Джеймс Суэйн - The Man Who Cheated Death

He stole into the bathroom with the kitchen phone under his arm and dialed the number. Busy. He dialed again. Still busy.

“Come on.” He dialed again.

“KOLL,” an operator answered.

He tried to make his voice sound husky. “Am I on the air?”

“No sir, this is the switchboard. Do you have something to report?”

“Uhh... yes, I do,” he stammered, desperately trying to come up with a good one. “My car started.”

“Your car?”

“That’s right. The battery was dead. I was listening to your show, and I went outside and tried it. Started up just like that.” Chip clicked his fingers the way his father always did.

“That’s amazing sir. Where do you live?”

“Uh... Hollywood.”

“Thank you for calling in.”

“No problem.” Chip heard the line disconnect. He put his hand against his chest and felt his heart pounding against his rib cage. He returned the phone to the kitchen, petted their sleeping sheltie on the head, and tip-toed upstairs. His bed was still warm, and turning up the radio, he returned to the darkly mysterious world beneath the sheets.

“Folks, my station manager has just told me we’ve gotten over two hundred calls in the past minute.” Kitchen skimmed through a stack of messages the manager had handed him and randomly started to read. “A woman in Westwood called to say her dishwasher now works. A man in Century City had his clock start. We’ve gotten a flood of calls from Burbank: electric utensils, TVs, a sinkerator, radios. And folks, a man in Hollywood called to say the dead battery on his car started. Unbelievable.”

A tech wearing a Grateful Dead tee shirt came into the sound booth and whispered into Kitchen’s ear.

“Folks, I’ve just been told that our switchboards are jammed. I know you want to share your experiences with us, but for the time being please, no more calls. If too many of you call at once, we’ll blow our circuits.”

To his guest he said, “Hardare, I don’t know how you did it, but hundreds of people have reported repairs of all sorts of appliances. This is a mind-blower.”

“And I know there are thousands more,” Hardare said, raising his voice. “And I want every single one of them to let us know!”

“But they can’t call in,” Kitchen objected, growing exasperated. “I think you just heard...”

“Forget the phones,” Hardare said. “We could be here all night. I want all of you out there listening to go to a light by a window in your home, and flick it on and off. Do it now. If we have shared something special over the airwaves this evening, then I think it’s important that we share it with each other. Get up, and turn on that light!”

Through the glass Wondero and Rittenbaugh glared at him. The glint of hopeful anticipation he’d kindled in their faces moments ago had been transformed into looks of dreadful aggrandizement. You’re crazy, their looks said, and we’re responsible.

While Kitchen did a promo for a new sponsor, Hardare scribbled on a notepad, and held it up to the glass.

GO OUTSIDE TAKE A LOOK

The detectives left without a word.

“What in God’s name is your father doing?” Jan asked, standing awestruck by the living room window of their hotel suite. Across the expansive cityscape of LA hundreds of lights had started to flicker until the night sky was ablaze with pinpoints of flashing yellow dots.

“It looks like lightning bugs in the summertime,” Crystal murmured, her nose pressed to the glass. “Look at that apartment building; there must be twenty lights going on and off.”

“I didn’t think something like this was possible,” Jan said. She was her husband’s best critic, and when he fooled her with a trick, it made her feel that she did not fully know him, and that a part of his personality was still a dark and hidden mystery.

“Come on, Jan,” Crystal said. “Did you really think you know all of Dad’s secrets?”

“I guess not,” Jan said.

The number of flicking lights continued to grow. On a distant freeway, passing motorists were flicking their headlights as if in a road rally. It was like a big game, and Crystal began flicking the overhead light in rhythm with the lights outside.

“What are you doing?” Jan asked.

“Playing along,” she exclaimed. “Why should everyone else have all the fun?”

Hardare found Wondero and Rittenbaugh standing by the gigantic antenna on the roof of KOLL, watching the blinking lights gradually fade across the city. A wind whipped across the roof and the detectives moved away from the building’s edge.

“Harry and I have seen a lot of strange things, but nothing compared to this,” Rittenbaugh said.

“We were trying to figure out how to explain this to our superiors,” Wondero added, cupping his hands around a match to light a cigarette. “Telekinesis? Mass hypnosis, mass illusions. What exactly would you call it?”

“It combines a lot of principles,” Hardare said.

“Including mass gullibility?” Wondero asked.

“You’re warm,” Hardare said.

Wondero smiled. “You owe me lunch,” he told his partner. To Hardare he said, “We had a little wager. Casey thought you had stooges calling in; I figured you were pulling a stunt similar to Orson Wells’ War of The Worlds. It was all in the presentation. You really didn’t repair any broken appliances. You just made people think that you did.”

“You’re right,” Hardare said. “There are always a small group of people who will believe just about anything. Those people initially called the station. Their calls created a snowball effect. Others call in because they want to be noticed, and bask in the spotlight.”

“Pretty soon everyone wants to get in on the act,” Wondero concluded.

“Right. They look out their windows, see a neighbor turning on a light, and decide to turn on a light, too. In this illusion, it’s the audience’s collective imagination that makes the trick work.” Hardare paused before asking the inevitable. “What next?”

“We wait,” said Rittenbaugh. “It’s his move.”

“That doesn’t sound terribly promising.”

“You scared him into calling the station,” Wondero said. “This is the first time we’ve actually heard him. He’s starting to get sloppy, and in police work that’s an encouraging sign.”

The door to the roof banged open, and the detectives spun around on their heels. Kenny Kitchen ran out, breathless.

“He called... minute after show ended,” Kitchen said. His eyes had a wild, disoriented look. His voice faltering, he said, “He played another tape for me. He called it his greatest hits. It had dozens of different voices on it... women dying, crying pathetically. I couldn’t stand it, had to hang up on him.”

Hardare put his arm around Kitchen’s trembling shoulders. “It’s okay Kenny. I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

“Oh God, Vince,” Kitchen said. “It sounded like something right out of hell.”

“Help.”

Straining beneath the agonizing weight of a barbell, Eugene Osbourne heard the women’s voice and felt his pumped and gleaming muscles involuntarily stiffen. The voice was too close.

“Help.”

Resting the barbell behind his head, he rose from the weight bench that sat in the middle of the otherwise empty dining room, and silently slipped into the downstairs hallway. Early morning sunlight filtered through the dirty windows.

“Help.” A fist banged against the front door. “Please come out and help me.”

Osbourne checked his wig and false eyebrows in a mirror before throwing the dead bolt on the door. A fiftyish, pear-shaped woman stood breathlessly before him. Her wrinkled face looked familiar, yet he did not bother to consider from where.