Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“They’d shut down to the public a couple days ago for ‘reconstruction.’ After the debacle at the Oasis, who knows when they’ll reopen. I do think a small closing ceremony is required.”

“Closed down? So what do you need me there for?”

“Personal satisfaction.”

“Mine, or yours?”

“Both, hopefully.”

“I’m not supposed to be getting that out and about.”

“It’s metaphorical, of course.”

“Of course. Okay. I’ll bring Midnight Louie as a chaperone.”

“Fine by me. Maybe not by the Synth.”

“Even better.”

“You’ll be home again before Mr. Midnight signs off the air.”

Max himself had signed off on that note.

Temple looked down at Midnight Louie, who’d come to sit by her feet and, she swore, eavesdrop by some mysterious placement of his ears as antennas.

“Mysteriouser and mysteriouser,” she muttered. “Dare we trust a man who’d let us ride an elephant as mere distractions? What does he want us to distract from now?”

Louie yawned. It was late.

“Also, what does one wear to a closuring?” she asked rhetorically.

Then she padded barefoot to her bedroom closet to come up with something quick and clean and nautical, navy wide-leg capris and a red-striped knit top and rope-decorated wedgies. This certainly wasn’t club wear, but Neon Nightmare didn’t sound like it was doing too much rocking right now.

Louie was definitely in one of his climbing moods.

She locked her door and took the elevator down, but he met her by the Miata in the parking lot, having used the lone palm tree trunk as an exit. A suspicious number of light-reflecting iridescent green eyes lurked among the oleanders.

Temple took the Miata’s top down for the short drive to Neon Nightmare, and Louie lofted over the low car’s side into the passenger seat.

She checked her watch. Matt’s return flight time forced him to go straight to his midnight-to-2:00 A.M. show, and he’d be home a half hour later. Temple wanted to be there to explain her Circus Circus moments at the Oasis. He’d been distracted by his mother’s sticky romantic problems, poor guy. In fact, the whirlwind Chicago trip must have been pretty stressful. It would be great to get back to easy-as-pie normal, especially after a wearing heist-busting.

Speaking of which, what was Max up to? She wouldn’t be meeting him like this if she wasn’t sure it was old business, including circumstances she’d been deeply involved in. Max without a memory displayed no sexual interest in her at all.

That was a bit insulting, but mostly a huge relief. She looked over at Louie, who sat up in the seat like a person and looked around with great interest, like a dog. If you wanted to see “insulted,” it would be Louie if he knew her thoughts at the moment. He regarded people, and certainly dogs, as inferior species. Sometimes she thought he had a point.

“Now,” she told him later when she put the Miata into Park in the almost deserted Neon Nightmare parking lot, “this is another weird place full of weird lights and people.” As far as she knew, the Neon Nightmare was new to Louie. Midnight Louise had led the Cat Pack raid on the Synth the first time she saw them in action, right here. And they’d taken down only two Vaders that time.

Temple eyed the black glass pyramid’s exterior. The neon rearing horse still reigned atop the peak. She guessed the interior was the same overlit, sound-system-drenched bar and dance club as ever.

It pleased Temple as she approached the neon-arched entry that she and black cats had been the recurring bane of the Synth magicians who’d owned and run this building, and whose plans to plunder Las Vegas had been foiled so spectacularly at the Oasis, thanks to Max and the Cloaked Conjuror.

Temple yanked on one of the front door’s huge handles. She’d recently brought a firearm into this place, it had seemed so dangerous. Could she really walk into this possible trap? Could she still trust Max, maimed as he had been?

As she hesitated, Midnight Louie stretched his yard-long frame up the massive door. He wanted in. She leaned all her weight on the bronze door to crack it, then did it again. As it opened with no protesting noises, they left the warm Las Vegas night to slip into the cool, stale silence of the dark interior.

Temple’s shoes had ridged rubber soles. Louie’s feet had soft pads. They made no noise as they moved into the massive central dance and drinking area.

Neon still silhouetted the bar area, the spinning disco lights still cast the thirteen signs of the Synth zodiac on the floor and … people still sat at the bar, drinking.

Temple edged nearer, unnoticed. Two women, one fat, one lean. One man, medium. No, the chubby woman was the medium, as Temple recalled. These were the three people Temple had seen threatened by the two Darth Vader invaders in the rooms concealed behind the nightclub’s mirrored black walls.

They’d spotted her for only one lightning-flash moment, but they’d sure seen the Las Vegas Cat Pack take down their enemies, the Vaders. They’d resurrected those sinister figures for the Oasis caper, but Temple was sure the earlier Vaders didn’t participate. They had carried serious weapons.

Right now, what was left of the Synth wasn’t expecting to see anyone or anything. All hunched morosely over the cocktail of choice, the liquor bottles sitting on the glossy black bartop ready for several refills.

“The street troops did a fine job,” the solo man said mournfully. “Their timing was perfect.”

“So was the ‘timing’ of our enemies,” the slender woman in a green satin gown answered, pointed elbows on the bar, a wide-mouthed martini glass cradled in her hands.

“ Two sets of them,” the heavyset woman said in a ponderous voice. Temple couldn’t see past her voluminous caftan to what witches’ brew she drank. “Who invited the tap-dancing fools to our sidewalk snatch party?”

“The Darth Vaders came here uninvited,” the man reminded her. “We were helpless then too.”

Temple was back-stepping on tiptoe. Max wouldn’t have wanted her to be here alone with these Synth members. Why the heck had he called her here? At least Louie …

She looked down. Louie was gone. He’d probably ambled somewhere else in the empty nightclub, soundless and stealthy.

Well, darn.

Rethink that.

Well, damn.

Here she was alone with a trio of depressed magical mobsters who’d tried to heist a Strip casino only hours ago. She made out the shape of an upholstered banquette behind her and sank down on it, trying to become invisible.

“This place is kaput,” the man said. “We can’t pay the mortgage, just like Mr. and Mrs. America.”

The plump woman spoke next. “Going for that prize money was a long shot, Hal, but Cosimo’s death is what really did us in. He knew where all the money we’d been promised was hidden. Do you think he gave it up to whoever killed him?”

“It was never our money,” the man told her. “We were in it for the glory of doing a mass illusion like tonight. Face it. We knew we were being set up as a distraction for another major heist by whatever crime elements amassed the supposed hidden fortune we were guarding, but look at the razzle-dazzle we stage-managed with the crowd tonight. Our street performers’ transformation, the distraction, the scale, we almost waltzed that transparent treasure chest right out of there until that mob of tap-dancers co-opted our action.”

“‘Close’ is worthless,” the Thin Woman said. “We were outmaneuvered by the Cloaked Conjuror and his freaking Fred Astaire accomplice. How did they know to do the white tie and tails bit? That was our gimmick!”

Hal was still mourning. “I don’t know. It’s just lucky we set up a flash mob of civilians to wear the same Vader heads and cloaks as the two thugs who accosted us in our own clubrooms only nights ago, or we’d never have been able to escape. How could CC know about our plans? We just put them together on the fly with…”