Ava and the Pickpocket

Summary

Criminal Podcast Episode Summary: "Ava and the Pickpocket"

Criminal by Vox Media Podcast Network presents a captivating episode titled "Ava and the Pickpocket," hosted by Phoebe Judge and released on February 14, 2025. This episode delves deep into the intertwined lives of Ava Doe, a former pickpocket, and Apollo Robbins, a renowned magician and sleight-of-hand expert. Through their personal narratives, the episode explores themes of deception, trust, and the psychological underpinnings of crime and magic.

Early Lives and Formative Experiences

Ava Doe's early life was marked by upheaval and secrecy. Born in Vietnam four years after the Vietnam War, she lived with her parents, who were staunchly anti-communist, under a communist regime that enforced propaganda in schools. Ava recounts the confusion of being taught conflicting narratives about leaders like Ho Chi Minh:

"Everything I've just learned was wrong." [03:47] – Ava Doe

This tumultuous upbringing instilled in Ava a keen sense of observation and adaptability, traits that would later define her as a pickpocket.

On the other hand, Apollo Robbins grew up in Missouri with immigrant parents who aspired for him to become a doctor. However, Apollo's fascination with magic and sleight of hand led him down a different path. Influenced by his older brothers, who were involved in various illicit activities, Apollo began honing his craft by studying magic books and practicing intricate tricks. An early experience that shaped his skills involved reverse pickpocketing cigarettes to evade store detection:

"I had stolen a guy's watch on the Vegas Strip, and it was a good three, four minutes after I had stolen it. And he realized that his watch was missing, and he was shocked." [01:33] – Ava Doe

Meeting and Forming a Connection

A pivotal moment occurred when Ava attended a bachelorette party in Las Vegas, where she encountered Apollo performing his magic tricks. Intrigued by his abilities, Ava engaged him in conversation, sparking a connection rooted in their shared interests in deception and performance. Their first date at the exclusive Magic Castle in Hollywood was emblematic of their mutual dedication to their crafts:

"What stood out to me that evening was Apollo made a point to turn off his cell phone and put it away." [13:34] – Ava Doe

This intentional act of presence highlighted Apollo's commitment and set the tone for their evolving relationship.

Building the Brain Trust

Together, Ava and Apollo embarked on creating the "Brain Trust," a collective of diverse individuals skilled in various forms of deception, including pickpocketing, hacking, and con artistry. Their goal was to consult for security companies, speak at law enforcement conventions, and offer demonstrations on the art of deception. The group attracted notable figures such as Rod the Hop, a renowned card hustler, and Kevin Mitnick, a notorious hacker.

Ava reflects on the dynamics within the Brain Trust:

"Everyone leaves it at the door where you work, who you steal from, what you steal. We leave it at the door when we talk about skills." [21:23] – Apollo Robbins

However, the lack of structure and differing moral compasses among members eventually led to tensions, culminating in the group's disbandment as conflicting interests surfaced.

Transition to Family and Mentalism

As their professional collaboration waned, Ava and Apollo focused on their personal lives, culminating in their marriage and the birth of their daughter, Maya. Ava transitioned from pickpocketing to mentalism, a form of magic that leverages psychological manipulation rather than physical sleight of hand. This shift was motivated by her desire for a more ethical form of performance and a better environment for their family.

Ava shares a notable moment of her mentalism practice:

"I lied. I didn't trust him, but she put it on." [17:37] – Phoebe Judge’s Interview with Ava Doe

Their relationship thrived on continuous mutual surprise and deception, even within their marriage, as they committed to tricking each other daily to keep their bond lively and engaging.

Raising Maya: A Legacy of Deception and Critical Thinking

Ava and Apollo are dedicated to passing down their unique skills to their daughter, Maya. They emphasize the importance of questioning reality and understanding the mechanisms of deception. This educational approach is evident in Maya's engagement with magic and critical thinking from a young age, as demonstrated by her methodical practice of magic tricks:

"I might need to get a little close... The answer is seven." [34:38] – Maya Robbins

Their parenting philosophy centers on equipping Maya with the tools to recognize and navigate the manipulations she might encounter, fostering a sense of awareness and skepticism.

Reflections on Deception and Ethics

Towards the episode's conclusion, Ava and Apollo ponder the ethical boundaries of their skills. They acknowledge their ability to deceive but choose to refrain from using their talents for illicit gain, especially considering their responsibilities as parents. Ava muses on the allure of a life of crime:

"Do we have the toolbox and the skill sets? Probably, yes. But the cost and the risk associated with that... plus, we have a daughter. What do we want her to grow up to be?" [38:22] – Ava Doe

They recognize that while their expertise could facilitate a life of easy wealth, the moral and personal costs deter them from such paths.

Conclusion

"Ava and the Pickpocket" offers a nuanced exploration of deception, trust, and personal transformation. Through the lives of Ava Doe and Apollo Robbins, Criminal highlights how skills rooted in deception can be redirected towards ethical pursuits and personal growth. The episode underscores the complex interplay between one's past, personal choices, and the desire to foster critical thinking in the next generation.

Notable Quotes:

• “I had stolen a guy's watch on the Vegas Strip, and it was a good three, four minutes after I had stolen it. And he realized that his watch was missing, and he was shocked.” [01:33] – Ava Doe

• “Everyone leaves it at the door where you work, who you steal from, what you steal. We leave it at the door when we talk about skills.” [21:23] – Apollo Robbins

• “What stood out to me that evening was Apollo made a point to turn off his cell phone and put it away.” [13:34] – Ava Doe

• “If they started to cross that line, they'd have to let us know so we could pull them out of the team.” [24:57] – Ava Doe

This episode not only narrates the engaging story of two skilled individuals but also invites listeners to reflect on the broader implications of deception and the ethical use of one's talents.

Transcript

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Human eggs are only the size of a grain of sand, but the space they can take up in your mind can be gargantuan.

[Ava Doe]

Now, there are a lot of concerns, with some experts saying this procedure really just serves as another way for companies to make money from stoking women's anxieties.

[Podcast Host]

Egg freezing's been presented as a kind of girl boss panacea. But what's the reality? That's this week on Explain it to Me. New episodes every week, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Phoebe Judge]

What was the first magic you learned?

[Apollo Robbins]

Probably how to tell someone's credit card number without seeing it.

[Phoebe Judge]

Wait a second. So you couldn't right now tell me my credit card number?

[Apollo Robbins]

Well, not on radio. That would be legal.

[Phoebe Judge]

But. But, but. But you could?

[Apollo Robbins]

Yes.

[Phoebe Judge]

This is Ava Doe. For a While in her 20s, she was a pickpocket.

[Apollo Robbins]

I had stolen a guy's watch on the Vegas Strip, and it was a good three, four minutes after I had stolen it. And he realized that his watch was missing, and he was shocked.

[Phoebe Judge]

So you were practicing on the Las Vegas Strip?

[Apollo Robbins]

Sometimes, but not all the time. It's very dangerous to do, so I wouldn't recommend it.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ava didn't keep the watch. She wasn't stealing for money. She was stealing because she was good at it. She was so good at it that people would pay to watch her work. But she says that got old. So she came up with a new idea.

[Apollo Robbins]

I figured I could pickpocket information.

[Phoebe Judge]

That's what you do now?

[Apollo Robbins]

That's right.

[Phoebe Judge]

I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal.

[Apollo Robbins]

My parents wanted me to be a doctor. Obviously, they eventually found out what I do, but not after I ensured I could make a really good living. You know, immigrant parents and all, and.

[Phoebe Judge]

Not a doctor, but.

[Apollo Robbins]

Yeah, but look, I bought a house.

[Phoebe Judge]

Until she was 13, Eva and her parents lived in Vietnam.

[Apollo Robbins]

I should say. There's no Vietnamese word for magic. There's only a Vietnamese word for illusion. And there's a Vietnamese word for miracle.

[Phoebe Judge]

Eva was born four years after the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, it's called the American War. After American troops left a communist Government took over and started trying to unify the country.

[Apollo Robbins]

I grew up with staunchly anti communist parents, but I went to school under communist regime, which means that I was exposed to my teachers who would teach me propaganda. And I would go home and my parents would say, everything I've just learned was wrong.

[Phoebe Judge]

She remembers her teachers talking about the communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

[Apollo Robbins]

You know, we were asked to call him Uncle Ho. And there were all these things that Uncle Ho did for the country. And we sang songs to him. And I would go home, my parents would say he was a mass murderer and he had committed all these war crimes. And so I was exposed to these different perspectives, practice on the same set of reality very early, which was confusing for a child.

[Phoebe Judge]

Right, because you go to school and your teachers are. I mean, you trust that your teachers are teaching you things that you should know. I mean, this is why you go to school.

[Apollo Robbins]

Absolutely, yes. And it was emotionally confusing as well, because I liked my teachers, I liked my parents. I liked everyone, you know.

[Phoebe Judge]

The day the war ended, a communist military leader said, you have nothing to fear. Between Vietnamese, there are no victors and no vanquished. Only the Americans have been defeated. But Ava's mother and father worried. They knew people who'd been sent to prison camps, also known as re education camps, because they were thought to be anti communist, including Ava's grandfather. Ava learned not to talk about her parents politics.

[Apollo Robbins]

There was this stretch after the war where a lot of Vietnamese people were escaping by boat, the boat people. And my father was part of those people who would smuggle people out of Vietnam.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ava didn't know it at the time, but her father's job was to get people to the boats at the Vietnamese shoreline. In order to do this, instead of staying as far as possible from the police, he started trying to get close to them.

[Apollo Robbins]

He had immersed himself in police culture. He bribed them to hang around them, to learn how to talk. He would feign a deeper northern accent. He would use the words that they would use.

[Phoebe Judge]

She says he once paid an officer.

[Apollo Robbins]

For a uniform, and if the police ever caught up to him and his escapees, he would pretend that he was one of them.

[Phoebe Judge]

There were other things Ava didn't know, like her grandfather's real name. Her whole life, she'd known him by his fake name. He'd moved from North Vietnam to South Vietnam trying to run from the communists and changed his identity. Ava's mother told her this when she was around 10 years old.

[Apollo Robbins]

I didn't see why it was a secret I already knew how to keep secrets by then, so I was surprised. I think I thought maybe she didn't think I could lie well enough.

[Phoebe Judge]

Eva remembers her parents were always talking about moving, leaving Vietnam.

[Apollo Robbins]

I wanted to believe that there was possibly, maybe a place in the world where people did say everything that they think and that they weren't running to threads of reality. Maybe there are people who just tell you everything.

[Phoebe Judge]

When she was a teenager, her family got the papers they needed to immigrate to the US she remembers saying goodbye to their friends and family.

[Apollo Robbins]

We had put on tennis shoes. I had never worn closed toe shoes before in my life. We had socks on and I had a jacket on like I do now. But it was 80, probably 80 to 90 degrees with 90% humidity. And I just remember being hot.

[Phoebe Judge]

They arrived in Seattle in 1992, three days before Halloween.

[Apollo Robbins]

I remember thinking that America didn't have any smells. It just smelled like nothing. I didn't smell food, I didn't smell the streets. I didn't smell sweat. And I hadn't ever seen so many yellow leaves.

[Phoebe Judge]

They soon moved to California. Ava was a good student. She went to UCLA for college and wanted to become a psychiatrist. And when she graduated, she stayed in Los Angeles. And then one day she visited Las Vegas for a bachelorette party. And a man approached her and her friends.

[Apollo Robbins]

He stole my friend's engagement ring. After just what it seemed to be, shaking her hand and saying a few sentences with her and. And then he gave it back. And I thought this was the most bizarre thing to give it back. If you could steal something, why would you give it back? I had never. I've never met an honest thief, I guess.

[Phoebe Judge]

I mean, did you immediately, once he gave the engagement ring back, say, how did you do that?

[Apollo Robbins]

I said, why did you give it back?

[Ava Doe]

She was very off script for the typical person. And she had questions about why I was doing what I was doing, what got me into it. And she was very intense. And she says, can you steal something from me? She asked me, can I say yes? Okay. She asked me to steal a chocolate covered strawberry for her.

[Phoebe Judge]

Steal it from a VIP table full of people. And he did.

[Ava Doe]

This is now maybe 4am at an after hours Las Vegas nightclub. And everything felt a little bit half tinged with fabrication, you know.

[Phoebe Judge]

He told her his name was Apollo Robbins.

[Ava Doe]

I think he said that I'm a theatrical pickpocket. To which I had no idea what that meant. I didn't know what to make around the premise of stealing for entertainment.

[Phoebe Judge]

Apollo had been Working as a kind of magician, specializing in theft. He's been called the best pickpocket in the world. What after that first night, what was the next thing you two did together? Did you go on a first date, or do you remember the next time.

[Ava Doe]

You saw each other before we saw each other again? Because I lived in LA at the time, and Apollo lived in Las Vegas. We had phone calls that lasted an average of four hours, was anywhere between two to nine hours. We had very long conversations about everything, But a lot of it was about psychology. I thought it was a really peculiar thing to be interested in deception if you didn't have to grow up with it. And I thought that if you grew up in America and the living was easy, then why would you be interested in cons and scams and, I suppose, heists. But I knew very little at that, that time.

[Phoebe Judge]

What did Apollo tell you about why he'd become a magician?

[Ava Doe]

He said that his brothers were thieves.

[Phoebe Judge]

He told her he was from Missouri, his father was a minister, and he had two half brothers.

[Ava Doe]

I had idolized them when I was growing up. They were my much older brothers, and they could do. I saw them do stuff like pickpocketing at a zoo and other things.

[Phoebe Judge]

Apollo says when he was 14, one of them got into trouble.

[Ava Doe]

He was functionally a drug smuggler working for a cartel, also moving into firearms and smuggling firearms into the Midwest. And when he realized that it was escalating, he was trying to get out of it, and he was turning into a state witness. And I happened to get exposed to some of that, seeing those deals going bad and seeing what was going on.

[Phoebe Judge]

Around that time, he remembers their house flooding.

[Ava Doe]

And in my basement, while we were cleaning up some stuff, I found a plastic finger. And I asked what it came from. Is it Halloween prop or is it. And my mom said, it's from a magic kit that somebody had given me. So I called a magic shop and I asked if I could come by and if they could tell me what this is. And they said, yeah, come down.

[Phoebe Judge]

Apollo says that a man at the magic shop sold him a book about coin magic. And he started studying it and practicing tricks.

[Ava Doe]

When I was like 12 or so, I shoplifted some cigarettes. And this clerk was checking me. He stopped me in the store and he went to check me. And I took the cigarettes and I put them in his apron. They had been underneath my arm, in the back of him. And then when he started to check me, I dropped it in his apron, and it got me out of the store and it's reverse pickpocketing. I was putting something on him. So when I started magic, I decided, let me see if I can bring some of that. Putting things on people, taking things off people that I had seen, I had seen it mostly with my brothers. And I didn't have the nervousness. I saw other magicians who tried to do those things. And if you get caught doing a magic trick, it doesn't have the kind of stakes that it does if you get caught stealing something.

[Phoebe Judge]

When he was 22, Apollo left Missouri and moved to Las Vegas. Years later, he got Ava's number at the bachelorette party. And then they started getting to know each other during those long phone calls.

[Ava Doe]

It function moved pretty quickly after those calls to meeting in LA and going to the Magic Castle for a first date.

[Phoebe Judge]

I think the Magic Castle is an invitation only club for magicians. We actually visited for our episode the Shell Game. It's in an old mansion in Hollywood.

[Ava Doe]

What stood out to me that evening was Apollo made a point to turn off his cell phone and put it away. And I, I don't know that I had been on a date. I didn't date a lot, but I hadn't been on a date where someone did that.

[Phoebe Judge]

Did the fact that Apollo was a professional in this deception and pickpocketing make you nervous? When you first started seeing each other, did you find yourself thinking, well, maybe he's just using me, deceiving me. He's good at this.

[Ava Doe]

It definitely made me nervous. It made me nervous thinking about, what else does it mean if I continue this relationship long term?

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Ava Doe]

We went to go see the show, and then after the show, Penn and Teller invited us backstage to hang out with him. And as we were hanging back there, I said, I have something special for you. And I drop on one Nini. I brought out a ring box, and this is like our second or third date. And Penn, who knew me really well, was really surprised. Like, what on earth? Tyler was in the know, so he was just kind of laughing. But I dropped down one knee. I had the ring box so it looked like I was going to propose. And she was very shocked. And she opened the ring box, and inside is a blindfold. And I said, do you trust me? And she said, yes. So she put it on.

I lied. I didn't trust him, but she put it on.

[Phoebe Judge]

They ended up driving up to a mountain cabin he'd rented to surprise her. And the surprises didn't stop.

[Ava Doe]

Well, he stole my watch. He stole my jewelry often. So I stopped wearing jewelry just to see what else he would steal.

When I met her, she was a crisis counselor, so she was doing a job that was very intense. She was answering a hotline for people calling in. And I, at that time was hanging out with a Bunch of thieves. Because while I was entertaining, I was also interested in the history, the genealogy of what was part of what I did.

[Phoebe Judge]

Apollo had read an old book called Whiz Mob, which explained slang used by teams of pickpockets on the street. He read a lot of books about magic and crime.

[Ava Doe]

The provenance or the history of sleight of hand mostly comes from thieves. The reason why a magician can do a card trick is because they are borrowing from techniques that card sheets use. So what a cool thing to go out in the wild and find. What's the origin of this move? If it didn't come from magic, what was before? If it came back 200 years ago, where did it come from?

[Phoebe Judge]

He started thinking about putting his own team together.

[Ava Doe]

And I was forming this kind of collective of different types of thieves. And I was trying to find the detectives who arrested them or their counterparts in legal. And I was starting to bring those folks together. And at that time, that's when she met me.

You know, we started hanging out with all these different people. So some of them were thieves. One was a hacker, one was a cannon, which is the lingo for a thief who can steal all by himself. He doesn't need anyone else on the team. One was a really renowned card hustler. His name was Rod the Hop. And he was very famous for this one move called the Hop.

He was on the blacklist. And the Blacklist only had 36 people. It was officially called the list of excluded persons. That the casinos would collect their biometrics and try to keep them out of the casinos. The hacker was a very notorious hacker. His name is Kevin Mitnick. We had Joe Pawnshop Joe, who was very good at running crooked carnival type scams. We had Joe Moves, who was one of the last guys who worked with Titanic Thompson, who was a favorite con man. And he would talk about how they would run teams for these long form cons. And at one point, it was 10 plus people that the FBI would have on their watch list, all coming over to our house at once.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ava had moved to Las Vegas, and she and Apollo were living together. They called the group their brain trust. They said there wasn't a real structure to their meetings. At first they just wanted to get people talking to each other.

[Apollo Robbins]

They've made observations about people for all of their life and for high consequences. So I'm trying to learn what is it that they're saying, seeing in people? Because I'm trying to learn to see the same thing.

[Phoebe Judge]

Eva says she asked a lot of Questions.

[Ava Doe]

Because what magic and crime share is the you whether it's whatever the consequences and the consequence in crime is much more severe than it is in magic. But you are trying to, you know, to put it in plain language, get away with something. You know what it's like to try to get away with something. And when you meet each other, meet another person who's been trying to do that, you feel it.

[Phoebe Judge]

The idea for the Brain Trust was that they would consult for security companies, speak at law enforcement conventions, put on demonstrations and lectures.

[Apollo Robbins]

Everyone leaves it at the door where you work, who you steal from, what you steal. We leave it at the door when we talk about skills.

[Phoebe Judge]

But Apollo says that not everyone in the group got along.

[Ava Doe]

You'd see this judgment that others would have for each other, who was opportunist, who was not di the canon. He would, I mean, he was cool with stealing from certain age brackets of people. And for a lot of the guys, they just thought that was very low handed.

[Phoebe Judge]

Do you remember, Ava, a time when you asked another magician or thief or con artist, you know, one of these guys why they did what they did and what their answer was?

[Ava Doe]

Yes. I remember asking Rod, who was in full transparency, a really good friend of ours. I said to him, I said, rod, you could do anything else you want, probably, why are you cheating slot machines? And he said, he never gave me the answer I wanted, but what he said was, I'm just going to do this until this. And it was always some variation of that that he's just going to do this until this time.

He did have that kind of perpetual goal of but if I could just beat the bill validator on the slot machine, because I got that one little thing, I just got to accomplish that before I end. We always talked about how that was like the old grifter movies where they just have to pull this one last conversation.

[Phoebe Judge]

Eva and Apollo also traveled around the world looking for people for the Brain Trust. Once they went to Spain to try to talk to pickpockets.

[Ava Doe]

There's a tourist street that goes right down Barcelona. And as we walked down, we saw some teams doing three shell game on the street. But they were playing it with matchboxes. They call it domino. I noticed that the ball that they were using was made out of cigarette papers that they had rolled up. And it's not the best way to do it. It's an older way. And so I went off to a beauty shop that was nearby, grabbed a latex sponge, cut it up to look like a pea, and it would work a lot better for their game. But I was going to use that as an offering, as a gift. So when their team split up, I noticed one signal they use is tugging on the sleeve. And that indicates tug on the sleeve. I need you to meet me back at a spot. So when I saw that, I tugged on the sleeve of the operator, and I said, a gift. And I just put the ball in his hand, and he tugged on my sleeve for me to follow him. So him and I walked off to the side, and I took money out, said, bring some money out. And we did this game. It was an old slap game. And he saw that he could make money with that without even seeing it. So he had a translator, said, have him meet me for dinner.

[Apollo Robbins]

When we had dinner with him, it was fascinating because I asked him, do you hang out with any pickpockets? And he said, no, I don't know any of them. And his tone was interesting. And I said, okay. And he said, oh, you think I'm like them? I said, no, not at all. He said, yeah, I'm not like them. I don't steal from people. And I said, you don't? And he said, no. People play my game. They will take the money out of their pockets and put it down and play my game. I don't put my hand in their pockets.

[Phoebe Judge]

Apollo and Ava say that the members of the group had an unspoken agreement. While they were involved in the brain trust, they wouldn't break the law.

[Ava Doe]

If they started to cross that line, they'd have to let us know so we could pull them out of the team.

[Phoebe Judge]

Eventually, it started falling apart.

[Ava Doe]

There was a pickpocket that we had introduced to a cop. And the cop, because we had introduced him, took his kind of under his wing. The pickpocket started hustling him and getting him to do certain things. I felt responsible for facilitating that relationship. I kind of tried to break it. The initial model of just kind of being a consulting agency that had subject matter experts on deception. As I went along, I started to see that there was an itch that a lot of those guys had that wasn't going to get scratched on the legal side of it.

[Phoebe Judge]

By then, for Eva, things had changed.

[Ava Doe]

When I met Apollo, I was still thinking that I would become a psychiatrist, that I would work in a clinical setting. I didn't think that I would shift gears.

[Phoebe Judge]

But as she was getting to know Apollo, she changed her mind.

[Apollo Robbins]

I've always been a watcher, so I just watched. And then one day he was performing Something. I walked away because I had a phone call. When I came back, I saw a detail in the way he handled something, and I figured out how it worked.

[Phoebe Judge]

She was interested in how people responded to him.

[Apollo Robbins]

There was this vulnerable moment where people are exposed to a shift in what they thought is real. So I wanted to do that.

[Phoebe Judge]

She started off learning how to pickpocket, but then she got tired of it.

[Apollo Robbins]

It was a gender problem. The performing space that I often performed in was corporate parties, which had many men. And I didn't love the responses I would get when someone realized I had been in their pockets.

[Phoebe Judge]

Instead, Ava became a kind of magician called a mentalist.

[Apollo Robbins]

All of the routines you would see a mentalist perform are more things that your mind fools you. Not so much in sleight of hand. It uses some sleight of hand, but mostly psychological.

[Phoebe Judge]

Give me an example. I mean, of a simplistic.

[Apollo Robbins]

Someone might pretend to read your mind. Someone might pretend to have psychic phenomenon. Someone might move an object with their mind on the table. That kind of thing.

[Phoebe Judge]

She remembers one time when she was working a party, she'd asked someone to think about their mother's maiden name.

[Apollo Robbins]

And the person, the lady that I was performing for, she. When I said her mother's maiden name back in full, she said, okay. And I thought I failed, but she was stunned. And I realized then that. I realized at that moment that if I wanted an applause. Maybe mentalism isn't always the thing. People don't applaud mentalism. I don't know why exactly. I mean, I have some theories about why they don't applaud, but most people are quietly stunned.

[Phoebe Judge]

When we met Ava in the studio, we asked her to show us one of her tricks. She told me to pull out my credit card and hold it so only I could read the numbers. And then she recited the number. Before we even started the interview, Ava handed me a piece of paper and asked me to draw something on it and not show her. I put the drawing in my pocket, and then near the end of the day, we sat down together again. She put my hand on her wrist and asked me to think about the picture. Then she drew almost exactly what I had drawn. A dog.

[Apollo Robbins]

You're not moving my hand, right?

[Phoebe Judge]

I'm not moving your hand.

[Apollo Robbins]

Did you play Ouija board as a kid?

[Phoebe Judge]

Yeah.

[Apollo Robbins]

Okay, but you're not one of the people that would move the Ouija board, right?

[Phoebe Judge]

No, I don't think so.

[Apollo Robbins]

Is that right?

[Phoebe Judge]

Do you want me to show you?

[Apollo Robbins]

Sure.

[Phoebe Judge]

You have to come and see this, Lauren, look at that. What? Oh, my God. This is nuts. For a while, Ava and Apollo performed together. But Apollo says Ava liked to make spreadsheets and plan ahead, and he liked to make up a show on the fly. They decided they were better off doing shows alone. Then they got married. Do either of you. I mean, do you ever manage to trick each other? I mean, is it possible?

[Ava Doe]

That was a promise I made when we married, that I would do it every day. I would always give her a surprise every day.

[Apollo Robbins]

And he's kept it.

[Ava Doe]

Yeah. Small ones or big ones? But it's always been an important part, I think, for us to keep each other on the back foot.

[Apollo Robbins]

We get this question a lot. Do we still get fooled? I look to get fooled at least once a Day.

[Phoebe Judge]

In 2016, Ava and Apollo told their friends and family they were having a baby. They invited everyone over for the baby shower and made another announcement.

[Ava Doe]

We asked them. They said, you know, we couldn't come to a name, and we need your help. And we asked everybody to write down a name that they like, and we trust them as friends and we trust their opinions and to drop them in a box, and we're going to draw the name out of a box, and that would be our daughter's name. And it made everybody very tense. And then we had one of them draw the name out of the box, and they said, maya. I said, that's amazing. That seems like, I'm so happy you chosen that name. And because it matches everything we have. And then we showed the balloons and we showed these banners and everything, they all came out that all said Maya.

[Phoebe Judge]

How old are you, Maya?

[Maya Robbins]

Seven.

[Phoebe Judge]

We'll be right back.

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[Vox Media Advertiser]

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[Ava Doe]

Hello.

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[Phoebe Judge]

Ava Doe and Apollo Robbins daughter Maya joined us in the studio. What grade are you in?

[Maya Robbins]

First grade.

[Phoebe Judge]

First grade. And do you like school? What's your favorite thing?

[Maya Robbins]

Mostly more math.

[Phoebe Judge]

Do you ever do magic at school for your friends?

[Maya Robbins]

I do, but they say that's not magic.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ave and Apollo told us every year on Maya's birthday, they teach her a new trick. So we asked to see one.

[Maya Robbins]

Do you have a calculator?

[Phoebe Judge]

On my phone.

[Maya Robbins]

Okay.

[Phoebe Judge]

Does that work? Yeah. Okay. Do you want me to bring it up?

[Maya Robbins]

Yeah, but just don't show me.

[Phoebe Judge]

Okay, I won't show you. I promise. Okay. Wait. Wait a second. I'm gonna get it right now. Okay. Okay, I'm ready.

[Maya Robbins]

How is your math?

[Phoebe Judge]

It's not that good.

[Maya Robbins]

Well, that's okay.

[Phoebe Judge]

Okay.

[Maya Robbins]

Okay. Think of a number between 1 and 10, but don't tell me.

[Phoebe Judge]

Okay.

[Maya Robbins]

This will be your secret number. Now double it.

[Phoebe Judge]

Okay.

[Maya Robbins]

Add 14. Got it?

[Phoebe Judge]

Yep.

[Maya Robbins]

Okay. Divide it in half.

[Phoebe Judge]

Okay.

[Maya Robbins]

Do you remember your secret number?

[Phoebe Judge]

Yes.

[Maya Robbins]

Subtract that from the number you have.

[Phoebe Judge]

I did it.

[Maya Robbins]

Okay. I might need get a little close.

[Phoebe Judge]

Okay.

[Maya Robbins]

Hold out your finger like that. The answer is seven.

[Phoebe Judge]

That's right. How did you do that? You know, do you ever think to yourself, well, I'm really good at keeping secrets and I'm good at magic, but because my parents are really good, too, I'm not going to get away with it.

[Maya Robbins]

Not all the time.

[Apollo Robbins]

Do you sometimes tell Mommy to play a game with you, but not read your mind? You say no mind reading?

[Maya Robbins]

Yes, I do.

[Phoebe Judge]

Ava told us that sometimes Maya asked to learn certain tricks. There's one they call a cups and balls routine, where the magician places cups over balls and makes them disappear.

[Ava Doe]

And she, you know, the trick requires a lot of practice. And she had talked to me earlier that day about, how do you practice? So I told her that one of my magic teachers told me that you should practice until you get it right seven times in a row. And later that day, she had taken a piece of paper and drawn out a series of rows and columns, and she was marking X's and check marks in these squares for all of the times that she had gotten the different phases of the cups and balls. Routine correctly. I think I was so incredibly surprised at the science, the scientific approach that she was taking.

[Phoebe Judge]

We asked Apollo and Eva if it's important to them that Maya learns magic like a family business, but they told us it's about something different.

[Ava Doe]

A lot of parents want to teach their kids critical thinking, and we often say that critical thinking isn't a good enough term. So for her, we want her to question reality.

[Apollo Robbins]

What are some of the ways that we misperceive reality? Because that's what magic is taking advantage of.

[Ava Doe]

You know, we're all puppets. We all have strings. Here are the strings that you should know that can be pulled. And now it's her choice. Does she pull strings, or does she recognize when her strings are being pulled?

[Phoebe Judge]

I mean, do you think in the beginning, your relationship. Do you think, Eva, if you had said, you know what? I'm not interested in any of this. I want to be a farmer, you know, or a million other things, that the relationship would have worked as well as it did. As well as it has. I mean, did. Implicit in the workings of your relationship, Is it both your interest in this topic, in deception, in all the psychology of it, you know, in magic, in tricks?

[Ava Doe]

I'm going to honestly answer this question, Apollo.

Sure.

[Phoebe Judge]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ava Doe]

Which is, no, I don't think it would have worked as well. You know, you only know the one door that you open. But I think that if we weren't both aligned in the same interest, I think that we would have been attracted to each other for a while. And I don't know how long that while would have lasted. I just don't think that we would have this connection. I think I'm always kind of amazed by how much we can still talk.

[Phoebe Judge]

If both of you right now decided that you didn't care that you were gonna be. You didn't care about rules or the law, and you weren't nervous about it, could you take off with Maya and make yourselves incredibly rich and go off and live a wonderful life on a deserted island?

[Ava Doe]

I think that's if we were to tell ourselves the same stories that those guys that we met before did, that's the stories they would tell themselves. That I just need to do this one more con, this one more thing. It probably wouldn't be pickpocketing. It'd probably be something else. But do we have the toolbox and the skill sets? Probably, yes. But the cost and the risk associated with that. Plus, we have a daughter. What do we want her to grow up to be? So I think Those are things that stop us.

[Apollo Robbins]

Yeah.

[Ava Doe]

And I think the other dimension to Phoebe is that, you know, we have other choices. I always wonder what would happen if we have no other choice. I don't know that I could, you know, certain, 100% with certainty, definitively say that, no, if I had no other choice, I wouldn't do something that could benefit myself. Breaking the law because I had the skill to do it. You know, those people that we met, a lot of them didn't have choices.

Yeah.

[Phoebe Judge]

Do you feel like both of you are rather insulated from being conned or pickpocketed?

[Apollo Robbins]

Not at all. I think we know more about the different kinds of things and we might recognize when a game is being run, but we will have moments in our life where we're vulnerable, when our blind spots will be activated and when we're not looking for it. And those are good times to be targeted.

[Ava Doe]

Yeah. Most people have an illusion of invulnerability. I'm too smart or I'm too aware. All right? And I think what we have is that we know what is possible.

[Phoebe Judge]

Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sujiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] and you can sign up for our [e-mail] Newsletter if you want to see videos of Ava Apollo and Maya showing me and Lauren Magic, join criminal [e-mail] plus. If you join, you'll be supporting our work and you'll be able to listen to Criminal. This is love. And Phoebe reads a mystery without any ads. Plus you get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co creator Lauren Spohr telling stories from the last 10 years of working together. You can find out [e-mail] plus we're on Facebook and Twitter criminalshow and Instagram criminalpodcast. We're also on YouTube at YouTube.com criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Discover more great shows at podcast voxmedia.com. i'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.