The old guy rocks back on his ample haunches, which allows the streetlights to reflect from the short white hairs on his nose and chin. His previous spot had come with being his own little icon at Three O’Clock’s Restaurant, all the lobster droppings he could eat, and full social security being mascot for the aging Glory Hole Gang turned hash-slingers.
“I forget,” I tell him, “you were living the leisurely lakeside life at Temple Bar on Lake Mead.”
“Yes, indeed. I had retired off a salmon trawler in the Pacific Northwest to Arizona, as many well-heeled seniors do nowadays. I am not much for heels, but I am for tiring.”
He sits to pluck a few stray hairs from between his toes, looking nonchalant. Where have I seen this air of male self-satisfaction before?
“That Temple Bar turf is barely in Arizona,” I point out, “and seniors are scrambling like the rest of us to avoid severe lifestyle cuts these days. The pattern is to work beyond the age of retirement.” I drum my forefront nails on the parking lot asphalt. “I can have you and Blacula tail one suspect together. There are only three. Pitch and I can take the remaining two.”
“But these folks slink in and out, maybe even in disguise, Louise. How can we cut them out from that crowd that keeps coming and going?”
“That is why we were given superior night vision, Grandpops. And Blacula’s hearing is sharper than a bat’s. Where do you think he got the name? Midnight Investigations, Inc., is tops on night surveillance. Here are Ma Barker’s footpads now.”
I am happy to see the pair wears ninja black from ear-tip to toe-hair. We do the usual close encounter four-step as the newcomers edge around to eye me and Three O’Clock while we exchange the ritual sniffs, struts, and down-low growls.
The building’s pyramid-shaped black-glass exterior shimmers with the reflections of nearby neon, making it hard to observe anything other than the lighted entranceway.
After having led Miss Temple to the secret rooms of the occultists who call themselves “the Synth,” we spotted some main members in consultation: Czarina Catharina, the medium … retired mind-reader Hal Herald … and the slinky something or other dame who seemed quite familiar with Mr. Max as both the Phantom Mage and in his real incarnation. There is always a slinky something or other dame. Then shockeroo. Another party broke in on the proceedings via another route. From our hidden niche we witnessed the Synth trio being confronted by armed and dangerous taskmasters in the long black cloaks and full head masks of the … well, Darth Vader variety.
This was a cheesy disguise, but executed with state-of-the-art built-in altered voice technology. In other words, kind of like my old man—quintessential Vegas.
In daylight I had reconnoitered every inch of the pyramid’s exterior “footprint,” as they say in technological circles. I found a suspiciously smooth seam at the far parking lot corner. I had been spotted, but mistaken for a lower life-form looking for a private depositation station.
Here is where I commit and array my agents. We have visuals on only one half of the peaked edifice with the four-square base.
Then we hunker down. Few know the patience of my kind when we hunt prey. We can crouch, still as stone, on any turf from a smoking hot piece of Vegas concrete to an iceberg, motionless for hours, awaiting the slightest twitch of vermin in the neighborhood.
“Bugs, snakes, and lizards will not do,” I tell my crew. “We are not after fast food tonight. I do not want to see one whisker twitch no matter what does the shimmy-shimmy past. You move only when I tell you, and then you track the prey to the final destination and watch until dawn.”
They take my edict so to heart, their heads do not even nod.
I crouch last, putting myself into the silent state of self-hypnosis where I am a rock until called upon to move. Not even a solacing purr can ease our battle-tensed muscles. We practice the art evolved by our kind thousands of years ago, when it was be still or be killed. Be silent or be prey.
Only now, the paw is on the other foot. I could get used to this, especially on my own, with my inner nerves twitching but my outer aspect poised for the kill.
I am not aware of the passage of time. I do not carry a cell phone or wear a wristwatch. I only feel the hot night air weighing on my black velvet catsuit. Ha! My nails curl and loosen, curl and loosen, aching for purchase on something soft and evil.
A splinter of long bluish light flashes at the seam in the black glass exterior. A tall figure blocks it, then vanishes with it. My keen vision sees the plantings at the pyramid’s base waver. I twitch my right ear in Pitch’s direction. The statue that is he shifts and disappears.
I wait.
Oh, how human and clumsy! The light bulges this time, clearly silhouetting a figure with a melon-sized head and balloon-sculpture’s body, tied off in puffy limbs indicating arms and trousers. Harem pants, actually.
My left ear signal bestirs Blacula to rise slightly and spur a snoozing Three O’Clock to life as they move to shadow the exiting medium.
I have saved the best for last. The secret doorway profiles for an instant the slick dame and last of the lot.
Mr. Max is my special pet. It may not make sense to any who did not come up in a multigenerational relentlessly carnivore clan, but woe to any who would trifle with the ex-squeeze of my supposed father’s current human. Any disturbance on Mr. Max’s domestic scene will be swiftly punished.
So I slide like an oil slick over the asphalt to a parked black Camaro that burps open at the snap of the sorceress’s fingers on her key ring. It takes a moment for her to turn and spin her major spike heels into the car’s front seat. I am used to such footwear-caused delays and do a Midnight Louie twist into the narrow space behind the driver’s seat.
Three Synth members; four Midnight Investigations, Inc., operatives on their trail. Where will our assignments lead us and what will we learn there?
Chapter 13
Surprise Party
Naked was the best disguise, they said, but surprise was the better half of naked.
Max rolled out of the tunnel into the mechanical closet headfirst, his supple spine pulling his legs after him so he hit the floor on a roll he could push out of sideways and at the same time lift his hands in a defensive position.
The man waiting to ambush him had grabbed the unfastened grille and held it up like a shield, the other guy’s lost knife in his right hand.
Max struggled upright against a wall of wooden shelving, his eyes getting used to the light that showed his opponent wore a security guard’s uniform, complete with gun holster.
Max ducked, knowing he was busted.
The knife slashed toward him in an expert spinning arc that buried the blade point in an upright pine board near his carotid artery.
“Better your fingerprints are the last ones on that than mine,” the guy said just as Max saw past the uniform to the man wearing it.
“Impressive aim. What brought you here?” Max asked, grabbing a dirty rag from the shelf to pry the knife loose and then wrap its slightly bloody blade.
“Tailing you.”
“In your work clothes?”
“Guards are all over the Strip. Nobody notices them here, like mail carriers in residential areas. Is the guy in the tunnel dead?”
“I hope not.”
“You need to ID him?”
Max shook his head, clearing his muzzy brain. “It was a tight place to tango. He wore cat burglar garb like me, and carried no ID. Nothing more than a pencil flashlight and a—”