Wondero got on his knees and stared beneath the stand.
“Aren’t they the guys who turn women into tigers?” Rittenbaugh asked Hardare. “My wife and I saw them at The Mirage. They were unreal! They did this one trick with a fire-breathing dragon...”
“Nothing,” Wondero said. “It looks fair to me.”
“Good. Now watch closely,” Hardare said.
Helping Jan into the cage, Hardare shut the metal door as she crouched down inside. Stepping back, he tossed the sheet in the air. As it flew above the detectives’ heads, it opened to its full size and dropped down over the cage, elegantly engulfing his wife in its folds. Without a second’s hesitation the magician snapped the sheet away. Crouched in the cage sat his beaming daughter.
“Hey guys,” Crystal said.
“Where did your wife go?” Wondero asked.
“I can’t tell you that. But I will tell you this. She’s someplace very safe.”
Wondero hated to be fooled. As the detective got on his knees and began rapping the floor, Rittenbaugh said, “Aw come on, Harry, it’s just a trick.”
Wondero could not figure out how the trick was done. Stymied, he let Hardare walk him and his partner out to their car.
“I still think you’re making a huge mistake staying in L.A.,” Wonder said. “You’re a public person, for god’s sake. What if Osbourne slips into the theater during one of your shows?”
“It’s a chance we’re willing to take,” Hardare said.
“Look, I know we’ve let you down. Give us a chance to redeem ourselves. Let me post a pair of cops in the lobby and a pair at the backstage door. They can check everyone who comes and goes. It will make Osbourne think twice about sneaking in.”
“That would be great,” Hardare said. “While you’re offering, do you mind if I ask another favor?”
“Go ahead,” Wondero said.
“Wednesday night I’m performing an outdoor escape to help promote the show. Could you send some men for protection?”
“Consider it done,” Wondero said. “Just give us the location and time, and we’ll be there.”
Wondero and his partner got into their car. Wondero had a thought, and went back to the front door where Hardare stood.
“You and your family have a lot of guts,” Wondero said. “Please be careful. I don’t want to see anything else happen to you.”
“We will,” Hardare promised him.
Then Wondero got into his car, and drove away.
Chapter 32
The Straitjacket Escape
Osbourne lowered his binoculars as Wondero and his partner drove away. The morphine was wearing off, and his ankle was starting to throb. He gunned the Mustang he had stolen from long term parking at LAX.
He drove north looking for a gas station, passing the weekend hideaways of the people who really mattered: Cher, Sting, David Geffen, Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, and all the other heavyweights. Once, he had dreamed that he’d been invited to a party in Malibu, and spent the rest of the dream driving up and down the highway, searching in vain for the fucking house.
As he drove, his teeth tore into a baloney sandwich he had made before venturing over to the Wilshire Ebell theatre. In one half-hour period, six deliverymen had come and gone through the backstage door. Against all common sense, he had gone home, put on a drab brown UPS uniform, filled a cardboard box with books and slapped a label on it, then gone back to the theatre.
Hardare’s crew had been inside, busily uncrating props and doing carpentry work on stage. Osbourne had entered the dressing rooms, searching Hardare’s things until finding a slip of paper in a pant’s pocket that contained the address in Malibu and a phone number.
At the next gas station, Osbourne went in and purchased a Red Bull. Back in the car, he popped a morphine pill into his mouth, and washed it down. Within a minute he felt relief from his suffering. There was enough morphine in the bottle to last a few more days. Long enough, he thought.
An hour later, he pulled into the 7-11 a few blocks from his home. A payphone hung on the side of the building. When he was certain no one was watching, he removed the front metal plate with a screwdriver, and expertly rearranged the wires.
At precisely noon the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“I have a collect call for Eugene Smith,” the operator said, unaware it was a payphone. “Will you accept the charges?”
“Of course,” Osbourne said.
“Please hold.”
“Hello, Eugene,” he heard D.B.’s familiar voice say. “How have you been?”
Osbourne knew that the calls from the mental institution were monitored, and chose his words carefully. “I’m all right. I’ve still got that problem I told you about.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like me to help you fix it?”
“Nothing would make me happier,” Osbourne said.
“Good. Now listen carefully. I’ve been thinking about this situation since our visit. I think I know how we can fix this, once and for all.”
Osbourne smiled into the receiver. D.B. had guided him throughout his killing spree, and had come up with creative solutions to solving his dilemmas. He couldn’t wait to hear how his mentor planned to get rid of Hardare.
“I’m listening,” Osbourne said.
Hanging upside down by his ankles, Hardare struggled with the canvas straitjacket holding him prisoner when Jan came up from behind and gave him a push.
“Hey!” he protested, his body swinging like a pendulum.
“You’re going to be outside,” she said. “Are you ready if a stiff wind starts blowing you around?”
No, he wasn’t, and in discomfort he managed to free his left arm, and untied the leather straps holding him prisoner.
“Two minute, fifteen seconds,” Jan said, hitting her stopwatch. “You’ve got to speed it up.”
“Tell me about it,” he said, throwing the straitjacket off. Doubling himself up, he released his ankles from the block and tackle that held him suspended from the ceiling, and dropped to the floor.
For a minute he lay on a mattress on the floor and waited for the room to stop spinning. Jan plopped down beside him.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Tired and old,” he said, closing his eyes.
“Stop it. You’ve got the body of a twenty year old.”
“Maybe I should give it back. It’s getting wrinkled.”
He sat up, and in answer to his prayers Jan got on her knees and massaged his aching shoulders. Sometimes he just didn’t fully think things out. The straitjacket escape had been his signature for years, but of late he had given the routine a rest, and begun to emphasize more magic in his performances. During the hiatus, age and lack of practice had caught up with him.
“You need a good hot bath,” Jan said. She felt him stiffen, and realized she had said the wrong thing. “There’s no reason to kill yourself practicing. Think of how sore you’re going to be tomorrow.”
“Think how sore I’ll be Wednesday night if I fall,” he said.
He retrieved the straitjacket from the floor. When Houdini had introduced the escape into his show, it had caused a sensation. Later, his father had added the wrinkle of hanging upside-down. Hardare had further strengthened the routine by freeing himself while hanging from a burning rope.
But the escape was both physically and emotionally draining. He could not perform it night after night without wearing himself out. And so, he had dropped it from his shows. His audiences had not seemed to mind, and neither had he.
And now he was paying the price. The straitjacket was as torturous to remove as the first time he’d tried it on. His muscles had lost their memory, and only through constant practice was he going to make them remember.
“One more time,” Hardare said.