The Man Who Cheated Death

Chapter 3 PSI

The ringing phone snapped him awake. The clock on the night table said three a.m. Snatching up the receiver, he said, “I’d like to buy you a wristwatch.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hardare,” said a soft spoken female. “This is Suzanne at the front desk. There’s a gentleman here who wishes to speak with you. He says it’s urgent.”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Three a.m.,” she said.

“Goodnight,” he replied, hanging up.

He slipped down between the warm sheets and became their happy prisoner. After The Tonight Show taping, he’d raced downtown to promote his upcoming show at the Wilshire Ebell on a radio call-in, back to NBC studios to discuss a possible special this fall, then dinner at the Magic Castle in Hollywood with owner Larsen Hendricks, who was also his co-promoter. Back at his hotel, he’d stayed awake long enough to catch his performance on the little screen, then had collapsed into bed.

“Who was that?” his wife murmured.

“Front desk. Some guy in the lobby.”

“Did you find out who this guy was?”

“IRS. Those clowns have been after me for years.”

“Vince, be serious.” She shook him hard enough to make him roll over. “It might be important. Are you listening?”

“Uh-huh,” sinking deeper into his goose down pillow. “Probably some magician from the Castle who wanted to show me a trick. He’ll go away.”

“But what if it’s someone else?” she said sensibly.

Her tone demanded that he pay attention. He opened his eyes, and the spacious hotel bedroom took shape. Oblique shadows danced on the wall as cars sped past the hotel seven floors below. He glanced at his wife Jan. With her curly red hair strewn across her head, she looked like a gift from heaven, the sheets perfectly outlining the curvature of her slender body.

“Only person I want to see right now is you,” he said.

The phone on the night table rang again. His wife gave him another look, and he snatched it up. It was Suzanne again.

“I see,” he said. “All right. Tell him I’ll be right down.”

Hanging up, he hopped out of bed.

“Where are you going?” Jan asked.

“Downstairs. The man in the lobby is a policeman.”

“Is something wrong?”

He threw on his clothes. “I don’t know.”

“Could somebody from the Castle be playing a practical joke?”

He gave his wife a quick kiss.

“Let’s hope so,” he said.

As the elevator descended to the lobby, Hardare wondered if his past was about to come back and haunt him. He had heard the concern in Jan’s voice and knew it wasn’t unfounded. Two years ago, while breaking into a Mexican jail to rescue his daughter, he had shot to death a corrupt policeman who, oddly enough, had also been a fan. Jan had been there, working for a tough mercenary Hardare had hired, and he had fallen head over heels.

They had rented a house in Boulder, Colorado and laid low for a month. When no sensationalized stories appeared in the newspapers, and no government agents came calling, they gradually resumed their lives, with Jan now a permanent member of the act.

Six months later they were married atop the Hoover Dam, the roadside chapels in Las Vegas not to their liking. By then they had been booked into Caesar’s Palace for a limited run. Vegas was a tough town for variety acts, but he managed to take it by storm, taking his magic to the streets in a series of publicity stunts. Offers from competitive casinos appeared, and his contract with Caesar’s was extended. Before long, even the town’s toughened cab drivers knew who he was.

In the lobby, Hardare spotted the policeman in his rumpled suit by the front desk, his thick soled shoes a dead giveaway. He hustled over, a bulging manila folder in hand, and Hardare secretly hoped this was someone’s idea of a joke.

“Harry Wondero,” the policeman said, flashing a badge and laminated photo I.D.“Sorry about the wake-up call. I’m with the homicide division of the LAPD. I’d like to ask you a few questions about a recent murder.”

The girl at the front desk was straining to hear, and Hardare pointed at the nearby Peacock bar. “Can we go in there for some privacy?”

“It’s closed,” Wondero said.

It was, the door locked tight. Shielding the door from the detective’s view, Hardare opened it and stepped inside.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that,” Wondero said, taking two chairs down from a table as Hardare found the light. The Peacock was a typical hotel bar, with a small scuffed dance floor and a buffet table for happy hour. Sitting, Hardare watched Wondero open his folder and remove a spiral notebook and yellow legal pad.

“Tell me how I can help you,” Hardare said.

“I’m not sure you can,” Wondero said. “I have a desperate situation on my hands, and thought you would be worth talking to.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll start from the beginning. For the last four years, Los Angeles has been plagued by a serial killer who calls himself Death. At infrequent intervals, Death goes on rampages. This morning, he killed a young actress named Sybil Blanchard, and we can safely guess that by tomorrow he’ll murder again, and then probably twice more by week’s end.

“Our department has dealt with serial killers before, but never with anyone as...” Wondero paused, searching for a word. “... invisible, as Death is. He leaves no solid clues, no hair, nothing we can trace. The physical composite we’ve drawn of him is at best sketchy.”

Hardare was familiar with police departments across the globe and the LAPD was as modern as any he’d read about. “If you know that this maniac is going to kill again, why not put out a citywide bulletin and stop him?”

“I wish it was that easy.” Wondero handed him the spiral notebook. “Death’s victims tend to be people that it’s almost impossible to reach, or protect. Prostitutes, vagrants, homeless people, and lately, women living alone. We can’t get to these people to tell them to be careful.”

Hardare flipped through the notebook. On each page, a different snapshot stared back at him. Negroes, young girls, teenage boys, old white-haired women, a strikingly beautiful Oriental girl with the most perfect teeth he’d seen, a destitute bag lady. He leafed through the pages and more faces stuck out, some in color, others in faded black and white; a girl in braces, a McDonald’s burger flipper with the name Hope stitched on her pocket, a wizened little man wearing a pork pie hat with great distinction. He looked up into Wondero’s unblinking eyes.

“How many victims are there?”

“Forty-eight,” Wondero said. “Twelve were committed up in San Francisco three years ago. Since our investigation began, we’ve been in contact with police departments across the country; we think Death may have also visited Seattle and San Diego as well.”

“I can’t believe...” Hardare halted in mid-speech, his eyes falling on a girl that could have been his daughter’s twin. Strawberry blond hair, aqua blue eyes, dimples. Her name was Lori Appleby, from Tulsa. He shut the notebook, having seen enough for a lifetime of memories.

“Most serial killers are caught by sheer luck, or if the killer gets sloppy and leaves obvious clues,” Wondero said. “That’s how the Boston Strangler was apprehended, and also Ted Bundy. Serial murderers aren’t normal criminals; their crimes have no motives, and they usually don’t know their victims. It’s hard to track them using conventional means, and so it is necessary for us to use unusual channels.”

“Is that where I fit in?”

“Yes.” Wondero paused, offering a sad smile. He had a ruddy, mid-western face, with bushy eyebrows and a bumpy knot marring his nose, and Hardare guessed that in college he’d played a mean game of football.

“Earlier tonight, you made a prediction on the Tonight Show.”

“That’s correct.”

“And part of your prediction was the murder of Sybil Blanchard.”

“It was?”

Wondero was momentarily speechless. “Yes... don’t you remember? You predicted that a woman would be frightened to death. That was Sybil Blanchard, Death’s most recent victim.”

“Oh,” Hardare said.

“I’ve been using a group of psychics to track Death,” Wondero went on. “You scored a direct hit, so I thought you might be willing to try again.”

Hardare’s fingers impatiently tapped the table they were sitting at. “What kind of psychics?”

“Five astrologers recommended by the San Francisco Police, four mediums, two psychic channelers, a woman who tells the future by interpreting dreams, two spiritualists, and a woman named Margaret Dansing.”

“The psychic bloodhound,” said Hardare.

“You’re familiar with her work?”

Hardare nodded.

“So what do you say? Will you give it a shot?”

“I’d like to help you, but did it ever occur to you that my prediction on the Tonight Show was a trick?”

Wondero’s mouth twisted uncomfortably. “I have a friend who works for the Tonight Show. I called him an hour ago. He said that no one had a clue how you made your predictions. Even Leno was baffled.”

So that was why the detective was here. He chose his words carefully. “Yes, but it was still a trick. I’m not, and never have been, a psychic.”

“For God’s sake,” Wondero said in exasperation. “You pull garbage like this, how is the public supposed to distinguish it from the real thing?”

Hardare took a deep breath, hating to burst his bubble. “Detective, let me assure you, there is no “real thing.” These psychics you’re working with are misrepresenting themselves. They’re ordinary people, just like you and me.”

“Now wait a minute!” Are you saying there is no such thing as ESP?”

“Of course not. Everyone has had a psychic experience during their life. The problem is no one has discovered a way to harness these hidden powers. Even the best psychics are wrong most of the time. The rest of the time, they’re simply guessing, or resorting to the same tricks I use.”

A thin line of perspiration had formed above Wondero’s lip. “What about Margaret Dansing? She helped us locate one of Death’s victims last month.”

“How did she do that?” Hardare asked.

“She told us that the victim would be at the bottom of a hill, beneath a pile of leaves. She also said the victim’s clothes would be torn, which they were.”

“And for that, your department has Margaret Dansing on a monthly retainer.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because that’s how she works,” Hardare said, sensing that Wondero was starting to hear him. “Margaret Dansing is a very successful locator of lost people. She claims she has a sixth sense, but in reality she does a lot of research. She has an exhaustive library of newspaper clippings concerning crimes in the L.A. area. She also has a ham radio operator’s license and monitors police calls. One of my friends at the Magic Castle believes Dansing has a newspaperman who works as a source for her, and provides her with inside information about specific investigations.”

Wondero’s eyes had taken on a cloudy expression. As if on a timed delay, he snapped his pencil between his hands.

“Shit. I’ve been had.”

“Margaret Dansing has baffled some of the brightest scientific minds in the country. You had no reason to believe that she was anything but sincere.”

Wondero shoved his legal pad into his folder. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. Thanks for your time. I really appreciate it.”

He walked the detective out of the hotel.

“I feel like such a rube,” Wondero said.

“Don’t,” Hardare said. “Even Houdini had a spiritualist fool him into believing that his dead mother was trying to contact him from the grave.”

“No kidding. Even I don’t believe in ghosts.”

They walked to where his SUV was parked.

“I thought you might be the breakthrough, but I guess that was pretty juvenile on my part,” the detective said.

“I’m sorry I disappointed you,” Hardare said.

“So am I.”

Wondero got behind the wheel and started the engine. As he drove away, his eyes briefly brushed Hardare’s face. Hardare could feel the detective staring right through him, and sensed that Wondero had already dismissed him from his thoughts.

He smothered a yawn. Wondero’s last remark had carried a great deal of resentment, and he guessed he’d done a good job disillusioning him. It was strange the things people chose to believe in. Most people didn’t go to church or believe in God, yet these same people believed in practically everything else, including extra terrestrials, psychic powers, and UFOs. Why not fire-breathing dragons or wizards with long white beards and pointed caps? If people were going to stake their faith on the ridiculous, at least it should be entertaining.

He went into the hotel, too tired to pay any heed to the man watching him from the running car parked across the street, and went upstairs to bed.