"Are you much more than you appear to be?"

"I hope so."

The man leaned back in his airy chair, steepling manicured fingers, the epitome of a businessman: overstuffed, well-suited, conservatively groomed, losing a little hair. Ultimately nondescript.

Such men never projected personalities strong enough to seem capable of running anything. Such men were always dangerous to underestimate.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"You mean the Phantom Mage doesn't do it for you?"

"Not bad. I like the Mage part. It's different. Implies real magic. You know anything about real magic?"

"I take my magic seriously, if that's what you mean. I've worked hard to make my move into the profession. I have some illusions that no one else does. I was thinking, if there's a magician's club starting up in Vegas, like the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, I'd like to be in on the ground floor."

At this the businessman laughed. "You can't. Our magician's club is as old as time, or at least as the Dark Ages."

Max tried not to over- or underreact. This is what he had been hunting. He must have managed to remain encouragingly still, neither overwhelmed or underwhelmed, because the man went on speaking.

"Alchemy, religion, philosophy, superst.i.tion. All played their parts in developing magic over the centuries until it reached our rational age."

"Not so rational that there still isn't room for wonder."

"True. And I wonder who you are and why you're here. You haven't given me a street name."

"I don't like mine. Why else would I reinvent myself?" No answer. "It's John. John Dee. As in Sandra, if you remember back that far."

"Ever been in the military?"

"No."

"Done time?"

Max paused for effect, and to hint at a slightly shady past. "No."

"You must have studied magic in its older forms to have taken the nom de illusion of 'Dee.' "

Max could have both kicked and kissed himself.

The bland inquisitor was right; Max's subconscious had dredged up the name of the most notorious alchemist of the Middle Ages and claimed it for his own: Dr. John Dee.

Actually, if he examined his unconscious, when he had said "John D." He'd been thinking of Rockefeller. Or MacDonald. The t.i.tan or the 'tec writer.

"I am intrigued," Max admitted, "by magic's ancient theosophical roots."

"They were also political," the man corrected, "and we modern-day offspring do not forget that."

"I am, at heart," Max said with perfect truth, "a very political animal."

"Then we may get along well together. In the meantime, allow us to consider your membership."

John Dee, aka the Phantom Mage, bowed profoundly in agreement.

The Mystifying Max recognized a kiss-off when he heard or saw one. They would try to investigate "his" background. Good luck.

He left the chamber, already planning further investigations right here at Neon Nightmare, more convinced than ever that something sinister was going on.

Chapter 15.

. . . Play "Misty"for Me Even after three b.l.o.o.d.y Marys, Leticia Brown, aka Ambrosia, Sibyl of on-air Sympathy, was as smooth and cool as chocolate-mint ice cream.

Matt watched her field call-ins and select the just-right song to soothe the savage breast. Her motions on the console were as liquid as her voice. It was a ballet in the dark, lit only by the various red, blue, and green lights sparkling like Technicolor stars in the studio's half-light.

Matt sat in with her, knowing to keep quiet. Their reflections in the big gla.s.s window were ghostly. Nightly voices in the dark were half ghosts to begin with, phantoms of the air waves. The host's voice was like a baton, urging on the shy triangle section, coaxing the violins to soar, toning the bra.s.ses down.

The words, the moves, the songs she chose to play for each caller were a ritual that calmed Matt, both unexpected and comfortingly predictable.

In the secular world, it was a bit like saying the ma.s.s.

Ritual mystery and revelation at the same paradoxical moment.

He listened to the sad souls calling in. None had a possible death on their conscience, but the anguish of their lost loves, or broken romances and marriages, their ill children and parents, wove a quilt of guilt and suffering that seemed to blanket the entire country slumbering in the dark of night across the miles.

A radio show was at once as intimate as a confessional and as public as the stocks in a Puritan village.

Matt couldn't believe he did this, six nights out of seven, for his daily bread.

The Midnight Hour remained the name of his show, even though its popularity had extended it to two hours. Beyond that it would not go. Matt sensed you needed to ration the music of night, the whispers of the soul, even when they were interspersed by tasteful, wry ads for biofeedback devices and magic crystals.

He was beginning to see the program as a sort of midnight ma.s.s offered to an invisible congregation.

Once a priest, always a priest. Ambrosia had no such formal calling. Yet there she sat, as sacred as a mountain, as certain and immovable, touching b.u.t.tons, touching hearts, reaching out electronically as she never could personally, or physically.

Watching her, Matt mourned his missed opportunity with Temple. Opportunities, plural. He had glimpsed a truly personal, consuming connection, and had retreated. To what? An impersonal encounter with a call girl. A call girl. Not a person. A role. It hadn't worked either. Neither of them could be as impersonal as their ritual roles demanded. Me Tarzan, you Jane. Me pay, you dance. Me lost, you lose.

He regretted "Va.s.sar's" death. Mostly he regretted her short life. He had to wonder what he had contributed to that. A shot of curiosity? A condescending pity?

It was easy to get maudlin at a late-night radio station. Ambrosia, pseudonym for a strong, lost soul, was a fantasy, but it worked for her and for her listeners.

Mr. Midnight was a fantasy too. Matt didn't know if it would work for him anymore. And in only two hours that simulacrum of himself would be "on." Could he still do it?

"Yes, honey, I hear you," Ambrosia crooned in her soft, maternal, omni-ethnic voice like liquid jazz. "Life hurts. All the great artists knew that. That's why we love them. That's why they always made it hard for them. Here's a little Ella for you. Go with the flow. Let go of the 'no.' Say, ye-ess to life."

Jazz. Beethoven gave him a headache. Duke Ellington gave him hope.

Ambrosia looked up at him, and winked.

The control board blinked. A call coming in.

"Miss Ambrosia?"

"That's my name."

"No, it isn't. It's a pseudonym."

"As Miss Red Riding Hood said to the wolf, 'My, what big words your big teeth have got.' What can I do for you, honey?"

"Play 'Misty' for me."

Ambrosia's mellow eyes snapped to Matt's.

They both knew the reference: Clint Eastwood's direc torial debut was a film of that very name. Play Misty for Me centered on a male deejay stalked by an obsessively possessive female fan.

"What a golden oldie!" Ambrosia's voice was still as smooth as whipped cream. "I don't know if it's on my play list."

"Maybe I'll call back later and ask Mr. Midnight to play it for me."

"He doesn't do music, dear. He just talks."

"Such a shame. I'd think he could play beautiful music if he set his mind to it."

"I play beautiful music. What do you want to hear be sides 'Misty'?"

"Nothing. I want to hear 'Misty'."

"I'll find something just right for you, honey."

Matt waited, wondering what Ambrosia would come up with. She always surprised and always satisfied.

Her long, artificial nails twisted a dial, punched a b.u.t.ton. Matt had never paid attention to the mechanical aspects of radio. They pointed at him, he talked. They mimed cutting their throats, he stopped. He watched a clock. He listened, got lost in the river of voices.. He was a dilettante.

In an instant a sinister male voice was intoning, "I'll be watching you."

Matt knew the song, loathed it, and so did Leticia. It was an eighties. .h.i.t by the Police, a stalker's anthem. The singer promised to observe every move and every breath the victim took, and tacitly threatened to end both.

Anybody who knew anything about domestic abuse recognized the stalker mentality, and the song seemed to glorify the omnipotence of the deranged rather than indict it. It was raw threat, very real. And even more threatening after 9/11.

Ambrosia's Cleopatra eyes narrowed at Matt. She was aiming a stalker's att.i.tude right back at the caller. Both of them had instantly recognized Kathleen O'Connor, of course, who had called Matt's show before to taunt him.

Matt wasn't sure about fighting fire with fire in this case, but he guessed Kitty the Cutter would get the unspoken message: the police will be watching you.

Ambrosia made an up-yours gesture through the gla.s.s, and leaned into the mike, which was off-air now that the song was playing. "Guess your unwanted girlfriend will get the idea," she cooed into the foam-guarded metal mesh.

Matt managed a pale smile. Ambrosia had encountered Kitty only once. She didn't know how lethal the woman could be. And he worried. Kitty had already stripped Ambrosia of a necklace. This act of on-air defiance might motivate a more personal attack.

"You okay?" Ambrosia was asking Matt.

"Yeah, sure. I was hoping this would be a therapy session, though."

"That woman does need therapy. A good rolfing."

Matt's smile became a weak chuckle. Rolling had been a trendy form of rough ma.s.sage for decades. It was supposed to release inner demons. There were a lot of alternative physical and mental health therapies, but none of them addressed dealing with actual, outer demons.

Matt started thinking exorcism.

And then ... the show rolled on. Ambrosia's usual callers lined up to make the usual requests. In their voices, as if in a confessional, Matt heard the quiver of deep emotion expressed in half sentences and long pauses. There was nothing slick about personal pain. About losing a live lover or a dead child. They weren't clever or glib, just honest. Just hoping a song and prayer would move someone's heart, maybe even their own. Matt heard the truth beneath the hope: the fatal cancer that wouldn't recede without more of a miracle than an upbeat song on the radio; the broken relationship that was obviously over with the other party, and obviously not with the caller. There were some happy calls, like McDonald's Happy Meals: warming fast food for the soul. The thanks given for a relative's recovery from a terrible car crash, for a child's progress in physical therapy, for living with/loving/having "the best" man/ woman in the world.

Sophisticates might laugh at the hit parade of songs played to soothe or reflect the feelings on semianonymous display: John in Reno. Mary in St. Helens. Matt supposed people made these universal sentiments popular because they spoke to them as nothing else quite did, words and music in perfect harmony. It was a rite, like much of religion. Soul food.

And . . . after a few hours of listening, he felt better. Other people had troubles. His might be a bit more extreme, but no different, really. Guilt. Loss. Hope. Fear. Hope was always the leveler for a mountain of helpless feelings. For him, there was another word for hope. Faith.

He wondered how much of it he still had left. Perhaps enough.

Radio stations signed off by playing "The Star-spangled Banner." Ambrosia signed off her show at midnight by always playing one song. After five hours of mellow, it was an odd choice: "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

In the aftermath of 9/11 and, personally, in the aftermath of Matt's own disaster, it seemed to strike just the right note.

She gave him a fierce thumbs-up through the gla.s.s, and then leaned into the mike again.

"The hot seat's all yours again," she said. Threatened. Affirmed.

He stood up. You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself about. And that's what living is all about.

Chapter 16.

. . . Men in Black Too Max ducked into a narrow hall, and then found a service closet. The place was packed with them. No major soundand-light show operated in an electrical vacuum.

He peeled off the Phantom Mage's mask and cloak, stripping to his naked face and black-clad form. Then he bundled the items into a ball and left them on the floor behind a pink neon palm tree.

He hoped to retrieve the Phantom Mage before he left. For now he planned to merge with the civilians packing the dance floor and in that innocent guise do some serious snooping.

If he was caught . . . hey, just a juiced night-dubber wandering into forbidden territory.

There had to be more to the building than the central neon core and the balcony offices.

At the moment, the center was incredibly loud, the crowd action more like a rave than an ordinary dance club. A deep ba.s.s beat vibrated every part of the building. Even the neon lights seemed to spit and hiss and tremble.