I know, because I was there.
So, please, for your own sake, spend a moment looking around the tent and consider what you will do should disaster strike. . . .
But on reflection, no, it's too late for that. Perhaps the best you can hope for now is simply to pray.
*
Malerick had returned to Central Park and was standing under a tree about fifty yards from the glowing white tent of the Cirque Fantastique.
Bearded once more, he was dressed in a jogging suit and a high-necked knit shirt. Tufts of sweaty blond hair poked from underneath a Chase Manhattan 10K Run for the Cure cap. Faux sweat stains--out of a bottle--attested to his present persona: a minor financial executive at a major bank out for his Sunday-night run. He'd stopped for a breather and was absently looking at the circus tent.
Perfectly natural.
He found himself oddly calm. This serenity reminded him of that moment just after the Hasbro circus fire in Ohio, before the full implications of the disaster had become clear. While by rights he should have been screaming, he in fact found himself numb. In an emotional coma. He felt the same at this moment, listening to the music, the bass notes amplified, it seemed, by the taut canvas of the tent itself. The diffuse applause, laughter, gasps of astonishment.
In his years of performing he'd rarely gotten stage fright. When you knew your act cold, when you'd rehearsed sufficiently, what was there to be nervous about? This is what he now experienced. Everything had been so carefully planned that he knew his show would unfold as intended.
Scanning the tent in its last few minutes on earth, he saw two figures just outside the large service doorway through which he'd driven the ambulance not long before. A man and a young woman. Speaking to each other, ear close to mouth so they could converse over the sound of the music.
Yes! One of them was Kadesky. He'd been worried that the producer might not be present at the time of the explosion. The other was Kara.
Kadesky pointed inside and together they walked in the direction he'd indicated. Malerick estimated that they had to be no more than ten feet from the ambulance.
A look at his watch. Almost time.
And now, my friends, my Revered Audience . . .
Exactly at nine P.M. a spume of fire shot from the doorway of the tent. A moment later the silhouette of the huge flames inside rolled across the glowing canvas of the tent as they consumed the bleachers, the audience, the decorations. The music stopped abruptly, replaced by screams, and coils of dark smoke began to pour from the top of the tent.
He leaned forward, mesmerized by the horror of the sight.
More smoke, more screams.
Struggling not to let an unnatural smile slide onto his face, he offered a prayer of thanks. There was no deity Malerick believed in but he sent these words of gratitude to the soul of Harry Houdini, his namesake and idol, and the patron saint of magicians.
Gasps and cries as those around him in this secluded part of the park ran forward to help or to gape. Malerick waited a few moments longer but he knew that soon hundreds of police would fill the park. Looking concerned, pulling out his cell phone to pretend to call the fire department, he eased toward the sidewalk. Still, he couldn't help pausing once more. He looked back to see, half obscured by smoke, the huge banners in front of the tent. On one of them masked Arlecchino, reached outward, holding up his empty palms.
Look, Revered Audience, nothing in my hands.
Except that, like a sleight-of-hand artist, the character was holding something--something hidden from view in a perfect backhand finger conceal.
And only Malerick knew what it was.
The coy Harlequin was holding death.
III
TIPPING THE GAFF
Sunday, April 21,
to Thursday, April 25
"To be a great magician, one must be able to present an illusion in such a way that people are not only puzzled, but deeply moved."
--S. H. SHARP
Forty-six
Amelia Sachs's Camaro hit ninety on the West Side Highway, speeding toward Central Park.
Unlike the FDR Drive, which was a controlled-access expressway, the roadway here was dotted with stoplights and, at Fourteenth Street, it featured a jog that sent her misaligned Chevrolet into an alarming skid, resulting in a sparking kiss between sheet steel and concrete barriers.
So the killer had tricked them with yet another genius's touch. Neither Charles Grady's death nor Andrew Constable's escape was Weir's goal; they were the ultimate misdirections. The killer had been after what they'd rejected yesterday as being too obvious--the Cirque Fantastique.
As she'd been about to kick in one of the few remaining hiding spots in the basement of the court and detention center, Glock high, Rhyme had called her and told her the situation. Lon Sellitto and Roland Bell were headed for the circus, Mel Cooper was jogging over there to help out. Bo Haumann and several ESU teams were on their way too. Everybody was needed and Rhyme wanted her uptown as fast as possible.
"I'm on my way," she'd said, clicking the phone off. She'd turned and begun to sprint out of the basement but paused, returned to the door she'd been standing at and kicked it in anyway.
Just in case.
It'd been completely empty, completely silent--except for the sound of the killer's derisive laughter in her imagination.
Five minutes later she was in her Camaro, pedal down.
The light at Twenty-third Street was against her but the cross traffic wasn't too bad so she went through it fast, relying on the steering wheel, rather than her brakes or the conscience of citizens to yield to her flashing blue light, to get her to the other side.
Once through it, a fast downshift, pedal to the floor and the rattling engine sped her up to eighty. Her hand found her Motorola and she called Rhyme to tell him where she was and to ask what exactly he needed her to do.
*
Malerick wandered slowly out of the park, jostled by people running the opposite way, toward the fire.
"What's going on?"
"Jesus!"
"The police. . . . Did somebody call the police?"
"Do you hear screaming? Do you hear that?"
At the corner of Central Park West and a cross street he collided with a young Asian woman, staring in concern toward the park. She asked, "You know what happened?"
Malerick thought, Yes, indeed I do: the man and the circus that destroyed my life are dying. But he frowned and said to her gravely, "I don't know. But it seems pretty serious."
He continued west, beginning what would be a very circuitous, half-hour journey back to his apartment, during which he'd execute several quick changes and make absolutely certain no one was following him.
His plans called for him to stay at his apartment tonight then in the morning leave for Europe, where after several months of training he'd resume performing--under his new name. Not a soul on earth, other than his revered audience, knew "Malerick" and that's who he'd be to the public from now on. He had one regret--that he wouldn't be able to perform his favorite routine, the Burning Mirror; far too many people associated that with him. In fact, he'd have to trim a lot of the material. He'd give up ventriloquism, mentalism, and many of the close-in routines he'd done. Having such a broad repertoire could--as had happened this weekend--tip the gaff as to his identity.
Malerick continued to Broadway, then doubled back toward his apartment. He continued to check the streets behind and around him. He saw no one following.
He stepped inside the lobby and paused, studied the street for a full five minutes.
An elderly man--Malerick recognized him as a neighbor from across the street--walking his poodle. A kid on Rollerblades. Two teenage girls with ice cream cones. No one else. The street was empty: tomorrow was Monday, a work-and schoolday. People were now home ironing clothes, helping their children with lessons . . . and glued to the TV watching CNN reporting on the terrible tragedy in Central Park.
He hurried to his apartme
nt, doused all the lights.
And now the show closes, Revered Audience, as they always do.
But it is the nature of our art that what's old to today's audience will be fresh and inventive to those elsewhere, tomorrow and the day after.
Did you know, my friends, that curtain calls are not to thank the performer but are intended to give him a chance to thank his audience--those people who were kind enough to lend him their attention during his show.
So I applaud you now for gracing me with your presence during these modest performances. I hope I've given you excitement and joy. I hope I've brought wonder to your hearts as you joined me in this netherworld where life is transformed to death, death to life and the real to the unreal.
I bow to you, Revered Audience. . . .
He lit a candle and settled into the couch. He kept his eyes fixed on the flame. Tonight, he knew that it would shudder, that he would receive a message.
Staring, sitting forward, bathed in the contentment of vengeance completed, rocking back and forth hypnotically, breathing slowly.
The candle flickered. Yes!
Speak to me.
Flicker again. . . .
And indeed only a moment later it did.
But the shuddering wasn't a message from the supernatural spirit of a loved one long gone but solely from the gust of cool April evening air that filled the room when the half-dozen police officers in riot gear broke the door in with a battering ram. They flung the gasping illusionist to the floor, where one of them--the red-haired policewoman he recalled from Lincoln Rhyme's apartment--seated a pistol against the back of his head and gave a steady recitation of his rights.
Chapter Forty-seven
Their arms trembling against the weight of both Lincoln Rhyme and his Storm Arrow wheelchair, two sweating ESU officers carried their burden up the stairs into the building and deposited the criminalist in the lobby. He then took over and maneuvered his chair into the Conjurer's apartment, where he parked next to Amelia Sachs.
While their fellow Emergency Service officers cleared the rooms, Rhyme watched as Bell and Sellitto carefully searched the astonished killer. Rhyme had suggested they borrow a doctor from the Medical Examiner's office to help in the search. He arrived a moment later and did as requested. It turned out to be a good idea; the M.D. found several slits cut into the man's skin--they looked like small scars but could be pulled open. Inside were tiny metal tools.
"X-ray him at the detention infirmary," Rhyme said. "Hell, wait, do an MRI. Every square inch."
When the Conjurer was triple cuffed and double shackled, two officers pulled the man into a sitting position on the floor. The criminalist was examining a bedroom in which was a huge collection of magician's props and tools. The masks, fake hands and latex appliances made the place eerie, sure, but Rhyme sensed mostly loneliness, seeing these objects stored here for the killer's horrific purposes when they were meant to be part of a show to entertain thousands of people.
"How?" the Conjurer whispered.
Rhyme noted the look of astonishment. Dismay too. The criminalist relished the sensation. All hunters will tell you that the actual search for their quarry is the best part of the game. But no hunter can be truly great unless he feels peak pleasure when he finally brings down his prey.
"How did you figure it out?" the man repeated in his asthmatic wheeze.
"That your point was to hit the circus?" Rhyme glanced at Sachs.
She said, "There wasn't a lot of evidence but it suggested--"
" 'Suggested,' Sachs? I'd say it screamed."
"Suggested," she continued, unfazed by his interjection, "what you were really going to do. In the closet--the one in the basement of the Criminal Courts building--we found the bag with your change of clothes in it, the fake wound."
"You found the bag?"
She continued, "There was some dried red paint on the shoes and your suit. And carpet fibers."
"I thought the paint was fake blood." Rhyme shook his head, angry with himself. "It was logical to make that assumption but I should've considered other sources. It turned out that the FBI's paint database identified it as Jenkin Manufacturing automotive paint. The shade is an orange-red that's used exclusively for emergency vehicles. That particular formula is sold in small cans--for touch-ups. The fibers were automotive too--they were from heavy-duty commercial carpet installed in GMC ambulances up until eight years ago."
Sachs: "So Lincoln deduced that you'd bought or stolen an old ambulance recently and fixed it up. It might've been for an escape or for another attempt on Charles Grady's life. But then he remembered the bits of brass--what if they actually were from a timer, like we'd thought originally? And since you'd used gas on the handkerchief in Lincoln's apartment, well, that meant that, possibly, you were going to hide a gas bomb in a fake ambulance."
Rhyme offered, "Then I simply used logic--"
"He played a hunch is what he's sayin'," Bell chided.
"Hunches," Rhyme snapped, "are nonsense. Logic isn't. Logic is the backbone of science, and criminalistics is pure science."
Sellitto rolled his eyes at Bell.
But insubordination in the ranks wasn't going to dampen Rhyme's enthusiasm. "Logic, I was saying. Kara had told us about pointing your audience's attention toward where you don't want them to look."
The best illusionists'll rig the trick so well that they'll point directly at their method, directly at what they're really going to do. But you won't believe them. You'll look in the opposite direction. When that happens, you've had it. You've lost and they've won.
"That's what you did. And I have to say it was a brilliant idea. Not a compliment I give very often, is it, Sachs? . . . You wanted revenge against Kadesky for the fire that ruined your life. And so you created a routine that'd let you do it and get away afterward--just like you'd create an illusion for the stage, with layers of misdirections." Rhyme squinted in consideration. He said, "The first misdirection: You 'forced'--Kara told us that's the word illusionists use, right?"
The killer said nothing.
"I'm sure that's what she said. First, you forced the thought on us that you were going to destroy the circus for revenge. But I didn't believe it--too obvious. And our suspicion led to misdirection two: You planted the newspaper article about Grady, the restaurant receipt, the press pass and the hotel key to make us conclude you were going to kill him. . . . Oh, the jogging jacket by the Hudson River? You were going to leave that at the scene intentionally, weren't you? That was planted evidence you wanted us to find."
The Conjurer nodded. "I was, yes. But it worked out better because your officers surprised me and it looked more natural for me to leave the jacket when I escaped."
"Now, at that point," the criminalist continued, "we think you're a hired assassin, using illusion to get close to Charles Grady and kill him. . . . We've figured you out. There go our suspicions. . . . To an extent."
The Conjurer managed a faint smile. " 'An extent,' " he wheezed. "See, when you use misdirection to trick people--smart people--they continue to be suspicious."
"So you hit us with misdirection number three. To keep us focused away from the circus you made us think that you got arrested intentionally to get inside the detention center not to kill Grady but to break Constable out of jail. By then we'd forgotten completely about the circus and Kadesky. But in fact you didn't care a bit about either Constable or Grady."
"They were props, misdirections to fool you," he admitted.
"The Patriot Assembly, they're not going to be too happy about that," Sellitto muttered.
A nod at the shackles. "I'd say that's the least of my worries, wouldn't you?"
Knowing what he did about Constable and the others in the Assembly, Rhyme wasn't too sure.
Bell nodded at the Conjurer and asked Rhyme, "But why'd he go to the trouble to set up Constable and plan the fake escape?"
Sellitto answered, "Obviously--to, you know, misdirect us away from the circus so he'd have an
easier time getting the bomb there."
"Actually, no, Lon," Rhyme said slowly. "There was another reason."
At these words, or perhaps at the cryptic tone in Rhyme's voice, the killer turned toward the criminalist, who could see caution in his eyes--real caution, if not fear--for the first time that night.
Gotcha, Rhyme thought.
He said, "See, there was a fourth misdirection."
"Four?" Sellitto said.
"That's right. . . . He's not Erick Weir," Rhyme announced with what even he had to admit was excessive dramatics.
Chapter Forty-eight
With a sigh, the killer eased back against a chair leg, eyes closing.
"Not Weir?" Sellitto asked.
"That," Rhyme continued, "was the whole point of what he did this weekend. He wanted revenge against Kadesky and the Hasbro circus--the Cirque Fantastique now. Well, it's easy to get revenge if you don't care about escaping. But"--a nod toward the Conjurer--"he wanted to get away, stay out of prison, keep performing. So he did an identity quick change. He became Erick Weir, got himself arrested this afternoon, fingerprinted and then escaped."
Sellitto nodded. "So after he killed Kadesky and burned down the circus everybody'd be looking for Weir and not for who he really is." A frown. "And who the hell is he?"
"Arthur Loesser, Weir's protege."
The killer gasped softly as the last shred of anonymity--and hope for escape--vanished.
"But Loesser called us," Sellitto pointed out. "He was out west. In Nevada."
"No, he wasn't. I checked the phone records. The call came up 'No caller ID' on my phone because he placed it through a prepaid long distance account. He was calling from a pay phone on West Eighty-seventh Street. He doesn't have a wife. The message on his voice mail in Vegas was fake."
"Just like he called the other assistant, Keating, and pretended to be Weir, right?" Sellitto asked.
"Yep. Asking about the Ohio fire, sounding weird and threatening. To back up what we thought: that Weir was in New York to get revenge against Kadesky. He had to leave a trail that Weir'd resurfaced. Like ordering the Darby handcuffs in Weir's name. The gun he bought too."
Rhyme looked over the killer. "How's the voice?" he asked sardonically. "The lungs feel better now?"