The Magician

by Sol Stein

  “It’s all right.”

  They were in front of the house, about to go in. He’d better finish before they got back inside.

  “How would it seem, how would you feel, to have had Mr. Japhet as a father?”

  “I got a father.”

  “Yes, but just suppose circumstances were different.”

  “I don’t get it. I like my old man.”

  “Of course.”

  “Mr. Japhet hated me.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t hate you.”

  “How would you know?”

  “He doesn’t seem like a hateful man.”

  “He didn’t give me a chance.”

  “Why did you resent Ed Japhet’s magic show so much?”

  “What do you mean, ‘resent’?”

  “You had your fight with him right after the show.”

  “Listen, that kid is worse than his father. He thinks he’s king or something just because he knows some tricks. There’s a lot of things I know he don’t. He never had a piece in his life. He can’t weight-lift. I seen him try in the gym, what a laugh!”

  “If he was inadequate in some ways, didn’t that make you feel good?”

  “He—”

  “Yes?”

  “He—the—son of a bitch!”

  “We have to go inside now. I think your mother and father would be upset if they thought I had upset you.”

  “You don’t upset me, I just can’t stand thinking of that kid.”

  Dr. Koch wanted to put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Even if Japhet is completely wrong, your feeling toward him has hurt you more than it has hurt him. Yes, you had a bad fight, and he was in the hospital. I have talked to him, too. He may not be as bad as you think. I don’t want to change your mind about him, just to ask you, would you not be better off if you put him out of your mind?”

  Dr. Koch realized that he was asking the impossible.

  Inside the house, he accepted Mrs. Urek’s repeated offer of coffee, and the four of them sat in the living room. Finally Mr. Urek suggested that his son go upstairs, and then he said, “Mr. Thomassy said you might be able to help get the boy off.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid I don’t think I have heard anything today that could be very helpful.”

  Mr. Urek rose. “If that kid was smart-alecky to you—”

  “No, no, Mr. Urek, he said nothing wrong. It’s just that the only way the testimony of a psychiatrist can sometimes be helpful is if there is a question as to the sanity of a defendant. Your boy is not insane, I assure you.”

  “You’re damn right he’s not! If I knew that was what Thomassy was up to—”

  “Please be calm. Mr. Thomassy is trying to help you.”

  Mrs. Urek came over to stand behind her husband’s chair. Dr. Koch felt he should go. He asked them could they please telephone for a taxi. It took exactly seven minutes to arrive, and in that time not a single word passed among them.

  Chapter 19

  Thomassy parked his car a block away from the small, sad-looking house he thought was Alice Ginsler’s. The gray-green paint reminded him of the colors one saw in the stairwells of institutions. The outside of the house must have seemed dreary even before it had weathered and flaked. He checked the number on the front against the one he had found in the phone book. It was the right house. There were lights on wherever there was a window. Was she alone, or were there others inside? He looked in vain for figures in the windows. Thomassy walked up the path to the front door. The nameplate under the bell was empty.

  The door was answered by a man of about thirty or so, in his undershirt, not bad-looking. His long hair was a bit wiry and his lips thick. Some black blood somewhere along the line, thought Thomassy.

  “Mr. Ginsler?” he asked.

  “We’re not buying anything.”

  “I’m not selling anything, Mr. Ginsler. My name’s Thomassy.” He handed the young man one of his “B” calling cards, which gave only his name and the business address.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’ve been asked to investigate the incident at the hospital the other night, Mr. Ginsler. May I come in? I tried to phone first—”

  “It’s disconnected. We don’t like being bothered.”

  Thomassy wondered if the faint smell coming through the open doorway was pot.

  “It’s okay,” said Thomassy, smiling, “I’m not a cop.”

  “You don’t look like a cop.”

  You don’t look like a white man, Thomassy thought.

  “Bill, please let him in.” The voice turned out to be that of a pleasant-looking but not terribly attractive girl in her late twenties in the process of removing her apron as she joined the young man at the door.

  If she was washing dishes, she wasn’t smoking pot, thought Thomassy. But it’s her house, and she’s responsible.

  “Bill, please,” said the girl.

  The young man reluctantly stepped aside to let Thomassy in. Thomassy put his hand out to shake. “Name’s Thomassy.”

  “I read the card. I’m Bill Carey.”

  “I’m Alice Ginsler,” said the girl. “I don’t remember seeing you at the hospital.”

  “I’m not on the hospital staff,” said Thomassy, hoping the stress would suggest that perhaps the hospital had employed him. “I’m an investigator. That’s my office in town.” He pointed to the card.

  If she testifies, thought Thomassy, she’ll say that I visited her and posed as an investigator. The prosecutor might develop it on direct or recross.

  He was shown past the dining table on which six plates with leftover food were still sitting, into the L of the living-dining room, and to an overstuffed sofa.

  The girl and Carey each pulled a chair away from the dining table, to sit directly opposite Thomassy on the sofa.

  “I apologize for taking your time this evening,” said Thomassy, “but I think you know it’s important.”

  “It’s about that boy who cut the tube, isn’t it?” said Alice Ginsler.

  “Yes.”

  “Am I going to have to be questioned by the police again?”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “I don’t see what they want from Alice,” said Bill Carey.

  “Shhh,” said Alice.

  “Did you actually see the tube cut?” asked Thomassy.

  “No, I told the police all I saw was this young fellow bursting out of the room. He knocked over a tray of hypodermics I was carrying, and he just went right on down the back stairs.”

  “Could you identify him?”

  “He was shortish and had a scar on his face, I saw that. There wasn’t all that much light in the hallway. It happened quickly, you see, but I think that if I were to see him again, I could—”

  A three-year-old dark-haired girl came around the corner of the room and stood staring at Thomassy.

  “Hello,” said Thomassy.

  The child looked away shyly.

  “Yours?” asked Thomassy.

  Miss Ginsler smiled pleasantly. “No, that’s Harriet. She belongs to Milton and Barbara. They share the house with us.”

  “I see,” said Thomassy, who was getting more than he bargained for. “That’s not your daughter, it’s Milton and Barbara’s daughter.”

  Bill Carey laughed out loud. “Actually,” he said, “that’s Barbara’s before she met Milton.”

  “Well, never mind,” said Thomassy. “I take it,” he said, addressing Alice, “that Mr. Carey is your common-law husband?”

  Carey laughed out loud again.

  Miss Ginsler explained. “We don’t call it that anymore.”

  “If the D.A. calls you to testify, which may not be necessary because there’s so little that you actually saw, he would have to establish your credibility as a witness, or it might be dealt with on cross-examination, do you follow me?”

  Miss Ginsler nodded, but she looked unsure. Bill Carey moved forward in his seat. He seemed much less naive than Miss Ginsler. Thomassy would have to
be careful.

  “The fact that you’re a nurse’s aide in the hospital is a big plus in your favor because nurses and their assistants are held in high repute in the community.”

  “Yeah,” said Carey.

  “But,” continued Thomassy, “it would develop that you were illegally…”

  Carey was standing. “Say that again.”

  “I meant no offense. I’m trying to be helpful. On the witness stand Miss Ginsler would have to tell the truth, that’s all, about living here out of wedlock—of course there’s nothing wrong about it, but you know how backward many people in this town are about that, and also with another couple in the house with a child that is not issue of a marriage between that couple, I think you begin to see the complications. The newspaper people are always looking around for juicy tidbits for their readers. My main concern, actually, is that the hospital staff—”

  “I try to keep my private life to myself,” said Miss Ginsler.

  “Exactly. That’s why I’m trying to prepare you for what happens in a courtroom.”

  “Suppose she doesn’t want to testify?” said Bill Carey, sitting down again.

  “Well, the district attorney could always subpoena her, but I think he might not want to do so because it would come out in the cross-examination that the witness did not come voluntarily, and—look, I want to give you my assurances. I don’t want to see your private life aired any more than you do.”

  “What you’re saying,” said Bill Carey, “is—”

  “I think we all know what’s being said,” said Miss Ginsler. Maybe she wasn’t as naive as she looked.

  Thomassy stood. For a second he wondered if Carey was going to hit him. But he had misinterpreted a tic that creased the skin near Carey’s eye. Carey had a good thing going here. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want anything in the newspapers.

  “I won’t take your time anymore,” Thomassy said. “I’m sorry if I interrupted your evening.” They caught him staring at the six dinner plates on the table. Milton and Barbara make four, the child five, who’s the sixth, another child? Maybe a baby would cry. That would tell him nothing. A baby didn’t sit at the dinner table.

  “I guess you’re going,” said Bill Carey.

  “What I’ve said can only be of benefit.”

  Carey’s laugh was very nervous. Thomassy wondered if Alice Ginsler had access to other drugs at the hospital. Never mind, he’d probably found out all he needed to.

  “I don’t have anything against you. Believe me, I’m trying to be helpful.”

  “Sure,” said Carey, moving toward the door.

  Thomassy stopped. “By the way,” he said, “I wouldn’t leave things like that lying about.”

  Alice Ginsler’s face flushed. Bill quickly took the roach holder off the sideboard and out of the room as Miss Ginsler let Thomassy out the front door.

  Chapter 20

  The talk one heard about the case depended on which of two shopping areas one frequented. The Warmark Shopping Center was patronized principally by middle-class and upper-middle-class wives, well-groomed ladies who would never wear hair curlers to the marketplace or bring young children in their sleepclothes. These women did not stop to gossip on their rounds, but saved their conversation for the Saturday or Sunday cocktail hours, when they could talk about controversial matters in an atmosphere of discretion.

  In the hustle of shops near Fulton and Plane streets, hair curlers, half-camouflaged in bandanas, were much in evidence on a Saturday morning, as were occasional unkempt children in nightclothes plunked onto their mothers’ shopping carts. These women would frequently stop to chatter with a familiar face, and it was here that one heard the names of Japhet and Urek and Thomassy as well, with gossip asserted as fact. Elaborate stories developed nuances enriched with detail on each retelling. A half-accurate sentence in Friday evening’s newspaper would seed several hundred words passed from shopper to shopper. Thus were the apocrypha of the Japhet-Urek case made.

  Several newspapers from towns in the surrounding area had sent young reporters to the courtroom, and their copy, edited by older but not necessarily wiser men, was, as usual, a pastiche of fact and fiction. Had anyone checked the direct quotes against the stenographic transcript, he would have been hard-pressed to find two successive sentences on which the papers and the transcript agreed. Though the fuel of conversation was fed also by observations of those who had attended the preliminary hearing, each person had remembered what he wanted to remember.

  Judge Clifford had guessed that papers in Mount Kisco and Pleasantville and Tarrytown would play up the after-dance attack and its consequences as a local affair, and he was surprised to be told by his wife, whose fellow club-women came from all over the county, that Larchmont, Mamaroneck, Yonkers, and Peekskill had covered the story on the front page. The references to his studied conduct of the difficult proceedings would surely enable him to think of countywide office more optimistically in the future.

  In the school itself, talk outside the classroom was of nothing but the case. The teachers, even in civics and social studies, tried to steer clear of such discussions because they sensed, accurately, as it turned out, that the student body had polarized on the issue, the majority of course siding with the Japhets but a fair minority of the boys, not girls, sympathizing with Urek: Japhet was a teacher, and therefore the enemy, and Ed was a teacher’s son, and therefore a candidate for a good college, and what would happen if tiffs and fights and pranks and occasional window-breaking mischief became a matter for the courts? The school was a repressive body against which all adolescence had to try its horns, and how could one do this in the shadow of the law? It was like having invisible policemen on the premises. Even some of the boys who had been forced to pay locker-room tariffs to Urek and his friends held this view and were beginning to think of the Japhets as cop-loving finks.

  * * *

  COMMENT BY LILA

  I just can’t take it in this school anymore, or even after school, the girls are impossible, and when Ed and I are together, if anybody sees us it’s as if we were freaks. Even when we’re in his house or my house, it’s like having cameras watching you like a shoplifter in a store. We haven’t even kissed since the court thing. It isn’t the same anymore. It can only get worse when the trial is on. I don’t want to tell that story again. I don’t want to testify. I don’t care, I just want to be left alone, please God, starting right now, even if it means Ed and I have to break up. I never thought I’d think that, but I think like that all the time now.

  COMMENT BY MR. JAPHET

  At first it was only the fact that I couldn’t keep the experience from coming to mind in the middle of lectures or class discussions, my mind would wander, I didn’t feel the beautiful tension of an attentive class anymore. I’ve tried to put this all out of my head with thoughts that it could have turned out so much worse, Ed could have been permanently injured, I might have hurt the Urek boy in my rage. I have always said to the kids, at least to the ones I felt I was leading along, I always said it wasn’t their answers that counted as much as the questions they asked me, it was asking the right questions that would lead them beyond the subject matter of biology or any other, to what? The beginnings of wisdom? Now I find myself nagged by impossible questions! How could I have prevented this from happening? What is the use of teaching, or parenthood for that matter, if you can’t anticipate trouble and avoid it? I try to tell myself it’s like sickness or injury, you try to be careful, and if it happens, you try to correct, to fix, to heal, to adjust, to make a comeback to normalcy, but is that now possible? If Urek had stayed in my class last year, could I have gotten a grip on his attention? Would this have happened? Why did Ed develop an insane interest in a hobby that bothers people?

  * * *

  “Dad, did you talk to the insurance man about replacing the tricks? The guillotine is thirty-seven fifty.”

  “I told him you didn’t save the receipts.”

  “And?”


  “He said he’d allow the replacement cost less forty percent depreciation.”

  “Depreciation? On magic tricks?”

  “On everything. Ed, you really want to replace all those… I guess you do. All right, I’ll make good the difference.”

  “Can I go to Tannen’s Saturday?”

  “I’ll give you a check.”

  “Lila digs Tannen’s, remember she went with us when—”

  “I can’t drive to New York Saturday.”

  “I was going to take the train. I thought I’d ask Lila and we could go to a movie afterward.”

  A cheerful Ed dashed to the kitchen phone to invite Lila.

  “I’d just as soon stay home,” Lila said.

  “But you loved wandering around Tannen’s. We could go to a movie after.”

  “No, really.”

  “Well,” he said, “Saturday’s out.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about a movie tonight?”

  “With school tomorrow?”

  “That never bothered you before.”

  “I’d really rather not.”

  “You sure?” he said, his voice gravelly and indistinct.

  “What’d you say?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “It’s okay.”

  He went upstairs to his room because he couldn’t stand being near people, especially his own parents.

  The letter appeared in the local newspaper on Monday.

  To the Editor:

  We appreciate the opportunity provided by your pages to reach the citizens of our community.

  We, the undersigned, are all students at the high school. We are law-abiding, and none of us has ever been in serious trouble. All of us are having lots of trouble at the school we didn’t ask for.

  For a long time the school has been divided into two groups. Those of us who think of the school as a place to get an education have been disturbed in and out of the classroom by the greasers.

  “Greasers” is a term that is misunderstood by many adults. It doesn’t mean Spanish-Americans or Mexicans (to the best of our knowledge, there are none in the school). Nor does it mean members of any minority group or ethnic group because there are blacks who are on our side as well as in the greaser group, and students of Italian extraction who are with us and others who are greasers. A greaser is someone who does not care about school, who feels it’s just a place you have to go to for so many years. A greaser lives by the opposite of the golden rule. He tries to do unto others whatever he can get away with. According to the greasers, doing something bad or illegal is wrong only if you get caught and punished for it.