The Vanished Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  "You know they're fine," Loesser snapped. The whisper and wheezing were gone. There was no damage to his lungs. It was just another ruse to make them believe he was Weir.

  Rhyme nodded toward the bedroom. "I saw some designs for promotional posters in there. I assume you drew them. The name on them was 'Malerick.' That's you now, right?"

  The killer nodded. "What I told you before is true--I hated my old name, I hate anything about me from before the fire. It was too hard to be reminded of those times. Malerick's how I think of myself now. . . . How did you catch on?"

  "After they sealed the corridor in detention you used your shirt and wiped the floor and the cuffs," Rhyme explained. "But when I thought about that I couldn't figure out why. To clean up the blood? That didn't make sense. No, the only answer I could come up with was that you wanted to get rid of your fingerprints. But you'd just been printed; why would you be worried about leaving them in the corridor?" Rhyme gave a shrug, suggesting that the answer was painfully obvious. "Because your real prints were different from the ones on the card that'd just been rolled and filed."

  "How the fuck d'he manage that?" Sellitto asked.

  "Amelia found traces of fresh ink at the scene. That was from his being printed tonight. The trace wasn't important in itself but what was significant was that it matched the ink we found in his gym bag at the Marston assault. That meant he'd come in contact with fingerprint ink before today. I guessed that he stole a blank fingerprint card and printed it at home with the real Erick Weir's prints. He used that adhesive wax to hide it in his jacket lining tonight--we were looking for weapons and keys, not pieces of cardboard--and then after they rolled his prints he distracted the technicians and swapped the cards. Probably flushed the new one or threw it out."

  Loesser grimaced in anger, a confirmation of Rhyme's deduction.

  "DOC sent over the card they had on file and Mel processed it. The rolled prints were Weir's but the latents were Loesser's. He was in the AFIS database from when he was arrested with Weir on those reckless endangerment charges in New Jersey. We checked the DOC officer's Glock too. She took that with her and he didn't get a chance to wipe it down. Those prints came back a match for Loesser too. Oh, and we got a partial from the razor knife blade." Rhyme glanced at the small bandage on Loesser's temple. "You forgot to take that with you."

  "I couldn't find it," the killer snapped. "I didn't have time to look."

  "But," Sellitto pointed out to Rhyme, "he'd be younger than Weir."

  "He is younger than Weir." He nodded toward Loesser's face. "The wrinkles're just latex appliances. Like the scars--they're all fake. Weir was born in 1950. Loesser's twenty years younger so he had to age." Then he muttered, "Oh, I missed that one. Should've thought better. Those bits of latex covered with makeup that Amelia found at the scenes? I assumed they were from those finger pads he was wearing. But that wouldn't make sense. Nobody'd wear makeup on his fingers. It would come off. No, it was from the other appliances." Rhyme examined the killer's cheeks and brow. "The latex must be uncomfortable."

  "You get used to it."

  "Sachs, let's see what he really looks like."

  With some difficulty she peeled off the beard and patches of wrinkles around his eyes and chin. The resulting face was blotchy from the adhesive but, yes, he was clearly much younger. The structure of his face was different too. He didn't look much at all like the man he'd been.

  "Not like those masks in Mission Impossible, hm? Put 'em on, pull 'em off."

  "No, real appliances aren't like that at all."

  "The fingers too." Rhyme nodded at the killer's left hand.

  To make the fusing of the fingers credible they'd been bound together with a bandage then covered in thick latex. As a result the two digits were wrinkled, limp and virtually white but, of course, they were otherwise normal. Sachs examined them. "I was just asking Rhyme why you didn't uncover them at the street fair--since we were looking for a man with a deformed left hand." But the two digits had their own appearance of deformity and would've given him away.

  Rhyme looked the killer over and said, "Pretty close to a perfect crime: a perp who made certain that we charged somebody else. We'd know Weir was guilty, we'd have positive ID. But then he'd disappear. Loesser would go on with his life and the escapee--Weir--would be gone forever. The Vanished Man."

  And even though Loesser had picked the victims yesterday to misdirect the police, not out of any deep psychological urge, nonetheless Terry Dobyns's ultimate diagnosis fit perfectly--seeking revenge for the fire that had destroyed a loved one. The difference was that the tragedy hadn't been Weir's loss of his career and the death of his wife; it had been Loesser's loss of his mentor, Weir himself.

  "But there's one problem," Sellitto pointed out. "All he did by swapping the print cards was make sure we'd go after the real Weir. Why would he do that to his mentor?"

  Rhyme said, "Why do you think I made those strapping young officers carry me up the stairs into this extremely in accessible place, Lon?" He looked around the room. "I wanted to walk the grid myself--oh, excuse me, I should say roll the grid." He now wheeled through the room expertly, using the touchpad controller. He stopped by the fireplace and glanced up. "I think I've found our perp, Lon." He looked up at the mantel, on which sat an inlaid box and a candle. "That's Erick Weir, right? His ashes."

  Loesser said softly, "That's right. He knew he didn't have much time left. He wanted to get out of the burn unit in Ohio and go back to his house in Vegas before he died. I snuck him out one night and drove him home. He lived another few weeks after we got there. I bribed a night-shift operator at a mortuary to cremate him."

  "And the fingerprints?" Rhyme asked. "You rolled his prints after he died? Had stamps made so you could do the fake fingerprint card?"

  A nod.

  "So you've been planning this for years?"

  Passionately Loesser said, "Yes! His death--it's like a burn that doesn't stop hurting."

  Bell asked, "You risked all of this for revenge? For your boss?"

  "Boss? He was more than my boss," Loesser spat out madly. "You don't understand. I think about my father a couple times a year--and he's still alive. I think about Mr. Weir every hour of the day. Ever since he came into the shop in Vegas where I was performing. . . . Young Houdini, that was me. . . . I was fourteen then. What a day that was! He told me he was going to give me the vision to be great. On my fifteenth birthday I ran away from home to travel with him." His voice wavered for a moment and fell silent. He continued, "Mr. Weir may've beat me and screamed at me and made my life hell sometimes but he saw what was inside me. He cared for me. He taught me how to be an illusionist. . . ." A cloud filled the man's face. "And then he was taken away from me. Because of Kadesky. He and that fucking business of his killed Mr. Weir. . . . And me too. Arthur Loesser died in that fire." He looked at the box and on his face there was an expression of sorrow and hope and such odd love that Rhyme felt a chill crawl down his neck until it disappeared into his numb body.

  Loesser looked back to Rhyme and gave a cold laugh. "Well, you may've caught me. But Mr. Weir and I won. You didn't stop us in time. The circus is gone, Kadesky's gone. And if he isn't dead himself, his career's over."

  "Ah, yes, the Cirque Fantastique, the fire." Rhyme shook his head gravely. Then he added, "Still . . ."

  Loesser frowned, sweeping the room with his eyes, trying to nab Rhyme's meaning. "What? What're you saying?"

  "Think back a little. Earlier tonight. You're in Central Park, watching the flames, the smoke, the destruction, listening to the screams. . . . You figure you better leave--we'll be looking for you soon. You're on your way back here. Someone--a young woman, an Asian woman in a jogging suit--bumps into you. You exchange a few words about what's going on. You go your separate ways."

  "What the hell're you talking about?" Loesser snapped.

  "Check the back of your watchband," Rhyme said.

  With a clink of the cuffs he turned his wrist ove
r. On the band was a small black disk. Sachs peeled it off. "GPS tracker. We used that to follow you here. Weren't you a little surprised that we just showed up aknockin' on your door?"

  "But who--? Wait! It was that illusionist, that girl! Kara! I didn't recognize her."

  Rhyme said wryly, "Well, that is the whole point of illusion now, isn't it? We spotted you in the park but we were afraid you'd get away. You do have a tendency to do that, you know. And we assumed you'd take a complicated route back to where you were staying. So I asked Kara to do a little disguise of her own. She's good, that woman. Hardly recognized her myself. When she bumped into you she taped the sensor to your watch."

  Sachs continued, "We might've been able to take you down on the street but you've been just a little too good at escaping. Anyway, we wanted to find your hidey-hole."

  "But that means you knew before the fire!"

  "Oh," Rhyme said dismissively, "your ambulance? The Bomb Squad found it and rendered it safe in about sixty seconds. They drove it off and replaced it with another one so you wouldn't think we'd caught on. We knew you'd want to watch the fire. We got as many undercover officers as we could into the park, looking for a male about your build who'd watch the fire but then who'd leave not long after it started. A couple of them saw you and we had Kara nail you with the chip. And presto--" Rhyme smiled at his choice of word. "Here we are."

  "But the fire . . . I saw it!"

  Rhyme said to Sachs, "See what I keep saying about evidence versus witnesses? He saw the fire; therefore it had to be real." To Loesser he said, "But it wasn't real now, was it?"

  Sachs said, "What you saw was smoke from a couple of National Guard smoke grenades we mounted on the top of the tent with a crane. The flames? From a propane burner at the stage door where the ambulance was. Then they backlit a couple more burners in the ring and projected the shadows of the flames onto the side of the tent."

  "I heard screams," Loesser whispered.

  "Oh, that was Kara's idea. She thought we could have Kadesky tell the audience they were taking an intermission from the show so a movie studio could shoot a scene in the tent--about a fire in a circus. He had everybody start screaming on cue. They loved it. They got to be extras."

  "No," the Conjurer whispered. "It was--"

  "--an illusion," Rhyme said to him. "It was all an illusion."

  Some sleight of mind from the Immobilized Man.

  "I better run the scene here," Sachs said, nodding around the room, and frowning.

  "Sure, sure, Sachs. What was I thinking of? Here we are sitting around chatting and contaminating a crime scene."

  With multiple cuffs and shackles binding him and an officer on either side, the killer was led out the door, far less cocky than the last time he'd been led down to detention.

  As two ESU officers were about to schlepp Rhyme outside once more, Lon Sellitto's phone rang. He took the call. "She's right here. . . ." A glance at Sachs. "You want to talk to her . . . ?" Then he shook his head at her and continued to listen, looking grave. "Okay, I'll tell her." He hung up.

  "That was Marlow," he said to Sachs.

  The head of Patrol Services. What was up? the criminalist wondered, seeing the troubled look on Sellitto's face.

  The rumpled detective continued, speaking to Sachs, "He wants you downtown tomorrow at ten A.M. It's about your promotion." Sellitto then frowned. "There was something else he wanted me to tell you, something about your score on the test. What was it?" He shook his head, stared at the ceiling. Clearly troubled. "What was it?"

  Sachs looked on impassively, though Rhyme observed a fingernail make a brief assault on the cuticle of her thumb.

  Then the detective snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah, now I remember. He said you got the third highest score in the history of the department." A frown filled his face and he looked at Rhyme. "You know what this means, don'tcha? Christ have mercy--now there'll be no living with her."

  *

  Jogging, breathless.

  The corridor was a mile long.

  Kara sprinted along the gray linoleum with only one thing in her mind: not the late Erick Weir or his psychotic assistant, Art Loesser, not the brilliance of the fire illusion at the Cirque Fantastique. No, all she thought was: Am I in time?

  Down the dim corridor. Footsteps pounding on the floor.

  Past doorways closed and doorways open. Hearing bits of TV and music, hearing farewell conversation as families prepared to leave at the end of Sunday visiting hours.

  Hearing her own hollow footsteps.

  She paused outside the room. Inhaled a dozen deep breaths to steady her voice and, more nervous than she'd ever been going onstage, stepped into the room.

  A pause. Then: "Hi, Mum."

  Her mother turned away from the TV. She blinked in surprise and smiled. "Why, look who it is. Hello, dear."

  Oh, my God, Kara thought, looking at the bright eyes. She's back! She's really back.

  She walked over and hugged the woman then pulled the chair closer. "How are you?"

  "Fine. Little chilly tonight."

  "I'll close the window." Kara rose and pulled it shut.

  "I thought you weren't going to make it, honey."

  "Busy night. I'll have to tell you what I've been up to, Mum. You won't believe it."

  "I can't wait."

  Excitedly Kara asked, "You want some tea or something?" She felt a fierce urgency to pour out all the details of her life in the past six months, to ramble. But she told herself to slow down; gushing, she sensed, could easily overwhelm her mother, who seemed immensely fragile at the moment.

  "Nope, not a thing, dear. . . . Could you shut the TV off? I'd rather visit with you. There's that control. I can never get it to work. Sometimes, I almost think, somebody sneaks in and changes the buttons."

  "I'm glad I got here before you went to bed."

  "I would've stayed up to visit with you."

  Kara gave her a smile. Her mother then said, "I was just thinking about your uncle, honey. My brother."

  Kara nodded. Her mother's late brother was the black sheep of the family. He'd gone out west when Kara was young and never kept in touch with the family. Kara's mother and grandparents had refused to talk about him and his name was verboten at family gatherings. But, of course, the rumors flew: he was gay, he was straight and married but he'd had an affair with a Roma gypsy, he'd shot a man over another woman, he'd never married and was an alcoholic jazz musician. . . .

  Kara'd always wanted to learn the truth about him. "What about him, Mum?"

  "You want to hear?"

  "Oh, you bet--tell me some stories," she now asked, leaning forward and resting her hand on the woman's arm.

  "Well, let's see, when would it've been? I'd guess May of seventy, maybe seventy-one. Not sure of the year--that's my mind for you--but I know it was May. Your uncle and some of his army buddies had come back from Vietnam."

  "He was a soldier? I never knew that."

  "Oh, he looked very handsome in his uniform. Well, they had a terrible time over there." Her voice grew serious. "Your uncle's best friend was killed right next to him. Died in his arms. A big black fellow. Well, Tom and another soldier got it into their heads that they'd like to start a business to help their dead friend's family. So what they did was they went down south and bought a boat. Can you imagine your uncle on a boat? I thought it was the strangest thing ever. They started a shrimp business. Tom made a fortune."

  "Mum," Kara said softly.

  Her mother smiled at some memory and shook her head. "A boat. . . . Well, the company was very successful. And people were surprised because, well, Tom never seemed too bright." Her mother's eyes sparkled. "But you know what he used to say to them?"

  "What, Mum?"

  " 'Stupid is as stupid does.' "

  "That's a good expression," Kara whispered.

  "Oh, you would've loved that man, Jenny. Did you know he met the president of the United States once. And played Ping-Pong in China."

>   Not noticing her daughter's quiet crying, the old woman continued to tell Kara the rest of the story of Forrest Gump, the movie that she'd been watching on TV a few moments before. Kara's uncle's name was Gil but in her mother's fantasy he was Tom--presumably after the film's star, Tom Hanks. Kara herself had become Jenny, Forrest's girlfriend.

  No, no, no, Kara thought in despair, I didn't make it in time after all.

  Her mother's soul had come and gone, leaving in its place only illusion.

  The woman's narrative became a garbled stream that moved from the shrimp boat in the Gulf to a swordfish boat in the North Atlantic caught in something called a "perfect storm" to an ocean liner sinking while her brother, in tuxedo, played the violin on deck. Thoughts, memories and images from a dozen other movies or books joined real memories. Soon Kara's "uncle," as well as all semblance of coherence, vanished completely.

  "It's somewhere outside," the old woman said with finality. "I know it's outside." She closed her eyes.

  Kara sat forward in her chair, gently resting her hand on her mother's smooth arm until the old woman was asleep. Thinking: But she had been in her right mind earlier. Jaynene wouldn't've paged her if she hadn't.

  And if it happened once, she thought defiantly, it could happen again.

  Finally Kara rose and walked out into the dark corridor, reflecting that, as talented a performer as she might be, she lacked the one skill she so desperately wanted: to magically transport her mother to that place where hearts stoked with the fuel of affection burn warmly for all the years God assigned them. Where minds retain perfectly every chapter in the rich histories of families. Where the apparent gulfs between loved ones turn out to be, in the end, nothing more than effects--temporary illusions.

  Chapter Forty-nine Gerald Marlow, a man with thick, Vitalis-crisp hair, was head of the NYPD's Patrol Services Division. His deliberate manner had been forged walking a beat for twenty years and tempered by spending another fifteen at the far-riskier job of supervising officers who walked similar beats.

  Now, Monday morning, Amelia Sachs stood more or less at attention in front of him, willing her knees to ignore the arthritis that dug switchblades into them. They were in Marlow's corner office high up in the Big Building, One Police Plaza, downtown.