Cat In A White Tie And Tails

She hissed something he couldn’t hear, even interpret or imagine, and jumped down to the ground to confront him. With her height, they were face-to-face and she was furious. He’d trespassed on her personal issues.

“Come on,” Max said. “He can’t have been as bad an ex as, say, the late and very unlamented Cliff Effinger.”

“Matt Devine’s ex-stepfather. That skunk! What was his mother thinking? I’d really like to meet her.”

“You can’t. Temple is up in Chicago right now doing that.”

That stunned her. “So that relationship is long-term serious?”

“Looks like it. Any reason you’d think it wasn’t?”

“You coming back.”

“Hardly. That’s a blank slate, anything that was is wiped clean. And I don’t believe Temple’s my type. My infatuation must have been an aberration.”

“If Matt Devine were here, he’d flatten you for saying that about his fiancée and I’ve half a mind to do it myself.”

“Temple is savvy, smart, and charming, but I’m no threat to any couple at the moment. I still need to get my feet on the ground.”

“Yet you somehow linked up with Rafi Nadir?”

“Maybe you sicced him on me in your time-tested method of hiring unwanted men to trail wanted men.”

She ignored the gibe. “The only couple I’m interested in now is you and Rafi. Give.”

“I checked out the observation vents over the Goliath casino and found the area is still ‘live.’ Something was and still could be planned there.”

“Where did Nadir come in on that?”

“He, ah, had followed me. So I had unexpected backup.”

“He helped you out?”

“Yeah. I told you, he’s a good man. Maybe not for your purposes, but—”

“That’s enough. I can buy that both you ex-heroes got caught up in my widespread net for the Barbie Doll Killer. Why you’re going steady now, I can’t figure.”

“I wanted to examine the pirate attraction where Cliff Effinger had died at the Oasis, and convinced Nadir to take me there after hours.”

“Oh, yeah, the new Hardy Boys. How’d you convince Rafi to risk his precious job?”

“Believe it not, I’m very convincing.”

“Who’s sorry now?”

“I am. Much more was going on than either of us would have believed. When the attraction was closed for the night I was able to board the sinking ship set and determine that the bizarre act of binding Effinger to the figurehead was meant to torture, not kill.”

“Cliff Effinger was worth torturing?”

“If he knew something he wasn’t ever going to give up. Maybe it was a Something worth a lot of money.”

“So the ghost of Effinger appeared on deck and gave you postmortem evidence on what happened to him.”

“No, but the whole thing went down—”

“The ship?”

“The expedition. It went down the same as at the Goliath. Somebody was either waiting or had followed us. More than one someone. Only neither Rafi nor I was tossed overboard into the temporarily electrified pirate’s cove waters. An attacker was.”

Molina’s gently mocking demeanor had dropped like a mask. “Electrified water. That could kill innocent tourists when the attraction is open. Someone died on scene?” She was punching out her cell phone like Mike Tyson. “Nothing at the Oasis on the roster last night. Just a drunk and disorderly report on an unidentified man at the ship attraction site.”

“I assumed the flashlight brigade that interrupted us was hotel security and they would immediately notify the authorities about the dead man floating. Maybe the men out there weren’t with the hotel. That night attack is sounding sinisterer and sinisterer.”

“So this whole phantom encounter resulted in the death of one anonymous man who’s vanished, and you two get off with a vague drunk and disorderly report not even attached to an ID’d suspect.”

“They had Rafi in their lights and were carrying firearms. Maybe they threatened him with exposure to shut him up.”

“So you left him there?”

“He’d told me to run for cover in the jungle-like foliage around that area before that.”

“And you always do what you’re told? Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He’s not answering his cell phone.”

“And you’re not out looking for him?”

“You rang, and I came running. I was heading back to the Oasis to make sure he didn’t lose his job, dammit. You and I got the poor sod into this.”

“Not me. So what do you think Effinger got himself into?”

“It has to be mob activity.”

“Haven’t you heard? They went corporate long ago.”

“‘Corporate’ doesn’t mean clean. Far from it. Just as ‘peace’ isn’t a synonym for the end of violence.”

“You seem to attract violence wherever you go.”

“Maybe I know something I shouldn’t.”

“That’s a bad place to be with a temporal lobe on leave.”

“I know it. Doesn’t mean my memory doesn’t work going forward.”

“Mob.” She consulted her own perfectly functioning memory. “They’re pretty on the down low these days.”

“This Effinger death was overkill. And he was meant to be found to scare someone else, some mob or gang or other outfit.”

Molina nodded. “You could be right. That might explain … you wouldn’t remember—”

“What?”

“Just remember that you need my input. There was a false alarm about Effinger’s death earlier.”

“Yes?”