The Man Who Cheated Death

Chapter 30 The Last Show

Jan sat with her husband in the emergency room of St. Francis Medical Center, staring at the monitors that showed Vince’s blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen intake. Considering that her husband had been buried beneath several hundred tons of rubble for over an hour, he was in remarkably good shape.

Crystal entered the room with a can of diet soda, and handed it to her. Jan mouthed the word thanks and popped the top. They had been visited by several nurses but had yet to see a doctor.

“How you feeling,” Crystal asked her father.

“Never better,” Hardare said.

They both found the strength to laugh. Jan had seen her husband cheat death on a number of occasions, and always came away from the experience feeling as if she’d gone through it herself.

“Where are the police?” Hardare asked.

“Outside,” Jan said. “I already gave them a statement. They’ll probably want one from you later, as well.”

“I’ll give it to them now.” He started to get out of the bed, and Jan put her hand on his chest, and shoved him back down.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“Yes, I am. We have work to do.”

“Work?”

“Yes. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

She placed her hand against his forehead, just to make sure he wasn’t running a fever. His scalp felt perfectly normal.

“I’m all in favor of getting out of here,” Jan said, “but first I want to know what you’re thinking.”

Hardare leaned back in the hospital bed and gave them a little smile. “What would you say if I told you I wanted to stay in Los Angeles, and fulfill our engagement at the Wilshire Ebell?”

She looked at him in bewilderment. “But the spirit show is a disaster. You said so yourself.”

“I’m not talking about doing the spirit show,” he said.

“Then what are you planning to do?”

“We rented the theatre for two weeks, so it’s still legally ours to use. Why not do our Vegas show and bill it as our last U.S. engagement.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. Look, if we don’t do the show, we’re financially in the hole. I’ve already spent our savings on salaries, programs, even tee shirts to be sold in the lobby. If we walk away, the idea of starting our own circus will have to be shelved indefinitely.”

Jan looked at Crystal. Her stepdaughter was beaming. She looked back at her husband.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Jan said. “But how do we sell it? There isn’t enough money left to buy a decent sized advertisement in the L.A. Times, let alone run a TV campaign. We can’t fill the Wilshire Ebell for two weeks by word of mouth.”

“Houdini never advertised his shows. Neither did my father. I think I know how to sell a few tickets.”

“Wait a minute, Vince. Are you talking about doing the rollercoaster escape to get publicity?”

“I sure am,” he said emphatically. “Doing escapes is how I made my reputation. They always sell tickets.”

“But why the rollercoaster escape? Why not something else?”

“We need something big. The rollercoaster escape fits the bill. We’ll get one of the TV stations to cover it. They always do. Then the newspapers will fall in line. Bingo, free publicity.”

“But it’s dangerous.”

“All my escapes are dangerous.”

Vince was absolutely right. All of his escapes were dangerous. Only this stunt was in a category all by itself. While bound from a straitjacket, her husband would hang upside down from a rope that was tied to the track of a rollercoaster. The rollercoaster would be set in motion, and he would have exactly two minutes to free himself before the rollercoaster passed over the rope, and sent him hurtling to his death.

“Are you going to use a net?” Jan asked.

“No net. If it isn’t death-defying, it isn’t worth doing.”

“Oh God, Vince,” she said. “Haven’t we had enough excitement for one week?”

“Enough for a lifetime.” He paused. “So, what do you think?”

Jan drank her soda, and told him what she thought. “All right. It’s a great idea, even if it means you might get killed.”

“I won’t,” Hardare promised.

“Good. But I still have a concern. Eugene Osbourne is still running around L.A., and may come after us again.”

“The LAPD is going to find him,” her husband said. “It’s only a matter of time before they do.”

“But what if they don’t?”

“We can always ask the LAPD to protect us,” her husband said.

“They’ve done that already, and look what happened. I have another idea.”

“What’s that?”

“I want to handle security,” Jan said. “That includes the theatre, and wherever we end up living while we’re in town. I know a professional security company in the area that protects foreign dignitaries. I’ll hire several of their people. And I will get a gun. Nothing fancy, a .9 automatic will be fine. If Osbourne rears his ugly head, I’m going to squash him like a bug.”

“You sound serious,” Crystal said.

“Dead serious,” Jan replied.

Her husband could not speak. That was unusual for him, and Jan leaned over the bed and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Surprised?”

“Yes. I thought you were going to tell me you wanted a vacation,” he said.

“No, Vince, I want vindication. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal,” he said. “Now, let’s get out of here. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”