Cat in a White Tie and Tails

Chapter 17

Subterranean Sunday Blues

First the news shows reported that “troubles” in Ireland still showed signs of life—and death—thanks to surviving veterans of the years of civil strife.

The lighted screen served almost as an LED crystal ball for Max, opening up the world of Garry’s own investigations and questions.

Now it seemed the IRA links in Las Vegas were alive and well also.

Max hunkered down again over Gandolph’s laptop at the kitchen table, a glass of Jameson at his right hand. Thanks to Lieutenant Molina’s thorough search of the cupboards recently, he now knew where the hard stuff was kept.

He sat back. Molina. He was ideally placed regarding her. Rafi Nadir, her ex, was loyal to Garry and now to Max by proxy. The homicide officer wanted to keep Max busy solving the mysteries of his own life and times for some reason.

Suited him. While burning personal issues distracted Molina and Rafi, he was in emotional limbo and better able to concentrate on why he’d been marked for death here and in Northern Ireland.

Max took a slug of whiskey. It would be tricky, but he needed to get closer to Temple Barr. She was a walking memory bank of his past as well as all these pesky Las Vegas crimes that had haunted Garry and maybe caused his death on foreign soil, putting him into an unmarked grave, maybe.

Max’s fist hit the table, sloshing whiskey too close to the computer and its precious information.

Temple Barr. She was young, she was lovely, she was engaged. Only a jerk would deliberately get between her and her righteous fiancé, the honest ex-priest turned media hottie. And could he still pull that off, in his diminished condition?

Max smiled ruefully. Probably only in his diminished condition. Temple was too soft-hearted for her own good. And gutsy. “Come home, Max.”

Damn. He’d needed that from her then. Now he needed to know what Miss Temple knew; she’d probably tell him gladly if he asked. He had no time to waste. He was too obviously back in town and sure to draw the wrong sort of attention. If only he could crack Garry’s computer password. There must be more on it than the Ireland tourist information he was pulling up.

He sipped and thought. Rafi remained his best bet now. That professor’s death on the UNLA campus was also the best trail to follow when Max wasn’t shadowing himself for Molina. The newspaper archives were skimpy. RESPECTED PROF FOUND DEAD. MAGIC WAS HIS MINOR.

Max had located an old calendar entry on Garry’s computer about a magic-show poster exhibition at that same time. Garry, Garry, Garry. He’d kept Max alive. Max had to honor his memory and answer all the questions Gandolph the Great had been pursuing.

Max brought up the UNLA site on Garry’s computer. Las Vegas aerial views were “weary, stale, flat,” as Shakespeare’s Hamlet had described his life before it all blew up and went to hell.

But not “unprofitable.”

The landlocked campus was a compressed intellectual island in a sea of commercial “strip” developments and sprawling residential desert areas. Like moats of hot metal, traffic hemmed in the campus most of the year. It had no place to expand, yet needed to establish a strong physical presence.

That was exactly how Max felt at the moment, hemmed in by his loss of memory and self, “tasked” as the bureaucrats put it, to change his world and help the people in it, including himself.

An on-campus visit might be most enlightening.