The Vanished Man Read online

  Lingering in alleys wasn't the best idea in this neighborhood but Calvert saw that he was still completely alone. He moved slowly over the cobblestones so he wouldn't spook the animal. It was lying on its side, meowing faintly.

  Could he pick it up? Would it try to scratch him? He remembered something in Prevention about cat-scratch fever. But the animal looked too weak to hurt him.

  "Hey, what's the matter, fella?" he asked in a soothing voice. "You hurt?"

  Crouching down, he set his makeup case on the cobblestones and reached out carefully in case the cat took a swipe at him. He touched it but then drew his hand back in shock. The animal was ice-cold and emaciated--he could feel stiff bones beneath the skin. Had it just died? But, no, the leg was still moving. And it uttered another faint meow.

  He touched it again. And, wait, those weren't bones under the skin. They were rods, and inside its body was a metal box.

  What the fuck was this?

  Was he on Candid Camera? Or was some asshole just ragging him?

  Then he glanced up and saw someone ten feet away. Calvert gasped and reared back. A man was crouching--

  But, no, he realized. It was his own image, reflected in a full-length mirror sitting in the corner at the end of the dark alley. Calvert saw his face, shocked, eyes wide, frozen for a moment. He started to relax and laughed. But then he frowned, watching himself slowly falling forward--as the mirror pivoted to the cobblestones and shattered.

  The bearded, middle-aged man hiding behind it charged forward, raising a large piece of pipe.

  "No! Help me!" the young man cried, scrabbling away. "My God, my God!"

  The pipe swung down in a fierce arc directly toward his head.

  But Calvert grabbed the makeup case fast and thrust it toward the attacker, deflecting the blow. He struggled to his feet and began to run. The assailant started after him but slipped on the slick cobblestones and went down hard on one knee.

  "Take the wallet! Take it!" He pulled his billfold from his pocket and flung it behind him. But the man ignored it and rose, continuing after him. He was between Calvert and the street; the only escape was back into the building.

  Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Lord . . .

  "Help me, help me, help me!"

  Keys! he thought. Get them now! Fishing them out of his jeans as he gave a brief glance behind him. The man was only thirty feet or so away. If I don't get the door unlocked on the first try, that's it . . . I'm dead.

  Calvert didn't even slow down. He slammed hard into the metal door and, a miracle, slid the key home instantly, turning it fast. The latch opened, he pulled the key out and leaped through the doorway, slamming the steel door shut behind him. It locked automatically.

  Heart pounding fiercely, gasping in fear, he rested only for a moment. Thinking, mugger? Gay-basher? Druggie? Didn't matter, he thought. I'm not letting the prick get away. He ran up the hall to his apartment. This door too he opened fast. He leaped inside, swinging it shut after him and locking it.

  Hurrying into the kitchen, he seized the phone and dialed 911. A moment later a woman's voice said, "Police and fire emergency."

  "A man! A man just attacked me! He's outside."

  "Are you injured?"

  "No, but you have to send the police!" he shouted. "Hurry!"

  "Is he there with you?"

  "No, he didn't get in. I locked the doors. But he could still be in the alley! You have to hurry!"

  What was that? Calvert wondered. He felt a sudden breeze against his face. The sensation was familiar and he realized that it was the feeling of cross ventilation when someone opened the front door to his apartment.

  The 911 operator asked, "Hello, sir, are you there? Can you--"

  Calvert spun toward the door and cried out, seeing the bearded man with the pipe, standing only a few feet from him, calmly unplugging the phone line from the wall. The doors! How did he get through the locks?

  Calvert backed away as far as he could--against the refrigerator; there was nowhere else to go.

  "What?" he whispered, noting the scars on the man's neck, his deformed left hand. "What do you want?"

  The assailant ignored him for a moment and looked around--first at the kitchen table then at the large wooden coffee table in the living room. Something about the sight of it seemed to please him. He turned back and when he brought the pipe down on Calvert's raised arms the swing seemed almost like an afterthought.

  *

  They rolled up, silent.

  Two RMPs, two officers in each.

  The sergeant climbed out of the first squad car before it'd braked to a stop. Only six minutes had elapsed since the 911 call came in. Even though the call had been cut off, Central knew which building and apartment it had been placed from, thanks to caller-ID technology.

  Six minutes. . . . If they were lucky they'd find the vic alive and well. If they were less lucky, at least the doer'd still be in the apartment, shopping through the vic's valuables.

  He called in on his Motorola. "Sergeant Four Five Three One to Central. I'm ten-eighty-four on the scene of that assault on Nine Street, K."

  "Roger, Four Five Three One. EMS bus en route. Injuries, K?"

  "Don't know yet. Out."

  "Roger, Four Five. Out."

  He sent one of his men around to the back to cover the service door and the rear windows and told another to stay in the front. The third officer trotted with the sergeant toward the lobby.

  If they were lucky the perp'd jump out a window and break an ankle. The sergeant wasn't in any mood to run assholes to ground on this fine day.

  This was Alphabet City, its name courtesy of the north-south avenues here--A, B, C how fast I can cook some smack and shoot up. It was improving slowly but was still one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Manhattan. Both cops had their weapons drawn by the time they approached the door.

  If they were lucky he'd be armed only with a knife. Or something like what that cluckhead gone on crack had threatened him with last week: a chopstick and garbage can lid for a shield.

  Well, they got one break at least--they didn't have to find somebody to let them through the security door. An elderly woman, listing against the weight of a shopping bag that sprouted a huge pineapple, was on her way out. Blinking in surprise, she held the door open for the two cops and they hurried inside, answering her question about their presence with a noncommittal, "Nothing to be concerned about, ma'am."

  If we're lucky . . .

  Apartment 1J was on the ground floor toward the back. The sergeant positioned himself to the left of the door. The other officer, opposite, glanced at him and nodded. The sergeant rapped hard with his big knuckles. "Police. Open the door. Open it now!"

  No response from inside.

  "Police!"

  He tried the knob. More luck. It was unlocked. The sergeant shoved the door open and both men stood back, waiting. Finally the sergeant peeked 'round the corner.

  "Oh, Christ on earth," he whispered when he saw what was in the center of the living room.

  The word "luck" vanished from his thoughts entirely.

  *

  The secret to successful protean magic--quick change--is making distinct but simple changes to your appearance and demeanor while simultaneously distracting your audience with misdirection.

  And no change was more distinctive than turning yourself into a seventy-five-year-old bag woman.

  Malerick had known the police would arrive quickly. So after the brief performance in Tony Calvert's apartment he did a fast change into one of his escape outfits: a high-necked blue dress and a white wig. He pulled his elasticized jeans above the hemline of the dress, revealing opaque support hose. The beard came off and he applied a heavy base of eccentric-lady rouge. He painted on excessive eyebrow liner. Several dozen strokes with a thin sienna pencil gave him septuagenarian wrinkles. A change of shoes.

  As for the misdirection, he'd found a shopping bag and filled the bottom with newspaper--along with the pipe and the othe
r weapon he'd used for his routine--and added a large fresh pineapple from Calvert's kitchen. If he met anyone as he left the building they might glance at him but they'd focus on the sizable pineapple, which is just what happened as he politely held the door open for the arriving officers.

  Now, a quarter mile from the building, still dressed as the woman, he stopped and leaned against the wall of a building as if he were catching his breath. Then he eased into a dim alley. With one tug the dress, held together by tiny Velcro dots, came off. This garment and the wig went under a foot-wide elastic band he wore around his stomach, which compressed the items and made them invisible under his shirt.

  He tugged his pants cuffs down, took makeup removal pads from a Baggie in his pocket and wiped his face until the rouge, wrinkles and eyebrow pencil were gone, checking to make sure with a small pocket mirror. The pads he dropped into the shopping bag with the pineapple, which he in turn placed in a green garbage bag. He found a car illegally parked, picked the lock to the trunk and tossed the bag inside. The police would never think to search the trunks of parked cars and, anyway, the odds were that the car would be towed before the owner returned.

  Back on the street, heading for one of the West Side subways.

  And what did you think of our second act, Revered Audience?

  He himself thought it had gone well, considering that because he'd slipped on the damn cobblestones the performer had gotten away and managed to close and lock two doors.

  But by the time Malerick had gotten to the back door of Calvert's building he had his picking tools in hand.

  Malerick had studied the fine art of lockpicking for years. It was one of the first skills his mentor had taught him. A picker uses two tools: a tension wrench, which is inserted into the lock and twisted to keep pressure on the locking pins inside, and the pick itself, which pushes each pin out of the way so the lock can be turned to the open position.

  It can be time-consuming to push aside the pins one at a time, though, so Malerick had mastered a very difficult technique called "scrubbing," in which you move the pick back and forth quickly, brushing the pins out of the way. Scrubbing only works when the lock picker senses exactly the right combination of torque on the cylinder and pressure on the pins. Using tools that were only a few inches long, it had taken Malerick less than thirty seconds to scrub open the locks in both the back door and the apartment door of Calvert's place.

  Does that seem impossible, Revered Audience?

  But that's the job of illusionists, you know: rendering the impossible real.

  Pausing outside the subway he bought a New York Times and flipped through it as he studied passersby. Again, it seemed that no one had followed him. He trotted down the stairs to catch the train. A truly cautious performer might have waited a bit longer to be absolutely sure he wasn't being tailed. But Malerick didn't have much time. The next routine would be a difficult one--he'd set quite major challenges for himself--and he had to make some preparations.

  He didn't dare risk disappointing his audience.

  Chapter Eleven "It's bad, Rhyme."

  Amelia Sachs was speaking into the stalk mike as she stood in the doorway of apartment 1J, in the heart of Alphabet City.

  Earlier that morning Lon Sellitto had ordered all dispatchers at Central to call him immediately with news of any homicide in New York City. When a report came in about this particular killing they concluded that it was the work of the Conjurer: the mysterious way the killer had gained access to the man's apartment was one clue. The clincher, though, was that he'd smashed the victim's wristwatch--just as he'd done with the student's at the first killing that morning.

  One thing that was different was the cause of death. Which had prompted Sachs's comment to Rhyme. While Sellitto gave commands to the detectives and patrol officers in the hall Sachs studied the unfortunate vic--a young man named Anthony Calvert. He lay on his back in the middle of the coffee table in the living room, spread-eagled, hands and feet tied to the legs of the table. His abdomen had been sawn completely through down to his spine.

  Sachs now described the injury to Rhyme.

  "Well," said the criminalist unemotionally. "Consistent."

  "Consistent?"

  "I'd say he's keeping with the magic theme. Ropes in the first killing. Cutting someone in half now." His voice rose as he called across the room, presumably to Kara. "That's a magic trick, right? Cutting somebody in half?" A pause and then he was addressing Sachs again. "She said it's a classic illusionist trick."

  He was right, she realized; she'd been shocked at the sight and hadn't made the connection between the two killings.

  An illusionist trick . . .

  Though grotesque mutilation described it better.

  Keep detached, she told herself. A sergeant would be detached.

  But then a thought occurred to her. "Rhyme, you think . . ."

  "What?"

  "You think he was alive when the perp started cutting? His hands're tied to the table legs, spread-eagle."

  "Oh, you mean maybe he left something for us, some clue about the killer's identity? Good."

  "No," she said softly. "Thinking about the pain."

  "Oh. That."

  Oh. That . . .

  "Blood work'll tell."

  Then she noticed a major blunt-object trauma to Calvert's temple. That wound hadn't bled much, which suggested that his heart had stopped beating soon after the skull had been crushed.

  "No, Rhyme, looks like the cutting was postmortem."

  She vaguely heard the criminalist's voice talking to his aide, telling Thom to write this on the evidence chart. He was saying something else but she wasn't paying any attention. The sight of the victim gripped her hard and wouldn't let go. But this was as she wanted it. Yes, she could give up the dead--the way all crime scene cops had to do--and in a moment she would. But death, she felt, deserved a moment of stillness. Sachs did this not out of any sense of spirituality, though, or abstract respect for the dead; no, it was for herself, so that her heart would resist hardening to stone, a process that happened all too frequently in this calling.

  She realized that Rhyme was talking to her. "What?" she asked.

  "I was wondering, any weapons?"

  "No sign of them. But I haven't searched yet."

  A sergeant and a uniformed officer joined Sellitto in the doorway. "Been talking to the neighbors," one of them said. Nodding toward the body then doing a double take. She guessed he hadn't seen the carnage up close yet. "Vic was a nice, quiet guy. Everybody liked him. Gay but not into rough trade or anything. Hadn't been seeing anybody for a while."

  Sachs nodded then said into her mike, "Doesn't sound like he knew the killer, Rhyme."

  "We didn't think that was likely now, did we?" the criminalist said. "The Conjurer's got a different agenda--whatever the hell it is."

  "What line of work?" she asked the officers.

  "Makeup artist and stylist for one of the theaters on Broadway. We found his case in the alley. You know, hair spray, makeup, brushes."

  Sachs wondered if Calvert had ever been hired by commercial photographers and, if so, if he'd worked on her when she'd been with the Chantelle modeling agency on Madison Avenue. Unlike many photographers and the ad agency account people, makeup artists treated models as if they were human beings. An account exec might offer, "All right, let's get her painted and see what she looks like," and the makeup artist would mutter, "Excuse me, I didn't know she was a picket fence."

  An Asian-American detective from the Ninth Precinct, which covered this part of town, walked up to the doorway, hanging up his cell phone. "How 'bout this one, huh?" he asked breezily.

  "How 'bout it," Sellitto muttered. "Any idea how he got away? The vic called nine-one-one himself. Your respondings must've got to the scene in ten minutes."

  "Six," the detective said.

  A sergeant said, "We rolled up silent and covered all the doors and windows. When we got inside, the body was still warm. I'm talking
ninety-eight point six. We did a door-to-door but no sign of the doer."

  "Wits?"

  The sergeant nodded. "The only person in the hall when we got here was this old lady. She was the one let us in. When she gets back we'll talk to her. Maybe she got a look at him."

  "She left?" Sellitto asked.

  "Yeah."

  Rhyme had heard. "You know who it was, don't you?"

  "Goddamn," the policewoman snapped.

  The detective said, "No, it's okay. We left cards under everybody's door. She'll call us back."

  "No, she won't," Sachs said, sighing. "That was the doer."

  "Her?" the sergeant asked, his voice high. He laughed.

  "She wasn't a her," Sachs explained. "She only looked like an old lady."

  "Hey, Officer," Sellitto said, "let's not get too paranoid. The guy can't do a sex-change operation or anything."

  "Yes, he can. Remember what Kara told us. It was her, Lieutenant. Want to bet?"

  In her ear Rhyme's voice said, "I'm not taking odds on that one, Sachs."

  The sergeant said defensively, "She was, like, seventy years old or something. And carrying a big bag of groceries. A pineapple--"

  "Look," she said and pointed to the kitchen counter, on which were two spiky leaves. Next to them was a little card on a rubber band, courtesy of Dole, offering tasty recipes for fresh pineapple.

  Hell. They'd had him--he was inches away from them.

  "And," Rhyme continued, "he probably had the murder weapon in the grocery bag."

  She repeated this to the increasingly sullen detective from the Nine.

  "You didn't see her face, right?" she asked the sergeant.

  "Not really. Just glanced at her. It was like, you know, all made up. Covered with, what's that stuff? My grandmother used to wear it?"

  "Rouge?" Sachs asked.

  "Yeah. And painted-on eyebrows. . . . Well, we'll find her now. She . . . he can't've got that far."

  Rhyme said, "He's changed clothes again, Sachs. Probably dumped them nearby."

  She said to the Asian detective, "He's wearing something else now. But the sergeant here can give you a description of the clothes. You should send a detail to check out the Dumpsters and the alleyways around here."

  The detective frowned coolly and looked Sachs up and down. A cautionary glance from Sellitto reminded her that an important part of becoming sergeant was not acting like one until you actually were. He then authorized the search and the detective picked up his radio and called it in.