Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

He’d had a shadow rider then. Two. One lethal, another riding ghost shotgun for him. That guy had looked and acted a lot like Elvis, who’d apparently called in to the Mr. Midnight show for a while there. An Elvis so real you thought you’d had breakfast with him one time that you couldn’t quite remember: a pound of bacon and a dozen eggs. Elvis had been Atkins before Atkins was Atkins.

One mystery was solved. A persistent mystery of streets and night and pursuit. The voice over the air waves was a different matter entirely. Much harder to impersonate.

Matt donned the safety helmet and gazed at the night and its lights through the veil of its smoke-Plexiglas visor, darkly. He mounted the elongated seat behind the rider, curled his hands around the chrome rods beneath the seat, pushed his heels onto the chrome rods over the rear wheels.

The cycle charged into the night, leaning, roaring, shooting like a star.

Being a passenger on a meteor’s tail took guts. Matt realized for the first time that he really, really wanted to be in control, not eddied along by his history, his inheritance, his losses.

The biker took the bike to a high point overlooking Vegas before his boot-heels dropped to asphalt and he let the machine tilt to a stop. All that massive weight, held up by a bike stand.

Matt hopped off, doffed the damn helmet. Waited.

The motorcycle man dismounted like a cowboy who loved his mount, fluid and easy. He took off the helmet.

“You were my guardian biker,” Matt said. Accused. Thanked. “My ersatz Elvis.”

“Maybe.” Max Kinsella hung his helmet from the handlebar. The full moon reflected in its dark side, kind embracing kind. “Sometimes. Maybe sometimes it was Elvis. Dude had an aura, you know. You don’t kill that.”

“I know. Still, masquerading as a motorcycle cop that time—”

“Me? Impersonate a cop? Don’t have that costume on tap. ‘Fraid not.”

Matt felt a chill trickle down his spine. That had been the guy who’d advised him to let the bike fly. If not Max, then who? Elvis for real?

“What did you need to talk to me about?” Max asked.

“You took me seriously.”

“I take Temple seriously.”

The words hung in the air, in their multiplicity of meanings. “Me too,” Matt said. “What about Molina?”

“What about . . . her?”

“She’s bound to get you for something.”

Max shrugged. “Let her try.”

“Fine for you, Mr. Invisible. Tough on Temple.”

“Temple’s tough. So, what’s Molina up to now?”

“It’s who’s up to what against Molina.”

Max walked to the overlook, trying to untangle that sentence. Las Vegas lay like a tea tray of white-silver glitz on the vast dark desert floor.

They were halfway up the Spring Mountains. Matt would have a long, exhausting walk back to civilization if he had to make it on foot power. How competitive was Max Kinsella, anyway? Very.

“You don’t like me. You really, really don’t like me.” Max surveyed the distant glitter of the city where he had once been an A-list star, a magician to reckon with. “You particularly don’t like me in Temple’s life. Or bed. Still. You want to warn me. Why?”

“Because I don’t like you in Temple’s life.” Matt made himself ignore the bed part. He felt guilty about being the other man. Given recent events, he was now supersensitive about beds and what did, or did not happen in them.

“That’s why when you call, I listen. But I don’t have a lot of time.”

“You don’t know how true that is.”

“Tell me.”

Max Kinsella never waffled around. Never shillied nor shallied. Matt admired that. He’d been reared to question everything, most of all himself and his motives. His motives here were pure, even selfless. Mostly.

“Carmen Molina’s had a stalker for several weeks.”

“Stalkers must be hard up.”

“Not funny. I had one, one handed down from you.”

“Stalkers must be hard up,” Max repeated with sardonic humor. He turned back to face Matt. “Molina’s a cop. Stalkers come with the territory. With her, I wouldn’t doubt that it would come more often.”

“She’s got a right to be angry. The stalker has been breaking into her house. She has a young child there.”

Max chuckled. “From what I heard went down at the Teen Idol reality TV show, that kid is hitting puberty big time. Maybe it’ll keep Mama off my tail.”

“I don’t think so. This latest visit, the stalker left a trail of rose petals to Mariah’s bedroom as well as hers.”

“That’s really sick! No wonder she’s unhinged.”

“And she’s convinced you’re the stalker.”

For once, Matt had rendered Max Kinsella speechless.

“Me?” Kinsella said. Then frowned. “That’s crazy.”

“That’s what I thought. At first.”

“I don’t care what you think. What has this got to do with Temple? That’s all I care about.”

Matt kept himself from saying “Me too.”

Max was still on a tear. “Let Molina rant and roar and chase a phantom. She can’t touch me.”

“Maybe not. Maybe this time . . . yeah, maybe. But she’s already touched Temple.”

Kinsella’s motorcycle boots crunched desert shale as he stalked back over to Matt, looming at six four with two added inches of boot heel.