The Vanished Man

Balzac was extremely aware of the importance of a performer’s image and always looked his best for any audience, even his customers.
    “You going to go?” she persisted. “I think we should go.”
    Cirque Fantastique—a competitor to the older and bigger Cirque du Soleil—was part of the next generation of circuses. It combined traditional circus routines, ancient commedia dell’arte theater, contemporarymusic and dance, avant-garde performance art and street magic.
    But David Balzac was old school: Vegas, Atlantic City, The Late Show. “Why change something that works?” he’d grumble.
    Kara loved Cirque Fantastique, though, and was determined to get him to a performance. But before she could pitch her case to convince him to accompany her the store’s front door opened and an attractive, redheaded policewoman walked in, asking for the owner.
    “That’s me. I’m David Balzac. What can I do for you?”
    The officer said, “We’re investigating a case involving someone who might’ve had some training in magic. We’re talking to magic supply stores in town, hoping you might be able to help us.”
    “You mean, somebody’s running a scam or something?” Balzac asked. He sounded defensive, a feeling Kara shared. In the past magic has often been linked to crooks—sleight-of-hand artists as pickpockets, for instance, and charlatan clairvoyants using illusionist techniques to convince bereaved family members that the spirits of their relatives are communicating with them.
    But the policewoman’s visit, it turned out, was prompted by something else.
    “Actually,” she said, glancing at Kara then back to Balzac. “The case is a homicide.”

Chapter Seven
    “I have a list of some items we found at a crime scene,” Amelia Sachs told the owner, “and was wondering if you might’ve sold them.”
    He took the sheet she handed him and read it as Sachs looked over Smoke & Mirrors. The black-painted cavern of a store in the photo district, part of Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, smelled of mold and chemicals—plastic too, the petrochemical body odor from the hundreds of costumes that hung like a limp crowd from racks nearby. The grimy glass counters, half of them cracked and taped together, were filled with card decks and wands and phony coins and dusty boxes of magic tricks. A full-size replica of the creature from the Alien movies stood next to a Diana mask and costume. ( BE THE PRINCESS OF THE PARTY! a card read. As if no one in the store even knew she was dead.)
    He tapped the list and then nodded at the counters. “I don’t think I can help. We sell some of this, sure. But so does every magic store in the country. A lot of toy stores too.”
    She observed he hadn’t spent more than a few seconds looking it over. “How about these?” Sachs showed him the printout of the photo of the old handcuffs.
    He glanced at it quickly. “I don’t know anything about escapology.”
    Was this an answer? “So that means you don’t recognize them?”
    “No.”
    “It’s very important,” Sachs persisted.
    The young woman, with striking blue eyes and black fingernails, looked at the picture. “They’re Darbys,” she said. The man glanced at her coolly. She fell silent for a moment then: “Regulation Scotland Yard handcuffs from the eighteen hundreds. A lot of escapists use them. They were Houdini’s favorites.”
    “Where could they’ve come from?”
    Balzac rocked impatiently in his office chair. “We wouldn’t know. Like I was saying, that’s not a field we have any experience with.”
    The woman nodded, agreeing with him. “There’re probably escapology museums somewhere you could get in touch with.”
    “And after you restock,” Balzac said to his assistant, “I need you to process those orders. There were a dozen came in last night after you left.” He lit a cigarette.
    Sachs offered him the list again. “You did say you sold some of these products. Do you have records of customers?”
    “I meant, products like them. And, no, we don’t keep customer records.”
    After some questioning, Sachs finally got him to admit that there were recent records of mail-order and online sales. The young woman checked these, though, and found that nobody had bought any of the items on the evidence list.
    “Sorry,” Balzac said. “Wish we could be more help.”
    “You know, I wish you could be more help too,” Sachs said, leaning forward. “Because, see, this guy killed a woman and