The Vanished Man

the adrenaline began to subside, leaving in its wake a tasty euphoria. Not a shot fired. One bad-ass loser belly down. . . . Godlovingdamn, itfelt nice—almost as good as that game twelve years ago, bringing down Chris Broderick, who gave a girlie yelp as he slammed into the turf on the one-yard line, having covered the whole length of the field without a clue that Legs Larry had been right behind him all the way.
    •   •   •
    “Hey there, you okay?”
    Bell touched Amelia Sachs on the arm. She was so shaken by Kara’s death that she couldn’t answer. She nodded, breathless with grief.
    Ignoring the pain in her knees from the earlier jogging, Sachs and the detective continued quickly up West End toward where Patrolman Burke had radioed that he’d collared the killer.
    Wondering if Kara had siblings. Oh, God, we’ll have to tell her family.
    No, not we.
    I’ll have to do it. This’s my fault. I make that call.
    Sick with the sorrow she hurried toward the alleyway. Bell glanced at her again, inhaling deeply to catch his breath.
    But at least they’d caught the Conjurer.
    Though she was, in her private heart, sorry she hadn’t been the arresting officer. She wished she’d found herself alone in the alley facing the Conjurer, a gun in his hand. She might’ve used the Glock before the Motorola and tapped his shoulder with a single round. In movies shoulder shots were just flesh wounds, inconveniences, and the heroes survived with nothing more than a sling. The truth, though, was that even a small bullet wound changed your life for a long, long time. Sometimes forever.
    But the killer had been caught and she’d have to be satisfied with multiple murder convictions.
    Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry . . .
    Kara . . .
    Sachs realized she didn’t even know her real name.
    It’s my stage name but I use it most of the time. Better than the one my parents were kind enough to give me.
    This small bit of missing information brought her close to tears.
    She realized that Bell was saying something to her. “You, uhn, with us here, Amelia?”
    A curt nod.
    They turned the corner onto Eighty-eighth Street, where the patrolman had downed the perp. Both ends of the street were being sealed off by RMPs. Bell squinted up the block and noted an alleyway. “There,” he said, pointing. He motioned several cops—both plainclothes detectives and uniformed patrol officers—to follow them.
    “Okay, let’s go wrap him up,” Sachs muttered. “Man, I hope Grady goes for the needle.”
    They stopped and looked into the dim canyon. The alley was empty.
    “Isn’t this it?” Bell asked.
    “He said Eight-eight, right?” Sachs asked. “A block and a half east of West End. I’m sure that was the call.”
    “Me too,” a detective said.
    “This’s gotta be the place.” She looked up and down the street. “No other alleys.”
    Three more officers joined them. “We get it wrong?” one asked, looking around. “This the place or not?”
    Bell called on his Motorola, “Portable Five Two One Two, respond, K.”
    No answer.
    “Portable Five Two, what street are you on, K?”
    Sachs squinted down the alley. “Oh, no.” Her heart sank.
    Running forward, she found, resting on the cobblestones near a pile of garbage, a pair of handcuffs, open. Next to them was a plastic hog tie, which had been severed. Bell ran up beside her.
    “He got out of the goddamn cuffs and cut the restraint.” Sachs looked around.
    “Well, where are they?” one of the uniformed officers asked.
    “Where’s Larry?” another one called.
    “In pursuit?” somebody else offered. “Maybe he’s out of reception area.”
    “Maybe,” drawled Bell, the concern in his tone reflecting the fact that the workhorse Motorolas rarely malfunctioned and their reception in the city was better than most cell phones’.
    Bell called in a 10–39, escaped suspect, with an officer missing or in pursuit. He asked the dispatcher if there’d been any transmissions from Burke but was told there’d been none. No third-party reports of shots fired in the vicinity either.
    Sachs walked the length of the alley, looking for any clues that might suggest where the killer had gone or where the Conjurer might’ve dumped the patrol officer’s body if he’d gotten control of Burke’s gun andkilled him. But neither she nor Bell found any sign of the officer or the perp. She returned to the cluster of cops at the mouth of the alley.
    What a