Calvert didn't even slow down. He slammed hard into the metal door and, a miracle, slid the key home instantly, turning it fast. The latch opened, he pulled the key out and leaped through the doorway, slamming the steel door shut behind him. It locked automatically.

Heart pounding fiercely, gasping in fear, he rested only for a moment. Thinking, mugger? Gay-basher? Druggie? Didn't matter, he thought. I'm not letting the prick get away. He ran up the hall to his apartment. This door too he opened fast. He leaped inside, swinging it shut after him and locking it.

Hurrying into the kitchen, he seized the phone and dialed 911. A moment later a woman's voice said, "Police and fire emergency."

"A man! A man just attacked me! He's outside."

"Are you injured?"

"No, but you have to send the police!" he shouted. "Hurry!"

"Is he there with you?"

"No, he didn't get in. I locked the doors. But he could still be in the alley! You have to hurry!"

What was that? Calvert wondered. He felt a sudden breeze against his face. The sensation was familiar and he realized that it was the feeling of cross-ventilation when someone opened the front door to his apartment.

The 911 operator asked, "Hello, sir, are you there? Can you -"

Calvert spun toward the door and cried out, seeing the bearded man with the pipe, standing only a few feet from him, calmly unplugging the phone line from the wall. The doors! How did he get through the locks?

Calvert backed away as far as he could – against the refrigerator; there was nowhere else to go.

"What?" he whispered, noting the scars on the man's neck, his deformed left hand. "What do you want?"

The assailant ignored him for a moment and looked around – first at the kitchen table then at the large wooden coffee table in the living room. Something about the sight of it seemed to please him. He turned back and when he brought the pipe down on Calvert's raised arms the swing seemed almost like an afterthought.

They rolled up, silent.

Two RMPs, two officers in each.

The sergeant climbed out of the first squad car before it'd braked to a stop.

Only six minutes had elapsed since the 911 call came in. Even though the call had been cut off, Central knew which building and apartment it had been placed from, thanks to caller-ID technology.

Six minutes… If they were lucky they'd find the vic alive and well. If they were less lucky, at least the doer'd still be in the apartment, shopping through the vic's valuables.

He called in on his Motorola. "Sergeant Four Five Three One to Central. I'm ten-eighty-four on the scene of that assault on Nine Street, K."

"Roger, Four Five Three One. EMS bus en route. Injuries, K?"

"Don't know yet. Out."

"Roger, Four Five. Out."

He sent one of his men around to the back to cover the service door and the rear windows and told another to stay in the front. The third officer trotted with the sergeant toward the lobby.

If they were lucky the perp'd jump out a window and break an ankle. The sergeant wasn't in any mood to run assholes to ground on this fine day. This was Alphabet City, its name courtesy of the north-south avenues here – A, B, C how fast I can cook some smack and shoot up. It was improving slowly but was still one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Manhattan. Both cops had their weapons drawn by the time they approached the door.

If they were lucky he'd be armed only with a knife. Or something like what that cluck-head gone on crack had threatened him with last week: a chopstick and garbage can lid for a shield.

Well, they got one break at least – they didn't have to find somebody to let them through the security door. An elderly woman, listing against the weight of a shopping bag that sprouted a huge pineapple, was on her way out. Blinking in surprise, she held the door open for the two cops and they hurried inside, answering her question about their presence with a noncommittal, "Nothing to be concerned about, ma'am."

If we're lucky…

Apartment 1J was on the ground floor toward the back. The sergeant positioned himself to the left of the door. The other officer, opposite, glanced at him and nodded. The sergeant rapped hard with his big knuckles. "Police. Open the door. Open it now!"

No response from inside.

"Police!"

He tried the knob. More luck. It was unlocked. The sergeant shoved the door open and both men stood back, waiting. Finally the sergeant peeked 'round the corner.

"Oh, Christ on earth," he whispered when he saw what was in the center of the living room.

The word "luck" vanished from his thoughts entirely.

• • •

The secret to successful protean magic – quick change – is making distinct but simple changes to your appearance and demeanor while simultaneously distracting your audience with misdirection.

And no change was more distinctive than turning yourself into a seventy-five-year-old bag woman.

Malerick had known the police would arrive quickly. So after the brief performance in Tony Calvert's apartment he did a fast change into one of his escape outfits: a high-necked blue dress and a white wig. He pulled his elasticized jeans above the hemline of the dress, revealing opaque support hose.

The beard came off and he applied a heavy base of eccentric-lady rouge. He painted on excessive eyebrow liner. Several dozen strokes with a thin sienna pencil gave him septuagenarian wrinkles. A change of shoes.

As for the misdirection, he'd found a shopping bag and filled the bottom with newspaper – along with the pipe and the other weapon he'd used for his routine – and added a large fresh pineapple from Calvert's kitchen. If he met anyone as he left the building they might glance at him but they'd focus on the sizable pineapple, which is just what happened as he politely held the door open for the arriving officers.

Now, a quarter mile from the building, still dressed as the woman, he stopped and leaned against the wall of a building as if he were catching his breath.

Then he eased into a dim alley. With one tug the dress, held together by tiny Velcro dots, came off. This garment and the wig went under a foot-wide elastic band he wore around his stomach, which compressed the items and made them invisible under his shirt.

He tugged his pants cuffs down, took makeup-removal pads from a Baggie in his pocket and wiped his face until the rouge, wrinkles and eyebrow pencil were gone, checking to make sure with a small pocket mirror. The pads he dropped into the shopping bag with the pineapple, which he in turn placed in a green garbage bag. He found a car illegally parked, picked the lock to the trunk and tossed the bag inside. The police would never think to search the trunks of parked cars and, anyway, the odds were that the car would be towed before the owner returned.

Back on the street, heading for one of the West Side subways.

And what did you think of our second act, Revered Audience?

He himself thought it had gone well, considering that because he'd slipped on the damn cobblestones the performer had gotten away and managed to close and lock two doors.

But by the time Malerick had gotten to the back door of Calvert's building he had his picking tools in hand.

Malerick had studied the fine art of lock-picking for years. It was one of the first skills his mentor had taught him. A picker uses two tools: a tension wrench, which is inserted into the lock and twisted to keep pressure on the locking pins inside, and the pick itself, which pushes each pin out of the way so the lock can be turned to the open position.

It can be time-consuming to push aside the pins one at a time, though, so Malerick had mastered a very difficult technique called "scrubbing," in which you move the pick back and forth quickly, brushing the pins out of the way.