The Vanished Man Read online

  But Sachs saw nobody in a jogging suit.

  Oh, no, she thought. No! Furious with herself, she understood what had happened--he'd mimicked the voice himself. Ventriloquism.

  She turned back fast to see a brilliant fireball explode from the rescuer's hand. It hovered in the air, blinding her.

  "Amelia!" Bell called. "I can't see anything! Where is he?"

  "I don't--"

  A fast series of gunshots sounded from where the Conjurer had been standing. The onlookers fled in panic as Sachs aimed at the sound of the shooting. Bell did too. They both squinted for targets but the killer was gone by the time her vision returned; she found herself aiming at a cloud of faint smoke--from more of the explosive squibs.

  Then, to the east, she saw the Conjurer on the other side of the parkway. He started up the middle of the street but saw an RMP speeding his way, its lights and sirens frantic, and he leaped up the wide stairway that led to the college and vanished into the crafts fair, like a copperhead disappearing into tall grass.

  Chapter Seventeen They were everywhere. . . .

  Dozens of police.

  All searching for him.

  Gasping from the sprint, his lungs stinging, the muscles in his side on fire, Malerick leaned against the cool limestone of one of the college's classroom buildings.

  In front of him a fair spread out over the large plaza, which was jammed with people. He looked behind him, west, the direction he'd come from. Already the police had cut off that entrance. On the north and south sides of the square were tall concrete buildings. The windows were sealed and there were no doors. His only exit was east, on the other side of a football-field-size expanse of booths and dense crowds.

  He made his way in that direction. But he didn't dare run.

  Because illusionists know that fast attracts attention.

  Slow makes you invisible.

  He glanced at the goods for sale, nodded in pleasure at a guitarist's performance, laughed at a balloon-tying clown. He did what everyone else did.

  Because unique attracts attention.

  Similar makes you invisible.

  Easing east. Wondering how the police had located him. Of course he'd expected they'd find the drowned body of the woman lawyer sometime today. But they'd moved too fast--it was as if they'd anticipated that he'd kidnap someone in that part of the city, maybe even at the riding academy itself. How?

  Farther east.

  Past the booths, past the concession stand, past a Dixieland band on a red, white and blue draped stage. Ahead of him was the exit--the east stairway leading from the square down to Broadway. Only another fifty feet to freedom, forty.

  Thirty . . .

  But then he saw flashing lights. They seemed nearly as bright as the burst from the flash cotton he'd used to escape from the redheaded officer. The lights were atop four squad cars that squealed to a stop beside the stairway. A half-dozen uniformed officers jumped out. They scanned the stairs and remained with their cars. Meanwhile other officers, in plain clothes, were arriving. They now climbed the stairs and merged into the crowd, looking over the men at the fair.

  Now surrounded, Malerick turned and headed back toward the center of the festival.

  The plain-clothed officers were slowly moving westward. They were stopping men in their fifties who were clean shaven, wearing light shirts and tan slacks. Exactly like him.

  But they were also stopping fifty-year-olds who were bearded and were wearing other clothes. Which meant they knew about his quick-change techniques.

  Then he saw what he'd been dreading: The policewoman with the steely eyes and fiery red hair, who'd tried to arrest him at the pond, appeared at the top of the stairs at the west end of the fair. She plunged into the crowd.

  Malerick turned aside, lowering his head and studying some very bad ceramic sculpture.

  What to do? he thought desperately. He had one remaining quick-change outfit left, under what he now wore. But after that, there was no backup.

  The redheaded officer spotted someone who was built and dressed similarly to him. She examined the man closely. Then she turned away and continued to scan the crowd.

  The trim, brown-haired cop who'd been giving Cheryl Marston CPR now crested the stairs and joined the policewoman in the crowd. They conferred for a few moments. Another woman was with him--she didn't seem like a cop. She had brilliant blue eyes and short reddish-purple hair and was quite thin. She looked over the crowd and whispered something to the woman officer, who headed off in a different direction. The short-haired girl stayed with the male cop and they began to work their way through the crowd.

  Malerick knew he'd be spotted sooner or later. He had to get out of the fair now, before even more cops arrived. Walking to the row of Porta Potties, he stepped inside the fiberglass box and executed a change. In thirty seconds he stepped out again, politely holding the door open for a middle-aged woman, who hesitated and turned away, deciding to wait for a john whose prior user wasn't a ponytailed biker with a beer gut, wearing a Pennzoil cap, a greasy long-sleeved denim Harley-Davidson shirt and dirty black jeans.

  He picked up a newspaper and rolled it up, gripping it in his left hand to obscure his fingers, then moved toward the east side of the fair again, checking out stained glass, mugs and bowls, handmade toys, crystals, CDs. One cop looked right at him but the glance was brief and he turned away.

  Malerick now returned to the eastern edge of the fair.

  The stairway that led down to Broadway was about thirty yards wide and the uniformed police had managed to close off much of it. They were now stopping all adult men and women who left the fair and asking for IDs.

  He saw the detective and the purple-haired girl nearby, next to the concession stand. She was whispering to him. Had she noticed him?

  Malerick was swept by a burst of uncontrollable fury. He'd planned the performance so carefully--every routine, every trick choreographed to lead up to tomorrow's finale. This weekend was supposed to be the most perfect illusion ever performed. And it was all crumbling around him. He thought of how disappointed his mentor would be. He thought of letting down his revered audience. . . . He found his hand, holding a small oil painting of the Statue of Liberty, beginning to shake.

  This is not acceptable! he raged.

  He put the picture down and turned.

  But he stopped fast, giving a sharp gasp.

  The red-haired policewoman stood only a few feet from him, looking away. He quickly turned his attention to a case of jewelry and asked the vendor, in a thick Brooklyn accent, how much a pair of earrings cost.

  From the corner of his eye he could see the policewoman glance at him but she paid him no mind and a moment later made a call on her radio. "Five Eight Eight Five. Requesting a landline patch to Lincoln Rhyme." A moment later: "We're at the fair, Rhyme. He has to be here. . . . He couldn't've gotten out before they sealed the exits. We'll find him. If we have to frisk everybody we'll find him."

  Malerick eased into the crowd. What were his options?

  Misdirection--that seemed to be the only answer. Something to distract the police and give him just five seconds to slip through the line and disappear among the pedestrians on Broadway.

  But what would misdirect them long enough to let him escape?

  He didn't have any more squibs to simulate gunshots. Set a booth on fire? But that wouldn't cause the sort of panic he now needed.

  Anger and fear seized him again.

  But then he heard his mentor's voice from years ago, after the boy had made a mistake onstage and nearly ruined one of the man's routines. The demonic, bearded illusionist had pulled the youngster aside after the performance. Close to tears, the boy had gazed down at the floor as the man asked, "What is illusion?"

  "Science and logic" had been Malerick's instant response. (The mentor had drummed a hundred answers like this one into his assistants' souls.) "Science and logic, yes. If there's a mishap--because of you or your assistant or God Himself--you use science
and logic to take charge instantly. Not one second should pass between the mistake and your reaction. Be bold. Read your audience. Turn disaster into applause."

  Hearing those words in his mind now, Malerick grew calm. He tossed his biker braid and looked around, considering what to do.

  Be bold. Read your audience.

  Turn disaster into applause.

  *

  Sachs scanned the people near her again--a mother and father with two bored children, an elderly couple, a biker in a Harley shirt, two young European women bargaining with a vendor over some jewelry.

  She noticed Bell across the square, near the food concession area. But where was Kara? The young woman was supposed to stay close to one of them. She started to wave to the detective but a cluster of people ambled between them and she lost sight of him. She walked in his direction and her head swiveled back and forth, scanning the crowd.

  Feeling, she realized, as unsettled as at the music school that morning, despite the fact that the sky was clear and the sun bright, hardly the gothic setting of the first scene. Spooky . . .

  She knew what the problem was.

  Wire.

  When you walked a beat, either you had wire or you didn't. A cop expression, "having wire" meant you were connected to your neighborhood. It was more than a question of knowing the people and the geography of your beat; it was knowing what kind of energy drove them, what kind of perps you could expect, how dangerous they were, how they'd come at their vics--and at you.

  If you didn't have wire in a 'hood you had no business walking a beat there.

  With the Conjurer, Sachs now understood, she didn't have wire at all. He could be on the number 9 train right now, headed downtown. Or he could be three feet away from her. She just didn't know.

  In fact, just then, someone passed close behind her. She felt a breath or wafting of cloth on her neck. She spun around fast, shivering in fear--hand on the butt of her gun, remembering how easily Kara had distracted her as she'd lifted Sachs's weapon from its holster.

  A half-dozen people were nearby but no one seemed to have stirred the air behind her.

  Or had they?

  A man was walking away, limping. He couldn't be the Conjurer.

  Or could he?

  The Conjurer can become somebody else in seconds, remember?

  Around her: an elderly couple, the ponytailed biker, three teenagers, a huge man wearing a ConEd uniform. She was at sea, frustrated and scared for herself and for everyone around her.

  No wire . . .

  It was then that a woman's scream filled the air.

  A voice called, "There! Look! God, somebody's hurt."

  Sachs drew her weapon and headed toward the cluster gathering nearby.

  "Get a doctor!"

  "What's wrong?"

  "Oh, God, don't look, honey!"

  A large crowd had formed near the eastern edge of the plaza, not far from the concession stand. They gazed down in horror at someone lying on the bricks at their feet.

  Sachs lifted her Motorola to call for a medical team and pushed through the crowd. "Let me through, let me--"

  She stopped inside the ring of onlookers and gasped.

  "No," she whispered, shuddering in dismay at the sight.

  Amelia Sachs was staring at the Conjurer's latest victim.

  Kara lay on the ground, blood covering her purple blouse and the bricks around her. Her head was back and her still, dead eyes stared toward the azure sky.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Numb, Sachs lifted her hand to her mouth.

  Oh, Lord, no . . .

  Robert-Houdin had tighter tricks than the Marabouts. Though I think they almost killed him.

  Don't worry. I'll make sure that doesn't happen to you. . . .

  But she hadn't. She'd been so focused on the Conjurer that she'd neglected the girl.

  No, no, Rhyme, some dead you can't give up. This tragedy would be with her forever.

  But then she thought: There'll be time to mourn. There'll be time for recrimination and consequences. Right now, start thinking like a goddamn cop. The Conjurer's nearby. And he is not getting away. This is a crime scene and you know what to do.

  Step one. Seal the escape routes.

  Step two. Seal the scene.

  Step three. Identify, protect and interview witnesses.

  She turned to two fellow patrol officers to delegate some of these tasks. But as Sachs started to speak she heard a voice in her clattering radio. "RMP Four Seven to all available officers on that ten-twenty-four by the river. Suspect just broke through perimeter at the east side of the street fair. Is now on West End approaching Seven-eight Street, heading north on foot. . . . Wearing jeans, blue shirt with Harley-Davidson logo. Dark hair, braid, black baseball cap. Can't see any weapons. . . . I'm losing him in the crowd. . . . All available portables and RMPs respond."

  The biker! He'd ditched his businessman's clothes and quick-changed. He'd stabbed Kara to misdirect them and then slipped through the perimeter when the officers started toward the girl.

  And I was three feet from him!

  Other officers called in their acknowledgments and joined the chase though it seemed that the killer had a good head start. Sachs caught sight of Roland Bell, who was looking down at Kara, frowning as he pressed the headset of his Motorola closer to his ear, listening to the same transmission that Sachs was. They caught each other's eyes and he nodded in the direction of the pursuit. Sachs barked orders to a nearby patrolman to seal the scene of Kara's murder, call the medical examiner and find witnesses.

  "But--" the balding young officer began to protest, none too happy, she guessed, to be taking orders from a peer his own age.

  "No buts," she said, not in the mood for a pissing contest about weeks or days of seniority between them. "You can bitch to your supervisor about it later."

  If he said anything else she didn't hear; ignoring the painful arthritis, she leaped down the stairs two at a time after Roland Bell and began pursuit of the man who'd killed their friend.

  *

  He's fast.

  But I'm faster.

  Six-year-vet Patrolman Lawrence Burke sprinted out of Riverside Park onto West End Avenue, only twenty feet behind the speeding perp, some biker asshole in a Harley shirt.

  Running around pedestrians, broken field, exactly the way he used to do in high school, going after the receiver.

  And just like back then, Legs Larry was closing in.

  He'd been on his way to the Hudson River to help secure a 10-24 assault crime scene when he'd heard a further-to pursuit call and turned about-face to find himself staring at the perp--a scuzzy biker.

  "Yo, you! Hold it!"

  But the man hadn't stopped. He'd dodged past Burke and kept right on going north in a panic run. And so just like at the Woodrow Wilson High homecoming game when he'd sprinted seventy-two yards after Chris Broderick (managing to bring him down with a breathless wallop two feet shy of the end zone), Legs went into overdrive and started after the perp.

  Burke didn't draw his weapon. Unless the perp you're after is armed and there's an immediate danger he's going to shoot you or a passerby you can't use deadly force to stop him. And shooting anybody in the back looks very bad at the shooting incident inquiry, not to mention at promotion reviews and in the press.

  "Hey, you fuck loser!" Burke gasped.

  The biker turned east down a cross street, glancing back with wide eyes, seeing Legs steadily closing the distance.

  The guy skidded to the left, down an alley. The cop took the turn even smoother than Mr. Harley and stayed right on the man's ass.

  Some police departments issued nets or stun guns to stop fleeing felons but the NYPD wasn't so high-tech. Besides, it didn't matter, not in this case. Larry Burke had more skills than running. Tackling, for instance.

  From three feet away he launched himself into the air, remembering to aim high and use the guy's own body for padding when they went down.

  "Jesus,"
the biker gasped as they crashed to the cobblestones and skidded into a pile of garbage.

  "Goddamn!" Burke muttered, feeling skin flay off his elbow. "You motherfuck."

  "I didn't do anything!" the biker gasped. "Why were you chasing me?"

  "Shut up."

  Burke cuffed him and because the guy was such a fuck-all runner he used a plastic restraint on his ankles too. Nice and tight. He examined his bloody elbow. "Damn, I lost skin. Ow, that hurts. You fuck."

  "I didn't do anything. I was at that fair is all I was doing. I just--"

  Spitting on the ground, Burke inhaled deeply a number of times. He gasped, "What part about shut up're you having trouble with? I'm not gonna tell you again. . . . Fuck, that stings!"

  He frisked the man carefully and found a wallet. There was no ID inside, only money. Curious. And he had no weapons or drugs either, which was pretty odd for a biker.

  "You can threaten me all you want but I want a lawyer. I'm going to sue you! If you think I did something, you're way wrong, mister."

  But then Burke tugged up the guy's shirt and T-shirt and blinked. His chest and abdomen were badly scarred. It was creepy to look at. But even stranger was a bag around his waist, like those belly packs he and the wife'd worn on their European vacation. Burke expected a stash, but no, all that the guy was hiding was a pair of jogging pants, a turtleneck, chinos, white shirt and a cell phone. And--this was really weird--makeup. A ton of wadded-up toilet paper too, stuffed in the pack, as if he was trying to make himself look fat.

  Pretty weird . . .

  Burke inhaled deeply again and got an unfortunate whiff of garbage and urine from the alley. He pushed the button on his Motorola. "Portable Five Two One Two to Central. . . . I've got the perp in that ten-two-four in custody, K."

  "Injuries?"

  "Negative."

  Except for one fucking sore elbow.

  "Location?"

  "Block and a half east of West End, K. Hold on a minute. I'll get the cross street."

  Burke walked to the mouth of the alley to look for the street sign and wait for his fellow cops to show up. It was only then that the adrenaline began to subside, leaving in its wake a tasty euphoria. Not a shot fired. One bad-ass loser belly down. . . . Godlovingdamn, it felt nice--almost as good as that game twelve years ago, bringing down Chris Broderick, who gave a girlie yelp as he slammed into the turf on the one-yard line, having covered the whole length of the field without a clue that Legs Larry had been right behind him all the way.