Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Max shook his head, clearing his muzzy brain. “It was a tight place to tango. He wore cat burglar garb like me, and carried no ID. Nothing more than a pencil flashlight and a—”

“Assassin’s knife.”

“Tight quarters, tough weapon. It’s a good thing you kept your feet on the ground and stayed out of that dead end up there. We good to go, Nadir?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then you’ll tell me whether you’re playing spy … or babysitter, both of which I consider killing offenses.”

“Go ahead,” Rafi Nadir said with a sweeping gesture and a sardonic look. “I got your back.”

*   *   *

“You know,” Max said after they’d driven separately and discreetly to Gandolph’s house in an established neighborhood of Las Vegas and gone to ground inside. “I don’t know why I’ve got an ex-cop playing guard dog.”

He handed Nadir a Baccarat crystal glass with three fingers of Jameson Irish Whiskey in it.

“You keep a good bar and pour generously?” Rafi quipped.

Max sat down opposite him in the living room, reflecting he’d had no memories of just hanging loose in the house, or entertaining anyone, not even a woman, having no friends but the post-Gandolph Garry Randolph. The way Garry had reinvented his given name into a clever version for a magician beginning a career in the late sixties still made him smile.

Nadir took a big gulp of citrine-colored whiskey and let it simmer as it trickled down his throat.

“And,” Max said, holding off on enjoying his own hospitality, “I understand we have an … irritation in common in the formidable person of Lieutenant Molina. Now that Garry is dead, though, your job of supervising matters involving him and me here in Vegas is over.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I don’t need a nanny. I don’t like witnesses.”

“Okay. I won’t follow you anymore, but Randolph not only got me a decent security job at the Oasis, he also paid me a bundle, up front, to look into a bunch of other things.”

“What bunch of other things?”

“The death of his retired assistant, Gloria Fuentes, for one. Then there was a professor killed at the university here, at some magic display on campus. I don’t know what else. I don’t carry my notebook with me. Besides, he pulled me off everything to watch your back at the Neon Nightmare when you did that Batman routine.”

“The Phantom Mage.” Max chuckled, to Rafi Nadir’s visible amazement. “I’ve been brought up to date on that. What a corny name and act.”

Nadir drank again, then said, “Easy for you to laugh it off. I’m the one who saw you fall and declared you dead so Randolph could highjack a hired private ambulance to get you out of there fast. Frankly, I still don’t know why you weren’t dead.”

“I learned in my act how to fall and hit as if I was drunk, completely limp. So that’s how Garry got me out of there so fast. He must have commandeered a private ambulance off the street.”

“Yeah. I was undercover, working ‘security’ there. Even I didn’t know what was what when the EMTs carted you away. I was starting to feel sorry for Temple Barr, she’s such an okay gal. Then my cell phone rang and I heard Garry giving me my ‘story’ while that ambulance siren was still screaming in the background. He musta got you out of the country stat. What was he? CIA?”

“Confounding International Agent, yes.” Max smiled again.

“He must have been ready for anything. Damn, he was good. I wish I’d known him longer.”

Max bestirred his cranky frame to lean forward and click glass rims with Rafi. “To Garry Randolph, my friend and yours.”

The expensive crystal rang, an exquisite death knell. Max was sure Garry would have approved the impulse, the toast, and the ingredients, including him and Rafi, resurrected victim and unseen guardian angel.

Enough Irish mist and sentiment. Max sat back. “I have a posthumous assignment from Garry too. He wanted to figure out who’s been dogging my existence here in Vegas.”

“Yeah. I know you’re working with Molina on something.”

“For Molina, which means I’m working for myself first and foremost.” The two men exchanged a tight smile. “So you’ve kept that close an eye on me.”

“Not you, repo-memory man. Molina. That’s all I’m after, shared child custody. And I can prove cause to get it if she doesn’t give me some rope soon.”

“From the perspective of one with impaired memory, she strikes me as the devoted mother type, and her rendezvousing occasionally with me is not exactly juicy, career-breaking news. Hell, I could be dating her.”

“But you’re not,” Rafi said. “And she’s still vulnerable if she’s using you like she did Dirty Larry to cover up her illegal B-and-E at this very house and do some personal Peeping Tom work.”

“Have you tried negotiating with her on the child custody?”

Nadir took another healthy slug and let it burn down fast. “A little. She knows what I want, says she’s not ‘ready.’ Mariah, my kid, is thirteen. I don’t have months, even weeks and days, to lose.”

“Yeah, she’ll be a rebellious teen with no time for parents in the wink of Pussycat Doll eye.”