“Now, Ma,” I say. “I have told you before that no alien force is coming to take you away, except the SPCA, and you all are in a TNR zone these days.”
“Twilight Zone, I told you so.”
“I am not referring to the spooky TV show. ‘TNR’ stands for Trap, Neuter, Return. The human do-gooders seek to prevent unwanted littering by whisking our street people away to low-cost neutering facilities. It is a good program for those who, unlike myself, are not able to avail themselves of such voluntary choices as vasectomy.”
“Hmph,” says Ma. “The way I hear it, you were captured and whisked away just like the rest of us, only you got dumped on a plastic surgeon rather than a vet. I tell you, what is going on now in town is a vast alien conspiracy.”
Ma sits down to groom her mustache. (This does happen to older females, you know.) Sadly, her coat is terminally raggedy and she just manages to swirl the split ends around in a different pattern.
“It is just Planned Pethood, Ma,” I suggest.
“Do not be an ignorant pup,” she growls.
Now my back hairs are getting themselves in a twist. You do not call Midnight Louie canine, no matter who you are.
“Settle down, Louie.” Her crooked paw pats my side whiskers. “We can have our own opinions about the alien conspiracy to whisk our population away to some hidden and forbidden planet, but you will not be able to deny what the Cat Pack has seen over on Paradise.”
I am somewhat mollified, if not momified. “All right. Show me the way. But first I have to reverse engineer the claw marks you have put into the back of Miss Temple’s sofa.”
“From what I hear of her romantic life, she does not see much of the back of the couch.”
By then I am using a single delicate shiv to restore the disturbed upholstery threads and too busy to take offense. It is true my Miss Temple has been distressingly involved in the mating game of late, and she does not have the handy on and off switch known as “heat” to moderate things.
But I would not be here if it were not for such urges, so who am I to complain?
“Ma!” I have now reached the breached French door. The lock is visibly sprung, and long track marks scar the exterior wood. “You are as bad as that renegade human known, not fondly, as Kitty the Cutter.”
Ma shrugs and emits the short, almost gacking sounds that pass for amusement with her. “Kitty the Cutter—cute nickname. You can call me Cutter for short,” she says with a sharp cuff to my shoulder.
I do not know why Ma is so fearful of alien abduction. If these so-called aliens were advanced enough to traverse space to get to Earth, they would not take her on a bet.
Chapter 9
Close Encounter
Had he always been a nightcrawler? Max Kinsella wondered about that as he wandered the brightly lit gaming aisles. The Goliath, an older Las Vegas hotel-casino, looked as tired as an aging bookie despite being tarted up with new carpeting and gaudier lighting fixtures.
He’d spent the day wandering the Strip, staring at familiar Las Vegas icons until his eyes could hardly focus. It worked like putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together.
The Crystal Phoenix stirred rough cuts of Temple from a handheld movie camera, her red hair, her red car, her laugh. Memory hallucinations of Lieutenant Molina and her haunting ex, Rafi Nadir appeared suddenly at other locations, even the elusive glimpse of a black cat.
The person or persons unknown who’d arranged his almost-fatal fall probably hoped he’d remain a walking blind spot forever.
Now, though, he was back at the Goliath, where he’d performed the main magic show for a year, and it was feeling alarmingly familiar, like he belonged here. The up-late energy of a frenetic casino in the very wee hours seemed to spark even more memories.
A few passing faces looked vaguely familiar. Joy pulsed through him like a drug high. His traumatized memory was tiring of being a drag. It was starting to spark into life. He looked around, cherishing the familiar for the first time since he’d been back in the United States.
What a crazy scene Las Vegas was. He and his fellow post-midnight travelers were awash in a galaxy of winking lights, hearing computerized whoops and zings, pings and rings, inhaling stale cigarette smoke. Gaming, drinking, and smoking were the Three Musketeers of Vegas good times. The casinos would never ban smoking, so despite the air-conditioned chill, the scene was vaguely hellish.
Max weaved through crowds of grinning Vegas Strip zombies, haggard and staggering people refusing to admit it was nearly 3 A.M., when all good boys and girls should be at home and in bed with their significant others.
“Max Kinsella!” a hearty male voice hailed him. “What dead-end alley have you been hiding in?”
Hester Polyester, a dedicated octogenarian player of the cheapest slot machines, heard his name called too and looked up from the cartooned fruit and other icons floating before her red-rimmed eyes.
Max stopped and stared at the elderly woman. Her name and claim to fame were just “there.” Could it be this easy?
Meanwhile, someone reached to grab and stop Max in his tracks just as Max realized he recognized the voice, Thumbs Kerrick, a veteran Goliath pit boss.
Max winked at Hester to put her next on the greeting list. He turned toward Kerrick and his question, which was being repeated.
“Where the heck have you been, you Mystifying Max, you? Just vanished after your gig was up. Not polite.”
“Your shift over?” Max guessed.
Kerrick pulled him toward a couple empty slot machine spots. “On break.” He released Max’s arm in its linen sport coat. “Best biceps in the business still,” Kerrick said, grinning. “For a tall skinny dude, you’re deceptively strong.”
“I’m a magician. We’re all deceptive.”
“You haven’t been a magic man in this town lately. No, seriously. I thought you and your act would be moving up-Strip.” He lowered his voice. “Then it went to hell. Rumor was the police were hot to question you on the dead guy found in the, you know—” Kerrick jerked his head toward the light-bristling ceiling.
Bells and chimes whooped from various areas of the casino, the siren sound of someone else winning far away.
“My contract was up that night,” Max said. “I was gone the minute the greasepaint was off. So who died?”
“Mr. Nobody. Maybe that’s why the Goliath became Cop Central. This tall lieutenant was all over the staff like a cheap leisure suit, gave the word ‘grilling’ the sniff of the Spanish Inquisition and burning at the stake. Sure wanted to talk to you bad.”
“So in my absence, he endeared me to the staff by putting the heat on them. Sorry, Thumbs. I didn’t know. I was long gone.”
“She.” Thumbs eyed Max like he would a potential card counter, with suspicion. He may have overdone the innocent act. “The lieutenant was a she.”
“Good-looking?”
“Ah, Max!” Laughing, Thumbs punched him on the cast-iron biceps. “That’s why you skedaddled, isn’t it? Woman trouble. I knew it.”
Max considered, then nodded. “You’re right. Woman trouble. And, Thumbs, this jacket is designer linen. It wrinkles easily.”