Cat in a White Tie and Tails

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Assuming Effinger had still been alive at this point, the method of impending death was beginning to look like medieval torture. Who’d taken a low-level creep like Effinger’s life in such a ritual, wrenching way? Why?

  “I’m hearing something.” Rafi’s voice was a warning rasp. “I’ve got to—”

  Max heard scrapes on the deck boards above as Rafi’s words cut off.

  Great. Here he was, dangling almost upside down, linked like a spider to a thread of web, a rope, trying to figure out what was happening far above his miniature world.

  Only one thing to do: cut loose from the safe harbor that had been so deadly for Effinger and swing out like a footloose, freebooting pirate.

  Max used his legs to rappel off the mermaid’s, hmm lips and hips, and around the ersatz ship’s side. Amazingly, the stunt worked.

  No time to rest on his laurels, or legs. Rafi could be in trouble.

  He scrambled hand-over-hand up the rope.

  For a dead stage set, the Bull’s deck was suddenly swarming with unlicensed boarders. Max used the rigging rope he still clutched to barrel into the three figures surrounding Rafi, scattering them like bowling pins. Only now they were separated, so while Rafi pummeled one, the other two were coming at him.

  His momentum swung him high out of reach. As he plunged into the inevitable low of his returning arc, he had no choice but to use his legs as battering rams, one to each oncoming chest.

  Impact. Shock and awe and … pain. His whole frame shuddered. Max gritted his teeth. He’d urged Nadir into this and he’d get him out of it. No more bodies left behind.

  He dragged a foot on the decking, a bit too late. He was headed into another wild, uncontrolled arc over the dark water.

  Then he looked down. One of his attackers had hit the waterline with a splash and came surging up to the surface, almost walking on water. Maybe a great white shark had grabbed a bite from below.

  The man’s scream turned into high-pitched stutters. Max watched his body stiffen and sink with an audible sizzle.

  Max’s set his teeth and sucked breath between them in a matching hiss of air. What the hell is going on? He was out there on a rope, and now a prayer, swinging over open water. Water that had been electrified. His heartbeat drummed in his ear as he tried think over the thud.

  Someone must have overridden the ground fault interrupter for the whole damn water attraction. Raw electrical current was flowing. The cove was a giant bathtub into which someone had thrown a hair dryer.

  That had happened in dozens of low-end crime films. The unsuspecting victim lowers her/himself into the drawn bath and … the quick toss of a hair dryer or electric razor, into the water. Zapped.

  Max’s madly pedaling legs swung him back over decking. The ship, built of wood as in days of old and molded plastic pieces as in the stage sets of today, couldn’t conduct electricity. Yo, ho, ho, and an oaken cask of rum. He dropped onto the deck, rolling to take the brunt of the landing, his legs scrambling for purchase on the rubberized no-slip surfaces installed for the dangerous stunts.

  Rafi grabbed his arm and pulled him upright.

  The last deserting “rat” was scrabbling over the ship’s side to the shore. Max could swear a small agile dark form was hot on his heels, but Midnight Louie was safely away in Chicago. Rafi grabbed his arm, distracting Max before he could be sure he’d seen anything odd.

  They looked back toward the dark water on the same impulse. A sacklike form floated there. Max grabbed a prop belaying pin and threw it into the water. No reaction. It merely sank.

  As he and Rafi followed the vanished thug into the tangled landscaping, alarmed voices and running footsteps were fast approaching the ship.

  A high-powered flashlight beam swept Rafi. He beat Max to the draw with an expletive.

  “I’m made,” he said. “The water’s dead now, but so is that guy. Get away!”

  “No—”

  “Go! I can explain myself being here better than I can me and you. If you ever needed a disappearing act more, it’s now.”

  Max remained frozen and indecisive, out of flashlight range. The beam had steadied and fixed on Rafi. The moment felt like deserting Garry again.

  “Get away!” Rafi’s low-toned snarl finally pushed Max to the bordering elephant ear plants. Their four-foot leaves could hide a Brink’s armored truck, or a rhinoceros. Pick your poison. Not ivy, he hoped. He ducked and dodged into the rubbery, flagellating dark, moving fast so no sign of shivering foliage would reveal his getaway path.

  Max heard the shouts calming into talk, and then barked orders. He kept working around the hotel building’s thick greenery until he heard nothing but his own rustles and heartbeat. He emerged in the rear parking lot, looking for a low black roof amid the pumped-up SUVs and pickups.

  The Volkswagen was near the second row of parking lights, halfway between two lurid pools of greenish illumination, just the way he liked his rides placed, on the down low.

  Max got in, started the engine, and sat awhile before putting it in gear.

  Someone had tried to kill him. Again.

  This was getting monotonous.

  Chapter 29

  Bye-Bye Windy Kitty

  At last.

  We are back in the hot, dry, lizard-loving arms of McCarran Airport. No more O’Hare, or undignified inspections.

  So there I am, no longer wearing leopard pattern, but wrapped up in a black-and-white and flamingo pink carrier customized by Miss Krys Zabinski for maximum embarrassment.

  Personal expression is valued these days, and she does plenty of it. In fact, I am planning my own page on Facebook and expect to “tweet” my close encounters with various tweety birds early in my career, including those from that pink plastic flamingo case in my past.

  But.

  I do not need to be passing through major airports looking like a sissy on steroids. In fact, I am longing for the sudden-death high of a good kidnapping, though I can assure you that no thug worth his brass knuckles would lay so much as a pinkie finger on my current carrier.

  “Oh, that old-style newspaper theme on your pet carrier is so fun,” strange ladies coo at me. When I say “strange,” I mean we are not formally introduced, not that they are loopy, although they very well may be.

  “I bet the ‘Extra, Extra’ headline on the front means your cat is extra loving. Give us a smooch, big boy.”

  “It’s actually for being ‘Extra’ heavy,” my Miss Temple (sellout!) says sweetly.

  “Oh, you poor thing. You need a Chihuahua. They are light and sooo cute.”

  My Miss Temple needs a Chihuahua like Ma Barker needs a Yorkie canapé.

  Mr. Matt, meanwhile, handles all the luggage while looking like a brute for “letting” her cart massive me around.

  I tell you, this celebrityhood is a bum rap. Everyone is so ready to be judgmental. Like I am a burden and Miss Temple is a silly lightweight and Mr. Matt is a spoiled media darling.

  When it comes to spoiled media darlings around here, that will be me, the once and future king of cat food spokespersonery.

  All in all, though, I am pleased with our jaunt to Chicago.

  My media value was enhanced by a couple dramatic kidnappings.

  I was able to get in a high-power workout while on vacation and meet a new lot of street buddies and future sources, should I elect to move my base of operations to the Windy City. Perhaps I could relocate the junior partner north instead. Miss Midnight Louise might establish an outpost for Midnight Investigations, Inc. I have not done too badly here on an extended weekend visit.

  I helped uncover dastardly lingering plots from years ago that are still alive and ticking, or kicking.

  Also, I have learned valuable lessons on making it through security.

  Now that we are home I will get back to pursuing evil weevils like the Viper and the Weasel all the live-long day. And night.

  Evil Weevils is what I privately call the bad guys and girls, both of which I am hopi
ng to foil and eradicate like bugs on the beautiful neon desert lily that is my native town of Las Vegas.

  Now that I have taken down a couple of Chicago hoods I am ready for a no-holds-barred campaign against these Synth characters who have been messing up my compadres’ lives since day one.

  Life would be dull without vile forces to battle, be they fleas or felons, however.

  Chapter 30

  Surprise Park

  Cop cars often met at the far end of fast-food joint parking lots, pulling up to each other with the noses pointed opposite ways so the cops could speak through the driver’s side windows.

  That was impractical in Las Vegas, given the usual heat and the vehicle’s air-conditioning blowing in the wind and burning expensive gas.

  So Max left his Volkswagen well hidden behind a tall stand of pampas grass and hiked into the picnic area of Sunrise Park.

  He passed Molina’s new Prius, a classic silver color ideal for the Vegas climate, unlike the heat-absorbing and apropos black of his Beetle. Still, it was low and easy to hide, especially at night.

  Unlike Sunset Park, tucked under McCarran Airport on the south side of the city, Sunrise Park was smaller, less well kept, and tucked under Nellis Air Force Base on the city’s north side.

  It was twelve miles north of McCarran and eight miles from the Strip. Meeting here was as far off the hustle, bustle, and recognition factor of the Strip as you could get and still be convenient.

  In the early morning, both tennis courts were occupied, although the surfaces looked rugged.

  Molina was sitting on a picnic table in one of her signature khaki summer pantsuits, her buckskin loafer-clad feet planted on the built-in seat.

  Max broke into a lope to get there.

  “No need to rush. You’re right on time,” she said, checking the serviceable watch on her wrist. Everything she wore was serviceable. On the job, for sure, and often off it.

  The suit jacket pockets would contain a cell phone, but an overworked homicide lieutenant wanted faster access and the precision of the second hand.

  Someone really needed to take this woman to the Bellagio shops and outfit her.

  Max slowed, surprised he had to catch his breath a bit.

  “Moving better, but still not in prime shape,” she noted, watching the lime green tennis balls lob back and forth over the nets through her drugstore sunglasses.

  “It’ll take time.” Max planted a leg on the seat and pushed up to sit on the table, not too close, glad the leg accepted the pressure without buckling, although a quiver of pain ran up the thigh.

  “What’s to report?” she asked.

  “The Goliath murder is not a cold case.”

  “Because?”

  “Because someone is watching the old security camera access shafts.”

  “You know this because?”

  “I had to punch him out to escape once I’d reached the observation nest over the casino table where the DB was found a couple years ago.”

  “DB. Dead body. Very CSI TV. You could have phoned that information in.”

  “Yes, but I can’t plea-bargain long distance.”

  “What did you do now?”

  He laughed. “You sound like my mother.”

  “You have one?”

  “Had.”

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s past tense in the distance sense, not the death sense. As far as I know,” he added.

  She frowned at the implication. Max realized he’d never heard a whisper about Molina’s family of origin. It was just mother and daughter, maybe too much so.

  “How do you know anything about your family history, Mr. Amnesia Man?” she asked.

  “Garry and I discussed it on our … European idyll.” The last two words came out far more acidic than he’d intended, like a tart lemon-rind twist in a glass of gin. It had been a fabulous road trip, except for the unearthed tragedy, pain and death, his own and others’.

  “You were with Randolph from—?”

  “Zurich to Dublin to Belfast.”

  “Four days?”

  “About that. I wasn’t counting.”

  Her eyes left the lame tennis match to acknowledge his proximity for the first time. “Then you have more good times to remember than bad.”

  Her moment of empathy was surprising. He’d often had to push past empathy to survive, as she must have often done too. With her, it was her job. With him, it had become his nature.

  “Could you say the same about Rafi?” he asked. “More good memories than bad?”

  She hissed something he couldn’t hear, even interpret or imagine, and jumped down to the ground to confront him. With her height, they were face-to-face and she was furious. He’d trespassed on her personal issues.

  “Come on,” Max said. “He can’t have been as bad an ex as, say, the late and very unlamented Cliff Effinger.”

  “Matt Devine’s ex-stepfather. That skunk! What was his mother thinking? I’d really like to meet her.”

  “You can’t. Temple is up in Chicago right now doing that.”

  That stunned her. “So that relationship is long-term serious?”

  “Looks like it. Any reason you’d think it wasn’t?”

  “You coming back.”

  “Hardly. That’s a blank slate, anything that was is wiped clean. And I don’t believe Temple’s my type. My infatuation must have been an aberration.”

  “If Matt Devine were here, he’d flatten you for saying that about his fiancée and I’ve half a mind to do it myself.”

  “Temple is savvy, smart, and charming, but I’m no threat to any couple at the moment. I still need to get my feet on the ground.”

  “Yet you somehow linked up with Rafi Nadir?”

  “Maybe you sicced him on me in your time-tested method of hiring unwanted men to trail wanted men.”

  She ignored the gibe. “The only couple I’m interested in now is you and Rafi. Give.”

  “I checked out the observation vents over the Goliath casino and found the area is still ‘live.’ Something was and still could be planned there.”

  “Where did Nadir come in on that?”

  “He, ah, had followed me. So I had unexpected backup.”

  “He helped you out?”

  “Yeah. I told you, he’s a good man. Maybe not for your purposes, but—”

  “That’s enough. I can buy that both you ex-heroes got caught up in my widespread net for the Barbie Doll Killer. Why you’re going steady now, I can’t figure.”

  “I wanted to examine the pirate attraction where Cliff Effinger had died at the Oasis, and convinced Nadir to take me there after hours.”

  “Oh, yeah, the new Hardy Boys. How’d you convince Rafi to risk his precious job?”

  “Believe it not, I’m very convincing.”

  “Who’s sorry now?”

  “I am. Much more was going on than either of us would have believed. When the attraction was closed for the night I was able to board the sinking ship set and determine that the bizarre act of binding Effinger to the figurehead was meant to torture, not kill.”

  “Cliff Effinger was worth torturing?”

  “If he knew something he wasn’t ever going to give up. Maybe it was a Something worth a lot of money.”

  “So the ghost of Effinger appeared on deck and gave you postmortem evidence on what happened to him.”

  “No, but the whole thing went down—”

  “The ship?”

  “The expedition. It went down the same as at the Goliath. Somebody was either waiting or had followed us. More than one someone. Only neither Rafi nor I was tossed overboard into the temporarily electrified pirate’s cove waters. An attacker was.”

  Molina’s gently mocking demeanor had dropped like a mask. “Electrified water. That could kill innocent tourists when the attraction is open. Someone died on scene?” She was punching out her cell phone like Mike Tyson. “Nothing at the Oasis on the roster last night. Just a drunk and disorderly report
on an unidentified man at the ship attraction site.”

  “I assumed the flashlight brigade that interrupted us was hotel security and they would immediately notify the authorities about the dead man floating. Maybe the men out there weren’t with the hotel. That night attack is sounding sinisterer and sinisterer.”

  “So this whole phantom encounter resulted in the death of one anonymous man who’s vanished, and you two get off with a vague drunk and disorderly report not even attached to an ID’d suspect.”

  “They had Rafi in their lights and were carrying firearms. Maybe they threatened him with exposure to shut him up.”

  “So you left him there?”

  “He’d told me to run for cover in the jungle-like foliage around that area before that.”

  “And you always do what you’re told? Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. He’s not answering his cell phone.”

  “And you’re not out looking for him?”

  “You rang, and I came running. I was heading back to the Oasis to make sure he didn’t lose his job, dammit. You and I got the poor sod into this.”

  “Not me. So what do you think Effinger got himself into?”

  “It has to be mob activity.”

  “Haven’t you heard? They went corporate long ago.”

  “‘Corporate’ doesn’t mean clean. Far from it. Just as ‘peace’ isn’t a synonym for the end of violence.”

  “You seem to attract violence wherever you go.”

  “Maybe I know something I shouldn’t.”

  “That’s a bad place to be with a temporal lobe on leave.”

  “I know it. Doesn’t mean my memory doesn’t work going forward.”

  “Mob.” She consulted her own perfectly functioning memory. “They’re pretty on the down low these days.”

  “This Effinger death was overkill. And he was meant to be found to scare someone else, some mob or gang or other outfit.”

  Molina nodded. “You could be right. That might explain … you wouldn’t remember—”

  “What?”

  “Just remember that you need my input. There was a false alarm about Effinger’s death earlier.”

  “Yes?”