Джеймс Суэйн - The Man Who Cheated Death

His secretary stuck her head into his office. “Got a collect call for you, Harry. Somebody named Ernesto Rodriguez.”

“Never heard of him,” Wondero said.

“He says a man gave him your business card,” his secretary said.

Puzzled, Wondero punched in the line. “Hello? Yes operator, I’ll accept the call.”

“Hello,” said a man with a thick Mexican accent. “This is Ernesto. I work at the mental hospital in Atascadero.”

“Oh, right,” Wondero said, now remembering.

“Got a note in my box that says you wanted to know if I remembered who visited D.B. on Monday.”

“We already found him,” Wondero said. “Thanks for calling.”

“You found them both?” Rodriguez said.

Wondero blinked. “What did you say?”

“There were two of them. Eugene and his buddy. I heard D.B. was causing trouble, so I figured you’d better know.”

“Can you describe Eugene’s buddy,” Wondero said.

“Sure. He was in a wheelchair, real sickly-looking. Eugene wheeled him up to the fence, and D.B. talked to him for a while.”

Wondero felt his face burning up. “Do you remember anything else? Think hard.”

“Come to mention it, yeah. When they left, Eugene told D.B. how much the guy in the chair had wanted to meet him. I thought that was a little strange, you know?”

Wondero banged his fist on the front door of Mr. Kozlowski’s house, listened for life inside, then kicked in the door.

He entered with his gun drawn. The shades were drawn on every window, the interior pitch dark. Bumping into the living room furniture, he found a light switch, and flicked it on.

He found Myrtle Jones lying unconscious on the living room floor. The old gal had been through hell the past two days, and he grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch, and wrapped her in it. As he punched in 911 on his cell phone, her eyes snapped open, and she stared up at him.

“Eugene’s alive,” she whispered.

“Lie still, I’m calling for help.”

“He and Mr. Kozlowski are buddies. I never knew...”

The call went through and Wondero gave the operator the address. Then he walked to the back of the house, and found Mr. Kozlowski watching a portable TV sitting on the kitchen table. It was turned onto channel 10, home of Action 10 news.

“Why did you do it?” Wondero asked him.

Mr. Kozlowski blinked at him. His fingers danced across the keyboard of the computer on the arm of his wheelchair. His reply appeared on the computer screen.

I LIKE EUGENE WE’RE KINDRED SPIRITS

“Are you a murderer, too?”

YES

“Where are your victims?”

BASEMENT OF MY OLD HOUSE IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO

“Is that why you helped Eugene escape?”

YES

“How did he do it?” Wondero asked.

BOOBY TRAPPED THE VAN

Wondero recalled the tremendous explosion the van had made. “Who was the guy inside?”

DRUG DEALER LIVED DOWN THE BLOCK

“And you helped him.”

YES

“Where is Eugene now?”

Mr. Kozlowski’s bony fingers froze on the keypad. He was staring at the TV. Jayne Hunter of Action 10 news was on, plugging Hardare’s straitjacket escape, which was going to air in twenty minutes. “Stay tuned,” Hunter said cheerfully.

Wondero slammed his fist on the kitchen table. “He’s going to kill Hardare, isn’t he?”

Mr. Kozlowski’s eyes danced in his sunken head.

YOU TELL ME

By 6:30, the carnival crowd had become so large and unmanageable that Hardare had stolen away to Bob Olley’s personal trailer in order to prepare himself.

He lay on the floor, and tried not to think of the two solid weeks of shows they had coming up, if they managed to sell some more tickets. Instead, he projected himself into the future, and step-by-step “saw” the straitjacket escape from start to finish. That done, he began to control his breathing and drop his heartbeat, a necessary preparation for what was soon to follow.

He heard a tap on the door. “Yes?”

“I need to speak to you,” Jan said.

“Come in.”

Jan entered the trailer and dropped an empty cardboard box on the floor. She had hired some kids to pass out leaflets announcing their show. She sat beside him, and kissed him on the lips.

“You doing okay?” she asked.

“Never better.”

“You’re on in twenty minutes. Are you ready?”

He recalled a favorite line of Houdini’s. With a thin smile he said, “We’ll soon find out.”

At 6:50, Hardare emerged from the trailer to the wild delight of the overflow crowd. A group of high school kids had brought a banner, and chanted his name. With six carnival employees acting as bodyguards, he made his way through the dense crowd.

A circle had been roped off beneath the roller coaster, and it was here that Hunter’s crew had set up shop. Bob Olley was also there with Jan and Crystal, plus a pair of uniformed policemen. Hardare allowed the policemen to fit him into the straitjacket and lace up the leather straps on the back.

“We’re on in five minutes,” Hunter told him.

“Fine,” Hardare grunted. He’d agreed to be bound before they went on air, which he now realized was a mistake. The two cops were knocking themselves out putting him in the straitjacket, something they probably wouldn’t have done in front of a camera.

“You okay?” Jan asked when they finished.

“I’ll get out in plenty of time,” he said to reassure her. “But I’m going to feel it tomorrow morning.”

“Two minutes,” Hunter announced.

While Hunter’s crew did a final sound check, Jan encased his ankles to the block and tackle from which he would hang in the air. Crystal positioned herself next to a large plexiglass clock, the trademark of any Hardare escape.

“Thirty seconds,” Hunter said.

So this was it, Hardare thought. He felt remarkably relaxed for what was supposed to be a tense moment, and thought how ridiculous that was going to look on live television. He made his face grow taut, his eyes narrow and focused.

“Ten... nine... eight...”

Suddenly the crowd began to chant along with the cameraman.

“ ... SEVEN... SIX... FIVE... ”

Jan kissed him on the cheek.

“... FOUR... THREE... TWO...”

A hundred yards beyond the crowd, Hardare saw a long line of wailing police cars enter the carnival parking lot, their spinning wheels sending up clouds of dust. He felt a deadening weight in his stomach, but when Hunter declared, “We’re on the air!” quickly put them out of his mind, having more pressing matters to contend with.

“This is Jayne Hunter, coming to you live from Bob Olley’s Carnival of Thrills carnival in Burbank,” Hunter said to the camera. “Next to me stands Vincent Hardare, magician extraordinary, nephew of the legendary Harry Houdini.”

A huge ovation arose from the crowd.

“Tonight,” Hunter continued, “in the spirit of his uncle, Hardare will attempt to escape from a police regulation straitjacket while hanging upside down from a burning rope tied to the track of a roller coaster . If Hardare does not escape in two minutes, the roller coaster will cut the rope, and he will plunge to his death. Hardare, anything you wish to say?”

“Wish me luck!” he yelled to the crowd.

With Jan’s help, he lay on the ground and stuck his feet into the air. His wife secured a rope to the block and tackle that was attached to his feet. A switch was thrown, and a motor drew the rope up through a pulley that was tied to the track overhead.

Going into the air feet first, Hardare stared into the faces in the crowd. When he was thirty feet up, the motor was stopped, and the rope tied down.