Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Then he produced the scrap of paper he’d rescued from the Professor Mangel magic exhibition at the University of Nevada campus here several days ago, saving it for this savoring moment, flourishing it between his fingers like a paper bouquet.

“Voilà!”

“You’re sounding very French lately,” Temple observed.

“The language of love and mystery.” Max would not let guilt over his recent French connection deny him his ooh-la-la moment of revelation. “I found this inside a coin box, a magic trick box, at Professor Mangel’s exhibition on the university campus.”

“A puzzle box?” Matt asked.

“It’s a small box with hidden chambers.”

“Kind of like the human heart,” Matt said.

Max paused. “Exactly. Magicians meant it to be impenetrable by the average person, and I’ve seen the clever average person buy such puzzle boxes to hide pot from the police. I gamed the mechanism after a thorough inspection.”

“Why did you tamper with the Mangel exhibition?” Temple asked.

“Magician’s instinct. I psyched out where I’d hide something there. I figured if someone killed him and left his body in that Ophiuchus position, it must have been because he knew something about the Synth. Something dangerous to them.”

“And if he had,” Temple broke in excitedly, “he would have hidden what he knew someplace safe. His mind worked like that. He delighted in the illusions-inside-illusions aspect of magic.”

“Or maybe,” Matt said, “you just took it because you could.”

Max laughed. “It was a particularly unusual coin box. Call it instinct, call it luck, call it fate. Inside the box, once I figured out how to open it, was this map, for what I don’t know. That’s where you people with a memory of Vegas need to help out.”

“I love puzzles.” Temple snatched the bait with her lilac-enameled fingernails and smoothed out the paper. She reminded him of a terrier playing with a toy hiding treats inside.

Matt balanced his chin on her shoulder to see better. Revienne had been right. They made the coziest couple. Max silently applauded. Apparently he’d been an excellent matchmaker before his memory had gone south.

“It looks like a bare branch with Christmas tree lights on it,” Temple said.

“Or forked summer lightning,” Matt suggested.

“Or fireworks,” Max said. “Yes, there’s something organic about it and artificial at the same time. You’re both right.”

“It could be a night view of an airplane landing field,” Matt said, exercising his left brain.

“Bravo,” said Max.

“Or…” Temple was waxing imaginative. “Or … Area Fifty-one.”

“So you think this is an alien-landing map,” Matt asked, his vocal tone just this far south of ridicule.

“We must think outside the box,” she answered. “What would a cool metaphysical guy like Jeff Mangel have?”

“A string of chemical formulas,” Max said, just to be confounding.

“No.” Temple sounded discouraged. “It’s too skeletal, too sketchy. Unless we had a key to this map, it’ll never mean anything but gibberish. Darn you, Jeff Mangel.”

“You said his philosophical outlook fascinated you,” Matt reminded her. “That’s not science. We need to look for something more symbolic in this … arrangement of dots or points.”

“French pointillist paintings? Sand paintings. Tattoos?” Temple suggested, a bit huffily.

Max sat back, enjoying their … process.

Temple tumbled to his amused voyeurism. “Max. You must have a theory. What? Do these dots repeat the arrangement of doves in your signature illusion, for instance, or the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin or the back of an elephant?”

Her pointed interrogation and references made his smile broaden. “It’s something to do with Jeff Mangel’s obsession with magic. Not angels or elephants, Temple, much as I find that combination stimulating. Maybe for a new act.”

“Oh, that would be so cool, Max!”

Matt frowned at her instant engagement with ideas for Max’s act. “We’re not here to reinvent the Mystifying Max.”

“The Mystifying, Flying Max,” Temple corrected. She thought like P. T. Barnum.

Even Matt was forced to smile and make eye contact with his former rival. “She’s the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t she?”

Max nodded. “I will admit, this pattern leaves me bewitched and bewildered. It looks so deliberate, but must be random.”

Temple leaned in to study it. “I’m no expert at three-dimensional layouts. I mean, before I flew into O’Hare, or even LaGuardia in New York, I printed out the terminal and baggage claim layouts from the Internet.”

“No.” Matt shook his head. “That’s taking organization to insane extremes. There are overhead signs and arrows everywhere.”

“And sometimes they’re ambiguous,” Temple said. “And you’re short and being outpaced by everybody from your flight and dragging and toting bags—and maybe overweight alley cats”—she was offended now, and both men chose to let her rave on uninterrupted—“with no superior upper body strength, I might add. So you want to know where you need to go before you get there. Savvy?”

“Aye, aye,” Matt said, saluting.

Max chuckled, but remained mute.