Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

"Who?"

"Mr. Balzac."

"Here. I mean, in the building. He lives there, above the store… Wait, you're not thinking he was involved?"

"These're questions we need to ask," Sachs said noncommittally.

The young woman seemed more amused than upset by the inquiry, though. She gave a laugh. "Look, I know he's gruff and he has this… I guess you'd call it an edge, you know. A temper. But he'd never hurt anybody."

Sachs nodded but then asked, "Still, you know where he was at eight this morning?"

Kara nodded. "Yeah, he was at the store. He got in early because some friend of his is in town doing a show and needed to borrow some equipment. I called to tell him I'd be a little late."

Sachs nodded. Then a moment later asked, "Can you take a little time off work?"

"Me? Oh, no way." An embarrassed laugh. "I was lucky to sneak out now. There're a thousand things to do around the store. Then I've got three or four hours of rehearsing with David for a show I'm doing tomorrow. He doesn't let me rest the day before a performance. I -"

Sachs held the woman's crisp blue eyes. "We're really afraid this person's going to kill someone else."

Kara's eyes swept the sticky mahogany bar.

"Please. Just for a few hours. Look over the evidence with us. Brainstorm."

"He won't let me. You don't know David."

"What I know is that I'm not letting anybody else get hurt if there's any way I can stop it."

Kara finished her coffee and absently played with the cup. "Using our tricks to kill people," she whispered in a dismayed voice.

Sachs said nothing and let silence do the arguing for her.

Finally the young woman grimaced. "My mother's in a home. She's been in and out of the infirmary. Mr. Balzac knows that. I guess I could tell him I have to go check on her."

"We really could use your help."

"Oh-oh. The sick-mother excuse… God's gonna get me for this one."

Sachs glanced down again at Kara's perfect, black nails. "Hey, one thing: What happened to that quarter?"

"Look under your coffee cup," the girl replied.

Impossible. "No way."

Sachs lifted up the cup. There sat the coin.

The bewildered policewoman asked, "How'd you do that?"

Kara's answer was an enigmatic smile. She nodded at the cups. "Let's get a couple more to go." She picked up the coin. "Heads you buy, tails it's on me. Two out of three." She flipped it into the air.

Sachs nodded. "Deal."

The young woman caught it and glanced into her cupped palm. She looked up. "We said two out of three, right?"

Sachs nodded.

Kara opened her fingers. Inside were two dimes and a nickel. The dimes were heads-up. No sign of the quarter. "Guess this means you're buying."

" Lincoln, meet Kara."

She'd been warned, Rhyme could see, but the young woman still blinked in surprise and glanced at him with the Look. The one he knew so well. Accompanied by the Smile.

It was the famous don't-look-at-his-body gaze, accompanied by the oh-you're-handicapped-I-never-noticed grin.

And Rhyme knew she'd be counting down the moments until she could get the hell out of his presence.

The spritely young woman walked farther into the parlor lab in Rhyme's townhouse. "Hi. Nice to meet you." The eyes remained rooted in his. At least she didn't start forward with that minuscule lean that told him she was stifling an offered handshake and then cringe in horror at the faux pas.

Okay, Kara. Don't worry. You can give the gimp your insights then get the hell out.

He offered her a superficial smile that matched hers crease for crease and said how pleased he was to meet her too.

Which on a professional level, at least, wasn't sardonic – Kara was, it turned out, the only magician lead they'd snared. None of the employees at the other shops in town had been any help – and everyone had alibis for the time of the killing.

She was introduced to Lon Sellitto and Mel Cooper. Thom nodded and did one of the things he was known for, whether Rhyme wanted him to or not: offered refreshments.

"We're not really in a church social mode here, Thom," Rhyme muttered.

Kara said no that was all right but Thom said no he was insisting.

"Maybe coffee?" she asked.

"Coming up."

"Black. Sugar. Maybe a couple sugars?"

"We really – " Rhyme began.

"For the whole room," the aide announced. "I'll make a pot. Get some bagels too."

"Bagels?" Sellitto asked.

"You could open a restaurant in your spare time," Rhyme snapped to the aide. "Get it out of your system."

"What's spare time?" came the trim blond man's fast quip. He headed for the kitchen.

"Officer Sachs," he continued to Kara, "told us that you had some information you thought might help."

"I hope so." Another tight perusal of Rhyme's face. The Look again. Closer this time. Oh, for Christ's sake, just say something. Ask me how it happened. Ask me if it hurts. Ask me what it's like to pee into a tube.

"Hey, what're we calling him?" Sellitto tapped the top of the evidence whiteboard. Until the identity of the unsub – for "unknown subject" – was learned, many law enforcers gave perps nicknames. "How 'bout the 'Magician'?"

"No, that sounds too tame," Rhyme said, looking at the pictures of the victim. "How's the 'Conjurer'?" Surprising himself by offering this decidedly right-brained suggestion.

"Works for me."

In handwriting far less elegant than Thom's the detective wrote the words on top of the chart.

The Conjurer…

"Now let's see if we can make him appear," Rhyme said.

Sachs said, "Tell them about the Vanished Man."

The young woman rubbed her hand over her boyish hair as she described an illusionist's trick that sounded almost identical to what the Conjurer had done at the music school. She added the discouraging news, though, that most illusionists would know about it.

Rhyme asked, "Give us some idea about how he does the tricks. Techniques. So we'll know what to expect from him if he tries to target somebody else."

"You want me to tip the gaff, huh?"

"Tip the -?"

"Gaff," Kara said, then explained: "See, all magic tricks're made up of an effect and a method. The effect is what the audience sees. You know: the girl levitating, the coins falling through a solid tabletop. The method is the mechanism of how the magician does it – wires holding up the girl, palming the coins then dropping identical ones from a rig under the table."

Effect and method , Rhyme reflected. Kind of like what I do: the effect is catching a perp when it seems impossible. The method is the science and logic that let us do it.

Kara continued, "Tipping the gaff means giving away the method of a trick. Like I just did – explaining how the Vanished Man worked. It's a sensitive thing – Mr. Balzac, my mentor, he's always hounding magicians who tip the gaff in public and give away other people's methods."

Thom carted a tray into the room. He poured coffee for those who wanted some.

Kara dumped sugar into hers and sipped it fast, even though to Rhyme it seemed scalding-hot. He glanced at the Macallan eighteen-year-old single malt on a bookcase across the room. Thom noticed his eyes and said, "It's mid-morning. Don't even think about it."

Sellitto gave a similarly lustful gaze toward the bagels. He allowed himself only half. Without cream cheese. He looked pained with every bite.

They went over each item of evidence with Kara, who studied it carefully and delivered the discouraging news that there were hundreds of sources for most of the items. The rope was a color-changing rope trick, sold in F.A.O. Schwarz as well as magic stores throughout the country. The knot was one Houdini used in his routines when he planned to cut the cord to escape; it was virtually impossible for a bound performer to untie.