The Vanished Man

can cook some smack and shoot up. It was improving slowly but was still one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Manhattan. Both cops had their weapons drawn by the time they approached the door.
    If they were lucky he’d be armed only with a knife. Or something like what that cluckhead gone on crack had threatened him with last week: a chopstick and garbage can lid for a shield.
    Well, they got one break at least—they didn’t have to find somebody to let them through the security door. An elderly woman, listing against the weight of a shopping bag that sprouted a huge pineapple, was on her way out. Blinking in surprise, she held the door open for the two cops and they hurried inside, answering her question about their presence with a noncommittal, “Nothing to be concerned about, ma’am.”
    If we’re lucky . . .
    Apartment 1J was on the ground floor toward the back. The sergeant positioned himself to the left of the door. The other officer, opposite, glanced at him and nodded. The sergeant rapped hard with his big knuckles. “Police. Open the door. Open it now!”
    No response from inside.
    “Police!”
    He tried the knob. More luck. It was unlocked. The sergeant shoved the door open and both men stood back, waiting. Finally the sergeant peeked ’round the corner.
    “Oh, Christ on earth,” he whispered when he saw what was in the center of the living room.
    The word “luck” vanished from his thoughts entirely.
    •   •   •
    The secret to successful protean magic—quick change—is making distinct but simple changes to your appearance and demeanor while simultaneously distracting your audience with misdirection.
    And no change was more distinctive than turning yourself into a seventy-five-year-old bag woman.
    Malerick had known the police would arrive quickly. So after the brief performance in Tony Calvert’s apartment he did a fast change into one of his escape outfits: a high-necked blue dress and a white wig. He pulled his elasticized jeans above the hemline of the dress, revealing opaque support hose. The beard came off and he applied a heavy base of eccentric-lady rouge. He painted on excessive eyebrow liner. Several dozen strokes with a thin sienna pencil gave him septuagenarian wrinkles. A change of shoes.
    As for the misdirection, he’d found a shopping bag and filled the bottom with newspaper—along with the pipe and the other weapon he’d used for his routine—and added a large fresh pineapple from Calvert’s kitchen. If he met anyone as he left the building they might glance at him but they’d focus on the sizable pineapple, which is just what happened as he politely held the door open for the arriving officers.
    Now, a quarter mile from the building, still dressed as the woman, he stopped and leaned against the wall of a building as if he were catching his breath. Then he eased into a dim alley. With one tug the dress, held together by tiny Velcro dots, came off. This garment andthe wig went under a foot-wide elastic band he wore around his stomach, which compressed the items and made them invisible under his shirt.
    He tugged his pants cuffs down, took makeup removal pads from a Baggie in his pocket and wiped his face until the rouge, wrinkles and eyebrow pencil were gone, checking to make sure with a small pocket mirror. The pads he dropped into the shopping bag with the pineapple, which he in turn placed in a green garbage bag. He found a car illegally parked, picked the lock to the trunk and tossed the bag inside. The police would never think to search the trunks of parked cars and, anyway, the odds were that the car would be towed before the owner returned.
    Back on the street, heading for one of the West Side subways.
    And what did you think of our second act, Revered Audience?
    He himself thought it had gone well, considering that because he’d slipped on the damn cobblestones the performer had gotten away and managed to close and lock two doors.
    But by the time Malerick had gotten to the back door of Calvert’s building he had his picking tools in hand.
    Malerick had studied the fine art of lockpicking for years. It was one of the first skills his mentor had taught him. A picker uses two tools: a tension wrench, which is inserted into the lock and twisted to keep pressure on the locking pins inside, and the pick itself, which pushes each pin out of the way so the lock can be turned to the open position.
    It can be time-consuming to push aside the pins one