Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“Maybe Cosimo did,” Temple said, “and then he ran up against some desperadoes who had no compunction against killing to get what they needed for their own ‘sacred’ cause. And if those secret ‘backers’ of the heist-concealing illusion were putting the pincers on you to produce the money they’d stashed in Las Vegas, think what pressure they might have been putting on Cosimo. The coroner found multiple marks from the knife-point before the killing stab was struck. I’m guessing Cosimo, if he’d been willing to kill for his grand plan, would be willing to keep mum and die for it too.”

“You can’t prove this,” Ramona charged.

“No. But you’re all in jeopardy if my theory is true, from the law as accessories and from our mutual acquaintances we call the Vaders.”

“You are just a Restroom Girl.” Ramona advanced on Temple, each step a hammer strike on the hard black Lucite floor. “What makes you think you can stroll into our nightclub, onto our property, and make accusations with what they call impunity?”

“The killer cats?”

By then the number of black cats sitting tall on barstools and the bar had tripled.

The trio turned around to take in that eerie sight. Czarina and Hal froze into position.

The silence was complete again, and eerie, and sad.

An interruption in the rhythmic passage of the rotating zodiac made the drinkers look up. Temple and Louie too.

A tiny flash of white at the interior pyramid’s apex seemed to be growing closer. It grew larger, and then you understood that it was lowering and growing closer. The trio at the bar seemed mesmerized.

Closer, and closer … a figure in white tie and tails, descending on an invisible black thread like a spider, silent and stealthy but relentless.

Temple eyed the three at the bar, prey for the descending black widower. They’d already drunk themselves into near-paralysis.

“Cosimo…” Hal stood, clutching at his bow tie, a melodramatic gesture that would have looked silly had he not been scared stiff. “He’s alive.”

“No. His ghost.” Czarina was staring upward as if transported. “Speak to us, spirit.”

“The only spirits here are in your glasses.” Ramona stood and glared into the lights, hands on hips, defying the oncoming figure. “Enter our nemesis. Max Kinsella. He engineered our floating table trick with the street performers and then turned around and engineered the aerial high jinks and off-and-on chest-vanishing illusion with the Cloaked Conjuror and all his high-tech equipment.”

Something came flying down out of the dark.

A black top hat.

An object as white and weightless as dove plummeted down next, and then another just like it.

A third such fluttering drifted down in the silence as the figure lowered in the same supernaturally smooth fashion. Looking up, into the lights, made him a man of mystery still, even for Temple.

She could see a silver wand tumbling down end over end, and then … it vanished.

On the nightclub’s black Plexiglas floor lay a shiny black top hat, two empty white gloves, and a white bow tie.

Above, was nothing. No motion, no descending body. Nothing.

Chapter 48

Bringing Down the House

As dramatic exits go, that was a pip.

Especially since there was no entrance to start with.

I have got to give Mr. Max Kinsella credit for a true magical presence. First you see him; then you do not. Some people could call him irresponsible. Some people could call me just a cat. You can never go by “some people.”

Meanwhile, I am more than somewhat pleased that I instructed the Cat Pack to assemble here at Neon Nightmare after the Oasis adventure, just in case Synth shepherding was needed. I released the tuxedo unit to go back to the police substation for a well-earned fast-food feast at the hands of Las Vegas’s finest.

So Mr. Max is the only formally dressed presence here. I hope he spotted my reduced posse and me, and appreciated our letting him hog the stage. Again.

Meanwhile I set an example for our next moves by sidling over to the almost empty bottle of Blue Curaçao and giving it a gentle swipe.