The Vanished Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  Crossing into Central Park itself, Marston glanced south and saw in the distance the office building in Midtown where she spent fifty hours a week practicing corporate law. There were a thousand thoughts that might have overwhelmed her now about the job, projects that were "front-burnered," as one of her partners said with irritating frequency. But none of these thoughts intruded at the moment. Nothing could. She was invulnerable to everything when she sat here, on one of God's most magnificent creations, feeling the sun-warmed, loam-scented air on her face as Donny Boy trotted along the dark path, surrounded by early jonquils and forsythia and lilacs.

  The first beautiful day this spring.

  For a half hour she circled the reservoir slowly, lost in the rapture of that unique connection between two different, complementary animals, each powerful and smart in its own way. She enjoyed a brief canter and then slowed to post in a trot as they came to the sharper turns in the deserted northern part of the park, near Harlem.

  Completely at peace.

  Until the worst happened.

  She wasn't sure exactly how it occurred. She'd slowed to make the turn through a narrow gap between two stands of bushes when a pigeon flew directly into Donny Boy's face. Whinnying, he skidded to a stop so fast that Marston was nearly thrown off. Then he reared and she almost went backward over his rump.

  She grabbed his mane and the front edge of the saddle to keep from falling eight feet to the rocky ground. "Whoa, Donny," she cried, trying to pat his neck. "Donny Boy--it's all right. Whoa!"

  Still, he kept rearing, crazed. Had the collision with the bird hurt his eyes? Her concern for the horse, though, was mixed with her own fear. Sharp rocks jutted from the ground on either side of them. If Donny Boy kept rearing he could lose his balance on the uneven ground and go down hard--possibly with her under him. Nearly all of the serious injuries among her fellow riders weren't from tumbling off a horse but were from being caught between the animal and the ground when it fell.

  "Donny!" she called breathlessly. But he reared again and held the position, dancing in panic on his hind legs and edging toward the rocks.

  "Jesus," Marston gasped. "No, no . . ."

  She knew then she was going to lose him. His feet were clattering on the stones and she felt the huge muscles quivering in his own panic as he sensed his balance go. He whinnied loudly.

  Knowing she'd crush her leg in a dozen places. Maybe her chest too.

  Almost tasting the pain. Feeling his pain too.

  "Oh, Donny . . ."

  Then, from nowhere, a man in a jogging suit stepped from the bushes. Wide-eyed, he looked at the horse. He jumped forward, grabbing bit and bridle.

  "No, get back!" Marston shouted. "He's out of control!"

  He'd get kicked in the head!

  "Get out of the . . ."

  But . . . what was happening?

  The man was looking not at her but directly into the brown eyes of the horse. Speaking words she couldn't hear. Miraculously the Appaloosa was calming. The rearing stopped. Donny Boy dropped forward onto all four hooves. He was fidgety and he still trembled--just like her own heart--but the worst seemed to be over. The man pulled the horse's head down, close to his and he said a few more words.

  Finally he stepped back, gave the horse an approving once-over and then glanced up at her. "Are you all right?" he asked.

  "I think so." Marston inhaled deeply, touching her chest. "I just . . . It was all so fast."

  "What happened?"

  "A bird spooked him. Flew into his face. It might've hit him in the eyes."

  A close examination. "Looks okay to me. You might want to have a vet look at him. But I don't see any cuts."

  "What'd you do?" she asked. "Are you . . . ?"

  "A horse whisperer?" he replied, laughing, glancing away from her shyly. He seemed more comfortable looking into the horse's eyes. "Not hardly. But I ride a lot. I have this calming effect, I guess."

  "I thought he was going down."

  He gave her a tentative smile. "Wish I could think of something to say that'd calm you down."

  "What's good for my horse is good for me. I don't know how to thank you."

  Another rider approached and the bearded man led Donny Boy off the path to let the chestnut by.

  He was examining the horse closely. "What's his name?"

  "Don Juan."

  "You rent from Hammerstead? Or is he yours?"

  "Hammerstead. But I feel like he's mine. I ride him every week."

  "I rent there too sometimes. What a beautiful animal."

  Calm now, Marston examined him more closely. He was a handsome man in his early fifties. He had a trim beard and thick eyebrows that met above the bridge of his nose. On his neck--and chest too--she could see what looked like bad scarring and his left hand was deformed. Though none of that mattered to her, considering his most important trait: he liked horses. Cheryl Marston, divorced for the last four of her thirty-eight years, realized that they were both sizing each other up.

  He gave a faint laugh and looked away. "I was . . ." His voice faded and he filled the silence by patting Donny Boy's rippled shoulder.

  Marston lifted an eyebrow. "What's that?" she encouraged.

  "Well, since you're about to ride off into the sunset and I may never see you again . . ." He tromped on the shyness and continued boldly, "I was just wondering if it'd be out of line to ask if you want to get some coffee."

  "Not out of line at all," she responded, pleased by his straightforward attitude. But she added, to let him know something about her, "I'm going to finish my hour. I've got about twenty minutes left. . . . Got to get back up on the horse, so to speak. How's that fit with your schedule?"

  "Twenty minutes is perfect. I'll meet you at the stable."

  "Good," Cheryl said. "Oh, I never asked: You ride English or Western?"

  "Bareback mostly. I used to be a pro."

  "Really? Where?"

  "Believe it or not," he answered shyly, "I rode in the circus."

  Chapter Fourteen

  A faint ding resounded from Cooper's computer, indicating he'd received an email.

  "A note from our friends on Ninth and Pennsylvania." He proceeded to decrypt the message from the FBI lab and a moment later he said, "The results from the oil. It's commercially available. Brand name Tack-Pure. Used to condition saddles, reins, leather feeding bags, equestrian-related products."

  Horses . . .

  Rhyme spun his Storm Arrow around and looked at the evidence board.

  "No, no, no . . ."

  "What's the matter?" Sachs asked.

  "The manure on the Conjurer's shoes."

  "What about it?"

  "It's not from dogs. It's from horses! Look at the vegetation. What the hell was I thinking of? Dogs're carnivores. They don't eat grass and hay. . . . All right, let's think. The dirt and the mold and the other evidence placed him in Central Park. And the hairs . . . You know that area, the dog knoll? That's in the park too."

  "It's right across the street," Sellitto pointed out. "Where everybody walks their dogs."

  "Kara," he snapped, "does the Cirque Fantastique have horses?"

  "No," she said. "No animal acts at all."

  "Okay, that lets the circus out. . . . What else could he be up to? The dog knoll's right next to the bridle path in the park, right? It's a long shot but maybe he rides or's been checking out riders. One of them could be a target. Maybe not his next one but let's just go on the assumption that it is--since it's our only goddamn solid lead."

  Sellitto said, "There's a stable someplace around here, isn't there?"

  "I've seen it nearby," Sachs said. "It's in the eighties, I think."

  "Find out," Rhyme called. "And get some people over there."

  Sachs glanced at the clock. It was 1:35 P.M. "Well, we've got some time. Two and a half hours till the next victim."

  "Good," Sellitto said. "I'll get surveillance teams set up in the park and around the stable. If they're in place by t
wo-thirty that'll be plenty of time to spot him."

  Then Rhyme noticed Kara frowning. "What is it?" he asked her.

  "You know, I'm not sure you do have that much time."

  "Why?"

  "I was telling you about misdirection?"

  "I remember."

  "Well, there's also time misdirection. That's tricking the audience by making them think something's going to happen at one time when it really happens at another. Like, an illusionist'll repeat an act at regular intervals. The audience subconsciously comes to believe that whatever he's doing has to happen only at those times. But what the performer does then is shorten the time between the intervals. The audience isn't paying attention and they completely miss whatever he's doing. You can spot a time misdirection trick because the illusionist always lets the audience know what the interval is."

  "Like breaking the watches?" Sachs asked.

  "Exactly."

  Rhyme asked, "So you don't think we have until four?"

  Kara shrugged. "We might. Maybe he's planned to kill three people every four hours and then he'll murder the fourth victim only one hour later. I don't know."

  "We don't know anything here," Rhyme said firmly. "What do you think, Kara? What would you do?"

  She gave a troubled laugh, being asked to step into the mind of a killer. After a moment of hard debate she said, "He knows you've found the watches by now. He knows you're smart. He doesn't need to hammer it home anymore. If I were him I'd be going after the next victim before four. I'd be going after him right now."

  "That's good enough for me," Rhyme said. "Forget surveillance and forget soft clothes. Lon, call Haumann and get ESU into the park. In a big way."

  "It might scare him off, Linc--if he's in disguise and doing his own surveillance."

  "I think we have to take that chance. Tell ESU we're looking for . . . who knows what the hell we're looking for? Give him a general description, as best you can."

  Fifty-year-old killer, sixty-year-old janitor, seventy-year-old bag lady . . .

  Cooper looked up from his computer. "Got the stable. Hammerstead Riding Academy."

  Bell, Sellitto and Sachs started for the door. Kara said, "I want to go too."

  "No," Rhyme said.

  "There may be something I'll notice. Some sleight or a quick-change move by somebody in a crowd. I could spot it." A nod toward the other cops. "They might not."

  "No. It's too dangerous. No civilians on a tactical operation. That's the rule."

  "I don't care about the rules," the young woman said, leaning toward him defiantly. "I can help."

  "Kara--"

  But the young woman silenced him by glancing at the crime scene photos of Tony Calvert and Svetlana Rasnikov then turning back to Lincoln Rhyme with a cold expression in her eyes. In this simple gesture she reminded him that it was he who'd asked her here, he who'd brought her into his world and transformed her from an innocent into someone who could now look at these horrors without flinching.

  "All right," Rhyme said. Then, nodding toward Sachs, he added, "But stay close to her."

  *

  She was cautious, Malerick observed, as befitted any woman who'd just been picked up by a man in Manhattan, even if that stranger was shy, friendly and able to calm rearing horses.

  Still, Cheryl Marston was relaxing little by little, enjoying the tales of his times riding bareback with a circus, all of which were embellished considerably to keep her amused and to whittle down her defenses.

  After the groom and the vet on call at Hammerstead had examined Donny Boy and declared him in good health Malerick and his next unwitting performer strolled from the stable to this restaurant, which was just off Riverside Drive.

  The woman now chatted amiably with John (his persona for their date) about her life in the city, her early love of horses, the ones she'd owned or ridden, her hopes of buying a summer place in Middleburg, Virginia. He responded with occasional bits of equine lore--what he could deduce from her comments and what he knew from circuses and the world of illusion. Animals have always been an important part of the profession. Mesmerizing them, vanishing them, turning them into different species. An illusionist created a hugely popular routine in the 1800s--instantly transforming a chicken into a duck. (The method was simplicity itself: the duck made his entrance wearing a quick-change chicken costume.) Killing and resurrecting animals was popular in less politically correct times, though they were rarely actually harmed; after all, it's a rather inept illusionist who has to really kill an animal to create the illusion that it's dead. It tends to be expensive too.

  For his routine in Central Park today to snare Cheryl Marston, Malerick had drawn on the routines of Howard Thurston, a popular illusionist in the early 1900s, who specialized in animal acts. The trick Malerick performed wouldn't've met with Thurston's approval, though; the famous illusionist had treated the animals in his act as if they were human assistants, if not family members. Malerick had been less humane. He'd captured a pigeon by hand. He'd then turned it on its back and stroked the neck and sides slowly until it was hypnotized--a technique magicians have used for years to create the appearance of a dead bird. As Cheryl Marston approached on her horse, he'd flung the pigeon hard into the horse's face. Donny Boy's rearing in pain and fright had nothing to do with the bird, though, but was caused by an ultrasonic pitch generator, set to a frequency that stung the horse's ears. As Malerick stepped out of the bushes to "rescue" Cheryl he shut the generator off and by the time he grabbed the bridle the horse was calming.

  Now, little by little, the equestrian was growing even less cautious as she learned how much they had in common.

  Or appeared to.

  This illusion was due to Malerick's use of mentalism, not one of his strongest skills but one that he was competent at. Mentalism has nothing to do with telepathically discerning someone's thoughts, of course. It's a combination of mechanical and psychological techniques to deduce facts. Malerick was now doing what the best mentalists did--body reading, it was called, as opposed to mind reading. He was noting very subtle changes in Cheryl's poses and facial expressions and gestures in response to comments he made. Some told him he was straying from her thoughts, others that he was on the mark.

  He mentioned, for instance, a friend who'd just been through a divorce and he could see easily that she had too--and she'd been on the receiving end. So, grimacing, he told her that he was divorced and that his wife'd had an affair and left him. It had devastated him but he was now recovering.

  "I gave up a boat," she said sourly, "just to get away from that son-of-a-bitch. A twenty-four-foot sailboat."

  Malerick also used "Barnum statements" to make her think they had more in common than they did. The classic example was a mentalist sizing up his subject and offering gravely, "I sense you're often extroverted but at times you find yourself quite shy."

  Which is interpreted as insightful but, of course, applies to nearly everybody on earth.

  Neither the fictional John nor Cheryl had children. Both had cats, divorced parents and a love of tennis. Look at all these coincidences! A match made in heaven. . . .

  Almost time, he thought. Though he was in no hurry. Even if the police had some leads to what he was up to they'd be thinking he wouldn't kill anyone again until 4:00; it was now just after two.

  You may think, Revered Audience, that the world of illusion never intersects the world of reality but that's not wholly true.

  I think of John Mulholland, the renowned magician and editor of the magic magazine The Sphinx. He abruptly announced his early retirement from magic and journalism in the nineteen fifties.

  No one could figure out why. But then the rumors began--rumors that he'd started working for the American intelligence community to teach spies how to use magic techniques to deliver drugs in such subtle ways that even the most paranoid Communist didn't know he was being given a Mickey.

  What do you see in my hands, Revered Audience? Look closely at my fingers. Nothing,
right? They seem empty. And yet, as you've probably guessed, they aren't. . . .

  Now using one of Mulholland's smoother clandestine drugging techniques, Malerick picked up his spoon with his left hand. As he tapped it absently on the tabletop Cheryl glanced at it. A mere fraction of a second. But it gave Malerick enough time to empty a tiny capsule of tasteless powder into her coffee as he reached for the sugar with his other hand.

  John Mulholland would've been proud.

  After a few moments Malerick could see that the drug was having its effect; her eyes were slightly unfocused and she was weaving as she sat. She didn't sense anything was wrong, though. That was the good thing about flunitrazepam, the famous date-rape drug Rohypnol: you didn't know you'd been drugged. Not until the next morning. Which in Cheryl Marston's case wasn't going to be an issue.

  He looked at her and smiled. "Hey, you want to see something fun?"

  "Fun?" she asked drowsily. She blinked, smiling broadly.

  He paid the check and then said to her. "I just bought a boat."

  She laughed in delight. "A boat? I love boats. What kind?"

  "Sailboat. Thirty-eight feet. My wife and I had one," Malerick added sadly. "She got it in the divorce."

  "John, no, you're kidding me!" she said, laughing groggily. "My husband and I had one! He got ours in the divorce."

  "Really?" He laughed and stood. "Hey, let's walk down to the river. You can see it from there."

  "I'd love to." She rose unsteadily and took his arm.

  He steered her through the doorway. The dosage seemed right. She was submissive but she wasn't going to pass out before he got her into the bushes next to the Hudson.

  They headed toward Riverside Park. "You were talking about boats," she said drunkenly.

  "That's right."

  "My ex and I had one," she said.

  "I know," Malerick said. "You told me."

  "Oh, did I?" Cheryl laughed.

  "Hold on," he said. "I have to get something."

  He stopped at his car, a stolen Mazda, and took a heavy gym bag from the backseat, locked the car again. From inside the bag came a loud clank of metal. Cheryl glanced at it, began to speak but then seemed to forget what she was going to say.