The Vanished Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Who?" A frown that seemed genuine crossed the man's face.

  The prosecutor went on to explain about the attempt on his family's life by the former illusionist turned professional killer.

  "No, no, no. . . . I didn't have anything to do with Swensen. And I didn't have anything to do with this." The man looked helplessly at the scarred tabletop. There was some graffiti scraped in the gray paint beside his hands. It seemed to be an A then a C then a partial K. "I've told you all along, Charles, there're some people I've known in the past who've gone way overboard with things. They see you and the state as the enemies--working with the Jewish people and the African Americans or whoever--and they're twisting my words around and using me as an excuse to come after you." He said in a low voice, "I'll say it again. I promise you that I had nothing to do with this."

  Roth said to the prosecutor, "Let's not play games here, Charles. You're just fishing. If you've got something to connect my client to the break-in of your apartment, then--"

  "Weir killed two individuals yesterday--and a police officer. That makes it capital murder."

  Constable winced. His lawyer added bluntly, "Well, I'm sorry about that. But I notice you haven't charged my client. Because you don't have any evidence linking him to Weir, right?"

  Grady ignored this and continued, "We're negotiating with Weir right now about turning state's evidence."

  Constable turned his eyes to Sachs, looked her up and down. He seemed helpless and the gaze suggested that he was imploring her to help in some way. Perhaps she was supposed to provide the voice of female reason. But she remained silent, as did Bell. It wasn't their job to argue with suspects. The detective was here to keep an eye on Grady and see if he could learn more about the attempt on the D.A.'s life and possible future attacks. Sachs was here to see if she might learn more about Constable and his partners to help solidify the case against Weir.

  Also, she'd been curious about this man--someone she'd been told was pure evil and yet who seemed to all appearances reasonable, understanding and genuinely troubled by the events of the past few days. Rhyme was content solely to look at the evidence; he had no patience for an examination of a perp's mind or soul. Sachs, though, was fascinated with questions of good and evil. Was she looking at an innocent man now or another Adolf Hitler?

  Constable shook his head. "Look, it makes no sense for me to try and kill you. The state'd send in a replacement D.A. The trial'd go on, only I'd have a murder charge slapped on me. Why'd I want to do that? What possible reason would I have to kill you?"

  "Because you're a bigot and a killer and--"

  Constable interrupted heatedly, "Listen here. I've put up with a lot, sir. I was arrested, humiliated in front of my family. I've been abused here and in the press. And you know what my only crime is?" He leveled his gaze to Grady. "Asking hard questions."

  "Andrew." Roth touched his arm. But, with a loud jangle, the prisoner pulled it away. He was indignant and wouldn't be stopped.

  "Right here in this room, right now, I'm going to commit the only crimes I've ever been guilty of. First offense: I'm asking if you don't agree that when government gets to be too big it loses touch with the people. That's when cops end up with the power to stick a mop handle up the rectum of a black prisoner in custody--an innocent prisoner, by the way."

  "They were caught," Grady countered lethargically.

  "Them going to jail's not going to give that poor man back his dignity, now, is it? And how many don't get caught? . . . Look at what's happened in Washington. They let terrorists walk right into our country, intent to kill us, and we don't dare offend 'em by keeping 'em out or forcing 'em to be fingerprinted and carry ID cards. . . . How about another offense? Let me ask you, why don't we all just admit that there're differences between races and cultures? I've never said one race is better or worse than any other. But I do say you get grief if you go and try to mix them."

  "We got rid of segregation some years ago," Bell drawled. "It is a crime, you know."

  "Used to be a crime to sell liquor, Detective. Used to be a crime to work on Sunday. Used to be legal for ten-year-olds to work in factories. Then people wised up and changed those laws because they didn't reflect human nature."

  He leaned forward and looked from Bell to Sachs. "My two police officer friends here. . . . Let me ask you a hard question. You get a report that a man might've committed a murder and he's black or Hispanic. You see him in an alley. Well, won't your finger be a little tighter on the trigger of your gun than if he's white? Or if he is a white man and looks like a smart man--if he has all his teeth and wears clothes that don't smell like yesterday's piss--well, then, are you going to be just a little slower to pull that trigger? Are you going to frisk him a little more gently?"

  The prisoner sat back, shook his head. "Those're my crimes. That's it. Asking questions like those."

  Grady said cynically, "Great material, Andrew. But before you play the persecution card, whatta you do with the fact that Erick Weir had lunch with three other people at the Riverside Inn in Bedford Junction two weeks ago. Which is two clicks from the Patriot Assembly meeting hall in Canton Falls and about five from your house."

  Constable blinked. "The Riverside Inn?" He looked out the window, which was so grimy it was impossible to tell if the sky was blue or polluted yellow or drizzly gray.

  Grady's eyes narrowed. "What? You know something about that place?"

  "I . . ." His lawyer touched his arm to silence him. They whispered to each other for a moment.

  Grady couldn't resist pushing. "Do you know somebody who's a regular there?"

  Constable glanced at Roth, who shook his head and the prisoner remained silent.

  After a moment Grady asked, "How's your cell, Andrew?"

  "My--"

  "Your cell here in detention."

  "Don't much care for it. As I suspect you know."

  "It's worse in prison. And you'll have to go into solitary because the black crew in general pop would love to get--"

  "Come on, Charles," Roth said wearily. "We don't need any of that."

  The prosecutor said, "Well, Joe, I'm about at the end of the line here. All I've been hearing is I didn't do this, I didn't do that. That somebody's setting him up and using him. Well, if that's the case"--he now turned directly to Constable--"get off your ass and prove it to me. Show me you didn't have anything to do with trying to kill me and my family, and you get me the name of the people who did, then we'll talk."

  Another whispered consultation between client and attorney.

  Roth finally said, "My client's going to make some phone calls. Based on what we find he might be willing to consider cooperating."

  "That's not good enough. Give me some names now."

  Troubled, Constable said directly to Grady, "That's the way it's got to be. I need to be certain about this."

  "Afraid you'll have to turn in some friends?" the prosecutor asked coolly. "Well, you say you like to ask hard questions. Let me ask you one: What kind of friends are they if they're willing to send you to prison for the rest of your life?" Grady stood up. "If I don't hear from you by nine tonight we go to trial tomorrow as planned."

  Chapter Thirty-four

  It wasn't much of a stage.

  When David Balzac had retired from the illusionist circuit ten years ago and had bought Smoke & Mirrors he'd torn out the back half of the store to put in the small theater. Balzac didn't have a cabaret license so he couldn't charge admission but he'd still hold shows here--every Sunday afternoon and Thursday night--so that his students could get up onstage and experience what performing was really like.

  And what a difference it was.

  Kara knew that practicing at home and performing onstage were night and day. Something inexplicable happened when you got up in front of people. Impossible tricks that you continually flubbed at home went perfectly, owing to some mysterious spiritual adrenaline that took over your hands and proclaimed, "Thou shalt not fuck this one up."
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  Conversely, in a performance you might blow a trick that was second nature, like a one-coin French drop, a maneuver so simple that you'd never even think to have an out prepared in case it went south.

  A high, wide black curtain separated the theater from the business end of the store. It rippled occasionally in the breeze as the front door opened and closed with a faint Roadrunner meep-meep from the electric-eye alert on the jamb.

  Now approaching 4:00 P.M. on Sunday, people were entering the theater and finding seats--always beginning at the back (in magic and illusion performances nobody wants to sit in the front row; you never knew when you might get "volunteered" to be embarrassed up onstage).

  Standing behind a backdrop curtain, Kara looked at the stage. The flat black walls were scuffed and streaked and the bowed oak floor was covered with dozens of bits of masking tape, from performers' blocking out their moves during rehearsal. For a backdrop, only a ratty burgundy shawl. And the entire platform was tiny: ten by twelve feet.

  Still, to Kara it was Carnegie Hall or the MGM Grand itself and she was prepared to give her audience everything she had.

  Like vaudevillians or parlor magicians, most illusionists simply string together a series of routines. The performers might pace the tricks carefully, building up to a thrilling finale, but that approach, Kara felt, was like watching fireworks--each burst more or less spectacular, but on the whole emotionally unsatisfying because there was no theme or continuity to the explosions. An illusionist's act should tell a story, all the tricks linked together, one leading to the next with one or more of the earlier tricks returning at the end to give the audience that delightful one-two punch that left them, she hoped, breathless.

  More people were entering the theater now. She wondered if there'd be many here today, though it didn't really make any difference to her. She loved the story about Robert-Houdin, who walked out onstage one night to find three people in the theater. He presented the same show as if the house were full--except the finale was slightly different; he invited the audience to his home for dinner afterward.

  She was confident of her routine--Mr. Balzac had her practice, even for these small shows, for weeks. And now, during the last few minutes before curtain time, she didn't think about her tricks but gazed at the audience, enjoying this momentary peace of mind. She supposed she had no right to feel this comfortable. There were a lot of reasons why she shouldn't be so content: her mother's worsening condition. The growing money problems. Her slow progress in Mr. Balzac's eyes. The brunch-in-bed guy who'd left three weeks ago today, promising he'd call her. Definitely. I promise.

  But the Vanished Boyfriend trick, like Evaporating Money and the Wasting Mother, couldn't touch her here.

  Not when she was onstage.

  Nothing mattered to her except the challenge of materializing a certain look in the faces of the audience. Kara could see it so clearly: the mouth faintly smiling, the eyes opening wide with surprise, the eyebrows narrowing, asking the most compelling question in every illusionist show: How do they do that?

  In close-in magic there are sleight-of-hand gestures known as takes and puts. You create the effect of transforming an object from one thing to another by subtly taking away the original and putting a second in its place, though the effect the audience sees is of one object becoming something else. And that's exactly what Kara's philosophy of performing was: taking her audience's sadness or boredom or anger and putting in its place happiness, fascination, serenity--transforming them into people with exhilaration in their hearts, however momentary that might be.

  Just about starting time. She peeked out through the curtain again.

  Most of the chairs were filled, she was surprised to see. On nice days like this, the attendance was usually quite small. She was pleased when Jaynene from the nursing home arrived, her huge figure blocking the back doorway momentarily. Several other nurses from Stuyvesant Manor were with her. They walked farther inside and found seats. A few of Kara's other friends too, from the magazine and her apartment building on Greenwich Street.

  Then just after 4:00 the back curtain opened wide and one final member of the audience entered--someone she never in a million years would have expected to come see her show.

  *

  "It's accessible," Lincoln Rhyme commented wryly, driving his glossy Storm Arrow to a spot halfway down the aisle in Smoke & Mirrors and parking. "No ADA suits today."

  An hour ago he'd surprised Sachs and Thom by suggesting they drive down to the store in his van--the rampequipped Rollx--to see Kara's performance.

  Then he'd added, "Though it's a shame to waste a beautiful spring afternoon indoors."

  When they'd stared at him--even before the accident he'd rarely spent a beautiful spring afternoon outside--he'd said, "I'm kidding. Could you get the van please, Thom."

  "A 'please' no less," the aide had said.

  As he looked around the shabby theater he noticed a heavyset black woman glance at him. She rose slowly and joined them, sitting next to Sachs, shaking her hand and nodding to Rhyme. She asked him if they were the police officers Kara'd told her about. He said yes and introductions were made.

  Her name turned out to be Jaynene and she was a nurse working at the aging care facility where Kara's mother lived.

  The woman glanced knowingly at Rhyme, who'd cast her a wry look at this description, and said, "Whoops. D'I really say that? Meant to say 'old folks home.' "

  "I'm a graduate of a 'TIMC,' " the criminalist said.

  The woman furrowed her brow and finally shook her head. "That's a new one on me."

  Thom said, "Traumatic Incident Mitigation Center."

  Rhyme said, "I called it the Gimp Inn."

  "But he's deliberately provocative," Thom added.

  "I've worked spinal units. We always liked the patients best who gave us crap. The quiet, cheerful ones scared us."

  Because, Rhyme reflected, they were the ones who had friends slip a hundred Seconal into their drinks. Or who, if they had the use of a hand, poured water onto the pilot lights of their stoves and turned the gas up high.

  A four-burner death, it was called.

  Jaynene asked Rhyme, "You C4?"

  "That's it."

  "Off the ventilator. Good for you."

  "Is Kara's mother here?" Sachs asked, looking around.

  Jaynene frowned briefly and said, "Well, no."

  "Does she ever come to see her?"

  The woman said cautiously, "Her mother's not really involved with Kara's career."

  Rhyme said, "Kara told me she's sick. Is she doing better?"

  "A bit, yes," the woman said.

  There was a story behind this, Rhyme sensed, but the woman's tone said that it wasn't for the nurse to go into confidential matters with strangers.

  Then the lights dimmed and the crowd fell silent.

  A white-haired man climbed up onstage. Despite the age and the signs of hard living--a drinker's nose and tobacco-stained beard--his eyes were keen, his posture erect and he floated to center stage with a performer's presence. He stood next to the only prop on the platform--a wooden cutout of a Roman column. The surroundings were shabby but the man wore a well-tailored suit, as if he had some rule that whenever you were up onstage you looked the best for your audience.

  Ah, Rhyme deduced, the infamous mentor, David Balzac. He didn't identify himself but looked out over the audience for a moment, his eyes settling on Rhyme's for longer than most others'. Whatever he was thinking, though, remained hidden and he looked away. "Today, ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to present one of my most promising students. Kara has been studying with me for over a year now. She's going to treat you to some of the more esoteric illusions in the history of our profession--and some of my own as well as some of hers. Don't be surprised"--a demonic look that seemed directed at Rhyme himself--"or shocked at anything you see today. And now, ladies and gentlemen . . . I give you . . . Kara."

  Rhyme had decided to pass this hour by being a s
cientist. He'd enjoy the challenge of spotting the methods of her illusions, noting how she did the tricks, how cards and coins were palmed and where her quick-change costumes were concealed. Kara was still several points ahead in this game of Catch the Moves, which she undoubtedly didn't know they were playing.

  The young woman walked out onstage, wearing a tight black bodysuit with a cutout in the shape of a crescent moon on her chest, under a shimmery, see-through drape, like a translucent Roman toga. He'd never thought of Kara as attractive, much less sexy, but the clinging outfit was very sensuous. She moved like a dancer, svelte and smooth. There was a long pause while she examined the audience slowly. It seemed that she looked at each person. The tension began to build. Finally: "Change," she said in a theatrical voice. "Change. . . . How it fascinates us. Alchemy--changing lead and tin into gold. . . ." She held up a silver coin. Closed it in her palm and opened it an instant later to reveal a gold coin, which she flung into the air; it turned into a shower of gold confetti.

  Applause from the audience and murmurs of pleasure.

  "Night . . ." The houselights suddenly dimmed to blackness and a moment later--no more than a few seconds--came back up. " . . . becoming day." Kara was now dressed in a similar, clinging outfit, except that it was golden and the cutout pattern on the front was a starburst. Rhyme had to laugh at the speed of the quick change. "Life . . ." A red rose appeared in her hand. " . . . becoming death . . ." She cupped the rose in her hands and it changed to a dried yellowish flower. " . . . becoming life." A bouquet of fresh flowers had somehow replaced the dead stalk. She tossed them to a delighted woman in the audience. Rhyme heard a surprised whisper: "They're real!"

  Kara lowered her hands to her sides and looked out over the audience again with a serious expression on her face. "There's a book," she said, her voice filling the room. "A book written thousands of years ago by the Roman writer Ovid. The book is called Metamorphoses. Like 'metamorphosis'--when a caterpillar becomes a . . ." She opened her hand and a butterfly flew out and disappeared backstage.

  Rhyme had taken four years of Latin. He recalled struggling to translate portions of Ovid's book for class. He remembered that it was a series of fourteen or fifteen short myths in poetic form. What was Kara up to? Lecturing about classical literature to an audience of lawyer moms and kids thinking about their Xboxes and Nintendos (though he noticed that her tight costume held the attention of every teenage boy in the audience).