“Matt!” She rushed to hug him. “You came to my rescue again.”
“Temple sent me, but they released you before I could plead your case. In fact, I got a grilling of my own.”
They began walking toward the Beetle, which had good headroom for two tall men with Electra in the back.
Bending considerably to assist Electra inside, Armando explained over his shoulder to Matt. “Ernesto thought seeing her own vehicle here would cheer up Mrs. Lark.”
“Oh,” she said, “I always smile when I drive this car, especially if I have to park it. So easy. Matt, dear, I meant to tell you. It was so nice of dear, sweet Elvis to give your radio show ratings a boost last night, now that he maintains a permanent residence in Vegas.”
Oh, no, Matt thought. That was right. The new Elvis Experience made The King a permanent near neighbor.
He’d found Frank Bucek vague about why he’d been stationed in Vegas for now. Surely it couldn’t be in hopes of hearing a new “Elvis tape”.
Maybe it was time for a friendly chat.
6
Midnight Prowler
Temple almost felt the low growl of an expensive, powerful idling car before she heard it.
She sat up in bed, checking the red LED clock numbers. 1:00 a.m.
Her condo was two floors above the parking lot. The car was either right under her balcony, or a figment of an interrupted dream.
Couldn’t be Matt’s Jaguar, because he was still live on the air. She sincerely hoped.
Since an intruder had breeched the locked French doors off her bedroom only a couple weeks before that, she reached for the bedside table and her cell phone.
Temple had investigated self-defense two years ago when she’d been beaten up by two honest-to-God thugs in the Goliath hotel’s guest parking ramp. Since she needed a pulley to reach five-foot-one barefoot, she’d invested in some shooting gallery training.
One of the instructors said a gun would look huge in her tiny hands and psych out a male intruder.
The plug-in night-light in the form of an acrylic crystal cat cast enough illumination to show that the plus-size cell phone also looked, and felt, huge in her tiny hand. But, she couldn’t wield a cell phone and pistol simultaneously. Besides, she’d lost interest and the unloaded gun was languishing in her scarf drawer. She wasn’t any good at wearing scarves either.
Midnight Louie was a shadowy presence pacing in front of the French doors to the balcony patio, answering with soft growls.
The low vibrating growling sound moved slowly along the exterior bedroom wall. Golly, the “live two stories up” advice to single women, even a soon-not-to-be-single girl, was not high enough. And something like the landlady’s fifth floor penthouse was no better, except that intruder had not survived, unlike Temple’s previous one.
Who had made the Circle Ritz Break-in Site of the Month? She was afraid she knew the Why. Somehow someone bad knew what she and Matt and Max had been hunting for.
Her eyes were adapting to the low light and focused on the repaired French doors. Fate wouldn’t be so unkind as to break them again… Almost five hundred dollars gone.
The growl went more basso, on the move. Black smoke seemed to be eeling under the faintly illuminated balcony doors.
Then the automotive growl stopped. Louie’s growls paused, then escalated into a shrill battle cry. Three feet of outstretched twenty-pound black feline fury hurled itself at the doors’ matched levered handles.
The doors sprang outward to reveal the dead-solid black of night.
Midnight Louie overshot something dark that leaped aside. His forepaws ricocheted off the railing. Caught in the parking lot lights’ green-tinged security beams with his green eyes blazing, he executed a four-point landing back on the patio.
Both hunks of blackness entered the room, but only one turned to shut the doors after them.
Temple lowered the cell phone. Her voice sounded as metallic and cool as the device in her hands. “The repair to the locks will run four-hundred and seventy dollars.”
“No repairs,” the intruder said. “I undid the lock a second before your resident black panther made his move.”
“Too bad.” Temple lowered her defensive mechanisms quite literally as Midnight Louie bounded onto the foot of the California King-size bed bought for Max Kinsella’s six-foot-four frame. “I would have enjoyed taking you to the people’s court. So, Max. You’re back from Ireland. Kathleen O’Connor didn’t kill you.”
“And I didn’t have to kill her,” he said.
“Mission accomplished, and your cue to disappear from my life again, maybe wondering what happened to you forever. So why the midnight break-in? Drama? You’re wearing cat burglar-black again from head to foot.”
“Why the cell phone-fisted greeting? You weren’t supposed to wake up.”
“Midnight Louie has the hearing of an attack dog and he’s on alert since the first break-in. And you’re driving serious, obvious horsepower again.” Temple put the phone on the bedside table as Max went to sit on the delicate chair Temple used to put her shoes on. He’d always looked ridiculous sitting there.
“I’d rather if nobody knew I’m back in town,” he said.
“So I’m not anybody?”
He smiled. “You’re somebody to a lot of people. That’s your gift.” His expression hardened. “What’s this about a break-in?”
“Some fool burglar who tripped on the extra-long foot of the bed, thanks to your former occupancy. We figure the visible bathroom light on the other side of the unit I keep on for Louie convinced the intruder the occupants were awake over there. He hoped he could loot this side with no fuss. Instead he tripped, I yelled, ‘Fire!’, and Electra came pounding at the door with gun and passkey in hand.”
“Fast thinking. Don’t you have a firearm? If you weren’t a pistol-packing mama, how’d the idiot exit?”
“Matt jumped down from his balcony above and threw him over the railing.”
Max’s eyebrows raised. Temple didn’t know whether he was more surprised by the elderly landlady dressed in full living color bearing a weapon…or Matt handily bouncing the intruder.
Ex-roomies, ex-lovers calling after hours were hard to read, especially if they were professional magicians and spies.
“I lead an interesting life,” Temple said, more to herself. “Why must No one Know You’re in Town? If Kitty the Cutter is declawed and content to stay in Ireland now that she can’t hold the fate of your cousin Sean over you…. She is declawed?”
“Decidedly,” Max said.
“So you’ve come to discuss your crazy plan to import me to Wisconsin to negotiate the Kinsella and—”
“—and the Kelly clans’ reunion with their prodigal sons. Yes. Kelly is Sean’s surname.”
Temple shuddered delicately. “Just saying that reminds me of leaping hip-deep into emotional quicksand.”
“But that intervention can wait.” Max tented his long fingers in a sage-like manner.
Temple raised her eyebrows. She’d thought Max bringing his presumed dead cousin home would be Job One. Magicians always adore producing unbelievable effects, and resurrecting the dead was certainly a major one.
Max leaned back on the fragile chair. Its creak brought Midnight Louie over to investigate. Or intimidate. He sniffed Max’s shoe, then sat to gaze intently up at him.
It was impossible to ruffle Max.
He smiled down at Louie and said, “Now that I hear you were broken into while I was gone, I’m even more convinced that until we find the bloody booty Kathleen and her dead cohort Santiago hid somewhere in Vegas, nobody in our cozy little treasure hunting club will be safe.”
“That would be, you, Matt and me.”
“And innocent bystanders.”
“I doubt Matt is up to collaborating with you on anything at the moment.” She eyed the clock. “You picked a dicey time to climb my balcony, ex-Romeo, when Matt is still tied up at the radio station for another hour or so.”
“I said the fewer people who know I’m in town, the better. You have the best puzzle-solving talents of us three. You know Vegas inside out, even more than I do. This needs to be a two-man operation.”
When Temple remained silent, he added, “Has it occurred to you someone or some entity in Vegas also knows about the hoard of IRA donations Kathleen gathered over the years in North and South America from Irish loyalists and wants it at any cost? What if the inept burglar was after the Effinger drawing of the man fighting a giant serpent you and Devine brought back from Chicago? That representation of the Ophiuchus constellation ties into the magicians’ cabal who owned the Neon Nightmare. They’re dead or scattered, but what if someone found your ingenious sketch of the main Ophiuchus stars overlaid on the Las Vegas Strip?”
“I’m losing faith in this quest,” Temple said. “Why are some bearer bonds—granted they’re highly portable and international currency—and old weapons that are probably not half as lethal or expensive as the average assault rifle you can open carry in some states, worth that much?”
“Because, my fine red-feathered friend,” Max said, his eyes sparkling with the anticipation of revelation, “of one thing I learned from Kathleen in Ireland. The bearer bonds are only a mere ten percent of the trove. The money came in a dozen currencies, and was converted to more easily smuggled forms.”
“Gold coins?”
“Yo, ho, ho. Like pirates of old, matey?” Max cackled.
“So Effinger’s slow death by drowning in a pirate ship attraction fits the booty? He must have known the location and refused to tell. Nasty.”
“Still, coins are traceable.”
“Gold bars!” Temple said.
“Heavy, but Santiago’s international media entertainment installations would mean shipping heavy machinery, and gold bars would be easily concealable then. Still, something even smaller would have been better, and South America is known for exporting…?”
“Bananas!”
“I wasn’t asking for an opinion. Yes, bananas number one, but something more valuable, besides oil and exotic lumber.”
“And gemstones!” Temple realized. “Then…our assumption that the hoard was destined for a paramilitary group and heavy on weapons, may be wrong. We’re not looking for a huge underground safe like the empty one found in the tunnels between Gangsters and the Crystal Phoenix hotels. And the Ophiuchus constellation’s significant stars may not be dispersed on a landscape scale but on….”
“A much smaller, more human one,” Max said.
“Oh.” Temple’s mind was reeling with possibilities. “The map and sketches are in Matt’s unit. We have to bring him in on it.”
“I can extract them.”
“From his safe?”
“What’s an honest ex-priest and media sensation doing with a private safe?”
“Danny Dove installed it when he did over Matt’s monk cave into a hip bachelor pad. And added a TV that rises up from the foot of the bed.”
She caught a gleam in the dark as Max rolled his eyes. “I could say so many politically incorrect things about that but I’ll leave it to your imagination.”
Temple was glad the room was dark. She felt herself blushing.
“Okay, Max. One last time around the merry-go-round.”
He nodded quickly.
“And you can forget the idea of me going to Wisconsin to help you handle the Kinsella and Kelly generational two-step intervention.”
His next nod was not so quick.
“Matt can do that for you, Max. If he’s feeling generous, and if he doesn’t find out I’m collaborating with the enemy.”
“At least you’re not cohabitating with the enemy anymore,” Max quipped. “When’s the happy day?”
“Unset, but soon. I’ve got the e-vite guest list. We’ll marry the minute the issue of Matt’s moving to a TV talk show in Chicago is resolved. He’s…been distracted from pushing hard on that.”
“Maybe he knows you can take the girl out of Las Vegas, but you can’t take Las Vegas out of the girl. Your Crystal Phoenix PR position plays to all your creative strengths. I saw you during that Black & White band reunion debut. You’re part diplomat, producer, on-site shrink, and detective.”
Temple was really blushing now. She could have turned an eggnog glass into hot milk by pressing it to one of her cheeks at the moment, flushed from praise. Recognition. Max was a master impresario. She thought back to their early days, imagining her joining his act as the magician’s assistant in glitter hose and satin bustier. She was petite and limber enough.
But Max worked alone, except for droves of doves for the finale, and she was not willing to be an accessory. Nor did she want to doll herself up like the dated Playboy Bunny. Even Playboy was out of the Bunny business, now that much racier fare was wallpapering the Internet. At ninety, Hugh Hefner was living on until death in the pre-sold notorious Mansion in L.A.
“You need to add ‘talent agent’ to my résumé,” she said.
She didn’t often confound Max, and explained. “Mariah Molina is an aspiring pop diva. She’s joined the backup group for Black & White lead singer French Vanilla on weekends.”
“Quite a big gig for a little tween girl like Molina Junior.”
“Not so little, Max. She’s been taller than me for a while now.”
“Looking after her in the rock ‘n’ roll business should keep Mama Molina distracted from our quest. Too bad Mama never had a show biz break like that.”
“She almost did, I’ve learned. That’s why French Vanilla gave Mariah that to-die-for weekend spot.”
“Hmmph.” Max shook his head. “I’ve been on the run too long. Kids grow up, friends die, My best girl moves on. It must not seem that long to you since we moved into this place, probably with a whacky expectation of fair winds and sunny weather.”
Temple could have harked back to those few months they’d lived like newlyweds before his past forced him to perform the ultimate magical illusion and disappear without notice. But, no she couldn’t. Not anymore.
“You’re just growing old and sentimental,” she told him, “now that your cousin is more than a nameless headstone in Ireland. It must have been so joyful and agonizing to realize Sean had been alive all these years.”
“He’s a war hero,” Max said simply. “Married to a heroine. That woman put the fear of St. Patrick in me. Deirdre had to drag Sean out of that pub before he’d believe I wasn’t coming back. A strong, determined woman. He wouldn’t leave until I returned.”
“Oh, Max.”
“Yes, ‘oh, Max’. How was I to know crazy, damaged Kathleen was seducing me away to save my life, and also lose my self-respect when I found how I’d been scammed. Sean was out of his head after the impact. Deirdre even caught the shrapnel edge of it, but she told the IRA boyos Sean was an American sympathizer, which he…we…were in our simplistic youth, so the IRA accepted him as a wounded one of their own.”
“How badly was he—?”
“Enough that people are…tempted to look away, but then his eyes and spirit catch you and you forget about pity and look to your own soul and spirit.”
Temple kept silent, nodding.
She sighed. “And you’ve brought all this back to the USA, expecting me—or Matt—or the both of us to change rain and pain to acceptance and reunion.”
“Both of you have the magic touch with people, don’t you?”
“You’re the professional magician.”
“I can manipulate and surprise people. Make them forget their troubles. Fight for them. But I seem to keep them at a distance and never cure them. Or myself.”
“It seems to me, that if you have the guts to take Kathleen and Sean home again, and come back and ask Matt and me to assist—”
“I’ve quite a nerve on me,” Max said, smiling ruefully, “as Kathleen put it.”
He rose to leave.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“To rob your fiancé’s safe. I
should keep custody of the puzzle pieces, given the break-ins. Meanwhile, I have some ideas about where in Vegas would be a good hiding place for a portable prize hidden by magicians.”
“Since you are one,” Temple pointed out.
“Hmm. Not feeling it so much lately. We’ll see.”
As soon as Max left, Louie lofted atop the bed to take his place.
“Pretty sharp defensive moves,” Temple told him as he settled down beside her hip and began to tongue-bathe his shoulder. “Now everything you heard here is between you and me, right?”
7
Being Frank
“Wedding plans? Congratulations, Matt.”
Frank Bucek’s voice boomed out over the phone as much as it had commanded a class of seminarians seventeen years ago.
A lot of ex-priests ended up working in counseling, as Matt had, or law enforcement. It figured. Seminarians and priests knew about keeping vows and rules and contending with good and evil on a daily basis.
“May I assume I know the spirited young lady in question?”
“Yes, it’s Temple, Frank. I know it’s early in the day, but I’m wondering if you could join me for brunch at a little place near the Circle Ritz. The Magic Muffin.”
Frank’s laugh boomed out. “Magic Muffin, huh? Sounds like a clever concept. Sure.”
Matt watched his cell phone whisk Frank’s contact off the screen. As usual, Matt had two missions in seeing Frank.
Number one was finding out if he had indeed glimpsed Frank Bucek outside the Lucky Stars nudie bar when Matt has first been taken into the ugly world of retired cop Woodrow Wetherly. The other was, what could Frank Bucek do for him now, besides playing Best Man.
Cat in an Alphabet Endgame: A Midnight Louie Mystery (The Midnight Louie Mysteries Book 28) Page 7