The Vanished Man

pants.”
    “Color?”
    “The jacket and pants were dark. Blue or black. I didn’t see his shirt.”
    Bell returned with his officers and muttered, “Not a burr on the dog.”
    “Got a lead here.” She explained about the rider and the bearded man then asked the girl, “And you’re pretty sure she didn’t know this guy?”
    “No way. Ms. Marston and me, we’ve known each other for a while and she told me she’s like totally off dating. Doesn’t trust men. Her ex, he cheated on her and then, in the divorce, he got the sailboat. She’s still pissed about that.”
    •   •   •
    The best illusionists, my friends, engage in a practice known as “routining.” That means planning the order and the pacing of their acts carefully—to make the performances as intense as possible.
    For our third act today we first saw our animal illusion, featuring wonder-horse Donny Boy, in Central Park. Then we slowed the pace with some classic sleight of hand, combined with a touch of mentalism.
    And now we turn to escapism.
    We’ll see what is perhaps Harry Houdini’s most famous escape. In this routine, which he developed himself, he was bound, hung by his heels and submerged in a narrow tank of water. He had only a few minutes to try to bend upward from the waist, release his ankles and open the locked top of the chamber before he drowned.
    The tank was, of course, “prepared.” The bars apparently intended to keep the glass from shattering were actually handholds that let him pull himself up to reach his ankles. The locks on his feet and the top of the tank itself had hidden latches that would instantly release his ankles and the lid.
    Our re-creation of the famous escapist’s popular feat, needless to say, doesn’t offer such features. Our performer will be on her own. And I’ve added a few variations of my own. All for your entertainment, of course.
    And now, courtesy of Mr. Houdini, the Water Torture Cell.
    Now beardless and dressed in chinos and a white dress shirt over a white T-shirt, Malerick wrapped chains tightly around Cheryl Marston. Her ankles first then her chest and arms.
    He paused and looked around again but they remained hidden from view of the road and the river by thick bushes.
    They were beside the Hudson River, next to a small stagnant pool of water, which at one time had apparently been a tiny inlet for dinghies. Landfill and debris had sealed it long ago and created this foul-smelling pond about ten feet in diameter. On one side was a rotting pier in the middle of which was a rusty crane that had been used for lifting boats out of the water. Malerick now swung a rope over the crane, caught the end and began tying it to the chains holding Cheryl’s feet.
    Escapists love chains. They look impressive, they have a wonderfully sadistic flavor to them and seem more formidable than silks and ropes. And they’re heavy—just the thing to keep a bound performer under water.
    “No, no, noooo,” whispered the groggy woman.
    He stroked her hair as he surveyed the chains. Simple and tight. Houdini wrote, “Strange as it may appear, I have found that the more spectacular the fastening to the eyes of the audience, the less difficult the escape really proves to be.”
    This was true, Malerick knew from experience. Dramatic-looking masses of thick ropes and chains wound around and around the illusionist were in fact easy to get out of. Fewer restraints and simpler fasteners were much harder. Like these, for instance.
    “Noooooo,” she whispered groggily. “It hurts. Please! . . . What are you—?”
    Malerick pressed duct tape over her mouth. Then he braced himself, took a good grip and slowly pulleddown on the rope, which in turn lifted the whimpering lawyer’s feet and began dragging her slowly toward the brackish water.
    •   •   •
    On this glorious spring afternoon a busy crafts fair filled the large central square of West Side College between Seventy-ninth and Eightieth Streets, so dense with visitors it would be virtually impossible to spot the killer and his victim in the crowd.
    On this glorious spring afternoon customers filled the scores of neighborhood restaurants and coffee shops, in any one of which the Conjurer might at this moment be suggesting to Cheryl Marston that she go for a drive with him or they stop at her apartment.
    On this glorious spring afternoon fifty alleyways bisected the blocks here and offered, in their dim seclusion, a perfect killing