Alex Shvartsman has been making a name for himself as a writer, an anthology editor (for Baen Books and his own company), and a publisher (as UFO Publishing he has published the Unidentified Funny Objects series as well as other humorous anthologies, most recently The Cackle of Cthulhu).
At the oldest magic pawn shop in the world we do not make house calls. We’re a dignified and storied institution, an establishment with standards, known as the purveyors of the finest quality merchandise. So when someone calls demanding to know what we’d pay for their last-year-model flying broom or a gently scorched fireball-proof vest over the phone, I put on my best schoolteacher voice and politely tell them that they need to bring the item in to get it appraised, please and thank you. And we certainly don’t come to them.
Well, almost never.
On Monday, Grandma Heide and I had The Talk again. The one about me taking over the day-to-day operations of the shop, about how I’ve been working the front counter forever and I’ve been ready forever and... As always, I did the talking and Grandma pursed her lips in opprobrium as she flipped through the ledgers and scribbled tiny notes in the margins with her squid-ink fountain pen. I swear she only writes them in cuneiform to make my life harder; but as with everything else in the shop, Grandma says tradition is important.
Usually The Talk ends with Grandma telling me in no uncertain terms that I’m not ready, not worthy, and that I need to bone up on my Sumerian. Lately though, she’d been grunting noncommittally. I do believe I’m wearing her down.
Anyway, I thought The Talk went pretty well on Monday. But then, I managed—in rapid succession—to buy a copy of the Necronomicon with several pages missing, screw up the exchange rate on Peruvian doubloons, and dent the original packaging on the Indiana Jones action figure from an alternate reality where Tom Selleck never turned down the role. I was having a really bad week, and Grandma didn’t let me forget it. When she sent me to a customer’s house to evaluate and pick up their gold coins like some sort of a pizza delivery girl, I was sure she was punishing me. But I was determined to prove my value and ability despite the occasional blunder, so I set out for suburbia armed only with the navigation app on my phone and a checkbook.
When the app declared “You have reached your destination,” I could’ve sworn I detected a hint of pity in its computerized voice. I was parked on a quaint street in a quaint neighborhood full of white picket fences and mowed lawns and BBQ sets. All the houses on the block looked bland and interchangeable. All of them, except the one I’d parked in front of.
I exited the car and took in the view. The two-story house was painted in loud colors, the mailbox at the end of the driveway looked like a giant Pez dispenser topped with an Elvis head, and instead of grass the front yard was covered with wildflowers. Randomly placed lawn ornaments rose above the flowers: two-foot-tall plaster reproductions of Michelangelo’s David, the Statue of Liberty and Buddha were garishly painted in tones that would have given their sculptors nightmares. Only the Big Boy mascot retained its original checkered red-and-white overalls, the look that made him fit right in with the rest. The entire ensemble looked creepily cheerful, like the property sat on an ancient Indian circus ground.
I walked the miniature yellow brick path from the mailbox to the front door and fought the urge to click my heels, mostly because I was wearing sneakers. I pressed the egg-shaped doorbell and it emitted a shrill cock-a-doodle-doo sound.
A plump, bearded guy opened the door. He was about four feet tall, wore an avocado-green coat and a jade hat with a shiny brass buckle in the front. I caught myself staring: all sorts of creatures visit the shop, but I’d never met a leprechaun before.
“Hello,” I said. “My name is Sylvia. I’m from the pawn shop.”
“Howdy,” said my host. “Come on in! It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sylvia. Can I offer you some sweet tea?” He spoke with a slight southern drawl and didn’t sound the least bit Irish. “Name’s Nash. Nash the Gnome. The G is silent.”
“Oh.” I blinked several times.
“The G is in gnome, not Nash,” he offered helpfully.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that I thought you were ...”
Nash frowned. “I see. Not all gnomes wear pointy hats, you know. In fact, that’s a hurtful stereotype.”
“I...I’m so sorry,” I stammered.
“Just joshin’ ya!” Nash laughed and slapped his knee. “Humans are adorably uncomfortable around the little folk, always afraid to say the wrong thing, bless their oversized hearts.” He tugged on the lapels of his coat. “Leprechaun chic is in this season. This is designer Irish wool. Snagged it at sixty percent off after St. Patrick’s Day. You might say it was a short sale!”
I smiled politely at his terrible pun despite the joke’s obvious failure to use the term correctly. “So, about that pot of gold you were looking to pawn?”
“I see what you did there,” said Nash, his face somber again. “But leprechaun jokes are our thing. It’s not really appropriate for anyone so tall to say them.” He waved his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you didn’t mean it as a...” He paused for dramatic effect. “Microaggression!”
At that point I just kept my mouth shut and accepted the tall glass of iced tea Nash poured for me. Ugh. I didn’t mean a tall glass... Now I was doing it in my head. Bad, bad Sylvia.
“There’s a bit of a wrinkle,” said Nash. “I’ve got no gold left. Fresh out, I’m afraid. You might say...” He paused again and I steeled myself. “I’m a little short at the moment.”
“That’s...disappointing,” I said carefully.
He pointed toward stacks of boxes collected around the house. Many of them sported As Seen on TV labels or the Home Shopping Network logo. “What can I say? I do so enjoy a bargain.”
The visions of him trying to offload some of that junk on me entered my mind and I blanched.
“There’s something else I can offer you, something far more rare and valuable than gold—”
“Let me stop you there,” I said. “It appears you’ve called me out here under false pretenses. I was only supposed to pick up some gold coins, and I really don’t think—”
“Luck,” said Nash the Gnome.
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like to borrow some money against my luck.” Nash pushed his bowler hat up with his index finger. “You do know all the little folk are lucky, right?”
“I’ve heard something like that.” What I did know for sure was that luck is a fickle thing. At the shop we carry a large selection of rabbit’s feet and monkey paws but the luck they generate is faulty and unreliable at best. It’s no wonder: if those appendages were truly lucky, the animals they came from wouldn’t have ended up as involuntary donors.
Nash produced a weird contraption the size of a pocket watch, made of a jumble of tiny gears. “This is a perpetual luck machine,” he said. “That’s like a perpetual motion machine, but it generates luck instead of energy.”
I’d never heard of such a thing. I studied the clockwork thingamajig skeptically.
“Let me prove it,” said Nash. “Got a coin?”
I handed him a quarter. Nash placed it atop his thumb, called “Tails” and flipped. He got it right several times in a row. Then he called “Sides!” and flipped again. The quarter landed on its edge, teetering atop the hardwood floor with blatant disregard for physics or gravity.
“That’s a neat tr—” I began to say but was interrupted by the screech of tires and loud honking. Through the window I saw a pair of sedans narrowly miss each other at the intersection. The drivers shouted at each other, their angry voices muffled by the distance.
“Now those are some short tempers,” said Nash. “That intersection needs a stop sign.” He picked up the quarter, which had finally landed on its side, and pocketed it.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If you can truly manipulate luck, why do you need to pawn this device? Why not just play the lottery?”
“It can only generate a low-level current of luck,” said Nash. “It’ll make sure your sandwich always lands butter-side up and your milk doesn’t go sour before the expiration date. That coin trick used up nearly a day’s worth of luck. It would take the machine a thousand years to churn enough luck to win the lottery, and even if I could wait that long, it isn’t capable of storing that much luck, anyway. But there’s no better source of small fortune, which is exactly what this gizmo is worth!”
Low-level luck actually sounded kind of nice. Maybe it was just the boost I needed to avoid the occasional screw-ups that were holding me back at the shop.
“The credit card bill is due and I only need to borrow a few hundred bucks,” said Nash. “I’ll pay it back with interest next week. The machine is worth many times that!”
I studied the intricately crafted gears. Even if it was a dud, the craftsmanship alone was probably worth that much. “Okay,” I said. I pulled out the checkbook and the pawn slip for Nash to fill out.
* * *
When I got back, Grandma was out. A few customers were milling in front of the shop. I apologized for the delay and they were mostly cool with it, except the one guy muttering under his breath about bankers’ hours.
I unlocked the door and flipped the sign from Closed for a Spell to Open. Sensing my presence, various wards and enchantments powered themselves down. I meticulously performed the arcane equivalent of turning off the burglar alarm; wouldn’t want any of our patrons turning into something small and amphibian. Not even the impatient guy.
I watched from behind the counter as folks trickled in and browsed the shelves. My fingers traced the clockwork patterns on the spherical luck machine in my pocket. Nash had kindly performed whatever gnome magic was needed to sync the apparatus to its new master and it was—presumably—already feeding me little bits of luck. It must’ve been working: I felt a strange sense of smug superiority, like a hipster who just got their latest iPhone upgrade.
The next couple of hours flew by, with me reaping the rewards of a little extra karma in earnest. I sold several trinkets that had been collecting dust on the shelves forever, then discovered a rare card—autographed by the Witch of Warsaw herself—in a stack of vintage tarot decks I picked up in bulk for a fiver. Even the grumpy customer had bought a six-pack of purified, non-denominational holy water cans: a relatively inexpensive but high profit-margin item.
Even when things slowed down a bit and I took a few minutes to dust, I found a crisp twenty on the floor, folded neatly into an inch-wide strip. I felt a pang of guilt because a customer must’ve lost that money earlier. However, there was no way to figure out who it belonged to. There were no security cameras in the shop—the wards actively messed with them. If you tried to record anything on the premises all the feed would show instead were old Billy Mays infomercials. So I slid the twenty into the register and sighed contentedly as I eyed a healthy assortment of bills there.
I could sure get used to this. The machine may not be able to help me win the lottery or arrange for someone to produce the second season of Firefly, but a steady stream of small fortune was proving to be just as satisfying as one big windfall of luck might’ve been.
Grandma returned shortly after. She wore a light-pink sweat suit, held a tan yoga mat rolled under her arm and a vegetable smoothie in her hand. She took one look at me from across the shop and frowned. “What’s wrong, Sylvia?”
“Wrong? Grandma, everything is peachy! What in the world would make you think otherwise?”
“You have that huge grin on your face. The grin you get when you think you’ve pulled off some sort of major coup, but in reality you picked up an evil god on pawn, or set events in motion that will ultimately result in another land war in Asia.” Grandma’s frown deepened. “I’ve come to dread that grin.”
She was mostly exaggerating. Well, at least about the land war in Asia. I raised my hands in a placating motion. “There’s nothing to worry about this time, I promise. If you’ll just sit down and let me tell you about our latest acquisition, I’m certain you’ll be quite pleased.”
Grandma sighed theatrically, took a sip of her slime-green smoothie, and settled in to listen.
She didn’t interrupt me once until I finished my show-and-tell, the perpetual luck machine displayed proudly on the counter. When I was done she pointed at the clockwork sphere and said: “This gizmo is a travesty. I want you to lock it in the storage room and stay away from it until the gnome retrieves it.”
“What? Why?” I was so disappointed I could hardly string the sentence together. “But it’s definitely working!”
“It’s working all right,” said Grandma and poked the sphere daintily with her index finger. “Just not the way you think.”
Shoulders slumped, I waited for her to explain.
“I don’t know what they teach you in school these days,” said Grandma, “but there’s no such thing as perpetual motion or perpetual luck. Like any other force, luck follows the law of conservation of energy.” She poked the machine again. “This thing doesn’t generate luck; it leeches it from elsewhere.”
I picked up the clockwork sphere. It felt heavy in my palm.
“It transfers fortune from those nearby to you, Sylvia,” said Grandma. “The rare tarot card you found? Someone unwittingly traded it in without getting fair value. The sales you made? Some folks probably tripped and fell outside the store, missed an important phone call, or were otherwise inconvenienced to balance things out. The more luck you get, the worse it is for those around you.”
I thought back to the near-accident at the intersection outside Nash’s house when he used the machine in his coin trick. It was making sense.
“But isn’t that how luck works in general?” I asked. “For me to win a coin flip, someone else has to lose it.”
“That is the natural order of things, and your odds of winning that flip are the same as anyone else’s.” Grandma pointed toward the register containing the twenty I found on the floor. “If someone loses a bill and you find it, that’s luck. But if you use magic to enhance the chances of that happening, that’s no better than reaching into their wallet and stealing the money outright.”
Grandma could be cantankerous and prickly at times, but she was the fairest person I knew. She ran an honest shop, and I had every intention of striving toward the same level of integrity. Sheepishly, I headed into the back and dropped off the perpetual fraud machine into a small bin that housed expired healing potions.
When I returned to the counter, there was a hefty weight in the pocket of my hoodie. I reached inside and withdrew the clockwork sphere.
“It’s enchanted to remain at your side,” said Grandma.
I marched back into the storage room and opened the vault where we keep stuff we don’t want to leave alone in the shop at night, like Albert Einstein’s spellbook or a sentient waffle iron bent on world domination. I locked the luck machine in there, behind four inches of stainless steel and the best magical wards money can buy.
It was back in my pocket before I reached the door.
I heard bits of conversation, with someone sounding flustered and frustrated, and I returned to the counter. The impatient guy was back, looking frazzled.
“...That’s when I realized the money was missing,” he was telling Grandma. “I couldn’t pay the fare, couldn’t get on the subway, and now I’ve missed the interview for a job that would’ve been just perfect for me.”
“That’s terrible luck, dear.” Grandma glanced at me meaningfully. “As it happens, my granddaughter did find the money you dropped.” She opened the register and handed the folded twenty back to the man. “You should give them a call and try to reschedule the interview. Tell them you were delayed helping your friend Sylvia at the pawn shop handle an unforeseen problem; we have somewhat of a reputation in this town and perhaps they’ll understand.” She handed over our business card. “We’ll be happy to corroborate this, of course, if they call.”
The guy thanked us all the way out the door, a sense of renewed hope lifting his shoulders. When he was gone, Grandma turned to me. “You see, even a small bit of bad luck can snowball into a much larger problem until it grows large enough to ruin someone’s life.”
I resumed my efforts to ditch the sphere with renewed vigor. After several increasingly creative but unsuccessful attempts, Grandma benched me.
“I can’t have you interacting with customers and poaching their luck,” she said. “Until its owner reclaims this gizmo, you will have to stay away from the shop. And probably from people in general, if you want to avoid causing mayhem,” she added, sadness in her voice.
“Maybe I should accidentally drop this into a river,” I said. “Nash using it to steal people’s luck has got to be at least as dangerous.”
“It’s okay for gnomes to use gnome magic,” said Grandma. “It’s in their nature to be mischievous. We should no sooner deny the gnome his ability than rob a leprechaun of his pot of gold.” She sniffed. “Unless that leprechaun voluntarily pawns it, of course.”
I nodded. “Well, what if—”
Grandma held up her hand. “At some point you have to learn to stop relying on shortcuts, Sylvia. They’re flashy and they’re fun, but they’re never a substitute for hard, honest work. You will need to well and truly embrace that before you can take over the family business.”
And just like that, my small run of good fortune was over. Because I loved the shop, and staying away from it for days or even weeks was just the worst. But the fact that Grandma felt I wasn’t ready, felt I wasn’t a hard enough worker—even after years of me putting the shop ahead of my studies and my personal life—really stung. Especially since I thought I was getting so close to convincing her of letting me handle more responsibility.
I suppose I could go to a vacation cabin the family had in the mountains, veg out in front of the TV and binge-watch Doctor Who until Nash was ready to reclaim his property. Then again, why not just return the luck machine to him early? I perked up at the thought. Sure, it was the only collateral against what he borrowed, but having thought about it some, I decided that I would personally cover the loan if he failed to repay the shop. Not getting stuck away from civilization for days was easily worth that much to me.
I got back in my car and drove to Nash’s. The traffic lights kept turning green and I cursed under my breath each time, as the machine robbed bits of luck from other motorists to marginally improve my commute.
* * *
“Not on your life,” said Nash.
“I don’t understand. I’m not asking for our money back; you can pay that as agreed. I simply want to return your luck machine to you early.”
“No,” Nash said and tried to slam the door, but I wedged my foot inside.
“Oh, come on! At least tell me why you don’t want it back.” This made no sense; Nash didn’t strike me as the sort who would have any compunction about stealing bits of others’ luck. “I can sense you pulled one over on me, but I’m not sure how.”
As I suspected, appealing to his desire to brag got the job done. The door swung open and he motioned me in.
“You’ve got to hand it to us short people,” he said. “Because we can’t reach it ourselves, but also because we’re much smarter than you super-sized apes. This is why Peter Dinklage is going to win that throne game thing, and also why I will always be several small steps ahead of the likes of you.”
I let him gloat because eventually he’d just tell me what he was up to, like those incompetent villains who insisted on describing their plan to the hero in great detail. So I just stood there, trying very hard to look tall and stupid.
Nash didn’t disappoint. He got right to spilling the beans. “This especially tall chief of security at my favorite private poker room seems to have taken an exception to my meager but steady winning streak,” he said. “It cost me a full day’s charge of luck, but I managed to get out of there without getting patted down. Of course, the next time I show my face around those parts, they will most definitely search me. And, as you have undoubtedly discovered, I can’t exactly leave the luck machine at home.
“So I needed to transfer the machine’s ownership to someone honest enough that I’d have no trouble getting it back after I convince those goons I’d been winning their cash on the up and up. And, well, you were it.” He grinned. “I can’t imagine why you would ever want to give it back anyhow, but you’ll just have to enjoy its benefits for a week or so. After that, don’t worry, I will gladly return the pittance I borrowed from your shop.”
I felt my face turn red as I watched the self-satisfied gnome giggle with glee. “Why, you little scam artist! All this so you could continue to rip off your buddies at cards? That’s totally unacceptable!”
“A deal is a deal. You agreed to it because you wanted to use the luck machine. And now you’re trying to back out, like a typical tall person. Well, guess what. No takesies-backsies!”
“Come on, I’m sure we can—”
“No. Takesies. Backsies.” Nash opened the door wide. “I’ll be in touch when I’m ready. Until then, kindly leave my property. Good day to you.” I tried to say something else, but he waved me off. “Good day, I say.”
I stomped past his gaudy lawn decorations, angry enough that, were I a cartoon character, steam would definitely have been whistling out of my ears. The scoundrel had turned me into a low-powered version of a trickster god like Coyote or Loki or whoever convinced the world Kim Kardashian was a celebrity. I was going to make him regret it.
* * *
The fairy casino was doing brisk business for a weekday afternoon.
I followed Nash here easily enough. The little degenerate gambler couldn’t stay away, or perhaps was eager to prove to the pit bosses that he wasn’t using a magical device to cheat at cards. The troll bouncer gave me an appraising look—not a lot of humans patronized this particular establishment—but he didn’t challenge me on the way in. All manner of creatures milled about, gambling and drinking, seemingly not bothered by the incessant din of the slot machines.
I hung back and watched as Nash made his way into the poker room and settled at a table. He only bought a small stack of chips and sat down at a low-stakes table. Without his cheating aide he wasn’t about to gamble big, I supposed.
Once Nash seemed properly entrenched, I approached the table and loomed over it: literally, as the table was set quite low to accommodate the players.
“A word, please,” I told Nash.
The other players glared at me. There were a few gnomes, a pixie, and a duck I recognized from insurance commercials. TV work must not have paid very well if it chose to hang out at a $1/$2 limit table.
I pulled Nash a few feet away from the table, the mating call of the slot machines providing all the privacy our conversation would need.
“Take back the luck machine now, or else,” I said.
Nash stared up at me. “Or else what?”
“I’ll tell the pit bosses about your cheating ways.”
“Go ahead. I’m not the one carrying an illegal luck enhancement device in the casino. Which one of us do you think will be in trouble?”
Since he called my bluff, I tried plan B. “I’ll tell the other poker players then. Some of them look unsavory enough to be dangerous.” I glanced at a mean-looking corpulent gnome in an expensive suit.
Nash followed by gaze. “I’ll have you know Harold is a pediatrician, you tall racist.” He put his hands on his hips. “This is not the crowd I play with when I use the luck machine. I do that in private poker rooms, with folks who can afford to lose big. And before you try seeking them out, the operative word here is private.”
“Well...what if I just hang out at your table and leech your luck while you play. What do you think of that?!”
Nash shrugged. “Even I can’t target who the machine borrows bits of luck from. If you think you can, go right ahead. The casino is packed and I like my odds.” He snickered. “Give it up, Sylvia. Gnomes are much more devious than humans. You can keep trying to outwit me, but you’ll always come up short!”
I couldn’t stand to hear another short pun, so I walked away. Besides, something Nash said sparked another idea. I was going to need some supplies.
* * *
I returned to Nash’s street and hung out in my car listening to music and waited for Nash to return home from the casino. Waiting for him gave me plenty of time to reflect on what Grandma said. She was wrong about me not being a hard worker. I was never afraid to put in long hours, to sweep the floors and dust the artifacts in the back, even the ones that always tried to bite the mop. I’d work hard whenever I had to. But Grandma was also right about me liking shortcuts. I mean, what’s wrong with that? Why work hard when you can work smart, and achieve a better result? Grandma had her way of doing things, and I had mine. I figured out how to beat Nash my way, and I wouldn’t have to work very hard at all to do it.
Once Nash was back, I popped the trunk open and set up on the curb in front of his house. A few minutes later he ventured outside to investigate. He found me stretched out in a folding beach chair, with a Frappuccino in a cup holder and a tablet in my lap. He watched me tap and swipe at the screen. Finally, the curiosity got the better of him and he approached, peeking through the spaces in his white picket fence.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, not much,” I said, never taking my eyes off the screen. “I was recently given some time off work, so I figured I’d hang out here and play Candy Crush.”
“You can’t hang out here,” Nash said.
“Sure I can,” I said brightly. “I’m on a public street. Which just happens to be right next to your house, and since your machine tends to siphon off luck from whoever is nearby...” I smiled. “I’m on level 377, one of the toughest levels in the game. I could never pass it before, and I can only imagine how much extra luck I would need to do so now. Or where that luck would come from.” I positioned myself so none of the neighboring houses were within the Luck Machine’s limited reach. Nash would be the sole source of the luck I needed, and he knew it.
As if to underscore my point, the Big Boy lawn ornament emitted a loud cracking sound and the arm holding up the burger snapped off and fell to the ground, breaking into several pieces of plaster.
“No! Not my garden humans!” Nash rushed toward the smiling checkered mascot, then back to me, seemingly unable to decide what to do. “Stop this immediately!”
“Didn’t think I would stoop down to your level, did you?” I smiled sweetly. “The fun stops when you take back the luck machine.”
“I’ll just leave,” said Nash. “Then you won’t be able to leech any luck off me.”
“Sure, go ahead. I’ll just read a book until you return. I literally have nothing better to do at the moment. Or maybe I’ll come back late at night and play some electronic slots. Hope the house doesn’t come down on your head while you sleep.”
* * *
I walked into the shop like a conquering hero: with a triumphant smile on my face, the check I wrote out to Nash earlier that day, and sans one clockwork sphere. I handed the check to Grandma. “I took care of it.”
Grandma nodded. “That’s excellent news. There’s far too much work to do around here for you to go on vacation.” She tried to make it sound gruff, but her eyes were smiling.
I grinned and stepped behind the counter. Without the help of the luck machine I might occasionally break a vial full of potion or miscount change, but I felt pretty lucky nevertheless. Anyone who has a job they love and family that loves them will tell you: that’s worth a real fortune—and there’s nothing small about it.
Copyright © 2018 by Alex Shvartsman