The Man Who Cheated Death

Chapter 2 Jay

Wondero waited until after dinner before retiring to his study to consult with his psychics.

He left his son glued to Monday night football, his wife in the kitchen making tomorrow’s casserole, his daughter in the bathroom on the phone. He liked his home this way, filled with arresting smells and lots of activity, and on the way to his study he grabbed a beer and stole a kiss from his wife.

“Rough day?” she asked.

“Yeah. Did you really tell that nasty loan officer to kiss your ass?”

“I told him to kiss my sweet ass.”

“That’s my girl.”

Two years back, when his work began disrupting their family life, Corey had started selling real estate, for no other reason than having something normal to talk about around the dinner table. Except she was great at it. Every night she told stories that put the Arabian nights to shame, and had allowed the focus of the family’s conversations to steer clear from his investigations.

Wondero went to his study and shut the door. To reduce his long work days, he often spent his nights studying evidence, with only a portable radio for company.

From a file cabinet he removed a folder marked PSI. The LAPD had put on retainer fifteen of the city’s most prominent psychics, and each week they sent Wondero their predictions as to where Death might strike again. The psychics used a variety of methods to glean their information, and it had become his job to interpret their musings and determine what might be useful.

Wondero had never believed in psychics, and thought they were all quacks. That had changed when he’d started working with them. They had predicted when Death would strike enough times to make him a believer. With their help, and a little luck, he hoped to catch their killer.

A map of downtown LA lay across his desk. Using a blue marking pen, he made an X on the street where Sybil Blanchard had died. Using a protractor, he drew a perfect circle around the blue X that had a radius of three inches. He worked off a simple formula. Any prediction that fell outside the circle was dismissed, anything within a direct hit, and worth a phone call to the psychic who’d made it to see if he or she could elaborate on their particular prediction.

He started with Chantel, an invalid gypsy whose dreams often foretold the future. Her letter was dated last Thursday. In it, she spoke of seeing a young prostitute with her throat slashed. She would be found in an apartment and not a hotel room, Chantel said, and she would be beaten around the face. She vaguely described other injuries.

He picked through the letter. Chantel was warm, but her location was a good five miles outside the circle. He put her letter aside and made a note on a yellow pad to check if Sybil Blanchard had any arrests for soliciting.

Next up was a black spiritualist named Omen. Omen had come highly recommended by the Marine patrol after successfully finding a corpse hidden in a marina, and Omen’s first predictions for Wondero were so accurate that for a brief period he had become a prime suspect. Scrawled in pencil, Omen’s sheet simply said A CHILD WILL BE KILLED, no date, no location. There was a big difference between a child and a young woman, and Wondero put the sheet back in the folder.

The next prediction was totally off. Wondero wondered if he should have its medium — a Tarot card shuffler named Madame Marie — taken off her weekly retainer. Weeding out phonies was another of his responsibilities, since the contingency budget for this project was minimal, and unknown to everyone outside of Homicide. Early on, Madame Marie had made a few hits. Since then, she had come up with air, and Wondero decided it was time for a judgment call. He decided that Madame Marie was history.

He worked through the remaining predictions, and hit a home run on the very last. Jack Pathfinder, a pony-tailed Mojave who claimed he rode into the future while ingesting psilocybin mushrooms, had come through for the third time in two months. His location was less than a mile off, his description of Sybil Blanchard close enough to be considered accurate. He had written Hair Color—? and Wondero remembered Sybil’s premature gray. Picking up the phone on his desk, he gave Jack a call.

The call went through. Maybe Jack had seen a little more that Wondero could pry out of him. Did the killer have any scars? How about tattoos or facial hair? Flying through the heavens at warp speed could be hard on a man’s memory. Think hard, Jack.

An automated voice answered Jack’s phone, said the number was a thing of the past. Wondero nestled the receiver into the cradle and took the last swallow of beer. Running a trace on him would take weeks. Shit.

At midnight, he decided to call it quits. As was his custom, he checked each room in the downstairs, making sure the windows and doors were securely fastened, and the security system was on. After trailing the same killer for four years, it had occurred to him that there was a chance that he had stumbled across his man, and that Death now knew him. The thought routinely haunted him.

He decided to watch some TV before he went to sleep. He surfed the channels, and finally stopped on The Tonight Show. Jay Leno’s face lit up the screen, and he settled back in the couch, hoping to be entertained.

“Our next guest is considered one of the world’s foremost magicians and escape artists,” Leno read off a card. “He is currently headlining at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and starting May 10 will be performing a two week, one man show at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre here in Los Angeles. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the amazing Vincent Hardare.”

As the Tonight Show band played “It’s Impossible” the tuxedoed magician appeared in a small pond of light on the large soundstage. With his dark coloring and athletic build, his engaging good looks were instantly familiar to the studio audience. His widely televised “Escapes from Death” had made him a popular media figure, and like his uncle Houdini before him, given him a reputation he often found a challenge to measure up to.

“Thank you. Tonight, I would like to test your imagination, and present a feat truly beyond explanation. First, may I have the assistance of a young lady from the audience?”

Stepping forward, Hardare chose a photogenic blond sitting on the second row aisle. “... if you don’t mind. Your name please.”

The girl excitedly jumped up, all but blinding the cameraman and eclipsing the magician. Long luxurious legs, black leather mini skirt, red silk blouse halfway unbuttoned, she blew a teased curl out of her china doll face and said, “Samantha Droop.”

Hardare escorted her on the stage. An assistant had brought out two folding metal chairs, onto which he’d placed a thin board.

“Samantha, have you ever been levitated before?”

“No.” She took the board and flipped it over, letting the audience see it was unprepared. “Will I need flight insurance?”

The audience laughed. Hardare requested a little floating music from the bad, and had Samantha lie on the board.

“Please lay perfectly still,” he said.

She complied, and the magician raised his arms. There was a drum roll, then the haunting notes from a clarinet. There were oohs and aahs as Samantha mysteriously ascended a foot above the two chairs. She continued upward, and was soon chest high with the magician. Turning her head, she made a goofy face for the camera.

Hardare waved his arms around the thin board. “No wires, mirrors or invisible threads. Nothing at all.”

“Then what is it,” she said loudly. “Christian Science and rubber bands?”

The audience’s laughter completely drowned out the band’s playing.

“Take a look into the monitor,” Hardare said, raising his hands so she floated higher and was hovering directly above his forehead. “You be the judge.”

“Who believes anything they see on television?” she said skeptically, hardly glancing at the monitor. “They say magicians don’t use trick photography, but I think it’s a bunch of hooey.”

While she talked, Hardare moved beneath her. With a wave he sent her higher as she continued to ramble.

“Girls turning into lions and the Statue of Liberty disappearing — who buys that stuff, anyway? Not me, that’s for sure; I’m a realist, and magic isn’t real. If I were really floating wouldn’t my voice be getting higher?” By now she had floated past the overhead mikes and into the curtains and was invisible to the studio audience. “If people could float, wouldn’t NASA be onto it? Come on, let’s be real.”

The cameras had followed Samantha’s ascent and now lowered onto Hardare. He raised his arms apologetically and with a sly grin said, “Well, I suppose you can’t fool everyone. Thank you very much.”

With the applause the magician’s grin grew into a broad smile. He glanced at the ceiling and then shrugged his shoulders. On cue the lights dimmed on the small soundstage.

Moments later Hardare was shaking hands with his host. He sat down beside Leno’s first guest, a young singer who had snubbed him backstage during the rehearsal. Being slighted by a kid no one had heard of six months ago had raised Hardare’s ire — he had worked his first professional show at age ten, and now at forty-two, was close to reaching the pinnacle of his profession — and was still angry an hour before taping. In exasperation his wife had asked him the name of the foul-mouthed comic who’d given him the same treatment on The Tonight Show a few years back. He couldn’t remember it, and his wife had said, “Neither can anyone else.”

“Was that your daughter?” Leno asked during the break. “I remember when she was just a little kid.”

“That was her,” Hardare said.

“They grow up fast.”

They came back on the air. Reading off a printed card, Leno said, “Next week, the amazing Hardare will be doing a two-week engagement at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre here in LA. I’m told you’ll be presenting quite a different act.”

“That’s right,” Hardare said. “My uncle, Harry Houdini, presented the first psychic theatre in the United States. I’ve spent years studying Houdini’s notes, and will present an updated version of this show.”

“And we’re getting a preview tonight,” Leno said.

Hardare smiled, appreciating the segue. “Yes, indeed. Yesterday, I made five predictions of stories I believed would appear in today’s Los Angeles Times. These predictions were put in a padlocked box and delivered to the NBC studios for safekeeping.”

Leno brought up a small mahogany box from beneath his desk. “Which is right here.”

“Would you please verify that I haven’t touched that box since it was brought here.”

“No one’s touched the box,” Leno said.

“And neither you, nor anyone on the Tonight Show staff, have the slightest idea what’s inside.”

“Correct.”

From his pocket Hardare removed a shiny silver key and handed it to his host. “This key opens the box. Please examine it.”

Leno examined the key. “Looks good to me.”

“Before the show, I asked an NBC page to buy a copy of today’s Los Angeles Times, Hardare said. “Jay, I believe you have the copy.”

Leno produced the newspaper. “This might be hard to see, so I’ll read the headlines out loud. Let’s see... Governor asks legislature for tougher gun laws... Earthquake shakes northern California... McDonalds finds metal shards in burgers: meat recalled. Woman frightened to death: serial killer feared responsible. On the bottom of the page we have a box score: Dodgers beat Mets 3 to 2. Sounds like your typical day in L.A.”

“Those are today’s headlines,” Hardare said. “Jay, please open the box, and remove my prediction.”

Leno inserted the key into the box, and shot Hardare a look. Leno knew enough about magic to think he knew how this particular trick worked, only Hardare had yet to touch the chest or even get close to it, and that was frustrating the show’s host.

Flipping open the lid, Leno removed a square of white paper, unfolding it for the cameras. Hardare’s prediction read:

The studio audience read the predictions on the monitors and started to clap. The applause grew louder when Leno shook his head in bewilderment.

“Incredible,” Leno said. “We’ll be right back.”

They broke for a commercial.

“Will you tell me how it’s done?” Leno asked.

“Sure,” Hardare said.

His host waited expectantly.

“Next time I’m on the show,” Hardare said with a smile.

The reclusive vending machine service man sat in the darkness of his living room. He had finished lifting weights an hour ago, and he rubbed his naked, hardened body with soothing oil, a mental image of Hardare’s final trick emblazoned in his thoughts.

WOMEN FRIGHTENED TO DEATH

When Leno had displayed the predictions, he had literally jumped, kicking over his glass of mineral water. With his big toe he found the wet spot on the carpet and pressed down, as if to remind himself of the shock. He told himself it was just a stupid trick, only Leno’s bewildered reaction had suggested something more. WOMAN FRIGHTENED TO DEATH — BY DEATH! He tried to laugh, but the feeble sound did not leave his throat.

Vincent Hardare. Was that his real name? He despised magicians and their craft, and this one could go to the top of his list. Good looking, smug, a smart dresser. Click of the fingers and the women come running. Fucking lounge lizard.

He stood naked at the window, staring out at beat-up cars lining the curb. Psychic theatre? What the hell was that? A wailing police car sped by, disappearing through a slit in the venetians. He felt every inch of skin shiver uncontrollably and opened the window, the cool night air flowing across his body, releasing his inhibitions and insane fears.

The LAPD made his life painful enough, now he had fortune-tellers to contend with. Saturday’s newspaper had carried a story about a local psychic, a Mojave Indian named Jack Pathfinder, who had told the police where two of his victims would be found, something that even he didn’t know until he committed a killing. The realization that someone on the outside was drawing close had frightened him enough to do something about it.

He had found Pathfinder in the phone book, and paid him a visit the next night, leaving a severed hand in the psychic snitch’s mailbox along with his unpaid bills. Two days later he’d gone back to discover Pathfinder had moved out of his shabby bungalow, his whereabouts unknown.

On the television he saw the credits for the Tonight Show roll by, followed by a list of sponsors. Airline accommodations were provided by American Airlines. For Tonight Show guests staying in Los Angeles, hotel accommodations were provided by the Sheraton Century City.

“Thank you,” he said to the television.

He spent several minutes selecting his wardrobe. During the daytime it didn’t matter what he wore, but at night the opposite was true. After several false starts, he settled upon the grayish blue uniform of a defunct moving company, and stepped into a pair of elevator shoes.

He looked in the mirror and didn’t feel finished. From his disguise box he selected a pair of cheap plastic glasses and put them on, then looked again. Done. In the closet he found his bowling ball bag and went into the kitchen.

“You’re getting sloppy,” he scolded himself. Taped to the refrigerator door was a detailed map of Sybil Blanchard’s neighborhood, complete with a series of X’s showing where to park the car, and what alleys and side streets to use as escape routes in case of trouble. He stuffed the map into the sink disposal. He opened the freezer. He had met Lorraine while cruising Sunset strip last summer and still remembered the great picture she had cut in her mini skirt and tight tee shirt, her blond hair short like a pageboy. She looked new to L.A., without the hard edges, and had hopped into his souped up Firebird the moment he had flashed a roll of bills. “I know a classy motel,” she had suggested, snuggling up as if on a date.

She had yakked to him some, and he had liked that. She was from Oregon, lived in L.A. a month, wanted to be an actress someday or maybe own an organic restaurant, as if the two were related. She dug surfing, Led Zeppelin, blowing reefer, going to the flicks. Then she’d smiled, real and pretty and genuine, and he’d remembered that for a long time, too.

He removed the zip lock bag and slowly untied the safety twist, pulling away the plastic. He had painted her face with vivid acrylics, and frozen her stylish looks. She looked as cute as the day he’d met her, and he vividly recalled her dying in his arms, her neck snapped limp. He shuddered as an erotic wave swept over him, making his blood boil and his cheeks grow flush with the passionate memory.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he said.