The Vanished Man

the digital photos Sachs had taken of the footprints. “Then how ’bout some evidence? ” He examined the perp’s footprints and then the ones that she’d lifted in the corridor near where the janitor had been.
    “Shoes,” he announced.
    “They’re the same?” the detective asked.
    “Yep,” Sachs said, walking to the board. “Ecco, size ten.”
    “Christ,” Sellitto muttered.
    Rhyme asked, “Okay, what do we have? A perp inhis early fifties, medium build, medium height and beardless, two deformed fingers, probably has a record ’cause he’s hiding his prints—and that’s all we goddamn know.” But then Rhyme frowned. “No,” he muttered darkly, “that’s not all we know. There’s something else. He had a change of clothes with him, murder weapons. . . . He’s an organized offender.” He glanced at Sellitto and added, “He’s going to do this again.”
    Sachs nodded her grim agreement.
    Rhyme gazed at Thom’s flowing lettering on the evidence whiteboards and he wondered: What ties this all together?
    The black silk, the makeup, the costume change, the disguises, the flashes and the pyrotechnics.
    The disappearing ink.
    Rhyme said slowly, “I’m thinking that our boy’s got some magic training.”
    Sachs nodded. “Makes sense.”
    Sellitto nodded. “Okay. Maybe. But whatta we do now?”
    “Seems obvious to me,” Rhyme said. “Find our own.”
    “Our own what?” Sellitto asked.
    “Magician of course.”
    •   •   •
    “Do it again.”
    She’d done it eight times so far.
    “Again?”
    The man nodded.
    And so Kara did it again.
    The Triple Handkerchief Release—developed by the famous magician and teacher Harlan Tarbell—is a surefire audience-pleaser. It involves separating threedifferent colored silks that seem hopelessly knotted together. It’s a hard trick to perform smoothly but Kara felt good about how it’d gone.
    David Balzac didn’t, however. “Your coins were talking.” He sighed—harsh criticism, meaning that an illusion or trick was clumsy and obvious. The heavyset older man with a white mane of hair and tobacco-stained goatee shook his head in exasperation. He removed his thick glasses, rubbed his eyes and replaced the specs.
    “I think it was smooth,” she protested. “It seemed smooth to me.”
    “But you weren’t the audience. I was. Now again.”
    They stood on a small stage in the back of Smoke & Mirrors, the store that Balzac had bought after he’d retired from the international magic and illusion circuit ten years ago. The grungy place sold magic supplies, rented costumes and props and presented free, amateur magic shows for customers and locals. A year and a half ago Kara, doing freelance editing for Self magazine, had finally worked up her courage to get up on stage—Balzac’s reputation had intimidated her for months. The aging magician had watched her act and called her into his office afterward. The Great Balzac himself had told her in his gruff but silky voice that she had potential. She could be a great illusionist—with the proper training—and proposed that she come work in the shop; he’d be her mentor and teacher.
    Kara had moved to New York from the Midwest years before and was savvy about city life; she knew immediately what “mentor” might entail, especially when he was a quadruple divorcé and she was an attractivewoman forty years younger than he. But Balzac was a renowned magician—he’d been a regular on Johnny Carson and had been a headliner in Las Vegas for years. He’d toured the world dozens of times and knew virtually every major illusionist alive. Illusion was her passion and this was a chance of a lifetime. She accepted on the spot.
    At the first session her guard was up and she was ready to repel boarders. The lesson indeed turned out to be upsetting to her—though for an entirely different reason.
    He tore her to shreds.
    After an hour of criticizing virtually every aspect of her technique Balzac had looked at her pale, tearful face and barked, “I said you have potential. I didn’t say you were good. If you want somebody to polish your ego you’re in the wrong place. Now, are you going to run home crying to mommy or are you going to get back to work?”
    They got back to work.
    And so began an eighteen-month love-hate relationship between mentor and apprentice, which kept her up until the early hours of the morning six or seven days a week, practicing, practicing, practicing. While Balzac