“I’m the poster boy for that fact,” Max said. “What about your late performing partner for the hotel’s signature Russian artifact exhibition?”
The Cloaked Conjuror kept statue-still. It must be torturous to remain always behind the mask, behind the façade, literally caged by his costume, his larger-than-life persona.
“Perhaps people around me are fated to die,” the mask intoned.
“Perhaps,” Max said, leaning forward intently, “people associated with magic and who dabble in aerial illusions are fated to be killed in this town because something is killing them.”
“Besides hubris, you mean?” The flat of CC’s palm hit the dressing table. “Did you see Shangri-La perform?”
“On a couple of occasions.”
Major flashback.
“And—”
Max found talking to CC, talking to a fellow magician, like Gandolph, produced ripples of recovered memory. This time he saw a flying woman falling from grace, from life to death.
He knew what to say. “She was … amazing in performance. She managed to combine the gravity-defying martial arts moves of the artiest recent Asian films with classical magic illusions.”
“Yes.” The CC’s shoulders lifted with a sigh. “She was a tiny thing, but fierce, like that trick Siamese cat of hers that could balance on a wand, or so it seemed. Hyacinth and Shangri-La were much more interesting than rabbits and top hats. Everything in her act was a delicate Asian watercolor overlaid on a samurai sword. She died because of an attempt on my life.”
She died attempting to take your life, Max’s memory spoke up. She had already taken Temple’s ring during an onstage trick and then kidnapped Temple and Midnight Louie, the cat who was hardly a tiny thing, but fiercely devoted.
Max’s memories were becoming quite a chorus. He could hardly think past their jumbled, tumbling rush to escape the lockbox in his head. He could hardly talk for the oncoming noise.
“Why remind me of that awful loss?” CC’s deepest inhuman voice asked, with justification.
“Because I don’t think the deaths are done.”
“Deaths are never done, you know that, Max. Part of magic is the constant reversal of death. The rabbit is gone, the rabbit is there. The girl in the box has been sawn in half, the girl in the box is whole. Shangri-La—or the Phantom Mage—is defying gravity. Shangri-La—or the Phantom Mage—falls to a harsh death. Only you didn’t die and Shang actually did.”
Max sat there stunned. “Only I didn’t,” he repeated.
But he’d been there at the New Millennium, had tried to save her. Was it actually Shangri-La who died while working with CC’s aerial magic show above the Russian jewels exhibition?
Or a body double under that heavy Asian face paint that even the Cloaked Conjuror had probably never been permitted to see past?
Chapter 36
I’ll Have a Double … Agent
Max ordered a drink at the bar, cozied up to it, and proceeded to let himself mourn his lost profession of top-ranking Vegas magician.
It was unfortunate he’d had to look himself up on the Internet to get an overview of just how good he’d had it.
No doubt, he’d enjoyed a “brief, shining moment” that extended from his last road tour through settling down in Vegas for more than a year … until his counterterrorism past caught up with him. Having his only friend, a retired Garry Randolph, and a smart, upbeat girlfriend at the Circle Ritz must have made Vegas seem like home, sweet home. At last.
Then he’d had to go undercover as a masked acrobat-magician at this hinky, kinky nightclub and mess up his legs, memory, and private life. If he ordered a drink for every attempt on his life, they’d be rolling him out of here on a cash cart.
So it wasn’t hard to appear deeply morose. He just had to order another drink until someone significant recognized him. While he made himself into an apparently stewed sitting duck, he wondered what his self-appointed “savior,” Temple Barr, would think to see him now. She’d either admire his chutzpah … or take him for a lousy lush.
He was on his third whiskey sour, when the words “Max Kinsella, I’ll be damned” came confidentially close to his ear. Someone shouldered onto the momentarily vacant barstool next to him. This was a popular place.
The voice had been male and the face, when he looked up from his drink, was genially handsome but fading with age. The guy was dressed impeccably in a suit and tie, both a touch extreme in style. The duds reminded Max of an old-time Broadway promoter. Maybe it was the quintessential extrovert’s plaid bow tie that did it.
“Hal Herald,” the guy introduced himself. They had to huddle together to hear each other over the loud, pulsing music. “I wouldn’t expect you to remember a low-ender like me, but what the hell happened to you after your big break headlining at the Goliath?”
“I had a bad manager. Me.”
“So … a comeback in the works? Not a lot of magician slots are out there, now that everything in Vegas and beyond is that damn Cirque de Soleil nonsense. Most tourists can’t even pronounce the name, but they sure flock to their shows.”
“Very confidentially,” Max said, leaning a bit too close, speaking a bit too sloppily, “I am working on a comeback gig on the Strip. And now I just learned the damn Cloaked Conjuror will be adding the secret to my six-swords illusion in his act at the New Millennium.”
“Nah? That bastard. He’s left you alone so far. You must be furious.”
“Furious enough to make that joker disappear for my new act’s finale.” Max signaled the bartender. “Something for my friend Hal.”
“Another failed-magician parasite living on dissing the lifework of others.” Hal pointed at Max’s glass to banish the bartender as fast as possible. “And now the recession. There must be a couple hundred magic acts out of work in this town. I’m not talking your level, I’m talking small clubs and motels and even the kiddie party circuit.”
“People don’t want mystery in their lives anymore,” Max said. “They want everything and everybody revealed. It’s Gossip Nation.”
“That’s right.” Hal grabbed the whiskey sour as soon as it landed. “I’ll get the tab, don’t worry. Magicians are an endangered species. We entertained. Hell, we made them think. People wanted to know, How the heck did they do that? That’s healthy. That’s an inquiring mind. Now the public only wants to know what celebrity is screwing whom. Don’t get me going.”
“Amen, brother.”
“Listen.” Hal gulped half his drink. “I’m meeting some folks, but I’d like to go into this more. Can you hang here for a few minutes?”
Max lifted his mostly full glass in answer. It had been window dressing anyway.
“I’ll be back.”
The minute Hal Herald vanished into the crowds on the dance floor, Max turned to the guys on either side of his and Hal’s empty seat. He slapped a hundred-dollar bill in front of both men. “Hold my places for five minutes and you’ll own these pretty pieces of paper permanently when I come back.”
“That’s an ex-shpensive leak, buddy,” one said in serious slur mode.
But when Max slid off his perch, both men were hooking an ankle on the footrests of the empty barstools. Besides, the unfinished drinks were a claim too.
Max threaded through the crowds like a whip snake, elbowing and shouldering a path with just enough force to make people shift without getting territorial.
The men’s room was darker than an Egyptian tomb, all black reflective surfaces, even the urinals. He ducked into a cubicle, lucky the busy clientele had their backs to him and no mirrors on that wall.