The Vanished Man

did you feel after your accident, thinking you’d never be a cop again?”
    Rhyme was silent. But the killer’s words hit home. How had he felt? The same anger that fueled Erick Weir, yes. And, true, after the accident the concepts of right and wrong vanished completely. Why not be a criminal? he’d thought in the madness of fury and depression. I can find evidence better than any human being on the face of the earth. That means I can also manipulate it. I could commit the perfect crime. . . .
    In the end, of course, thanks to people like Terry Dobyns and other doctors and fellow cops and his own soul, those thoughts had faded. But, yes, he did know exactly what Weir was talking about. Though even at the bleakest and angriest moments he never considered taking another life—except, of course, his own.
    “So you sold your talents like a mercenary?”
    Weir seemed to realize that he’d lost control for a moment and had said too much. He refused to say anything else.
    Sachs’s anger got the better of her and she stepped to the whiteboard and ripped down several pictures of the first two victims. Shoving them into Weir’s face, she raged, “You killed these people just for diversion? That’s all they meant to you.”
    Weir held her eye, blasé. Then he looked around and laughed. “You really think you can keep me inprison? Do you know that, for a challenge, Harry Houdini was stripped naked and put in death row in Washington, D.C. He escaped from his cell so fast that he had time to open all the doors on the cellblock and switch the condemned prisoners to each other’s cells—before the challenge panel got back from lunch.”
    Sellitto said, “Yeah, well that was a long time ago. We’re a little more sophisticated than that now.” To Rhyme and Sachs he said, “I’ll take him downtown, see if he wants to share a little more with us.”
    But as they started for the doorway Rhyme said, “Hold on.” His eyes were on the evidence chart.
    “What?” Sellitto asked.
    “When he got away from Larry Burke after the crafts fair he slipped the cuffs.”
    “Right.”
    “We found saliva, remember? Take a look in his mouth. See if he’s got a pick or key hidden there.”
    Weir said, “I don’t. Really.”
    Sellitto pulled on the latex gloves that Mel Cooper offered. “Open up. You bite me and I’ll vanish your balls. Got it? One bite, no balls.”
    “Understood.” The Conjurer opened his mouth and Sellitto shined his flashlight into it, fished around a bit. “Nothing.”
    Rhyme said, “There’s another place we ought to check too.”
    Sellitto grunted. “I’ll make sure they do that downtown, Linc. Some things I do not do for the money they pay me.”
    As the detective led Weir toward the door Karasaid, “Wait. Check his teeth. Wiggle them. Especially the molars.”
    Weir stiffened as Sellitto approached. “You can’t do that.”
    “Open up,” the big detective snapped. “Oh, and the balls comment still applies.”
    The Conjurer sighed. “Right top molar. Right on my side, I mean.”
    Sellitto glanced at Rhyme then reached in and gently pulled. His hand emerged with a fake tooth. Inside was a small piece of bent metal. He dumped it on an examining board and replaced the tooth.
    The detective said, “It’s pretty small. He can actually use that?”
    Kara examined it. “Oh, he could open a pair of regulation handcuffs in about four seconds with that.”
    “You’re too much, Weir. Come on.”
    Rhyme thought of something. “Oh, Lon?” The detective glanced his way. “You have a feeling when he helped us find the pick in his tooth that might’ve been a little misdirection?”
    Kara nodded. “You’re right.”
    Weir looked disgusted as Sellitto searched again. This time the detective checked every tooth. He found a second lock pick in a similar fake tooth on the lower left jaw.
    “I’m gonna make sure they put you someplace real special,” the detective said ominously. He then called another officer into the room and had him shackle Weir’s feet with two sets of cuffs.
    “I can’t walk this way,” Weir complained in a wheeze.
    “Baby steps,” Sellitto said coldly. “Take baby steps.”

Chapter Thirty-three
    The man got the message at a diner on Route 244, which because he didn’t have a phone in his trailer—didn’t want one, didn’t trust ’em—is where he took and made all his calls.
    Sometimes a few days went by before he picked up the messages but because he was