“Art imitates life, huh?”
Max grinned at Rafi’s comeback, then craned his neck to see the show again. “I think the climax is coming for our hip-slinging crew of seductive beauties on the anchored ship set—I glimpse a ship of lusty male pirates sailing around the bend, to be sunk. Ahoy! The ship is called The Bull. Not too subtle.”
Max peered through and over the packed tourist crowds. The boys’ ship was basically a large 3-D stage set running on an underwater track. The prow’s figurehead of a large-bosomed naked mermaid personified Las Vegas.
“Imagine,” he told Rafi, “a man is bound like a mummy against that figurehead.”
“White wrappings?”
Max nodded. “Probably. Molina would have access to the details and Grizzly Bahr at the morgue would have the bindings filed away.”
“Man, that was harsh. The guy was probably conscious, but gagged. Blindfolded too?”
“Not by sadistic killers like this.”
“So he saw the whole spectacle. While hundreds cheered the fighting and fireworks up top, making any cries for help, he slowly sank with the ship and drowned on cue. Cold.”
“It was cold. Happened right at New Year’s.”
“Holy not-hot water! The temperature in the ‘cove’ gets down to around thirty-eight degrees in the winter. If the water didn’t drown him, hypothermia would have killed him. What got him the royal sinking-barge treatment?”
“I don’t know. The victim was the scumbag stepfather of my ex-girlfriend’s new fiancé, who’d come to town to look the loser up.”
“You mean Temple’s significant other, Matt Devine. I’ve met the lovebirds. Man. Your life is even more messed up than mine.”
“Thanks,” Max said wryly. “It’s good that I excel at something besides amnesia.”
In fact, he’d forgotten his more recent personal life, yet not Vegas landmarks like this.
His eyes narrowed at the scene now as perfect as a motion picture still, a snippet from Mutiny on the Bounty, say, with the first ship at anchor in harbor. The serene beauty mocked the grim reality that had brought him here.
“So,” Rafi resumed, “we’re ruling out Miss Temple’s ex-priest fiancé as the killer? Big of you.”
“Not really. Only mob muscle would be so vicious,” Max said. “Or ethnic hatred. Obviously, this Effinger guy didn’t give them information they wanted. Didn’t have it, probably, unless he had more guts than the minor-league gofer he was.”
“When did this happen?” Rafi asked.
“Before your time. What’s the security around here?”
“Not much. This area has no overlooking views and is concealed by landscaping. The whole idea is the ship sailing around from behind here is a big surprise out front. Since no one has access except performers and maintenance staff, this is one of Vegas’s few discreet locations.”
Max nodded. His scan of the building and overhanging palm trees found only camouflaged outdoor fixtures aimed at uplighting the swoop of the hotel’s central structure.
“Satisfied?” Rafi asked, checking his watch.
Max nodded. “Like I said. A job for mobsters or terrorists. Nobody much cared about the guy, alive or dead, not even the police. That’s what bothers me. This was a risky, elaborate style of execution and technically tough to pull off, even if the victim was a man who knew too much.”
“But he was your rival’s evil stepfather.”
“You can’t have a ‘rival’ if you’re not contending for anything.”
“So you left the redhead, not vice versa.”
“I’m assuming I let nature take its course. It’s impossible to sustain a relationship when you’re MIA off and on.”
“For sure.” Rafi thought for a few seconds. “This crook was the only father Matt Devine knew. Garry Randolph, aka Gandolph, was your father figure. Your real father must have died.”
“No,” Max said. “I did.”
“Another of your famous disappearing acts?”
Max cocked a dark eyebrow “Sort of was, only much longer ago. I walked after high school.”
“Really? You seem an educated guy.”
“Roads scholar. Roads in the British Isles, and roads on what used to be called the Continent and is now the European Union. Garry Randolph was my tutor.”
Rafi opened his mouth to ask another question, but Max cut him off. “Why the interest in my family history? Once I follow the trail Garry was on here to the end, our association is over.”
“Fine.” Rafi sounded angry. “I’m just trying to figure out how you get to be an okay father. I guess no one much has them anymore.”
Max relaxed and chuckled to himself. “There are about as many deadbeat dads out there trying to elude their paternity as there are fighting for their custodial rights. You don’t need a role model, you just have to decide if you achieve that best working with Molina, or against her. You’re in a position to go either way.”
“Which means I have two ways to lose, as much as win.”
Max nodded. “Life”—he looked at the dead-in-the-water ship—“and death, are like that. Before any early-bird maintenance crew shows up we need to inspect that figurehead and keel until we know how, if not why, it was turned into a killing machine.”
Rafi checked his watch with a sour expression. “I could lose my job if we’re caught, and I don’t want to dive overboard for a dip in cove. At least it’s bathwater warm this time of year.”
“If we raise any alarms, we can cast off and catch the ship when it’s next at anchor, me hearty.”
Chapter 27
Brothers, Where Art Thou?
The landmark lunch was over. Matt stepped behind Temple, reaching to pull her chair out when the waiter whisked it away much more authoritatively.
Suddenly standing, Temple jerked around to address the overly solicitous waiter.
He was a white-haired man with beetling black brows wearing a costly suit with a subtle four-figure sheen.
“I can’t let you two leave Chicago,” he said, “without laying my cards on the table.”
“Philip,” Jon said, standing in surprise himself. Obviously, he was the younger brother.
“I assume this young man is my nephew.”
By then Matt had Temple’s back and a protective left hand on her shoulder. He extended a right hand past her to the newcomer. “Matt Devine of Las Vegas. This is my fiancée, Temple Barr. I believe we know who you are.”
The brothers glared at each other briefly across the table.
Then Philip smiled broadly at Temple and Matt. “I’d like to buy you all a drink in the bar. It’s pretty deserted during the busy lunch hours and I’ll make sure we get a quiet corner.”
Somehow his light guiding touch on their shoulders had turned Matt and Temple, Philip easing them through the tables like the friendliest of hosts.
“This must be a whirlwind trip for you two,” Philip said. “I know Matt has a date with syndicated radio five days a week. What about you, Miss Temple?”
“I’m self-employed, so I don’t answer to anyone for my schedule but me.”
“Smart woman.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Matt said. “She’s a dynamo and will move the world to make her public relations clients happy.”
“And you too, I bet.”
The chitchat covered their relocation to the bar, where a waiting hostess escorted the party to a charming banquette with high, enclosing leather upholstery that ensured privacy. Philip, Temple saw, was a dynamo himself, but a charming one, far more outgoing than his brother. Then again, he hadn’t had a secret love gnawing at him for more than thirty years.
The brothers bracketed them in the banquette, which was a teensy bit uncomfortable. Matt squeezed Temple’s hand on the seat between them. She saw his eyes sizing up the fact that the brothers faced each other across the white linen, and a faint smile touched his lips.