Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“This one,” Temple said, “is right under ‘Area Fifty-four’ Now we know why Santiago was snooping around that site. He’d tormented another copy of the map out of Sparks before the magician died: then he in turn was killed to keep the hoard safe for somebody else.”

“Somebody who may have moved it,” Matt said.

“Doesn’t this feel like an outtake from Treasure Island?” Temple said. “A hidden hoard wanted by many parties, as in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and, for drama, ‘the Black Spot,’ only several of them.”

“The Black Spot was note delivered to pirates, warning they were marked for death, not geographical markings,” Matt said.

“Death has followed this ‘treasure,’” Temple pointed out. “It we find it, we can end the mayhem being wreaked by the factions fighting over it.”

Max had been silent while Temple and Matt went into their pirate-treasure riff.

“Max?” she asked. “What do you think?”

“More than I’m willing to say yet.” He ran his hands through his hair, looking troubled. “My balky brain isn’t running on high octane, but I do believe I’m … we’re finally on the right trail.”

Max sighed. “And who knows what unlikely suspect we might find at the end of it.”

His intonation hadn’t made that speculation a question, but a statement.

Poor X-man, Temple thought, ex-spy, ex-magician, ex-main man and now operating with an X-factor memory.

Chapter 46

Max’s Midnight Hour

Max wondered what Matt Devine was doing right now. Probably talking down some depressed ex-boyfriend on the radio and preparing for another wrongheaded but good-hearted attempt to deal with and deflect Kathleen O’Connor. She’d always found the ex-priest a favorite second-best target.

Max couldn’t worry about that now. Last night he couldn’t believe where the trail of Kathleen’s follower had led. Once again the hulking high skyline of a major strip hotel loomed over him. Max had dodged around Ford 150s and Tacomas and Expeditions in the farthest area of the hotel parking garage to track his prey to an unlighted wall in the structure’s top level.

Max had heard the soft wheeze and snick of an elevator door closing and rushed to find only a concrete block dead end. Several dark gray metal doors promised to lead somewhere, but all were hinged and locked. A very private elevator must lurk behind one of them. They all had security pads, not locks to pick.

Max had pressed like a lover against each in turn, seeking some slight warmth or tremor from the only operative one.

Nothing. The elevator was elaborately camouflaged. Max could, and would, get inside the hotel to find whatever was on the other side of this wall there, but he expected to encounter another dead end.

What that said about the man he’d been following was chilling.

Talk about a cloak of invisibility. Silas T. Farnum’s technologically invisible Area 54 hotel-casino had nothing on this guy.

And here Max himself had made what he needed to do next even harder than it was before.

*   *   *

“Darlin’ girl,” Max told the stunning New Millennium cocktail waitress wearing a liquid silver catsuit over a silver-paint full body and face job. “I need you to assist me in a street magic illusion. First, who is your favorite president, William McKinley or Grover Cleveland?”

“Grover Cleveland,” she answered promptly, proving she was no babe in the woods.

Max rolled the fingers of his right hand, and a thousand-dollar bill materialized. He’d already expected to dip into his emergency stash. Big bills were easier to conceal.

“All I need is you,” he said, “with a tray of two vodka martinis and a cool head. Follow me and I will follow you later.”

She cocked an inquiring silver eyebrow, but Vegas casino workers were used to eccentric big spenders and often shared in the bounty.

On his order, the bar produced two princely looking, and costing, martinis embellished with gourmet onions, and more of Max’s big bills went to the cause.

“What flavor martinis are those?” the cocktail waitress asked.

“They’re called Open Sesames.”

“That’s a new one,” she commented, shrugging.

“Now, head backstage,” he told her.

She raised both eyebrows. “We only go there on orders.”

“These are my orders, and we’ll be as welcome as whales … once we get in.”

Max followed her through the casino, donning the white Star Wars helmet with black eye visor he’d also bought from the bartender.

Now they were a cocktail waitress and her personal Star trooper guard en route to a Very Important Prestidigitator Max wanted to surprise.

The girl glided past the hotel’s huge theater and down a low-lit side ramp most people would overlook. She paused at a heavy steel door, with a keypad entry showing both letters and numbers.