Garry—the name ran through his hobbled brain in a rhythm like a song—Garry, I hardly knew ye. Again.
Move, Max. The voice came out of the aching, blinding despair in his head. No matter who, no matter what. You’ve got to move on. Mourn your losses later. Move now!
“Why?” Max asked the empty car interior. “This isn’t a mission to save anything but my sorry past. Garry, I won’t leave you. You’ve never left me.”
And his faltering memory hadn’t resurrected all he’d known of the living man. Maybe it never would, now.
Listen to me. No matter how bad the situation, you have only one option. Always. Action. Move, Max!
“Why am I remembering your advice now? When it’s too late. It’s too late, Gandolph. I can’t do a damn thing about anything. That fucking seat belt!”
His voice and questions filled his mind, the car. There were no answers but the mantra that Gandolph had planted in his head over the years, released like a long, old-fashioned tape recording.
Trust me. Move, Max. Move on. It’s what you’d want if the situation were reversed. Let it go. Let me go.
“No. Your body. Who will claim your body? Buried and forgotten like a Magdalen asylum woman? No!”
A vehicle was rushing into the shattered night of broken cars and men, flashing blue lights.
The Belfast police.
Max, for God’s sake, move!!! Find out what you must, do what you must, what we determined we must do. Find Kathleen O’Connor, if she’s there to be found. Tell her “Sláinte” for me. Then find your heart’s desire.
Max pulled the torqued driver’s-side door open, grabbed both legs, and kicked them out as battering rams against the balky steel, hoping they’d break again. The door creaked agape. And Gandolph’s body slid farther into the driver’s seat Max was abandoning.
He let a calm thought cross his mind, then grabbed the laptop and briefcase, Gollum’s “my precious” times two. He’d read The Lord of the Rings, even if Garry claimed he hadn’t.
Everything they’d learned, that Gandolph had learned, for his sake, rested inside these fragile cases, one of paper and leather, one of pixels and plastic.
Max pushed himself up, out of the Mondeo’s stuck-forward seat, into the clean, misty night air. The sirens screamed louder, and blue lights washed over the street like a Kmart special offering capture and unanswerable questions.
He needed escape and survival.
With no glance back but in his heart, Max lurched down the empty wet cobblestoned street, unerringly finding the shadows and blending with them. He knew he could operate under the dark of the moon with the best of them, but he had a long way to go as just a crippled shadow of himself.
Moving Issues
“Matt!” Temple rejoiced into the cell phone as she recognized his voice. “You won’t believe what mayhem we’ve had here, solving the Chunnel of Crime murder.”
“Mayhem in Vegas,” he answered. “What’s not to believe?”
“Right now, I want to hear all about The Amanda Show appearances and the family soap opera,” Temple said.
“Oh, it is a soap opera, way more exciting than anything currently on TV. But I’ve got other news, something that could really remodel our lives.”
“Oh?”
“For the better. I’m getting tired of working night shifts.”
“I can live with that.”
“That’s just it. We don’t have to. The Amanda Show producers have offered me my own, ah, gig.”
“Your own gig?” Temple felt confused. “You don’t sing… . Is it the dancing?”
“Lord, no. It’s what I do. Talk to people.”
“A talk show?”
“Right. A daytime talk show. No more me rushing out before midnight six nights out of seven like Cinderfella.”
“But … you are Mr. Midnight.”
“When we’re married, I want to work normal daytime hours, like you do.”
“Talk shows are tricky, Matt. Eighty zillion more have gone down than have made it.”
“The Amanda Show producers think it’s time to bring on a guy who isn’t Jerry Springer. Something more substantive. They say my Q-ratings go through the roof whenever I’m on Amanda’s show. The time’s ripe for a spin-off with Oprah’s retirement coming up. That’s a seismic event, and opportunity. Don’t you see, Temple? We could be together more.”
“Well, yeah. That’s great, Matt! I just couldn’t believe it at first. That’s right about Oprah. This is a major, major offer. Dinner at the Paris Eiffel Tower restaurant for that!”
“Tony Valentine, my agent, will be rarin’ to go on this. And we can do the wedding in Chicago, because we’ll need a house here. Not too suburban. You don’t want a long commute.”
“Chicago? Living there?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Wouldn’t Vegas be a great talk-show city, lots of celebrities buzzing through?”
“This wouldn’t be the usual celebrity gab-and-promo fest. I’d do something similar to the radio counseling, only on a TV screen during the daylight hours.”
“The Circle Ritz …”
“We can keep my unit. Visit.”
“My job. The Crystal Phoenix.”
“Chicago has big hotels too. I’m sure your PR ideas will knock ’em dead around here too.”
“Literally?”
His laughter made the phone vibrate in her palm.
“I’m sure you could find a murder or two to solve here.”
“The Chicago winters …”
“We both grew up in winters like that. Look,” he said, “this has to be a joint decision. But it’s such an amazing opportunity. The show would be structured to do people some real good.”
“Elvis will miss you.”
“That’s another thing. No more eerie callins.”
“And … Midnight Louie.”
“He can move.”
“He couldn’t own the town, like here.”
“Maybe he’d have to hold down your condo, and we’d visit. Anyway, I’ll be home in a few days and we can discuss it. I have to stay on for more talks. I admit I was bowled over by their presentation. A whole conference room, huge TV screen, network VPs. Then there’s the latest mind-blowing wrinkle in my family. We’ll talk when I’m not semi–out of my mind from pressure on all sides.”
“Ooh. Sounds like a trip full of surprises.”
Temple clung to the phone, trying to calculate all the pros and cons of leaving Las Vegas.
“Too much to discuss on a phone call,” Matt said again. “I just couldn’t wait to tell you. We’ll find what works best for both of us. Love you.”
“Matt, I am so happy for you. I love you too.”
The line went dead, and Temple felt something pressing against her calves. Talk about pressure from all sides.
She looked down.
Midnight Louie looked up with solemn green eyes.
“That was Matt,” she told him. “How’d you like to be the biggest, baddest get-around-town dude in Chicago?”
She was not to know what Louie thought of that. The phone rang again. She wondered what Matt had forgotten to mention.
The voice wasn’t Matt’s. It was strange and fuzzy, as if coming from a bar or a street corner or a distant star.
“Can you hear me?” it asked. “The line is fading in and out.”
“Barely,” she answered, wondering if she should just hang up on a crank caller.
“You’re supposed to know me,” the voice was continuing. “Sorry if I sound slurred. I’m calling from Northern Ireland, wouldn’t you know? Yes, I’ve been drinking. That’s what we Irish do at wakes, even private ones.”
She was about to end the call, except something in the distorted voice rang disturbingly true. It went on.
“Hang up anytime you’re feeling bored. I’ve got two recently broken legs that will ache in this blasted damp weather for the rest of my life if I stay in the damned country, and I’m a wanted man, anyway.
“I’ve got a case of amnesia, where all I’m remembering is a bit about the IRA, a dead woman named Rebecca, or a possibly live one named Kathleen, and a crew of crazy-ass has-been magicians who think they belong to a secret society called the Synth.