My eyes fasten on something below the collar…not her chest hairs! A gold charm dangles below the crystals and the shape is oddly familiar. Fortunately, or unfortunately, my avid interest is taken as personal rather than professional.
Hyacinth’s true-blue eyes cross with self-satisfaction. “Console yourself with that low-bred Persian, if you must, Louie. That would be for the best, rather than aspiring beyond your means. There is a certain tragic nobility in your dedication to such shop-worn goods.”
My shivs are itching to show Hyacinth some dedication she has never encountered before, but such is the role of the undercover operator. You must sometimes play Caspar Milquetoast. So I bat playfully at her neck instead, a clumsy gesture that she blocks with a right cross.
“I must truly leave?” I mew piteously.
“Alas, yes. And now!”
Yes, sir! She has shown me to an open window onto the dark, wide lawn leading back to the deceptive barrier of the cemetery.
I leap to the ledge. In like smoke, out like Flynn.
“Adieu, my lady fair.”
I pound down to the ground and hotfoot it across the sward before somebody unleashes the hounds of Hell that guard this weird outfit.
I sense Miss Hyacinth’s eyes upon my exit all the way to the exterior wall.
Good. More time bought for my partner-in-crime, Mr. Max Kinsella.
I just wish I knew where Miss Louise was.
Somewhere cushy, no doubt.
She can’t possibly have gotten into bigger trouble than I have.
Magicians at Work
Max found an upright curtained box to slip into like a man donning a cape.
Some people found upright, coffin-narrow boxes claustrophobic. To Max, they were home. Children were supposed to be seen but not heard.
He needed to be un seen, and unheard.
Gimme shelter. Put me on a stage, the invisible man incarnate.
Max eavesdropped, nostalgic, on the intermittent murmurs performance professionals make when they are rehearsing, as they consult one another.
The cage closer? You stand here? No, there. What about the cat? He’s fine where he is for now. And this turns when…? On a count of eight. And you are —? Here.
Max had worked solo, so his constant Q and A had been with a technical crew, not costars. Still, the ritual, the mind-numbing, boring repetitiveness of it, offered a stability and comfort he had found in nothing else. He wondered if that was what Matt Devine missed in saying the mass. He knew Matt Devine missed saying the mass. He had to.
You don’t give up a leading role in the theater, or the Church, without losing a primal connection to something bigger than yourself, something more than tradition, something intimate and sacred….
Max cut off his thoughts.
His role of magician had been only a cover. The real role was hidden beneath the illusion. He was here to play his real role: spy, protector, thief of other people’s secrets.
Booted footsteps finally announced the arrival of groundsmen ready to collect the leopard. They sounded like storm troopers among a ballet troupe.
Osiris snarled, grumpy. Max smiled unseen in his upright coffin. The leopard reveled in his role, in work. Max had sensed that when he had “liberated” him from the Animal Oasis. This particular caged beast was not exploited, but occupied that rare boundary between wild animal and animal that had learned to enjoy a degree of domestication. The only problem was that so few people were fit to interact properly with such an animal. Better that this truce between the species had never been negotiated.
Still, Max knew the Cloaked Conjuror, trapped as he was behind the mask of his own stage persona, himself caged, loved the leopard and would protect him as he would a human colleague.
Shangri-La he could not speak for.
She was quick, a talented illusionist, and a conundrum. Why would she bother playing second banana in a major Las Vegas act? How deeply involved was she in the drug transportation scheme that had been used to kidnap Temple? And Midnight Louie, although he was obviously an afterthought.
When Max heard the light retreat of footsteps now that the leopard was gone, he tensed, his hand on the curtain. Exit Shangri-La. Enter the Mystifying Max. It would be best to surprise and confuse the Cloaked Conjuror, to convince the magician that the magician-turned-spy’s illusions were superior.
Max waited, listened, timed himself.
When CC had turned away to deal with the equipment, Max slipped out of the box, climbed atop it and jumped to catch onto one of the huge wrought-iron chandeliers marching down the center of the ballroom.
He swung for a minute, silent as a pendulum, then used his remarkable upper body strength to pull himself up among the swaying branches.
In seconds he was arranged like a deus ex machina in a Greek drama, the god descending from the heavens at the play’s end, thanks to a creaking stage mechanism that playgoers chose to consider part of the Olympian miracle.
“Osiris is ready to work again,” Max commented casually.
CC spun away from his props, stared at the blank-eyed rows of windows, looked toward the stairs leading to the ballroom.
“Heavens, no,” Max said sardonically.
Of course CC looked up at that. Even his expressionless mask seemed to frown when he spotted Max.
“You! How —? I’m the debunker, not you! But you keep turning up where you’re not supposed to be.”
“I saved your rear, and your leopard, the last time I ‘turned up,’ didn’t I?”
Max swung to the floor, lithe as a chimpanzee, despite out-of-condition muscles that protested. The illusionist landed as lightly as thistledown, or Tinker Bell.
Clap if you believe in fair play.
“What are you doing here?” CC said.
“Curious.” Max dusted off his palms and prowled among the equipment. “Curious about your new partner, for instance. I had considered getting a female partner, before I…retired.”
“You? You always worked alone. It was your hallmark.”
“Times change. Why did you hire Shangri-La?”
“To spice up the act, I guess. She’s masked herself, in her way. You don’t think we make a good team?”
“You make a provocative onstage statement together.”
“Thanks. That’s why, I suppose. Just any other female magician wouldn’t have been worth recasting the act for. But she’s, ah, well, you’ve seen her. Highly feminine but not blatant about it, small enough to manage the usual acrobatic illusions, and she brings multi-cultural dimension to the act, not to mention that incredible performing Siamese of hers. It’s uncanny! You’d almost think that scrawny little devil could think. Rather sinister in its way —”
“Almost like a witch’s familiar? If you believed in witches.”
“Why do I think you just might?”
Max laughed. “I’m a fifteenth-century kind of guy? Seriously, I agree Shangri-La’s a great match for your act. Her and her cat. How’d you find her?”
“She found me. Pulled a surprise visit at the theater, like you did the first time. Came swinging down from the flies like Peter Pan in that Jackie Chan-in-Chinese-drag getup of hers.”
“So you’ve never seen her face, without makeup.”
“No, and I like it that way. She’s probably as ordinary as I am underneath the costume.”
“Just Clark Kent and Lois Lane?”
“Not even that interesting. Listen, there’s nothing…whatever between us. It’s a working partnership, like with the big cats.”
“And you like her little cat?”
“Hell, no. That thing gives me the creeps. Have you seen the painted claws on it? Reminds me more of a monkey than a cat sometimes. Besides, I’m partial to the big boys. Those are the real cats. These domestic versions are like toy dogs, a perversion of the original.”
“Hmmm.”
“You can’t say you’ve seen a street cat that could compare to Osiris or Mr. Lucky.”
“As a matter of fact, I have. But then I know a better breed of street cat than you.” Max smiled, stretched. Like a cat. “Speaking of Osiris, how is he doing now that he’s out of captivity again?”
“He’s one happy cat.”
“I see that. Quite an operation you have here.”
“And how the hell did you find it? I’ve spent millions keeping my residence secret.”
“And I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to find out what I need to know. How do you suppose I got Osiris back for you?”
“I paid you well.”
“True. But we both know that the story isn’t over. Osiris was taken to damage you. Your enemies are still out there.”
“Everybody successful has enemies.”
“Not enemies like these. Rogue magicians. You think I can surprise you? I know they can surprise you more.”
“And you?”
“They can surprise me, too.”
“Why do you think I’m the key to whatever will-o-the-wisp you’re chasing?”
“Because my prey are your enemies. They flutter around you like fireflies. Taking Osiris was just an opening shot. Besides —” Max grinned. “You’re about the only person in Las Vegas who can afford to fight them. And you’ll need to.”
“And I’ll need you to do it, I suppose.”
Max nodded. “If I found you here, don’t you suppose that they already have?”
The mask he wore hid the Cloaked Conjuror’s every expression, but his body language spoke for him. His massive form was still, mute. Max’s point had stabbed home.
Nowhere was safe.
In the distance outside, one of the big cats roared, a deep, ragged, sharp sound like nothing on earth.
“Do you hire out as a bodyguard?” CC asked at last.
“No. I’m just a guardian angel. I’m not allowed to be on anyone’s payroll, but I’d be interested in who’s on yours. Let me guess. I bet you just hired a new guy, a new bodyguard, am I right?”
Could a mask pale?
No.
But it could nod, very faintly, “Yes.”
“I’m feeling lucky.” Max paused to pick up a large painted globe. With a twist of the wrist, he separated it into halves filled with colored scarves. “Is the new bodyguard’s name Nadir? Rafi Nadir?”
“I’ll get rid of him,” vowed the Cloaked Conjuror’s growling mechanical voice, flat and lethal.
“A mistake. I’d rather know than not where that particular gentleman is.”
“I’d rather not be surrounded by treachery.”
“You already are. Better to not let anyone know that you realize that. How many people do you employ?”
“Here?”
“Here and at the hotel.”
CC strode impressively toward the dainty ballroom chairs that lined the room and had come with the house, lemon yellow Louis XV fripperies, and sat on one. It was as if Darth Vader had perched on an egg crate.
“Here,” he said, sighing. His sigh sounded like a lizard’s hiss through the voice-altering mask. “About sixteen, indoors and out. But they are all investigated.”
“Who does your investigations?”
Had he a lip visible to bite, CC would have bit it then. “I see what you mean. Any system is corruptible. And another twenty at the theater.”
“They are less likely to be corruptible.”
“Because they’re attached to a bigger institution, like the hotel?”
“No.” Max folded his arms and leaned against the wall between two lavish swags of drapery. “Because they’re union.”
When CC was silent, he went on. “Union stagehands are paid well enough to have something to protect. They don’t like anybody messing with their jobs. They feel they have enough muscle on their side to resent outside muscle telling them what to do, which is simply their job. That’s probably why your stagehand was killed up in the flies during TitaniCon. Have you figured out who it was?”
“Of course. With days off and such it took us a few days to realize.”
“You tell the police?”
The massive feline head shook. “I couldn’t maintain my own security if I let the police in on it. Robbie Weisel was a divorced guy, no kids, kind of a loner. He was a pretty loyal guy, like you guessed. Straight-shooter. If he got killed because somebody was trying to move in on me and he stood in their way, I’m not going to undo his sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice is right. He probably was mistaken for you. You had him wear a backup costume, right? When he was up in the flies getting ready to unleash a leopard illusion on the people below? Part of your scheme to embarrass the science fiction TV show that had ripped off your look for its alien race of baddies.”
“So it was a juvenile stunt! I resented the hell out them making my individual stage look part of a damned hive. Suing ’em would have taken years. One big splash of embarrassment would have gotten me ink all over the world.”
“Only it got your man killed.”
The Cloaked Conjuror’s mask hid all human expression, but his gloved hands clenched and unclenched in the rhythm of a big cat pumping its claws in and out. With the cats, it was a sign of pleasure and security. With the Cloaked Conjuror, it signified guilt and impotence.
Max knew he was being fairly merciless, but he had to convince the man to go along with his master plan for unmasking the people behind a whole slew of Las Vegas mayhem and murder.
And besides, he wasn’t entirely sure that the murder of Ron Weisel didn’t cut the other way too: some resentful science fiction convention attendee could have mistaken the magician’s disguise for the TV show alien.
CC was talking again. “You say this magician’s coven who hates my work is behind this stuff. Okay, I don’t want to blow unmasking them. I want to turn these Synth bastards over to the police, all wrapped up.”
“You also want enough evidence on them from other sources so your personal security and privacy aren’t compromised.”
“Is that so despicable?”
Max shrugged. “I can see that in your case it’s necessary. And I see that you need me to do it.”
CC nodded. “I have a lot of money. I can pay you when it’s done, when the Synth’s teeth are pulled.”
“Can you give me what I need now?”
“What is that?”
“Whatever I ask for.”
“To…a degree.”
“You mean to the degree that you can see sense in it. Here’s what I want now. It doesn’t cost a thing, except self-control and discretion.” Max came close, braced his bare, bony hands on the lemon-silk-upholstered arms of the dainty chairs, confined the Cloaked Conjuror to a temporary witness box in an empty court of law.
“I want you to tell no one. Not a long-lost relative, not a trusted associate of decades, not a woman in your bed. No one. Your life depends on it. And mine. And if you’re ever tempted, or ever that thoughtless, just remember Robbie’s lifeless body hanging like a puppet from the flywalk. He saw too much, he could have talked. He paid the price.”
“My God, my life is already circumscribed. I have no face to most people I deal with, no true voice, no body. You’re saying I should be a prisoner within this costume, not relax my guard for a moment.”
Max straightened. “Not every moment. You can work and play with the big cats. But don’t share your troubles with them. Someone might be listening. Someone might have bugged their collars, the environment. Trust no one. No place. No time. Nothing.”
“A man can’t live like that.”
“Yes, he can. If he must.”
“You?”
“Sometimes. For a long time. Again.”
“You think this is a…conspiracy.”
Max nodded. “Conspiracies are big, clumsy, well-aged anachronisms, but don’t underestimate the elephant. It’s the largest surviving land animal, and it has a long reach and an even longer memory.
“And it can crush a Big Cat with its front toenail.”
…The Sting
“This music could drive a person crazy,” Molina shouted to Morris Alch.
She was hoping he had attained an age group where he’d agree with her right off.
Instead, he just smiled.
“Sorry, can’t hear you over this racket, Lieutenant.” His forefinger patted his earlobe. “Hard of hearing. What a blessing sometimes.”
He gazed around like a kid who’d run away to see a traveling carnival.
This was a side show, all right, with the hoochie-coochie girls front and center. Morrie gazed up at their undulating everythings with innocent amazement. He was working, after all, even though it was past midnight when he met her here.
Molina wasn’t sure she was ready to watch another man fall for the obvious.
“I should have brought Su,” she shouted. “She’d keep her eye on the prize.”
Alch screwed a finger in one ear as if to twirl out wax. “Can’t hear,” he shouted happily.
Maybe, Molina thought, the awful, knee-knockingly loud music was part of the attraction. Some men seemed to crave not having to talk, or think.
The music made her teeth grind. It was what she thought of as jackhammer rock: screeched lyrics you couldn’t understand, screaming guitar, a dominant, body-vibrating bass deep enough to stop pacemakers for three blocks around.
She glanced at the small, glassed-in booth where the teenage troll responsible for this hellish hullabaloo was nodding his scraggly head to the beat like a palsied muppet.
They were here on official business, waiting for a brief break in the festivities.
Morrie stared up at the stage, where the only view was of Frederick’s of Hollywood thongs being put to very skimpy use.
You’d think Alch had never been to a strip club before, she thought, and then Molina considered the likely fact that he probably hadn’t, not often. He didn’t strike her as the type to rowdy out with the boys. Maybe that was why she’d always liked him, as much as an impartial superior officer could like an underling. Not playing favorites was the key to effective management, but she realized that she trusted Morrie more than most.
Midnight Louie 14 - Cat in a Midnight Choir Page 17