The Vanished Man

they won’t even return my telephone call.”
    The computer seized the last two words of the sentence. Its response: Whom would you like to call?
    Rhyme sighed. “I’ll tell you a story: I needed to get in touch with an officer the other day. A lieutenant. Lon Sellitto.”
    The computer reported: Dialing Lon Sellitto.
    “And I told him—”
    A sudden frown from the Conjurer.
    He stepped forward quickly, swinging the monitor away from Rhyme’s face and looking it over. The killer grimaced, ripped the phone lines from the wall and unplugged the computer. With a faint pop it went silent.
    As the man hovered a few feet from him Rhyme pressed his head into the pillows, expecting the terrible razor blade to appear. But the Conjurer stepped back, breathing hard with his asthmatic wheeze. Heseemed more impressed than angered by what the criminalist had tried.
    “You know what that was, don’t you?” he asked, smiling coldly. “Pure illusionism. You distracted me with patter and then did some classic verbal misdirection. Ruse, we call it. That was good. What you were saying was very natural—until you mentioned the name. It was the name ruined it. See, telling me that wasn’t natural. It made me suspicious. But up until then you were good.”
    The Immobilized Man . . .
    He continued, “I’m good too, though.” The Conjurer reached forward with an open, empty palm. Rhyme cringed as the fingers passed close to his eyes. He felt a brush against his ear. When the Conjurer’s hand appeared a second later there were four double-sided razor blades gripped between his fingers. He closed his hand into a fist and the four blades became a single one, now held once more between his thumb and index finger.
    No, please. . . . Worse than the pain, Rhyme feared the horror of being deprived of yet another of his senses. The killer eased the edge close to Rhyme’s eye, moved it back and forth.
    Then the killer smiled and stepped back. He glanced across the room into the shadows on the far wall. “Now, Revered Audience, let’s begin our routine with some prestidigitation. I’ll be assisted by a fellow performer here.” These words were spoken in an eerie, theatrical tone.
    The man’s hand rose and he displayed the glistening razor blade. In a smooth gesture the Conjurerpulled out the waistband of Rhyme’s sweatpants and underwear and tossed the blade like a frisbee toward his naked groin.
    The criminalist winced.
    “What he must be thinking . . .” the Conjurer said to his imaginary audience. “Knowing that a razor blade is against his skin, perhaps cutting into his skin, his genitals, a vein or an artery. And he doesn’t feel a thing!”
    Rhyme stared at the front of his pants, waiting for blood to appear.
    Then the Conjurer smiled. “But maybe the blade’s not there. . . . Maybe it’s someplace else. Maybe here.” He reached into his own mouth and pulled the small rectangle of steel out. He held it up. Then frowned. “Wait.” He removed another blade from his mouth. Then more. He now had the four blades back in his hand. He fanned them like cards then tossed them into the air above Rhyme, who gasped and cringed, waiting for them to hit him. But . . . nothing. They’d vanished.
    In his neck and temple Rhyme felt his heart pounding, harder now, sweat trickling down his forehead and temple. Rhyme glanced at the alarm clock. It seemed like hours had passed. But Thom had left only fifteen minutes ago.
    Rhyme asked, “Why are you doing this? Those people you killed? What was the point?”
    “They weren’t all killed,” he pointed out angrily. “You ruined my performance with the equestrian by the Hudson River.”
    “Well, attacked then. Why?”
    “It was nothing personal,” he said and broke into a coughing spell.
    “Not personal?” Rhyme spat out, incredulous.
    “Let’s say it was more what they represented than who they were.”
    “What does that mean? ‘Represented’? Explain.”
    The Conjurer whispered, “No. I don’t think I will.” He walked slowly around Rhyme’s bed, breathing hard. “Do you know what goes through the mind of the audience during a performance? Part of them hopes that the illusionist isn’t going to escape in time, that he’ll drown, he’ll fall on the spikes, burn up, get crushed to death. There’s a trick called the Burning Mirror. My favorite. It starts out with a vain illusionist looking in a mirror. He sees a beautiful woman on the other side of