Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“Magicians were never under mob influence?” Matt asked.

“Naw,” Max said. “As you’ve both noticed, we’re too egomaniacal to control. Also, we’re pretty good at defending ourselves. So,” he continued, “did Midnight Louie find what Effinger had hidden away while the three of you were in Chicago?”

Temple nodded. “We all did, and it’s pretty weird.”

She lifted the Table of Crime Elements to reveal a crude drawing of a muscleman wrestling a serpent as thick as his gigantic quads.

“Ah.” Max grinned. “Our old friend Ophiuchus, the lost thirteenth sign of the zodiac and the symbol of the vanquished Synth. I know Professor Mangel’s dead body was found arranged in the houselike shape of the constellation’s major stars. And that the Neon Nightmare zodiac lighting effects included that sign.”

“So where else did Ophiuchus turn up?” Matt wanted to know. “Obviously I’ve missed a lot by never patronizing this now-closed Neon Nightmare joint.”

“Cosimo’s red satin cloak lining,” Temple said promptly. “It was arranged in that same houselike shape, with his body in white tie and tails on it.”

Max gave a small theatrical shudder. “A magician would appreciate that ‘hidden in plain sight’ element of the death scene. Magic is all about loss, death, and restoration. Too bad a surprising resurrection wasn’t in the cards and we could interrogate him.”

“If Sparks hadn’t been killed,” Temple pointed out, “the Synth members wouldn’t have tried their big plan out on a smaller heist that failed. I think Ophiuchus was just a cover. What the left hand is doing when the right one is robbing the bank.”

“So his death spooked the Synth conspirators,” Max explained to Matt. “They jumped the gun with the attempted mass illusion.”

“I thought,” Matt said, “that Oasis Hotel prize presentation Temple emceed was just … a piece of stunt PR.”

Temple winced. She considered herself more serious than that, but couldn’t deny that had been a larger-than-life event. “It was a heist attempt foiled in a way to look like crazy Strip business as usual.”

“And the mob,” Matt said. “Just how much mob is really left in Las Vegas?”

Temple shrugged. “That’s a complicated question. Everybody’s touchy on that subject now, with a forty-two-million-dollar mob museum operating downtown and the Tropicana and Gangsters Hotels adding smaller exhibitions of their own. Many iconic Vegas hotels, long ago imploded into nonexistence, were constructed with mob money. The Mafia skimmed profits from the front men and then invested in nightclubs and in country clubs and shopping centers and housing developments far afield from the Strip. That’s what’s meant by the mob ‘going corporate.’ They disappeared into the larger business climate. I know mob killings persisted into the ’90s, even after the FBI came in and shut down the scene in the ’80s.”

“And,” Max added, “there’s still illegal activity from meat hijacking to running prostitutes and drugs.”

“So lingering mobsters could still be active,” Matt said.

“And, like the displaced traditional magicians of the Synth,” Temple said, “they could still be hankering for that one last big score.”

Max nodded. “The object of everyone’s greed being the massive stash of money Kathleen O’Connor and her IRA hardliners collected from North and South America over the years and never delivered. Many former IRA malcontents want anything raised for their cause for reparation to the families who lost members in the struggle.” He paused. “Not for collateral damage like my cousin Sean, though.”

Temple hastened to move past that bitter truth. “We think much of the hoard is in bearer bonds, from what was found in the walk-in safe with Cosimo Sparks’s body. They’re not used much today, but are still valid. So the cache of cash, to put it in homonyms, would not have to be physically huge, although it might include serious weaponry.”

“Cosimo Sparks. Not a forgettable name. Who killed him?” Matt asked.

“You’re asking all the right questions,” Temple said. “I’m thinking the mob or ex-IRA members after the stash. It could have been stored in the hidden walk-in safe where Sparks was found. But it’s now gone. Someone could have suspected Sparks of moving it, and he could have. There were ‘prod’ stabs on the body, as if someone wanted to force him to talk.”

“Like my stepfather, Effinger.” Matt frowned. “Were the marks … slashes?”

“Ice pick,” Temple said. She noticed Max eyeing Matt narrowly.

“Any of this theorizing provable?” Matt asked.

“No, but the other three surviving Synth leaders saw the light at the same time I did. Sparks indeed could have accounted for the magic-related cold cases that have littered Las Vegas lately.”

“And your only witness to this mass confession is Midnight Louie—?” Matt asked skeptically.

“Yup. It wasn’t a confession, Matt. More of a clearing the smoke and mirrors from their eyes to see the truth as the scenario came to me.”

Matt took a long swallow of sangria and sat back. “So tell me the scenario.”