Cat In A White Tie And Tails

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?”

“Man fell out of the Crystal Phoenix ceiling, dead.”

“Another ceiling murder? Unsolved?”

She nodded. “He looked a bit like Effinger, but had no ID.”

“Somebody mistook him for Effinger and offed him.”

“Or…”

He got it. “Effinger wanted to be thought dead. He doesn’t strike me as the killer sort. He is from Chicago, though, like Devine. The mob is plenty active there.”

“Don’t think too big,” she cautioned him. “Think personal.”

“Devine! Matt Devine was on his trail. He wanted Matt Devine to think he was dead.” Max reconsidered. “No. Devine wasn’t that big a threat.”

“He was if his dogged search for Effinger was drawing attention, and drawing attention to Effinger. And don’t underestimate Matt Devine. He’s with your girl now, isn’t he?”

“I’m not possessive by nature. I think. You’re pushing the wrong buttons, Lieutenant.”

“Maybe. Then there was that crazy incident involving your ex-girlfriend and her cat being kidnapped from a Shangri-La magic show and being spirited down the highway in a semi filled with magic-act paraphernalia and contraband drugs. I sensed your ghostly fingers at work in the scene of their escape when my people got there. Any memories of tearing the contents of that semi to pieces to find the pair before they suffocated?”

Magical boxes, big enough to conceal an artfully arranged human body, boxes with false bottoms and sides and mirrors. They crowded his memory, begging for recognition. You used me in this illusion. No, Garry did. No, Temple Barr was your assistant and did the switch with you, and then you pulled her cat out of a hat.

He blinked as the deceptive rummage sale images of the past faded away and smiled at Molina. “You are truly a tree of knowledge of good and evil. Or just evil.”

She smiled. “Thanks. My job. Another little tidbit for you. About that old-time magician found dead in the underground safe that your ex-girlfriend tried to use as a promo opportunity.”

“Cosimo Sparks,” Max said. “I heard about him.” Not only that, he’d dreamed about him, had known the man while still living, at the Neon Nightmare. He was a confirmed Synth member, but Molina would laugh that idea off.

“He was stabbed to death, but prodded viciously first.”

“Another reluctant information-giver. Hasn’t someone been arrested for that?”

“We had to let him go. A South American larger-than-life personality known as Santiago, just Santiago. Blood traces too insignificant for court. One always thinks of drugs. That would tie in to the Shangri-La kidnapping.”

“What about that lady magician as a suspect?”

“Dead too.”

“You have a … an outhouse-load of cold cases, Lieutenant.”

“Why do you think I hire freelancers?”

“From what I can see, usually it’s personal reasons.”

“And what would those be in your case?”

“My Irish charm.”

“I favor Latin charm.”

“With those blue eyes? It’s a fact that the Irish and the Spanish mix like whiskey and soda. Soledad O’Brian, the news reporter. I can’t think of others. The memory, you know.”

“What are you and your overblown Irish charm getting at, Kinsella?”

“Have you ever considered the … Irish mob?”

“You talking Boston?”

“I’m talking Northern Ireland.”

She made a tsking sound. “I’ve heard that eternally from your ex. I don’t doubt your counterterrorism work in the past, but that conflict is ninety-eight percent over and done with. Face it. You’re not a downtrodden minority anymore. And your fixation on this topic is obsessive romanticism. The ‘Troubles’ are over. Those political crusades are over, and whatever will you do without them?”

Max stood, and stood at mock attention. “Work for you, Lieutenant, until you can see past your personal, private ‘troubles’ and discern the vast terrorist conspiracy surrounding us all.”