The Man Who Cheated Death (Vincent Hardare)

by James Swain

  “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.

  Chapter 5

  L.A.

  Barstow was barely large enough to be called a town. But the local hospital also served the nearby Indian reservation, and the facilities were first rate. While his daughter was being X-rayed, Hardare called Caesar’s management, then the Homicide Division of the LAPD. An hour later, Wondero and a second detective, a short man with a paintbrush moustache, walked into the waiting room. Hardare tossed down a year old People and stood up.

  “Your psychopath attacked us on the highway. He killed a motorcyclist while trying to run us off the road and then fire-bombed our car. He was watching my hotel last night; he saw us together and thought I was helping you.”

  Wondero said, “You spoke to him?”

  “We shouted at each other, then he threw a women’s head at me. That’s when I lost it.”

  Without missing a beat, Wondero said, “Can you describe what he looked like?”

  “Stone evil,” Hardare said.

  “I mean physically.”

  His partner interrupted him. “I’m Detective Rittenbaugh. Are your wife and daughter going to be all right?”

  “My wife’s fine, my daughter banged her nose. The doctor wants her to take it easy for a few days.” As he spoke, Wondero nervously bit his fingernails. Finally Hardare could not stand it and said, “My height, broad shoulders, really muscular. He was dressed in leather and wore shades and a hat. I never saw his face.”

  “We need to search the crime scene right away,” Wondero said excitedly to his partner. “Maybe he left some clues.”

  “Right, Harry. Mr. Hardare, you still look shaken up. Like some coffee or a soft drink?”

  “A cup of coffee would be good,” Hardare said.

  “How do you take it?”

  “Black.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Rittenbaugh walked down a freshly mopped hallway past a semi-conscious man lying on a stretcher, and found a bank of concession machines by the pay phones. He bought three coffees and took them back to the waiting room. Wondero and Hardare were gone.

  “Harry, you crummy bastard,” Rittenbaugh said, the cups burning his fingers.

  “You should be angry,” Wondero said, walking with Hardare past the parking lot to a children’s nursery with metal swings and a large curving slide. “Most people who are victimized feel an immediate desire for revenge. It’s only human.”

  “We were supposed to be working Vegas another week,” Hardare said, “but Caesar’s let us out of our contract. We have a big engagement in Los Angeles coming up, and I called you because— “

  Wondero held up his hand like he was directing traffic. “Understood. Twenty-four hours a day. You, your wife, your girl. We’ll guard you like the crown jewels. But at the same time, I want you to consider something.”

  The blurry image of a car racing across the desert a few miles away stopped Hardare dead in his tracks. When it was out of sight, he said, “What’s that?”

  “Help us.”

  “How?”

  “I want to set a trap for Death.”

  “And what do we do? Act as bait? No thanks.”

  “My partner and I think Death saw the Tonight Show, and like me, believed your prediction trick was the real thing. We think he’s frightened that you’ll expose him.”

  Hardare played back their confrontation. “He called me a fake. He was pumping me for information to see how much I knew about him.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I knew about the murders in San Francisco. That paralyzed him for a few seconds.”

  Wondero grabbed his arm excitedly. “Look at the risk he took coming out here, trying to kill you. He thinks you’re on to him.”

  “No more than you.”

  “That’s not the point. You drew him out with the magic.”

  “So?”

  “You can do it again. Keep making predictions about Death. We’ll tell the newspapers you’re working on the case. Do your tricks on TV, the radio, wherever you want, and during the tricks reveal certain things about him.”

  “What things?” he said, holding Wondero’s gaze as the midday sun beat on his stooped shoulders.

  “There are pieces of information that Homicide hasn’t revealed to the press. It’s not much, but it will scare him.”

  “Does your partner like this scheme too?”

  “He’s not against it,” Wondero said defensively.

  “You’re lying to me.”

  Wondero did not let the accusation slow him down. “If you don’t help us, chances are we won’t catch him. And we can’t protect you and your family forever. This guy moves around. You’re a public person.”

  “Are you trying to threaten me?”

  “No! I’m on my knees begging for your help.”

  “Well I’m sorry, but your timing sucks. What do you think happened out there?”

  “I think you outsmarted him,” Wondero said.

  “No, I got lucky. He came that close to killing all three of us. Ever see someone you love die before your eyes?”

  The question startled the detective. “No. Have you?”

  “My first wife. I watched her burn to death in a car crash.”

  Embarrassed, Wondero stared at the ground. “Really.”

  “Now you can understand why I don’t want any part of your wild scheme. If Death does contact me again, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Wondero stuck out his hand and Hardare reluctantly shook it. “I know this has been a rough day for you. Please reconsider what I said. Maybe next time we’ll nab him.”

  Hardare angrily backed away. “No!”

  “This is my card,” the detective said, shoving it into Hardare’s hand. “My direct line is on the bottom. Call anytime.”

  Hardare crushed the card into a tiny ball and slowly opened his fingers. The card was gone. Wondero gaped at his empty palm.

  “Goodbye, detective.”

  Hardare went inside the hospital to check on his wife and daughter.

  For a hundred bucks he found an old Indian willing to drive his family back to L.A. in a beat-up mini van. They rode in silence, Crystal lying with her head on Jan’s lap. Hardare sat up front, staring aimlessly at the landscape. He felt strange returning to the city with nothing but the clothes on his back, a wallet filled with credit cards and a few hundred in cash. He and his first wife had started off this way, working the joints and small hotels across the country while living out of a suitcase. It had been tough, often discouraging work, and after Barbara had died, he had found it hard to look back at those times and think of them as the good old days.

  He had the driver drop them at L’ermitage in Beverly Hills. In ten minutes they were checked into a suite on the fifth floor. Their bellmen, having no bags, made a grea
t show of pulling back the blinds and showing them where the mini-bar was. Hardare tipped him with a bill that had not completely dried. The bellman snapped it once, examining it suspiciously. Hardare showed him to the door, and locked it behind him.

  “God, I wish this day never happened,” Crystal said, falling into a couch. The motion made her head spin, and she closed her eyes. “When’s our stuff arriving from Vegas? I’ve got to get out of these clothes.”