Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

She felt a bit like an invitee to a feast hosted by Genghis Khan. They’d been “cut from the herd” and would each be given a good going-over by the jury of their own gender.

Matt leaned to whisper in her ear as they unfurled their origami napkins. “Courage.”

“Love your dinner suit, Miss Barr,” the glossily groomed woman on Temple’s left leaned in to say. “Your fiancé is instant Ben and Jerry’s Karamel Sutra on a stick.”

Temple shot her an admonishing look.

“You’ll have to get used to that reaction, dear. Media is brutal today. Crazed fans rule the air waves and the Internet.”

Her apparent husband across the way leaned in. “Miss Barr has her own media appeal. Your Zoe Chloe Ozone profile and following numbers on Twitter were quite a pleasant surprise. Don’t be so shocked. We’re looking for multiple platforms today. Even multiple personalities. That you could invent such a zany Internet persona on a whim is quite intriguing.”

“I was doing undercover investigative work to protect a vulnerable teen on that reality TV show,” Temple said, trying not to sound huffy.

“Better and better.” The man eyed his wife. “Daughter of Dr. Phil. Daphne, please interrogate Miss Barr on her fascinating online sidelines. And ask her about the cat.”

“The cat?” Daphne beamed. “I have a bichon frise I adore.”

Temple couldn’t resist saying, “Oh, I’ve been considering that haircut myself. Would you mind giving me the name of your stylist?”

Daphne bristled, then snapped, “Fifi’s Fashionable Fursians.” Her narrowed eyes studied Temple. “You were just kidding.”

“Yes, but now I know the name of the primo pet groomer in Chicago. You know, I’m surprised that the reality TV craze hasn’t gotten to animal companions and their service industry.”

Daphne blinked her false eyelashes. “That’s not a bad idea. Care to come up with a concept for my husband to kick around?”

Temple was thinking she’d probably discover she’d rather kick the network veeps around.

Did she have the makings of a docile corporate wife?

Probably not.

Could she rejoice in Matt’s success and reinvent herself in some interesting and fulfilling way?

Definitely.

Could Midnight Louie handle a big rough-and-tumble city like Chicago?

No contest.

Chapter 28

The Post-Midnight Hour

“You’re a regular human fly,” Rafi Nadir said, hanging over the Bull ’s rail to watch Max inch along the ship’s sides to the prow.

The night was dark and the moon was yellow and it reflected—along with the Strip neon—in the otherwise dark and silent artificial cove.

Before they’d started the assault on the deserted ship mock-up, they’d come up with a good excuse for being here.

“If anybody challenges our presence,” Rafi had told Max, “I can say you’re a rigging expert checking out an equipment problem with the last show.”

“I really am one of those.” Max had grinned. “Darn. I could do a lot of grunt jobs in this town now that I have no career as a headlining magician.”

“You’ve got the guts for high-wire work, I can swear to that. Your Neon Nightmare crash was … ‘Cirque du Soleil: Suicide.’”

“It was attempted homicide,” Max said, “and believe that I take that personally.”

Now, it was attempted interference with a major Vegas hotel’s prize attraction, and that would be taken personally by some very big powers, including law enforcement.

Max took a deep breath. He paused, having used his legs and feet—and toes—more than he had in months and feeling it. He’d commandeered some stage rigging to attach a rope to his waist, but doing a “Dracula climbing down the castle walls face first” act was no longer second nature.

Max would rather be compared to the master vampire than a human fly, but he had to roll with what meager audience he had these days.

“Thugs didn’t do this,” he said softly. His baritone voice carried well around water. “Muscle is required but doesn’t make up for dexterity and skill. Could you lower a trussed body over the prow?”

Rafi shuffled to the ship’s pointed front and leaned over the gilded gingerbread decoration applied to the exterior.

“Yeah, but it would hang straight down. Unless you got the guy rocking back and forth like a pendulum, it’d be hard to snug him up against the naked lady.”

“That’s what they did, then.” Max’s questing hand had found enough niches in the elaborate façade to work himself under the figurehead, face-to-face with … considerable frontage.

“Look,” Rafi said. His voice sounded way too close.

Max looked up to see Rafi perching on the mermaid’s head with its carved ripples of flowing hair. Rafi was dangling a prop trunk dripping faux jewels from the deck by a rope. It spun and swung, threatening to swing right into Max’s head.

“Three guys,” Rafi went on, whispering. “One on each side of the prow with ropes, one above to lower the corpse-to-be. Yeah? Right?”

Max grunted an affirmative. Working under a slanted surface, no matter how strong or fit you were, was the hardest position to maintain possible. He grabbed the swaying trunk by the rope around its middle and threaded another dangling piece of performance rigging through the gap his grip had made. The bulky object stopping swinging and started spinning left and right.

Assuming Effinger had still been alive at this point, the method of impending death was beginning to look like medieval torture. Who’d taken a low-level creep like Effinger’s life in such a ritual, wrenching way? Why?

“I’m hearing something.” Rafi’s voice was a warning rasp. “I’ve got to—”

Max heard scrapes on the deck boards above as Rafi’s words cut off.

Great. Here he was, dangling almost upside down, linked like a spider to a thread of web, a rope, trying to figure out what was happening far above his miniature world.

Only one thing to do: cut loose from the safe harbor that had been so deadly for Effinger and swing out like a footloose, freebooting pirate.

Max used his legs to rappel off the mermaid’s, hmm lips and hips, and around the ersatz ship’s side. Amazingly, the stunt worked.

No time to rest on his laurels, or legs. Rafi could be in trouble.

He scrambled hand-over-hand up the rope.

For a dead stage set, the Bull ’s deck was suddenly swarming with unlicensed boarders. Max used the rigging rope he still clutched to barrel into the three figures surrounding Rafi, scattering them like bowling pins. Only now they were separated, so while Rafi pummeled one, the other two were coming at him.

His momentum swung him high out of reach. As he plunged into the inevitable low of his returning arc, he had no choice but to use his legs as battering rams, one to each oncoming chest.

Impact. Shock and awe and … pain. His whole frame shuddered. Max gritted his teeth. He’d urged Nadir into this and he’d get him out of it. No more bodies left behind.

He dragged a foot on the decking, a bit too late. He was headed into another wild, uncontrolled arc over the dark water.

Then he looked down. One of his attackers had hit the waterline with a splash and came surging up to the surface, almost walking on water. Maybe a great white shark had grabbed a bite from below.

The man’s scream turned into high-pitched stutters. Max watched his body stiffen and sink with an audible sizzle.

Max’s set his teeth and sucked breath between them in a matching hiss of air. What the hell is going on? He was out there on a rope, and now a prayer, swinging over open water. Water that had been electrified. His heartbeat drummed in his ear as he tried think over the thud.