Max cruised the Internet on his cell phone and had Hal Herald’s Wikipedia bio in hand. Pushing Medicare. Had a pretty good engagement for a lot of years at the Frontier in the old days. One of his ex-wives had been a successful medium, got some cred from “finding” a dead body for the police, late did an act as Czarina Catherina. Wait! Had shared bills with Gandolph the Great and—bulletin Miss Temple Barr would die for—the recently late Cosimo Sparks.
Herald’s busy biography until the late 1980s confirmed what he saw as “the death of magic.” What else was obvious now, twenty-some years later, was the death of magicians and people associated with them.
Max returned to the “reserved” barstools in plenty of time to convey the two Ben Franklins to the bracketing drinkers, who grabbed them and probably exited to hit the casinos.
Only a couple minutes later, Hal Herald reappeared. He didn’t claim his expensive barstool. “Say, we don’t have to sit here with the going-deaf-slowly crowd. I happen to be one of the owners. We have a private suite upstairs. We make a point of keeping it on the QT. Game?”
About time. Max followed Herald up the same subtle staircase to the same pressure-operated door Temple Barr had described. Oddly, he remembered the next part from his recent dream of being closeted in secret rooms with the Synth. Probably that had been the Phantom Mage’s dream, but that persona was truly dead and gone.
And he needed to convince the people here of that, because this would be Max Kinsella’s big play. Only a real commitment would win him entrée to the circle of vengeful entertainers or clever criminals or just plain crazies who called themselves the Synth.
Chapter 37
The Shadow Nose
My feet and heart are both primed to hop, skip, and jump over to the Oasis Hotel and Casino in the dark of my namesake hour.
Great Bast’s Ghost! When is a dude to get some downtime on his own in this world? When I was not in the bosom of my Miss Temple and Mr. Matt and his family members during the weekend Chicago jaunt, I was in the clutches of the low-end mob boyos and TSA security checkers coming and going.
These are not happy travel memories and involve many personal indignities too indelicate to describe, including derogatory comments about my carriers, especially Miss Krys’s homemade one, which occasioned open hoots of laughter. If I do return to Chicago, I will have to have a nose-to-nose with her.
Then, I come home on Tuesday and Miss Midnight Louise is always hovering somewhere, needing to unburden herself of endless “reports.”
Now, at last, my role as CEO of Midnight Investigations, Inc., and my need for a roam of my own have met. Something fishy is going on at the Oasis, at least in the Lusty Ladies and Laddies ship attraction.
There are times when I wish to keep a low profile and enter a major casino by the well-hidden rear service areas. This is not one of them. Crowds are milling in and out of the Strip joints despite … or because … of the nearing wee morning hours.
Most Strip hotels gussy up their entry approaches with large iconic sculptures and lush landscaping, so I can tiptoe through the manicured jungles as unnoticed as dirt: rich, almost-black loam is imported for the exotic greenery. I can also slink around the massive statues, in this case one of the facing elephants who suffer from a severe condition common to Las Vegas, called “gigantism.” These painted and overdressed pachyderms would be big even to the towering statue of Goliath down the Las Vegas Boulevard.
Getting through the casino’s front door is not the slick process I can usually execute. A lot of people are standing statue-still around something right in front of the rows of brass-framed doors.
I am forced into an intricate and risky weaving maneuver to pass but not tickle a forest of bare and hairy ankles so I can survey the object of their interest.
Hmm. Louise did not mention the megabucks forced into an elephant-palanquin-size treasure chest sitting on the front doorstep for all to see, and see through. The chest is clear plastic and rather ghostly. She is so fixated on Mr. Max Kinsella that she cannot see the moolah for the mush.
The ersatz sailing ship in the cove at the hotel’s side may be the scene of Mr. Cliff Effinger’s gruesome demise and now haunted by supervising thugs. And there may be an infestation of electric eels in the cove water. And it is somewhat interesting that Mr. Max was attacked there Monday night (yet again, yawn), but that is the price you pay for being nosy.
I say the big dough up for grabs Friday night is the far more likely target at the Oasis. And the dead-certain likeliest target to be found in the entire vast hotel-casino layout is the one I intend to track now, whose likeness is plastered above the doors nobody is watching now that so much fresh green money is on display.
Midnight Louie always has his eye on the prize, and in this instance it is not bankable.
An hour later, I am still searching. Vegas casinos would deny the comparison, but they are laid out like an Ikea store combined with a maze the size of Massachusetts.
I would bet all the money in the out-front treasure chest that the clever Norse pattern the Ikea store on a route where you can walk and walk and never quite exit. That way you see all the wares and make impulse buys. Same thing in a casino.
Just as I am about to be terminally overcome from the floor level foot odor, I am making a three-foot dash to the next craps table when a white tornado comes churning in my direction.
Busted! I am caught out in the open, the object of every eye that is not pinned to a slot machine or a gaming table.
Luckily, that is very few people. Unluckily, my right ear is the target of a hot wet slap in the face.
“Louie, old pal,” yaps the white dust mop of fur sporting hot pink satin bows about the ears, “whatcha doing here at the Oasis, huh, huh?”
Before I can answer this silly creature, a dog that weighs less than half what I do, speaks for himself.
“I have been riding at human shoulder-height for hours, sucking in secondhand smoke. I envy you having a job where you work best at foot-odor level.”
The little guy has a point. There are no health warning labels on Odor-Eaters. Some might sniff at this dainty excuse for a canine as a “ladies’ lap dog” but Nose E. has one of the most dangerous assignments around Las Vegas: hanging around the big social events and casinos, using his small but potent sniffer to target illegal drugs and explosives. Usually he is carried around by a hot chick or a big beefy guy like Mr. T who can flatten anyone prone to snicker at a man with a purse pooch.
“So what is up here at the Oasis,” I ask, “besides the million bucks awarded Friday to the gambler of the week?”
“That is chump change.” Nose E. paws at the inner corner of one black button eye, and seeming to stroke the side of his valuable nose like giving the high sign. White breeds have a tendency to eye stains, not a problem for one born to be black and beautiful. “The management is concerned about explosive traces in the casino.”
“This place could blow?” I cannot help sounding alarmed. “You are investigating the pirate ship attraction on the cove?”
“Not in the assignment. I am not as credible in the great outdoors as you are, Louie. No, my beat is the casino. I am picking up very faint traces, meriting only a muttered whimper, not a full-blown aria of alarm accompanied by a paw lift and head tilt, which signals imminent danger.”