“So it’s an iPhone,” Lassiter said. “What’s the problem—he’s cooler than you?”
“It’s not the phone, Detective,” Fleck said. “It’s what’s on the screen.”
“The hot new video on YouTube?”
“It’s a restraining order signed by Judge Albert Moore of the California Superior Court for Santa Barbara County forbidding any agent of the state to examine, investigate, or in any way come into contact with the secret work product of my client, P’tol P’kah, the Martian Magician, that would expose his methods and practices and thus threaten his career, without the express permission of Mr. P’kah or his duly authorized agent.”
Lassiter cast a glance at the corpse in the tank. “If that’s your client, I think his career is facing greater threats than anything I can do.”
“That’s not my client,” Fleck said. “I have no idea who he is, or what he’s doing trespassing on my client’s property.”
Lassiter fought the impulse to pick up the little man and toss him in the tank with the corpse. He turned to O’Hara, who was stepping up beside him. “Who is this guy?”
“Benny Fleck,” O’Hara said. “He manages, produces, and owns half the top-grossing shows on the Vegas Strip, along with several sports franchises, the nation’s largest ticketing agency, and a big chunk of Times Square.”
“Fast detective work,” Lassiter said.
“One of the meter maids always leaves her People Magazine behind in the women’s restroom,” O’Hara said. She turned to Fleck. “Mr. Fleck, I understand your position here, and I hope you can understand ours.”
“Understand yes, care no,” Fleck said. “And don’t even think about trying to go over Judge Moore’s head to void the restraining order. He’s not the only member of the bench who’s indulged some of his more individual tastes in Las Vegas.”
Before Lassiter could respond, there was a moan from the other side of the tank. Reluctantly, he turned to see Shawn clutching his forehead as if in great pain.
“Are you the keymaster?” Shawn groaned, staggering toward Fleck and reaching down to grab his lapel. “Or are you the gatekeeper?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fleck said, shoving Shawn away.
“The keymaster!” Shawn howled.
Gus stepped up and pulled Shawn back a few feet, then whispered in his ear. “What are you doing?”
“I’m invoking an ancient mystical text,” Shawn said. “All the best psychics are doing it these days.”
“Ancient mystical text?” Gus demanded. “That’s from Ghostbusters.”
“And when it was made, the smallest cell phone weighed two pounds, Kings Quest 1 was the greatest computer game in history, and people took Frankie Goes to Hollywood seriously,” Shawn said. “I think we can all agree that qualifies as ancient.”
Shawn stepped back up to Fleck and grabbed his forehead again. “The keymaster,” he moaned.
“Can’t anyone get this clown out of here?” Lassiter demanded.
Officer McNab made a move toward Shawn, but before he got there, Shawn bent over double and let out a howl of pain.
“No, not the keymaster,” Shawn said. “We need the latchmaster. I see a latch. It’s open, then it’s closed, and then it’s open again. And though it needs to be opened, the latchmaster closes it again before he opens it. Oh why, latchmaster, why?”
Shawn straightened and dropped his hands to his side. Fleck stared at him.
“Who is this?” Fleck said, never taking his eyes off Shawn.
“Shawn Spencer, official psychic to the Santa Barbara Police Department,” Shawn said.
“Occasional consultant to the Santa Barbara Police Department,” Lassiter corrected. “When he’s been called in to consult on a case. Which in this case he has most definitely not.”
“I haven’t?” Shawn said.
“Absolutely not,” Lassiter said.
“You know only the chief has the authority to bring you on to a case, Shawn,” O’Hara said.“And I suspect she might find you more useful as a witness on this one.”
“Well, then,” Shawn said, “that makes me Shawn Spencer, private citizen. Oh, and psychic detective, available for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and really impossible murder cases.”
Fleck eyed him thoughtfully. “So you’re a licensed private detective?”
“Licensed?” Shawn said. “You have to ask?”
“I have to ask.”
Shawn pulled out his wallet and flipped through the contents. “I’ve got a license to drive. License to fish. License to use official Microsoft Office software as long as I don’t violate the terms of the user’s agreement. License to kill.”
“You do not,” Lassiter said. “There’s no such thing.”
“The James Bond fan magazine I snipped it from said it was authentic. Oh, according to my father, I’ve got a license to make a fool of myself,” Shawn said, still flipping through his wallet.
Gus stepped up beside him. “Psych Investigations is duly licensed by the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, number 06-443672. If you need to see the actual certificate, it’s hanging on the wall at our office,” he said, hoping that Fleck wouldn’t need to see it for at least a couple of days. The framed certificate was one of the things that Shawn had knocked off the wall during his Extreme Handball practice, and it was currently lying on the floor under a heap of broken glass. “I’m Burton Guster, Shawn’s partner.”
“And you are not currently working for the Santa Barbara Police Department?” Fleck said.
“God, no,” Lassiter said.
Fleck studied Shawn carefully, then made a decision. “In that case, I am hiring you to investigate the disappearance of my client, P’tol P’kah, the Martian Magician. We’ll work out the terms and conditions when you come to my office in Vegas tomorrow.”
“Mr. Fleck, that doesn’t help us with the question of the dead man floating in your tank,” O’Hara said.
“Actually, it does,” Shawn said. “Because P’can P’kie—”
“P’tol P’kah,” Gus corrected.
“Right, what he said,” Shawn said. “Anyway, he vanished from this tank and the man in question stepped in to take his place. For all we know, the floating fellow is actually the insane genius behind a brilliant plan to abduct the green guy.”
“Yes, that would be a brilliant plan,” Lassiter said. “I particularly admire the part where he throws the police off his trail by winding up dead.”
“I still don’t see how that helps us,” O’Hara repeated. “We can’t do anything as long as that court order is in force.”
“You can’t, but I can,” Shawn said. “Because as a licensed detective, I have a fiduciary duty to protect my client’s privacy. Which means that if I were to climb up the stairs and loop the cable that’s hanging above the tank around the dead man’s arm, then even if I did see something that Benny Fleck didn’t want revealed about the workings of the tank, I would be prevented by detective-client privilege from revealing anything about it, even if I were called to testify in a court of law.”
“That’s not—,” Lassiter started, but O’Hara cut him off.
“Wouldn’t you like to examine this body, Detective?” O’Hara said. “Don’t you think this is a potentially good compromise?”
Lassiter didn’t assent, but he didn’t finish his objection, either.
“Of course, as a licensed Microsoft Office end user, I have agreed that the software company can share my information with others, such as hardware and software vendors,” Shawn said. “But I’m willing to stand up even to Bill Gates to protect my client.”
“So, Mr. Fleck,” O’Hara said, “can we proceed under these conditions?”
For a moment, everyone in the room held his breath waiting for Fleck’s answer, except for the man floating in the tank, who didn’t have any breath left to hold—and Shawn, who was quietly humming the theme song from Ghostbusters. After a long pause, Fleck gave a sha
rp nod and the combined exhalation could have filled a weather balloon.
Shawn and Gus climbed up on the low stage and pushed the airplane stairs up to the tank.
“How did you get him to agree?” Gus said as they maneuvered the staircase into place.
“Something I saw when P’teter P’karker—”
“P’tol P’kah.”
“Right, that guy,” Shawn said. “Anyway, after he gave Balustrade his swimming lesson, he climbed back up here and even though the tank was open, he closed it again, latched it, then unlatched it and reopened it. Why do that?”
“Showmanship?” Gus said.
“If that was all it was, then Fleck never would have blinked and we’d be sitting in a broom closet guarded by McNab waiting for Lassiter to pretend to question us,” Shawn said. “What I guessed, and what Fleck has now confirmed, is that flipping the latch did something to the tank that was necessary for the trick to work.”
“What?”
“Possibly it turned on the chubby-dead-guy-generator,” Shawn said. “Other than that, I don’t have a clue.”
Gus stepped away and watched as Shawn climbed up the metal stairs. At the top, Shawn peered down into the tank, a look of disgust on his face as if he suddenly realized the particularly unpleasant flaw in his plan.
“I have an idea,” Shawn said. “Why don’t I deputize a couple of big, strong police officers to be temporary Psych employees. That way they could reach into the tank and fish out the body and still couldn’t say anything.”
“Unacceptable, Mr. Spencer,” Fleck said. “It’s you, or he stays in there until we get a ruling from the Supreme Court. And I don’t mean the one in Sacramento.”
“This was your idea,” Lassiter said. “Do it or I’ll throw you in jail for obstructing justice.”
O’Hara shot her partner a weary look, as if to suggest that he wasn’t helping. “What Detective Lassiter means to say is ‘please.’ ”
“That’s the magic word,” Shawn said. “Unless there are fake dogs involved. Then—”
“Shawn!” Gus yelled up at him. “Stop stalling.”
Shawn sighed heavily, then reached up and grabbed the cable. From here he could see that it ran through a series of pulleys and down to a hand-cranked winch on the far side of the stage, which was no doubt useful for bringing heavy equipment such as tanks of water onto the stage, or making heavy objects such as elephants disappear from it.
Shawn lowered the cable into the water and tried to maneuver the noose around the dead man’s hand. But of all the carnival games Shawn had ever tried, the ring toss was the one he had never mastered, and this was like that, only upside down. Every time the noose drifted close to the hand, the body drifted away, bounced against the tank wall, then drifted back in a slightly different position.
“It would be a lot easier if you got into the tank,” Gus said.
“It would be even easier if you got into the tank,” Shawn snapped.
“For all I care you can both go into the tank and never come out,” Lassiter said. “But I need that body on the ground in thirty seconds or I’m shutting down this charade.”
“Fine,” Shawn said. Getting down on his knees, he rolled up his sleeve, took a deep breath, and lay down on the platform. He squeezed his eyes as tightly shut as he could, then plunged his hand into the water.
“It would be easier if you opened your eyes,” Gus suggested.
Shawn scowled, but when he followed his partner’s advice he discovered that the noose was at least four inches from the target and moving in the wrong direction. He shifted the cable and maneuvered it around the dead man’s wrist, then yanked it so it slid up to his arm-pit. Jumping to his feet, he gave the cable a yank, just as the Martian Magician had done when Balustrade was on the other end. Only this time nothing happened.
“Gus, go man the winch,” Shawn said.
“I’m not sure Mr. Fleck would approve,” Gus said. “What if the winch is part of the illusion’s secret?”
“It’s not,” Fleck said.
“You could be saying that because you don’t want to reveal the truth in front of people who aren’t sworn to secrecy,” Gus said. “It is my fiduciary duty to you to have nothing to do with that winch, that tank, or anything relating to that incredibly gross dead body.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Lassiter said. He climbed onto the stage, pushing Gus aside even though the collision took him out of his way, and went to the winch handle.
On top of the stairs, Shawn leapt back when the body started to emerge and nearly fell the seven feet to the ground. But he caught himself on the handrail and, taking the tiniest edge of the corpse’s pants cuff that he could get his fingers on, guided the dead man down the stairs as Lassiter gradually lowered him on the winch.
As soon as the body was lying on the ground, Shawn jumped away from it, waving his hand wildly to shake off the corpse-water. “Wipe! Wipe!” he shouted.
“Wipe what?” Gus said.
“It’s not a verb; it’s a noun,” Shawn said. “You’re supposed to hand me one of those little moistened towelettes they give you at barbecue joints.”
“Maybe I should give you half a chicken and a brisket sandwich while I’m at it,” Gus said.
“I’m the detective; you’re the assistant—”
“I am no man’s assistant,” Gus interrupted. “Especially yours. I’m your associate.”
“Fine,” Shawn said. “I’m the detective, and you’re the associate. And the associate is supposed to carry a supply of sanitary wipes in his purse just in case the detective happens to touch something disgusting.”
Gus stared at him. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Really? I thought it showed some real consideration on the associate’s part. Also, you’re supposed to be a pretty blonde. If you’re not going to carry wipes, you could at least work on that.”
Shawn dried his hands on his shirt and walked back to where Lassiter was kneeling over the body. The man’s jacket lay open, revealing a vest bulging at the buttons, barely holding in his gut. Lassiter touched one of the buttons, and the vest exploded open, the liberated stomach sloshing around inside a now-translucent white shirt.
Ignoring the dancing flesh, Lassiter reached a gloved hand into the corpse’s jacket pocket and fished around before pulling it out with a scowl.
“No wallet.”
“You wouldn’t carry your wallet to go swimming,” Shawn said. “Of course, you probably wouldn’t wear that hat, either.”
Lassiter ignored him, turning to Fleck, who’d barely wasted a glance on the dead man. “You sure you don’t know him?”
“Positive.”
“He wasn’t a rival magician? A stalker? Someone your guy owed money to?”
“I already told you—”
“I know what you told me,” Lassiter said. “I’m just giving you every opportunity to improve your memory, so that if there’s any chance of a connection between this man and you, you’ll remember it now, when it can still make you look better rather than worse.”
O’Hara moved up beside Lassiter. “What my partner means is that in the heat of the moment, memories sometimes get clouded in ways that make subsequent realizations look less reliable than they are.”
“What they both mean is that they hope you’re lying and you’ll tell them who the dead guy is, because they don’t have a clue,” Shawn said.
“Thank you for translating,” Fleck said, then turned his icy gaze up at Lassiter and O’Hara. “I am a duly sworn officer of the court, and fully aware of my legal and deontological obligations to provide a truthful statement to the police in any matter civil or criminal. If you have reason to believe that I have violated this duty, then you must report me to the bar, or arrest me. Absent such belief, I urge you to cease from making such assertions, or I will see you in court.”
Shawn turned back to the police. “What he means is go f—”
“Shawn!” Gus warned.
<
br /> “Go find out who the dead guy is for yourself,” Shawn finished.
“I think we can handle that,” Lassiter said.
“Good,” Shawn said. “We’re going to go look for a Martian.”
Chapter Nine
“Let’s face it, if you’re a Martian who’s come to Earth to study human culture, this is where you want to be.” Shawn waved out the taxi window as they cruised past the Great Pyramid at Giza, a medieval castle, and the skyline of New York City. “I mean, you could get in your flying saucer and buzz the stratosphere, but think of all the gas you’d use up trying to see as much as you can in four blocks of the Las Vegas Strip.”
Gus looked out at the people clogging the sidewalks and wondered what a Martian would think of them. Blinking in the sudden sun after hours in the artificial twilight of the casinos, clutching fat plastic buckets of quarters or thinner plastic buckets filled with fifty-cent margaritas, barely fitting into their XXXL sweatpants, they looked like a population whose spirit had long since been crushed by alien invasion. The Martian might easily be fooled into thinking that his forebears had already taken over.
Or maybe Gus was just feeling uncomfortable about the meeting they were about to have. When they got back to the Psych office after Lassiter banished them from the Fortress of Magic, Gus flipped on the computer and discovered that Fleck’s assistant had already e-mailed them tickets for tomorrow’s first Allegiant Air flight direct from Santa Barbara Airport to Las Vegas, as well as an address for an office on East Frontage Street. There were no other instructions, not even a greeting. They were being commanded to appear by a man they’d barely met.
That didn’t bother Shawn at all. He’d talked Fleck into hiring them; he couldn’t complain if the man actually wanted them to do some work for their money. And they were getting a free trip to Vegas. Normally you had to sit through a three-hour sales pitch for time-shares to get that. They’d jet into town, do a little background, and expense a dinner buffet at one of the casinos. Or if Fleck wouldn’t agree to an expense account, they’d just win a few bucks on the slots and use that to buy dinner.
Gus had to admit the plan sounded appealing. But after finding the plane tickets, he did some basic research on Benny Fleck, and he wasn’t comforted by a lot of what he found. Fleck was one of the biggest promoters in family entertainment, and his touch seemed to be golden. He hadn’t had a flop in a decade, and with every success his shows had become bigger, grander, and more spectacular. He’d spent one hundred million dollars building a special theater for P’tol P’kah in Outer Space, the science fiction-themed hotel and casino, charged two hundred bucks for each of the five thousand intimately arrayed seats, and sold out every show since the gala opening eight months ago.
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