The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

And she left him for her spaghetti, coagulating on a TV tray in the living room.

"My money, Mom!"

"Shut up. It's the Daily Double."

One day, performing a small show in Abracadabra, the boy was surprised to notice a slim, unsmiling man enter the store. As he walked toward the Magic Cavern all the magicians and clerks in the store fell silent. He was a famous illusionist and was appearing at the Tropicana. He was known for his temper and his dark, scary illusions.

After the show the illusionist gestured the boy over and nodded at the handwritten sign on stage. "You call yourself 'Young Houdini'?"

"Yeah."

"You think you're worthy of that name?"

"I don't know. I just liked it."

"Do some more." Nodding at a velvet table.

The boy did, nervous now, as the legend watched his moves.

A nod, which seemed to be an approving nod. That a fourteen-year-old boy would receive a compliment like this stunned the magicians in the room to silence.

"You want a lesson?"

The boy nodded, thrilled.

"Let me have the coins."

He held his open palm to offer the coins. The illusionist looked down, frowning. "Where are they?"

His hand was empty. The illusionist, laughing harshly at the boy's bewildered expression, had already dipped them; the quarters were in his own hands. The boy was astonished; he hadn't felt a thing.

"Now I'll hold this one up in the air. . . ."

The boy looked up but suddenly some instinct said, Close your fingers now! He's going to put the coins back. Embarrass him in front of a roomful of magicians. Grab his hand!

Suddenly, without looking down, the illusionist froze and whispered, "Are you sure you want to do it?"

The boy blinked in surprise. "I--"

"Think twice." A glance down at the boy's hand.

Young Houdini looked at his palm, which was tensed to catch the great illusionist's. He saw to his shock that the man had placed something there, but not the coins: five double-sided razor blades. If he'd closed his fingers as he'd planned, Young Houdini would've needed a dozen stitches.

"Let me see your hands," he said, taking the blades out of them and vanishing them instantly.

Young Houdini held his palms up and the man touched them, stroked them with his thumbs. It felt to the boy that there was an electric current running between them.

"You've got the hands to be great," he whispered for the boy alone to hear. "You've got the drive and I know you've got the cruelty. . . . But you don't have the vision. Not yet." A blade appeared again and the man used it to slice through a piece of paper, which began to bleed. He crumpled the paper a

nd then opened it up. There was no slash and no blood. He handed it to the boy, who noticed that on the inside was an address, written in red ink.

As the small audience of onlookers cheered and clapped with genuine admiration, or jealousy, the illusionist whispered, "Come see me," leaning forward, his lips brushing Young Houdini's ear. "You have a lot to learn. And I have a lot to teach."

The boy kept the illusionist's address but he couldn't work up the courage to go see him. Then, at his fifteenth birthday party, his mother changed the course of his life forever by flying into a tirade and flinging a platter of fettuccine at her husband over some recently received intelligence about the notorious Mrs. Loam. Bottles flew, collectibles shattered, police arrived.

The boy decided he'd had enough. The next day he went to visit the illusionist, who agreed to be his mentor. The timing was perfect. In two days the man was starting an extensive tour of the United States. He needed an assistant. Young Houdini cleaned out his secret bank account and did just what his namesake had done: he ran away from home to work as a magician. There was one major difference between them, however; unlike Harry Houdini, who'd left home only to make money to help his impoverished family and who was soon reunited with them, young Malerick would never see any member of his again.

"Hey, how you doing?"