Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

Maxed Out

Max had literally hung himself out to dry on a line high above the light-stabbed dance floor far below. He balanced unseen in the dark, a wire walker who understood that he was seriously overextended. In all senses of the word.

To the audiences at Neon Nightmare, he was the Phantom Mage, the masked wall-walking, bungee-jumping illusionist who capered nightly above their sound, synthetic substance, and alcohol-dazed heads.

To the Synth, a group of disgruntled traditional magicians who hated those who revealed their tricks, like the Cloaked Conjuror, and who met in a maze of rooms burrowed into the nightclub’s pyramidlike structure, he was an ex–Strip magician who’d performed as the Mystifying Max.

To them, he was also a raw recruit, assigned to prove his loyalty by ripping off the art show at the New Millennium and bringing down the Cloaked Conjuror and his illusion-destroying show, a show repped by Max’s long-time love, Temple Barr.

And then he was just Max, up to his black turtleneck in a scheme with his mentor and partner in counterterrorism, Garry Randolph, to betray the Synth and uncover the web of international money laundering and mayhem they believed it fostered.

Somewhere in there, he’d hoped he had that relationship with Temple to preserve, for his own self alone, for the dream of having a personal life beyond his brushes with the Irish revolutionary Kathleen O’Connor, who had snagged his teenage heart while engineering his innocent cousin’s political death.

Kitty was dead now, but he was convinced her activities in Las Vegas had been part of a larger plot that extended to several unaccounted-for deaths in the past two years. Whatever had been, and was still going on, was big.

“Oh, what a complicated web we weave,” said Sir Walter Scott, “when first we practice to deceive.”

The Scottish poet had been right enough to remain quoted for the ages. Deception, like magical illusions, took practice. So did stealing rare art objects.

Max smiled to envision the unexpected end he’d engineered for that caper. They would all be flummoxed. It was something the Synth could have never anticipated and, worse, couldn’t fault him for, given that it didn’t violate the terms of their agreement, although it would sure as heck violate their intentions.

He frowned to consider that nasty tank trap Molina had laid for him. There was no way a fingerprint of his could be found in her house, not even from his recent, lightning personal appearance, suitably Mephistophelean, he hoped. He grinned grimly at that escapade, running the bungee cords through his hands, automatically checking for fraying, breaks, weaknesses in the mechanism, as he did before every performance, every plummet into the widening funnel of neon-lit darkness and noise below him.

When he dove, the dancers parted with ooohs of delighted fright. He swooped so low, so close to their frenetic level, that he almost met his own black shadow in the gleaming mirror-black floor.

What a rush. Screaming hordes jousted for the leis of fluorescent flowers he looped over them as the cord pulled him away. They leaped up after him the way people sprang to capture cheap plastic beads at Mardi Gras. Life was a cabaret along the Strip, and Max had to caper for their attention like any Mardi Gras babe seeking plastic beads.

He checked his safety belt, his spandex-gloved fingers pulling on the steel fasteners to test them.

Him. Leave a fingerprint in Molina’s house? Never! None had existed on any official record until she’d raided Temple’s rooms. This was police harassment. The plan was to destroy Temple’s unshakable faith in him, and it had worked. A little.

Max knew her faith in his innocence would never waver. Her faithfulness was another thing. Don’t guard what you’ve got, and it’s gone. He shut his eyes for an instant. If he hadn’t come back from his forced disappearance several months ago, he knew that Temple would be where she probably was now: with Matt Devine. He had only delayed the inevitable. You usually can’t save the world, even one little corner of it, and your love life too. And for that he also blamed Molina’s relentless opposition.

With all he had going on, juggling his various personae and infiltrating the Synth and the Millennium heist turned boobytrap, the last thing he needed was another of Molina’s pathetic games distracting him.

The music paused, then revved into the overblown intro for the Phantom Mage.

No time to dwell on loss or anger, on what he had unwillingly given up and what interfering others had taken from him.

Max leaped off the tiny platform like a diver into darkness. Showers of sparklers sprayed from his figure as the cloak spread out like wings, revealing a lining of leaping flames.

The pale faces gazing up at him drew nearer, grew features . . . O’s of open mouths and wide eyes. For a moment, he was stronger and more enrapturing than anything they could drink or smoke or sniff or inject, a dark angel falling to earth, spewing gaudy fire.

He knew the instant the bungee cord failed to tauten for the fast flight back up, knew at once it had failed completely. Hadn’t he run the entire length through his hands? While his mind had gnawed at the irritation of phantom fingerprints, maybe his hands had missed a weakness in the line.

Was this a mere snag, or a fatal flaw?

Below him the awe-stricken holes in people’s faces enlarged into horror. He saw them scattering and did a full body twist to send him away from landing dead-on-down to the floor, away toward the side wall where no one could be hurt. No one but . . .

The bungee cord snapped like a rubber band. He had a split second to—

He hit with astounding force and then had nothing more to worry about at all.