Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

“A truly clever roaming conference room, Miss Barr,” he said, obviously recalling the same incident. “Did I tell you, as a late-night chitchat expert, that these ivory leather seats are just right for a rolling tête-à-tête? Let’s open that champagne bottle and ditch the last stop.”

Temple sighed. Deeply.

“I’m tempted, but it would be really mean to leave Max standing on a corner waiting for the Kitty the Cutter Club to come by.”

“Yeah. This way no one eavesdrops on us. What about the driver?” Matt jerked his head toward the capped silhouette beyond the tinted-glass interior window. “A Fontana brother, I presume. Won’t he tattle on us to the whole family?”

Temple shook her head. “His new sister-in-law would have his shorts in a sling.”

“Sister-in-law? Oh. Your aunt Kit is back from her honeymoon with Aldo.”

“Right. It’s nice to have my own blood kin as muscle inside of Fontana, Inc. Not a word will go beyond this limo. Here. Looks like Scotch is the, uh, car-bar favorite. Isn’t this mini-fridge with ice and mixers adorable? The decanters sparkling like a chandelier in the center make this rolling luxury vehicle a maxi-bar, though.”

Matt took the cut-crystal lowball glass she extended, giving Temple that intensely significant glare he’d recently mastered doing on the Paso Doble on Dancing with the Celebs.

“You don’t know what you just said, do you, Temple?”

Temple did an instant rerun of her admittedly distracted mental processes.

Oh. Maxi-bar.

“Honestly,” she said, “that’s like the faux fuss kicked up when the Apple iPad debuted and geek guys immediately associated the name with a feminine hygiene product. Talk about euphemistic phrases. Matt, you’ve got to quit personalizing this. If Kathleen O’Connor is still out there, she’s not going to care which one of you she has a chance to off first, although she’d probably prefer it be Max.”

Matt shook his head and sipped the Scotch. “You understand why I’m worried. Max is ahead even in the Most Wanted To Be Killed category.”

“See. If you can joke it takes the social awkwardness away.”

Matt stretched out his khaki-trousered legs. “Once Max gets in here, there won’t be a lot of leg room.”

Temple crossed her ankles. The limo seat kept her feet firmly on the carpet. Without the high heels, they wouldn’t touch and would be swinging like a kid’s.

“What the—?” Matt lifted his beige suede shoes as the carpet beneath them rippled like asphalt in an earthquake.

“It’s just Louie, the sneak!” Temple said, assuming the ramrod-spine posture of the disciplinarian. “I should drop you off wherever we are now,” she lectured the cat, squinting hard out the tinted glass windows. “Circus Circus neon. Crawling with kids who’d probably pull your tail. Serve you right.”

Matt was laughing as Louie hopped up beside her and began rubbing his chin on her tote bag.

“Hey,” Matt said. “A ride-along referee. I was afraid your tender heart would make you a sap for Max in his current condition, but Louie accepts no guff from anybody.”

“You think I have a tender heart?” Temple asked.

“Yeah, you do. It’s your biggest flaw and your greatest gift.”

“Aww.”

“Cut the sentimentality, babe,” Matt suggested in patented tough-guy-ese. “Our party is about to pick up the third man.”

“There are only two guys in our party.”

“You’d leave out the house cat?” Matt asked. “What does he drink? White Russians?”

“Oh. You’re right. There’s a nice carton of cream in this adorable mini-fridge.”

By then Louie’s uniquely white whiskers were deep within the small cavity and bent back, so he looked like a windblown cat.

“The only thing I could put Louie’s cream in,” Temple said, frowning, “is a champagne glass. And I’d have to hold it.”

And that’s the tableau they presented when the Silver Cloud eased to a smooth stop that lived up to its name and Rico stepped out and around to open the door to a waiting Max Kinsella.

A Fontana brother and Max standing side by side was pretty intimidating, Temple had to admit to herself, but it also emphasized how … diminished Max was.

There went her tender heart again. Matt, as usual, had been perceptive.

What’s a girl to do?

She concentrated on the only uninvolved alpha male present right now. Louie.

“There’s champagne on ice,” she told Max, “and ivory leather to lounge on, but the man of the hour has long white whiskers, not entirely due to cream.”

Max ducked into the low compartment and lowered himself into a corner so his legs could stretch past the central bar.

“Devine,” he said with a nod. “Temple. You can explain the cat, I hope.”

“Hitchhiker.”

“I admire his taste in rides.” Max smiled, managing to include Louie, Temple, and Matt. “I’ll have what he’s having.” He nodded at Matt.

“A grade of Scotch probably way better than I know,” Matt said.

“I’d trade what you know for what I know in a heartbeat.” Max flashed a rueful smile.

There was no answer to that.

The luxurious cabin—for the vehicle was sailing along again like an ocean liner, afloat in its uniquely powerful but tranquil way—moved into the anonymous dark, far from the Strip’s glitz and glitter.

“Where are we going?” Matt asked.

“Nowhere,” said Temple, “until we all exchange information and figure out what the Synth is or was; why Kitty the Cutter is involved with Las Vegas; what the tunnels under the Crystal Phoenix, Gangsters Hotel-Casino, and the Neon Nightmare club mean; and what the attempt on Max’s life has to do with it all.”

After another long silence, Max spoke. “Which attempt on my life?’

“You’ve had that many?” Matt asked. “I’ve only had one.”

“Kathleen’s introductory slash doesn’t count?”

Matt waved that minor assault away as Max leaned forward to dilute the melting ice in his drink with more Scotch.

“You must not be a very interesting fellow,” he told Matt. “One serious attempt. Minor league.”

“That one almost got Temple killed instead,” Matt said, leaning forward without refilling his drink.

Max glanced from him to Temple. “Obviously there’s been a very fresh attempt I didn’t remember, or know about. Sorry. I was trying to lighten the tone here.”

“Why?” Temple asked.

“I feel responsible for the general air of angst.”

“You’ve been a sick man on the run for your life for the past two months,” Matt pointed out. “Why should you be responsible for anything?”

“Because my troubles, my literal ‘Troubles,’ in Northern Ireland years ago have brought everyone I know pain and death, all right?”

Matt glanced at Temple. “Definitely a savior complex.”

She nodded. “He’d shown tendencies before he lost his mind.”

“Wait a minute,” Max said. “I am not here to be … psychoanalyzed by a pair of amateurs—an armchair shrink and a PR sleuth, not to mention limousine riders.”

“Just trying to lighten the tone,” Temple told him.

“Now that I’ve insulted you two,” Max said, “maybe we’re done with the preliminaries.”

“What makes you think,” Temple asked, rubbing her ankle absently against Louie’s solid, reclining bulk, “Kathleen O’Connor is still alive?”

“The alternate-IRA men in Belfast said she’d still been sending money from abroad to ‘the Cause.’”

“But the Irish ‘Troubles’ have been over for years, haven’t they?” Matt asked.

“Except for the usual diehards. And both sides believe any money previously raised for either side of the conflict is due to them only, for those wounded or widowed by the decades of civil strife. And most of that money during the active IRA years came from the Irish in America. Not that much from South America, where Kathleen had been rumored to be working even a few years ago.”