Джеймс Суэйн - The Man Who Cheated Death

“What do you want?”

“Mr. Kozlowski... fell out of bed... I can’t lift him—”

“Go away. Leave me alone.”

“—I live next door,” she said, pointing at the bungalow that sat twenty feet away. “Oh please. You’re a big, strong man. I’ve seen you lift heavy boxes into your truck.”

“No.”

She looked at him beseechingly, her fingers clawing the screen door. “P lease . I don’t want to have to call the police.”

“The police,” Osbourne said, stiffening.

“Mr. Kozlowski fell out of bed and I hurt my back and can’t lift him,” she said, the words shaming her into a sudden fit of anger. “Oh, to hell with you! Go back to your steroids,” she exclaimed and stormed off the porch.

Osbourne hesitated, envisioning the police parked out front. What if they saw the illegal burn pail he kept in the back yard, or the broken light on his van, and decided to issue him a ticket. They might even ask to come inside the house.

“Wait.”

The woman halted in the narrow driveway that separated the two pieces of property. He came out of his house and joined her.

“Name’s Myrtle Jones,” she said curtly.

“I’m Eugene.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Through a back door they entered a kitchen with peeling linoleum floors and ancient appliances. A delicious aroma stopped him in his tracks and he blinked, the smell triggering a plethora of buried thoughts and pleasures.

“Come on,” she said impatiently, already bossing him. “He’s down here.”

The darkened hallway led to a small bedroom. What looked like a mummy lay half-draped in sheets on the floor beside a hospital bed. Kneeling, he gathered Mr. Kozlowski in his arms.

The old man was as light as a feather, his frail, withered body more dead than alive. Osbourne looked into his face and saw a flicker of recognition. The old man’s lips moved silently.

“He’s thanking you,” she explained, tucking him in with care. “Mr. Kozlowski was quite an athlete, used to climb mountains all over the world. Sometimes I think he dreams he’s back at Kilimanjaro — he scaled that one, you know — and manages to take the arms down and climb out of his bed.”

“Your welcome,” Osbourne told him.

Back in the kitchen the aroma again caught him. She brushed past him, grabbing a potholder and banging open the oven. “Damn timer!” she swore, dropping a sheet of chocolate cookies on the range. “It never works. Did you hear about that man on the radio last night? He made broken stuff repair itself all over the city. I sure wish I’d been listening; there’s enough stuff around this place that needs fixing.”

While she fussed with the knobs on the oven, Osbourne leaned over the freshly baked cookies and inhaled deeply.

“What are they?”

“Huh?” Myrtle Jones said.

“What kind are they. They smell... different.”

“Heavenly chocolate is what my Grandma used to call them. They’re a secret family recipe.”

“Can I have some?”

“I don’t see why not. Seeing how you helped me.”

He piled cookies into his hand until they were slipping through his fingers, then headed toward the door.

“Aren’t you going to tell me how they taste?” she said, filled with indignation.

He stopped at the door. “Oh. Sure.” He popped one in his mouth and bit down, feeling the syrupy sweet chocolate overwhelm his senses. With a full mouth he said, “They’re tasty.”

“If you’re going to eat a cookie, do it right.”

Opening the refrigerator, she removed a carton of milk and poured a glass of milk. “Dip one in that. Go ahead. Tell me if that isn’t the best darn thing you’ve ever tasted.”

Eugene dipped a cookie into the milk, and popped it into his mouth. He made a happy sound, and dipped a second cookie, then a third, until the cookies in his hand were gone.

“More,” he said.

“Help yourself.”

Myrtle watched him eat, marveling at his seemingly inexhaustible appetite. She’d seen him countless times before, hiding in his house as she wheeled Mr. Kozlowski around the block, but this was her first good look. His face was ordinary, with a square jaw and a flat nose, but something about it struck her as odd. Then she realized what. His skin. It was pale white and perfectly smooth, not a trace of a beard, a face as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

“Pretty good, huh?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled through a mouth full.

“Have some more. You think these are as good as the ones you carry in your van?”

Osbourne’s head snapped, his cold, steely eyes locking on her face. Thinking it was indigestion, she dismissed the look with a wave of her hand. “I watch you load up when I can’t sleep. All those candy bars and potato chips and cookies must drive you crazy. You sell them to stores?”

“Vending machines,” he said.

“I bet you sneak a couple of bars on the side sometimes.”

“Stuff tastes like shit,” he said. Standing, he finished the milk and said, “I’ve got to go.”

Myrtle stood up with him, wishing he’d stay. Sometimes it got so lonely she thought about leaving all the doors wide open and inviting a burglar in, just to have someone to chat with.

“Thanks for the help,” she said through the screen as he crossed the yard. When he did not respond, Myrtle raised her voice. “Say, how about joining us for dinner tonight? I’ve got a pot roast and a homemade chocolate cake that will bring tears to your eyes. If you’re busy, I could bring a plate of food over later—”

Osbourne spun around. “No, don’t do that.”

“—oh, that’s right, you work nights.”

Osbourne heard the catch in her voice; she watched him, knew this was night off. “Not tonight,” he said. “I’ve got a date.”

Myrtle Jones could not hide the disappointment in her voice. “Oh. Well, you have a nice time. Maybe you can take a rain check.”

“Is your chocolate cake homemade?”

She had him. Smiling, she said, “It sure is.”

“Maybe I will,” he said, walking away.

Tawny Starr was a talking head.

On the Hollywood strip that was a pretty big deal, even gave you bragging rights. She had been in a movie, actually said a line, and that was as close a brush with stardom as any of the vicious drag queens and hookers she shared the streets with ever came to. Seventeen, broke and living three months in L.A., she had walked onto a set at Universal Studios, and nabbed a speaking role in a flick with Brad and Angie directed by Syd Marcus and the Oscar-winning Czech cameraman with the backward last name. It wasn’t much, a crummy line, “That will be five dollars.” while serving colored water to Brad’s stand-in inside a noisy nightclub, but it got her name in the bottom of the credits, and qualified her for a SAG card.

Talking head. A cameramen had called her that, and Tawny had thought he was making fun of the way her jaw stuck out when she spoke. Humiliated, she’d wept behind a backdrop until a chummy make-up girl pulled her into one of the trailers, and they’d done a few lines. In every movie, the make-up girl explained, there were characters who had no real identity; faces in the crowd who said things, then disappeared. These characters could be anyone, or look like anything, it really didn’t matter, just so long as they said their lines clearly. In the business these actors were called talking heads.

It had started innocently enough. She was standing in front of Schwabs when a stretch limo pulled up and the passenger window went down. Inside sat a graying studio exec with a funny look in his eyes. No words were spoken, no proposition made. He had simply held up a gold straw while his Oriental driver got out and opened the back door. Tawny had hopped in.