Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Temple had been ordered to “Stand there.”

So she was kept mute five feet behind Molina and her victim but every word nailed her guilty conscience as well. She’d worn her dust-shedding red patent-leather pumps to the site, but she wasn’t comfortable.

“Explain yourself,” Molina barked at Farnum. By now Temple was envisioning the woman’s dark bobbed hair above a khaki pantsuit as the black-and-tan of a German shepherd guard dog on the attack. She really must rein in her imagination.

“I—I’m an entrepreneur, ma’am,” Farnum said.

“So was Bugsy Siegel,” came the icy response, “and look how he ended up. You’d be downtown getting your pinkies scanned for fingerprints if I didn’t need you to explain your science fiction device.”

“It’s not a device.”

Molina’s face donned an Are you contradicting me? glower.

Farnum continued his explanation. “I’m trying to explain the inexplicable here. It’s a process, actually. The structure employs metamaterials with a light-bending technology. You combine polymer substratas and gold and copper, which forcibly bend electromagnetic waves around an object. Light hitting the object is diverted around it. The light is not reflected nor refracted.”

Molina absorbed this cascade of technological terms, then shoved the sunglasses up onto her head and whirled to pin her gaze on Temple’s. Temple had always found the effect of intense blue eyes in an olive complexion like being hit by a blinding blue laser.

“You’re the PR whiz kid,” Molina said. “Explain what Farnum here has said in simple English.”

Temple tried. “From what I’ve found out, researchers have been working since the early 2000s to develop a material that can bend visible light around three-D objects. And it’s working. These metamaterials can conceal small objects, but are rapidly being applied to bigger projects. The implications for the military and, uh, police departments are enormous if this technology leaked into the wrong hands.”

“That’s an understatement.” This time Molina’s gaze snapped like heat lightning between Temple and Farnum, who shrugged at each other, hoping the other won the hot spot. “So the first commercial use of these ‘metamaterials’ shows up—or doesn’t show up—in Vegas? Tell me another fairy story.”

Temple directed her own steely look at her errant sorta client.

He caved. “It could only happen in Vegas, Lieutenant Mojito.”

“Molina!”

“Molina.” Farnum doffed his straw hat and wiped his sweat- beaded forehead with the back of his stubby hand at the same time. “The hotel consortium billionaires of the Strip are the only ones who could bankroll a weird science project like this.”

“Even they aren’t that crazy,” Molina said.

Farnum turned earnest, his huckster’s enthusiasm for his con coming forward. “Look at the space program. The U.S. government? Outta there. It’s up to the Russians and Chinese now. And to entrepreneurs, billionaire entrepreneurs from the U.S. and beyond, like Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Everything. Entrepreneurs are sending manned rockets into space. You don’t think one or more of them wouldn’t mind building a real Space Mountain in Vegas?”

“So,” Molina said. “You’ve been working on this secret construction under the cover of darkness and cutting-edge technology. What people saw was not really there. It was a … reflection of all the stalled projects around us?”

“Not exactly, but it’ll do.”

“And what exactly is the real construction I’m seeing now?” Molina sighed and turned to view the unveiled Disneyland structure of space ship top and residential tower. “It’s not much of a building.”

Farnum had the answer. “It’s the biggest building yet shielded from view.”

“Not now. Now it’s a crime scene. And how do these metamaterials turn off and on?”

“Trade secret,” Farnum answered promptly.

“It’s no secret that two bodies have been found on this site.” Molina lowered her sunglasses and looked sideways at Farnum. “This entire lot is a crime scene, including your trickster building. I’m posting officers around the clock, and not even Harry Potter will slip past them.”

Temple remembered that Harry had an invisibility cloak. Molina had read Harry Potter? Probably when Mariah was a kindergartner.

“Prepare to give me a list of who bankrolled what, or I’ll get a court order to view all the permits,” Molina told Farnum. “Even invisible buildings can’t go up these days without plenty of paperwork.”

Farnum backed away, bowing like a spurned suitor, his straw hat clutched to his heart.

Molina turned to Temple. “I see you’ve been chatting up the gathering UFO Looney Tunes division. You’re coming to headquarters with me to give a full oral report.”

Yo, ho, ho and little green gray men on a dead man’s chest.

Chapter 29

Fringe Benefit

Only in Las Vegas.

In only an hour or two, my spectacular Olympic-level performance in Downhill Racing is forgotten in the resulting chaos, although I am sure it will soon go viral and reality TV will be calling … and calling my name.

Police DO NOT CROSS tape has expanded to encompass most of the lot and now includes the nakedly exposed building. Crawford Buchanan is in all-too-prominent evidence, chatting up the crowd for a slot on the ten o’clock news. Onlookers and schlock-sellers form a thick lunatic fringe between the tape and the curb, creating a street circus atmosphere to mirror the Strip, although in small scale.

Still, it is hard for a dude of my stature to make an evidence-gathering stroll of the grounds. My Miss Temple captured me while I was still a bit disoriented from my ten-story slide. She hugged me and petted me and called me her very own, in full public view, which was terribly humiliating, then admonished me and locked me “safely” in the Miata convertible and flounced off to do spin control and snoop, as she is wont.

Foolish girl. She ordered the Mazda model with the push-button top. The day, or night, Midnight Louie cannot paw-punch a button with enough force to operate it is the day I hang up my crime-busting credentials. She should know that by now. I have pussyfooted over enough of her landline and fax buttons in the past.

Granted, Miss Temple is somewhat dizzy from being the PR person in charge of this big-time would-be alien sideshow despite herself. I had heard her muttering about being stuck as “Molina’s Junior G-string Girl” or some such as she left me in temporary custody in the Miata.

I do enjoy the sweet smell and cushiness of leather seats, but I like a crime scene—no matter how grimy and bizarre—better.

So now I am footloose and fancy free, and following in Crawford Buchanan’s nosy newscaster footsteps, which smell of rose-scented athlete’s foot powder— oof! Above me, his oily baritone is drawing sensational comments from the gathered loonies—er, legions of UFO believers—and the usual Vegas suspects: onlooker tourists and local gawkers.

“I saw that UFO thingie just swallow up a building whole,” testifies an elderly dude wearing a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops that sport gel-green frogs on the toes. Definitely a keen eyewitness. “This is obviously the first scout ship,” he adds, “but these alien thingies will be downing the Monte Carlo next. We are witnessing Armagideon.”

And Joshua and Jericho too.

The next camera subject wears jeans and Earth Shoes. I would have sworn that this ’70s’ artifact would have vanished from the earth, but no. It is a pleasure to see long pants in Las Vegas, and lots less human hair that looks like it escaped a coconut shell. I delicately walk my foretoes up the leg of the oblivious wearer and spot a halo of ungoverned Einstein hair on his head.