The Man Who Cheated Death

Chapter 4 The Road to Las Vegas

The next morning over breakfast, Hardare described his meeting with Detective Wondero to Jan. By the time he was finished, his wife’s face was ashen.

“It goes back to what I’ve been saying all along,” he said emphatically. “Too many people think these psychic routines in my show are the real thing. Intelligent people, not just the kooks. I’m fostering a belief in something I know is a sham, and that’s plain wrong. You finished?”

Jan nodded, and he got up, pushed the room service tray out into the hall and locked the door.

“Our bookings have never been stronger,” she reminded him.

“Uri Geller used to pack them in, too,” Hardare replied. He threw his clothing bag on the unmade bed and started to pack. “Remember that flim-flam artist? Israeli nightclub magician turned psychic wonder. The strange thing was, even after he was exposed as a charlatan, he still remained popular. Even Barbara Walters gave him twenty minutes of national TV time.”

She came over and tried to rub the tension out of his shoulders. “I’ve always been partial to your magic, myself.”

Thirty minutes later they met up with his daughter Crystal in the bustling hotel lobby. She’d been shopping, and while Jan poured through her bags to see what might fit her, Hardare settled their bill, tipped a bellman for loading their luggage into trunk of his Volvo 760, and coerced his wife and daughter into the car.

Traffic was heavy, and he drove down Santa Monica Boulevard trying to remember the quickest way to the Pasadena Freeway. The five hour drive to Las Vegas was a sleeper, consisting of several hundred miles of desert and an occasional dusty town, but many delays and lost pieces of baggage at LAX had convinced him that traveling by car was quicker, and generally less eventful.

He made the Freeway in an hour. Smothering a yawn, he put the car on cruise control, and glanced at Jan as she reclined her bucket seat, then into the mirror at Crystal sprawled across the backseat, her nose buried in a glossy fashion magazine.

It was hard going back to Vegas. Although he liked the management at Caesar’s, and the facilities and enthusiastic crowds night after night, it was a difficult environment for his family to live in. Vegas was a tourist town, and people on vacation got drunk, acted in the stupidest fashion imaginable, and woke up the next day not regretting it.

“I can already feel the excitement,” Crystal joked half-heartedly as they passed a flashy Vegas billboard on Interstate 15. The flat, barren desert opened up before them, and Hardare pushed the cruise control up to seventy-five.

“It’s only one week,” he reassured her. “Then back to L.A. for two weeks. That’s not a bad trade-off.”

“Great. But then what? She tossed her magazine to the floor. “I don’t know why you won’t tell me what our plans are.”

“He hasn’t told me, either,” Jan said. “Big secret.”

“That’s because I don’t know,” he said, glancing into his mirror at the shimmering white Pontiac Firebird with darkly tinted windows that had popped up on the horizon. “Management at Caesar’s wants to extend our contract another six months.”

His daughter groaned. “Six months? I can’t live in that hotel another two weeks. The slots are giving me migraines.”

“What kind of deal are they offering,” Jan said, now wide awake from her nap. “More money, better hours, or new accommodations?”

“All of the above. They’ll pay us ten percent more a week and cut out Sunday matinees. I told them we were tired of living in town, and they offered to put us in a house.”

He paused to hear any complaints. When there were none, he went on. “I drove out there last week. The house is furnished, has four bedrooms, a swimming pool, and four acres of land. There’s a gourmet kitchen, oak floors, and a Jacuzzi. It’s a nice place.”

“What about vacations,” Jan said, never easily swayed. “We haven’t had a break in six months, and they promised...”

“I went over that with management. Two weeks vacation fully paid at the end of the first three months.”

Jan took a pocket calculator from her purse and did some quick arithmetic with Crystal peering over her shoulder. Since moving to Vegas they had become best friends, and he often thought how fortunate he was that his daughter had accepted his second wife so easily, especially considering how radically different she was from Crystal’s mother.

“We’d make nearly twenty thousand dollars more,” Jan said.

“That’s not a bad offer when you throw in the perks.”

“Hey, money isn’t everything,” Crystal chided in.

Hardare smiled. His daughter could switch from being materialistic to altruistic in a snap of the fingers. It seemed to him a contradiction of terms, but Jan had informed him that among her friends it was considered very fashionable.

“We do have other options,” he said, noticing the Firebird a mile back and gaining. The next eighty miles of highway went virtually unpatrolled, and he had seen drivers rocket by at a hundred and twenty. “We can take the month off, stay in Los Angeles, and help you find an apartment for school.”

“Aren’t you jumping ahead a little,” Crystal said, slumping in her seat. “I still haven’t heard from UCLA. What if they don’t accept me?”

“Your interviewer said you were a shoo-in,” Jan reminded her. “Your grades were decent, your SATs above average, and your audition for the drama coach went beautifully.”

“I know, I know,” she said, staring out the window. “I still won’t believe it until I see the acceptance notice.”

“Shades of your father,” Jan said. She caught Vince’s eye and said, “You haven’t told us what we’re going to do after taking a month off. Go on welfare?”

“No. We go to Paris, and perform at the Olympia Theatre for three months,” he said, switching off the cruise control and slowing down to let the Firebird pass. “They’re offering decent money, with a provision in the contract that gives us a share in the profits if attendance reaches eighty percent. We’ll also be the only act on the bill. No dirty comedians. No singers throwing temper tantrums. Just us.”

“What?” they both managed to cry simultaneously.

“The entire act. Ninety minutes of illusions and escapes,” he said. “I wanted it to be a surprise. There are still details to be ironed out, but the chances look good.” He paused. “If it works out, I think we’ll have enough money to put together the circus, and go on the road. It’s a big step but...” He grasped Jan’s hand in his. “I think we’re all ready for a change.”

Crystal whooped in excitement. This was the dream her father had mesmerized her with since childhood: One day, when he had enough money, he would put together a traveling magic circus similar to those that his father and Houdini had traveled with early in their careers. As she had grown older, the dream had changed, and now her father wanted the circus to work exclusively in Europe, performing in towns and small cities which normally saw little in the way of live entertainment, and for audiences not bombarded by television and the movies.

“Forget UCLA,” she exclaimed. “I want to go. What better training ground could an actress have than being in a circus?”

“Enough of that,” her father said, his tone quickly bringing her down. “We’ve had plenty of discussions about this, and you’re going to college and getting an education. Understood?”

“Why?” she said. “Don’t you want me in your show?”

“Of course I do. You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had — even better than your mother. But it would be wrong if I didn’t give you the opportunity to do something else if someday you decided not to be in my show.” He paused. “Got it?”

Crystal crossed her arms. “Yeah. I get it.”

“Good.” The Firebird was five car lengths back, and had slowed down considerably, no longer hell bent on passing. From out of nowhere a man on a motorcycle passed the Firebird, and settled in a few feet behind the Volvo’s rear bumper.

“Slow down, buddy,” Hardare said aloud.

The biker was on his own little trip. Singing, laughing to himself. For the next two miles he rode their tail, flirting danger without a helmet, his long bouncing hair and effortless grin making a statement as old as Easy Rider. He started to pass and gave Crystal a smile. She waved, and he pulled back behind the Volvo.

“How did we get so lucky,” Hardare said.

“I think he’s sort of cute,” his daughter said, staring at her leather Prince Valiant. “He doesn’t look mean. I bet he doesn’t even have any tattoos.”

“That’s a reassuring thought,” Hardare said, watching his rear view mirror more than the road. “I wish he’d slow down and give me some breathing room. Hey, what’s that fool doing...”

With tires screaming the Firebird pulled a foot behind the biker, sandwiching him between the two cars, then ground his bumper into the biker’s rear wheel. The impact sent the biker flying over his handlebars and face first into their rear window, his eyes bulging through the tinted glass. The sound of his neck breaking was as unmistakable as his daughter’s ear-splitting scream. Off to their right, Hardare saw the bike catapult and flip past them across the desert. Moments later the biker slid off the trunk of their car and bounced on the highway like a rag doll. The Firebird swerved, purposely running over him.

“Daddy for God’s sake do something!” Crystal screeched.

“You can’t outrun him,” Jan said, turning sideways. “And you don’t want him banging your bumper. Get into the oncoming lane, slow down, and get behind him. He won’t expect you to do that.”

There were times when his wife talked that Hardare simply listened and did as instructed. He had known her just long enough to sometimes forget that before they’d met, Jan had been a crack instructor at a private anti-terrorist training school.

Hardare put his foot down and the Volvo shot ahead. As the Firebird accelerated, he swerved into the oncoming lane and put his foot gently on the brake. But the Firebird’s driver did not take the bait: slowing down, the Firebird pulled up alongside them. Less than a mile up the highway an oncoming truck flashed its headlights. Hardare tried to swerve into the right lane, only to have the Firebird slap into the side of his car.

“Bastard,” he swore, punching his horn. The oncoming truck did the same, not slowing down, and the Firebird’s driver added to the confusion by blaring his horn. Hardare glanced at his speedometer: he was doing 110 m.p.h. If the Volvo even nicked the truck they would all be killed instantaneously.

“Vince!” Jan barked. She pointed out his side window. “On three, turn left and drive off the road. Don’t turn too sharply, or we’ll flip. One...”

Was she out of her mind? If he waited any longer, the truck would be on top of them. He started to turn and Jan grabbed the wheel. “Two,” she said.

Then it dawned on him what Jan was doing: she wanted the Firebird to cross the line and deal with the oncoming truck. If the Firebird waited until the truck was past, they would have some breathing room.

“Three! Go for it!”

They were close enough to the truck to see the driver’s face. The Firebird banged their side as Hardare spun the wheel sharply. With a rubbery squeal the Volvo jumped off the highway and took down a rusted sign that said Barstow, 25 miles. The Firebird tried to follow, then swerved back into the right lane, as the truck roared by, blowing its horn.

They pitched and heaved across the desert. A reddish cloud swirled around them, the fine brown dust blowing on their clothes through the air conditioner. Watching the mirror, Hardare kept his foot pressed to the accelerator, trying to put as much distance between his car and the highway as possible.

“Where did he go?” said Jan, craning her neck.

“Don’t know.” He drove another bumpy mile until a large reservoir came into view. Only when he felt certain they were not being followed did he brake. He unhitched his seat belt.

Crystal buried her face in her hands and wept softly. “Why did he kill that poor boy on the motorcycle? Why? He just ran over him like an animal.”

He leaned through the seats and gently ran his fingers through his daughter’s hair. “I’m sorry honey. I don’t know. Just be glad it wasn’t us.”

“Vince,” Jan said sharply.

He followed the direction of his wife’s stare. Less than a hundred yards away the Firebird sat on a grassy incline, its engine racing. The car inched treacherously down the hill towards them.

Crystal’s voice nearly broke. “What does he want?”

Hardare watched the Firebird’s guarded advance. A red cloud blew around the Volvo, and just as quickly died away. The Firebird’s driver blew a strange little tune — it had the familiar ring of a television theme song — over his car horn. A numbing fear crept over him, and he thought back to the night before, and his prediction on the Tonight Show.

“Me,” he said, reaching under the seat for the Louisville Slugger he kept for road trips. “Stay in the car.”

Before Jan could protest Hardare jumped out, slamming the door. “Lock the doors.”

He walked to front of his car and planted his feet in the dusty earth. Then he whacked the baseball bat against the palm of his hand. The Firebird braked to a halt fifty feet away. Hardare saw his opening, and took it.

No one is going to terrorize my family, he thought, taking slow, deliberate steps toward the car. When he had halved the distance between then, the Firebird raced its engine, as if preparing to run him over. He pointed his bat at the driver.

“Let’s get it on,” Hardare challenged, his voice angrier than he’d ever heard it. “Right here, right now. No more chicken games.”

The Firebird let out three short beeps, laughing at him. Then it went into reverse, made a 45 degree turn, and started driving in a circle around the Volvo. Hardare retreated to his car, watching the Firebird increase its speed and choke the air with dust as it did doughnuts around them.

“Come on!” he yelled. In frustration he picked up a rock and bounced it off the hood as the Firebird made another pass. The car braked with a squeal.

The driver hopped out, unarmed. A leather cap and shades covered his face. He did not look human but humanoid, his entire body swathed in taut black leather. His broad shoulders tapered down to a tiny waist, and through the leather his muscles bulged perceptibly. Hardare had never trusted body-builders; they were always out of proportion with the rest of the world.

“Know who I am?” he demanded.

Hardare nodded that he did.

“Let’s hear it, Mr. Magico.”

“Your name is Death,” Hardare replied, taking a short step forward. For a moment the driver was speechless. Seeing his chance, he said, “You killed Sybil Blanchard — I saw it in a dream.”

Hardare took another step, his eyes locked on Death’s face, trading evil stares. The face of Crystal’s look-alike flashed through his mind, and he said, “Death is the killer of helpless women and children. Death killed twelve in San Francisco. But he didn’t call himself Death then.”

Death’s arms slowly fell to his sides, a man transfixed. Hardare stole another step, his hands tensed around the bat handle. “So Death moved to LA. Bigger city, easier to stay lost. Death felt left out as a child, inferior. Death has no real friends, no one he really loves, or really loves him. Death is a loner—”

“Shut up,” Death said, the swagger gone from his voice. “I don’t want to hear anymore. Just shut your mouth..!”

“Death is a loser,” he countered, trying to keep the momentum in his voice, each sentence drawing him a yard closer, in range to take his head off. “Death taunts the police. You like to frighten people. Puts them on the defensive, doesn’t it? Let me ask you something. Did you frighten Lori from Tulsa? Remember her? Eighteen, sunny blond hair, dimples. You killed her. I know you did. I know everything about you.”

“Because the police told you,” Death seethed, his body noticeably tensing. “I know who came to your hotel last night. That big dummy Harry Wondero. Isn’t he a barrel of laughs? He told you everything he knows about me, of should I say doesn’t know. You’re a phony.”

His voice had changed again, more masculine and assertive, and he unexpectedly slipped behind the open car door. Hardare froze: what if he had a gun? Five running steps and he had a swing at him. Death reappeared holding a bowling ball bag.

“I want you to meet someone,” Death said, reaching into the bag. His fingers came out slowly, clenched around thick locks of red hair. He let the bag fall and a woman’s head dangled from his gloved hand. “This is my friend, Lorraine. She thinks you’re a fake, too.”

Hardare was suddenly tasting his breakfast. Back in the Volvo his daughter emitted a blood-curdling scream. Death tossed Lorraine into the dirt at his feet, and Hardare jumped back in revulsion, her frozen eyes staring at him like a Medusa. Within seconds her face was covered with a swarming colony of ants.

Death clapped his hands together. A sleek black Doberman Pincher scrambled out of the back seat of the Firebird. Death petted him fondly, and pointed a finger at Hardare.

“Bad man, Tyson. Kill him!”

The dog let out a killer’s growl and charged him. Hardare reflexively tossed his bat into the dog’s chest, heard a pained yelp, and ran back to his car and jumped in. He slammed his door with the snarling dog on his heels. In a rage Tyson leapt onto the hood, his snapping jaws fogging the already dirty windshield.

“Do something, Daddy,” Crystal said.

He started the car, went nowhere. The engine had overheated and stalled. Twisting the key in the ignition, he heard the engine sputter and turn over. Throwing the car into gear, he saw Death’s leather figure sprinting towards the car.

“Vince, he’s got a bomb..!” Jan said.

The Volvo lurched forward. Death stopped, lit a cloth fuse hanging from the bottle’s mouth, and tossed it. His aim was deadly, and the bottle shattered against the roof. Within seconds bright orange flames engulfed the car as well as the crazed dog standing on top of it, its head snapping back and forth in a blind fury. Hardare violently shifted gears and the animal slid off the hood.

The car’s interior grew hot, the air conditioner spitting smoke. Hardare drove as best he could toward the reservoir, at any moment expecting a radial to blow, or worse, the gas tank to explode.

They ran roughshod across the desert, taking down lopsided rows of cactus and numerous molehills, and burst through a wire fence as if it were paper. Up a short embankment, over it, his foot to the floor, the car literally flying in the air — looking sideways, his eyes met Jan’s, her face the last memory he wanted to have if the reservoir was only a foot deep — and then hit the reservoir’s murky blue water with tremendous impact.

An exploding air bag engulfed him as he was thrown forward. Much to Hardare’s surprise the car did not hit bottom, but sank fifteen feet before gently settling to rest on the swirling bottom. He looked at his wife. She was unhurt.

“Crys, you okay honey?”

“No,” his daughter said.

His daughter’s nose was smeared with blood, and she gingerly touched it with her fingers.

“Does it feel broken?”

“I don’t think so.”

Jan undid her shoulder strap. “Vince, we’re going to run out of air.”

“He’s still up there. If we surface right away, he’ll slaughter us. I’m going to hold my breath. That should leave enough oxygen for you to use. We wait five minutes, then go up. Hopefully the driver of the eighteen-wheeler saw what happened, and called the police. Sound like a plan?”

His wife and daughter both nodded.

“Good. Here we go.”

Hardare filled his lungs to capacity, his chest puffing out from exertion, then fell back in his seat and tried to relax. He could hold his breath for six minutes if he wanted to, although it would produce an excruciating headache the next day.

Closing his eyes, he saw the monster and the head. Now he knew what Sybil Blanchard had experienced before she’d died. Wondero had said that Death was elusive, and he knew that criminals did not get that way by acting careless. Soon Death would have to leave, or risk being caught.

After five minutes his skull was pounding. He glanced at his wife and daughter. They were gasping for air. It was time, and he kicked open his door with his foot.

He was going up first.

He swam out of the Volvo, waited for Jan and Crystal to safely exit, and pushed himself off the spongy bottom of the reservoir. If Death was up there, he was going to take a different approach and take the offensive. If he could get a jump on the bastard, just get close enough to touch him, he would have the advantage. Years of doing escapes had made him unbelievably strong, and as his head burst above the surface, he realized that this was his only choice. He could show no compassion or sympathy. Not when his family was involved. Just kill the bastard.

The shore was deserted. He heard Jan and Crystal pop up a few yards behind him. He swam in quickly and then staggered out of the water, his wet pants legs sucking his legs together.

“Where are you?” he bellowed angrily. “Come out here in the open.”

Behind a mountain of brown dirt he heard a low growl. Tensing, he charged up the hill like a demon. In the back of his head he heard a voice. What are you doing? He didn’t know; he’d never acted like this before in his life.

Another dog, this time a vicious German shepherd, met him at the top, its paws scrambling as it came up the other side of the hill. The dog leapt on his chest, sending Hardare backwards down the hill. Together they rolled to the edge of the reservoir. Hardare jumped up with the dog clutched in his arms, and with a violent twist of his body, threw the dog twenty feet out into the water. He spun around, anticipating Death.

“Holy mother of God.”

Two burly state troopers plowed down the hill with guns drawn. They stared at him, then his family. Finally one said, “We got an emergency call. Somebody phoned in a burning car.”

Hardare pointed at the reservoir. “It’s on the bottom. A madman threw a Molotov cocktail on our roof.”

“Well, you got lucky,” the trooper said. “This is the only reservoir for thirty miles.”

His partner went to fetch their dog. As it came out of the water it shot past his legs and scurried up the hill with its tail between its legs. “Well I’ll be goddamned,” the trooper swore.

“I think we better get you folks to a hospital,” the second trooper said.

Hardare became dizzy as the desert began to spin around him. The Neanderthal in him had gone away, leaving a dark hole where his soul had been. With a loud whumph! he sat in the dirt.

“I think that would be a good idea,” Hardare said.