Джеймс Суэйн - The Man Who Cheated Death

“It is over for me,” D.B. replied without a hint of self-pity. “It has been for a long time.”

“You know what I mean.”

D.B. fondly patted his arm. “I appreciate the concern. I have some good news for you. My doctor has convinced her superiors to grant me phone privileges. Soon you and I will be able to talk courtesy of AT&T. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Eugene visibly relaxed. Visiting D.B. inside the hospital had always dredged up painful memories of his own incarceration.

“That is good news,” he admitted.

“I thought you’d be happy. Now, tell me why you’re here.”

“The LAPD is using a magician named Hardare to try to catch me. Hardare keeps giving the police clues, and even showed the police what I look like. I’ve got to stop him.”

“I saw the sketch in today’s paper,” D.B. said, crushing out the cigarette and pocketing the stub. “Not a very good likeness.”

“It’s close enough,” Eugene said.

D.B. glanced at his protégé out of the corner of his eye. Eugene was staring at the ground, his mouth working silently up and down. He looked like a scared rabbit, and not the crazed killer who’d terrorized Los Angeles for the past four years.

“Perhaps it’s time for you to pull up stakes and move on,” D.B. suggested. “All good things must come to a pass. I read in the paper last week how six hundred people are moving into Florida every day. It sounds like fertile ground.”

“I’m not running away,” Eugene said adamantly. “I want to stop Hardare, and I want you to help me.”

“But he’s working with the police, Eugene. I’d advise you to lay low for a while. The police will move onto other things. Time is always on a killer’s side.”

Eugene angrily kicked at the ground. “Will you help me, or not?”

“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Patience was never one of your strong suits. Yes, I’ll help you, but be forewarned: The end result may not be to your liking.”

“I don’t care. I want Hardare.”

Eugene’s mind was made up. Why try to change it? D.B. smiled.

“Then you shall have him,” he said.

They stopped at a picnic table and sat so they faced each other. The yard had filled with visitors, many of whom had brought picnics. At a nearby table, a pregnant young Hispanic girl had burst into tears while the male inmate she was visiting stared absently into the sky, oblivious to her suffering.

“Doesn’t she understand that he can’t feel what she feels,” D.B. wondered aloud, puzzled by the outburst. “How could she have let him impregnate her, and not realize that?”

His words hung in the air like a philosopher’s musings.

“Ah, well. Let’s talk about your problem, shall we?”

Eugene nodded enthusiastically. The savage look had returned to his face, his inner demons bubbling to the surface.

“Does this Hardare fellow have a family?”

“A wife and teenage daughter.”

“Splendid. I would suggest you focus on them. Do you know what hotel they’re staying in?”

“It’s in Beverly Hills. Last night, I followed them from the theater where Hardare is performing. A pair of detectives were in the lobby, so I ran.”

“You ran away?”

“Yes. I didn’t want them to see me.”

D.B. slapped his hand against the picnic table. His face, which he pampered with facial cream and religiously shaved twice each day, broke into a hundred tiny wrinkles, betraying both his true age and his anger. “Only the weak run away, Eugene. You went to Hardare’s hotel with a plan in mind, yes?”

“Yes. I even wrote it out, like you taught me.”

“Splendid. Go back and execute your plan. Do it right now. That’s my advice.”

“But —”

“He who hesitates is lost.” D.B. rose from the table, and in a loud voice said, “Nice to see you again,” and walked away.

When Jan awoke the next morning, a single rose lay in the crease of her husband’s pillow. It was barely light outside, too early for him to be back at the theater. Union hands loved working overtime, yet were impossible to make come in earlier than nine.

She found Vince’s note taped to the bathroom mirror. “A stagehand broke the Spirit Cabinet right after you left. Called Les Griffey and he agreed to fix post haste. Will be with him all morning. See you soon. XXX Vince”

She filled an empty bottle with water and slipped the rose down its neck, then got dressed, wondering when their problems would end, and their lives would go back to being normal.

She spent the morning on her laptop. At noon, she and Crystal took a cab to the theatre, stopping on the way to pick up dry cleaning from a local laundry. Their cabby, a blue-eyed Iranian who politely inquired if they were movie stars, double-parked on the quiet side street and left the meter running.

“I talked to Dad last night,” Crystal said. “I told him that you were worried about him doing an escape to help promote the show.”

“What time was this?” Jan asked.

“About two. I heard him come in, and we talked for a little while. He said he doesn’t really have a choice.”

“Are ticket sales that bad?”

“Yeah. He said we could go bust if they don’t improve. He already contacted a local TV station, and they agreed to televise it on Friday night.”

“Wait a minute. Your father has already lined this up? Which escape is he planning to do?”

“It’s something new.”

“Did he tell you? Come on, Crys, don’t keep secrets from me.”

Her stepdaughter glanced out the window.

“Hey, that guy across the street is staring at us.”

“Stop avoiding the question,” Jan said.

“I’m not avoiding the question. Come on, you’re supposed to be protecting me, aren’t you?”

Jan had a look. The driver in question had double-parked his van in the street, his face buried in some papers.

“He’s not staring anymore. Tell me what your father’s planning to do. I have a right to know.”

“The roller-coaster escape.”

“Oh, my God. You can’t be serious.”

“Dad says it’s a winner, and will get a lot of publicity.”

“Didn’t a performer down in Mexico get killed trying that stunt? What on earth is your father thinking?”

Crystal shook her head. “He’s made up his mind, Jan.”

Jan knew what that meant. When Vince decided he was going to do something, there was no turning back. She angrily got out of the cab, and slammed the door behind her.

Jan stood in line and waited for her dry-cleaning. She felt betrayed. Her husband was confiding in his daughter, but not in her. Had it been over something small, she could have excused it, but this was anything but trivial.

She paid for her order. Walking outside, she came around the corner to where their cab was double-parked, and saw broken glass in the street. She shivered at the sight of where a bullet had frosted the driver’s window.

The dry cleaning slipped through her fingers. She ran around the vehicle, and pulled open the driver’s door. Their affable cabby was slumped behind the wheel, a bloody, half dollar sized bullet hole above his left ear.

“Crys...? Crys!”

The backseat was empty. A wave of absolute dread swept over her. Crystal hadn’t been imagining things. The guy in the van had been stalking them.

Jan opened the driver’s door and rolled the corpse onto the pavement. Jumping in, she threw the running engine into drive and the cab leapt forward like an uncaged animal. She ran the next traffic light, stopping in the middle of the intersection to look both ways. The van had vanished. In desperation she grabbed the microphone to the cab radio.