Unknown - 22_Cat_In_An_Ultramarine_Scheme

“We are not responsible for Cosimo’s wandering or death,” she argues. “Why would any one of us trail him to that vault and draw every eye to all of us? It is bad enough that the two hotel excavations met in the middle at our ground zero. You would think they knew what they were doing.”

“Exactly,” says Vader One, pacing like a caged member of my actual breed. “Things could not have gone worse for us. Using that aged vault was folly.”

“Benny Binion’s son Ted had a treasure vault buried in the desert,” says a tall, unmasked man who must be in the Synth.

“This part of Las Vegas is not desert and has not been since a few years after that vault was built,” Vader Two points out, “probably by the colorfully named Jersey Joe Jackson.”

His spooky, gender-altered tones drip sarcasm like rattlesnake venom.

“First the Phantom Mage dies,” Vader One ticks off on a forefinger, which makes me suspect she is female. We guys do not “tick off,” unless it is making someone else mad. “Why?”

The lady known as Carmen stirs uneasily on Cosimo Sparks’s vacant easy chair, which she has apparently claimed since his death. The slinky Carmen stirring is quite a show, but neither Darths, nor Miss Midnight Louise, I am sure, is properly impressed.

“You do not know for sure, do you?” Vader One demands. “This is not a game of make-believe for magicians. Your creation of the Synth was a brilliant ploy, but you magicians tend to be all show and no go, as they say. You were always the facade for the real operation, and you would have been rewarded by having your revenge on the hotels and venues that ousted your tired acts years ago.”

A buzz of protests has as much effect on the two interlopers as if the resident threesome had been flies.

“Spare us,” Vader Two says. “We want to hear your theories, not excuses. There is too much at stake.”

“Well,” says the heretofore-silent, turbaned medium, whom I remember has taken the show-cat moniker of Czarina Catherina, “lords and masters—or lady and master—we have been holding the fort here at the Neon Nightmare waiting for you to give the word for the moment we would astound Las Vegas and the nation … and you have been as quiet as mice.”

What an insult to those who would masquerade as the mighty feline hunter species! Of course, humans are not built for imitating us. They have lost the ability to kill for their supper and also to tease adoration from those who are willing to serve them.

“Where is the money?” Vader Two demands.

“We do not know!” Carmen says hotly. (There is no other way this femme fatale could possibly speak.) “We do know when the economic crash made the mortgage on the Neon Nightmare unfeasible. We were all dipping into our own reserves to pay the monthly fees, even as our club’s bar tab plummeted and the loss of the Phantom Mage as a draw also killed our bottom line.”

“Ah.” Vader Two purrs almost as convincingly as Miss Midnight Louise. “Now we hear a motive for why Cosimo Sparks, your senior Synth member, could have gone rogue. You cabal of failures could not pay the rent.”

“Mortgage,” Czarina spits back. “We were buying the building. It is not our fault. Our combined assets now couldn’t get enough credit to buy a busted magic wand. The entire country was caught napping. And the world.”

“Stop whining,” Vader Two says. “We have always operated as a shadow group, with our own shadow economy. Your end of the deal was to hunker down at the Vegas base, guard our tangible assets, and prepare to unleash your illusionary skills when called upon.”

“So,” Vader One adds, “our amassed-over-the-years assets are either gone or are on the verge of being discovered by the authorities, and your leader is not only dead, but attracting the exact kind of attention that none of us can afford.”

“All heart, right?” the medium asks.

“Even worse,” Vader One goes on, “news of this long-secret operation in the making is now running like wildfire through the Continent, stirring up old enemies the Synth was created to confound.”

“We are here,” Vader Two adds, “to untangle your mess and find out why Cosimo Sparks was killed, not because we care, but because the secret stash is gone. We are here to follow and find the money, the bearer bonds, the cash, and the guns.”

Guns?

Oh, my. We are not in the audience at Amateur Night anymore.

“Obviously,” Vader Two continues, “you have a spy in your ranks. Or did.”

Czarina sits up straight. “You are accusing Cosimo of being a traitor? Now that he is dead and cannot defend himself?”

“He has no need to defend himself, because he is dead,” Vader Two observes coldly. “And we thought you had dealt with any traitors in your midst when the Phantom Mage hit bottom. Nice spectacular end, by the way. Should have discouraged other weak links, but apparently Sparks—”

“You have no idea whether Cosimo was a traitor or a victim,” the Synth man declares.

“Do you?” is the icy retort.

A silence holds during which you could hear a cat scratching at a flea.

Luckily, Miss Midnight Louise’s constant fishy breath from her high-end Asian cuisine, and my own personal magnetism that repels all vermin as if by magic, have kept us from any such rude personal grooming impulses at the moment.

Obviously, none of the Las Vegas branch of the Synth had considered that Cosimo Sparks could have died a traitor.

“While you lot are examining your consciences,” Vader One says, “and hunting traces of your brains, we will be watching all of you and the case with keen interest.”

“We have kept our eyes too closely on the international situation,” Vader Two further notes, “and left you to your own sorry devices, relying on your self-interest to keep you out of trouble.”

“Alas,” Vader Two purrs again, overdoing it this time in a poor imitation of the real thing, “that approach has not worked. You can count on being the objects of concentrated but hidden observation from now forward.”

“What can we do?” Czarina wails. “Cosimo is dead, and the rest of us might swiftly follow.”

“Consult your crystal ball,” Vader One snarls, sweeping the long cloak back as if brushing them aside so swiftly that the heavy faille material hisses. “Perhaps it has more intelligence than your conjoined brains.”

I am only able to avoid their dramatic exit and accompanying foot stomps by sucking in my stomach and flattening against the black wall.

Another long silence commences, which is unfortunate because I cannot let my breath out until they start yammering again, and the longer they do not, the more certain my breath is to release in an audible windstorm whoosh!

Perishing from self-strangulation is considered pretty kinky these days, and I have no wish to succumb to something the tabloids would have a field day with.

“What nerve!” Carmen finally says, standing up to pace, whipping her own silken cloak around as stylishly as the recently departed Darth Vaders. “They play the long-distance puppet masters for several years, holding us back from our big, uh, reveal, as they say on the extreme-makeover shows, and then dare to blame us for Cosimo’s death.”

“Ah, those extreme make over shows have moved from facial reconstruction to major house renovation,” the Synth man points out.

“I do not care about any of those stupid shows, Hal Herald! Apparently you have no better things to do than watch them. I am thinking about the magic show of the century we were planning for Las Vegas.”

“Last century or this?” Czarina asks dispiritedly, which is a rather sad condition for a medium. “We have been involved with these mysterious money backers almost that long.”