Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

Still, he felt a bit…wistful? Envious? Professionally curious? He reread a veteran columnist’s spiel about the latest hot Strip magician, who happened to be someone Max had introduced himself to only recently in the line of his other work. And had dreamed about only minutes before. According to Gene Igo, the Cloaked Conjuror’s brand of now-you-see-it, now-you-know-how-it’s-done magic show violated every unspoken tenet of the magician’s code but was packing them in at the New Millennium Hotel and Casino.

Max read about the multimillion-dollar, multiyear contract, the CC’s desert retreat/fortress and dedication to “unmasking the mystery of magic” in a “thrilling, dramatic fashion.”

The next paragraph outlined the other magicians’ wrath at the CC flaunting trade secrets for fun and profit.

And then Max read his own name. The familiar letters exploded in his mind like Fourth of July rockets. The Mystifying Max Kinsella. Stage name and real name in one marquee-spanning phrase.

The bloody fool! It was true, CC said in Igo’s column, as was now being reported, that the Cloaked Conjuror’s act was literally death-defying, that he’d received many death threats. The columnist suggested that surely these couldn’t be serious.

“Of course they’re serious,” the CC had “snapped,” wrote the columnist, who had greater latitude in description than a fact-tied, objective-voiced news reporter. “The Mystifying Max Kinsella retired from magic a year ago because of death threats. Just vanished.”

At this point the magician who appears everywhere in what amounted to almost armor snapped his leather-gloved fingers. “Like that. Gone. No magic involved. The Synth had caught up with him.”

At first we thought he’d said “the Syndicate,” as in old-time crime organizations, but the CC explained that the word was “Synth,” and even spelled it for us: an ancient secret society of magicians formed to protect trade secrets.

This is why he uses no name and wears a leopard-spotted mask with a built-in voice modifier that hides his head completely. The gloves he wears constantly prevent leaving even fingerprints as a trail. The effect is a cross between Darth Vader and a protected witness, if you ask us.

“What about baths?” this reporter joked.

“I dry-clean,” he said wryly. And seriously.

The Cloaked Conjuror also said he isn’t married, for which the ladies must be very grateful.

Max shook his head and rattled the open pages, as if to shake sense into what he was reading. “The fool!”

Like most fools, the Cloaked Conjuror had managed to pull a boatload of others into the dangerous currents of his folly with this one interview. Not only Max but Temple and God knew who else. Never name an enemy. You warn him. Or her. Or it.

“‘The Mystifying Max Kinsella.’ Well, well, well.”

Lieutenant C. R. Molina wasn’t prone to gloating over her high-fiber breakfast cereal. She wasn’t even used, at that early hour, to being anyone more than Carmen Molina, working single mom, until she donned her clip-on leather paddle holster and left the house for police headquarters. But the morning paper had snapped her from domestic to professional mode in the crunch of a bran nugget.

“Is it a show?” her daughter Mariah asked, eyes still glued to the comics page. “This ‘Max’ thing?”

“Was a show. Mostly a no-show now.” Molina, muttering, stared at the newsprint until it went out of focus. “Death threats. That’s something Little Miss Red didn’t mention.”

“Mom! You’re talking to yourself again. I was supposed to remind you not to do that.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Molina eyed her daughter over the crinkle-cut edge of the newsprint. “Are you supposed to be wearing that to school?”

“That” was an assembly of beads and fishline that hung over the top of one twelve-year-old ear.

“I’m giving a report on TitaniCon.”

“With visual aids?”

“Yeah.” Mariah liked that idea. “Right.”

Carmen saw that she had inadvertently given her daughter an excuse instead of an objection, so she just dropped the discussion. “You walking to school with Yolanda?”

“Like always.”

“Watch out for bogeymen. There were two cases of guys trying to grab school kids last week.”

“Those were little kids, Ma. Do I have to hear about every creep on the streets? I know what to do.”

“So do police officers, and sometimes even they get caught sleeping.”

“Anyway, I gotta get going if I’m not gonna be late.”

Carmen nodded, her eyes back on the newsprint. She heard Mariah’s dishes slide into the sink, and tap water rinsing them. Then a hasty “ ’Bye,” and the slam of the front door before her maternal mouth could open to forestall the bang.

Molina was still shaking her head as the frown she’d kept Mariah from seeing settled into her features like an old friend into a favorite rocking chair.

Death threats. First motive for Kinsella’s disappearance she’d heard. And what was this “Synth”? Magical nonsense, she’d bet. A catchword that meant nothing, like “presto.”

But she was familiar with the man quoted. At least she’d seen the Cloaked Conjuror up close at TitaniCon. Speaking of creepy guys who weren’t out on the street…that animalistic mask, the mechanically altered voice…at least the Mystifying Max had performed bare-faced, which she supposed suited a congenital liar like him.

What did the Cloaked Conjuror know about Max Kinsella? She’d just have to find out someday.

Whatever this Synth was, she could well understand why it would issue death threats to the irritatingly mysterious Max Kinsella.

The clock hadn’t even touched 8:00 A.M., but Temple’s doorbell rang as if suffering a knockout punch. The mellow ’50s melody continued through its changes as if it had ODed on caffeine. She swam her way through morning grogginess to the door.

“Electra!” Temple was shocked to find that her friendly neighborhood sixty-something landlady owned the right jab behind the doorbell abuse. “What’s happened?”

Electra’s floor-length cotton chintz muumuu, apparently a nightgown, rustled as she hurried in. “Now I know why that black-haired rascal hasn’t been sleeping here nights.”

“Louie likes to go out on the town, but he’s home now.” Temple nodded to her living room loveseat, on which the midnight black cat in question lounged like a sphinx who had been tarred, if not feathered, his forelegs stretched out magisterially.

“Midnight Louie nothing,” Electra said, sitting beside the large cat with a nod of greeting. “No offense, Your Highness.” She eyed Temple fiercely. “You know I meant Max.”

Temple crossed her arms over her chest, a gesture meant to lend stern authority to her five-foot frame, which looked particularly lacking with stuffed bunny-head slippers on her feet. “No, I don’t know any such thing. And why are you keeping track of where Max sleeps?”

“You two used to share the unit, remember?” But Electra’s good-humored face was looking sheepish. She patted the confetti-colored ringlets that matched the flora fluorescing against the muumuu’s black background. “Anyway, now I understand why he didn’t move back in when he came back from, from wherever he disappeared to. Death threats! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Maybe it was none of your business.”

Electra’s ovine expression grew owlish.

“And maybe I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Temple added, “so I can’t tell you.”

The landlady flourished the rolled-up news section in her hand as if jousting with a fly.

Beside her, Louie’s ears came to attention as his green eyes began searching the room’s upper air.