tax office and find out what the law really is. It’s obvious that one of those restaurants made a mistake, and it’s either the one that charged you, or the one that didn’t. I think you owe it to them as a neighbor to point out the error to the wrongdoer, and not just rush to turn them in or file a lawsuit.”

  Stuart grudgingly agrees with me and says he’ll check out the law. After hanging up I start going through several party fav
ors spread around on the table, hoping there’s some leftover birthday cake included, and happen upon a business card that announces ‘The Great Schwartzi.” This is obviously the party magician’s card. The surprising part is what’s written on the blank back side of the card. It’s a local address, with a scribbled note that says ‘Suzi, I’ll expect you at my house tomorrow at one P.M.’

  2

  I’ve been thinking about it all night and this is not something I tend to approve of. Who is this Great Schwartzi, and why is Suzi going to his house? Without knowing more about this guy, I have no intention of letting the kid go over there alone, and I’m not interested in being the chaperone. This calls for an afternoon meeting, so I prepare a note, go into the kitchen area of the boat – the area that I’ve been instructed to call ‘the galley’ by that old know-it-all down the dock, and shake a box of dog biscuits.

  The noise generated by his snack food rattling in the box brings the dog out before the third shake. Now that I have his attention, I slip the message under his collar and a biscuit in his mouth. Not having any more use for me, he returns to the foreward stateroom - the little princess’ private domain.

  Uncharacteristically, the kid decides to actually come out and address me in person. The rare times this happens I’m usually in for a lecture… and this time is no different.

  “I appreciate your concern, but I do know about this man. His real name is Sheldon Schwartz and he mentioned that his birthday is on October 9th. If you remember, Dr. Sheldon Eidoch, one of the students you had in that Bar review course you were teaching, mentioned to me that the name ‘Sheldon’ was very popular with Jewish families during the period between 1935 and 1945, so I checked birth dates during that decade and now know that the Great Schwartzi aka Sheldon Schwartz was born in 1941 in Kansas City, and was fingerprinted in California in 1971 when he applied for his license as a real estate salesman. He has no criminal record and donates a lot of his time entertaining kids at the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital.