Джеймс Суэйн - The Man Who Cheated Death

“Are you crazy — what are you doing?”

“Osbourne’s in the van,” Hardare said.

“What? Are you sure?”

“Yes — the old man in the wheelchair told me.”

Wondero sprinted past him, determined to get there first.

Hardare beat him anyway.

The VW was stopped. Bright orange flames had filled the interior, as if the gates of purgatory had prematurely opened up to make room. Flames shot up twenty feet into the air.

The driver’s door swung open. Covered in flames, his head and hands already dark cinders, Osbourne toppled out of the inferno, and did a series of fading pirouettes in the street. It was beautiful and horrible at the same time, and he finally crumpled in a heap before them, his charred corpse shriveling into a ball as the fire danced in mad jubilation across his remains.

“Christ Almighty,” Wondero said. “I didn’t think I’d ever see this day.”

The detective touched the corpse with his toe, just to be sure.

The discovery of a partially melted gas can with a bullet hole in it on the floor of the van Osbourne had been driving provided a logical explanation of his demise for the local TV stations, and Hardare’s name was hardly mentioned in any of the stories which ran that night.

Hardare didn’t care. Upon returning to the hotel, his wife and daughter had treated him like a hero, and he opened up his eyes the next morning to find the celebration still underway. Jan had ordered eggs Benedict and Dom Perignon from room service, which was delivered on a metal cart. As he sat up in bed, he’d been startled by the presence of several dozen brightly colored helium balloons clinging to the ceiling. Crystal handed him a pea shooter, and a box filled with metal BBs.

“Where the heck did you get these?” he said, laughing.

“Let’s see if you’ve lost your touch!” his daughter said.

And so he had spent the next half-hour lying in bed, leaving no doubt in either of their minds that he was still the world champion at shooting balloons off the ceiling.

Their jubilation soon passed. At noon, the theatre manager at the Wilshire Ebell called the hotel. Ticket sales had slowed to a trickle. If demand did not pick up, he did not anticipate them breaking even for the two week run. Did Hardare wish to consider cancelling the engagement?

“Hell no,” Hardare had told him.

The news got a little better when they drove to Burbank that afternoon, and met with the fast-talking carnival owner who had agreed to let Hardare perform his straitjacket escape while hanging from his monster roller-coaster ride.

“With the TV people here, you’ll be a smash,” the owner assured them, punctuating his words with a stinky cigar. “You mark my words: appearing at Bob Olley’s carnival will be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for the straitjacket escape. While Jan and Crystal set up the portable spotlights, Hardare timed the roller coaster with a stopwatch. A life-time of performing escapes had taught him that most mechanical things were not dependable. The roller coaster was a perfect example: each ride was shorter by a few seconds than the one before it. After the tenth ride, the times evened out at two minutes, two seconds. He had honed the escape down to a minute forty-nine, which left a comfortable thirteen second margin for error.

He then assembled the small trampoline that was essential to the escape’s finale. Once the straitjacket was off his body, he would release his ankles from the block-and-tackle that was holding him in the air, and jump to the ground. The distance was over thirty feet, and the new trampoline had him worried. He had worked with them for years, and springs often popped, usually when someone was bouncing too hard on them.

When the trampoline was assembled, the three of them took turns testing it, then all got on together. It felt sound, and Hardare quickly put it out of his mind.

Bob Olley’s Carnival opened its gates at 5 p.m. that night. When Jayne Hunter and her crew arrived to film the escape an hour later, the place was a mob scene, and two carnival employees had to escort the Action Ten van through the crowd.

The van parked behind a concession tent. Hunter and her crew got out and began unloading their equipment, the escape artist and family no where in sight.

As Hunter got ready, she considered how much she had gotten out of this story. Two exclusives, her name mentioned repeatedly in the newspapers, and now this. She’d done well by Hardare, and she regretted only giving him three minutes of air time for his escape. The problem was, it was a publicity stunt, something which had no real news value, except if he fell. She knew how ghoulish that sounded, but also knew the public’s taste.

“Hello Jayne,” Hardare said, his face partially hidden by a pink swirl of cotton candy.

“Hello yourself,” Hunter replied.

The magician was dressed in skintight black clothes, his sleek body rippled with muscles. “A small token of my appreciation,” he said, handing her the candy.

“What did I do?” Hunter asked.

“Hundreds of kids started pouring into the carnival an hour ago, and they came to see me. One of them told my daughter you plugged my escape on your channel all afternoon. I couldn’t ask for much more than that.”

“I talked the station manager into it,” Hunter admitted, pleased to see him so happy. “My way of saying thanks.”

While Hardare talked to her crew about lighting and camera angles for the escape, Jan appeared and took Hunter aside.

“You’ve done a lot for us,” Jan said, squeezing her arm appreciatively, “and I think we’ve maybe helped you a bit, too.”

Hunter smiled. “You’ve helped me a lot.”

“I need to ask another favor,” Jan said.

“Really? What’s that?”

A train filled with screaming kids riding the roller coaster roared above their heads, making conversation useless. Jan’s entire body started to tremble, and Hunter recognized the fear lurking behind Jan’s mask of happiness.

“What do you want me to,” Hunter said.

At six o’clock Wondero was still in his office, on the phone with a sheriff in Pennsylvania who was singing his praises. At first, Wondero had been flattered, then embarrassed, and finally got annoyed. The sheriff simply wouldn’t stop lavishing praise on him. He was beginning to dislike being famous, and it had only started a few hours ago.

The thought of the century had occurred to him as he had stepped foot in his office that morning. It was something that should have dawned on him much earlier, and he supposed that it hadn’t because it was so obvious.

D.B. had other roommates.

Dr. Cavanaugh had faxed him their names. There were six, and one by one, Wondero had started tracking them down.

His luck had been phenomenal; two were dead, and he had located the other four, and turned up two more killers, the first a plumber in Reno, the other a security guard in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Both had basements and refrigerator freezers filled with human trophies, and both were now behind bars.

“I had the F.B.I. up here ten times,” the sheriff in PA was telling him, “and they turned up squat. I’m going to call them first thing tomorrow, tell them what you did.”

The sheriff in Reno had promised the same, the F.B.I. agents in his territory having rubbed him the wrong way.

“Glad to have helped you out,” Wondero said.

“Not as glad as me,” the sheriff said.

As Wondero said goodbye, his phone lit up. The Reno killer’s capture had been picked up by U.P.I. and he had been deluged by calls. The newspapers were calling him the serial killer catcher, and if he didn’t leave his office soon, his head would grow too large to fit through the door.