At this welcome invitation, Temple ran her fingers through the thick dark hair at his ... well, temple. Max flinched and she jerked her hand away.

"Guess that's another spot that kowtowed to parking lot pavement last night," he admitted.

"That must have been some fight. I wish I'd seen it."

"No thanks. One car did come by, shining its headlights on us, but otherwise that fiasco was dark-of-night anony mous. It wasn't a shining moment for either of us."

"Speaking of shining moments, what's happening with your new writing career?"

"I was rereading my expansion of Gandolph's book. I had no idea putting one word down after another could be so frustrating. It's not saying what I want to say, it's not saying what Gandolph would want me to say. Trying to finish his book was a nice idea, but I don't think I'm up to it."

Temple, busy eating, nodded.

"Exposing fake mediums had become Gandolph's life work," Max went on. "Now that he's dead, I wanted to fashion a worthy memorial for him. But-" He spread his large bony hands that must have overwhelmed a keyboard. "The student is not worthy of his instructor. Maybe I don't care enough about exposing frauds. Maybe I feel they are us."

"Well, after this morning, I don't know that I can disagree with you."

Max had only played with the omelet of his creation. Temple watched his fork tines draw stucco-like patterns on his plate.

"You're feeling betrayed," he said.

"Ye-es! Everybody I know was talking to everybody else, except me. What's wrong with me that none of you trust me?"

"It's not that we don't trust you. We don't trust ourselves to do right by you."

"Molina?"

Max smiled, as she had hoped he might. Even when she had a legitimate grievance she couldn't stand to make someone she cared about glum.

"Not Molina," he said. "Molina would never insult you by treading around your feelings. It's not that we don't care about you, Temple. It's that we care too much."

"We, White Man?"

"Me." Max made a face as he carved b.l.o.o.d.y inroads ofchipolte sauce into his untouched omelet. "And probably Matt Devine."

"Great. So being an ignorant idiot becomes me. It's the way you guys love to see me."

"Being alive is the way we love to see you."

"You really think that was at stake?"

"You don't know Kitty O'Connor like I know Kitty O'Connor. And, I suppose, as Devine does now."

Temple thought about that. She swigged a bunch of cranberry juice and thought about it.

"Oh, my G.o.d."

She looked into Max's eyes, mild blue now, unabetted by the magician's panther-green contact lenses that he had used as a professional adjunct. "It's a parallel, isn't it? You, and now Matt. What . . . seventeen years apart? Did you see it the moment I called?"

"No. I had to brood about it while you were on the way over."

"Writer's block will do that to you. Make you brood."

"So you're saying, paradoxically, that in writing, a block is a sign of progress?"

"It's a sign of no progress. But . . . you have to not get anywhere to get somewhere."

"So where have you gotten, my darling ignorant idiot?"

"You're sorry, aren't you?"

"Yes, especially now that you've caught us out protecting you. Mea culpa."

She had heard the Latin phrase from Matt, the ex-priest, and knew what it meant. My fault.

"Mea maxima culpa," she retorted, having heard the ritual follow-up, also from Matt.

Max, good Irish-Catholic lad that he had been, only nodded. Mea maxima culpa. My most grievous fault. He got up and poured two cups from the coffeemaker, dosing them with swigs of Bailey's Irish Cream.

Then he came back and waited for her to piece out the truth that had been kept from her for her own good, the kind of truth that hurts worse than any deliberate attack.

"Matt hit on it, way back when," she began. "When he said that maybe Kitty had arranged your cousin's death. There you and Sean were in northern Ireland, back there before any hint of truce between the Protestants and the Catholics. Two naive American teenagers visiting the Auld Sod. And there was Kathleen O'Connor. G.o.d, I wish I'd seen her, Max. I know she's been lurking around now, but she must have been really gorgeous back then, teen angel symbol of the beloved country's tortuous history and n.o.ble fight for freedom from hundreds of years of British domination. And you and your cousin Sean, kicking up your heels from an American high school graduation. Drinking in pubs! Flirting with the colleens. On your own, together. Cousins and Irish-American soul brothers getting your ire up about centuries of injustice in the Auld Country. Away from your parents, the nuns and priests, and so hoping to get laid. Have I got it?"

"Amazingly well for a Protestant and a Scots/English/ French la.s.s and a grown girl."

"It was spring break, European-style. Irish Spring. And you, Max, you devil, you amateur magician who may have been a twelve-year-old geek but you were growing into your post-adolescent s.e.xy guy, you were dueling Sean for who could drink the most and get the girl. And Kitty let you be the one."

"Stupid adolescent compet.i.tion. We were like colts in a field, kicking up our heels, too young to know what any of it meant, the s.e.x or the politics."

"You won the lady fair. While you were dallying with her, Sean consoled himself with a pint of Guinness. In a Protestant pub that had been targeted for an IRA bomb. So you lost your innocence, in every possible sense of the word. Except you didn't lose anything, Max. She spoiled it."

He nodded. "Yes, she did. Forever. You could say I did some good with my years of covert counterterrorism work later. I saved lives. I know I did. But none of them were the one life I wanted, needed, to save. I never loved. Untilyou. And then I couldn't be there when you needed me because of that past. Then she came again, and, indirectly, she was threatening you.

"If she knew how much Devine cared about you, you would be Sean. Dead. That is the one thing that he and I believe in common."

"You ... believe that he cares that much about me?"

"Who could not?" Max shook his head, as if angered by an invisible gnat that never stopped flitting in front of his eyes. "Temple, I worry that you don't really know how much I care about you."

"You've got a lot on your mind-"

"No. I've always had you on my mind, first and foremost. On how to keep my d.a.m.nable past from hurting you, our future. Maybe I had no right to contemplate a future."

"You more than anybody, Max. After that woman tried to taint it forever. We've got to be happy, just to p.i.s.s off Kathleen O'Connor."

He laughed then. "You always do that. Turn my black Irish depression inside out. I admit I'm jealous of your neighbor. Our neighbor." He smiled at the surroundings, claiming them again. Claiming her because she'd told him to.

"And now . . . irony of ironies." Max sighed theatrically. "We've become co-conspirators, Devine and I, as Sean and I never had a chance to be. She divides and conquers, Miss Kitty O'Connor, but, like all extremists, she also unites where she doesn't intend to."

"Amen!" Temple said. "She's united us here and now. Max, I hate what she's done to you, and I hate what's she's done to me. We've got to stop her."

They sealed the vow with a cranberry juice toast.

Chapter 10.

Peeping Tomcat I must admit that it sometimes comes in handy to have a minion.

I mean, a minor partner. Junior partner? Maybe Junior Miss partner better describes it.

Whatever you want to call it, Midnight, Inc. makes a most auspicious debut at the Goliath Hotel and Casino, as Miss Midnight Louise and I embark on our first intentional venture as a crime-fighting team.

We enter the premises by my favorite route: the hotel kitchens.

It is not only the plenteous foodstuffs that attract the seasoned senses of Midnight Louie. What pulls my chain is not calories, but confusion.

You see, I have never encountered a commercial kitchen that was not in a constant state of chaos. Where there is chaos, there is opportunity for the canny operative.

When large numbers of people are running around like fish with their heads cut off (in fact, large numbers of fish are lying around here with their heads cut off), it is easierfor those of Louise's and my stripe (even though we are solid color) to tiptoe unseen through the blizzard of discarded meat wrappers, flying greens, and peevishly hurled chefs' hats.

I particularly like the chefs' hats. They are as big and puffy as giant souffles and are just the thing to duck and take cover under. The ritzier the establishment the kitchen serves, the more likelihood of errant chefs' hats.

In fact, Louise and I are inching along under two of the same when she smothers a squeak of outrage. It seems a runaway lobster has pinched her tail.

We are in a protected corner of the kitchen, crouched between a huge trash can and a stainless steel steam table. I am not averse to a little lobster now and then, but this is not a little lobster and it is in a distressingly lively condition.

It is all I can do to pry its bony claws off my partner's posterior. I consider asking it a question or two, but after studying those beady little eyes on their creepy stalks I decide that the creature's brain is as little and creepy as the rest of it, and prod Louise on. Pinching an inch really gets her moving now.

We dash under the steam table and make our way to the constantly swinging door to the dining room. Getting through this aperture is like dashing through the blades of a fan set on high. And then there are the flying feet that dominate the s.p.a.ce for the few seconds the door is open.

"Talk about Scylla and Charybdis," I mutter.

"Friends of yours?" Miss Louise asks.

There is no use explaining a cla.s.sical education to a cla.s.sless street cat, so I tell her to follow me when ready and hitch a ride on a pair of thick-soled sneakers. I take it on the chin a few times, but the busy waiter mistakes my hide for some floor flotsam unworthy of glancing at, so I am soon concealed under a tray stand in the restaurant proper.

I watch the swinging door. Nothing but footwear comes through.

Is it possible that Midnight Louise does not have the nerve her old man-I mean, her senior partner-was born with?

While one part of me is feeling smug, the other part is feeling disappointed. I hate to be torn between two emotions. In fact, I hate emotion. It is the enemy of the effective operative.

While I am dueling my own mind, something large falls past my vision to the floor. It is Midnight Louise!

"How did you get out here?" I ask. "I had my eyes on the door the whole time."

"Maybe so, Pop, but you probably had them glued to the floor. I opted for the over-the-pole route."

"Huh?"

"Why walk when you can fly? They had some sort of fluffy dessert the size of a Himalayan chocolate-point under this nice shiny stainless steel dome. I ditched the dessert and took its place. Baked Alaska, they called it. Apparently it was rare and expensive, but I cannot see why. It was mostly air. Though it was chilly."

Miss Midnight Louise gives a theatrical little shudder. "And the waiter did not find you a bit heavy for one of these airy desserts?"

"Of course, and I wanted him to. All I had to do was wiggle a bit after we were safely through the door. He dropped the platter and its dome faster than you can say 'Baked Alaska,' and I was away and out of sight before you could say 'Bananas Foster.' "

"I would never say any of those obnoxious phrases. 'Bananas Foster' sounds like he should have been in partnership with Bugsy Siegel. Let us leave this high-priced dessert haven and head for the parts of the joint where we can pick up some scuttleb.u.t.t."

Louise pauses only to lick a bit of Alaska snow from her formerly jet-black whiskers. Then she joins me in a game of hide-and-seek through the restaurant and out into the vast noisy area of the Goliath casinos.

Here everybody's eye is on the cards or the dice or the spinning cherries. As long as we do not work at attractingattention, we can go as unnoticed as a pair of deuces next to the makings of a royal flush.

I sit under an unoccupied slot machine stool to gaze at the ersatz heaven above, a neon night sky that overarches the gaming area like a stained-gla.s.s ceiling.

"That is where the little doll landed," I tell Louise. "It is a false ceiling. We need to get up there and check it out." Louise makes a face.

"You would look pretty funny if your whiskers froze in that position," I tell her.

"You mean that we will have to get 'down' there, Pop. That means taking an elevator up. We are not exactly routine riders."

"Tut tut. Nothing is routine in Las Vegas. Follow me."

I dart and dash my way around the floor until I spy an elevator. This is tough, as it is disguised as a pagan temple door, the Goliath's decorative theme being biblical. The floor is a piece of cake, though, maybe even Baked Alaska. Las Vegas hotels know better than most that bright, busy carpet designs will hide a lot of spills for a long time. Maybe the killer, if there is one, thought that a lot of neon would hide a high-cla.s.s call girl's body.

Anyway, Louise and I blend into the carpet's black background fronting the Mardi Gras of carnival colors and no one so much as spots us.

I dive behind the convenient cylinder of sand meant for dousing cigarettes. It is right next to the elevator door. Louise has to make do with sheltering under a potted palm.

A few people come and go, taking the elevator. I wait. I want a crowd. Finally a knot of tourists toting Aladdin DESERT Pa.s.sAGE shopping bags ankles along and I ankle right after them through the open elevator doors. Those extended claws I hear ripping carpet behind me are Midnight Louise's dainty little shivs.

She gets with the program faster than she did on her acceleration, though, and hops into a shopping bag. The owner glares at the man beside her, as if he had brushed her precious bag.

I am not exactly shopping bag material, but I snag a bit of ribbon from a package another tourist is toting and push my head through it. The man who was glared at looks down, ready to pa.s.s on the courtesy. There I sit as tame as a toy poodle, a collar of fuchsia ribbon adding l.u.s.ter to the muscled dignity of my neck.

His lip pulls back as if to snarl, but he would look silly behaving so doggishly toward a pet p.u.s.s.ycat, so he clears his throat instead.

The laden ladies debark on floor six and so do we.

Louise has wriggled out of the bag as the women were fighting their way forward to the doors, so we both dart around the corner to take cover in the refreshment bay next to the elevators, where the ice machine is gurgling as if it was terminally ill. I imagine all ice machines in Vegas must be ready to give up the ghost from overuse.

When the coast is clear (okay, there is no coast anywhere near Las Vegas; this is just an expression we hard-boiled dudes like to use), Louise and I loft to the wooden railing of the balcony overlooking the neon sky now three floors or so below us.

We would gasp if we could. Even from here we can see the CRIME SCENE Do NOT CROSS tape twined above a particularly purple patch of neon below. The lurid yellow with its black lettering does not look in the least like the jewel-tone spirit of neon lighting. No sirree, bobcat!