The Vanished Man

expression, “having wire” meant you were connected to your neighborhood. It was more than a question of knowing the people and the geography of your beat; it was knowing what kind of energy drove them, what kind of perps you could expect, how dangerous they were, how they’d come at their vics—and at you.
    If you didn’t have wire in a ’hood you had no business walking a beat there.
    With the Conjurer, Sachs now understood, she didn’t have wire at all. He could be on the number 9 train right now, headed downtown. Or he could be three feet away from her. She just didn’t know.
    In fact, just then, someone passed close behind her. She felt a breath or wafting of cloth on her neck. She spun around fast, shivering in fear—hand on the butt of her gun, remembering how easily Kara had distracted her as she’d lifted Sachs’s weapon from its holster.
    A half-dozen people were nearby but no one seemed to have stirred the air behind her.
    Or had they?
    A man was walking away, limping. He couldn’t be the Conjurer.
    Or could he?
    The Conjurer can become somebody else in seconds, remember?
    Around her: an elderly couple, the ponytailed biker, three teenagers, a huge man wearing a ConEd uniform. She was at sea, frustrated and scared for herself and for everyone around her.
    No wire . . .
    It was then that a woman’s scream filled the air.
    A voice called, “There! Look! God, somebody’s hurt.”
    Sachs drew her weapon and headed toward the cluster gathering nearby.
    “Get a doctor!”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Oh, God, don’t look, honey!”
    A large crowd had formed near the eastern edge of the plaza, not far from the concession stand. They gazed down in horror at someone lying on the bricks at their feet.
    Sachs lifted her Motorola to call for a medical team and pushed through the crowd. “Let me through, let me—”
    She stopped inside the ring of onlookers and gasped.
    “No,” she whispered, shuddering in dismay at the sight.
    Amelia Sachs was staring at the Conjurer’s latest victim.
    Kara lay on the ground, blood covering her purple blouse and the bricks around her. Her head was back and her still, dead eyes stared toward the azure sky.

Chapter Eighteen
    Numb, Sachs lifted her hand to her mouth.
    Oh, Lord, no . . .
    Robert-Houdin had tighter tricks than the Marabouts. Though I think they almost killed him.
    Don’t worry. I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen to you. . . .
    But she hadn’t. She’d been so focused on the Conjurer that she’d neglected the girl.
    No, no, Rhyme, some dead you can’t give up. This tragedy would be with her forever.
    But then she thought: There’ll be time to mourn. There’ll be time for recrimination and consequences. Right now, start thinking like a goddamn cop. The Conjurer’s nearby. And he is not getting away. This is a crime scene and you know what to do.
    Step one. Seal the escape routes.
    Step two. Seal the scene.
    Step three. Identify, protect and interview witnesses.
    She turned to two fellow patrol officers to delegate some of these tasks. But as Sachs started to speak she heard a voice in her clattering radio. “RMP Four Seven to all available officers on that ten-twenty-four by theriver. Suspect just broke through perimeter at the east side of the street fair. Is now on West End approaching Seven-eight Street, heading north on foot. . . . Wearing jeans, blue shirt with Harley-Davidson logo. Dark hair, braid, black baseball cap. Can’t see any weapons. . . . I’m losing him in the crowd. . . . All available portables and RMPs respond.”
    The biker! He’d ditched his businessman’s clothes and quick-changed. He’d stabbed Kara to misdirect them and then slipped through the perimeter when the officers started toward the girl.
    And I was three feet from him!
    Other officers called in their acknowledgments and joined the chase though it seemed that the killer had a good head start. Sachs caught sight of Roland Bell, who was looking down at Kara, frowning as he pressed the headset of his Motorola closer to his ear, listening to the same transmission that Sachs was. They caught each other’s eyes and he nodded in the direction of the pursuit. Sachs barked orders to a nearby patrolman to seal the scene of Kara’s murder, call the medical examiner and find witnesses.
    “But—” the balding young officer began to protest, none too happy, she guessed, to be taking orders from a peer his own age.
    “No buts,” she said, not