Midnight Louie 14 - Cat in a Midnight Choir (24 page)

“You already are. Better to not let anyone know that you realize that. How many people do you employ?”

“Here?”

“Here and at the hotel.”

CC strode impressively toward the dainty ballroom chairs that lined the room and had come with the house, lemon yellow Louis XV fripperies, and sat on one. It was as if Darth Vader had perched on an egg crate.

“Here,” he said, sighing. His sigh sounded like a lizard’s hiss through the voice-altering mask. “About sixteen, indoors and out. But they are all investigated.”

“Who does your investigations?”

Had he a lip visible to bite, CC would have bit it then. “I see what you mean. Any system is corruptible. And another twenty at the theater.”

“They are less likely to be corruptible.”

“Because they’re attached to a bigger institution, like the hotel?”

“No.” Max folded his arms and leaned against the wall between two lavish swags of drapery. “Because they’re union.”

When CC was silent, he went on. “Union stagehands are paid well enough to have something to protect. They don’t like anybody messing with their jobs. They feel they have enough muscle on their side to resent outside muscle telling them what to do, which is simply their job. That’s probably why your stagehand was killed up in the flies during TitaniCon. Have you figured out who it was?”

“Of course. With days off and such it took us a few days to realize.”

“You tell the police?”

The massive feline head shook. “I couldn’t maintain my own security if I let the police in on it. Robbie Weisel was a divorced guy, no kids, kind of a loner. He was a pretty loyal guy, like you guessed. Straight-shooter. If he got killed because somebody was trying to move in on me and he stood in their way, I’m not going to undo his sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice is right. He probably was mistaken for you. You had him wear a backup costume, right? When he was up in the flies getting ready to unleash a leopard illusion on the people below? Part of your scheme to embarrass the science fiction TV show that had ripped off your look for its alien race of baddies.”

“So it was a juvenile stunt! I resented the hell out them making my individual stage look part of a damned hive. Suing ’em would have taken years. One big splash of embarrassment would have gotten me ink all over the world.”

“Only it got your man killed.”

The Cloaked Conjuror’s mask hid all human expression, but his gloved hands clenched and unclenched in the rhythm of a big cat pumping its claws in and out. With the cats, it was a sign of pleasure and security. With the Cloaked Conjuror, it signified guilt and impotence.

Max knew he was being fairly merciless, but he had to convince the man to go along with his master plan for unmasking the people behind a whole slew of Las Vegas mayhem and murder.

And besides, he wasn’t entirely sure that the murder of Ron Weisel didn’t cut the other way too: some resentful science fiction convention attendee could have mistaken the magician’s disguise for the TV show alien.

CC was talking again. “You say this magician’s coven who hates my work is behind this stuff. Okay, I don’t want to blow unmasking them. I want to turn these Synth bastards over to the police, all wrapped up.”

“You also want enough evidence on them from other sources so your personal security and privacy aren’t compromised.”

“Is that so despicable?”

Max shrugged. “I can see that in your case it’s necessary. And I see that you need me to do it.”

CC nodded. “I have a lot of money. I can pay you when it’s done, when the Synth’s teeth are pulled.”

“Can you give me what I need now?”

“What is that?”

“Whatever I ask for.”

“To…a degree.”

“You mean to the degree that you can see sense in it. Here’s what I want now. It doesn’t cost a thing, except self-control and discretion.” Max came close, braced his bare, bony hands on the lemon-silk-upholstered arms of the dainty chairs, confined the Cloaked Conjuror to a temporary witness box in an empty court of law.

“I want you to tell no one. Not a long-lost relative, not a trusted associate of decades, not a woman in your bed. No one. Your life depends on it. And mine. And if you’re ever tempted, or ever that thoughtless, just remember Robbie’s lifeless body hanging like a puppet from the flywalk. He saw too much, he could have talked. He paid the price.”

“My God, my life is already circumscribed. I have no face to most people I deal with, no true voice, no body. You’re saying I should be a prisoner within this costume, not relax my guard for a moment.”

Max straightened. “Not every moment. You can work and play with the big cats. But don’t share your troubles with them. Someone might be listening. Someone might have bugged their collars, the environment. Trust no one. No place. No time. Nothing.”

“A man can’t live like that.”

“Yes, he can. If he must.”

“You?”

“Sometimes. For a long time. Again.”

“You think this is a…conspiracy.”

Max nodded. “Conspiracies are big, clumsy, well-aged anachronisms, but don’t underestimate the elephant. It’s the largest surviving land animal, and it has a long reach and an even longer memory.

“And it can crush a Big Cat with its front toenail.”

…The Sting

“This music could drive a person crazy,” Molina shouted to Morris Alch.

She was hoping he had attained an age group where he’d agree with her right off.

Instead, he just smiled.

“Sorry, can’t hear you over this racket, Lieutenant.” His forefinger patted his earlobe. “Hard of hearing. What a blessing sometimes.”

He gazed around like a kid who’d run away to see a traveling carnival.

This was a side show, all right, with the hoochie-coochie girls front and center. Morrie gazed up at their undulating everythings with innocent amazement. He was working, after all, even though it was past midnight when he met her here.

Molina wasn’t sure she was ready to watch another man fall for the obvious.

“I should have brought Su,” she shouted. “She’d keep her eye on the prize.”

Alch screwed a finger in one ear as if to twirl out wax. “Can’t hear,” he shouted happily.

Maybe, Molina thought, the awful, knee-knockingly loud music was part of the attraction. Some men seemed to crave not having to talk, or think.

The music made her teeth grind. It was what she thought of as jackhammer rock: screeched lyrics you couldn’t understand, screaming guitar, a dominant, body-vibrating bass deep enough to stop pacemakers for three blocks around.

She glanced at the small, glassed-in booth where the teenage troll responsible for this hellish hullabaloo was nodding his scraggly head to the beat like a palsied muppet.

They were here on official business, waiting for a brief break in the festivities.

Morrie stared up at the stage, where the only view was of Frederick’s of Hollywood thongs being put to very skimpy use.

You’d think Alch had never been to a strip club before, she thought, and then Molina considered the likely fact that he probably hadn’t, not often. He didn’t strike her as the type to rowdy out with the boys. Maybe that was why she’d always liked him, as much as an impartial superior officer could like an underling. Not playing favorites was the key to effective management, but she realized that she trusted Morrie more than most.

Which meant that she was relying on him to trust her enough to be useful and not ask too many questions. In other words, enough to use.

She let a few dead strippers romp through her memory to remind herself why this case had her covering up for her enemies and keeping her colleagues in the dark.

If progress was made tonight, if they could get closer to a chargeable suspect on the Cher Smith murder, the pressure would ease. The charade could stop, and she could go after the quarry she really wanted with brass knuckles: Max Kinsella, signed, sealed, and delivered for assorted felonies. Or Murder One would do. Maybe solving this case would take care of that matter for her at one and the same time.

The idea was so satisfying that she smiled.

The music stopped. Silence was more shocking than sound.

“Quick,” Molina said under her breath to Alch.

He heard her. The barefoot boy with mouth agape was gone, replaced by a canny investigator. Their quarry was momentarily accessible.

Together they burst like gangbusters through the small wooden door with its upper half all window.

“Police,” Molina said before the kid in the hot seat could do more than squirm.

He half stood, gulping like a guppy, trapped in his fishbowl of a booth, a place so transparent that almost nobody ever noticed it. She had.

“Police,” she repeated, aware of their plainclothes.

“Take it easy, son. This is just a routine inquiry.”

This was why she’d brought Morrie along. There was hardly a savage soul to be found in Las Vegas that his easygoing manner couldn’t soothe: antsy, acne-ridden, teenage DJs among them.

“This is Lieutenant Molina,” Morrie was saying. “My name is Alch. I know, it sounds like I’m burping. Just think of mulch or gultch. But you don’t have to think of anything but what you might have seen. Answer a couple questions and you’ll never see me — us — again.”

“Questions? I only get a five-minute break.”

“That might be against labor laws,” Molina said.

“So what?” the boy demanded. “You think I’d give up this cool job just for a longer break?”

“What’s so cool about it?” Morrie asked. “Besides the scenery?” His suited shoulder shrugged toward the empty stages.

“The music, man. I get to do it all. Next step is my own radio show.”

Molina nodded, leaning against the closed door. “Who picks the music?”

“The girls mostly. They have their routines worked out. Sometimes I get to suggest numbers, though. Depends on the girl.”

“Okay, son…say, what’s your name?”

A silence held that matched the unnatural sound of silence in the larger room beyond.

“First name,” Alch settled for.

“Tyler.”

“So, Tyler, what’s the attraction with this here job, other than cutting a career path to the top ten radio stations. Hours sort of stink. Nobody notices you much.”

“Are you kidding, man? The girls notice me plenty. They’d be lost without me. I miss a cue, they look stupid. Like I say, I help a lot of them with their routines. All the guys in my class would kill to have this job.”

“Just what class are you in?” Molina’s tone implied “underage.”

“Senior,” he said. Sneered. Didn’t like teacher types asking him to account for himself, big man like him. “I’m okay to work here, nights or whenever.”

“I wish I’d had a job like this at your age,” Alch put in, pulling the kid’s attention away from Molina. Teenage boys didn’t like female authority figures. It takes a few decades to get used to it. Did for Morrie anyway. Maybe kids today were faster studies. He doubted it.

He glanced at Molina, broadcasting his thinking.

She subsided, amused.

He didn’t often get a chance to take the lead with her. He was surprised that she didn’t care, but she didn’t. He realized that this was why she’d ordered him along. Male bonding. Sort of.

“I gotta admit,” Morrie went on, doing his Columbo imitation, “it’s pretty hard to hear the music out there. It’s all boom box, you know?”

“Yeah. It’s a generation thing. The point is the beat, the bass. That’s all there is. You’re not supposed to notice the lyrics or anything. We’re selling beat, bump, oomph.”

“Well,” Molina said, “we’re not selling anything, but we’d sure buy an ID if you can make one. We figure from your booth here you get a good view of the whole place, including the regular customers.”

“Yeah.” The kid nodded, glancing at the stage where a purple spotlight glared on empty wood flooring. He twisted a dial up, then down, but the sound system remained mute.

“See, Tyler,” Morrie said, “we’re counting on you having sharp eyes, even if you’re half-deaf from this music.”

“I hear fine.”

“I don’t. My little middle-aged joke. Don’t get like me.”

“Deaf?”

“Middle-aged.”

Tyler looked truly appalled at the thought. From zits to zip, not a happy notion.

“So,” said Morrie, “we brought some pictures. Could you eyeball them and tell me if you recognize anyone?”

“It’s about that stripper that was killed a while back, isn’t it?”

“Maybe. We’re not allowed to say exactly.” Morrie glanced at Molina like she was the one who had made the rules.

“Yeah. I’ll look. But make it quick. I gotta rev up these girls pretty quick for the next set.”

“Sure.” Alch produced the first of the papers Molina had given him: a full frontal photo of a powerfully handsome guy with that soft rot of something wrong in the character working its way out, the way Qaddafi had looked once, or the self-declared Reverend Jim Jones before he had served deadly Kool-Aid to the whole damn cult at Jonestown back before this kid was born.

This kid was nodding, as if in time to some music only he heard. “This guy’s Rafi, sure.”

“Rafi?”

“Not much weirder than ‘Alch’.”