The Vanished Man

Rhyme and, in a Hispanic accent, asked Bell, “You called for prisoner transport, Detective?”
    Bell nodded to the corner of the room. “She’s over there. I Mirandized her.”
    The woman glanced toward the corner of the room at Kara’s prone form and said, “Okay, I’ll take her downtown.” She hesitated. “But I got a question first.”
    “Question?” Rhyme asked, frowning.
    “What’re you talking about, Officer?” Bell asked.
    Ignoring the detective, the officer sized up Kadesky. “Could I see some identification, sir?”
    “Me?” the producer asked.
    “Yessir. I’ll need to see your driver’s license.”
    “You want my ID again? I did that the other day.”
    “Sir, please.”
    Huffily the man reached into his hip pocket and withdrew his wallet.
    Except that it wasn’t his.
    He stared at a battered zebra-skin billfold. “Wait, I . . . I don’t know what this is.”
    “It’s not yours?” the cop asked.
    “No,” he said, troubled. He began patting his pockets. “I don’t know—”
    “See, that’s what I was afraid of,” the policewoman said. “I’m sorry, sir. You’re under arrest for pickpocketing. You have the right to remain silent—”
    “This is bullshit,” Kadesky muttered. “There’s some mistake.” He opened up the wallet and stared at it for a moment. Then he barked an astonished laugh, held up the driver’s license for everyone to see. It was Kara’s.
    There was a handwritten note inside. It dropped out. He picked it up. “It says, ‘Gotcha,’ ” Kadesky said, narrowing his eyes and studying the policewoman closely, then the driver’s license. “Wait, is this you ?”
    The “officer” laughed and removed the glasses then her cop cap and the brunette wig beneath it,revealing the short reddish hair once again. With a towel that Roland Bell, now chuckling hard, handed her she wiped the dark-complexion makeup off her face and peeled away the thick eyebrows and the fake red nails covering the black glossy ones. She then took her wallet back from the hands of the astonished Edward Kadesky and handed him his, which she’d dipped when she’d plowed into him and Sachs in her “escape” toward the door.
    Sachs was shaking her head, too astonished to react. She and Kadesky were both staring at the body lying on the floor.
    The young illusionist walked into the corner and lifted the device, a lightweight frame in the shape of a person lying on her stomach. Short reddish-purple hair covered the head portion, and the body wore clothing that resembled the jeans and windbreaker Kara’d been in when Bell had cuffed her. The arms of the outfit ended in what turned out to be latex hands, hooked together with Bell’s handcuffs, which Kara had escaped from and then relatched on the phony wrists.
    “It’s a feke,” Rhyme now announced to the room, nodding at the frame. “A phony Kara.”
    When Sachs and the others had turned away—misdirected by Rhyme toward the chart—Kara had escaped from the cuffs, unfurled the body frame and then silently slipped out the door to do the quick change in the hallway.
    She now folded up the device, which compressed into a little package the size of a small pillow—she’d had it hidden under her jacket when she’d arrived. The dummy wouldn’t have passed close examination but inthe shadows, with an unsuspecting, misdirected audience, no one had noticed it wasn’t the girl.
    Kadesky was shaking his head. “You did the whole escape and the quick change in less than a minute?”
    “Forty seconds.”
    “How?”
    “You saw the effect,” Kara said to him. “Think I’ll keep the method to myself.”
    “So the point of this is, I assume,” said Kadesky cynically, “that you want an audition?”
    Kara hesitated and Rhyme shot a prodding glance toward the young woman.
    “No, the point is, this was the audition. I want a job.”
    Kadesky studied her closely. “It was one trick. You have others?”
    “Plenty.”
    “How many changes’ve you done in one show?”
    “Forty-two changes. Thirty characters. During a thirty-minute routine.”
    “Forty-two setups in half an hour?” the producer asked, eyebrows raised.
    “Yep.”
    He debated for only a few seconds. “Come see me next week. I’m not cutting back my current artists’ time in the ring. But they could use an assistant and an understudy. And maybe you can do some shows at our winter camp in Florida.”
    Rhyme and Kara exchanged glances. He nodded