The Vanished Man

extreme causes—his interest was only in making money with his very special talents. Which suited everybody just fine. Over lunch, Magic Man Weir had laid out his plan about Charles Grady then he shook their hands and left. A few days ago Barnes and Stemple had shipped off the skippy, girl-lovin’ Reverend Swensen to New York with instructions to kill Grady on Saturday night. And he’d bobbled the job as predicted.
    Hobbs was supposed to “stay on call,” Mr. Weir had said. “In case he was needed.”
    And apparently now he was. He punched in the number of the cell phone Barnes used, the account in someone else’s name, and heard an abrupt “Yeah?”
    “S’me.”
    Because of the state police all over the county looking for Barnes they’d agreed to keep all conversations over the phone to a minimum.
    Barnes said, “You gotta do what we talked about at lunch.”
    “Uh-huh. Go to the lake.”
    “Right.”
    “Go to the lake and take the fishing gear with me?” Hobbs said.
    “That’s right.”
    “Yessir. When?”
    “Now. Right away.”
    “Then I will.”
    Barnes hung up abruptly and Hobbs changed his omelette to a coffee and a bacon and egg sandwich, extra Kraft, to go. When Jeddy Barnes said now, right away, now and right away was how you did whatever you were supposed to do.
    When the food was ready he pushed outside, fired up his pickup and drove fast onto the highway. He had one stop to make—his trailer. Then he’d pick up the old junker Dodge registered to somebody who didn’t exist and speed down to the “lake,” which didn’t mean any kind of lake at all; it meant a particular place in New York City.
    Just like the “fishing gear” he was supposed to take with him sure didn’t mean a rod and reel either.
    •   •   •
    Back in the Tombs.
    On one side of the floor-bolted table sat a grim-faced Joe Roth, Andrew Constable’s pudgy lawyer.
    Charles Grady was on the other side, flanked by his second, Roland Bell. Amelia Sachs stood; the pungent interview room, with its jaundiced, milky windows, gave her a renewed sense of claustrophobia, which had been receding only slowly after the terrible panic at the Cirque Fantastique. She fidgeted and rocked her weight back and forth.
    The door opened and Constable’s guard led the prisoner into the room, recuffed his hands in front of him. Then he swung the door closed and returned to the corridor.
    “It didn’t work” was the first thing Grady said to him. A calm voice, oddly dispassionate, Sachs thought, considering that his family had nearly been wiped out.
    “What didn’t . . . ?” Constable began. “Is this about that fool Ralph Swensen?”
    “No, this is about Erick Weir,” Grady said.
    “Who?” A frown that seemed genuine crossed the man’s face.
    The prosecutor went on to explain about the attempt on his family’s life by the former illusionist turned professional killer.
    “No, no, no. . . . I didn’t have anything to do with Swensen. And I didn’t have anything to do with this. ” The man looked helplessly at the scarred tabletop. There was some graffiti scraped in the gray paint beside his hands. It seemed to be an A then a C then a partial K. “I’ve told you all along, Charles, there’re some people I’ve known in the past who’ve gone way overboard with things. They see you and the state as the enemies—working with the Jewish people and the African Americans or whoever—and they’re twisting my words around and using me as an excuse to come after you.” He said in a low voice, “I’ll say it again. I promise you that I had nothing to do with this.”
    Roth said to the prosecutor, “Let’s not play games here, Charles. You’re just fishing. If you’ve got something to connect my client to the break-in of your apartment, then—”
    “Weir killed two individuals yesterday—and a police officer. That makes it capital murder.”
    Constable winced. His lawyer added bluntly, “Well, I’m sorry about that. But I notice you haven’t charged my client. Because you don’t have any evidence linking him to Weir, right?”
    Grady ignored this and continued, “We’re negotiatingwith Weir right now about turning state’s evidence.”
    Constable turned his eyes to Sachs, looked her up and down. He seemed helpless and the gaze suggested that he was imploring her to help in some way. Perhaps she was supposed to provide the voice of female reason. But she remained silent, as did Bell. It wasn’t