The Man Who Cheated Death

Chapter 39 Monster of the Midway

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.

“Are you ready?” Hunter said.

He let his eyes drift over the upside down crowd; there had to be several thousand people here. If half bought tickets to his show, he would be off the proverbial hook.

In a booming voice he said, “Let’s do it!”

With that, the ponytailed man operating the roller-coaster threw a switch, and set the empty train in motion. It lumbered down the tracks, then picked up speed as it climbed the first hill of the ride and disappeared from view.

Hardare shut his eyes to avoid vertigo. Blowing out his lungs, he shrunk his chest, and worked his fingers through the stiff canvas. His fingers ached from the exertion it took to release the first strap.

“Thirty seconds,” Hunter announced.

As he struggled to free himself, the crowd got into it, their disjointed voices becoming one. A chant went up, his name repeated like a mantra.

“Har-dare! Har-dare!”

It was a thrilling experience, and allowed him to forget the severe cramps spreading through his hands and pretend he was ten years younger, and still able to rip a straitjacket off his body without injuring himself.

There was a rumor going around L.A. which hinted at a magical time in the early morning hours when the highways were completely empty for approximately thirty minutes. This phenomenon was being called a Pause, and was explained as a short time each day when absolutely no one was in their cars.

Wondero didn’t have a Pause to get him to Burbank before Hardare went on, so he created one. Doing ninety down the Golden State with the siren on the dashboard blaring, he punched the horn while flashing his headlights. When that didn’t get cars out of his lane fast enough, he stuck his gun out the window and emptied the clip. As the lanes of stubborn traffic parted like the Red Sea, he knew he’d be suspended, and wondered if it would be with or without pay.

He didn’t care.

He took the Burbank exit and drove to the carnival. The entrance was blocked, with cars parked on the sidewalks on both sides of the road. He’d already called a dispatcher, and gotten every available cruiser to convene to the area. There were uniformed cops everywhere he looked.

But what were they looking for?

Wondero entered the grounds. Over the heads of the crowd, he could see Hardare wrestling with a straitjacket while hanging upside down from a rope attached to the track of the rollercoaster. The magician was surrounded by thousands of people, and Wondero couldn’t imagine how Osbourne was going to get close enough to Hardare to kill him.

The crowd started to chant.

“One minute!” Hunter announced.

She lowered her microphone and watched Hardare wrestle with the straitjacket. It was a tremendous stunt, and she was happy to be a part of Hardare’s publicity machine until the bullet from a high-powered rifle blew apart the windshield of the Action 10 van, spraying the crowd with a shower of flying glass.

Through her earphone, Hunter heard her director in the van groan sharply. To her crew she yelled, “Someone get in the van and help Jack! He’s been shot!”

The second shot blew apart the blue neon MONSTER OF THE MIDWAY sign hanging above the head of the roller-coaster operator. Cupping his head, the operator jumped down from his elevated platform and ran, his high-pitched screams starting a panicked stampede. The crowd moved in waves across the carnival grounds, sweeping out in all directions.

In the parking lot, policeman tried to avoid being trampled upon, until a quick volley of shots blew out several police car windshields. Within seconds several thousand people collectively turned on their heels and headed back in Hunter’s direction.

“Oh, shit,” Hunter said into her mike without thinking.

More shots, the first blowing out a crying child’s handful of clown-face balloons, the next hitting the tracks above.

“Someone get Hardare down!” Hunter screamed.

Hearing gunfire, Jan grabbed Crystal, and pulled her down to the ground.

“Dad!” Crystal screamed.

Above their heads Hardare dangled helplessly, the straitjacket still imprisoning him. Jan stared at the plexiglass clock that had been miraculously left standing by the crowd. Forty seconds to go. The suddenness of the shots had robbed her of the capacity to think.

“Hurry, Vince,” she yelled up to him.

Her husband had undone the leather straps, and was pulling the straitjacket down over his head, the most difficult part of its removal being over.

Her eyes fell on the plexiglass clock. Twenty seconds.

He was running out of time.

Jan believed in contingency plans, even if her husband didn’t. Throwing open the door to the Action 10 van, she climbed in, and glanced at the news director in the back, holding his bloody shoulder. She started the engine while pounding the horn with her fist. The crowd moved out of her way, and she reversed the van so it was directly beneath her husband.

She jumped out. Above her, Vince swung like a pendulum, the bullets missing him by inches. Seeing the rollercoaster arch up the last hill before its final decent, she started to pray.

“Come on Vince. You can do it. I know you can. Please don’t get killed... please.”

Swinging in giant arcs, Hardare guessed he had ten seconds left, maybe less. He tried to block out the screaming crowd, his sweat-soaked body writhing in agony. It occurred to him that this attack was somehow linked to Osbourne, only he wasn’t entirely sure how.

“HURRY DAD!” Crystal screamed. “YOU’VE GOT TO HURRY!!”

He was running out of time. Through the rope he could feel the vibration of the roller coaster as it came rumbling towards him. As the thought of falling became a vivid reality, he did what several doctors had urged him never to do again, and dislocated both his shoulders simultaneously. Biting his lip, he crossed his arms behind his neck and felt the straitjacket slip free. As it fell to the ground, Crystal cheered, and he popped his left shoulder into its socket, then his right, his mouth growing warm from the taste of his own blood.

Looking up, he saw the empty roller coaster come racing down the hill. He had a few seconds, and he thought; that’s all you’ve ever needed.

Doubling his body, he reached up to free himself as a bullet hit the block and tackle. His hand flew away, and he struggled to keep his body doubled.

“DAAAAAD!”

He had run out of time. The rollercoaster passed above him, and the rope was cut in half.

He plunged backwards into space. A horrible thought flashed through his mind. He wished there wasn’t a TV crew filming him as he fell so ungracefully to his death.

It was a bad way to end a career.