“It’s Italian. The J names always start with G-i-a, then two c’s give you k pronunciation. G-i-a-c-c-h-i-n-o. You jottted that down right. And ‘Petrocelli’ is right too. Okay. So what you up to? You want to make a headstone for the old mobster?”
“I might want to research him, for my show.”
“I’d watch myself. My theory is Old Giacch-o is still out there, all alone and sitting on his millions. And maybe floating a few deals or corpses even today.”
“Like that dead body of an old man that was dumped off Paradise behind the Strip a week ago?”
“Never knew that guy was old. Who’d bother offing someone my age?” Wetherly wheezed out a laugh that neared a cackle. Then his narrowed eyes almost disappeared in the dunes of flesh surrounding them. “I see, sonny. You’re thinking it might be some old-time mob guy.”
“Yeah,” Matt said. “Like that guy who was tied to the pirate ship prow after dark at the Oasis, and drowned with the ship when it sank.”
“Ooh, that was a nasty do-in, wasn’t it? Buried in the paper, though.” Wetherly nodded sagely. “Just like that. I hadn’t thought of old Giaccho, but maybe he wanted to change his MO to keep the police away from the fact that he is maybe still out there somewhere.”
The chair squealed as Wetherly slapped himself back into reclining position. He was still a big guy.
“I slam back a few at the cop bars around town. That ‘victim,’ Effinger, was known as a bad lot. Ran errands for anything shady around town. But he never was big enough to merit a mob offing with full honors. Weird case.”
“There’s a rumor Effinger knew something about the loot from an old heist.”
“Rumors.” Wetherly had turned scoffing. “Effinger was a rat fink, a pathetic hanger-on scratching out a few bucks now and then. If Jack the Hammer is still out there, he would have rubbed him out on principle.”
Wetherly’s contempt of his dead stepfather warmed Matt’s heart, not a very charitable reaction. It was always good, though, to learn his own opinion was shared by leaders in their field … in Effinger’s case, cops and crooks alike.
Matt thanked the old cop, who actually rose to see him out.
Wetherly whistled when he spotted the Jaguar at his curb. “Must have robbed a bank yourself.”
Matt smiled modestly. “My show does all right.”
“Keep it up,” the old man advised, “you’ll be seamed and freckled and useless like me before you know it.”
“You’ve been really helpful,” Matt assured him, surviving a crushing handshake before he finally got away.
Old people liked to talk. He often had to hurry them along on the radio. This old guy, though, had given him some solid information.
Maybe Molina would find the first dead guy at Area 54 had links to this Petrocelli character or his old-time operation.
Meanwhile, he checked his cell phone. Temple had texted him to come home. Max had found some new evidence to review.
Matt gunned the Jaguar away from the house, a rare expression of aggravation. Max Kinsella and his precious “evidence” could be abducted by aliens and never heard from again, as far as he was concerned.
Chapter 45
Murder Ménage III: The Thirteenth Sign
Max finally had his magic moment. He looked at Temple and Matt to gather their attention as they sat at the round table.
Then he produced the scrap of paper he’d rescued from the Professor Mangel magic exhibition at the University of Nevada campus here several days ago, saving it for this savoring moment, flourishing it between his fingers like a paper bouquet.
“Voilà!”
“You’re sounding very French lately,” Temple observed.
“The language of love and mystery.” Max would not let guilt over his recent French connection deny him his ooh-la-la moment of revelation. “I found this inside a coin box, a magic trick box, at Professor Mangel’s exhibition on the university campus.”
“A puzzle box?” Matt asked.
“It’s a small box with hidden chambers.”
“Kind of like the human heart,” Matt said.
Max paused. “Exactly. Magicians meant it to be impenetrable by the average person, and I’ve seen the clever average person buy such puzzle boxes to hide pot from the police. I gamed the mechanism after a thorough inspection.”
“Why did you tamper with the Mangel exhibition?” Temple asked.
“Magician’s instinct. I psyched out where I’d hide something there. I figured if someone killed him and left his body in that Ophiuchus position, it must have been because he knew something about the Synth. Something dangerous to them.”
“And if he had,” Temple broke in excitedly, “he would have hidden what he knew someplace safe. His mind worked like that. He delighted in the illusions-inside-illusions aspect of magic.”
“Or maybe,” Matt said, “you just took it because you could.”
Max laughed. “It was a particularly unusual coin box. Call it instinct, call it luck, call it fate. Inside the box, once I figured out how to open it, was this map, for what I don’t know. That’s where you people with a memory of Vegas need to help out.”
“I love puzzles.” Temple snatched the bait with her lilac-enameled fingernails and smoothed out the paper. She reminded him of a terrier playing with a toy hiding treats inside.
Matt balanced his chin on her shoulder to see better. Revienne had been right. They made the coziest couple. Max silently applauded. Apparently he’d been an excellent matchmaker before his memory had gone south.
“It looks like a bare branch with Christmas tree lights on it,” Temple said.
“Or forked summer lightning,” Matt suggested.
“Or fireworks,” Max said. “Yes, there’s something organic about it and artificial at the same time. You’re both right.”
“It could be a night view of an airplane landing field,” Matt said, exercising his left brain.
“Bravo,” said Max.
“Or…” Temple was waxing imaginative. “Or … Area Fifty-one.”
“So you think this is an alien-landing map,” Matt asked, his vocal tone just this far south of ridicule.
“We must think outside the box,” she answered. “What would a cool metaphysical guy like Jeff Mangel have?”
“A string of chemical formulas,” Max said, just to be confounding.
“No.” Temple sounded discouraged. “It’s too skeletal, too sketchy. Unless we had a key to this map, it’ll never mean anything but gibberish. Darn you, Jeff Mangel.”
“You said his philosophical outlook fascinated you,” Matt reminded her. “That’s not science. We need to look for something more symbolic in this … arrangement of dots or points.”
“French pointillist paintings? Sand paintings. Tattoos?” Temple suggested, a bit huffily.
Max sat back, enjoying their … process.
Temple tumbled to his amused voyeurism. “Max. You must have a theory. What? Do these dots repeat the arrangement of doves in your signature illusion, for instance, or the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin or the back of an elephant?”
Her pointed interrogation and references made his smile broaden. “It’s something to do with Jeff Mangel’s obsession with magic. Not angels or elephants, Temple, much as I find that combination stimulating. Maybe for a new act.”
“Oh, that would be so cool, Max!”
Matt frowned at her instant engagement with ideas for Max’s act. “We’re not here to reinvent the Mystifying Max.”
“The Mystifying, Flying Max,” Temple corrected. She thought like P. T. Barnum.
Even Matt was forced to smile and make eye contact with his former rival. “She’s the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t she?”
Max nodded. “I will admit, this pattern leaves me bewitched and bewildered. It looks so deliberate, but must be random.”