Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

But as they started for the doorway Rhyme said, "Hold on." His eyes were on the evidence chart.

"What?" Sellitto asked.

"When he got away from Larry Burke after the crafts fair he slipped the cuffs."

"Right."

"We found saliva, remember? Take a look in his mouth. See if he's got a pick or key hidden there."

Weir said, "I don't. Really."

Sellitto pulled on the latex gloves that Mel Cooper offered. "Open up. You bite me and I'll vanish your balls. Got it? One bite, no balls."

"Understood." The Conjurer opened his mouth and Sellitto shined his flashlight into it, fished around a bit. "Nothing."

Rhyme said, "There's another place we ought to check too."

Sellitto grunted. "I'll make sure they do that downtown, Linc. Some things I do not do for the money they pay me."

As the detective led Weir toward the door Kara said, "Wait. Check his teeth. Wiggle them. Especially the molars."

Weir stiffened as Sellitto approached. "You can't do that."

"Open up," the big detective snapped. "Oh, and the balls comment still applies."

The Conjurer sighed. "Right top molar. Right on my side, I mean."

Sellitto glanced at Rhyme then reached in and gently pulled. His hand emerged with a fake tooth. Inside was a small piece of bent metal. He dumped it on an examining board and replaced the tooth.

The detective said, "It's pretty small. He can actually use that?"

Kara examined it. "Oh, he could open a pair of regulation handcuffs in about four seconds with that."

"You're too much, Weir. Come on."

Rhyme thought of something. "Oh, Lon?" The detective glanced his way. "You have a feeling when he helped us find the pick in his tooth that might've been a little misdirection?"

Kara nodded. "You're right."

Weir looked disgusted as Sellitto searched again. This time the detective checked every tooth. He found a second lock pick in a similar fake tooth on the lower left jaw.

"I'm gonna make sure they put you someplace real special," the detective said ominously. He then called another officer into the room and had him shackle Weir's feet with two sets of cuffs.

"I can't walk this way," Weir complained in a wheeze.

"Baby steps," Sellitto said coldly. "Take baby steps."

The man got the message at a diner on Route 244, which because he didn't have a phone in his trailer – didn't want one, didn't trust 'em – is where he took and made all his calls.

Sometimes a few days went by before he picked up the messages but because he was expecting an important call today he'd hurried – to the extent he ever hurried – to Elma's Diner right after Bible school.

Hobbs Wentworth was a bear-sized man with a thin red beard around his face and a fringe of curly hair, lighter than his beard. The word "career" was one that nobody in Canton Falls, New York, had ever associated with Hobbs, which wasn't to say that he didn't work like an ox. He'd give a man his money's worth, as long as the job was out of doors, didn't require too much calculating and his employer was a white Christian.

Hobbs was married to a quiet, dusty woman named Cindy, who spent most of her time homeschooling, cooking, sewing and visiting with women friends who did the same. Hobbs himself spent most of his time working and hunting and spending evenings with men friends, drinking and arguing (though most of these "arguments" should be called "agreements" since he and his buddies were all extremely likeminded).

A lifelong resident of Canton Falls, he liked it here. There was plenty of good hunting land, virtually none of it posted. People were solid and good-natured and knew their heads from their rumps ("likeminded" applied to almost everyone in Canton Falls). Hobbs had lots of opportunities to do the things he enjoyed.

Like teaching Sunday school, of all things. An eighth-grade graduate with a stolen mortarboard but no learning to show for it, Hobbs had never in the Lord's universe thought anybody'd want him to teach.

But he had a flair for kids' Sunday school, it turned out. He didn't do prayer sessions or counseling or any Jesus-Loves-Me-This-I-Know singing… Nope, all he did was tell Bible stories to the youngsters. But he was an instant hit – thanks largely to his refusal to stick to the party line. For instance, in his account, instead of Jesus feeding the crowds with two fish and five loaves, Hobbs reported how the Son of God went bow hunting and killed a deer from a hundred yards away and gutted and dressed it in the town square himself and he fed the people that way. (To illustrate the story Hobbs brought his compound Clearwater MX Flex to the classroom and, chunk , sent a tempered-tip arrow three inches into a cinder-block wall, to the delight of the kids.)

Having finished one of those classes now, he walked inside Elma's. The waitress walked up to him. "Hey, Hobbs. Pie?"

"Naw, make it a Vernors and a cheese omelette. Extra Kraft. Hey, d'I get a phone -"

Before he could finish she handed him a slip of paper. On it were the words: Call me – JB.

She asked, "That Jeddy? Sounded like him. Since the police've been 'round, those troopers, I mean, I ain't see him 't'all."

He ignored her question and said only, "Hold that order for a minute." As he went to the pay phone, fishing hard for coins in his jeans, his mind went right back to a lunch he'd had two weeks ago at the Riverside Inn over in Bedford Junction. It'd been him and Frank Stemple and Jeddy Barnes from Canton Falls and a man named Erick Weir, who Barnes later took to calling Magic Man, because he was, of all things, a professional conjurer.

Barnes had puffed up Hobbs's day ten times by smiling and standing up when Hobbs arrived, saying to Weir, "Here, sir, meet the best shot we got in the county. Not to mention bow hunter. And a damn sharp operator too." Hobbs had sat over the fancy food at the fancy restaurant, proud but nervous too (he'd never before even dreamed about eating at the Riverside), poking his fork into the daily special and listening as Barnes and Stemple told him how they'd met Weir. He was sort of like a mercenary soldier, which Hobbs knew all about, being a subscriber to Soldier of Fortune . Hobbs noticed the scars on the man's neck and the deformed fingers, wondering what kind of fight he'd been in that'd cause that kind of damage. Napalm, maybe.

Barnes had been reluctant to even meet with Weir at first, of course, thinking entrapment. But Magic Man had put him right at ease by telling them to watch the news on one particular day. The lead story was about the murder of a Mexican gardener – an illegal immigrant – working for a rich family in a town nearby. Weir brought Barnes the dead man's wallet. A trophy, like a buck's antlers.

Weir had been right up-front. He'd told them that he'd picked the Mexican because of Barnes's views on immigrants but he personally didn't believe in their extreme causes – his interest was only in making money with his very special talents. Which suited everybody just fine. Over lunch, Magic Man Weir had laid out his plan about Charles Grady then he shook their hands and left. A few days ago Barnes and Stemple had shipped off the skippy, girl-lovin' Reverend Swensen to New York with instructions to kill Grady on Saturday night. And he'd bobbled the job as predicted.

Hobbs was supposed to "stay on call," Mr. Weir had said. "In case he was needed."

And apparently now he was. He punched in the number of the cell phone Barnes used, the account in someone else's name, and heard an abrupt "Yeah?"

"S'me."

Because of the state police all over the county looking for Barnes they'd agreed to keep all conversations over the phone to a minimum.

Barnes said, "You gotta do what we talked about at lunch."