The Vanished Man Read online

  "What he must be thinking . . ." the Conjurer said to his imaginary audience. "Knowing that a razor blade is against his skin, perhaps cutting into his skin, his genitals, a vein or an artery. And he doesn't feel a thing!"

  Rhyme stared at the front of his pants, waiting for blood to appear.

  Then the Conjurer smiled. "But maybe the blade's not there. . . . Maybe it's someplace else. Maybe here." He reached into his own mouth and pulled the small rectangle of steel out. He held it up. Then frowned. "Wait." He removed another blade from his mouth. Then more. He now had the four blades back in his hand. He fanned them like cards then tossed them into the air above Rhyme, who gasped and cringed, waiting for them to hit him. But . . . nothing. They'd vanished.

  In his neck and temple Rhyme felt his heart pounding, harder now, sweat trickling down his forehead and temple. Rhyme glanced at the alarm clock. It seemed like hours had passed. But Thom had left only fifteen minutes ago.

  Rhyme asked, "Why are you doing this? Those people you killed? What was the point?"

  "They weren't all killed," he pointed out angrily. "You ruined my performance with the equestrian by the Hudson River."

  "Well, attacked then. Why?"

  "It was nothing personal," he said and broke into a coughing spell.

  "Not personal?" Rhyme spat out, incredulous.

  "Let's say it was more what they represented than who they were."

  "What does that mean? 'Represented'? Explain."

  The Conjurer whispered, "No. I don't think I will." He walked slowly around Rhyme's bed, breathing hard. "Do you know what goes through the mind of the audience during a performance? Part of them hopes that the illusionist isn't going to escape in time, that he'll drown, he'll fall on the spikes, burn up, get crushed to death. There's a trick called the Burning Mirror. My favorite. It starts out with a vain illusionist looking in a mirror. He sees a beautiful woman on the other side of the glass. She beckons to him and finally he gives in to temptation and steps through. We see they've changed places. The woman's now on the front side of the mirror. But there's a puff of smoke and she does a quick change and becomes Satan.

  "Now the illusionist is trapped in hell, chained to the floor. Flames begin shooting up from the floor around him. A wall of fire moves closer. Just as he's about to be engulfed by flames he gets out of the chains and leaps through the fire at the back of the mirror to safety. The devil runs toward the illusionist, flies into the air and vanishes. The illusionist shatters the mirror with a hammer. Then he walks across the stage, pauses and snaps his fingers. There's a flash of light and, you've probably guessed, he becomes the devil. . . . The audience loves it. . . . But I know that part of everyone's mind is rooting for the fire to win and the performer to die." He paused. "And, of course, that does happen from time to time."

  "Who are you?" Rhyme whispered, despairing now.

  "Me?" The Conjurer leaned forward and passionately rasped, "I'm the Wizard of the North. I'm the greatest illusionist who ever was. I'm Houdini. I'm the man who can escape from the burning mirror. From handcuffs, chains, locked rooms, shackles, ropes, anything. . . ." He eyed Rhyme closely. "Except . . . except you. I was afraid that you were the one thing I couldn't escape from. You're too good. I had to stop you before tomorrow afternoon. . . ."

  "Why? What's happening tomorrow afternoon?"

  The Conjurer didn't answer. He looked into the gloom. "Now, Revered Audience, our main act--the Charred Man. Look at our performer here--no chains, no handcuffs, no ropes. Yet he can't possibly escape. This is even harder than the world's first escape routine: St. Peter. Thrown in a cell, shackled, guarded. And yet he escaped. Of course, he had an important confederate. God. Our performer tonight, however, is on his own."

  A small gray object appeared in the Conjurer's hand and he leaned forward fast, before Rhyme could turn his head. The killer slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

  He then shut out all the lights in the room except a small night-light. He returned to Rhyme's bed, held an index finger up and flicked his thumb against it. A three-inch point of flame rose from the digit.

  The Conjurer wagged the finger back and forth. "Sweating, I can see." He held the flame close to Rhyme's face. "Fire. . . . Isn't it fascinating? It's probably the most compelling image in illusionism. Fire's the perfect misdirection. Everyone watches flame. They never take their eyes off it onstage. I could do anything with my other hand and you'd never notice. For instance . . ."

  The bottle of Rhyme's scotch appeared in the man's grip. He held the flame under the bottle for a long moment. Then the killer took a sip of liquor and held the flaming finger in front of his lips, looking directly at Rhyme, who cringed. But the Conjurer smiled, turned aside and blew the flaming spray toward the ceiling, stepping back slightly as the stream of fire vanished into the darkness of the ceiling.

  Rhyme's eyes flickered to the wall in the corner of the room.

  The Conjurer laughed. "Smoke detector? I got that earlier. The battery's gone." He blew another flaming stream toward the ceiling and set the bottle down.

  Suddenly a white handkerchief appeared. He wafted it under Rhyme's nose. It was soaked in gasoline. The astringent smell burned Rhyme's eyes and nose. The Conjurer coiled the handkerchief into a short rope and, ripping open Rhyme's pajama top, draped it around his neck like a scarf.

  The man walked toward the door, silently opened the deadbolt and then the door, looked out.

  Rhyme's nose detected another scent mixed with the gasoline. What was it? A rich, smoky scent. . . . Oh, the scotch. The killer must've left the bottle open.

  Except that the smell soon overtook the gasoline's aroma. It was overpowering. There was scotch everywhere. And Rhyme understood with dismay what the man was doing. He'd poured a stream of liquor from the door to the bed, like a fuse. The Conjurer flicked his finger and a white fireball flew from his hand into the pool of single malt.

  The liquor ignited and blue flames raced along the floor. Soon they'd set fire to a stack of magazines and a cardboard box next to the bed. One of the rattan chairs too.

  Soon the fire would climb up the bedclothes and begin devouring his body, which he wouldn't feel, and then his face and head, which he horribly would. He turned to the Conjurer but the man was gone, the door closed. Smoke began to sting Rhyme's eyes and fill his nose. The fire crawled closer, igniting boxes and books and posters, melting CDs.

  Soon the blue and yellow flames began lapping at the blankets at the foot of Lincoln Rhyme's bed.

  Chapter Twenty-six A diligent NYPD officer, perhaps hearing an odd noise, perhaps seeing an unlocked door, stepped into a West Side alleyway. Fifteen seconds later another man emerged, dressed in a lightweight maroon turtleneck, tight jeans, baseball cap.

  No longer in the role of Officer Larry Burke, Malerick began walking purposefully up Broadway. Glancing at his face, noting the flirtatious way he glanced around him--a cruisin' look--you'd suspect that he was a man on the prowl, heading for some West Side bar to defibrillate his ego and his genitalia, both in arrest lately as he approached middle age.

  He paused at a basement cocktail lounge, glanced inside. He decided this would be a good place in which to hide out temporarily until it was time to return briefly to Lincoln Rhyme's and see how much damage the fire had done.

  He found a stool at the far end of the bar, near the kitchen, and ordered a Sprite and a turkey sandwich. Looking around: the arcade games with their electronic soundtracks, a dusty jukebox, the room smoky and dark, smelling of sweat and perfume and disinfectant, the liquor-induced brays of laughter and hum of pointless conversation. All of which transported him back to his youth in the city built from sand.

  Las Vegas is a mirror surrounded by glaring lights; stare at it for hours but all you'll ever truly see is yourself, with your pocks, squinty wrinkles, vanity, greed, desperation. It's a dusty, hard place where the cheery illumination of the Strip fades fast just a block or two from the neon and doesn't penetrate to the re
st of the city: the trailers, sagging bungalows, sandy strip malls, pawnshops selling engagement rings, suit jackets, prosthetic arms--whatever can be transformed into quarters or silver dollars.

  And, everywhere, the dusty, endless, beige desert.

  This was the world that Malerick was born into.

  Father a blackjack dealer and mother a restaurant hostess (until her growing weight put her behind the scenes in a cash room), they were two of the army of Vegas service people treated like ants by casino management and guests alike. Two of the army who spent their lives so inundated with money that they could smell the ink, perfume and sweat on the bills, but who were forever aware that this astonishing flood was destined to pause in their fingers for only the briefest of moments.

  Like many Vegas children left on their own by parents working long and irregular shifts--and like children living in bitter homes everywhere--their son had gravitated to a place where he found some comfort.

  And that place for him was the Strip.

  I was explaining, Revered Audience, about misdirection--how we illusionists distract you by drawing attention away from our method with motion, color, light, surprise, noise. Well, misdirection is more than a technique of magic; it's an aspect of life too. We're all desperately drawn toward flash and glitz and away from boredom, from routine, from bickering families, from hot, motionless hours on the edge of the desert, from sneering teens who chase you down because you're skinny and timid and then pound you with fists as hard as scorpions' shells. . . .

  The Strip was his refuge.

  The magic shops specifically. Of which there were many; Las Vegas is known among performers around the world as the Capital of Magic. The boy found that these shops were more than just retail outlets; they were places where aspiring, performing and retired magicians hung out to share stories and tricks and to gossip.

  It was in one of these that the boy learned something important about himself. He might be skinny and timid and a slow runner but he was miraculously dexterous. The magicians here would show him palms and pinches and drops and conceals and he'd pick them up instantly. One of these clerks lifted an eyebrow and said about the thirteen-year-old, "A born prestidigitator."

  The boy frowned, never having heard the word.

  "A French magician made it up in the eighteen hundreds," the man explained. " 'Presti--' As in presto, fast. 'Digit.' As in finger. Prestidigitation--fast fingers. Sleight of hand."

  So maybe, he slowly came to believe, he was someone more than odd man out in the family, something more than knuckle bait at the playground.

  Every day he'd leave school at 3:10 and head directly to his favorite store, where he'd hang out and sop up method. At home he practiced constantly. One of the shop managers would hire him occasionally to put on demonstrations and brief shows for customers in the Magic Cavern in the back of the store.

  He could still picture clearly his initial performance. From that day on Young Houdini--his first stage name--would talk, or bully, his way up onto stage at any opportunity. What a joy it was to mesmerize his audience, delight them, sell them the medicine, trick them. To scare them too. He liked to scare them.

  Finally he got busted--by his mother. The woman eventually realized that the boy hardly spent any time at home and raided his room to learn why. "I found this money," she snapped, rising from her dinner and waddling into the kitchen one evening to confront him as he walked in the back door. "Explain."

  "It's from Abracadabra."

  "Who's that?"

  "The store? By the Tropicana. I was telling you about it--"

  "You stay off the Strip."

  "Mom, it's just a store. That magic store."

  "Where you been? Drinking? Let me smell your breath."

  "Mom, no." Backing away, repulsed by the massive woman in the pasta-sauce-stained top, her own breath horrific.

  "They catch you in a casino, I could lose my job. Your father could lose his."

  "I was just at the store. I do a little show. People give me tips sometimes."

  "That's too much for tip money. I never got tips like that when I was a hostess."

  "I'm good," the boy said.

  "So was I. . . . Show? What kind of show?"

  "Magic." He was frustrated. He'd told her this months before. "Watch." He did a card trick for her.

  "That was good," she said, nodding. "But for lying to me I'm keeping this money."

  "I didn't lie!"

  "You didn't tell me what you're doing. That's the same as lying."

  "Mom, that's mine."

  "You lie, you pay."

  With some effort she stuffed the money into a jeans pocket sealed closed by her belly. Then she hesitated. "Okay, here's ten back. If you tell me something."

  "Tell you . . . ?"

  "Tell me something. You ever seen your father with Tiffany Loam?"

  "I don't know. . . . Who's that?"

  "You know. Don't pretend you don't. That waitress from the Sands was over here with her husband a couple months ago for dinner. She was in that yellow blouse."

  "I--"

  "Did you see them? Driving out to the desert yesterday?"

  "I didn't see them."

  She examined him closely and decided he was telling the truth. "If you do see them you let me know."

  And she left him for her spaghetti, coagulating on a TV tray in the living room.

  "My money, Mom!"

  "Shut up. It's the Daily Double."

  One day, performing a small show in Abracadabra, the boy was surprised to notice a slim, unsmiling man enter the store. As he walked toward the Magic Cavern all the magicians and clerks in the store fell silent. He was a famous illusionist and was appearing at the Tropicana. He was known for his temper and his dark, scary illusions.

  After the show the illusionist gestured the boy over and nodded at the handwritten sign on stage. "You call yourself 'Young Houdini'?"

  "Yeah."

  "You think you're worthy of that name?"

  "I don't know. I just liked it."

  "Do some more." Nodding at a velvet table.

  The boy did, nervous now, as the legend watched his moves.

  A nod, which seemed to be an approving nod. That a fourteen-year-old boy would receive a compliment like this stunned the magicians in the room to silence.

  "You want a lesson?"

  The boy nodded, thrilled.

  "Let me have the coins."

  He held his open palm to offer the coins. The illusionist looked down, frowning. "Where are they?"

  His hand was empty. The illusionist, laughing harshly at the boy's bewildered expression, had already dipped them; the quarters were in his own hands. The boy was astonished; he hadn't felt a thing.

  "Now I'll hold this one up in the air. . . ."

  The boy looked up but suddenly some instinct said, Close your fingers now! He's going to put the coins back. Embarrass him in front of a roomful of magicians. Grab his hand!

  Suddenly, without looking down, the illusionist froze and whispered, "Are you sure you want to do it?"

  The boy blinked in surprise. "I--"

  "Think twice." A glance down at the boy's hand.

  Young Houdini looked at his palm, which was tensed to catch the great illusionist's. He saw to his shock that the man had placed something there, but not the coins: five double-sided razor blades. If he'd closed his fingers as he'd planned, Young Houdini would've needed a dozen stitches.

  "Let me see your hands," he said, taking the blades out of them and vanishing them instantly.

  Young Houdini held his palms up and the man touched them, stroked them with his thumbs. It felt to the boy that there was an electric current running between them.

  "You've got the hands to be great," he whispered for the boy alone to hear. "You've got the drive and I know you've got the cruelty. . . . But you don't have the vision. Not yet." A blade appeared again and the man used it to slice through a piece of paper, which began to bleed. He crumpled the paper a
nd then opened it up. There was no slash and no blood. He handed it to the boy, who noticed that on the inside was an address, written in red ink.

  As the small audience of onlookers cheered and clapped with genuine admiration, or jealousy, the illusionist whispered, "Come see me," leaning forward, his lips brushing Young Houdini's ear. "You have a lot to learn. And I have a lot to teach."

  The boy kept the illusionist's address but he couldn't work up the courage to go see him. Then, at his fifteenth birthday party, his mother changed the course of his life forever by flying into a tirade and flinging a platter of fettuccine at her husband over some recently received intelligence about the notorious Mrs. Loam. Bottles flew, collectibles shattered, police arrived.

  The boy decided he'd had enough. The next day he went to visit the illusionist, who agreed to be his mentor. The timing was perfect. In two days the man was starting an extensive tour of the United States. He needed an assistant. Young Houdini cleaned out his secret bank account and did just what his namesake had done: he ran away from home to work as a magician. There was one major difference between them, however; unlike Harry Houdini, who'd left home only to make money to help his impoverished family and who was soon reunited with them, young Malerick would never see any member of his again.

  "Hey, how you doing?"

  The woman's husky voice woke him out of these durable memories as he sat at the bar of the Upper West Side tavern. A regular here, he guessed. Fiftyish trying unsuccessfully for the illusion of ten years younger, she'd picked this hunting ground based largely on the dim lighting. She scooted onto a stool next to his and was leaning forward, flying a flag of cleavage.

  "Sorry?"

  "Just asked how you're doing. Don't think I've seen you in here."

  "Just in town for a day or two."

  "Ah," she said drunkenly. "Say, I need a light." Conveying the irritating impression that he should consider it a privilege to light her cigarette.

  "Oh, sure," he said.

  He clicked a lighter and held it up. This flame flickered madly, he observed, as she wrapped her red, bony fingers around his to guide the lighter to her lips.

  "Thanks." She shot a narrow stream of smoke toward the ceiling. When she looked back Malerick had paid the bill and was pushing away from the bar.

  She frowned.

  "I have to go." He smiled and said, "Oh, here, you can keep that."