Unknown - Cat_In_A_Midnight_Choir-spaces_ru

Molina’s evil spell of doubt was broken.

“Dreamsicle?” Temple slung her tote bag and folder atop the huge kitchen island. “Where you’d get that? I haven’t had one of those since I had scabby knees.”

“You never had scabby knees.”

“Yes, I did, and I sold lemonade at a stand, too.”

“Shocking.” Max handed her an orange-vanilla ice cream treat on a stick and unwrapped the thin white paper from his own. The label read Creamsicle now but they both knew these were Dreamsicles of old, of their youths. “And you worry about my past.”

Uncanny how he could always target the unspoken issue.

“I don’t worry about it as much as Molina does.”

“She doesn’t worry about, she just worries at it, like a demented Scottish terrier, only she would be an Iberian terrier.”

“Not necessarily. She got those blue eyes from somewhere. Why not a Scot?”

“Bagpipes in the blood? I don’t think so, Temple.”

“I just saw her.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

“She warned me about you.”

“I repeat: Why am I not surprised? That’s nothing new.”

“She warned me really, really hard about you. And she showed me something.”

Max managed to tense without visibly moving a muscle. Temple only noticed it because she knew him so well. He had that perfect concentrated stillness that the stage required, the sense of something tensile ready to spring, like a big cat.

He didn’t ask what.

“The ring,” Temple finally said.

“The ring?” Max unfolded his arms. “How the hell did she get the ring?”

“Found it.”

Max’s face broadcast consternation. “Found it? Where?”

“Actually a street cop found it. And where is the problem. At the scene of another murder.”

“A new murder? And the ring was by the body?”

“Not so old a murder, but not so new either. Gloria Fuentes. Remember? She was found strangled in the church parking lot.”

“I remember,” Max said grimly. “Another of your magic-linked murders.”

“Not mine. I just noticed the connections.”

“And the ring was there? But that was before —”

“Before what?”

Max relaxed enough to smile. “I’m trying too hard to anticipate you. Magician’s bad habit. You tell your story at the right pace.”

“It wasn’t very near the body, at least. Maybe ninety feet away at the edge of the bushes. In the dirt. My ring! In the dirt.”

“Your ring?”

“Well, it was originally your ring, until you gave it to me. I think that’s how Molina thinks of it too. As your ring. As a nasty talisman associated with the demon Max. As more evidence to hang you with.”

“That ring,” he said faintly, blinking once. He leaned against the wall again. “That ring. So it’s found. Has been for a few weeks.”

“Isn’t that just the meanest thing ever, Max? Molina had it, knew she had it, and never told me?”

Max smiled again. “It’s mean, but that’s police work. It was a wildly out-of-place piece of evidence. Of course she’d save it for a rainy day. Apparently she decided on today to rain on your parade.”

“Well, it worked. It was horrible to see it in that tacky plastic bag, pulled out of a tacky desk drawer in a mean little office.”

“I’m sorry, Temple.” Max came to put his arms around her, creating a living ring. “I don’t much like Molina having custody of that ring either. But it was lost weeks ago. We have to give it up.”

“It’s so beautiful, and it was from Tiffany’s.”

Max embrace hardened. “How did you know that?”

“Molina found out.”

“She is starting to really irritate me.”

“It’s mutual, and don’t you forget it. I reminded her that the ring was taken by that Shangri-La onstage at the Opium Den, in front of all of us, you, Matt, me, Molina. How can she suspect you of getting it back and then being stupid enough to drop it on a murder scene?”

“I got you and Louie back from the abductors, didn’t I?” Max pulled away and retreated to the buttress of the refrigerator door, this time as if he needed the support. “Maybe Molina figured I found the ring during my search of the magical chambers, and palmed it. Then I decided it wasn’t safe to give it back to you, so I took it along on one of my stalking expeditions and left it as a tip for a beat cop.”

“Max, don’t joke. She’s dead serious. And it does look like some body wants to implicate you in these murders. Maybe it’s the Synth. Maybe that book you’re writing on Gandolph is making them nervous. Whoever, it doesn’t matter. Molina thinks she’s got a hold of another coffin nail for you.”

“Why’d she show it to you now?”

“Because she’s convinced, she wants to convince me, that you’re a monstrous criminal I should turn in to my nearest precinct house. She said you could be going down for something big, and that I could be a witness, or an accessory.”

“What did you say?”

Temple had to work on finishing her Dreamsicle, which had melted like syrupy emotions while she’d been talking. It was hard to discuss serious issues with ice cream in your mouth. Disposing of the treat gave her time to notice that Max’s insouciant attitude, both physical and mental, overlaid an uncharacteristic edginess.

He showed the strain, a magician’s worst enemy.

“Is there something I should know?” she asked.

“There are a lot of things you should know, that I can’t tell you.” He pushed off from the refrigerator door’s icy steel support, looking gaunt and haunted under the unforgiving overhead fluorescent light.

“Undercover work,” he said, “which I did a lot of for a long time in a good cause, mostly requires keeping an ungodly amount of balls in the air. You deceive by telling the truth, or by telling slices of the truth to a lot of people, like doling out a piece of pie that’s too rich for human consumption.”

“I guess the food analogy fits a kitchen,” she noted.

“Spy work is all oblique, all analogies. Yet there is a simple straight-forward rule underlying the cut corners and endless angles. You must always respect your sources and their confidences, or the whole thing falls apart. That means you know pieces of everybody else’s truth, but can never tell the whole truth. You tell lies — not to deceive, but to protect the truth that some people have the courage to tell. You must know more than any one of them. You must see the big picture, and prevent them from seeing it, or they will fall into it and die. And it will be your fault.”

“You’re saying you have to lie to protect people.”

Max nodded. “From others. From themselves.”

“But —”

Max leaned forward to collect the empty wooden stick from her and throw it in the trash can hidden behind an island cupboard. He waited for her to finish her thought.

“But…you’re talking about professional espionage. Telling lies not to deceive but to protect people: isn’t that where people go wrong in their personal lives?”

“Not so much committing untruth, but neglecting to mention truth, I think.”

“You know what I think?”

He smiled. “No. That’s what I like about you. I get to find out.”

“I think you and Molina both know something that you don’t dare tell anybody else, but that makes you mortal enemies.”

Max folded his arms. “That’s possible.”

“Sure, play Mr. Stone Face. She does the same thing. Just glowers and intones warnings like a witch from Macbeth, but she won’t come out and say diddly!”

Max was laughing. “A witch from Macbeth. I like that.”

“Good, because you’re Macbeth, trying to decide which way to jump.”

“I’m not contemplating killing anyone.”