Matt handed over the rolled sketch that was as long and thick as a thigh bone.
Max unfurled it, gingerly. And then his face became very still.
"What did she call herself?"
"Kitty O'Connor."
"Any clue to why she was approaching you?"
"I was there?"
"You were there." Max nodded grimly. "So was I."
He stood up, his long arms holding the sketch full width as he stared at the face etched upon it.
"Max?" Temple no longer felt her theatrics had been uncalled for, that they were mere nerves. "What is it?"
He smiled, briefly. His skin looked whiter than milk against the black satin of his hair. He looked like a man from an ancient ballad, pale, filled with dread, and with the name of such a song he answered her.
"La belle dame sans merci."
"The beautiful woman without mercy," Matt translated, perhaps for Louie's sake. "I'll second that. How do you know her?"
Max looked up at Matt, as if their common misfortune earned Matt his respect at last.
"She cut me first, almost twenty years ago."
"Cut you? Max?" Temple wanted to come closer, but couldn't. Something about Max forbade approach.
"Not literally. I wish she had." He glanced at Matt. "I'd wear your scar for a thousand years rather than the one she gave me for seventeen, and counting. My cousin's life."
"Oh, no! Not... Sean?" Temple said, remembering the horrible incident Max had related a few weeks before, and again recently.
"Thanks for remembering his name." Max quirked her a smile. "The last thing I gave Sean to remember was watching me go off with Kathleen. That's what she called herself then. It was so simple. Two American boys visiting a charismatic homeland, an ancient land with an ancient wrong riding it. Teenagers. Think they're immortal but they're afraid they won't get a chance to ensure that soon enough. So, a double flirtation, with sex and death. A boyish competition.
Who'd get laid first. Who'd shoot a gun first. Same, stupid thing, isn't it? Nothing of the rational human in it, just. . . testosterone and territory."
Matt was looking serious, but rather confused.
"You need to tell him what happened," Temple told Max. "Or would you like me to do it?"
"No." Max washed his face with his hands, as if rinsing away the glaze the years had left behind. "He's used to hearing confessions."
Matt stirred uneasily. "Not recently."
Max's smile was ironic. "These are not recent sins I'm confessing."
He sat on the couch then, impinging on Louie's territory, and retold the story Temple had first heard after the death of Gandolph at the Halloween seance.
The two Irish-American boys, cousins from Milwaukee, going to the Auld Sod as a high-school graduation present. Their first solo trip. Of their unplanned foray to northern Ireland to see the "Troubles" for themselves, rash young would-be players of the patriot game.
The game was diverted with their encountering a gorgeous young Irish woman, a bit older and all the more intriguing for that. Gawky gallantries escalated into a grim competition for the first girl who seemed likely to actually sleep with one of them. Good Catholic girls in Milwaukee's parochial schools were too good and too Catholic, but the aura of danger in Northern Ireland, seeing the grinding inequity, made the boys feel passionate and reckless and lucky.
Matt saw Max hesitate before finishing the tale, and cut to the chase, because to him the ending was inevitable, and he didn't want to hear the details of Sean's defeat. "You won," he said. "The girl"
Max shrugged. "She chose me to go with to the cinema that night. Sean knew better than to come along. She made plain that the trio was now a couple. So I went off to lose my virginity, and Sean went to a pub to brood over his." He began speaking in the fragments of headlines, as if to distance himself from the facts. "IRA bombed it that evening. Sean, a stranger, must not have been thinking too clearly and went to an Orange pub. Car bomb parked outside. Blew off the front of the building. Six killed; three maimed. They had to have a closed coffin at the O'Shaughnessy and Meara funeral home in Milwaukee."
"What did you do when you found out?"
"Went back home with what was left of the body. Went to the funeral. Found out I wasn't the only one who blamed me for it. Sean's family and friends. The Kellys and the Kinsellas ended up at each other's throats. I couldn't stand it so I went back."
"To Kathleen."
"Christ, no. I never wanted to see her again, and I didn't. I did some foolish things to see if I could get myself killed too, and wasn't very good at it." He glanced at Temple who was still standing nervously by, like a referee. "I never told you much about Kathleen."
"Not about the movie and sequel."
"And not this part either: I did hear about her, a couple years later. She was with the IRA, probably had been then too. Her specialty was seducing rich foreigners and cajoling major money out of them for the cause. When I heard this, her turf was South America."
"South America?" Matt sounded startled.
"Lots of Irish emigrated there in the nineteenth century. They intermarried with the Spanish population. Some became quite wealthy. Soldiers of fortune. I think Kathleen was just . . .
practicing on Sean and me."
Temple and Matt were silent, each mulling over the final rev-elation.
"What did you do then?" Matt asked.
"Became an exile. Toured Europe. Studied magic. Became the stunningly successful illusionist you see today."
Matt saw that Temple wanted to say something, but she held her tongue instead. He hadn't heard all of it. "Then... why is she here, calling herself Kitty, after all these years? Why look me up? Why hand me Effinger?"
"My guess," Max said, "is that they planned to eliminate Effinger, and your search for him played into their hands."
"She really thought I was an assassin?"
Max shrugged. "That's the kind of world she's lived in for almost twenty years. So I suspect she was punishing you for not being what she thought you were. She expected a lot from her men, even back then."
"What about 'Remember me, you bastard'?"
Max sighed. "I'm afraid that was meant for me. So was Temple's kidnapping. She didn't like it when I broke off our relationship. She wanted me to stay in thralldom and work for the IRA. I had very different ideas."
"How different?"
Max glanced at Temple. She held herself still, trying not to influence him either way.
Max suddenly leaned forward, his gaze fixing Matt as commandingly as a hypnotist's.
"I suppose you're in this somehow. You've been attacked. You need to know. What I had to do was infiltrate the IRA to find and turn in the ones who had bombed that pub."
"But. . . you were a sympathizer."
"Sure. But that's what domestic terrorism does to a land, to its people, even to passing-through patriots like me. I became as determined to get that particular arm of the IRA as any Orangeman. And, of course, when I did, they became determined to get me. Luckily, by then I'd attracted the attention of some people who wanted to prevent violence by all sides, and they took me under their wing."
"So you've been more than a magician all these years, you're--"
"Basically, we're spoilers. We root out and rat on plans to knock off banks or casinos for money to support terrorist acts; we carry out arms interception raids, we blow the cover on planted bombs."
"We? You're part of a faction, like everybody else?"
"You could say that."
Matt kept silent, absorbing this knowledge. He looked up suddenly. "What was she like then?"
"Kathleen?"
"Yes. Kathleen, not Kitty."
Max glanced at Temple. She understood that current ladyloves weren't supposed to know too much about old flames, about the oldest flame, the very first girl. She eyed the sketch of the woman in question on the coffee table. There was nothing girlish about her now.
"Charming," Max began. "To Sean and
me she seemed passionate, endearingly intense about political matters, but we were pretty green. She was . . . flirty, teasing, innocent of the ways of American girls yet always seeming... intoxicatingly available. We were bewitched. We jockeyed for position like young colts, falling all over our own big feet and each other's."
"Nothing like the woman who cut me?"
"No. If I hadn't seen that sketch with my own eyes I'd never believe they were one and the same. I'm still not sure," Max added pointedly.
Matt nodded, ignoring the jab at his honesty, or maybe sanity. He too stared at the portrait of Kitty built from his memory and blood. He seemed oddly contemplative for a man considering an enemy.
"Did it ever occur to you," he asked Max very deliberately, like an attorney leading a reluctant witness, "that if Kathleen led you away from Sean that night, she also might have pushed him in the direction of the IRA-targeted pub?"
"Kathleen? But, why? She wanted us both on the IRA side. She must have known that would turn me against them. As a recruiter--"
"Maybe she was always more than she seemed, more than a mere recruiter. The woman I met liked inflicting cruelty. She didn't get that way overnight. What could be crueler than giving you what you wanted at your cousin's expense, not just the cost of losing out at romance, but the cost of his life itself?"
Max was truly confounded. Temple had never seen his guard drop so low. That it would vanish this way in front of Matt Devine was even more astounding. But Max was stunned. The sheltered ex-priest had suggested a dark twist of human motivation that the seasoned counterterrorist had never looked back to see.
"But killing Sean would make her recruitment ploy ineffective," Max reiterated. "It would be counterproductive."
"To the IRA, sure. But maybe Kathleen O'Connor had another objective." Matt stared at the sketch as if hypnotized. "Was she a virgin?"
This was more than Max Kinsella ever wanted to reveal about his first love affair. "How should I know? I was the usual teenage oaf in my own mind, so infatuated with the brave new world before me, with finally crossing the chasm to manhood, so I thought then ... all I can say is she was willing. Everybody seemed to be happy with how it went, which you may find out some day, unless you already have. Nobody hurt anyone."
"Ah, but they did." Matt ignored Max's gibe at his own state of possible virginity. "That's what I'm trying to get at. You were so hurt by your cousin's death that you broke off the relationship."
"Guilt."
"You turned your political sympathies inside out to pursue a course in reckless revenge that would have easily gotten another boy killed. I suppose your magic training made you more formidable for your age."
"I suppose. Look, the problem is not the past. That's. . . dead and gone. The problem is Kitty now. Why she targeted you and Temple. Where she is. What side she's hiding behind now. It's ridiculous to say she betrayed Sean. I did it, with my horny little hormones. I learned to live with that a long time ago. She was just the means and the opportunity."
Matt shook his head. "I don't think so. The woman I met was lethal. She didn't get that way overnight. Whatever cause she pretends to serve, and may actually believe she does serve, her real motives are more complex than geopolitical agendas. They are deep-down and personal and you're the key. I think she killed your cousin, indirectly, but as surely as if she'd built the bomb."
"But why?"
"Because she needs to wreak the most damage possible. Which is why I was attacked and Temple was taken. She's found you again. And she is out to make you pay. 'Remember me, you bastard.' That's what she said as she simultaneously kissed me and cut me. I think she was talking to you."
"She said that to you?"
Temple sat wide-eyed, like an audience, as these two men who competed for a woman--
her, omigosh, not Kathleen but her-- also competed for a piece of another woman's enmity.
Matt nodded. "I couldn't figure out why it all seemed so personal, but it's obvious now that her personal issues are with you, and that, as before, she'll try to get at you through those around you."
"But . . . why? Why hate me so much? I . . . Sean and I, we thought we were in love with her.
We were high on Ireland and noble causes and a beautiful girl who seemed to be part of it all.
Maybe we were selfish in our infatuation, but we were basically innocent, stupid kids.-Why hate us?"
"Maybe because you were so innocent." Matt pushed away the sketch of Kitty, as if disowning it, as if renouncing the fact that it came from his mind and memory. "All I'm saying is that I don't think she'll go away, and I don't think any one of us is safe with her around." He glanced at Midnight Louie still claiming his substantial portion of the coffee table. "Not even Louie."
Temple could be silent no longer. "You mean she'd even hurt a cat?"
"Especially a cat," Matt said soberly. "The more innocent the victim--the more helpless--
the better."
"You make her sound like a monster," Max objected.
Matt's brown eyes were darkly serious. "You haven't encountered her in, what, fifteen years? I thought I had met a demon."
"Surely you exaggerate."
"No, I don't think I do."
Max buried his face in his hands. "Jesus. I was so close to getting away from that life. And now you're saying that one girl from sixteen years ago has become a vengeance machine, when she actually wronged me far more than I could have ever wronged her? It doesn't make sense."
"It won't until we know why."
"I don't want to know why. I want it to stop."
Matt shrugged. "It won't until we know why. You need to trace her, from then to now. You must have connections."
"I do. If I have anything, it's connections. But she'd dropped out of sight very effectively for well over a decade."
"Tells you something, doesn't it?" Matt stood. "Meanwhile, we'll have to watch ourselves.
And each other."
Max's gaze snapped up to his face. "Maybe that's her revenge. Forcing us to depend on each other."
Matt nodded. "No Exit. By Jean Paul Sartre. Recommended reading." He picked up the sketch. "I suppose you both should have a copy of this." He glanced ironically at Temple. "This time I'll have the copy place only reduce it to half-size. I don't suppose we want to spread wallet-size copies of this around. Might tip off Molina."
Temple had to jar herself alert to catch up with Matt before he got out the door.
"Thanks for sharing this bombshell with Max. I guess. We need to know. I didn't know what she did and said when she hurt you. That's so sick. . . ."
"You don't want to fall into the hands of her henchmen again." His hands tightened on her elbows. "I mean it, Temple. Be on guard for your life. If he doesn't think of it, it might be best to
... disassociate."
"I can't. Especially not now. Besides, Max is trained in stuff like this. But thanks for thinking of me." She lifted up to kiss him. "Remember me," she said.
The kiss didn't start anything, but it didn't end anything either.
Her life lately, Temple thought as she returned from seeing Matt out, was becoming an eternal ellipsis. Dots, trailing off to uncertainty, like unending sentences . ..
Max was still sitting midsofa, absently patting Midnight Louie's head. The cat was so apparently taken aback by this liberty that he tolerated it.
"Hurt Louie?" Temple sat down beside Max.
"He was taken too. Devine is right. Warnings. And I didn't want to see them. Dammit, I wanted all the past connections to be less of a problem, not more."
"It's not your fault."
"No, on the surface, nothing has been my fault. But it always feels like all of it has been."
"Well, why not? You were brought up in the Church of Mea Maximus Culpa too."
" 'My most grievous fault'... haven't thought of that old childhood Latin in years. Is Devine turning you away from the Unitarian Church?"
"I was already turned. Too wishy-washy. N
o searing, impossible moral dilemmas. Obviously, a totally sissy faith."
Max laughed and leaned back in the sofa pillows, sighing. "You certainly got a tawdry glimpse into my sixteenth summer."
"I think you've paid enough penance by now for getting laid, even for a Catholic boy."
"I hate to think he's right."
"But you do."
"I do. And I hate* like hell to think he came to harm at her hands because of me. It makes it harder to dislike him."
"Do you have to dislike him?"
Max watched her through the disguising green contact lenses, which only changed surface color, after all, not expression or emotion. "Yeah. He likes you too much, and vice versa. I can't believe I'm back in the past, only now I know enough to worry about something happening to him. If it did, we'd never be the same again, Temple."
"Poor Max. Now you've got three people to look after."
"Four," he added, frowning mockingly at Midnight Louie. "If anything happened to that cat, you'd really never forgive me."
"I did notice that you sprung him first."
"That's because he yells louder than you do."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah."
Max pulled her into an encompassing embrace. "So. We have to fight to survive physically as well as emotionally. So what's new under the empyrean? I wonder if I could use Molina's obsession to tack something prosecutable onto me to help me flush out Kathleen. Or Kitty, as she calls herself now. You realize that Molina had us tailed when we left the truck stop, so to speak."
"Tailed? Molina?"
"I bet she wants to find me almost as bad as Miss Kitty. It's heads or tails which is the more serious stalker. But don't worry, love. I ditched Molina's man, and I can outmaneuver Kitty the Cutter too."
Temple shivered in his arms. "Life is getting too complex, Max."
"So is death, my love. So is death."
Chapter 51
Louie Takes Stock
Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt Page 34