His brain was doing double-time, flashing visions of previous visits here through the masked eyes of the Phantom Mage. He strode to the fireplace to further confound them. They had to have suspected him of being the PM, given his long apparent absence from Vegas and reputation for aerial illusions.
His back to them, he studied the mantelpiece, his glance passing over a crystal skull and elaborately jeweled dagger to the wax embodiment of a severed human hand. As he reached to examine it, the fingers pulsed and the hand spider-walked toward the dagger.
“Marvelous,” Max said, laughing even as he’d jumped back. “A prop from The Beast with Five Fingers or The Hand remake?” He seized the dagger before the mechanical hand reached it.
“And this?”
“From a production of the Scottish play where the actor starring as Macbeth died onstage,” Czarina confirmed. “Several interested Hollywood types were in the audience.”
“The curse strikes again.” Theater superstition had it that saying the name of the Shakespearean play, Macbeth, led to death among its cast. Max palmed the dagger, produced it in his other hand, and tossed it in the air to land in the empty space produced by the wandering hand.
“You have been practicing,” Ramona said.
“Cheap trick,” Max said modestly. “I wasn’t expecting to be anything more than drunk at this point of the evening.”
“Sit,” Czarina commanded.
So he did, crossing his long legs and settling into the wing chair as if the lord of the manor. Ramona, surname Zamora, had borne an arresting stage name at birth. She mirrored his posture in the matching chair opposite. She was right. They’d make an interesting stage pair. A pity she was a suspected murderess.
“Now,” she said, “the great Max Kinsella knows why we once-established magicians are furious at being relegated to some Illusionists’ Boneyard by Cirque-du-Everlasting-Soleil and robbed of our secrets by the Cloaked Conjuror.”
Ramona’s fury reminded Max of the Evil Queen from Snow White. That was fine. The short-circuiting wires in his memory tossed out the fact that, as a kid, he’d loved the Disney version for her wicked tricks, amazing image transformations, and sexy jealous rants. That lady had drama down cold.
“Now,” Hal pointed out, “you’re one of us disgruntled ripped-off performers, from what you said.”
“Absolutely. I returned from more than a year away fine-tuning a new act, and, presto, one of my former construction assistants skedaddles to sell the mechanics of my signature illusion to the Cloaked Conjuror for a few paltry thousand. Or so the rat’s former partner says.”
“Oh, it’s true.” Czarina was huffy angry. “CC has millions to throw around, and your last act was legendary around here. You have a huge following on Twitter.”
“I do?” Max was astonished. “Don’t you have to ask for that?”
“Anybody who wants can ‘follow’ you,” she said. “It helps,” she added seductively, “if you follow back.”
“That’s just it.” Max threw up graceful hands, his long fingers the envy of most of his peers for their dexterity. “I’m a magician, not a PR flack.” He winced internally to think of Temple Barr hearing those words from his lips. “I just want to do my job in peace, without some parasitic imitator trying to ‘expose’ me when he’s getting great notices and rich for doing it.”
“Hear, hear.” Hal pumped a fist into the air.
“Even worse,” Czarina said, watching him with all the shrewdness in her soul, which was considerable, “we think we lost our house magician to an assassination.”
“That’s ghastly,” Max said, “and worth prosecuting. Why haven’t I seen any media on the case? I must have still been out of town when this happened.”
“Out of town, where?” Czarina asked.
“Out of the country, actually.”
“Oh, where? I swear I got a couple cryptic messages from you.” Ramona lifted raven’s-wing eyebrows.
“Did you? I didn’t roam as far as anyone might think. North of the border.”
“Oh, clever,” Hal said. “Nobody looks for anyone up there in Canada but aging Vietnam War protesters. Good show.”
Max detected the triumvirate exchanging flash glances again. His story was holding up because of its very humdrum nature. Why had he said Canada? It had felt so right and reasonable, and wasn’t someplace spectacularly suspicious, not as if Max had claimed to be on the run on the Continent.
“You think someone is bumping off your membership?” he asked. “Someone did die here.”
“The Phantom Mage was a mere hireling,” Czarina said, all heart. “Probably a Cirque reject. That flashy bungee cord swishing around did distract the drinking crowd, but his magic technique was nothing to get excited about.”
“Some of us,” Hal said, “thought he was a spy.”
“Some of us,” Ramona added, “thought he was you. But then he died, or was killed, and you weren’t, unless you’re now a vampire or a zombie.”
“Excellent ideas for my new act, Ramona. ‘The Mystifying Max: Back from the Dead.’”
“We don’t know the Phantom Mage was killed,” Hal said.
“Really?” Max felt his muscles tensing for a rapid getaway. Had they invited him up here for an interrogation and possible extermination?
“He could have gotten careless,” Czarina admitted. “He seemed overconfident.”
“And you never suspected it was me,” Max chided with a smile, an overconfident smile.
The silence was uncomfortable. He’d confronted the weakness in his story head-on, like the Phantom Mage had faced his apparent death, but that crushing impact had been too convincing for any doubt, thanks to Rafi Nadir’s falsely official presence and diagnosis.
Max nodded soberly. “Perhaps the revolving lights of the signs of the zodiac disoriented him. They sure distracted me from my troubles. Did you know you’ve repeated one?”
“Repeated?” Czarina asked.
“I was slow to be served and had nothing to do but watch the mirrored bar-top light show. That’s the idea, I know, but I counted thirteen of those zodiac glyphs going around. It was like counting sheep, only the ram kept showing up, and the fish and the scorpion and the boa constrictor and the lion.”
“You were sure in your cups, my friend,” Hal said, chuckling, “if you were seeing snakes in the zodiac. What’s your sign?”
“I never paid much attention to bar pickup lines.”
Czarina snorted. “You wouldn’t. You’ve never needed to do that. Born between the first day of spring and the anniversary of the Oklahoma federal building bombing and assault on the Waco cult, dates of new life and hope as well as political insanity, you are obviously Aries. That’s a sign of power and fearless strength, a muscular body and mind. You seek thrills and challenge, but you can be deceptive. Am I right?”
“I hope so,” Max said modestly. “At least I was born in the first half of April. All of those traits sounds useful for a magician. So the symbol of my zodiac sign is a—”
“Ram,” Ramona said lustily.
“And the boa constrictor I glimpsed in passing?”
Hal was happy to instruct. “That is Ophiuchus, my Aries friend. The ancients identified it as a constellation. The ‘ophidian’ coils indicate the biological suborder Ophidia or Serpentes, from the Greek ophis: a snake. Some versions of the zodiac do show it, but it’s always been the unlucky thirteen in a set of signs that fit the twelve months of the year. So, despite some tabloid buzz recently when an astronomer suggested it needed to be made room for, it’s a lost sign that we have taken for our symbol of forgotten magic and magical powers.”
“Cool.” Max nodded. “An apt symbol. Best that it stay out of the common parlance. Besides, who’d want to murmur ‘Ophiuchus’ in someone’s ear at a bar when they could whisper Aquarius or Virgo, and roar Leo or Taurus.”