He debated for only a few seconds. "Come see me next week. I'm not cutting back my current artists' time in the ring. But they could use an assistant and an understudy. And maybe you can do some shows at our winter camp in Florida."
Rhyme and Kara exchanged glances. He nodded firmly.
"Okay," the young woman said to Kadesky. She shook his hand. Kadesky glanced at the spring-loaded wire form that had fooled them. "You made that?"
"Yep."
"You might want to patent it."
"I never thought about that. Thanks. l'lliook into it."
He looked her over again. "Forty-two in thirty minutes." Then nodding, he left the room. Both he and Kara looked as if they'd each bought a very nice, very underpriced sports car.
Sachs laughed. "Damn, you had me going." A glance at Rhyme. "Both of
you." 'Wait up here," Bell said, feigning hurt. "I was in on it too. I'm the one
hog-tied her."
Sachs shook her head again. "When did you think this up?"
It had started last night, Rhyme explained, lying in bed, listening to the
music from Cirque Fantastique, the ringmaster's muted voice, the applause and laughter from the crowd. His thoughts had segued to Kara, how good her performance at Smoke Mirrors had been. Recalling her lack of selfconfidence and Balzac's sway over her.
Recalling too what Sachs had told him about her mother's advanced senility. Which had prompted Rhyme's invitation to Jaynene the next morning.
"I'm going to ask you one more question," Rhyme had said to the woman. "Think about it before you answer. And I need you to be completely honest."
The query was: 'Will her mother ever come out of it?"
Jaynene had said, 'Will she get back her mind, is that what you're ask
. ?"
mg.
"That's right. Will she recover?"
"No."
"So Kara's not taking her to England?"
A sad laugh. "No, no, no. That woman's not going anywhere."
"Kara said she couldn't quit her job because she needs to keep her mother in the nursing home."
"She needs to be cared for, sure. But not at our place. Kara's paying for rehab and recreation, medical intervention. Short-term care. Kara's mom doesn't even know what year it is. She could be anywhere. Sony to say it but all she needs is maintenance at this point."
'What'll happen to her if she goes to a long-term home?"
"She'll keep getting worse until the end. Just the same as if she stayed with us. Only it wouldn't bankrupt Kara." After that, Jaynene and Thorn had gone off to have lunch together-and
undoubtedly to share war stories about the people in their care. Rhyme had
then called Kara. She'd come over and they'd had a talk. The conversation had been awkward; he'd never done well with personal matters. Confronting a heartless killer was easy compared with intruding on the tender soul of someone's life.
"I don't know your profession too well," Rhyme had said. "But when I saw you perform at the store on Sunday I was impressed. And it takes a lot to impress me. You were damn good."
"For a student" had been her dismissive response.
"No," he'd said firmly, "for a perfonner. You should be onstage." "I'm not ready yet. I'll get there eventually."
After a thick pause Rhyme said, "The problem with that attitude is that
sometimes you don't get there eventually." He glanced down at his body. "Sometimes things... intervene. And there you are, you've put off something important. And you miss it forever."
"But Mr. Balzac-"
"-is keeping you down. It's obvious." "He's only thinking what's best for me." "No, he's not. I don't know what he's thinking of. But the one thing he's
not thinking of is you. Look at Weir and Loesser. And Keating. Mentors can mesmerize you. Thank Balzac for what he's done, stay friends, send him box seat tickets for your first Carnegie Hall show. But get away from him now while you can."
"I'm not mesmerized," she'd said, laughing.
Rhyme hadn't responded and he sensed she was considering just how
much she was under the man's thumb. He continued, 'We've got some juice with Kadesky-after everything we've done. Amelia told me how much you like the Cirque Fantastique. I think you should audition."
"Even if I did, I have a personal situation. My-" "Mother," Rhyme'd interrupted.
"Right.
"I had a talk with Jaynene."
The woman had fallen silent.
Rhyme'd said, "Let me tell you a story." "Story?"
"I headed the forensics department here in New York. The job had the
typical administrative crap, you can imagine. But the thing I loved mostand what I was best at-was running crime scenes, so even after I was promoted I still got into the field as often as I could. Well, we had a serial rapist
working in the Bronx a few years ago. I won't go into the details but it was
an ugly situation and I wanted that man nailed. I wanted him bad. I got a call from patrol that there'd been another attack, just a half hour before, and it looked like there was some good evidence. I went uptown to run the scene personally.
"Just as I got there I found out my second in command-and a good friend of mine-had had a heart attack. A bad one. Big shock. He was a young guy, in good shape. Anyway, he was asking for me." Rhyme had pushed down a hard memory and continued, "But I stayed and ran the scene, filled out the chain of custody cards and then went to the hospital. I got there as fast as I could but I was too late. He'd died a half hour before. I wasn't proud of that. It still hurts me after all these years. But I wouldn't've done it different."
"So your point is that I should put my mother in some shitty home," she'd said bitterly. "A cheaper one. Just so I can be happy."
"Of course not. Put her someplace that'll give her what she needs-care and companionship. Not what you need. Not a rehab center that's going to bankrupt you.... My point? It's that if there's something you know you're meant to do in life, that has to take priority over everything else. Get a job with Cirque Fantastique. Or another show. But you have to move on."
"Do you know what some of those homes are like?"
'Well, then your job is to find one that you're both comfortable with. Sorry to be blunt. But I told you up front I don't do well with delicacy." She'd shaken her head. "Look, Lincoln, even if I decided to, do you know how many people'd die for a job at Cirque Fantastique? They get a hundred resumes a week." Finally he'd smiled. 'Well, now, I've been thinking about that. The Immobilized Man has an idea for a routine I think we should try."
Rhyme now finished telling Sachs the story.
Kara said, 'We thought we'd call the trick the Escaping Suspect. I'm going to add it to my repertoire." Sachs turned to Rhyme. "And the reason you didn't tell me before
was... ?"
"I'm sorry. You were downtown. I couldn't get through."
'Well, it might've worked better if you'd told me. You could've left a message." "I. Am. Sorry. There. I've apologized. I don't do it very often, you know.
I'd think you might appreciate it. Though, now that you brought it up, I
don't really see how it could've worked better. The look on your face was priceless. Added to the credibility."
"And Balzac?" Sachs asked. "He didn't know Weir? He wasn't really in
volved?"
Rhyme nodded at Kara. "Pure fiction. We wrote the script, the two of us."
Sachs eyed the young woman. "First you get stabbed to death when I'm supposed to be looking out for you. Then you turn into a murder suspect." The policewoman gave an exasperated sigh. "This could be a difficult friendship."
Kara offered to run up the street to get some more Cuban takeout, which they'd missed the other day, though Rhyme suspected it was just an excuse for her to pick up another one of the restaurant's sludgy coffees. But before they could decide on the order they were interrupted by Rhyme's ringing phone. He ordered, "Command, answer phone." A moment later Sellitto's voice came on the speakerphone. "Line, you busy?"
"Depends," he grumbled. "What's up?"
"No rest for the wicked.... We need your help again. We got a weird homicide."
"Last one was 'bizarre,' if I remember correctly. I think you just say
things like that to get my attention."
"No, really, we can't figure this one out."
"All right, all right," the criminalist grumbled, "give me the details." Though the translation of Lincoln Rhyme's gruff demeanor was simply
how pleased he was that boredom would be held at bay for at least a little while longer.
Kara stood outside Smoke Mirrors, seeing things she'd never noticed in her year and a half working there. A hole in the upper left-hand comer of the plate glass from a BB or pellet gunshot. A tiny swirl of graffiti on the door. A dusty book on Houdini in the window, opened to the page discussing the type of sash cord he preferred to use in his routines.
She saw a flare inside the store-Mr. Balzac lighting a cigarette.
A breath. Let's do it, she thought and pushed inside.
He was by the counter with that friend of his who'd been in town this
past weekend, an illusionist from California. Balzac introduced her as a student and the middle-aged man shook her hand. They made small talk
about how his performance had gone last night, other people appearing in town... the typical gossip performers everywhere engage in. Finally the man picked up his suitcase. He was on his way to Kennedy airport for the flight home and had stopped at the store to return the props he'd borrowed. He embraced Balzac, nodded to Kara and left the store.
"You're late," the magician said to her gruffiy. Then observed that she wasn't putting her bag behind the counter as she always did. He glanced at her hands. No coffee cup. That was, of course, the giveaway.
A frown. "What?" he asked, drawing on his cigarette. "Tell me." "I'm leaving."
"You're..."
"I talked to Ed Kadesky. I've got a job with the Cirque Fantastique." "Them? Kadesky? No, no, no-it's all wrong for you. That's not magic. That's-"
"It's what I want to do."
'We've been through this a dozen times. You're not ready. You're good. You're not great." "That doesn't matter," she said firmly. 'What matters is getting up on
stage. Performing."
"If you rush it-"
"Rush it, David? Rush it? When would I be ready? Next year? In five
years?" Normally she found it difficult to hold his eye; today she looked straight at him as she said, 'Would you ever let me go?" A pause, while he ordered papers, slapped them down on the scuffed,
cracked counter. "Kadesky," he scoffed. "And what'll you be doing for him?" "Assistant at first. Then some winter season shows of my own in Florida.
Then who knows?"
He stubbed out the cigarette. "It's a mistake. You'll be wasting your tal
ent. What he does, it's not the kind of illusion I taught you."
"I got the job because of what you taught me."
"Kadesky," he said again contemptuously. "New magic."
"Yeah, it is," she said. "But I'll be doing your routines too. Metamorphosis, remember-the old becoming new." He didn't smile though she could sense the reference to his act pleased
him. "David, I want to keep studying with you. When I'm back in town I want
to take lessons. I'll pay for them."
"I don't think that would work. You can't seIVe two masters," the man muttered. When Kara said nothing he said grudgingly, 'We'll have to see. 1 might not have the time. 1 probably won't."
She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder.
"Right now?" he asked. "You're leaving now?"
"Yeah. 1 think it's best."
He nodded.
"So," Kara said.
The illusionist said a formal "Goodbye then" and stepped behind the counter, offering nothing else.
Struggling to keep the tears at bay, she walked to the door.
'Wait," he called as she started outside. Balzac stepped into the back of the store and then returned to her. He held something in his hand and thrust it into hers. It was the cigar box that contained Tarbell's three colored silks.
"Here. Take these.... 1 liked the way you did that one. It was a tight
