Cat In A Leopard Spot

“My partner is inside, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d quit playing twenty questions and let me start worrying about when she’s coming out, or if she’s coming out.”

Their custody eased even more. Max went on. “And you might mention who you are, and why you’re out here. Together. On foot. On feet that leave quite visible tracks, by the way.”

He looked around. Except for the walking stick that had beaned him, they carried nothing more obviously dangerous than water canteens and backpacks.

“She?” the woman asked.

Max nodded. “It was an impromptu mission, I admit. Not advisable in light of what I’ve found out here, including you.”

“Mission?” The thin-faced guy still looked suspicious. “You some kind of…cop? Paramilitary?”

Max smiled. “No. Just trying to help out a friend.”

“A friend who keeps leopards?” The man who asked this had freckles, a snub nose, earnest blue eyes. Must have been a cute kid, but his face and tone now were harder than the red rock in the Valley of Fire.

“A friend who works with a leopard. A magician.”

“They’d steal a performing leopard?” Ponytail’s voice shook with rage and surprise.

“Hard to come by unmarked heads.” Blue Eyes flashed a meaningful look at the others.

“You don’t know what you’re getting into,” the woman said to Max, having made up her mind about him. “We’ll get you back to where you need to meet your partner, if we can, but we won’t get caught to do it.”

Max allowed himself to move into a crouching position that was still nonthreatening. “I know what I’m doing out here, and now I know what’s going on out here, but why are you here?”

“What’s going on out here?” Blue Eyes taunted him.

“Canned hunts. Trophies for rich men, culled from zoos, stocks of abandoned exotic felines, the old, the weak, and the domesticated, available to dress your mantel for the sum of several thousand dollars. Pretty ugly racket.”

The woman let out an explosive breath, part relief, part unspoken expletive. “You got it. And that’s why the security. They don’t want anyone to know what’s going on, and I’m not so sure they wouldn’t shoot anyone who found out about it, especially someone out here on their own without witnesses.”

“So. You’re not government investigators?” Max eyed them all again. “You look like a college archeological expedition—sorry, no offense meant. And you don’t have a handgun between you, much less a rifle…. So what are you?”

“Hunt breakers.”

“And you think I’m a fool. You’ve seen the patrols, the weapons. Those men will kill you, whether you’re alone or in a pack, if you interfere with their operation. That’s what they’re paid to do.”

“But not in front of the hunters.” The woman smiled grimly. “That’s why we won’t show ourselves until they’ve got a customer with a gun in his hand and some poor declawed retired circus lion cornered against an outbuilding so the coward can be a big-game hunter when he goes home with a dead head for the wall.”

Max shook his own head, thankfully not yet dead, just aching. “You won’t believe me, because I look like an amateur, but I’m not. If they’ll steal a performing leopard from a Strip show just to get stock, they’ll kill to protect their setup….”

He let the sentence trail off because it didn’t make sense, even as he said it, not even to him. He believed that these hunt breakers were in mortal danger, all right, but why would this illegal canned hunt operation risk drawing attention to itself by abducting a prized animal from a man as powerful as a multimillion-dollar-salaried magician?

Not just for kicks, but he couldn’t see any other reason for the leopard’s abduction. Maybe that walking stick had shaken up his brains more than he liked to think.

“Would you like to the see the operation up close and personal?” Van Burkleo asked, smiling genially at Temple.

“Of course,” she said. “I’m already impressed. I had no idea such a sumptuous accommodation was out here.”

“We like it that way,” Leonora said. “But don’t drag our guest—Cyrus, you haven’t introduced her to me—”

“Temple Barr of the Crystal Phoenix.”

“The Phoenix!” Leonora’s virtually invisible brows rose with surprise. “We haven’t had any clients from there yet. Of course we are pleased to accommodate a Fontana family enterprise. What is your position at the Phoenix?”

“Informal,” Temple said, watching both Van Burkleos’s eyes narrow suspiciously. She was by no means in like Flynn, which meant getting out might be dicey. Very dicey.

“I’m a humble publicist, but Nicky and Van have entrusted me with the concept and execution of their new virtual-reality Action Jackson ride and holographic experience, and also for a small animal area, with all the close-up and personal effect of a Vegas show, but strictly appropriate protection for the animals on display, of course.”