(FORTUNE Magazine) – Been to any parties at Henry Kravis's apartment lately? If so, you may have met a nerdy-looking, baby-faced guy in an expensive suit and horn-rimmed glasses whom Henry introduces as "my new business partner, Ben."

Then, you no doubt recall, some odd things began to happen. Maybe his wallet suddenly caught fire. Maybe a magazine turned into a fistful of 500-franc notes. At one of Henry's Christmas parties, Ben engaged New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton (who steps down April 15) in an earnest and well-informed chat about crime statistics in various cities around the country. Then Ben said, "Oh, excuse me, may I just borrow your jacket for a second?" Bratton, mystified but polite, agreed. Ben turned Bratton's jacket upside down and out of the inside pockets fell, noisily, many pieces of Henry's silver. To his credit, Bratton laughed loudest.

As you may have figured, Ben is no business partner of Kravis's, at least not in the traditional sense. Benjamin Levy, 35, fills an ancient role. He is the king's magician. Edgar Bronfman Jr., a longtime fan, still can't get over what Ben did to his tie. Says Bronfman, in the kind of wondering voice more usually heard from 10-year-olds: "I was wearing the tie. I saw him cut it in half with a pair of scissors. Then he reached in his pocket and gave me my tie back. It doesn't seem possible."

Levy has been plying his peculiar trade since he met Lee Iacocca in Monte Carlo in 1985: Iacocca, thoroughly charmed and bewildered, hired him for corporate meetings, and his reputation has spread from there. He performs some 70 days a year for a fee of, say, $7,500, for the like of Kravis, Bronfman, Newt Gingrich, Barbara Walters, and the royal family of Monaco, as well as client meetings at Chase Manhattan, Citicorp, Pfizer, Eastman Kodak, and Procter & Gamble.

Levy studies for days in advance of each gig, focusing on what will appeal to a particular audience. His worst experience? Four years ago, at the invitation of Kentucky governor Brereton Jones, Ben "accurately predicted" the winner of the Kentucky Derby and somehow, Houdini-like, sneaked his written "prediction" into a locked and guarded safe. "I wish I'd never done that trick," he says. "Now, everywhere I go, people ask me, 'What do you think of Teabag in the fifth?' "

--Anne B. Fisher