The Vanished Man

any of them; they all involved bridges and most were via controlled-access highways, where he’d easily be trapped.
    More likely he’d abandon the sedan in a relatively quiet neighborhood and carjack a new one.
    A new voice resounded in her headset. “Sachs, we’ve got him!”
    “Where, Rhyme?”
    He’d turned westbound on 125th Street, the criminalist explained. “Near Fifth Avenue.”
    “I’m just about at One-two-five and Adam Clayton Powell. I’ll try to block him. But get me some backup,” she called.
    “We’re on it, Sachs. Just how fast are you going?”
    “I’m not really looking at the speedometer.”
    “Probably just as well. Keep your eyes on the road.”
    Sachs honked her way into the busy intersection at 125th Street. She parked crosswise, blocking the westbound lanes. She jumped out of her car, her Glock in her hand. Several cars were stopped in the eastbound lanes. Sachs shouted to the drivers, “Out! Police action. Get out of those cars and get under cover.” The drivers—a deliveryman and a woman in a McDonald’s uniform—instantly did as they were told.
    Now all the lanes of 125th Street were blocked.
    “Everybody,” she shouted. “Get under cover! Now!”
    “Motherfuck.”
    “Yo.”
    She glanced to her right to see four gangbangers leaning against a chain-link fence, staring with jaded interest at the Austrian gun, the Detroit car and the redhead they belonged to.
    Most other people on the street had taken cover but these four teenagers stayed right where they were, looking casual as Sunday. Why move? It wasn’t often that a Wesley Snipes movie came to their ’hood.
    In the distance Sachs saw the Mazda weaving frantically through traffic as it sped west toward her impromptu roadblock. The Conjurer didn’t notice the blockade until he was past the street that he could’ve taken to avoid her. He skidded to a halt. Behind him a garbage truck making a turn braked hard. The driver and the trash collectors saw what was happening and they bailed, leaving the truck to block him from the rear.
    She glanced at the teens again. “Get down!” she called.
    Sneering, they ignored her.
    Sachs shrugged, leaned over the hood of the Camaro and centered the blade sight on the windshield.
    So here he was at last, the Conjurer. She could see his face, his blue Harley shirt. Beneath a black cap his fake braid whipped back and forth as he looked desperately for some way to escape.
    But there wasn’t any.
    “You! In the Mazda! Get out of the car and lie down on the ground!”
    No response.
    “Sachs?” Rhyme’s voice came through the headset. “Can you—”
    She ripped the unit off and centered the sight once more on the silhouette of the killer’s head.
    You have the gun to use, and you may as well use it. . . .
    Hearing Detective Mary Shanley’s words looping through her head, Sachs breathed deeply and kept thegun steady, a bit high, a bit to the left, compensating for gravity and the pleasant April breeze.
    When you shoot, nothing exists but you and the target, connected by an invisible cable, like the quiet energy of light. Your ability to hit your target depends exclusively on where this energy originates. If its source is your brain you may hit what you’re aiming at. But if it’s your heart you almost always will. The Conjurer’s victims—Tony Calvert, Svetlana Rasnikov, Cheryl Marston, Officer Larry Burke—now seated this power solidly in the latter and she knew that she couldn’t miss.
    Come on, she thought, you son-of-a-bitch. Put the goddamn car in drive. Try for me.
    Come on!
    Give me an excuse . . .
    The car edged forward. Her finger slipped inside the trigger guard.
    As if he sensed this the Conjurer braked.
    “Come on,” she found herself whispering.
    Thinking about how to handle it. If he just tried to get away she’d take out the fan blades or a tire and try to capture him alive. But if he drove toward her or aimed for the sidewalk, endangering someone else, then she’d drop him.
    “Yo!” one of the teens on the sidewalk called.
    “Shoot the motherfuck!”
    “Cap his ass, bitch!”
    You don’t have to convince me, homes. Ready, willing and able . . .
    She decided that if he drove ten feet toward her, at any kind of speed, she’d nail him. The engine of theBand-Aid-colored car revved and she saw—or imagined—that the vehicle shuddered.
    Ten feet. That’s all I’m asking.
    Another growl of the engine. Do it! she pleaded silently.
    And