The Vanished Man

divorced parents and a love of tennis. Look at all these coincidences! A match made in heaven. . . .
    Almost time, he thought. Though he was in no hurry. Even if the police had some leads to what he was up to they’d be thinking he wouldn’t kill anyone again until 4:00; it was now just after two.
    You may think, Revered Audience, that the world of illusion never intersects the world of reality but that’s not wholly true.
    I think of John Mulholland, the renowned magician and editor of the magic magazine The Sphinx. He abruptly announced his early retirement from magic and journalism in the nineteen fifties.
    No one could figure out why. But then the rumors began—rumors that he’d started working for the American intelligence community to teach spies how to use magic techniques to deliver drugs in such subtle ways that even the most paranoid Communist didn’t know he was being given a Mickey.
    What do you see in my hands, Revered Audience? Look closely at my fingers. Nothing, right? They seem empty. And yet, as you’ve probably guessed, they aren’t. . . .
    Now using one of Mulholland’s smoother clandestine drugging techniques, Malerick picked up his spoon with his left hand. As he tapped it absently on the tabletop Cheryl glanced at it. A mere fraction of a second. But it gave Malerick enough time to empty a tiny capsule of tasteless powder into her coffee as he reached for the sugar with his other hand.
    John Mulholland would’ve been proud.
    After a few moments Malerick could see that the drug was having its effect; her eyes were slightly unfocused and she was weaving as she sat. She didn’t sense anything was wrong, though. That was the good thing about flunitrazepam, the famous date-rape drug Rohypnol: you didn’t know you’d been drugged. Not until the next morning. Which in Cheryl Marston’s case wasn’t going to be an issue.
    He looked at her and smiled. “Hey, you want to see something fun?”
    “Fun?” she asked drowsily. She blinked, smiling broadly.
    He paid the check and then said to her. “I just bought a boat.”
    She laughed in delight. “A boat? I love boats. What kind?”
    “Sailboat. Thirty-eight feet. My wife and I had one,” Malerick added sadly. “She got it in the divorce.”
    “John, no, you’re kidding me!” she said, laughing groggily. “My husband and I had one! He got ours in the divorce.”
    “Really?” He laughed and stood. “Hey, let’s walk down to the river. You can see it from there.”
    “I’d love to.” She rose unsteadily and took his arm.
    He steered her through the doorway. The dosage seemed right. She was submissive but she wasn’t going to pass out before he got her into the bushes next to the Hudson.
    They headed toward Riverside Park. “You were talking about boats,” she said drunkenly.
    “That’s right.”
    “My ex and I had one,” she said.
    “I know,” Malerick said. “You told me.”
    “Oh, did I?” Cheryl laughed.
    “Hold on,” he said. “I have to get something.”
    He stopped at his car, a stolen Mazda, and took a heavy gym bag from the backseat, locked the car again. From inside the bag came a loud clank of metal. Cheryl glanced at it, began to speak but then seemed to forget what she was going to say.
    “Let’s go this way.” Malerick led her to the end of the cross street, across a pedestrian bridge over the parkway and down into an overgrown, deserted strip of land on the riverbank.
    He disengaged her arm from his and gripped her firmly around the back and under the arm. He felt her breast with his fingers as her head lolled against him.
    “Look,” she said, pointing unsteadily into theHudson, where dozens of sailboats and cabin cruisers moved over the sparkling dark blue water.
    Malerick said, “My boat’s down there.”
    “I like boats.”
    “So do I,” he said softly.
    “Really?” she asked, laughing and adding in a whisper that, guess what, she and her ex-husband had had one. But she’d lost it in the divorce.

Chapter Fifteen
    The riding academy was a slice of old New York.
    Smelling powerful barn scent, Amelia Sachs looked through an archway into the interior of the woody old place at the horses and, atop them, riders—all of whom looked stately in their tan pants, black or red riding jackets, velvet helmets.
    A half-dozen uniformeds from the nearby Twentieth Precinct stood in and outside the lobby. More officers were in the park, under the command of Lon Sellitto, deployed around the