Miss Kitty is still holding down the bar like a forties film fatale.

Mr. Max is still AWOL.

I pace beside the bar, blending beautifully with the black high-gloss floor that reflects the clientele and offers me further cover. Who would notice me when you can eyeball Victoria's Secret thongs on half the babes in the room?

The noise that pa.s.ses for music nowadays is louder than a chorus of queens in heat, and the smoke and mirrors and neon of the dance floor is interfering with my night vision.

I decide to slip out the front door for a bit of fresh air while I figure out what to do.

And then whilst I am in the act of successfully slipping and the clamor and commotion inside is fading into a bad dream.. I happen to notice the two muscle men I am ankling behind.

There has been a changing of the guard since I came in, and one of them is now Rafi Nadir, the indomitable Miss Lieutenant Molina's ex-squeeze and no friend of Mr. Max, although he has a soft spot in my heart for coming to the aid of my Miss Temple recently.

That does not mean that I cut him any slack in the hired hood line.

But I am really perplexed now.

I slip along the building's foundation and the row of trendy metal and neon cutouts of Las Vegas's favorite flora, palm trees and cacti.

They are spatters of Technicolor chalk and I am the soft unseen canvas of a velvet painting behind them. Apparently I am not soft and unseen enough, however, for I hear a hissing sound.

I pause, ready to leap left, right, or up. Snakes do not faze me but I cannot stand these timer-operated sprinkler systems they have around here that can drench a guy to his toe-hairs.

Before I can execute a Kitty Kong move I am tapped on the shoulder by a set of delicate feminine shivs. That is to say that they dig in like a h.e.l.lion with hangnails.

"Say, Pop. Chill out. It is Number One Daughter."

"No Charlie Chanspeak from you, Miss Louise. And you presume."

"Of course I do. I am a professional investigator now, non?" She sits down beside me and directs a narrow glance to the guys at the door. "Who is that dude you gave the evil eye to on the way out?"

I guess a partner should know the cast du jour.

"That, my inquisitive sneak, is one Rafi Nadir, aka Raf. He is a shady character around town, but I have it on eyewitness testimony-mine-that he helped my Miss Temple collar a crook who was threatening to close down her windpipe not two nights ago."

"So he is a bad guy with one gold star to his credit, but only from you and your girl-tortie roommate."

"Right."

"Okay, he is not the reason you are dithering around here outside Neon Nightmare. What gives?"

"What gives is why you are dithering around here outside Neon Nightmare. I at least have been inside."

"This rave and mosh scene is not for me. Hard on the eardrums. Truth is, I came across Mr. Max Kinsella a couple hours ago and decided to tail his Hush Puppies until they cried Uncle."

"He wears Hush Puppies? Mr. Max?"

"Do not sound so wounded. No, he remains the sartorial fashion plate you know and loathe. His shoes are Bruno Maglis, which, as you know, have served many a celebrity, but they are as silent-soled as plain old sneakers. One whiff of his footwear and I knew he was someone to watch."

"'Sartorial,' Louise! That is a big word for a street kit."

"Listen, I can sling around anything you can, including vocabulary."

"Whatever. I have determined that Mr. Max is indeed inside. Somewhere. I also have a dame I wish to tail. I was just wondering how to go in two directions at once, or serially, but perhaps you can solve my dilemma."

"Of course I can solve your dilemma, and any other cold cases you have hanging around. We are not Midnight, Inc. for nothing. Speaking of vocabulary, that was actually a rather clever idea of yours, Pop."

"Thank you, Louise. Now-"

I gaze aghast at the open door to Neon Nightmare.

She is limned against the interior neon like a silhouette of evil incarnate. Miss Kitty O'Connor.

"Something got your tongue, and eyeb.a.l.l.s? Ah." Miss Louise perks up her ears and the hair on her hackles. "Some hussy, I see."

"If you see her, can you tail her?"

"Like her thong bikini."

"She will have transportation."

"So do I." Louise snaps out her shivs. I hear them bite sandy Las Vegas dirt.

"Go, girl," I order in the day's vernacular.

I hardly see her blend into the dark, but one of my problems is now Miss Kitty O'Connor's problem. She has set all my human friends atremble, but I send her my heartfelt sympathy. Miss Midnight Louise is one fierce tiger to have on your tail, and I ought to know.

All right. I decide on a stroll around the foundation of Neon Nightmare. Above me the mare in question ripples with a blaze of neon . . . magenta, indigo blue, yellow, red, and purple.

I detect no obvious exits and end up near the main entrance again . . . just in time to see the figure reminiscent of the Cloaked Conjuror appear in the parking lot with a swirl of cape and a glimpse of white-face.

That hokey Phantom of the Opera getup has never fooled Midnight Louie. I hotfoot it along behind Mr. Max's striding feet. Rats! Miss Louise is correct. He wears sound-softening shoes with the exquisite redolence only found in Italian leather goods. From Caesar's sandals to Gucci loafers. So far has Rome fallen. And its vaunted arches.

As I expect, we soon p.u.s.s.yfoot up to a black car parked on a side street.

As Mr. Max swirls aside his theatrical black cloak to enter the driver's side, I dive into the entrance to the backseat. Thank heaven for black car interiors.

Instantly the engine throbs slightly under my feet. I extendmy shivs into carpeting as I prepare for takeoff. I do not expect Mr. Max to linger.

He does not disappoint me. I am hurled forward, then back as the car accelerates smartly, before settling down to cruising speed.

So black is the night, and the car, that I risk peering over the backseat.

Mr. Max is pulling off the mask and loosening his hair with his fingers. He has no more idea that I am hitching a ride on his wagon than that his most bitter enemy had been indulging in Martian-green martinis at the Neon Nightmare bar.

I wonder where he was during that interlude. Wherever it was, he is now in a more distracted mood than I have ever seen him indulge before.

Streetlights cast bright prison bars over our moving vehicle. He drives fast, smooth and sure. I find a thrill catching in my throat, for I am certain that this time I will know what my Miss Temple knows and has not seen fit to share with me: where the Mystifying Max goes to ground. His home turf. The hideaway that even Lieutenant Molina has not been able to find.

What a night!

I am so jubilant I brace my shivs on the backseat's upright portions to glimpse the streetlights shining above.

I see one particular light pierce the rear window and then slide across the car's ceiling like a luminous serpent.

I frown. Streetlights flash by at a downward angle.

This was an upward light.

Risking discovery, I ratchet up the backseat upholstery until my ear-flattened head can see out the rear window.

The moon has fallen from the sky, or maybe the horse from Neon Nightmare is on our trail.

A single wild bright eye follows the car.

The Neon Nightmare is a cyclops?

I blink as the expanding ball of light rakes my delicate irises, turning my pupils into spikes.

We are being tailed by a one-eyed monster.

Luckily, considering my kind and my color, I am not superst.i.tious.

I immediately realize our peril.

It is a motorcycle that follows us, and Mr. Max is obviously thinking of other things. In fact, I hear him chuckle to himself. He is daydreaming when a nightmare is on our tail. Tails!

I am along for the ride, after all.

The lone light winks shut.

I cannot see it, but I hear the faint vibration of a growling motor gaining on us.

Our vehicle suddenly slows, then turns. And turns again. Mr. Max is heading home.

He must head elsewhere.

I leap atop the pa.s.senger seat back, howling my warning.

The car swerves as Mr. Max glances in his rear- and side-view mirrors. I see his eyes focused like black laser lights.

The car swerves again, executing a neat 180-degree turn so we are facing in the opposite direction.

Actually, I am facing the rear of the car, for I have been unceremoniously hurled into the foot well of the pa.s.senger seat, my shivs stapling nylon carpeting to keep myself from bouncing around a lowly s.p.a.ce spiked with odd bits of gravel and scented with asphalt and used gum.

When the car stabilizes, I claw my way to the top of the pa.s.senger seat to see. There is nothing behind us but blackness.

I glance into the driver's seat.

Mr. Max glances at me, but does not seem to really see me.

And then we barrel down the side streets in a zigzag pattern that would make a sidewinder snake dizzy, and suddenly we are shooting onto an entrance ramp to a freeway. Our speed matches the flow of traffic and then increases. And increases.

We weave in and out of lanes, pa.s.sing every vehicle except, thank Bast, a highway patrol car. I see the single glareof the motorcycle headlight illuminating the car ceiling. Still we speed on. Soon we have slipped the surly bonds of the Nevada posted speed limits and left city and traffic far behind. And still we dodge the single light that clings like static electricity to every move we make.

Finally we screech into another 180-degree turn and immediately Mr. Max hits the gas so we are racing back in the direction from which we just fled, right into the light that has never failed to follow our every maneuver.

There is only one outcome for this showdown. High impact.

I no longer fear our one-eyed pursuer, but I think Mr. Max is trying to lurch me loose from my death grip on his interior upholstery, which is one of my favorite aromatic materials, leather.

Good luck.

It will give before I do.

Chapter 34.

. . . Going to the Devil Max hit the brakes until they screamed in the desert night like a puma. He turned around in a wide U on the deserted highway and retraced his path.

It had been the ultimate game of "Chicken."

Maxima and Ninja at full throttle into each other.

Max had never wavered, but he was armored by a car.

Now he brought that car to a full stop and jerked the gears into Park. He hurtled out the pa.s.senger door, not bothering to shut it or think about anything but who and why.

Las Vegas was flatter than the proverbial pancake, but the car-motorcycle chase had driven deep into the desert where dry washes veined the landscape like seams in a golfer's face.

The motorcycle, maneuvering to both dodge and confront a car that had just executed a sudden 180-degree turn, had spun out on the gravel, skittering over the concrete in the restless desert wind.

Max ran to the edge of the arroyo fifty feet from thehighway-that's how far the motorcycle had sailed through the air-and looked down into the darkness.

Nothing to see now, but if the gas tank blew . . . he pulled out his cell phone, then realized it would leave a trail and snapped it shut again. Better find a pay phone at the nearest gas station, which might be miles away.

He slammed himself into the front seat and drew the door shut like a bank vault behind him.

He had forgotten what, or who, he had glimpsed in the car during the last, few, desperate seconds of maneuvering. The car seemed empty as he raced alone over unlit asphalt, eyes on the faint dotted line of the two-lane highway. The creature, black as a skunk, was gone now. Midnight Louie, believe it or not. Or not. Or had it been a rac.o.o.n? Something black and masked about the face. He had only glimpsed it as a scrabbling form in the dark.

On the other hand, he had no doubt about the motorcycle rider, who had reacted a split second too slowly to his latest evasive maneuvers. That was the way of war and races: move fast or spin out permanently. He couldn't be dead sure of that person's ident.i.ty, but he had a gut feeling exactly who it was: the elusive easy rider who had creased his scalp with a bullet weeks ago, who had been d.o.g.g.i.ng Matt Devine at the radio station, who had sailed into an unexpected off-road experience.

He doubted that any emergency vehicle he could call to this site could save anything, not even a guilty conscience. Still, he memorized the first highway marker he came to, and pushed the pedal to the floor. The Maxima leaped like a jackrabbit to the charge as he aimed for a faint line of gas-station neon maybe five miles away.