Cat In An Alien X-Ray

He walked to the edge of the hallway and the railing that overlooked all the tropical greenery and flitting, chatting birds of the atrium.

He said good night to Vassar, who’d plunged from this height eighteen stories to her death.

Perhaps her murderer rested inside.

Chapter 42

Track of the Cat

It had taken Max a few nights to determine which floor Matt Devine was visiting.

It took another day to target the exact room of the many that circled the Hyatt-style atrium of the Goliath Hotel.

First, he’d called the front desk on his cell phone—thank God for smaller, brilliant portable devices—and asked for Devine’s room over and over. That service was automated, so no human would notice the repetitions.

Then it was a matter of prowling the halls of the twentieth floor until he heard a phone ringing at the same time. That was not an easy task. The central atrium was a thirty-story aviary, thronging with whistling, chattering, calling exotic birds. As pleasant as the effect was, it made it hell to determine where normal human sounds, like ringing room phones, had originated.

Max couldn’t say why he was doing this. Was it to protect his ex–significant other from news of a philandering fiancé? Or to protect—or nail—Devine, who was clearly uncomfortable with whatever was going on in room 2032? Was it a matter of prurient curiosity? Or life and death?

His new secret mission certainly wasn’t uncovering the possible mob activity Temple was obsessed by. That was the task assigned him and Devine by their lead detective.

Max chuckled. Temple certainly put the “dom” in “indomitable.”

Tonight he’d gotten here ahead of Devine, ducking into the entry niche of a lavish suite.

He’d seen his expected prey arrive, looking unhappy, and depart about ninety minutes later, looking unhappier.

About ten minutes after that, he heard the room’s door open and close. His back was to the hall as someone from the room passed a man bent over to open the room to his suite. Max had worn the gangsta fedora so popular in music videos, and had pushed his blazer sleeves up to his elbows to complete the look.

When he thought it safe to come out, he passed only bleary-eyed gamblers, all male, as he headed for the elevator area, arriving just as the middle one of five closed its doors on nothing visible.

He called for another, pacing. At this hour, past 4 A.M., it came quickly. Gamblers either gave up the ghost of a chance around 3 A.M. or stuck it through until breakfast at six.

Once on, Max hit LOBBY and pressed the CLOSE DOORS buttons. This trick happened to work at the Goliath. He’d used it when performing his magic act here to get around the hotel without delays and in privacy.

One elevator essentially out of service would force the other four elevators to stop more frequently.

When the elevator car lifted almost imperceptibly before stopping, Max released the LOBBY button and hit OPEN ELEVATOR DOORS at once.

He burst out of his silent womb into the bright, bustling lobby of milling people.

He stepped aside. Waiting people pushed past him into the elevator car. Max studied the master board that showed each car and the floor it was on. The first and last were too high to have touched bottom during his own trip down. Number two was about to come in for a landing, and number four had just disgorged a clot of passengers.

Max joined those debarkers, quickly studying them for any possible clue to being Matt Devine’s secret contact. This was hard, with his memory bereft of 90 percent of what Matt Devine was about besides the bare facts of his history, ex-priest and now disc jockey to the depressed. Actually, he’d listened to the evening programming at WCOO-AM radio.

It was Devine’s predecessor on the air, Ambrosia, who played the songs. Devine just talked the talk afterwards. He had a good voice, and an obvious gift for teasing reason out of troubled people. No surprise he was on the brink of a national career.

Could that have anything to do with these nightly assignations? Not unless the wooing network brass had given him a free room at the Goliath with call girls on tap as a contract perk. Highly unlikely, given the guy’s mind-blowing celibate history. He’d known how to resist temptation for years. Devine had “straight shooter” written all over him.

The Bermuda shorts–clad tourists of both sexes who’d left the elevator were also highly unlikely to be Devine buddies, and most of them high on alcohol too, at this late hour.

Whatever was happening in room 2032, it wasn’t a party. He’d listened at the door, but all that marble and mirror wall sheathing deadened sound.

Max whirled to see the spate of passengers from elevator number two fanning out like electrons deserting a nucleus.

He had half a second to make a decision. His eye focused on the only blur of black, and he swung into step behind it, knowing people crisscrossed in all directions and they both were caught in a basketweave pattern that made a simple attempt to follow almost impossible.