Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“That was such a lucky gig for a young pup like you. I was doing birthday parties and nursing homes. Then, years later, you came back and hit Vegas like a storm with that strobe light and walking-on-air act of yours. Why’d you vanish after your first year? You must have had offers bigger than the Goliath by then?”

“I did.” Max sipped fizz water, feeling his throat tighten. To get info, you had to give info. First rule of manipulation. “Also several firm offers to leave the planet. Garry and I were undercover counterterrorists during our tour of Europe. I’d run afoul of the IRA when my cousin was blown up in a pub bombing, and they’ve been after me ever since.”

“No shit.” CC was shocked to the soles of his five-inch platform shoes.

“So now you know why I slink around Las Vegas like a cartoon spy character. I have a lot at stake. Now I want to know why you slink around like a bad cartoon spy character and how long this has been going on.”

“What? You’re hallucinating, Max. You don’t know what I look like out of mask and makeup and this costume, not to mention the padded body armor because of all the threats on my life. You thought you were seeing Gandolph, Garry Randolph. That shows you’re a bit off your rocker, and I don’t blame you.”

Max got up, got an empty glass, and poured the Grey Goose vodka on a side table into it straight.

CC tensed as Max moved, yet kept very still.

Then Max poured the vodka into his sparkling water. “Not exactly a James Bond–approved martini, but it’ll do. Yes, I am a bit off my rocker. Someone tried to kill me and racked up my legs and memory.”

“You … walk just fine.” CC frowned his puzzlement at where this was going. “And you remember me.”

“I remember bits and pieces of back then and back now, and bits and pieces of people. Confession time. I always admired your guts in making an act out of exposing other magicians’ tricks.” Max settled in the chair as if for a long winter’s nap, stretching out his legs. “Those ticked-off magicians are short-sighted. They’ll still get audiences trying to see them do what you show they do, and the audiences still won’t see through everything.”

“I never exposed one of your specialties.”

“I appreciated that. That’s why I’ve been acting as your guardian angel.”

“I didn’t know about your double life, Max, but I’ve always felt a kinship with you, probably because I sensed you had your own secrets. You understood my isolation and loneliness, and I sensed that in you.”

“Soul brothers.” Max leaned forward to butt glass rims. “But you’re not at the top of my save list. My ex-girl is, for instance.”

“You do pretty well for a multi-client guardian agent. I get that totally.” CC sighed, then took a three-swallow hit of straight vodka. “I had a girl. Why is your ex an ‘ex’?”

“I don’t quite remember, mercifully.” Max eyed the uneasy mix of liquor and water in his glass, not a shaken or stirred cocktail but two elements in opposition. “I think I felt she was safer without me.”

CC stared past him to the metal door and nodded. “Yeah. We’re both targets. Our survival can come at the risk of collateral damage.”

“Yet you’re out in plain clothes prowling the Strip after your act.”

“Damn it, Max! I’m cooped in this heavy, hot, itchy false skin five nights a week, three to five hours depending on the day of the week. I need to get out to breathe.”

“You have that big estate out on Sunset Road.”

“Big for a prison yard.” He shifted his sturdy frame, and his mood changed. “So what’s new?”

“What’s new is that I think we’re in the same boat on significant others too, and I hadn’t realized until last night that you were in a position to do something about it … in fact, anything you damn well please.” Las Vegas was a place where no one knew his face.

“Am I?” The man’s laugh was bitter. “Can I bring back the dead? Is that a trick I can work into my act? Maybe you can do that, Max Kinsella, Mr. Mystifying Max, magician and IRA target and counter-spy. You can’t bring back Gandolph.”

Max saw the Cloaked Conjuror was doffing his masks, getting down to a face-peel of the soul. He shut his eyes, accessing his own. “I saw him die.”

“I saw her die.”

Max took a deep breath. This was probably the most important interview of his life, and he didn’t know where it was going except it was someplace he damn well didn’t want to be.

“Look,” Max said. “I don’t know your name—and I’ve tried to find it. With that greasepaint mask you lard on beneath the headpiece—black, white, red, it’d be like trying to ID a clown from his makeup. I don’t really know what you look like, not enough to give the police for a BOLO. In fact, the police find me a highly suspicious character. What I also don’t know is if we’re in this together, because the woman you followed the other night is the devil in snakeskin who indirectly killed my cousin Sean, and maybe Gandolph directly. What have you got against her?”