Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

When, Where,

Why For?

Temple fled from the nihilism of Madame Olga to the urbane charms of Count Volpe, even though he reminded her of some rapacious object of Molière’s wit.

He was always ready to oblige a young woman, an attractive young woman, as he told her freely.

“Are there any unattractive young women in your opinion?” Temple asked.

“Not really,” he said, after a moment’s consideration. “Why are you worrying yourself white about these exhibition-area deaths? It was obvious that someone would attempt to steal the scepter and someone did. Quite dramatically. Pity about the acrobat. I don’t believe the thief intended to drop her, although that fact did slow down the pursuit.”

Volpe’s urbane Old World sexism and New World frankness almost undid Temple. She supposed if she had seen an old political order perish she might be somewhat cynical too.

“I’ve just come from identifying the body.”

“My dear girl! Pardon my blasé pose. It’s expected of me. Here. Sit down. Why would the police impose on you for this sad duty?”

“I’m the only one around at the moment who’d seen Shangri-La out of her concealing makeup.”

“Surely the tiger-faced fellow—?” He waved a veined but exquisitely fluid hand.

“The Cloaked Conjuror had never seen her face-to-face.”

“How bizarre, when you think of it. Two strangers performing life-threatening antics on wires and cords. It did lend itself to substitution, didn’t it? Is it certain that the Cloaked Conjuror we saw before the fall was indeed him?”

“He was by the time the police got there.” Temple sat up straighter. “But it may not always have been him, is that what you’re saying?”

Volpe shrugged and produced a dark European cigarette. “If you permit. Nasty habit, but so is being the eyewitness to a violent death. Who’s to say that was the mantled mage himself we saw caught in that cat’s cradle of rope? This theft was a piece of legerdemain gone astray, I think. The man in the catsuit appeared to be improvising, but he did apparently make off with the prize.” Volpe exhaled an elegant stream of blue smoke, scented slightly of licorice. “And why are you so involved, petite chou? Dragging you out to see a dead body! So retrograde. I thought they had television screens for that now.”

Was Volpe probing?

“They do,” Temple said. “But since no one else on the premises had glimpsed her face, I was elected to go to the viewing chamber. A room with a glass viewing window,” she added in answer to his elegantly inquiring eyebrows, which reminded her of something. Someone?

“I wish I had seen her! She was an amazing performer, sinewy as one of the big cats yet delicate. Do the police have any idea who her almost rescuer was? He does appeal, doesn’t he, to the dramatic sense? Part rogue, part rescuer, anonymous. That sort of swashbuckling type went out with the old-time movie stars, didn’t it? Fairbanks. Flynn. The Scarlet Pimpernel in literature. Zorro. Irresistible to women.”

“I imagine that would be hard to live with.”

“Who said anything about living with? I meant loving with. Young women today are so distressingly practical.”

Temple felt her lightly freckled skin flush. Why did she think she could domesticate the wild Max anyway, or even want to?

“I see his attractions are not lost on you. A fine hero for an opera—no, too ponderous. A ballet. He certainly had the moves up there. I almost thought he’d save her; I’m afraid he did too. It’s a remarkable thief who interrupts a clever caper to save the innocent bystanders. Or to try to. I hope the scepter is worth it to him.”

“I do too,” Temple muttered fervently. She fidgeted under Volpe’s keen dark eyes, then struck back.

“I think he was hired help.”

“Really? Not a dashing entrepreneur, then, but some coarse theft-for-hire thug?”

She wouldn’t let Volpe yank her chain any more. Time to turn the tables. If he was so blasé but observant, he might know something she could use. He had confessed a weakness for young attractive women, after all, and Temple could attract when she felt like it.

She smiled and nodded. “You’ve said exactly what I was wondering. The scepter isn’t just some valuable artifact, it’s a one-of-a-kind catch. Whoever wanted it doesn’t need to sell it, or even show it off. It’s a trophy. Who’d want it for that?”

“I would.”

“You, Count, the toast of Vanity Fair’s photo layouts?”

“Theoretically, of course. I am a penniless aristocrat, I’m afraid, and could not even hire a pickpocket. I might, however, be tempted to by the Russian government’s current scrabbling for money and recognition over the graves of my ancestors. Of its crawling like what you call a Johnny-come-lately to exploit the culture and glory that was Russia before the anarchists and Bolsheviks and drunken peasant party functionaries ravished its heritage and weakened its influence in the world.”

“White Russians still have such strong feelings?”

“You Americans have felt the first wave of anarchy in your own, sea-bound land. Russia has always been the large, unmanageable brother of western and eastern Europe, the not-quite-tamed lumbering bear. We produced more art, music, literature, and grandeur than we have ever been credited for. The Czar Alexander scepter is a symbol of that, yes?”

Temple just nodded, slowly. “What about Red Russians?”

Volpe snorted and stubbed out his exotic cigarette. “Not much left for them these days but backpedaling. The economy is lame, the mobsters have emigrated from the U.S. to our shores, not literally, but their spirits have. A proud people who held off Napoleon and Hitler are now more noted for their shopping lines and vodka consumption than their technological or artistic achievements. Bah! I salute whoever took the scepter. He who has the nerve to claim it, deserves it. He is Russian.”

Temple blinked. She didn’t see Max as a White Russian icon, but stranger things had happened.

“He was hired, remember, in our theory? Even Red Russians can hire good help.”

“Touché!” Volpe laughed, then grew broody. “Of course they could be behind it, the uneasy alliance of bureaucrats and brigands that rules Russia today. Are you a police spy, Miss Barr?”

Temple gasped. “I . . . the local police know me from my PR business around Las Vegas, that’s all.”

The dark eyes narrowed like a needle, ripe for stabbing. “I have seen spies and stooges and tools before. They were not to be trusted. Are you to be trusted?”

“I want the exhibition to go smoothly. I want the scepter back. I want the person or persons who killed Andrei and Shangri-La caught and tried and punished. I want to do my job in a crime-free zone.”

“Your list of wants is ambitious and impressive. And what of your list of likelihoods?”

Temple stood, smoothing her skirt. “This is Las Vegas. I know it inside out. I figure my odds are at least fifty-fifty.”

Volpe did her the honor of paling.