The Vanished Man

onlookers fled in panic as Sachs aimed at the sound of the shooting. Bell did too. They both squinted for targets but the killer was gone by the time her vision returned; she found herself aiming at a cloud of faint smoke—from more of the explosive squibs.
    Then, to the east, she saw the Conjurer on the other side of the parkway. He started up the middle of the street but saw an RMP speeding his way, its lights and sirens frantic, and he leaped up the wide stairway that led to the college and vanished into the crafts fair, like a copperhead disappearing into tall grass.

Chapter Seventeen
    They were everywhere. . . .
    Dozens of police.
    All searching for him.
    Gasping from the sprint, his lungs stinging, the muscles in his side on fire, Malerick leaned against the cool limestone of one of the college’s classroom buildings.
    In front of him a fair spread out over the large plaza, which was jammed with people. He looked behind him, west, the direction he’d come from. Already the police had cut off that entrance. On the north and south sides of the square were tall concrete buildings. The windows were sealed and there were no doors. His only exit was east, on the other side of a football-field-size expanse of booths and dense crowds.
    He made his way in that direction. But he didn’t dare run.
    Because illusionists know that fast attracts attention.
    Slow makes you invisible.
    He glanced at the goods for sale, nodded in pleasure at a guitarist’s performance, laughed at a balloon-tying clown. He did what everyone else did.
    Because unique attracts attention.
    Similar makes you invisible.
    Easing east. Wondering how the police had located him. Of course he’d expected they’d find the drowned body of the woman lawyer sometime today. But they’d moved too fast—it was as if they’d anticipated that he’d kidnap someone in that part of the city, maybe even at the riding academy itself. How?
    Farther east.
    Past the booths, past the concession stand, past a Dixieland band on a red, white and blue draped stage. Ahead of him was the exit—the east stairway leading from the square down to Broadway. Only another fifty feet to freedom, forty.
    Thirty . . .
    But then he saw flashing lights. They seemed nearly as bright as the burst from the flash cotton he’d used to escape from the redheaded officer. The lights were atop four squad cars that squealed to a stop beside the stairway. A half-dozen uniformed officers jumped out. They scanned the stairs and remained with their cars. Meanwhile other officers, in plain clothes, were arriving. They now climbed the stairs and merged into the crowd, looking over the men at the fair.
    Now surrounded, Malerick turned and headed back toward the center of the festival.
    The plain-clothed officers were slowly moving westward. They were stopping men in their fifties who were clean shaven, wearing light shirts and tan slacks. Exactly like him.
    But they were also stopping fifty-year-olds who were bearded and were wearing other clothes. Whichmeant they knew about his quick-change techniques.
    Then he saw what he’d been dreading: The policewoman with the steely eyes and fiery red hair, who’d tried to arrest him at the pond, appeared at the top of the stairs at the west end of the fair. She plunged into the crowd.
    Malerick turned aside, lowering his head and studying some very bad ceramic sculpture.
    What to do? he thought desperately. He had one remaining quick-change outfit left, under what he now wore. But after that, there was no backup.
    The redheaded officer spotted someone who was built and dressed similarly to him. She examined the man closely. Then she turned away and continued to scan the crowd.
    The trim, brown-haired cop who’d been giving Cheryl Marston CPR now crested the stairs and joined the policewoman in the crowd. They conferred for a few moments. Another woman was with him—she didn’t seem like a cop. She had brilliant blue eyes and short reddish-purple hair and was quite thin. She looked over the crowd and whispered something to the woman officer, who headed off in a different direction. The short-haired girl stayed with the male cop and they began to work their way through the crowd.
    Malerick knew he’d be spotted sooner or later. He had to get out of the fair now, before even more cops arrived. Walking to the row of Porta Potties, he stepped inside the fiberglass box and executed a change. In thirty seconds he stepped out again, politely