The Vanished Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  After that, Jaynene and Thom had gone off to have lunch together--and undoubtedly to share war stories about the people in their care. Rhyme had then called Kara. She'd come over and they'd had a talk. The conversation had been awkward; he'd never done well with personal matters. Confronting a heartless killer was easy compared with intruding on the tender soul of someone's life.

  "I don't know your profession too well," Rhyme had said. "But when I saw you perform at the store on Sunday I was impressed. And it takes a lot to impress me. You were damn good."

  "For a student" had been her dismissive response.

  "No," he'd said firmly, "for a performer. You should be onstage."

  "I'm not ready yet. I'll get there eventually."

  After a thick pause Rhyme said, "The problem with that attitude is that sometimes you don't get there eventually." He glanced down at his body. "Sometimes things . . . intervene. And there you are, you've put off something important. And you miss it forever."

  "But Mr. Balzac--"

  "--is keeping you down. It's obvious."

  "He's only thinking what's best for me."

  "No, he's not. I don't know what he's thinking of. But the one thing he's not thinking of is you. Look at Weir and Loesser. And Keating. Mentors can mesmerize you. Thank Balzac for what he's done, stay friends, send him box seat tickets for your first Carnegie Hall show. But get away from him now--while you can."

  "I'm not mesmerized," she'd said, laughing.

  Rhyme hadn't responded and he sensed she was considering just how much she was under the man's thumb. He continued, "We've got some juice with Kadesky--after everything we've done. Amelia told me how much you like the Cirque Fantastique. I think you should audition."

  "Even if I did, I have a personal situation. My--"

  "Mother," Rhyme'd interrupted.

  "Right."

  "I had a talk with Jaynene."

  The woman had fallen silent.

  Rhyme'd said, "Let me tell you a story."

  "Story?"

  "I headed the forensics department here in New York. The job had the typical administrative crap, you can imagine. But the thing I loved most--and what I was best at--was running crime scenes, so even after I was promoted I still got into the field as often as I could. Well, we had a serial rapist working in the Bronx a few years ago. I won't go into the details but it was an ugly situation and I wanted that man nailed. I wanted him bad. I got a call from patrol that there'd been another attack, just a half hour before, and it looked like there was some good evidence. I went uptown to run the scene personally.

  "Just as I got there I found out my second in command--and a good friend of mine--had had a heart attack. A bad one. Big shock. He was a young guy, in good shape. Anyway, he was asking for me." Rhyme had pushed down a hard memory and continued, "But I stayed and ran the scene, filled out the chain of custody cards and then went to the hospital. I got there as fast as I could but I was too late. He'd died a half hour before. I wasn't proud of that. It still hurts me after all these years. But I wouldn't've done it different."

  "So your point is that I should put my mother in some shitty home," she'd said bitterly. "A cheaper one. Just so I can be happy."

  "Of course not. Put her someplace that'll give her what she needs--care and companionship. Not what you need. Not a rehab center that's going to bankrupt you. . . . My point? It's that if there's something you know you're meant to do in life, that has to take priority over everything else. Get a job with Cirque Fantastique. Or another show. But you have to move on."

  "Do you know what some of those homes are like?"

  "Well, then your job is to find one that you're both comfortable with. Sorry to be blunt. But I told you up front I don't do well with delicacy."

  She'd shaken her head. "Look, Lincoln, even if I decided to, do you know how many people'd die for a job at Cirque Fantastique? They get a hundred resumes a week."

  Finally he'd smiled. "Well, now, I've been thinking about that. The Immobilized Man has an idea for a routine I think we should try."

  Rhyme now finished telling Sachs the story.

  Kara said, "We thought we'd call the trick the Escaping Suspect. I'm going to add it to my repertoire."

  Sachs turned to Rhyme. "And the reason you didn't tell me before was . . . ?"

  "I'm sorry. You were downtown. I couldn't get through."

  "Well, it might've worked better if you'd told me. You could've left a message."

  "I. Am. Sorry. There. I've apologized. I don't do it very often, you know. I'd think you might appreciate it. Though, now that you brought it up, I don't really see how it could've worked better. The look on your face was priceless. Added to the credibility."

  "And Balzac?" Sachs asked. "He didn't know Weir? He wasn't really involved?"

  Rhyme nodded at Kara. "Pure fiction. We wrote the script, the two of us."

  Sachs eyed the young woman. "First you get stabbed to death when I'm supposed to be looking out for you. Then you turn into a murder suspect." The policewoman gave an exasperated sigh. "This could be a difficult friendship."

  Kara offered to run up the street to get some more Cuban takeout, which they'd missed the other day, though Rhyme suspected it was just an excuse for her to pick up another one of the restaurant's sludgy coffees. But before they could decide on the order they were interrupted by Rhyme's ringing phone. He ordered, "Command, answer phone." A moment later Sellitto's voice came on the speakerphone. "Linc, you busy?"

  "Depends," he grumbled. "What's up?"

  "No rest for the wicked. . . . We need your help again. We got a weird homicide."

  "Last one was 'bizarre,' if I remember correctly. I think you just say things like that to get my attention."

  "No, really, we can't figure this one out."

  "All right, all right," the criminalist grumbled, "give me the details."

  Though the translation of Lincoln Rhyme's gruff demeanor was simply how pleased he was that boredom would be held at bay for at least a little while longer.

  *

  Kara stood outside Smoke & Mirrors, seeing things she'd never noticed in her year and a half working there. A hole in the upper left-hand corner of the plate glass from a BB or pellet gunshot. A tiny swirl of graffiti on the door. A dusty book on Houdini in the window, opened to the page discussing the type of sash cord he preferred to use in his routines.

  She saw a flare inside the store--Mr. Balzac lighting a cigarette.

  A breath. Let's do it, she thought and pushed inside.

  He was by the counter with that friend of his who'd been in town this past weekend, an illusionist from California. Balzac introduced her as a student and the middle-aged man shook her hand. They made small talk about how his performance had gone last night, other people appearing in town . . . the typical gossip performers everywhere engage in. Finally the man picked up his suitcase. He was on his way to Kennedy airport for the flight home and had stopped at the store to return the props he'd borrowed. He embraced Balzac, nodded to Kara and left the store.

  "You're late," the magician said to her gruffly. Then observed that she wasn't putting her bag behind the counter as she always did. He glanced at her hands. No coffee cup. That was, of course, the giveaway.

  A frown. "What?" he asked, drawing on his cigarette. "Tell me."

  "I'm leaving."

  "You're . . ."

  "I talked to Ed Kadesky. I've got a job with the Cirque Fantastique."

  "Them? Kadesky? No, no, no--it's all wrong for you. That's not magic. That's--"

  "It's what I want to do."

  "We've been through this a dozen times. You're not ready. You're good. You're not great."

  "That doesn't matter," she said firmly. "What matters is getting up onstage. Performing."

  "If you rush it--"

  "Rush it, David? Rush it? When would I be ready? Next year? In five years?" Normally she found it difficult to hold his eye; today she looked straight at him as she said, "Would you ev
er let me go?"

  A pause, while he ordered papers, slapped them down on the scuffed, cracked counter. "Kadesky," he scoffed. "And what'll you be doing for him?"

  "Assistant at first. Then some winter season shows of my own in Florida. Then who knows?"

  He stubbed out the cigarette. "It's a mistake. You'll be wasting your talent. What he does, it's not the kind of illusion I taught you."

  "I got the job because of what you taught me."

  "Kadesky," he said again contemptuously. "New magic."

  "Yeah, it is," she said. "But I'll be doing your routines too. Metamorphosis, remember--the old becoming new."

  He didn't smile though she could sense the reference to his act pleased him.

  "David, I want to keep studying with you. When I'm back in town I want to take lessons. I'll pay for them."

  "I don't think that would work. You can't serve two masters," the man muttered. When Kara said nothing he said grudgingly, "We'll have to see. I might not have the time. I probably won't."

  She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder.

  "Right now?" he asked. "You're leaving now?"

  "Yeah. I think it's best."

  He nodded.

  "So," Kara said.

  The illusionist said a formal "Goodbye then" and stepped behind the counter, offering nothing else.

  Struggling to keep the tears at bay, she walked to the door.

  "Wait," he called as she started outside. Balzac stepped into the back of the store and then returned to her. He held something in his hand and thrust it into hers. It was the cigar box that contained Tarbell's three colored silks.

  "Here. Take these. . . . I liked the way you did that one. It was a tight trick."

  She remembered the praise she'd received for it. Ah. . . .

  Kara stepped forward and embraced him fast, thinking that this was the first physical contact they'd had since she shook his hand when she'd met him eighteen months ago.

  He gave her an awkward hug in return and then stepped back.

  Kara walked outside, paused and turned to wave but Balzac had vanished into the dim recesses of the store. She slipped the box of silks into her purse and started toward Sixth Avenue, which would take her downtown to her apartment.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  The homicide was indeed a weird one.

  A double murder in a deserted part of Roosevelt Island--that narrow strip of apartments, hospitals and ghostly ruins in the East River. Since the tramway deposits residents not far from the United Nations in Manhattan many diplomats and U.N. employees live on the island.

  And it was two of these individuals--junior emissaries from the Balkans--who'd been found murdered, each shot in the back of the head twice, their hands bound.

  There were several curious things that Amelia Sachs had turned up when she'd run the scene. She'd found ash from a type of cigarette that wasn't in the state or federal tobacco database, traces of a plant that wasn't indigenous to the metropolitan area and imprints of a heavy suitcase that had been set down and apparently opened next to the victims after they'd been shot.

  And strangest of all was the fact that each man was missing his right shoe. They were nowhere to be found. "Both of them the right shoe, Sachs," Rhyme said, looking at the evidence board, in front of which he sat and she paced. "What do we make of that?"

  But the question was put on hold temporarily by Sachs's ringing cell phone. It was Captain Marlow's secretary, asking if she could come down to a meeting at his office. Several days had passed since they'd closed the Conjurer case, several days since she'd learned about Victor Ramos's action against her. There'd been no further word about the suspension.

  "When?" Sachs asked.

  "Well, now," the woman replied.

  Sachs disconnected and, with a glance and tight-lipped smile toward Rhyme, she said, "This's it. Gotta go."

  They held each other's eyes for a moment. Then Rhyme nodded and she headed for the door.

  A half hour later Sachs was in Captain Gerald Marlow's office, sitting across from the man, who was reading one of his ever-present manila files. "One second, Officer." He continued reviewing whatever so absorbed him, jotting occasional notes.

  She fidgeted. Picking at a cuticle, then at a nail. Two grass-growing minutes went by. Oh, Jesus Christ, she thought and finally asked, "Okay, sir. What's the story? Did he back down?"

  Marlow marked a spot on the sheet he was reading and looked up. "Who?"

  "Ramos. About the sergeant's exam?"

  And that other vindictive prick--the lecherous cop from the assessment exercise.

  "Back down?" Marlow asked. He was surprised at her naivete. "Well, Officer, that was never an option, him backing down."

  So that left only one reason for a face-to-face--an understanding that came to her with the sharp clarity of the first pistol shot at an outdoor range. That first shot . . . before your muscles and ears and skin grow numb from the repeated fire. Only one reason for her to be summoned here. Marlow was going to take possession of her weapon and her shield. She was now suspended.

  Shitshitshit . . .

  She bit the inside of her lip.

  Easing the folder closed, Marlow looked at her in a fatherly way, which unnerved her; it was as if the punishment to which she'd been sentenced was so severe that she needed the buffer zone of paternal kindness. "People like Ramos, Officer, you're not going to beat 'em. Not on their turf. You won the battle, cuffing him at the scene. But he won the war. People like that always win the war."

  "You mean stupid people? Petty people? Greedy people?"

  Once again the genetic makeup of a career police officer stopped him from even acknowledging the question.

  "Look at this desk," he said as he did just that. It was awash in paper. Stacks and piles of folders and memos. "And I remember when I used to complain about all the paperwork when I was a portable." He rummaged through one of the stacks, apparently looking for something. Gave up. Tried another pile. He came up with several documents that weren't what he wanted either and took his own sweet time reorganizing them then resuming the search again.

  Oh, Pop, I never thought a suspension'd really go through.

  Then, within her, the sorrow and disappointment formed into a rock. And she thought: Okay, that's the way they're going to play? Maybe I'm going down but they'll hurt. Ramos and all the little prick Ramoses like him're are going to lick blood.

  Knuckle time . . .

  "Right," the captain said, finally finding what he wanted, a large envelope with a piece of paper stapled to it. He read it quickly. Glanced at a clock in the shape of a ship's wheel on his desk. "Darn, look at the time. Let's get on with it, Officer. Let me have your shield."

  Heartsick, she dug dutifully into her pocket. "How long?"

  "A year, Officer," Marlow said. "Sorry."

  Suspended for a year, she thought in despair. She'd imagined three months at the worst.

  "That's the best I could do. A year. Shield, I was asking." Marlow shook his head. "Sorry for the rush. I've got another meeting any minute now. Meetings--they drive me crazy. This one's about insurance. The public thinks all we do is catch perps. Or thinks we don't catch perps, more likely. Uhn-uhn--half the job is business bushwah. You know what my father called business? 'Busy-ness.' He worked for American Standard for thirty-nine years. Sales rep. B-U-S-Y-ness. True about our job too." He held out his hand.

  Dismay pooling around her, drowning her, she handed him the battered leather case containing the silver shield and ID card.

  Badge Number Five Eight Eight Five . . .

  What could she do? Be a fucking security guard?

  Behind him the captain's phone rang and he spun around to answer it.

  "Marlow here. . . . Yessir. . . . We've got security arranged for that." And as he continued to talk to the caller, something about the Andrew Constable trial, it seemed, the captain placed the interoffice envelope in his lap. He pinched the phone in the crook of his neck, turned b
ack to face Sachs and continued his conversation as he unwound the red thread that was twisted around the clasps to keep the envelope sealed.

  Droning on about the trial, the new charges against Constable and others in the Patriot Assembly, raids up in Canton Falls. Sachs noted the man's perfectly nuanced, respectful tone, how he played the deference game so perfectly. Maybe he was talking to the mayor or governor.

  Maybe Congressman Ramos.

  Playing the game, playing politics. . . . Is this what policework is really about? It was so far from her nature that she wondered if she had any business being a cop.

  No busy-ness.

  That thought tore her apart. Oh, Rhyme. What're we going to do?

  We'll get through it, he'd said. But life isn't about getting through. Getting through is losing.

  Marlow, still pinching the phone between ear and shoulder, was rambling on and on in the language of government. He finally got the envelope opened and dropped her shield into it.

  He then reached in and extracted something wrapped in tissue paper.

  " . . . don't have time for a ceremony. We'll do something later." This latter message was whispered and it seemed to Sachs he was speaking to her.

  Ceremony?

  A glance at her. Now another whisper, his hand over the receiver. "This insurance stuff. Who understands it? I've got to learn all about mortality tables, annuities, double indemnity. . . ."

  Marlow unwrapped the tissue, revealing a gold NYPD badge.

  Back in his normal voice as he spoke into the phone: "Yessir, we'll stay on top of that situation. . . . We've got people in Bedford Junction too. And Harrisonburg up the road. We're completely proactive."

  Whispering again, to her. "Kept your old number, Officer." He held up the badge, which glistened brilliant yellow. The numbers were the same as her Patrol ID: 5885. He slipped the badge into her leather shield holder. Then he found something else in the yellow envelope: a temporary ID, which he also mounted in the holder. Then handed it back.

  The card identified her as Amelia Sachs, detective third-grade.

  "Yessir, we've heard about that and our threat assessment is that it's a handleable situation. . . . Good, sir." Marlow hung up and shook his head. "Give me a bigot's trial any day over insurance meetings. Okay, Officer, you'll need to get your picture taken for your permanent ID." He considered something then added cautiously, "This isn't a chauvinist thing so don't take it the wrong way but they like it better with women's hair pulled back. Not down and all, you know, well, down. Looks tougher, I guess. You have a problem with that?"