Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

The light at Twenty-third Street was against her but the cross traffic wasn't too bad so she went through it fast, relying on the steering wheel, rather than her brakes or the conscience of citizens to yield to her flashing blue light, to get her to the other side.

Once through it, a fast downshift, pedal to the floor and the rattling engine sped her up to eighty. Her hand found her Motorola and she called Rhyme to tell him where she was and to ask what exactly he needed her to do.

• • •

Malerick wandered slowly out of the park, jostled by people running the opposite way, toward the fire.

"What's going on?"

"Jesus!"

"The police… Did somebody call the police?"

"Do you hear screaming? Do you hear that?"

At the corner of Central Park West and a cross street he collided with a young Asian woman, staring in concern toward the park. She asked, "You know what happened?"

Malerick thought, Yes, indeed I do: the man and the circus that destroyed my life are dying. But he frowned and said to her gravely, "I don't know. But it seems pretty serious."

He continued west, beginning what would be a very circuitous, half hour journey back to his apartment, during which he'd execute several quick changes and make absolutely certain no one was following him.

His plans called for him to stay at his apartment tonight then in the morning leave for Europe, where after several months of training he'd resume performing – under his new name. Not a soul on earth, other than his revered audience, knew "Malerick" and that's who he'd be to the public from now on. He had one regret – that he wouldn't be able to perform his favorite routine, the Burning Mirror; far too many people associated that with him. In fact, he'd have to trim a lot of the material. He'd give up ventriloquism, mentalism, and many of the close-in routines he'd done. Having such a broad repertoire could – as had happened this weekend – tip the gaff as to his identity.

Malerick continued to Broadway, then doubled back toward his apartment. He continued to check the streets behind and around him. He saw no one following.

He stepped inside the lobby and paused, studied the street for a full five minutes.

An elderly man – Malerick recognized him as a neighbor from across the street – walking his poodle. A kid on Rollerblades. Two teenage girls with ice-cream cones. No one else. The street was empty: tomorrow was Monday, a work- and school day. People were now home ironing clothes, helping their children with lessons… and glued to the TV watching CNN reporting on the terrible tragedy in Central Park.

He hurried to his apartment, doused all the lights.

And now the show closes, Revered Audience, as they always do. But it is the nature of our art that what's old to today's audience will be fresh and inventive to those elsewhere, tomorrow and the day after.

Did you know, my friends, that curtain calls are not to thank the performer but are intended to give him a chance to thank his audience – those people who were kind enough to lend him their attention during his show.

So I applaud you now for gracing me with your presence during these modest performances. I hope I've given you excitement and joy. I hope I've brought wonder to your hearts as you joined me in this netherworld where life is transformed to death, death to life and the real to the unreal. I bow to you, Revered Audience…

He lit a candle and settled into the couch. He kept his eyes fixed on the flame. Tonight, he knew that it would shudder, that he would receive a message.

Staring, sitting forward, bathed in the contentment of vengeance completed, rocking back and forth hypnotically, breathing slowly. The candle flickered.

Yes! Speak to me. Flicker again…

And indeed only a moment later it did.

But the shuddering wasn't a message from the supernatural spirit of a loved one long gone but solely from the gust of cool April evening air that filled the room when the half dozen police officers in riot gear broke the door in with a battering ram. They flung the gasping illusionist to the floor, where one of them – the red-haired policewoman he recalled from Lincoln Rhyme's apartment – seated a pistol against the back of his head and gave a steady recitation of his rights.

Their arms trembling against the weight of both Lincoln Rhyme and his Storm Arrow wheelchair, two sweating ESU officers carried their burden up the stairs into the building and deposited the criminalist in the lobby. He then took over and maneuvered his chair into the Conjurer's apartment, where he parked next to Amelia Sachs.

While their fellow Emergency Service officers cleared the rooms, Rhyme watched as Bell and Sellitto carefully searched the astonished killer. Rhyme had suggested they borrow a doctor from the Medical Examiner's office to help in the search. He arrived a moment later and did as requested. It turned out to be a good idea; the M. D. found several slits cut into the man's skin – they looked like small scars but could be pulled open. Inside were tiny metal tools.

"X-ray him at the detention infirmary," Rhyme said. "Hell, wait, do an MRI. Every square inch."

When the Conjurer was triple cuffed and double shackled, two officers pulled the man into a sitting position on the floor. The criminalist was examining a bedroom in which was a huge collection of magician's props and tools. The masks, fake hands and latex appliances made the place eerie, sure, but Rhyme sensed mostly loneliness, seeing these objects stored here for the killer's horrific purposes when they were meant to be part of a show to entertain thousands of people.

"How?" the Conjurer whispered.

Rhyme noted the look of astonishment. Dismay too. The criminalist relished the sensation. All hunters will tell you that the actual search for their quarry is the best part of the game. But no hunter can be truly great unless he feels peak pleasure when he finally brings down his prey.

"How did you figure it out?" the man repeated in his asthmatic wheeze.

"That your point was to hit the circus?" Rhyme glanced at Sachs.

She said, "There wasn't a lot of evidence but it suggested -"

"'Suggested,' Sachs? I'd say it screamed."

"Suggested," she continued, unfazed by his interjection, "what you were really going to do. In the closet – the one in the basement of the Criminal Courts building – we found the bag with your change of clothes in it, the fake wound."

"You found the bag?"

She continued, "There was some dried red paint on the shoes and your suit. And carpet fibers."

"I thought the paint was fake blood." Rhyme shook his head, angry with himself. "It was logical to make that assumption but I should've considered other sources. It turned out that the FBI's paint database identified it as Jenkin Manufacturing automotive paint. The shade is an orange-red that's used exclusively for emergency vehicles. That particular formula is sold in small cans – for touch-ups. The fibers were automotive too – they were from heavy-duty commercial carpet installed in CMC ambulances up until eight years ago."

Sachs: "So Lincoln deduced that you'd bought or stolen an old ambulance recently and fixed it up. It might've been for an escape or for another attempt on Charles Grady's life. But then he remembered the bits of brass – what if they actually were from a timer, like we'd thought originally? And since you'd used gas on the handkerchief in Lincoln 's apartment, well, that meant that, possibly, you were going to hide a gas bomb in a fake ambulance."

Rhyme offered, "Then I simply used logic -"

"He played a hunch is what he's sayin'," Bell chided.

"Hunches," Rhyme snapped, "are nonsense. Logic isn't. Logic is the backbone of science, and criminalistics is pure science."