Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

Now surrounded, Malerick turned and headed back toward the center of the festival.

The plain-clothed officers were slowly moving westward. They were stopping men in their fifties who were clean shaven, wearing light shirts and tan slacks.

Exactly like him.

But they were also stopping fifty-year-olds who were bearded and were wearing other clothes. Which meant they knew about his quick-change techniques.

Then he saw what he'd been dreading: The policewoman with the steely eyes and fiery red hair, who'd tried to arrest him at the pond, appeared at the top of the stairs at the west end of the fair. She plunged into the crowd.

Malerick turned aside, lowering his head and studying some very bad ceramic sculpture.

What to do? he thought desperately. He had one remaining quick-change outfit left, under what he now wore. But after that, there was no backup.

The redheaded officer spotted someone who was built and dressed similarly to him. She examined the man closely. Then she turned away and continued to scan the crowd.

The trim, brown-haired cop who'd been giving Cheryl Marston CPR now crested the stairs and joined the policewoman in the crowd. They conferred for a few moments. Another woman was with him – she didn't seem like a cop. She had brilliant blue eyes and short reddish-purple hair and was quite thin. She looked over the crowd and whispered something to the woman officer, who headed off in a different direction. The shorthaired girl stayed with the male cop and they began to work their way through the crowd.

Malerick knew he'd be spotted sooner or later. He had to get out of the fair now, before even more cops arrived. Walking to the row of Porta Potties, he stepped inside the fiberglass box and executed a change. In thirty seconds he stepped out again, politely holding the door open for a middle-aged woman, who hesitated and turned away, deciding to wait for a John whose prior user wasn't a pony-tailed biker with a beer gut, wearing a Pennzoil cap, a greasy long-sleeved denim Harley-Davidson shirt and dirty black jeans.

He picked up a newspaper and rolled it up, gripping it in his left hand to obscure his fingers, then moved toward the east side of the fair again, checking out stained glass, mugs and bowls, handmade toys, crystals, CDs. One cop looked right at him but the glance was brief and he turned away.

Malerick now returned to the eastern edge of the fair.

The stairway that led down to Broadway was about thirty yards wide and the uniformed police had managed to close off much of it. They were now stopping all adult men and women who left the fair and asking for IDs.

He saw the detective and the purple-haired girl nearby, next to the concession stand. She was whispering to him. Had she noticed him?

Malerick was swept by a burst of uncontrollable fury. He'd planned the performance so carefully – every routine, every trick choreographed to lead up to tomorrow's finale. This weekend was supposed to be the most perfect illusion ever performed. And it was all crumbling around him. He thought of how disappointed his mentor would be. He thought of letting down his revered audience… He found his hand, holding a small oil painting of the Statue of Liberty, beginning to shake.

This is not acceptable! he raged.

He put the picture down and turned.

But he stopped fast, giving a sharp gasp.

The red-haired policewoman stood only a few feet from him, looking away. He quickly turned his attention to a case of jewelry and asked the vendor, in a thick Brooklyn accent, how much a pair of earrings cost.

From the corner of his eye he could see the policewoman glance at him but she paid him no mind and a moment later made a call on her radio. "Five Eight Eight Five. Requesting a landline patch to Lincoln Rhyme."

A moment later: "We're at the fair, Rhyme. He has to be here… He couldn't've gotten out before they sealed the exits. We'll find him. If we have to frisk everybody we'll find him."

Malerick eased into the crowd. What were his options?

Misdirection – that seemed to be the only answer. Something to distract the police and give him just five seconds to slip through the line and disappear among the pedestrians on Broadway.

But what would misdirect them long enough to let him escape?

He didn't have any more squibs to simulate gunshots. Set a booth on fire? But that wouldn't cause the sort of panic he now needed.

Anger and fear seized him again.

But then he heard his mentor's voice from years ago, after the boy had made a mistake onstage and nearly ruined one of the man's routines. The demonic, bearded illusionist had pulled the youngster aside after the performance. Close to tears, the boy had gazed down at the floor as the man asked, "What is illusion?"

"Science and logic" had been Malerick's instant response. (The mentor had drummed a hundred answers like this one into his assistants' souls.)

"Science and logic, yes. If there's a mishap – because of you or your assistant or God Himself – you use science and logic to take charge instantly. Not one second should pass between the mistake and your reaction. Be bold. Read your audience. Turn disaster into applause."

Hearing those words in his mind now, Malerick grew calm. He tossed his biker braid and looked around, considering what to do.

Be bold. Read your audience.

Turn disaster into applause.

• • •

Sachs scanned the people near her again – a mother and father with two bored children, an elderly couple, a biker in a Harley shirt, two young European women bargaining with a vendor over some jewelry.

She noticed Bell across the square, near the food concession area. But where was Kara? The young woman was supposed to stay close to one of them. She started to wave to the detective but a cluster of people ambled between them and she lost sight of him. She walked in his direction and her head swiveled back and forth, scanning the crowd.

Feeling, she realized, as unsettled as at the music school that morning, despite the fact that the sky was clear and the sun bright, hardly the gothic setting of the first scene. Spooky…

She knew what the problem was.

Wire.

When you walked a beat, either you had wire or you didn't. A cop expression, "having wire" meant you were connected to your neighborhood. It was more than a question of knowing the people and the geography of your beat; it was knowing what kind of energy drove them, what kind of perps you could expect, how dangerous they were, how they'd come at their vics – and at you.

If you didn't have wire in a 'hood you had no business walking a beat there.

With the Conjurer, Sachs now understood, she didn't have wire at all. He could be on the number 9 train right now, headed downtown. Or he could be three feet away from her. She just didn't know.

In fact, just then, someone passed close behind her. She felt a breath or wafting of cloth on her neck. She spun around fast, shivering in fear – hand on the butt of her gun, remembering how easily Kara had distracted her as she'd lifted Sachs's weapon from its holster.

A half-dozen people were nearby but no one seemed to have stirred the air behind her.

Or had they?

A man was walking away, limping. He couldn't be the Conjurer.

Or could he?

The Conjurer can become somebody else in seconds, remember?

Around her: an elderly couple, the pony-tailed biker, three teenagers, a huge man wearing a ConEd uniform. She was at sea, frustrated and scared for herself and for everyone around her.

No wire…

It was then that a woman's scream filled the air.

A voice called, "There! Look! God, somebody's hurt."

Sachs drew her weapon and headed toward the cluster gathering nearby.