Was he bribed, led astray, or waylaid? I can only hope they knocked him out back at Gangsters’ and he is now raising the alarm in Vegas.
Except who is he going to call when the whole clan Fontana is under lock and key and gun sites here at the Sapphire Slipper? And he would not know where to send anyone, anyway.
Who you gonna call? Crimebusters!
I turn to Satin. “I am going to, uh, deputize you for the duration. Midnight Inc. Investigations needs a little beefing up at the moment.” I notice the airy vibrissae over her eyes waft. “Nothing personal. Just an expression we use in the private cop trade.”
“I will be your undercovers partner, Louie,” she says, rubbing the side seams on my slinky black satin coat the right way.
I swallow. “Undercover partner, Satin. That is the expression we use in the private cop trade.”
I must admit, though, that the atmosphere here puts a wild hair up my nose. And it is black satin.
Name Day
“Mike, my lad!” The greeting boomed from the doorway with theatrical gusto.
There’d been no name on the chart dangling from the foot of his bed. He’d checked after the psychiatrist had left. There had been no chart left. Strange.
The late-middle-aged man beaming at him from the doorway looked nice enough. A civilian in rumpled suit and tie; good quality but rode hard and put up wet, like a saddle horse. A little overstuffed he was, but with a sharp, shrewd nose and chin. He was clean-shaven, but the graying hair was longish in back. Sharp hazel eyes were packed in weary pouches. Looked a little like a brilliant conductor focused on so much the rest of us—we the audience—didn’t see, that he appeared a bit scattered.
“Glad to see you sitting up.” The fellow bustled over to sit on the bed’s foot and dig in the net grocery bag he carried.
“Chocolate, some English-language newspapers.”
He studied the chocolate wrappers handed to him. “Swiss. I thought so.”
“Of course, my bright boy. Only the best for your recuperation.”
“And just how am I ‘your boy’?”
The man froze, then leaned in to whisper, so he was forced to wheel closer to hear.
“I know we need to be discreet,” the man said, “but I doubt this room is bugged.”
“I don’t.” Suddenly his feeling of unease made sense.
“Ma . . . Mike?” The furrowed brow was a washboard of worry lines now, the man’s eyes darting around the room. “When I last saw you, you were out cold, but—”
“When did you last see me? After I fell off a mountain?”
“No. Here. After you were flown in.”
“From Nepal.”
The man ducked his head in vague agreement. “Mike, don’t you remember the accident?”
“No. I don’t remember Mike either. Or you.”
“I’m Garry Randolph.”
“A relation, then?”
“More of choice than of blood.”
“Then why the bloody hell did you give me your surname when you checked me in? Don’t I have any relatives, family?”
“You’ve been estranged from them for almost two decades.”
“Why? What did I do to estrange my entire family?”
“It was more something that was done to you.”
“You’re talking in riddles,” he said sharply. “What would lose a man his whole family?”
“A boy. You were just seventeen then. I’ve been your family ever since. It was . . . your choice. The situation was dreadful, but you chose another path than falling back into the old life and trying to forget.”
“What path did I choose?”
“Justice.”
The word made him draw back. It was a weighty responsibility he wasn’t quite ready for. “And justice involved my climbing mountains?”
“You really don’t remember . . . anything?”
“Oh, I know where Switzerland is, and that it’s famous for chocolate.” He tossed the thick bar onto the thin white bedspread, even though it looked good to his medication-dry mouth. “I know what mountains are, and pain. I know I need to be careful. But with who, old man? And why?”
“Not with me. Trust me on that. I’ve been your friend for a long time.”
“Not ‘Michael’ Randolph’s friend?”
“No. You’re right. That’s my last name. You’ve been almost a son to me, this old bachelor.”
He saw the man’s eyes fighting moisture at not being recognized. At having to state their relationship, give it a context. This man wasn’t a psychiatrist. He wasn’t wearing an expensive French suit.
He, “Mad Mike,” may not know who he was, but he recognized genuine emotion.
He clasped the man’s hand, hard. “I’m better than they think,” he whispered. “Physically, if not mentally. We’ve gotten out of tight corners before?”
Garry Randolph nodded, once.
“We’ll do it again.”
The old man embraced him. Whispered something for his ears only.
“We will, Max. But you didn’t hear that name from me.” Max.
It was strong, that name. Short for what? Maximilian? Germanic. Teutonic. A European name. Not quite . . . right. But he had a name and this man knew it. This man trusted him with it.
No one else could know this. Tight corners. But a real name was something he’d needed to know. It felt right. Max. He was Max. In time, he would remember all that Max had been. And known. Including what kind of justice he had fallen off a mountain hunting.
Bridesmaids Revisited
By now the parlor scene has settled down.
The Fontana brothers and Uncle Mario have been stripped of all the heavy metal on their persons, which I see includes a few switchblades. These weapons and primo examples of the watchmaker’s art are piled on the big round table with a fringed cloth. They are guarded by a single sylph in black spandex bearing a single Uzi.
A whole lot of tall, rangy Fontana brothers are hunched unhappily on the various blue velvet Victorian settees intended to be draped by skimpily-clad ladies of the night. And day, here in Las Vegas.
Macho Mario Fontana is established in a low-slung Victorian chair, attended by the madam herself.
The resident “girls” are arrayed along the walls, eyeing the Uzis at the archways to the bar and the foyer with edgy respect.
Only us felines are cool. Like the kidnappers. Wait! How can you “kidnap” a roster of fully adult brothers? An interesting question.
I send Satin to the kitchen to eavesdrop on the other distaff kidnappers and remain to see how the men of the party are reacting.
“This is ridiculous,” Macho Mario blusters. “We have a lot of outside firepower to call on.”
“If you could call,” a guard in masked spandex purrs, pointing to the pile of RAZR cell phones on the table. “Take a gun, a watch, and a cell phone from a tough Las Vegas wiseguy, and he is limp linguini.”
Yup. This dame purrs. Like the lead femme fatale on a soap opera.
A lot of Fontana fingers twitch at that taunt. They not only are not trigger fingers, or itchy cell phone fingers, but well-buffed champagne bottle fingers. I must admit it makes the hair on my hackles rise to see so many dudes cowed by a bunch of distaff desperados. Desperadas.
Then out from the kitchens via the empty barroom strides the full posse again: I count seven altogether. They are all either anorexic muscle boys, or women.
I notice the Fontanas notice the same thing, and breathe out mutual sighs of relief.
Premature.
“We can cuff you if you need it,” a woman’s voice says. “There are plenty of cuffs around here.”
“Even gentle baby blue-dyed, rabbit fur-lined cuffs,” another lady desperado lisps, flaunting a few pair. “We like live rabbits.”