“Too bad a lot of them are jerks,” Steve said.
“You don’t like the bar scene either.”
“No, I’m a nerd, basically. Came here to see the light show and the flying magician. I just drink my two beers and people-watch. I’m heading home soon. You’re the first girl I’ve bought a drink for, Temple.”
“You’re the first guy I’ve let buy me a drink in . . . forever.”
They smiled at each other.
“You’ve got someone,” he said.
“He’s out of town. You too?”
“He’s back home in Oshkosh.”
Oh-kay. And here she’d been angsting about picking up guys in bars.
“Will I see ‘Temple Barrett’ in the next issue of Out and About in Las Vegas?” Steve asked.
Temple laughed. “Just a small-type credit at the very bottom, if I’m lucky. Have a nice trip back.”
“Thanks. I’ll try ordering a Spanish coffee in Oshkosh.”
“Good luck,” Temple said, “but I don’t think that will fly at most bars or restaurants.”
“Why not? It’s hot and bracing. Just what Cold Country needs. Don’t stay up too late.”
She sat and digested what Steve had told her after he left, studying the pyramid’s flashy interior. The interior was magician-made, both smoke and mirrors. Black reflective Plexiglas walls and floors, black mirrors, and bright lights—a giant magician’s illusion box. Of course there must be “balconies” along the interior sides. Although this pyramid was hollow, it must harbor plenty of room between the interior and exterior walls for light-and sound-show equipment and maintenance.
The dead body at the Goliath the night Max’s magic-show run had ended was found in one of those above-casino crawl spaces. The thought that Max might have been trapped here in a similar situation, and maybe even died here, made her determined not to leave this building until she knew what . . . and who . . . it concealed.
It wasn’t impossible that Max was also using the gig as training wheels for a new act. He’d been determined to unmask the Synth, and this was where he’d picked to do it . . . and where somebody got angry or alarmed enough to sabotage his investigation and try to take his life.
Temple sipped her Spanish coffee as slowly as possible to study the possibilities. Apparently her tête-à-tête with Steve had marked her as “taken.” Guys might be thinking he’d only left for the men’s room. The not-quite-empty beer bottle still sat in front of Steve’s empty barstool. That’s the kind of escort she liked in a place like this. Invisible.
Great. She was a free agent now. She eyed the dance floor, considered the advantages and disadvantages of performing over an audience’s head. When the Phantom Mage came sweeping down, they had to have looked up at the motion. What did they see?
She saw the dance floor as a wall-to-wall mob swept by glaring neon spotlights and winking strobe lights. It wasn’t all couples. Whoever pushed onto the deceptive, reflective surface could gyrate alone, with his or her image in the floor below, or with a cooperative stranger of any nearby gender.
Gosh! She wished things had been this informal when she was in high school and college.
She left two bucks on the bar to join Steve’s tip and slid off the high stool, never her most graceful moment, even in wedge heels, and even less so while clutching a purse for dear life. Or death.
The slick floor unnerved her, but she edged onto it, bobbing tentatively. It vibrated with the beat like a subterranean heart. Someone behind her bumped butts. Oh, rescue me! She gyrated around and faced a dreadlocked black guy doing the . . . Swim? Oh, retro me! Temple swam farther into the center of the dance floor, looking up.
The scene was as psychedelic as she’d heard the sixties were. Lights above, reflections below. You hardly knew where up and down ended. That was Max’s magician territory: confusing, sense-flooding, mystifying.
The pyramid sides were a blur of neon flashes. If she’d seen anyone “vanishing” into those walls, as Rafi had, she’d have thought of ghosts and freaked. Steve, sharp left-brained observer, had been right. There had to be perches for a flying magician to rest on before bounding into thin air and back to the wall again.
The impact of man with wall that Rafi had described reverberated with the driving, relentless rock/rap music in her head.
No one could survive that. Unless it was an illusion. Unless it had been Max doing the illusion.
She eyed the apex of the pyramid. Must be five stories. The neon lights at the peak spun around, making her eyes burn and her feet shuffle for solid ground beneath them.
She’d seen PBS shows about the solar system and the galaxies resembling this. Standing here in this mating swarm of loud music and shimmying torsos was like being in a science museum’s astronomy exhibition, if you actually looked up and enjoyed the light show.
Temple tuned out the mayhem and watched the signs of the zodiac spinning around the polestar. She realized the image at the apex of the pyramid was a blazing white horseshoe! One shod foot of the exterior night-mare actually “crashed” through the pointed roof to flash all the dancers below. It must be wearing a lucky horseshoe, of course.
Maybe seeing a lucky neon horseshoe was the same as wishing on a star. Temple was acting as a polestar herself. Standing still on the dance floor, she became a fixed point. People grooved all around, not caring what her shtick was any more than they cared whom they danced with or if they did.
Temple tried to picture a masked Max leaping on a bungee cord into this melee, pulling illusions out of his sleeves under all the signs of the zodiac. Look! There was Gemini, the twins, her birth sign. And Cancer, the crab. Then came Leo, the MGM lion. Not really, but in Vegas, was there any other lion on Earth or in the heavens? And Virgo, the virgin, a being as rare as a unicorn on the Vegas Strip. And Libra, the scales of balance and justice. Scorpio, with the curved sting of its tail lashing autumn into winter.
And then . . . Temple didn’t recognize the next constellation, or remember what zodiac sign came next. It didn’t offer a lot of stars but was rather peaked, like the top of Libra’s scales.
The one after it boasted a whole a rash of stars. Oh, that was the centaur shooting the arrow. Sagittarius, the archer. Capricorn, the goat, came next.
But . . . the hoofed centaur followed the scorpion. Temple was sure of it.
So . . . the constellation between Scorpio and the centaur had to be . . . shaped like a leaning house with a pointed roof—Ophiuchus!
Why did the Neon Nightmare include the rejected thirteenth sign of the zodiac between Scorpio the scorpion and Sagittarius the archer? Both shot stinging barbs. Ophiuchus combined man and serpent, which could sting as well.
Had Max air-danced beneath this bright and poisonous zodiac and been stung on the fly, falling to Earth and destruction?
Then where was the comet’s tail?
Why had such a spectacular death dwindled to mere memory and rumor?
Where was the body?
Playing It Koi
So here I am, at my former PI office, lurking in the canna-lily plants near the Crystal Phoenix koi pond, panting my lungs out so hard I can not even whisper “Dixie,” much less whistle it.
There was no time to hitch any rides, so I made the trip only on mitt leather, and I have worn my black soles pink. Some consider that a handsome retro color combination, but, let me tell you, it stings!
Luckily, I am too pooped to be distracted by the silken . . . undulating . . . translucent . . . fluttery fins on those plump piscine torsos in the nearby water attraction. Lake Mead may be a few trillion gallons shy a shoreline, but nothing will ever diminish or lower the water level in the hotel chef’s beloved koi pond.
I am hoping beyond hope for a rendezvous with Miss Midnight Louise. If she is not here, then my hasty mission to the Neon Nightmare club is doubly vital, for that is the last place I have seen her. So, by the shores of Getcha-gimme, while the koi beat their fins against the water in an odd familiar rhythm, I
hear an internal mantra.
In the land of the Fontanas,
Lives the justice-maker’s daughter,
Mistress of the rising phoenix,
And the gleaming goldfish pond,
Born to run with nimble footwork,
Heart and mitt that move together,
She shall run upon my errands,
Midnight Louisa, laughing mocker . . .
Okay, the scansion on Miss Louise’s name does not quite work, but she is no Minnehaha, unless she is laughing at me. She would not be laughing now.
My vibrissae snap to immobile attention. I have spotted a familiar black hummock.
Midnight Louise is here on her home turf! Safe and stuffing her face. And here I was worried. . . .
Unfortunately, that still-crouched form is worshiping at the white-shod feet and medically white-clothed figure of Chef Song, arms folded on chest, the usual meat cleaver clutched to defend the precious foreign-named and fat goldfish from any interloper, like me.
I realize a delicate celadon green rice bowl sits between the kitchen god and worshiper, filled with fresh . . . shrimp or salmon perhaps, or tender slices of beef, or caviar, or octopus.
Preparing to make an end run to snag her attention, I watch the furred one sit up to perform after-meal ablutions. What, no warm, wet rolled-up towel? For shame, Chef Song!
By then the chef is turning away to gather goods to refill the bowl.
The diner strolls off into the canna lilies to finish his grooming. It is that big old lazy galoot of a purported father of mine, Three O’Clock! One would think the Glory Hole Gang’s test kitchen would suffice for his snacking.
While I eye him contemptuously, another black humped form is now worshiping at the about-to-be-refilled bowl.
Chef Song straightens. “You are hungry today, honorable cat.”
It is then I notice that he wears a pair of glasses that has slid down his nose, given all the serial kowtows he is making to my kind.
There is no chance even I would assume this latest bowl customer to be Miss Midnight Louise. She is more petite and curls her tail left when eating, and this bozo has a short, stumpy tail. I recall Ma Barker had promised to send some ninjas to patrol the Crystal Phoenix.
Pushing one’s face into a full rice bowl is not patrolling.
I can barely contain my impatience. I need to betray my position and go over to interrogate Three O’Clock without the looming, armed presence of my longtime foe, Chef Song. I am astonished he would lavish his bounty on all comers like this, when I am persona non grata.
I should snag a koi on the principle of it, while he is fawning over these street-gang strangers. The current customer also rises, flourishes his vibrissae, and ambles off to cleanse them in the canna lilies’ shade.
Before I can make a move, another black dude has appeared before the bowl, and while the now-vision-impaired chef is bent over watching the food vanish as if by magic, the dude is taking his turn. This is too much to bear.
If Chef Song cannot tell a senior citizen and a street tough from the dainty Miss Midnight Louise, he probably cannot distinguish me as his bitter enemy.
I strut into the open sunlight, stinging my footpads . . . ouch.
Nevertheless I march right up behind the current foodaholic. I will either join the chow line or I will bust it up.
Chef Song straightens as he spots me. With that tall, poofy white hat, he is as formidable appearing as a white Persian with its tail in full battle fluff. In other words, he and his meat cleaver do not scare me.
However, I am apparently so singular I am immediately ID’d.
“You!” he says. “You koi snatcher. You no longer resident. Get away from my private feeding station and pond or I will make minced shallots of your tail.”
Our set-to has spoiled the appetite of the latest freeloader, who hisses, spits, and runs for the canna lilies. Good. My posse is on their feet and ready to leave the luncheonette for the real scene of the action.
While Chef Song switches to uttering his own challenges in Chinese, I return full measure of hiss and spit, then show him the business end of my tail root and duck into the thick plant-stalk jungle.
Aaaah. Cool dirt between my toes, even though it will get stuck in my shivs.
“Okay, you worthless chowhounds,” I tell my now-assembled troops. “We have a mission. First, Three O’Clock, where is Midnight Louise?”
“I do not know. I just ambled over from the Glory Hole Gang’s test kitchen for some real food. Spuds Lonnigan is whipping up his specialty, potatoes, and I am not a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. Meat, yes. Tater Tots, no.”
“You have not seen Miss Midnight Louise, either?” I ask the other two, while a singsong of imprecations continues above our heads and far, far away from our current concerns.
“Bast no, boss,” one says, with gratifying respect.
“Not since this old freeloader showed up at our new headquarters,” the other adds, indicating Three O’Clock with a quick flick of his shivs.
That is bad mews. Miss Louise should be long back here by now.
“Cut out that palaver,” the old boy orders me and his ex’s legmen. “I am washing my whiskers. The younger generation has no respect for the civilized formalities.”
“No time for cleanup work here,” I tell them, “there is a muchobad scene brewing at the Neon Nightmare, and we need to join Ma Barker and any minions she may have taken there right away.”
“I need time for my lunch to settle,” Three O’Clock complains. “I cannot do a long trek and then be ready for fisticuffs.”
“There is a shortcut,” I explain. “If Miss Midnight Louise had made it back here, she would have put one of you two on guard duty near it. And,” I tell the old guy, “no whining. The entrance to our Chunnel of Timely Crime Fighting is just behind the people-pool area. It is dark and cool and private. From there we can take a secret route into the bowels of the Neon Nightmare.”
I consider this a rousing speech to derring-do.
Three O’Clock hiccups and shakes his head. “My bowels are going to feel the earth move if I have to get going without my afternoon nap. After my seafaring life, I find the gentle waves of the subtly shifting koi pond essential and soothing.”
I shrug and eye the no-name muscle. They seem to have no digestion issues.
“Stay here and hold the fort, then, Three O’Clock. We need to be off and running to the rescue.”
I make a 180 swivel on my four-on-the-floor and take off, to the rewarding skitter of battle-ready shivs digging in behind me. The Cat Pack is on the hunt.
Drinkin’ Bitter Beer
After dinner and leaving the hotel that night, Gandolph led Max to the far edge of the tourist area, until the streets were deserted enough that they heard their individual footsteps.
“Soon,” he cautioned Max, unnecessarily, “they will find us.”
Almost eerily soon after that, a lone passerby bumped Gandolph into Max, who bumped into the corner of a building leading to a dark, narrow passage. Instantly, they were corned beef on rye toast, sandwiched between two thick, meaty wedges of Irish soda bread.
“Americans abroad, eh?” a coarse whisper crooned.
Now three men clothed in a damp wool scent hedged them in, one in the street, two in the alley.
Max had already taken a visual survey. All three were nearer Gandolph’s age than his, so they weren’t teenage hotheads unable to get jobs and turning to a bit of street violence if marching Orangemen weren’t available to attack.
Like most natives of a damp and cloudy climate, their Irish eyes were lighter than their hair color, which Max judged by their jaw stubble. Their heads were covered with knit fisherman’s caps, and they all wore that new and sinister urban fashion/disguise, hoodies, now pushed down into the monk’s-cowl position on their broad shoulders, the shoulders of workingmen or professional thugs.
The acrid odors of strong tobacco and ale were their cologne. Their narrowed eyes a
nd tense mouth sets advertised the names of their signature scents: Suspicion and Up to No Good.
Ordinarily, Max would start flailing enough to distract two of them so Gandolph could belly-punch and shin-kick the third to the ground, by which time the second would come stumbling past him and get a disabling blow from the blackjack in the older man’s pocket. The other thug, of course, would be out cold by then, flat on the cool cobblestones two centuries old and witness to countless evening attacks of the same crude sort.
Except here, Max was handicapped from the outset, and Gandolph saw no point in making a fight of it. They surrendered to the hard, metal prods in their backs and faded a few steps away from the distant lights and tourists and traffic into the instant isolation of an alley that stank like a urinal.
So much for urban gentrification, thought Max.
“We know a little pub,” the same voice purred, with the velvet authority of being well armed.
Max shrugged and Gandolph nodded. They were here to take the temperature of Belfast today. These men weren’t muggers, or they’d be out cold and stripped of their paper, metal, and plastic belongings.
Max felt a frisson of fellowship to realize that he and Gandolph were long accustomed to being of like mind without words or gesture. For the second time since he’d awakened from his coma, his veins throbbed with a returning tingle of life and adventure. The first occasion had been with Revienne.
Mostly, he knew he wasn’t afraid, as a normal tourist would have been, but . . . pleased.
The “pub” was several blocks’ walk through ever-more-depressing slums. They passed a burned-out, graffiti-slathered office building and a cement-walled shopping arcade as dark as any crypt, before ducking down another alley to a low red-brick building from a couple centuries back.
Uneven cobblestones had Max limping badly by the time they arrived. He relished his obvious problem; it made their custodians careless. A gimp and an old man. Easy prey. For once, Max’s height wasn’t intimidating but made him appear awkward and unbalanced.
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