Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“The thing, Max … I may call you that?” Hal smiled as Max nodded, eager to hear more. “Is that certain illegal entities have always stashed money around Vegas. The trick is getting it out.”

“As in all casino cash cart robberies,” Max put in. “If you’re armed and dangerous, they’ll let you walk away with the loot, but they’ll grab you and the take once you’re away from innocent bystanders.”

“No one is innocent in Las Vegas.” Czarina’s hard tone reminded Max of Ma Barker, the ’30s female gangster.

“Cosimo Sparks.” Max located the name tap-dancing in his mind and found the correct connection. “He was a friend of my mentor, Garry Randolph.”

“The truly ‘great’ Gandolph the Great,” Czarina agreed. “Have you never questioned his death at the Halloween séance?”

Max shook his head numbly, perfectly in character, perfectly stricken. No one could ever know who Garry really was, how he’d really died in Belfast, far from Vegas and its smoke and mirrors that Garry had manipulated so expertly.

“You’re saying we magicians have enemies who’d reduce our numbers one by one?” Max said. “And you’re inviting me to join you? Dare I say, thanks?”

Ramona licked her lips, selling hard. “There’s been a game of hide-the-prize going on. The prize could be worth a couple million. Yes, it’s a duel as to how many of us are left before the others who want to use and destroy us win. If we can pull off one major illusion, a Synth victory that will be talked about for decades, we’ll prove the value of traditional magic and make the people who killed Cosimo and maybe even Gandolph pay.”

“And the Phantom Mage, whoever he was?” Max waited for a reaction.

“Him too,” Hal said impatiently. “He was a patsy caught in the Great Game, like the Cloaked Conjuror’s assistant.”

“What?” Max said, recalling Temple’s oh-so-handy Table of Crime Elements, created way back when as if a memory aid for his future befuddled self. CC had not suspected his assistant’s death was murder despite the death threats. Neither had the police.

“Yeah.” Hal nodded. “Barry’s was a terrible death and a loss to the Synth.”

“So the Cloaked Conjuror’s assistant fell to his death, too.” Max eyed the women. “Was he a plant for the Synth on CC’s team?”

“No.” Czarina was the usual dogmatically certain. “We were working on engineering a super mass illusion to highlight traditional magic, maybe even making one of the iconic hotels disappear, the ultimate in ‘street magic.’ You know, like they do National Dance Day, only it would be Major Magic Day. People all over the country could chime in by Internet or YouTube. Barry was interested. Like a lot of faceless people in the discipline, he had hopes of making a name for himself someday. Vegas would be the centerpiece.”

“That’s an A-one idea,” Max said. “You could encourage schoolchildren.…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Hal said, echoing a Beatles song. “We had all sorts of civic plans. Then these outsiders found and talked up Cosimo.”

“They’d never show their faces,” Czarina mentioned bitterly, “but they pushed their way in, dealing with Cosimo mostly, but promising us revenge on the prepackaged magic world and touting ‘a really big score’ and ‘hidden treasure.’ I don’t understand why he was buying their schemes.”

“Now these tails are trying to wag the dog,” Ramona said. “Cosimo was our point man. He got way too dazzled by some rumored jackpot these ‘contacts’ of his promised. Meanwhile, the Great Recession made the Neon Nightmare a very shaky venue, so we really did need mondo cash.”

“I hate to hold up the stop sign for the greed train,” Max said, “but from where and how Cosimo was killed, I think your anonymous new foxes in the henhouse have pretty much decimated any lost treasure that existed.”

“That hidden underground safe was built to hold something,” Czarina said. “We just don’t know what. The secret tunnel itself dated to Jersey Joe Jackson’s day in the ’40s and ’50s. The Crystal Phoenix is a remodel of Jackson’s founding Joshua Tree hotel and the management even keeps his rooms in original condition, if unoccupied. Jackson was famous for stashing his loot underground.”

Max did know what the safe likely held: bearer bonds totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars and actual old-time silver dollars, also high-value objects. Perhaps even heavy weapons, all stockpiled for the IRA, maybe by Kitty the Cutter, the IRA’s chief fund-raiser in the Americas, who definitely had not signed a peace accord with anyone.

“So,” he said, hoping for confirmation, “you’re after Jersey Joe Jackson’s rumored loot stashed in and around Vegas in the early days?”

“Maybe. Maybe something more.” Czarina’s lips pouted in pinned-shut position.

“She means,” said Hal, “we don’t talk unless we know you’re willing to join us.”

“Why should I commit to the Synth? I have a comeback attempt to lose.”

“You could headline our big surprise splash on the Strip,” Hal said. “You have a name still.”

“Great. While I divert everyone’s attention, you knock off a casino cash cart to fund your nightclub and the hunt for hidden money in and around Vegas. I get nailed as an accomplice.”

“It’ll look coincidental,” Hal argued. “All our street people will back up your act.”

“You expect me to come up with a major illusion in a day?”

“You’re the Mystifying Max,” Ramona announced. “You love a challenge.”

He did. He also was getting a very wicked idea. “From what I’ve heard since I’ve come back—”

“From Canada,” Ramona interrupted.

“From Canada,” he answered with a look as pointed as her dubious comment. “And from the Keystone Kops charade of the underground safe opening in the new Chunnel of Crime,” he told them, “poor Cosimo Sparks had already played hound dog for these buttinskis, these people who muscled in on the Synth, but the cupboard was also already bare. That may be why Sparks was killed. They thought he’d moved the loot.”

“Poor Cosimo.” Czarina sighed. “Such a major loss. He was our leader.”

Max could sympathize with their loss. Cosimo Sparks and Garry “Gandolph” Randolph shared a lot of life history. Both were traditional magicians in formal dress whose performing time had passed; both were cut down while struggling for a future goal they passionately believed in, although in vastly different areas.

“This Synth is quickly becoming a rather minor cabal, and now looking seriously unfunded,” Max noted.

“Maybe the great Max Kinsella could help us with that.” Ramona had slouched down in her cushy armchair, crossing her legs so the slit in her long gown displayed them in David Letterman girl-guest perfection.

Max mirrored her slouch, but not the bared legs. “Maybe I can.”

Chapter 39

Cold Case Contact

Call her an old fogy, but media maven Temple Barr could not give up her daily newspaper as long as there was one to be had, even though she’d worked for a time as a TV reporter.

She’d really enjoyed seeing the Chicago papers recently. How thick the Sunday editions had been, promising hours of serial perusing while lounging and eating forbidden carbs and sipping high-calorie lattes. Web cruising was efficient, but it was like Web shopping; you got a cut-and-dried list. You couldn’t meander and surprise your eyes with something, well, 3-D.

So she was returning her Chicago-stressed mind to all things Las Vegas, which was mostly show openings and bad economy news, when she ran across a familiar but obscure name in print.

WOMAN’S DEATH STILL A MYSTERY