“YOU GOT CLIFFIE’S CRAP WE WANT IT LADY,” Matt read the crazy-quilt printed letters. “It’s simple,” he added. “If you have anything of Effinger’s, give it to them. Only we need to think up a way so you don’t come in contact with these freakos.”
“That’s just it,” she answered. “I haven’t known what to do, or how. It’s like that man is haunting me. I just can’t get him out of my life, even after death—”
Her head whipped toward the bedroom door.
Someone was fumbling at the front door. Matt had stood and unconsciously turned toward the noise. Now he turned into a pillar of salt.
Temple was riveted too.
Cliff Effinger.
“He’s dead,” Matt mumbled, gazing toward the doorway as if he expected his stepfather’s ghost to stumble in and he needed to do something about it.
“I know. You told me.” Mira’s voice was weary again. “And I may have made a big mistake all over again—”
“So here you all are. Wine steward’s here,” Krys caroled from the doorframe, hoisting a brown paper bag. “Mission accomplished. Just made the closing time. Who wants to pop the cork and celebrate?”
Chapter 11
Collared
Max was still elbowing along the dark air-conditioning vent, preparing to make a last right turn before the final twenty-five-foot crawl.
His knee joints felt swollen and numb. Every foot forward seemed like a yard.
A businesslike clang echoed from the tunnel’s unseen end.
That wasn’t a distant burp down the long-distance line of new venting that had replaced this disused old route. It wasn’t an echo from some workman’s hammer bounced the length of the Goliath’s hidden guts. Too close. No. It was the rasp of the metal vent cover he’d temporarily replaced to hide his incursion. The grille was being wrested away again, and too easily, thanks to his incursion.
He shouldered ahead, faster but still as stealthy as he could manage. Finally his head and shoulders thrust into the freer air flow of the last passage. The cold blood in his inactive legs had spread to his chest.
The faint work-light glow from the mechanical closet should be welcoming him back to the home stretch.
Instead the way ahead was impenetrable black.
Another body was blocking the light.
No such luck it was another dead body in the same ductwork at a different time, as awkward … and sinister as that would be.
A whisper, a soft shift of cloth, promised another intruder had followed Max into the dark ductwork alley.
Memory blast.
His mind flashed back in time to a short blind struggle in the dark at the tunnel’s other end. He’d locked down the windpipe of the man he discovered hiding there long enough to eel his way back out. Maybe long enough that a second visitor who had seen Max’s expedition start and end had then followed in his elbow-crawls and killed the disabled Hedberg.
Someone certainly had seen, or suspected, Max’s current presence. That made his decision to go unarmed iffy even if it confirmed his suspicions. Upper body strength had always been the best weapon in his onstage career and offstage espionage assignments. Now it would have to pull his weakened legs along while handling his unseen enemy and whatever weapon the guy was sure to be carrying.
Max hoped that this wasn’t the same assassin as two years before, and that, if so, he hadn’t upgraded to carrying a gun. Either way, knife or gun, the bad guy had to be using a shoulder holster to keep his hands free for crawling. And the “breast pocket” drawing action necessary to pull it in these close quarters would alert Max before the weapon was out of its sheath.
Max coiled himself into as much of a crouch as the space would allow and kept still. The pressure on his braced toes and stretched hamstrings was a torture Saddam Hussein’s insane son would have been proud to invent.
But Max had to … wait. To not move, shift, or alleviate his pain even by a centimeter. The dark behind him was his shield and trap. That and his magician’s patience to wait, wait, wait for the final triumphant “reveal.” The more cramped the space, the more impossible the position, the better payoff, in illusion and in reality.
The dark tunnel ahead heaved into slithering sound and motion, heading right for him. Max unsprung his torso and leg muscles in a massive motion of relief that propelled him into the unseen obstacle, his right hand clutching the other man’s right wrist as it bent to draw the anticipated weapon.
Max twisted until the snap of bone and the guy’s bitten-back moan. He pressed the whole arm up and back. If he could drive the butt of whatever weapon was in that hand into the man’s own left temple, hard and sharp, it would be a knockout punch.
Panting openly now, Max banged the unconscious man’s hand to the venting floor as his grip relaxed. His rejecting gesture skidded the confiscated commando knife toward the visible exit grille. Then he wrapped his fists into the man’s denim jacket—the stalker hadn’t expected to have to follow Max into a small space—and heaved the inert body halfway behind him, using his chest and shoulder muscles, and crawled on past.
As he dug his elbows against the aluminum surface to crawl toward the light, he saw the grille shudder, then vanish. A hand reached up through the opening to retrieve the knife with its six-inch blade.
Max swallowed his frustration. Great. He wasn’t getting out of here without jumping off into the light at the end of the tunnel, onto his barely healed leg bones, within easy reach of a new enemy forewarned and forearmed.
Chapter 12
Prawn Patrol
“So this is where my no-goodnik son likes to hang out,” Three O’Clock mused, still licking steak ’n’ shrimp atoms off his black whiskers as we gaze at the Neon Nightmare club, a shiny black pyramid off the Strip.
“This is where some suspicious characters of interest hang out, Grandpops.”
“It is true, Louise?” Three O’Clock Louie demands. “You are my boy’s daughter?”
“Not in his address book,” I point out.
“I will mention that in my opinion you have the good looks to be a member of the family.”
“Cut the gallantry. I am running Midnight Investigations, Inc., in the absence of the senior partner and I do not see the name ‘Midnight’ in your curriculum vitae. There will be no nepotism on my watch. You do a decent job, and I will put in a good word for you with Ma Barker.”
“That is all very well, but I have a sweet spot at Gangsters with the Glory Hole Gang guys. I am still the inspiration for their restaurant, even if my name is off the place. Why should I wear my footpads out trekking halfway across the Strip to be ordered around by a wet-behind-the-ears, fresh-from-mama’s-washing kit?”
“Because I will pin your ears to your tailbone just to see how it looks on you.”
“Oh.” He backs off with a playful swagger, shifting from hind foot to hind foot. “I suppose that this, ah, Midnight Investigations, Inc., outfit you mention could use a temp head detective now that the main man is out of town.”
“Sorry. That position is filled. I am the ‘temp head detective,’ and all I need is some warm bodies to tail the subjects in case they split up, which is likely. As long as you can walk and report in, you are hired. A couple of street dudes from Ma Barker’s gang are en route.”
“This private detective game sure requires using up a lot of footpad leather.”
“That is why we hitch a ride when possible.”
“The last time sonny boy did that with me, I was almost flattened in traffic, right in front of the golden lion at the MGM Grand. I do not like to look like a doofus in front of a major feline Vegas icon, especially a dead doofus.”
“You referring to the statue, or you? One thing I can guarantee: You will be a dead doofus unless you quit complaining.”
The old guy rocks back on his ample haunches, which allows the streetlights to reflect from the short white hairs on his nose and chin. His previous spot had come with being his own little icon at Three O’Clock’
s Restaurant, all the lobster droppings he could eat, and full social security being mascot for the aging Glory Hole Gang turned hash-slingers.
“I forget,” I tell him, “you were living the leisurely lakeside life at Temple Bar on Lake Mead.”
“Yes, indeed. I had retired off a salmon trawler in the Pacific Northwest to Arizona, as many well-heeled seniors do nowadays. I am not much for heels, but I am for tiring.”
He sits to pluck a few stray hairs from between his toes, looking nonchalant. Where have I seen this air of male self-satisfaction before?
“That Temple Bar turf is barely in Arizona,” I point out, “and seniors are scrambling like the rest of us to avoid severe lifestyle cuts these days. The pattern is to work beyond the age of retirement.” I drum my forefront nails on the parking lot asphalt. “I can have you and Blacula tail one suspect together. There are only three. Pitch and I can take the remaining two.”
“But these folks slink in and out, maybe even in disguise, Louise. How can we cut them out from that crowd that keeps coming and going?”
“That is why we were given superior night vision, Grandpops. And Blacula’s hearing is sharper than a bat’s. Where do you think he got the name? Midnight Investigations, Inc., is tops on night surveillance. Here are Ma Barker’s footpads now.”
I am happy to see the pair wears ninja black from ear-tip to toe-hair. We do the usual close encounter four-step as the newcomers edge around to eye me and Three O’Clock while we exchange the ritual sniffs, struts, and down-low growls.
The building’s pyramid-shaped black-glass exterior shimmers with the reflections of nearby neon, making it hard to observe anything other than the lighted entranceway.
After having led Miss Temple to the secret rooms of the occultists who call themselves “the Synth,” we spotted some main members in consultation: Czarina Catharina, the medium … retired mind-reader Hal Herald … and the slinky something or other dame who seemed quite familiar with Mr. Max as both the Phantom Mage and in his real incarnation. There is always a slinky something or other dame. Then shockeroo. Another party broke in on the proceedings via another route. From our hidden niche we witnessed the Synth trio being confronted by armed and dangerous taskmasters in the long black cloaks and full head masks of the … well, Darth Vader variety.
This was a cheesy disguise, but executed with state-of-the-art built-in altered voice technology. In other words, kind of like my old man—quintessential Vegas.
In daylight I had reconnoitered every inch of the pyramid’s exterior “footprint,” as they say in technological circles. I found a suspiciously smooth seam at the far parking lot corner. I had been spotted, but mistaken for a lower life-form looking for a private depositation station.
Here is where I commit and array my agents. We have visuals on only one half of the peaked edifice with the four-square base.
Then we hunker down. Few know the patience of my kind when we hunt prey. We can crouch, still as stone, on any turf from a smoking hot piece of Vegas concrete to an iceberg, motionless for hours, awaiting the slightest twitch of vermin in the neighborhood.
“Bugs, snakes, and lizards will not do,” I tell my crew. “We are not after fast food tonight. I do not want to see one whisker twitch no matter what does the shimmy-shimmy past. You move only when I tell you, and then you track the prey to the final destination and watch until dawn.”
They take my edict so to heart, their heads do not even nod.
I crouch last, putting myself into the silent state of self-hypnosis where I am a rock until called upon to move. Not even a solacing purr can ease our battle-tensed muscles. We practice the art evolved by our kind thousands of years ago, when it was be still or be killed. Be silent or be prey.
Only now, the paw is on the other foot. I could get used to this, especially on my own, with my inner nerves twitching but my outer aspect poised for the kill.
I am not aware of the passage of time. I do not carry a cell phone or wear a wristwatch. I only feel the hot night air weighing on my black velvet catsuit. Ha! My nails curl and loosen, curl and loosen, aching for purchase on something soft and evil.
A splinter of long bluish light flashes at the seam in the black glass exterior. A tall figure blocks it, then vanishes with it. My keen vision sees the plantings at the pyramid’s base waver. I twitch my right ear in Pitch’s direction. The statue that is he shifts and disappears.
I wait.
Oh, how human and clumsy! The light bulges this time, clearly silhouetting a figure with a melon-sized head and balloon-sculpture’s body, tied off in puffy limbs indicating arms and trousers. Harem pants, actually.
My left ear signal bestirs Blacula to rise slightly and spur a snoozing Three O’Clock to life as they move to shadow the exiting medium.
I have saved the best for last. The secret doorway profiles for an instant the slick dame and last of the lot.
Mr. Max is my special pet. It may not make sense to any who did not come up in a multigenerational relentlessly carnivore clan, but woe to any who would trifle with the ex-squeeze of my supposed father’s current human. Any disturbance on Mr. Max’s domestic scene will be swiftly punished.
So I slide like an oil slick over the asphalt to a parked black Camaro that burps open at the snap of the sorceress’s fingers on her key ring. It takes a moment for her to turn and spin her major spike heels into the car’s front seat. I am used to such footwear-caused delays and do a Midnight Louie twist into the narrow space behind the driver’s seat.
Three Synth members; four Midnight Investigations, Inc., operatives on their trail. Where will our assignments lead us and what will we learn there?
Chapter 13
Surprise Party
Naked was the best disguise, they said, but surprise was the better half of naked.
Max rolled out of the tunnel into the mechanical closet headfirst, his supple spine pulling his legs after him so he hit the floor on a roll he could push out of sideways and at the same time lift his hands in a defensive position.
The man waiting to ambush him had grabbed the unfastened grille and held it up like a shield, the other guy’s lost knife in his right hand.
Max struggled upright against a wall of wooden shelving, his eyes getting used to the light that showed his opponent wore a security guard’s uniform, complete with gun holster.
Max ducked, knowing he was busted.
The knife slashed toward him in an expert spinning arc that buried the blade point in an upright pine board near his carotid artery.
“Better your fingerprints are the last ones on that than mine,” the guy said just as Max saw past the uniform to the man wearing it.
“Impressive aim. What brought you here?” Max asked, grabbing a dirty rag from the shelf to pry the knife loose and then wrap its slightly bloody blade.
“Tailing you.”
“In your work clothes?”
“Guards are all over the Strip. Nobody notices them here, like mail carriers in residential areas. Is the guy in the tunnel dead?”
“I hope not.”
“You need to ID him?”
Max shook his head, clearing his muzzy brain. “It was a tight place to tango. He wore cat burglar garb like me, and carried no ID. Nothing more than a pencil flashlight and a—”
“Assassin’s knife.”
“Tight quarters, tough weapon. It’s a good thing you kept your feet on the ground and stayed out of that dead end up there. We good to go, Nadir?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then you’ll tell me whether you’re playing spy … or babysitter, both of which I consider killing offenses.”
“Go ahead,” Rafi Nadir said with a sweeping gesture and a sardonic look. “I got your back.”
* * *
“You know,” Max said after they’d driven separately and discreetly to Gandolph’s house in an established neighborhood of Las Vegas and gone to ground inside. “I don’t know why I’ve got an ex-cop playing guard dog.”
“You keep a good bar and pour generously?” Rafi quipped.
Max sat down opposite him in the living room, reflecting he’d had no memories of just hanging loose in the house, or entertaining anyone, not even a woman, having no friends but the post-Gandolph Garry Randolph. The way Garry had reinvented his given name into a clever version for a magician beginning a career in the late sixties still made him smile.
Nadir took a big gulp of citrine-colored whiskey and let it simmer as it trickled down his throat.
“And,” Max said, holding off on enjoying his own hospitality, “I understand we have an … irritation in common in the formidable person of Lieutenant Molina. Now that Garry is dead, though, your job of supervising matters involving him and me here in Vegas is over.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I don’t need a nanny. I don’t like witnesses.”
“Okay. I won’t follow you anymore, but Randolph not only got me a decent security job at the Oasis, he also paid me a bundle, up front, to look into a bunch of other things.”
“What bunch of other things?”
“The death of his retired assistant, Gloria Fuentes, for one. Then there was a professor killed at the university here, at some magic display on campus. I don’t know what else. I don’t carry my notebook with me. Besides, he pulled me off everything to watch your back at the Neon Nightmare when you did that Batman routine.”
“The Phantom Mage.” Max chuckled, to Rafi Nadir’s visible amazement. “I’ve been brought up to date on that. What a corny name and act.”
Nadir drank again, then said, “Easy for you to laugh it off. I’m the one who saw you fall and declared you dead so Randolph could highjack a hired private ambulance to get you out of there fast. Frankly, I still don’t know why you weren’t dead.”
“I learned in my act how to fall and hit as if I was drunk, completely limp. So that’s how Garry got me out of there so fast. He must have commandeered a private ambulance off the street.”
Cat in a White Tie and Tails Page 7