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Their footsteps thud out the door and into the living room, then soon stomp onto the kitchen tiles like jackhammers.

I rocket out after them, intending to do massively more epidermal damage with my own butcher knives. Well, X-acto knives on steroids.

I run right into the open maw … of the leopard-print carrier, which a rude boot kicks shut on me before I can turn around in the canvas tunnel.

“I told you I heard something in the bedroom,” says one. A boot kicks in at me. “Wasp. I was right. Kiss your kisser good-bye, puddytat.”

Light returns to the tunnel as the boot draws back for a kick. I gather into a crouch. Luckily, Miss Temple has chosen a commodious carrier, I am planning to land atop the boot, sink in my staples, and ride it out of captivity. Of course, I may be flung spine-first into a wall, but I also plan to use the Mr. Max Kinsella survival strategy and go as limp as a kitten before I hit.

I admit I am being a trifle optimistic about my survival chances here.

“Hold it,” the other guy says, kicking my assailant’s boot aside. He bends to zip the lip of the carrier shut.

“This plays right into our hands. Talk about smaller and less trouble. We have got our hostage. You know how regular people go all puddly about animals in jeopardy. Just let me write a note and stick it into the maple countertop with a butcher knife and we are outta here.”

Mr. Kickapoo is not convinced. “Should there not be blood on the knife? There is on my ankle.”

“Will you forget about your friggin’ ankle?”

“Or we could hack off the tip of his tail.”

“You want to put your hands into that wasps’ nest? You could contract blood poisoning. I am not going to drop you off at the ER. Too risky. You will end up in the same landfill I will leave the cat in. I will bury the little devil and you so deep, it will make the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance in Detroit look obvious.”

Landfill. Great! I have found some very tasty snacks around landfills. Plus there are trash trucks coming and going constantly on which to hitch a ride back to town. One man’s doom is another cat’s opportunity.

Am I glad to have distracted this two-man destruction crew into leaving my nearest and dearest alone.

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.

Chapter 18

Trapped, Stacked, and Zapped

I am not surprised. My nappers repair to a deserted building probably on the south side of Chicago cheek by jowl and growl with Bad, Bad Leroy Brown of song fame. They dump my carrier on a hard concrete floor dulled by forty years of dust, dirt, and random elimination.

They leave me in the carrier, deprived of food, water, and facilities.

They have no idea that I can unzip my prison with the flick of one fang. They have no idea that I am a self-directed “plant,” not the green growing sort, but a live listening device.

“I still say we should have snatched the little redhead,” the one I will call Lefty says.

“Nah,” says Shifty. “This is better. The little redhead will get real hysterical about the pussycat being grabbed. You saw her in the airport.”

“If we’da got the cat in the airport, we’da have the goods by now. Whoever thought Cliffie Effinger had anything anyone with big-time cred would want?

“You remember that little piece of plumbing poison?”

“From back in the street gang day, almost forty years ago at St. Matthias.”

I hear packing crates being shoved around, beer can tops being popped, and, ugh, cheap cigars being lit.

“Hand me some of that sausage. Ole Effinger sure landed in a soft spot. The wife do not look so bad even now.”

“She was younger then.”

“So were we then.”

And I was not even here then, so get on with it, fellas. Although it is interesting to realize that Mr. Matt’s given name—which is Matthias, not Matthew—has a long Chi-Town history.