Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“If you don’t care about your postmortem reputation, I’ll remind you that someone’s Circle Ritz balcony is only one story above the parking lot,” she told him. “And it’s a tiny, triangular toy of a space where a woman wearing high heels—like Vassar up here on this very spot—might twist an ankle, or let her cell phone slip away and lean over the railing too far and fall … not far, not twenty stories like Vassar, but … enough.”

He’d warned her about threatening Temple again.

As she leaned close, confident in her faithful cutting edge, Matt caught her left hand in his right as if they were dancing, used his left to exert pressure on her right wrist, twisted, and then pulled her torso against the railing, facing down.

The falling razor flashed as it glinted and sliced through the hanging foliage like a mini machete. Exotic birds, disturbed, rustled up into the air, a fractured rainbow of color. The razor vanished into the long empty distance all the way to the illuminated stained glass ceiling far, far below, where Vassar had been found dead.

“You. Hurt. Me.” Kathleen was aghast. Surprised. Her hands flexed closed and opened, bereft of the weapon that was almost a sentient extension of her hatred and power.

“Sorry.” Matt held her immobile, on the brink of falling herself. “You’ve been hurt plenty before. I could easily toss you over this railing and then all your pain would be gone and you’d be the suicide.”

She shook the strands of black hair out of her eyes and lifted her face. “Deaths like these are always suspicious. Vassar’s was. Twice, Mr. Devine? You’re on the scene when two women go over the railing?” She didn’t notice she’d dropped the taunting “Father” before his name. She was worried.

“I had a chance to off Effinger, you know,” Matt said in a reminiscent tone. He could play the stone-cold killer too. “I could have throttled him. Instead, I left him for your lot to fasten to a sinking ship and slowly drown. My way would have been kinder.”

“You’re not—” She was trying to slide away down the railing, but his grip tightened.

“I’m not playing the usual patsy? That’s thanks to you. I’ve watched your anger and hate strike at everyone around me, and me once. Once is enough with you, Kathleen. You can’t carry around as much hatred as you do and feel entirely justified. Some maybe, but not enough. You are a bad woman, Kathleen. You need to get clear of your past and become a happy person.”

“They don’t serve Kool-Aid in this hotel, but you’ve drunk plenty elsewhere.”

“Right. I’m the demented one. So before we resume our … dialogue, I’ll tell you something you don’t know about Max Kinsella.”

Just mentioning the name tautened every sinew in her frame. Matt felt it all the way through to her slender wrists. Her build was dainty, but she felt like a guitar string that had been tightened to the snapping point.

“He’s your rival,” she said.

Matt shook his head. “He’s harmless.”

She almost spit at him, but glanced at the chasm below and reconsidered.

“He’s forgotten most of his past, you know. That’s right. You wouldn’t know. He’s forgotten you, thanks to that bungee cord act of sabotage at the late, great Neon Nightmare club. Was that you? No, you like live victims. But you knew about that so-called accident. It’s your business to know everything about all of us.”

“Us?”

“Anyone close to Max Kinsella. As I said, he’s lost and misplaced most of what made Max Kinsella before he was the Mystifying Max. His mentor’s death in Northern Ireland probably blasted the rest out of him. Do you know anything about that, Kathleen? The old IRA and the recalcitrant ‘New’ IRA are still fightin’ and fussin’ some, and Max and Garry Randolph got caught in the crossfire. Do you know anything about who betrayed them? Speechless? Thinking hard? Never mind.

“Max is back in Vegas putting pieces together. He remembers the past few weeks since he recovered from his coma, of course. He remembers his travels with his mentor to Belfast. I’m not sure he remembers you, Kathleen. Except for what his mentor learned about your mother and your birth and your own motherhood and passed on.”

By now her glare had frozen as if this Medusa had finally glimpsed herself in a mirror. Her breathing was hardly detectable, but her pulse was galloping in her wrists.

“He has odd flashes of memory, you understand? And he’s a very bright man. Brilliant. I’m counseling him too. Helping him to rebuild his life. To remember. But it’s often just the offbeat emotional flash. Something simmers, then he blurts it out.