And one magic store clerk, now entering the shop.
"Hi," said the woman with short reddish-purple hair, carrying a battered faux zebra-skin purse over her shoulder. She ordered a large coffee, filled it with sugar and joined Sachs at the bar.
Back at Smoke Mirrors the policewoman had asked about a venue for coffee because of a conspiratorial glance the assistant had shot Sachs; it seemed that she'd wanted to say something out of Balzac's presence. Sipping her coffee thirstily, the woman said, "The thing about David
is-"
"He's uncooperative?"
A frown of consideration. "Yeah. That says it pretty well. Anything out
side his world he doesn't trust or want any part of. He was afraid we'd have to be witnesses or something. I'm not supposed to be distracted."
"From what?"
"From the profession."
"
Magic?"
"Right. See, he's sort of my mentor more than my boss."
"What's your name?"
"Kara-it's my stage name but I use it most of the time." A pained smile. "Better than the one my parents were kind enough to give me."
Sachs lifted a curious eyebrow.
'We'll keep that a secret."
"So," Sachs said, "why'd you give me that look back at the store?" "David's right about that list. You can buy those things anywhere, in any store. Or on the Internet in hundreds of places. But about the Darbys, the handcuffs? Those're rare. You should call the Houdini and Escapology Museum in New Orleans. It's the best in the world. Escapism's one of my things. I don't tell him, though." Reverent emphasis on the third-person
pronoun. "David's kind of opinionated.... Can you tell me what happened? With that murder?"
Normally circumspect about what she gave away on an active case, Sachs knew they needed help and gave Kara an outline of the killing and the escape.
"Oh, that's horrible," the young woman whispered.
"Yeah," Sachs replied softly. "It is."
"The way he disappeared? There's something you ought to know, Officer-Wait, do I call you 'officer'? Or are you like a detective or something?" "Amelia's fine." Enjoying a brief memory of how she'd aced the assessment exercise.
Bang, bang...
Kara sipped more coffee, decided that it wasn't sweet enough and un
screwed the top of the sugar bottle then poured more in. Sachs watched the young woman's deft hands then glanced down at her own fingernails, two of which were tom, the cuticles bloody. The girl's were perfectly filed and the glossy black finish reflected the overhead lights in exact miniature. A jealous twinge-at the nails and the self-control that kept them so perfect-flared momentarily and then was put quickly to sleep by Amelia Sachs.
Kara asked, "You know what illusion is?"
"David Copperfield," Sachs replied, shrugging. "Houdini."
"Copperfield, yes. Houdini, no-he was an escapist. Well, illusion's different from sleight of hand or close-in magic, we call it. Like..." Kara held up a quarter in her fingers, change from the coffee. She closed her palm and when she opened it again the coin was gone.
Sachs laughed. Where the hell had it gone?
"That was sleight of hand. Illusion is tricks involving large objects or people or animals. What you just described, what that killer did, is a classic illusionist trick. It's called the Vanished Man."
"Vanishing Man?"
"No, the Vanished Man. In magic we use 'vanish' to mean 'to make disappear.' Like, 'I just vanished the quarter.'"
"Go on."
"The way it's performed usually is a little different from what you described but basically it involves the illusionist getting out of a locked room. The audience sees him step into this little room onstage-they can see the back because of a big mirror behind it. They hear him pound on the walls.
The assistants pull the walls down and he's gone. Then one of the assistants turns around and it's the illusionist"
"How does it work?"
"There was a door-in the back of the room. The illusionist covers himself
with a large piece of black silk so the audience can't see him in the mirror and slips through the back door just after he walks inside. There's a speaker built into one of the walls to make it sound like he was inside all the time and a gimmick that hits the walls and sounds like he's pounding. Once the illusionist's outside he does a quick change behind the silk into an assistant's costume."
Sachs nodded. "That's it, all right. Could we get a short list of people who know the routine?"
"No, sorry-it's pretty common."
The Vanished Man...
Sachs was recalling that the killer had changed disguises quickly to be
come an older man, recalling, too, Balzac's lack of cooperation and the cold look in his eyes-almost sadistic-when he was talking to Kara. She asked, "I need to ask-where was he this morning?"
"Who?"
"Mr. Balzac."
"Here. 1 mean, in the building. He lives there, above the store.... Wait, you're not thinking he was involved?"
"These're questions we need to ask," Sachs said noncommittally. The young woman seemed more amused than upset by the inquiry, though. She gave a laugh. "Look, 1 know he's gruff and he has this... I guess you'd call it an edge, you know. A temper. But he'd never hurt anybody."
Sachs nodded but then asked, "Still, you know where he was at eight this
morning?" Kara nodded. "Yeah, he was at the store. He got in early because some friend of his is in town doing a show and needed to borrow some equipment. I called to tell him I'd be a little late." Sachs nodded. Then a moment later asked, "Can you take a little time
off work?" "Me? Oh, no way." An embarrassed laugh. "I was lucky to sneak out now. There're a thousand things to do around the store. Then I've got three or four hours of rehearsing with David for a show I'm doing tomorrow. He doesn't let me rest the day before a performance. I-"
Sachs held the woman's crisp blue eyes. 'We're really afraid this person's
going to kill someone else."
Kara's eyes swept the sticky mahogany bar.
"Please. Just for a few hours. Look over the evidence with us. Brain
storm."
"He won't let me. You don't know David."
'What I know is that I'm not letting anybody else get hurt if there's any
way I can stop it." Kara finished her coffee and absently played with the cup. "0 sing our
tricks to kill people," she whispered in a dismayed voice.
Sachs said nothing and let silence do the arguing for her.
Finally the young woman grimaced. "My mother's in a home. She's been
in and out of the infirmary. Mr. Balzac knows that. I guess I could tell him I have to go check on her."
'We really could use your help."
"Oh-oh. The sick mother excuse.... God's gonna get me for this one." Sachs glanced down again at Kara's perfect, black nails. "Hey, one thing: What happened to that quarter?"
"Look under your coffee cup," the girl replied.
Impossible. "No way."
Sachs lifted up the cup. There sat the coin.
The bewildered policewoman asked, "How'd you do that?"
Kara's answer was an enigmatic smile. She nodded at the cups. "Let's get a couple more to go." She picked up the coin. "Heads you buy, tails it's on me. Two out of three." She flipped it into the air.
Sachs nodded. "Deal."
The young woman caught it and glanced into her cupped palm. She looked up. 'We said two out of three, right?"
Sachs nodded.
Kara opened her fingers. Inside were two dimes and a nickel. The dimes were heads up. No sign of the quarter. "Guess this means you're buying."
Chapter Eight
"Lincoln, meet Kara." She'd been warned, Rhyme could see, but the young woman still blinked in surprise and glanced at him with the Look. The one he knew so well. Accompanied by the Smile. It was the famous don't-look-at-his-body gaze, accompanied by the oh
you' re- handicapped- I - never-noticed grin. And Rhyme knew she'd be counting down the moments until she could
get the hell out of his presence. The spritely young woman walked farther into the parlor lab in Rhyme's town house. "Hi. Nice to meet you." The eyes remained rooted in his. At least she didn't start forward with that minuscule lean that told him she was stifling an offered handshake and then cringe in horror at the faux pas.
Okay, Kara. Don't worry. You can give the gimp your insights then get
the hell out. He offered her a superficial smile that matched hers crease for crease
and said how pleased he was to meet her too. Which on a professional level, at least, wasn't sardonic-Kara was, it turned out, the only magician lead they'd snared. None of the employees at the other shops in town had been any help-and everyone had alibis for the time of the killing.
She was introduced to Lon Sellitto and Mel Cooper. Thorn nodded and
did one of the things he was known for, whether Rhyme wanted him to or not: offered refreshments.
'We're not really in a church social mode here, Thom," Rhyme muttered.
Kara said no that was all right but Thom said no he was insisting. "Maybe coffee?" she asked.
"Coming up."
"Black. Sugar. Maybe a couple sugars?"
'We really-" Rhyme began.
"For the whole room," the aide announced. 'Tll make a pot. Get some bagels too."
"Bagels?" Sellitto asked.
"You could open a restaurant in your spare time," Rhyme snapped to the aide. "Get it out of your system.".
'What's spare time?" came the trim blond man's fast quip. He headed
for the kitchen. "Officer Sachs," he continued to Kara, "told us that you had some infor
mation you thought might help." "I hope so." Another tight perusal of Rhyme's face. The Look again. Closer this time. Oh, for Christ's sake, just say something. Ask me how it happened. Ask me if it hurts. Ask me what it's like to pee into a tube. "Hey, what're we calling him?" Sellitto tapped the top of the evidence whiteboard. Until the identity of the unsub-for "unknown subject"-was learned, many law enforcers gave perps nicknames. "How 'bout the 'Magician'?"
"No, that sounds too tame," Rhyme said, looking at the pictures of the victim. "How's the 'Conjurer'?" Surprising himself by offering this decidedly right-brained suggestion.
'Works for me."
In handwriting far less elegant than Thom's the detective wrote the words on top of the chart.
The Conjurer...
"Now let's see if we can make him appear," Rhyme said.
Sachs said, "Tell them about the Vanished Man."
The young woman rubbed her hand over her boyish hair as she described an illusionist's trick that sounded almost identical to what the Conjurer had done at the music school.
She added the discouraging news, though, that most illusionists would
!mow about it. Rhyme asked, "Give us some idea about how he does the tricks. Techniques. So we'll know what to expect from him if he tries to target somebody else."
"You want me to tip the gaff, huh?"
"Tip the-?"
"Gaff," Kara said, then explained: "See, all magic tricks're made up of an effect and a method. The effect is what the audience sees. You know: the girl levitating, the coins falling through a solid tabletop. The method is the mechanism of how the magician does it-wires holding up the girl, palming the coins then dropping identical ones from a rig under the table."
Effect and method, Rhyme reflected. Kind of like what I do: the effect is catching a perp when it seems impossible. The method is the science and logic that let us do it.
Kara continued, "Tipping the gaff means giving away the method of a trick. Like I just did-explaining how the Vanished Man worked. It's a sensitive thing-Mr. Balzac, my mentor, he's always hounding magicians who tip the gaff in public and give away other people's methods."
Thorn carted a tray into the room. He poured coffee for those who wanted some. Kara dumped sugar into hers and sipped it fast, even though to Rhyme it seemed scalding hot. He glanced at the Macallan eighteenyear-old single malt on a bookcase across the room. Thorn noticed his eyes and said, "It's mid-morning. Don't even think about it."
Sellitto gave a similarly lustful gaze toward the bagels. He allowed himself only half. Without cream cheese. He looked pained with every bite.
