Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Surprise Party

Naked was the best disguise, they said, but surprise was the better half of naked.

Max rolled out of the tunnel into the mechanical closet headfirst, his supple spine pulling his legs after him so he hit the floor on a roll he could push out of sideways and at the same time lift his hands in a defensive position.

The man waiting to ambush him had grabbed the unfastened grille and held it up like a shield, the other guy’s lost knife in his right hand.

Max struggled upright against a wall of wooden shelving, his eyes getting used to the light that showed his opponent wore a security guard’s uniform, complete with gun holster.

Max ducked, knowing he was busted.

The knife slashed toward him in an expert spinning arc that buried the blade point in an upright pine board near his carotid artery.

“Better your fingerprints are the last ones on that than mine,” the guy said just as Max saw past the uniform to the man wearing it.

“Impressive aim. What brought you here?” Max asked, grabbing a dirty rag from the shelf to pry the knife loose and then wrap its slightly bloody blade.

“Tailing you.”

“In your work clothes?”

“Guards are all over the Strip. Nobody notices them here, like mail carriers in residential areas. Is the guy in the tunnel dead?”

“I hope not.”

“You need to ID him?”

Max shook his head, clearing his muzzy brain. “It was a tight place to tango. He wore cat burglar garb like me, and carried no ID. Nothing more than a pencil flashlight and a—”

“Assassin’s knife.”

“Tight quarters, tough weapon. It’s a good thing you kept your feet on the ground and stayed out of that dead end up there. We good to go, Nadir?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then you’ll tell me whether you’re playing spy … or babysitter, both of which I consider killing offenses.”

“Go ahead,” Rafi Nadir said with a sweeping gesture and a sardonic look. “I got your back.”

* * *

“You know,” Max said after they’d driven separately and discreetly to Gandolph’s house in an established neighborhood of Las Vegas and gone to ground inside. “I don’t know why I’ve got an ex-cop playing guard dog.”

He handed Nadir a Baccarat crystal glass with three fingers of Jameson Irish Whiskey in it.

“You keep a good bar and pour generously?” Rafi quipped.

Max sat down opposite him in the living room, reflecting he’d had no memories of just hanging loose in the house, or entertaining anyone, not even a woman, having no friends but the post-Gandolph Garry Randolph. The way Garry had reinvented his given name into a clever version for a magician beginning a career in the late sixties still made him smile.

Nadir took a big gulp of citrine-colored whiskey and let it simmer as it trickled down his throat.

“And,” Max said, holding off on enjoying his own hospitality, “I understand we have an … irritation in common in the formidable person of Lieutenant Molina. Now that Garry is dead, though, your job of supervising matters involving him and me here in Vegas is over.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I don’t need a nanny. I don’t like witnesses.”

“Okay. I won’t follow you anymore, but Randolph not only got me a decent security job at the Oasis, he also paid me a bundle, up front, to look into a bunch of other things.”

“What bunch of other things?”

“The death of his retired assistant, Gloria Fuentes, for one. Then there was a professor killed at the university here, at some magic display on campus. I don’t know what else. I don’t carry my notebook with me. Besides, he pulled me off everything to watch your back at the Neon Nightmare when you did that Batman routine.”

“The Phantom Mage.” Max chuckled, to Rafi Nadir’s visible amazement. “I’ve been brought up to date on that. What a corny name and act.”

Nadir drank again, then said, “Easy for you to laugh it off. I’m the one who saw you fall and declared you dead so Randolph could highjack a hired private ambulance to get you out of there fast. Frankly, I still don’t know why you weren’t dead.”

“I learned in my act how to fall and hit as if I was drunk, completely limp. So that’s how Garry got me out of there so fast. He must have commandeered a private ambulance off the street.”

“Yeah. I was undercover, working ‘security’ there. Even I didn’t know what was what when the EMTs carted you away. I was starting to feel sorry for Temple Barr, she’s such an okay gal. Then my cell phone rang and I heard Garry giving me my ‘story’ while that ambulance siren was still screaming in the background. He musta got you out of the country stat. What was he? CIA?”

“Confounding International Agent, yes.” Max smiled again.

“He must have been ready for anything. Damn, he was good. I wish I’d known him longer.”

Max bestirred his cranky frame to lean forward and click glass rims with Rafi. “To Garry Randolph, my friend and yours.”

The expensive crystal rang, an exquisite death knell. Max was sure Garry would have approved the impulse, the toast, and the ingredients, including him and Rafi, resurrected victim and unseen guardian angel.

Enough Irish mist and sentiment. Max sat back. “I have a posthumous assignment from Garry too. He wanted to figure out who’s been dogging my existence here in Vegas.”

“Yeah. I know you’re working with Molina on something.”

“ For Molina, which means I’m working for myself first and foremost.” The two men exchanged a tight smile. “So you’ve kept that close an eye on me.”

“Not you, repo-memory man. Molina. That’s all I’m after, shared child custody. And I can prove cause to get it if she doesn’t give me some rope soon.”

“From the perspective of one with impaired memory, she strikes me as the devoted mother type, and her rendezvousing occasionally with me is not exactly juicy, career-breaking news. Hell, I could be dating her.”

“But you’re not,” Rafi said. “And she’s still vulnerable if she’s using you like she did Dirty Larry to cover up her illegal B-and-E at this very house and do some personal Peeping Tom work.”

“Have you tried negotiating with her on the child custody?”

Nadir took another healthy slug and let it burn down fast. “A little. She knows what I want, says she’s not ‘ready.’ Mariah, my kid, is thirteen. I don’t have months, even weeks and days, to lose.”

“Yeah, she’ll be a rebellious teen with no time for parents in the wink of Pussycat Doll eye.”

“Don’t remind me.” Nadir lowered his drink to the table and his head to bury his hands in his thick dark hair.

“Push it, then.”

“You’ve seen Molina more recently than I have. She seem any mellower now that the Barbie Doll Killer case is solved and she isn’t playing cat and mouse with that undercover narc?”

“Nope.” Max stretched out his legs. “I don’t remember her from before my near-death experience, but I can tell you that woman is not going to soften one tiny bit … unless you push it.”

“She must be still bending the rules if she’s hiring you for something. And now there’s another guy found conked out in the Goliath mechanical systems.”

“He made it out. Don’t let the blood fool you. I cut off his air temporarily and used a sharp head blow. A quick out cold, but not forever. And don’t think you can turn my exploits on Molina’s behalf into blackmail. What’ll impress a fiercely protective, seriously paranoid single mother like her will be how upstanding you are. And you are now, aren’t you?”

Nadir rubbed his furrowed temples but still didn’t raise his head. “I guess so. Your friend Garry got me a chance at the Oasis. I’m in line for the security chief job, but I’m not the dead cop hero Carmen made out I was to the kid.”