Unknown - Cat_In_A_Midnight_Choir-spaces_ru

“I must truly leave?” I mew piteously.

“Alas, yes. And now!”

Yes, sir! She has shown me to an open window onto the dark, wide lawn leading back to the deceptive barrier of the cemetery.

I leap to the ledge. In like smoke, out like Flynn.

“Adieu, my lady fair.”

I pound down to the ground and hotfoot it across the sward before somebody unleashes the hounds of Hell that guard this weird outfit.

I sense Miss Hyacinth’s eyes upon my exit all the way to the exterior wall.

Good. More time bought for my partner-in-crime, Mr. Max Kinsella.

I just wish I knew where Miss Louise was.

Somewhere cushy, no doubt.

She can’t possibly have gotten into bigger trouble than I have.

Magicians at Work

Max found an upright curtained box to slip into like a man donning a cape.

Some people found upright, coffin-narrow boxes claustrophobic. To Max, they were home. Children were supposed to be seen but not heard.

He needed to be un seen, and unheard.

Gimme shelter. Put me on a stage, the invisible man incarnate.

Max eavesdropped, nostalgic, on the intermittent murmurs performance professionals make when they are rehearsing, as they consult one another.

The cage closer? You stand here? No, there. What about the cat? He’s fine where he is for now. And this turns when…? On a count of eight. And you are —? Here.

Max had worked solo, so his constant Q and A had been with a technical crew, not costars. Still, the ritual, the mind-numbing, boring repetitiveness of it, offered a stability and comfort he had found in nothing else. He wondered if that was what Matt Devine missed in saying the mass. He knew Matt Devine missed saying the mass. He had to.

You don’t give up a leading role in the theater, or the Church, without losing a primal connection to something bigger than yourself, something more than tradition, something intimate and sacred….

Max cut off his thoughts.

His role of magician had been only a cover. The real role was hidden beneath the illusion. He was here to play his real role: spy, protector, thief of other people’s secrets.

Booted footsteps finally announced the arrival of groundsmen ready to collect the leopard. They sounded like storm troopers among a ballet troupe.

Osiris snarled, grumpy. Max smiled unseen in his upright coffin. The leopard reveled in his role, in work. Max had sensed that when he had “liberated” him from the Animal Oasis. This particular caged beast was not exploited, but occupied that rare boundary between wild animal and animal that had learned to enjoy a degree of domestication. The only problem was that so few people were fit to interact properly with such an animal. Better that this truce between the species had never been negotiated.

Still, Max knew the Cloaked Conjuror, trapped as he was behind the mask of his own stage persona, himself caged, loved the leopard and would protect him as he would a human colleague.

Shangri-La he could not speak for.

She was quick, a talented illusionist, and a conundrum. Why would she bother playing second banana in a major Las Vegas act? How deeply involved was she in the drug transportation scheme that had been used to kidnap Temple? And Midnight Louie, although he was obviously an afterthought.

When Max heard the light retreat of footsteps now that the leopard was gone, he tensed, his hand on the curtain. Exit Shangri-La. Enter the Mystifying Max. It would be best to surprise and confuse the Cloaked Conjuror, to convince the magician that the magician-turned-spy’s illusions were superior.

Max waited, listened, timed himself.

When CC had turned away to deal with the equipment, Max slipped out of the box, climbed atop it and jumped to catch onto one of the huge wrought-iron chandeliers marching down the center of the ballroom.

He swung for a minute, silent as a pendulum, then used his remarkable upper body strength to pull himself up among the swaying branches.

In seconds he was arranged like a deus ex machina in a Greek drama, the god descending from the heavens at the play’s end, thanks to a creaking stage mechanism that playgoers chose to consider part of the Olympian miracle.

“Osiris is ready to work again,” Max commented casually.

CC spun away from his props, stared at the blank-eyed rows of windows, looked toward the stairs leading to the ballroom.

“Heavens, no,” Max said sardonically.

Of course CC looked up at that. Even his expressionless mask seemed to frown when he spotted Max.

“You! How —? I’m the debunker, not you! But you keep turning up where you’re not supposed to be.”

“I saved your rear, and your leopard, the last time I ‘turned up,’ didn’t I?”

Max swung to the floor, lithe as a chimpanzee, despite out-of-condition muscles that protested. The illusionist landed as lightly as thistledown, or Tinker Bell.

Clap if you believe in fair play.

“What are you doing here?” CC said.

“Curious.” Max dusted off his palms and prowled among the equipment. “Curious about your new partner, for instance. I had considered getting a female partner, before I…retired.”

“You? You always worked alone. It was your hallmark.”

“Times change. Why did you hire Shangri-La?”

“To spice up the act, I guess. She’s masked herself, in her way. You don’t think we make a good team?”

“You make a provocative onstage statement together.”

“Thanks. That’s why, I suppose. Just any other female magician wouldn’t have been worth recasting the act for. But she’s, ah, well, you’ve seen her. Highly feminine but not blatant about it, small enough to manage the usual acrobatic illusions, and she brings multi-cultural dimension to the act, not to mention that incredible performing Siamese of hers. It’s uncanny! You’d almost think that scrawny little devil could think. Rather sinister in its way —”

“Almost like a witch’s familiar? If you believed in witches.”

“Why do I think you just might?”

Max laughed. “I’m a fifteenth-century kind of guy? Seriously, I agree Shangri-La’s a great match for your act. Her and her cat. How’d you find her?”

“She found me. Pulled a surprise visit at the theater, like you did the first time. Came swinging down from the flies like Peter Pan in that Jackie Chan-in-Chinese-drag getup of hers.”

“So you’ve never seen her face, without makeup.”

“No, and I like it that way. She’s probably as ordinary as I am underneath the costume.”

“Just Clark Kent and Lois Lane?”

“Not even that interesting. Listen, there’s nothing…whatever between us. It’s a working partnership, like with the big cats.”

“And you like her little cat?”

“Hell, no. That thing gives me the creeps. Have you seen the painted claws on it? Reminds me more of a monkey than a cat sometimes. Besides, I’m partial to the big boys. Those are the real cats. These domestic versions are like toy dogs, a perversion of the original.”

“Hmmm.”

“You can’t say you’ve seen a street cat that could compare to Osiris or Mr. Lucky.”

“As a matter of fact, I have. But then I know a better breed of street cat than you.” Max smiled, stretched. Like a cat. “Speaking of Osiris, how is he doing now that he’s out of captivity again?”

“He’s one happy cat.”

“I see that. Quite an operation you have here.”

“And how the hell did you find it? I’ve spent millions keeping my residence secret.”

“And I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to find out what I need to know. How do you suppose I got Osiris back for you?”

“I paid you well.”

“True. But we both know that the story isn’t over. Osiris was taken to damage you. Your enemies are still out there.”