Midnight Louie would like that.
"You're finally smiling," Max says when the music has them swaying together cheek to shoulder again.
"I haven't danced like this in a while."
"Me neither."
When the fourth number starts and they leave the floor, a smattering of applause accompanies them.
"Honestly." Temple unfolds her napkin with one mighty wrist shake and arranges it carefully on her delicate velvet lap. "What an exhibitionist. You couldn't remain undercover in a dust storm."
While Temple is taking her worry out on the table linen, Max has folded his napkin into an intricate star-shape, which he presents to her like a bouquet. In the center is one breathlessly perfect, perfectly pink fresh rosebud.
She stares at him with the proper amazement, not so much for the trick and the posy, but for the underlying meaning. And suddenly the night is not a dream, but the opening act for just what she needed, distance and a sudden snap back to reality, time for a discussion:
"For your sterling performance among the mediums the other night," Max said.
" Magnifique. "
"You ... you were there?"
"Who do you think stage-managed the entire thing?"
"Max, you couldn't have."
"Of course I could have. It's what I do."
"But you were home, asleep."
"I should have been," he agreed as the cocktail waitress sashayed into place, flouncing her abbreviated ruffles into his shoulder.
"Temple?" he asked.
She waved her hand. "Surprise me."
Max took the waitress's order pad and wrote something on it. She dipped with a wink and vanished.
"How did you even know about the second seance?"
"I didn't, until I called Electra that morning to see if you'd gotten home safely."
"Max, you didn't!"-
"She told me you were resting for the seance that night. She seemed particularly pleased to hear from me."
"I bet she did."
"Asked if I'd been spending a lot of time at the library lately, and what I'd been looking up."
"Grrrr."
"Do you have any idea what that was about?"
"Electra's unquenchable curiosity. Okay, so you then hie over to the haunted house and set up. Didn't the Glory Hole boys get in your way?"
"So you're responsible for that added complication! We were working at cross-purposes, apparently, but it came out all right in the end. The old guys didn't come along until after ten o'clock, so I was mostly set. I just had to make sure they didn't see my illusions in motion and blow the whistle."
"What did you hope to accomplish?"
"I don't know. I only know that magic has always worked for me when I most desperately need it. I hoped, I guess, to flush out the conscience of a killer."
"And succeeded beyond your wildest dreams, as always."
"Not always. I still have some wild dreams left."
Temple toyed with the cut rose at her place. "What effects exactly did you produce?"
He looked as if he didn't know where to start. "The panther."
"Where did you get a panther? You're not working with one now."
"No, but a lot of magicians do. Nice size cat, very dramatic, easier to handle than a lion or tiger.
Kahlua was on loan for the night."
"Then ... the fireplace was lined with mirror ... or you had installed a false back."
Max shrugged modestly.
"But, Max, you were the walking dead when I left you at Gandolph's house."
"And after I talked to Electra I'd had, oh, four hours sleep, so I walked right over to the haunted house and started setting up. You know how much intense effort is involved installing a magic show; same thing. I'm used to working under pressure."
"But how could you know that the psychics would react to the phenomena?"
"Modesty is not one of my weaknesses, of which there are many."
Temple rolled her eyes.
"I guess you know that from experience," Max added modestly. "I happen to believe that any competent magician--and I am far, far more than competent--can outdo any fraudulent medium. I figured if I put their tawdry tricks to shame, they'd be so unnerved they'd begin to believe they had conjured something real. Even fake mediums hope for genuine success. They wouldn't be in the spook business if they didn't half believe."
"Well, it worked like a charm, Kinsella. I'd have you take a bow, but you're a wanted man."
"Wanted here right now, I hope."
Temple glanced toward the stage. "I hope not."
"She's not coming."
"What?"
"I love it when you're surprised silly and trying not to show it. You do such a good job, but not quite good enough. Molina isn't singing tonight."
"You know about her performing here?"
Max nodded. "She's on a case; not a chance in homicide that she'll turn up."
"And you brought me here, with me thinking you were walking into the lion's mouth? Why?"
"It's a fun place. It's where I wanted to be with you, sans the songstress, of course. Why should I let a detail like Molina stop me? All I had to do was check the duty roster--"
"In the police computer!"
"Right. It's never magic, Temple. It's just damn good planning."
Like magic, a drink in a footed glass appeared in front of Temple. Foamy, pink. A Pink Lady.
The waitress dipped to position a matching green drink in front of Max. A Grasshopper.
Together, the two drinks looked a lot like Electra's Probe and Temple's Storm: Miami Vice colors.
"I think you got it wrong this time, Kinsella." Temple sipped her drink through the straw.
"Dessert first, substance later."
"The mediums and son of medium nicely confessed, didn't they?"
"To harassing Gandolph to death. None of them necessarily killed him, or even meant to. No arrests, no trial, no case closed. No vengeance either."
"The book will be vengeance. I'm hoping you can help me with it."
"With the writing?"
"Nope. Oh, maybe some light editing. No, I need a front woman."
"A flack to hype it?"
Max shook his head. "A ghostwriter to take credit. I don't care to be in the limelight. You'll do nicely. Of course it will be a coauthor credit with Gandolph the Great."
"Max, it's a pity you can't do it; you'd be much more promotable as co-author."
"Can't. Anyway, I won't be able to finish it for a year or so. Gary had lots of research and notes to cull through. At least the project will keep me off the public streets."
Temple picked up the rose she'd laid by her water glass to inhale the indescribably wonderful scent again.
"Aha! What about the bats, the hundreds and hundreds of bats?"
"They did scare the goblins right off the rafters and tangled my many lines of illusion. I assume they were imported to have at the happy haunted-house patrons. Or has Houdini adopted a familiar?"
"Not a genuine bat in sight when I did my tour of duty at the Hell-o-ween Haunted Homestead, and nothing to do with Houdini, or Welles. Some protesters were picketing the Halloween attraction for vilifying spiders and snakes and rats and bats. I bet the zealots salted the empty premises with a brood of bats once the attraction had closed to make a point how peaceful the critters are."
"As you have made a point." Max bowed his head in her direction. "I'm delighted that I didn't suffer the slings of bat guano for some more sinister reason."
"So you created everything: the panther, Houdini's second appearance, the flying martial arts weapons, the fog, the figure in space."
"Or amplified what was already there. What figure in space?"
"The Gandolph-like figure in the Edwina hat and cloak that everybody saw floating in the darkness and the distance."
"Mass hysterical delusion." Max dismissed the phenomenon. "Didn't hurt the impact of my effects, though."
"I think there was something there."
"Of course. There's always something there when people see things. Reflections, or just an expectant state of mind."