Slow makes you invisible.
He glanced at the goods for sale, nodded in pleasure at a guitarist's performance, laughed at a balloon-tying clown. He did what everyone else did.
Because unique attracts attention.
Similar makes you invisible.
Easing east. Wondering how the police had located him. Of course he'd expected they'd find the drowned body of the woman lawyer sometime today. But they'd moved too fast--it was as if they'd anticipated that he'd kidnap someone in that part of the city, maybe even at the riding academy itself. How?
Farther east.
Past the booths, past the concession stand, past a Dixieland band on a red, white and blue draped stage. Ahead of him was the exit--the east stairway leading from the square down to Broadway. Only another fifty feet to freedom, forty.
Thirty . . .
But then he saw flashing lights. They seemed nearly as bright as the burst from the flash cotton he'd used to escape from the redheaded officer. The lights were atop four squad cars that squealed to a stop beside the stairway. A half-dozen uniformed officers jumped out. They scanned the stairs and remained with their cars. Meanwhile other officers, in plain clothes, were arriving. They now climbed the stairs and merged into the crowd, looking over the men at the fair.
Now surrounded, Malerick turned and headed back toward the center of the festival.
The plain-clothed officers were slowly moving westward. They were stopping men in their fifties who were clean shaven, wearing light shirts and tan slacks. Exactly like him.
But they were also stopping fifty-year-olds who were bearded and were wearing other clothes. Which meant they knew about his quick-change techniques.
Then he saw what he'd been dreading: The policewoman with the steely eyes and fiery red hair, who'd tried to arrest him at the pond, appeared at the top of the stairs at the west end of the fair. She plunged into the crowd.
Malerick turned aside, lowering his head and studying some very bad ceramic sculpture.
What to do? he thought desperately. He had one remaining quick-change outfit left, under what he now wore. But after that, there was no backup.
The redheaded officer spotted someone who was built and dressed similarly to him. She examined the man closely. Then she turned away and continued to scan the crowd.
The trim, brown-haired cop who'd been giving Cheryl Marston CPR now crested the stairs and joined the policewoman in the crowd. They conferred for a few moments. Another woman was with him--she didn't seem like a cop. She had brilliant blue eyes and short reddish-purple hair and was quite thin. She looked over the crowd and whispered something to the woman officer, who headed off in a different direction. The short-haired girl stayed with the male cop and they began to work their way through the crowd.
Malerick knew he'd be spotted sooner or later. He had to get out of the fair now, before even more cops arrived. Walking to the row of Porta Potties, he stepped inside the fiberglass box and executed a change. In thirty seconds he stepped out again, politely holding the door open for a middle-aged woman, who hesitated and turned away, deciding to wait for a john whose prior user wasn't a ponytailed biker with a beer gut, wearing a Pennzoil cap, a greasy long-sleeved denim Harley-Davidson shirt and dirty black jeans.
He picked up a newspaper and rolled it up, gripping it in his left hand to obscure his fingers, then moved toward the east side of the fair again, checking out stained glass, mugs and bowls, handmade toys, crystals, CDs. One cop looked right at him but the glance was brief and he turned away.
Malerick now returned to the eastern edge of the fair.
The stairway that led down to Broadway was about thirty yards wide and the uniformed police had managed to close off much of it. They were now stopping all adult men and women who left the fair and asking for IDs.
He saw the detective and the purple-haired girl nearby, next to the concession stand. She was whispering to him. Had she noticed him?
Malerick was swept by a burst of uncontrollable fury. He'd planned the performance so carefully--every routine, every trick choreographed to lead up to tomorrow's finale. This weekend was supposed to be the most perfect illusion ever performed. And it was all crumbling around him. He thought of how disappointed his mentor would be. He thought of letting down his revered audience. . . . He found his hand, holding a small oil painting of the Statue of Liberty, beginning to shake.
This is not acceptable! he raged.
He put the picture down and turned.
But he stopped fast, giving a sharp gasp.
The red-haired policewoman stood only a few feet from him, looking away. He quickly turned his attention to a case of jewelry and asked the vendor, in a thick Brooklyn accent, how much a pair of earrings cost.
From the corner of his eye he could see the policewoman glance at him but she paid him no mind and a moment later made a call on her radio. "Five Eight Eight Five. Requesting a landline patch to Lincoln Rhyme." A moment later: "We're at the fair, Rhyme. He has to be here. . . . He couldn't've gotten out before they sealed the exits. We'll find him. If we have to frisk everybody we'll find him."
Malerick eased into the crowd. What were his options?
Misdirection--that seemed to be the only answer. Something to distract the police and give him just five seconds to slip through the line and disappear among the pedestrians on Broadway.