The Vanished Man

tissue wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I figured. What I was going to say was now I need a drink. How ’bout it?”
    “Only if you or Kara pour,” Rhyme said to her. “Don’t let him measure it.” Nodding sourly toward Thom.
    “Would you like something?” Thom asked Kara.
    Rhyme said, “She’ll want an Irish coffee, I’ll bet. . . . Why doesn’t Starbucks start selling those? ”
    Kara declined the liquor but put in an order for a straight Maxwell House or Folgers.
    Sellitto asked about the likelihood of some food since his anticipated Cubano sandwich hadn’t survived the trip back to the town house.
    As the aide vanished into the kitchen Sachs handed Kara the notes she’d taken and asked if she’d write down anything she thought was relevant on the magician profile board. The young woman rose and went into the lab.
    “That was good,” Sellitto told Sachs, “that interviewing. I don’t know any sergeants could’ve done it better.”
    She nodded an unsmiling acknowledgment but Rhyme could tell she was pleased at the compliment.
    A few minutes later Mel Cooper walked into the doorway, his face smudged too. He held up a plastic bag. “This’s all the evidence from the Mazda.” The bag contained what seemed to be a four-page folio—a single folded sheet—of The New York Times. It was clear that Sachs hadn’t run the scene; wet evidence should be stored in paper or fiber mesh containers, not plastic, which promotes molds that can quickly destroy it.
    “That was all they found?” Rhyme asked.
    “So far. They haven’t been able to raise the car yet. Too dangerous.”
    Rhyme asked him, “Can you see the date?”
    Cooper examined the soggy paper. “Two days ago.”
    “Then it has to be the Conjurer’s,” Rhyme noted. “The car was stolen before then. Why would somebodysave just one sheet from a newspaper and not the whole section?” The question, as many of Rhyme’s, was purely rhetorical and he didn’t bother to let anyone else have a shot at it. “Because there’s an article in it that was important to him. And therefore maybe important to us. Of course maybe he’s a dirty old man and likes the Victoria’s Secret ads. But even that might be helpful information. Can you read anything on it?”
    “Nope. And I don’t want to unfold it yet. Too wet.”
    “Okay, get it over to the document lab. If they can’t open it at least they can image the headlines with infrared.”
    Cooper arranged for a messenger to take the sample to the NYPD crime lab in Queens and then called the head document examiner at home to expedite the analysis. He disappeared into the lab to transfer the newspaper to a better container for transport.
    Thom arrived with the drinks—and a plate of sandwiches, which Sellitto promptly assaulted.
    A few minutes later Kara returned and gratefully took the coffee mug from the aide. As she started pouring sugar in, she said to Sachs, “I was writing those things we found out about him on the board? And I got an idea. So I made a phone call. I think I found his real name.”
    “Whose?” Rhyme asked, sipping his heavenly scotch.
    “Well, the Conjurer’s.”
    The faint ring as Kara stirred the sugar into her coffee became the only sound in the otherwise dead-silent room.

Chapter Twenty-eight
    “You’ve got his name? ” Sellitto asked. “Who is he?”
    “I think it’s a man named Erick Weir.”
    “Spelled?” Rhyme asked.
    “W-E-I-R.” More sugar into the coffee. Then she continued. “He was a performer, an illusionist, a few years ago. I called Mr. Balzac—nobody knows the business like he does. And I gave him the profile and told him some of the things he’d said to Lincoln tonight. He got kind of weird—not to mention mad.” A glance at Sachs. “The way he was this morning. He didn’t want to help at first. But finally he calmed down and told me that it sounded like Weir.”
    “Why?” Sachs asked.
    “Well, he’d be about the same age. Early fifties. And Weir was known for dangerous routines. Sleights with razor blades and knives. He’s also one of the few people who’s ever done the Burning Mirror. And remember I said illusionists always specialize? It’s really unusual to find one performer who’s good at so many different tricks—illusion and escape and protean and sleight, even ventriloquism and mentalism? Well, Weir did all of them. And he was an expert on Houdini. Some of what he’s been doing thisweekend are Houdini’s