Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Chapter 49

Max’s Last Act

Just as mysteriously as Louie could suddenly be there in less than the blink of an eye, Temple’s intent stare caught a bit of white still at the peak of the building.

The zodiac signs still washed over the floor like a ghostly cleaning crew.

And the dove hovering in the artificial night sky slipped closer and closer until it was a white shirtfront and the face above it.

Temple bent to pick up the gloves, the wand, and the top hat.

“How can you do this?” Temple asked Max as he touched ground.

“Do what?”

“Risk an aerial stunt in this place, with this equipment?”

“Magicians have to do the impossible.” He looked up. “The equipment Garry and I installed is sound, and was tampered with only after I’d inspected it and started down.”

“Then the would-be killer was comfortable with heights and that kind of equipment.”

Max nodded. “But you can see from the earlier events tonight how many unemployed aerial workers are available around Vegas now. Speaking of risk and the impossible, I knew you could do it.”

“Do what?” she said in her turn.

“Get that instinctive yet clockwork mind of yours ticking on the real dynamics of the Synth.”

“My theories would never get an arrest warrant or play in court.”

“Maybe not. Maybe not yet.”

“Is the Synth defanged now?” Temple asked Max.

“Pretty much. I can always yank out an extra tooth if they get forgetful.”

She looked up into the vast dark disappearing into a peak, the disco lights now crackling in the night, heat lightning, and bathing their faces and bodies with a dizzying round of zodiac signs. Hers Gemini. His Aries. Theirs … always, Ophiuchus.

“I will never forget—and coming from a recovering amnesiac like me, that’s something,” Max said. “I will never forget you saying ‘Max, come home.’”

Temple knew what she had to say then, but she didn’t know what to say now. So she let Max speak.

“When I did come ‘home,’ and I saw you, your situation, I thought ‘This woman must be crazy.’”

Temple shrugged. That’s what you do when you can’t quite speak.

“I call this stranger that my best friend, my mentor, said I loved and I can’t even remember, and she says, ‘Come home.’”

Still silent, forced to keep silent. He didn’t seem to notice.

“My biggest regret about still being alive—”

Temple tried to cut off that horrible way to put it.…

His hand lifted, the magician hypnotizing an audience into silence.

“—is that I still don’t remember. And I promise, if I ever do, I will never, ever let you or anyone else know that I do.”

Max grasped her shoulders and, slowly, kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll wait outside to follow your car home. Just in case.”

He left.