Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (183 page)

He did not think of Lilly as a potential paramour. Not really. She was Odette. She was his assistant and confederate. One could not go through life without confederates.

He had been terribly afraid he would never see her again. But he knew that the night children were creatures of habit. He knew there were only so many places where she could blend in, even in a city as large as Philadelphia.

When she told him her story, and he offered to help her, he knew that she would be his. When he saw her standing on the corner of Eighth and Walnut, he knew it was destiny.

And now that she was in his car, he began to relax. She would be his finale after all.

A
S THEY GOT ONTO THE BOULEVARD
, Swann took out his cell phone, hit a speed-dial button, put it to his ear. Earlier he had put the phone on silent, in case he got a call at such a crucial moment as this. He could not have his phone ringing while he was supposed to be talking on it.

He reached forward, turned down the music.

“Hello, my darling,” he said to silence. “Yes … yes. No, I have not forgotten. I will be home in just a few minutes.” Swann turned and looked at the girl, rolled his eyes. She smiled.

“The reason I’m calling is to tell you we have a guest. Yes. A young lady named Lilly.” He laughed. “I know. The very same name. Yes, she has a bit of a problem, and I told her we would be most willing to help her solve it.”

He covered the mouthpiece.

“My wife loves intrigue.”

Lilly smiled.

Swann clicked off.

When they turned onto Tenth Street he reached into his coat pocket, and palmed the glass ampoule.

It would not be long now.

| SIXTY-SEVEN |

A
T 11:45 PM, THE TEAM STARTED ASSEMBLING IN THE DUTY ROOM
. I
N
addition to the homicide detectives, a call had gone out to off-duty members of the Five Squad. They also had a call in to a man named Arthur Lake, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

T
ONY PARK HAD BEEN WORKING
the computer for more than four hours.

“Detectives.”

Jessica and Byrne crossed the room.

“What’s up, Tony?”

“There’s a new video on his GothOde page.”

“Have you run it?”

“I have not. I was waiting for you.”

They gathered around a computer terminal. Tony Park clicked on the last image. The screen changed to an individual page.

“This last one was uploaded twenty minutes ago,” Park said. “It already has two hundred viewings. This guy has a following.”

“Play it.”

Park turned up the volume, clicked on the video. It was the same man in the other videos, dressed in an identical manner. But this time he was standing on a dark street. Behind him was City Hall.

“Life is a puzzle,
n’est-ce pas
?” he began, speaking directly to the camera. “If you are watching this, then you know the game is on.

“You have seen the first four illusions. There are three to go. Seven Wonders in all.”

On the video, there was a special effect. Three smaller screens appeared below him. On the smaller screens were three teenage girls. All sat in darkened rooms.

“One illusion at 2:00
AM.
One illusion at 4:00
AM
. And the grand finale at 6:00
AM.
This is going to be spectacular. It will light up the night.” The man leaned forward slightly. “Can you solve the puzzle in time? Can you find the maidens? Are you
good enough
?”

One by one the small screens went black.

“Here is a clue,” the man said. “He flies between Begichev and Geltser.”

The man then turned and pointed toward City Hall.

“Watch the clock. The dance begins at midnight.”

He waved a hand, and disappeared. The video ended.

“What does he mean, watch the clock?” Jessica asked.

B
YRNE SLAMMED
on the brakes as he pulled the car over into the center of the intersection of North Broad and Arch streets, about a block away from city hall. It was approximately the same vantage point as the killer in the last video.

He and Jessica got out of the car. The flashing dashboard light strobed across the tall buildings. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the clock tower at City Hall. Not at first.

Then it happened.

At the stroke of midnight the huge clock face turned bloodred.

“Oh my God,” Jessica said.

The sky over Philadelphia flashed with lightning. Detective Kevin Byrne looked at his partner, at his watch.

It was just after midnight. If this monster was telling the truth—and there was absolutely no reason to doubt him—they had less than two hours to save the first girl.

III

DEATH
CLOCK    

In the cool of the night time
The clocks pick off the points …

—CARL SANDBURG, Interior

| SIXTY-EIGHT |

| 12 : 2 6 AM |

T
WENTY-TWO DETECTIVES FROM THE
P
HILADELPHIA
P
OLICE
D
EPARTMENT’S
homicide unit met in the briefing room on the first floor of the Roundhouse. They ranged in age from thirty-one to sixty-three, in experience from just a few months in the unit to more than thirty years. Eight of these detectives had been on duty for more than fourteen hours—including Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano. Six had been called from home. The other ten were already on last-out, but were no longer working cases or leads. Half of this raucous group had to be called in from the street.

For these twenty-two men and women there was only one case at the moment.

An unidentified man with four confirmed kills was threatening the lives of three other people; three females who investigators believed to be under the age of eighteen.

They did not yet have ID on any of the potential victims.

The whiteboard was divided into seven columns. From left to right:

  Elise Beausoleil. The Garden of Flowers.

  Monica Renzi. The Girl Without a Middle.

  Caitlin O’Riordan. The Drowning Girl.

  Katja Dovic. The Girl in the Sword Box.

The next three columns were blank.

A
T
12:35
AM
Captain Lee Chapman walked into the briefing room. A man stood next to him.

“This is Mr. Arthur Lake,” Chapman said. “He is the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. He has graciously agreed to help us.”

In his early sixties, Arthur Lake was well-dressed in a tan cotton blazer, dark chocolate slacks, polished loafers. His hair was a little long, a pewter gray. In addition to his duties at the IBM, he was an investment counselor at Wachovia.

After the introductions were made, Byrne asked, “Have you seen the videos?”

“I have,” Lake said. “I found them most disturbing.”

He would get no argument from anyone in the room.

“I’ll be happy to answer any and all questions you may have,” Lake added. “But I need to say something first.”

“By all means, sir.”

Lake took a moment. “My hope is that this … these
events
do not reflect on my profession, my community, or any of the people within it.”

Byrne knew where the man was going. He understood. “I can assure you: no one in this room thinks that. No one in the department thinks that.”

Lake nodded. He seemed a little more at ease. For the moment.

“What can you tell us about what you’ve seen on these videos?” Byrne asked.

“Two things, really,” Lake said. “One I think will help at this moment, the other I’m afraid will not.”

“Good news first.”

“Well, first off, I recognize all four illusions, of course. There’s nothing really different or exotic going on here. Blackstone’s Garden of Flowers, Houdini’s Water Torture Cell, or a variation on it, the Sword Box, the Girl Without a Middle. They’ve been known by different names, have had many variations over the years, but the effects are very similar. They are performed all over the world. From small cabarets and clubs to the biggest venues in Las Vegas.”

“Do you recognize any of the devices?” Byrne asked. “What I mean by that is, do you know any of them by manufacturer?”

“I’d have to see the videos a few more times to tell you that. Bear in mind, almost all of the larger stage illusions are manufactured by rather small specialty companies. As you might imagine, there is not a lot of call for them, so they are not mass produced. When you get into smaller devices—devices used for coin, card, and silk magic, the staples of close-up—the demand grows. Stage magic devices are quite often extremely sophisticated, manufactured to highly detailed blueprints and exacting specifications. They are made in relatively small wood and machine shops all over the world.”

“Do any of these smaller manufacturers come to mind?” Byrne asked.

Lake rattled off four or five names. Tony Park and Hell Rohmer immediately began Internet searches.

“And the bad news?” Byrne asked.

“The bad news is that I cannot identify the illusionist. At least not yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world of magic is a vast but tightly knit network, Detective. In a short amount of time I can be in touch with magicians all over the world. There are hundreds of archivists in this network. If this person is or was a performer, someone will know him. In fact, there is a man here in Philadelphia who has one of the largest archives of Philadelphia magic history in the world.”

“Is there a magician working today that has all of these illusions in one act?”

Lake thought for a few moments. “No one comes to mind. Most of the well-known acts today are either full scale Vegas or television acts—David Blaine, Criss Angel, Lance Burton. On the stage, high-tech is the order of the day.”

“What about the term ‘The Seven Wonders?’ ” Byrne asked. “Have you heard of this?”

“The Seven Wonders does ring a bell, but I can’t place it. If it was an act, it was a small one.”

“So, after seeing these four illusions, are you saying that there is no way you can predict what might be next? What the next three might be?”

“I’m afraid not. I can make a list of other well-known illusions, but it would be many more than three. It would be in the dozens. Probably more.”

Byrne nodded. “One more thing. He said ‘Here’s a clue. He flies between Begichev and Geltser.’ Do these names mean anything to anyone?”

Everyone shook their heads, including Arthur Lake.

“Any idea how to spell those names?” Tony Park asked.

“No,” Byrne said.

Park began to key in possibilities on the computer.

“Let me make a few calls, send a few e-mails,” Lake said. “I’ll get you some answers. Is there somewhere I can do that?”

“Absolutely,” Byrne said. “But are you sure you’ll be able to make contact at this hour?”

Arthur Lake smiled. “Magicians tend to be creatures of the night.”

Byrne nodded, glanced at Hell Rohmer, who shot to his feet.

“Right this way, sir.”

While Hell Rohmer led Lake to an office, Ike Buchanan stepped forward.

Wiry and thin, gray-haired, he was now a thirty-five year veteran. He’d been wounded in the late seventies, a working-class kid who had clawed his way up to a command. He had more than once gone to bat for Jessica. She was both happy and saddened that Sgt. Dwight Buchanan was going to retire in less than a month. He could have coasted to the end, but here he was in the midst of battle, as always. He held in his hands an evidence bag. Inside was Monica Renzi’s necklace. Jessica wondered if this was Ike Buchanan’s Cheerio.

He stood in front a large blowup map of North Philadelphia, specifically the area known as the Badlands.

“I want ten detective teams on the street,” Buchanan said. He pinned ten pushpins on the map. “The first five teams will be deployed at the four corners of the Badlands—North Broad and Spring Garden, North Broad and Erie, Erie and Front Street, Front Street and Spring Garden, along with a team near Norris Square. The other five teams will ring the center.

“If this is going down in East Division, I want gold badges at the scene in ninety seconds or less. Sector cars from the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth will be patrolling and monitoring J-Band. Detective Park and Sergeant Rohmer will work the computers. Any request for information should go directly to them. AV Unit will have eyes glued to the cams.”

Buchanan scanned the sea of anxious faces, looking for questions, comments. None came.

“It looks like there are three girls in jeopardy out there,” he said. “They are our responsibility now. Find them. Find this man. Shut him down.”

| SIXTY-NINE |

| 12 : 46 AM |

T
HE SOUNDS CAME TO HER IN WAVES
. A
T FIRST SHE THOUGHT IT WAS
Rip. When her dog had been a puppy he got out of his small plaid bed every morning at dawn, parked himself at the foot of her bed, tail in motion, thumping the side of the box spring. If that didn’t wake her, he jumped onto her bed and positioned himself, paws out front, right by her ear. He wouldn’t bark, wouldn’t growl, wouldn’t whine, but the sound of his breathing—not to mention the aroma of puppy breath—would eventually wake her up.

Lilly realized it wasn’t Rip. She wasn’t home.

She was in Hell.

The last thing she remembered was getting in the man’s car. He called his wife. Then there was a strong chemical smell, and everything went black. Had they been in an accident? She did a quick inventory of arms and limbs. She wasn’t hurt.

Opening her eyes, the first thing she saw was a bronze chandelier hanging from some sort of plaster medallion on the ceiling. She was in a bed, covered with a white down comforter. The room was dim and hot. It felt like night. She threw off the covers, tried to sit up. Her head felt ready to fall off. She lay back down, and it all came back to her. He had drugged her somehow. She had trusted him, and he had drugged her. She felt the nausea rise in her throat, but battled it back.