Mind Scrambler

by Chris Grabenstein

  “It’s safer in here,” said Rock. “This is bad, boys. Real bad.”

  Offstage, Richard Rock looked sort of small, dressed in standard-issue frat-boy khakis and a pink polo shirt instead of a tuxedo and red satin cummerbund, which is a word I only know because I had to rent a tux for a friend’s wedding and the nice lady at the mall explained, no, it wasn’t an undergarment.

  “I can’t believe she’s coming! Not tonight!”

  “Who?” asked Parker.

  Rock glanced around like a nervous squirrel guarding his nuts. “Lady Jasmine!”

  “Who?” asked Parker.

  “Lady Jasmine! No-account magician up at Trump’s Taj Mahal! Plays the big room.”

  The Taj, of course, was one of Donald Trump’s Atlantic City casinos, which, as I’m sure the Donald would tell you, is one of the most opulent, best, most extraordinary, luxurious, not to mention deluxe, casinos on the planet. I think Trump also brags about the Taj having the best buffet in the whole world: the Sultan’s Feast, they call it. Where the Xanadu is all Chinese all the time, the Taj is more I Dream of Jeannie. Long story short, Trump’s ritzy, glitzy pleasure palace, just a half mile up the boardwalk, was serious competition for the Xanadu. Therefore, Trump’s resident magic act, featuring this Lady Jasmine, had to be seen as a serious threat to Richard Rock, the Xanadu’s in-house illusionist.

  “She canceled her show tonight!” Rock said. “Did it so she could come here. Steal my act. She’s bringing her whole dadgum posse. Spies and such!”

  “Have you received some sort of threat?” Parker asked.

  “No, sir. She’s too clever for that. A snake in the grass. Rattler. Bite you in your horse’s ankle.”

  “Can she steal your act just by watching it from the audience?” Parker asked.

  “She might could if she videos it! Sneaks in one of them digital Minicams. Hides it in her handbag. Don’t want to find out when it’s too late!”

  “Where are you most vulnerable, sir?”

  “Out in the auditorium. My security folks are all over the backstage areas like stink on a skunk. Have it sealed up tight.”

  “So how about I put a few more uniforms in the house tonight?” suggested Parker. “Scatter ’em around. Let Miss Jasmine know we’re watching her without ruining the show for everybody else.”

  “Good, good. Sounds like a plan.”

  “My partner and I plan on attending this evening’s performance,” said Ceepak. “We’ll also keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior.”

  “Appreciate that, son.” Now Rock sort of peered at Ceepak. “You like magic?”

  “Indeed. I believe Jim Steinmeyer, the famed illusion designer, said it best.” This was pure Ceepak: ask him a simple question, get a detailed dissertation. “‘Stage magic is an honest trickery.’ I find it to be the one deception I can tolerate since I know from the onset that I am going to be deceived.”

  Rock cocked an eyebrow. Parker and me? We were more or less used to these Ceepakian philosophy seminars.

  “You ever catch my act?” Rock asked.

  “Yes, sir. On the Discovery Channel. I was quite impressed with how diligently you strive to keep your material suitable for the whole family.”

  “Well, you know what they say: Families are where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”

  Ceepak nodded. To do otherwise would’ve been rude.

  “Now tell the truth, son,” Rock continued, his smile set on smug again. “Wasn’t my Vegas show the most amazin’ collection of illusions you ever did see?”

  “It was quite good.”

  Rock gave Ceepak the pinched eyes. “Good? Hold up, now, son. You fixin’ to tell me I ain’t the most amazing illusionist in the whole wide world?”

  “In my opinion, sir, Franz Harary is the world’s finest illusionist. I was fortunate enough to catch his act when I was stationed in Korea.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Harary transformed a woman into a python. He was also burned alive by a jet airplane engine, then rematerialized inside its flames. Quite impressive stuff. In my book, he’s the best.”

  Sometimes Ceepak’s code, the part where he never tells a lie, doesn’t do much to win friends or influence people.

  “Well,” said Rock. “This Franz Harary fellow ain’t the one coming here tonight to steal my secrets. Her name is Lady Jasmine. She’s easy to spot. Long black hair. Asiatic looks. Slanty eyes. Usually travels with this midget fella. Dwarf-like. He’s in the show with her. The midget-dwarf fella.”

  I nodded to acknowledge what Rock had left unsaid: the “midget-dwarf fella” would be easy to spot, too.

  “I’ll make sure my team is out front in force tonight,” said Parker. “Inspecting purses, backpacks, handbags. We’ll strictly adhere to the ‘no recording devices’ edict. Zero tolerance for digital cameras, video recorders, cell phones.”

  “Good. Good. Appreciate it, Cyrus. Heck, I was thinking about cutting Lucky Numbers from the show so she wouldn’t have a chance to see or steal it but, well—that’s what folks are paying their hard-earned money to come see.”

  “Richard?” This bare-chested young guy in tight black pants came into the lobby from the theater. He was ripped, jacked, and all those other words people use to describe the muscular male physique guys like Ceepak find the time to maintain while I’m home catching up on my sleep. This guy was also wearing what they call a bolo tie: the silver-tipped, braided-string-through-a-shiny-medallion deals that Texas oil tycoons wear instead of your more traditional neckties.

  “What?” Rock said to chiseled chest, sounding snippy.

  “We need to talk. About the costumes.”

  “Why?” The way he said it, I was glad Rock wasn’t my boss.

  “I think we’ve figured out the quick-change bit. It should work!”

  “Well, it better, okay?” said Rock. “’Cause I’ll tell you what: in a magic show, timing’s everything! You hear what I’m sayin’, Jake?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jake.

  Aka the Hottie and Stud Muffin.

  Katie’s new boyfriend.

  5

  Having stopped to chat with Richard Rock, we were in danger of running late for our meeting with Mr. Burdick, so Parker found a bellman to take our bags up to the rooms for us.

  I gave the guy pushing the luggage cart a buck. Ceepak gave him a five. I told the bellhop to hold on while I dug in my pockets, found three more crinkled singles, and a couple quarters. It’s hard to keep up with Ceepak, but I try.

  Then he and I headed back across the casino floor for the escalator that would take us down to the lower level where the Great Wall of Gifts shop, Grand Panda buffet, Uncle Chang’s Ice Cream, and Starbucks were all located.

  Of course, to get there we had to pass by several more banks of slot machines. A lot seemed to have TV themes, like Deal or No Deal, Gilligan’s Island, and The Beverly Hillbillies, which, up top, had a plastic bust of Jed Clampett clutching two fistfuls of cash. Another machine was called “Cops and Donuts.” Made me feel right at home.

  “Slot machines,” said Ceepak as we rode the escalator down. “The crack cocaine of gambling.”

  I was still thinking about doughnuts.

  “They promote the gambler’s fallacy,” Professor Ceepak continued.

  “Hunh,” I said, which is always enough for Ceepak to keep rolling.

  “You continue feeding the machine money because you think past wins or losses are predictive of future wins and losses. That if you lose on one spin, you are bound to win on the next, as you might when flipping a coin. In truth, every play of the slot machine presents an equal probability of payout. Therefore you play the illusion. Ignore the reality.”

  Illusions. No wonder Rock’s magic act was such a hit. It’s why folks come to Atlantic City: they want to be lied to. Lies give them hope.

  Long ago, pirates used to walk along the Atlantic City beaches holding up lanterns so merchant vessels o
ut at sea would think they were traveling in safe waters, running parallel to the slow-moving lights they assumed to be other ships on the horizon. The real ships would eventually run aground or crash against the shoals. The pirates on the beach would yell, “Yo-ho-ho,” drop their lanterns and bottles of rum, and head out in rowboats to pillage and plunder the shipwrecks they created.

  I guess people are still losing their treasures down the Jersey shore, making shipwrecks out of their lives. The lights are just a little brighter now, the illusions slicker.

  We reached the lower lobby. More slot machines. A bunch based on those Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Good choice.

  “Would you gentlemen care for a beverage?” Ceepak asked the three men seated around the small cafe table in Starbucks. One was Gary Burdick. I recognized him from his mug shots. The man to his right was an old guy, about eighty-nine, wearing a three-piece polyester suit from the 1977 JCPenney catalog: plaid with fresh dandruff chunks sprinkled atop the shoulders. The oldster looked like he could really use a double shot of espresso because his chin kept bouncing against his Windsor knot every time he nodded off for a quick two-second nap.

  The third man at the table was the oddest: a black guy with a powdered-sugar mini-Afro and a neatly trimmed goatee. He was wearing a red silk tunic underneath his black satin cape, which, by the way, was decorated with embroidered flowers.

  “You buying these beverages?” asked Burdick. His hair was thin, wispy, and parted half an inch above his left ear. A good wind gust and he’d be bald. His eyes were droopy; so was his mustache. He also had very little noticeable chin—just a long neck that sloped up from his collarbone to his lower lip.

  “Yes,” said Ceepak. “I’m buying.”

  “Your old man wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do nothing for nobody.”

  Ceepak blinked a little. “What would you like to drink, Mr. Burdick?”

  “A beer and a shot of Jack black.”

  “No you don’t,” said the man in the cape.

  “Meet the Great Mandini,” said Burdick. “My AA sponsor.”

  Ceepak nodded at Mandini, who nodded back.

  “How come you don’t look like your old man?” asked Burdick.

  “Actually, many people say my father and I share several physical characteristics.”

  “Really? That’s funny. You don’t look like a drunk old asshole to me!” Burdick wheezed up a chuckle.

  “Gary?” said Mandini.

  “What?”

  “Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.”

  “That’s an AA slogan,” said Burdick, I guess to prove he’d been to at least one meeting. “Mandini here’s the one who encouraged me to come forward. Testify. Make some amends. Work my ninth step.”

  “Commendable,” said Ceepak.

  “Yeah. I guess,” said Burdick with a shrug. “Besides, your old man? He’s a prick.”

  That’s when the geezer woke up. “Are we assembled? Very good.” He started patting his pockets, which, when you’re wearing a three-piece suit, there are a lot of. “Have you seen my pen?”

  I had no idea who he was asking.

  “I brought my own pen,” he said. “Prefer the blue ink to the black. I know it plays havoc on the mimeo machines, makes extra work for the gals in the secretarial pool, but it certainly helps identify the original signature from the copy, don’t you agree?”

  Burdick nodded toward the pocket-patter. “Meet my lawyer.” The old guy stretched out a liver-spotted hand in Ceepak’s general direction. I don’t think he could see so good.

  “Rodney P. Squires,” he said. “Attorney-at-law. I will be advising Mr. Burdick during the forthcoming deposition process. Perhaps you’d like one of my cards?”

  Now he was back to the pocket search, looking inside his coat, tugging at his lapels, pulling a tissue wad out of the pocket-watch slot in the vest.

  “His rates are pretty cheap,” said Burdick. “Mandini recommended him.”

  “Mr. Squires has represented me a time or two when I have had disagreements with our local municipal authorities,” said Mandini, who sounded like a king or something.

  “So,” said Burdick, gesturing toward the antique lawyer, who was still frisking himself, “don’t think you can, you know, trick me into saying stuff I don’t need to be saying. I got me a lawyer.”

  “We only need to talk to you about what my father, Joseph Ceepak, told you on the evening of February thirteenth when you two shared a jail cell in Cuyahoga County.”

  “Was it the drunk tank?” asked Mandini.

  “Yeah,” said Burdick.

  Disappointed, Mandini shook his head. “You need to lay off the liquid courage, Gary.”

  “This was years ago.”

  “Makes your hands shake too much,” said Mandini, holding up one hand, sideways—thumb flat against his index finger. Then he flipped the hand back and forth and plucked the ace of hearts out of the air and handed it to me.

  “Oh!” said the lawyer. “Have you found my pen?”

  “No,” I answered so somebody would. Then I looked at Mandini, hoping maybe he could pluck a pen out of the air, too.

  “Sorry,” he said with a wink. “The Great Mandini only does card tricks. Learned everything I know from the mystics in Tay Ninh, a few kilometers northwest of Saigon, or, as it is known today, Ho Chi Minh City.”

  “He does tricks with a bunny, too,” added Burdick. “On the boardwalk. He’s good. You rub the bunny’s fur, the bunny will pick your card out of the deck with his nose. I’m thinking about doing an act with a magic cat. There’s all sorts of strays living under the boardwalk. Thought I could trap one, dress it up like a wizard. Maybe put the cat in a pointy cap.”

  “It’s a very special pen,” said the lawyer, jolting awake from another one of his chin-dip mini-naps. “Tremendous sentimental value. A beloved client presented it to me upon the completion of a very complicated divorce settlement. He was from one of this city’s most prominent families. This, of course, was before the casinos came in. Changed everything and not for the better, if I might be permitted to editorialize momentarily.”

  “So,” said Ceepak, trying to wrap things up, “would any of you gentlemen care for a beverage before we proceed upstairs to the conference room we have reserved for—”

  The lawyer held up his hand. It shimmied in the air like the tail of a kite. “Not for me. My doctor says caffeine is unhealthy. Of course, I’m certain he meant to say it is ‘unhealthful,’ as the coffee beans, per se, are most likely quite healthy and robust.”

  I tried to help: “They have decaffeinated stuff, too.”

  “Ah! Here it is!” He fished a cheap plastic pen out of the back of his pants. “Wasn’t in the coat after all.” He rolled the pen around between his thumb and index finger. I noticed that there was something printed on the side of its barrel. “You know, there’s a very interesting story behind this pen.”

  The Great Mandini raised a hand. A quick flame flared off the tip of his finger when he did. “I’ll have a grande soy latte, extra foam,” he said to Ceepak.

  “What’s that?” asked Burdick. “What’s a latte?”

  “Very similar to a cappuccino.”

  “What’s a cappuccino?”

  “As you can see,” said the lawyer, rolling the pen around so I could read what was written on the side, which I couldn’t because it was chipped and faded, “my client was in the vending machine business. That’s why this pen says, Change Is Good.” The old guy chuckled and I smelled fish mixed with cigar. I wondered how many billable hours this tale would take. “I said to my client, a very important man, by the way, I said, ‘Well, let’s hope your wife only wants her alimony in nickels and dimes.’ ” Another chuckle, and I knew for certain he had had pickled herring and a White Owl sometime in the last twenty-four hours. “However, what was most fascinating about this particular case, as I’m sure you’ll agree—”

  That’s when Ceepak’s cell phone rang.

>   The prosecuting attorney’s office in Ohio.

  Mr. Ceepak had just changed his plea.

  Admitted he was guilty.

  6

  There would be no deposition.

  We bought everybody their coffee drinks, caffeinated and otherwise, and asked them to stick around town because the folks in Ohio wanted to make sure Mr. Joseph Ceepak didn’t change his mind before they saw the judge the next morning and officially entered his guilty plea.

  “I don’t trust my father to keep his word,” Ceepak confided to me. “We may, indeed, be reconvening with Mr. Burdick and his entourage tomorrow morning or early afternoon.” That meant Ceepak and I would still be spending the night in A.C. “There is nothing more for us to do today besides hurry up and wait.”

  We stood in Starbucks and watched our three new amigos go their separate ways out the revolving doors to the boardwalk and the white-hot sunshine.

  Class was officially dismissed.

  “I’m thinking about hitting the Absecon Lighthouse,” said Ceepak. “It’s one of the oldest in the country and New Jersey’s tallest. You have to climb two hundred and twenty-eight steps to reach the top.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, but it sounds well worth the effort. I’m told the views are breathtaking. They also have the lamp, which was first lit in 1857, equipped with its original Fresnel lens.”

  Ceepak. Some guys come to A.C. to get lucky. Some to hike up a spiral staircase and look at a giant lightbulb.

  “Care to join me, Danny?”

  Sure. And then maybe we could stick knitting needles in our eyes. “No thanks. I mean, it sounds like fun, but I—you know, promised Sam I’d buy her a souvenir.”