Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

• • •

The best illusionists, my friends, engage in a practice known as "routining."

That means planning the order and the pacing of their acts carefully – to make the performances as intense as possible.

For our third act today we first saw our animal illusion, featuring wonder-horse Donny Boy, in Central Park. Then we slowed the pace with some classic sleight of hand, combined with a touch of mentalism.

And now we turn to escapism.

We'll see what is perhaps Harry Houdini's most famous escape. In this routine, which he developed himself, he was bound, hung by his heels and submerged in a narrow tank of water. He had only a few minutes to try to bend upward from the waist, release his ankles and open the locked top of the chamber before he drowned.

The tank was, of course, "prepared." The bars apparently intended to keep the glass from shattering were actually handholds that let him pull himself up to reach his ankles. The locks on his feet and the top of the tank itself had hidden latches that would instantly release his ankles and the lid.

Our re-creation of the famous escapist's popular feat, needless to say, doesn't offer such features. Our performer will be on her own. And I've added a few variations of my own. All for your entertainment, of course.

And now, courtesy of Mr. Houdini, the Water Torture Cell.

Now beardless and dressed in chinos and a white dress shirt over a white T-shirt, Malerick wrapped chains tightly around Cheryl Marston. Her ankles first then her chest and arms.

He paused and looked around again but they remained hidden from view of the road and the river by thick bushes.

They were beside the Hudson River, next to a small stagnant pool of water, which at one time had apparently been a tiny inlet for dinghies. Landfill and debris had sealed it long ago and created this foul-smelling pond about ten feet in diameter. On one side was a rotting pier in the middle of which was a rusty crane that had been used for lifting boats out of the water. Malerick now swung a rope over the crane, caught the end and began tying it to the chains holding Cheryl's feet.

Escapists love chains. They look impressive, they have a wonderfully sadistic flavor to them and seem more formidable than silks and ropes. And they're heavy – just the thing to keep a bound performer underwater.

"No, no, noooo," whispered the groggy woman.

He stroked her hair as he surveyed the chains. Simple and tight. Houdini wrote, "Strange as it may appear, I have found that the more spectacular the fastening to the eyes of the audience, the less difficult the escape really proves to be."

This was true, Malerick knew from experience. Dramatic-looking masses of thick ropes and chains wound around and around the illusionist were in fact easy to get out of. Fewer restraints and simpler fasteners were much harder. Like these, for instance.

"Noooooo," she whispered groggily. "It hurts. Please!… What are you -?"

Malerick pressed duct tape over her mouth. Then he braced himself, took a good grip and slowly pulled down on the rope, which in turn lifted the whimpering lawyer's feet and began dragging her slowly toward the brackish water.

• • •

On this glorious spring afternoon a busy crafts fair filled the large central square of West Side College between Seventy-ninth and Eightieth Streets, so dense with visitors it would be virtually impossible to spot the killer and his victim in the crowd.

On this glorious spring afternoon customers filled the scores of neighborhood restaurants and coffee shops, in any one of which the Conjurer might at this moment be suggesting to Cheryl Marston that she go for a drive with him or they stop at her apartment.

On this glorious spring afternoon fifty alleyways bisected the blocks here and offered, in their dim seclusion, a perfect killing ground.

Sachs, Bell and Kara jogged up and down the streets, looking through the crafts fair, the restaurants and the alleys. And every other place they could think to search.

They found nothing.

Until, desperate minutes later, a break.

The two cops and Kara walked into Ely's Coffee Shop near Riverside Drive and scanned the crowd. Sachs gripped Bell 's arm, nodding toward the cash register.

Next to it were a black velvet riding hat and a stained leather crop.

Sachs ran to the manager, a swarthy Middle Easterner. "Did a woman leave those here?"

"Yeah, ten minutes ago. She -"

"Was she with a man?"

"Yeah."

"Beard and a running suit?"

"That's them. She forgot the hat and that whip thing on the floor under the table."

"Do you know where they went?" Bell asked.

"What is happening? Is there -"

"Where?" Sachs insisted.

"Okay, I hear him say he going to show her his boat. But I hope he took her home."

"How do you mean?" Sachs asked.

"The woman, she was sick. I figure that why she forgot her stuff."

"Sick?"

"Couldn't walk steady, you know what I'm saying? Seem drunk but all they drank was coffee. And she was fine when they got here."

"He drugged her," Sachs muttered to Bell.

"Drugged her?" the manager asked. "Hey, what is story?"

She asked, "Which table were they at?"

He pointed to one where four women sat, talking and eating, and doing both quite loudly. "'Scuse me," Sachs said to them and gave the area a fast examination.

She saw no obvious evidence on or beneath the table.

"We've gotta look for her," she said to Bell.

"If he said boat, let's go west. The Hudson."

Sachs nodded to where the Conjurer and Cheryl had sat. "That's a crime scene – don't wash it or sweep under it. And move them to a different table," she shouted, pointing to the four wide-eyed and momentarily silent women, and ran outside into the dazzling sunlight.

She saw her husband crying.

Tears of regret that he had to "end the marriage."

End the marriage .

Like taking out the trash .

Walking the dog .

It was our fucking marriage! It wasn't a thing.

But Roy didn't feel that way. Roy wanted a stubby assistant securities analyst instead of her and that was that.

Another gagging flood of hot slimy water shot up her nose.

Air, air, air… Give me air!

Now Cheryl Marston saw her father and mother at Christmas, decades ago, coyly wheeling out the bicycle Santa had brought her from the North Pole. Look, honey, Santa even has a pink helmet for you to protect your pretty little noggin…

"Ahhhhhh…"

Coughing and choking, gripped by constricting chains, Cheryl was hauled out of the opaque water of the greasy pond, upside down, spinning lazily, held by a rope looped over a metal crane jutting over the water.

Her skull throbbed as the blood settled in her head. "Stop, stop, stop!" she screamed silently. What was going on? She remembered Donny Boy rearing, somebody calming him, a nice man, coffee in a Greek restaurant, conversation, something about boats, then the world uncoiling in dizziness, silly laughter.

Then chains. The terrible water.

And now this man studying her with pleasant curiosity on his face as she died.

Who is he? Why is he doing this? Why?

Inertia spun her slowly in a circle and he could no longer see her pleading eyes, as the inverted, hazy line of New Jersey miles away across the Hudson came into view.

She revolved slowly back until she was looking at the brambles and lilacs. And him .

He in turn looked down at her, nodded, then played out the rope, lowering her into the disgusting pond again.