Shawn and Gus climbed up on the low stage and pushed the airplane stairs up to the tank.
"How did you get him to agree?" Gus said as they maneuvered the staircase into place.
"Something I saw when P"teter P"karker-"
"P"tol P"kah."
"Right, that guy," Shawn said. "Anyway, after he gave Bal.u.s.trade his swimming lesson, he climbed back up here and even though the tank was open, he closed it again, latched it, then unlatched it and reopened it. Why do that?"
"Showmanship?" Gus said.
"If that was all it was, then Fleck never would have blinked and we"d be sitting in a broom closet guarded by McNab waiting for La.s.siter to pretend to question us," Shawn said. "What I guessed, and what Fleck has now confirmed, is that flipping the latch did something to the tank that was necessary for the trick to work."
"What?"
"Possibly it turned on the chubby-dead-guy-generator," Shawn said. "Other than that, I don"t have a clue."
Gus stepped away and watched as Shawn climbed up the metal stairs. At the top, Shawn peered down into the tank, a look of disgust on his face as if he suddenly realized the particularly unpleasant flaw in his plan.
"I have an idea," Shawn said. "Why don"t I deputize a couple of big, strong police officers to be temporary Psych employees. That way they could reach into the tank and fish out the body and still couldn"t say anything."
"Unacceptable, Mr. Spencer," Fleck said. "It"s you, or he stays in there until we get a ruling from the Supreme Court. And I don"t mean the one in Sacramento."
"This was your idea," La.s.siter said. "Do it or I"ll throw you in jail for obstructing justice."
O"Hara shot her partner a weary look, as if to suggest that he wasn"t helping. "What Detective La.s.siter means to say is "please." "
"That"s the magic word," Shawn said. "Unless there are fake dogs involved. Then-"
"Shawn!" Gus yelled up at him. "Stop stalling."
Shawn sighed heavily, then reached up and grabbed the cable. From here he could see that it ran through a series of pulleys and down to a hand-cranked winch on the far side of the stage, which was no doubt useful for bringing heavy equipment such as tanks of water onto the stage, or making heavy objects such as elephants disappear from it.
Shawn lowered the cable into the water and tried to maneuver the noose around the dead man"s hand. But of all the carnival games Shawn had ever tried, the ring toss was the one he had never mastered, and this was like that, only upside down. Every time the noose drifted close to the hand, the body drifted away, bounced against the tank wall, then drifted back in a slightly different position.
"It would be a lot easier if you got into the tank," Gus said.
"It would be even easier if you got into the tank," Shawn snapped.
"For all I care you can both go into the tank and never come out," La.s.siter said. "But I need that body on the ground in thirty seconds or I"m shutting down this charade."
"Fine," Shawn said. Getting down on his knees, he rolled up his sleeve, took a deep breath, and lay down on the platform. He squeezed his eyes as tightly shut as he could, then plunged his hand into the water.
"It would be easier if you opened your eyes," Gus suggested.
Shawn scowled, but when he followed his partner"s advice he discovered that the noose was at least four inches from the target and moving in the wrong direction. He shifted the cable and maneuvered it around the dead man"s wrist, then yanked it so it slid up to his arm-pit. Jumping to his feet, he gave the cable a yank, just as the Martian Magician had done when Bal.u.s.trade was on the other end. Only this time nothing happened.
"Gus, go man the winch," Shawn said.
"I"m not sure Mr. Fleck would approve," Gus said. "What if the winch is part of the illusion"s secret?"
"It"s not," Fleck said.
"You could be saying that because you don"t want to reveal the truth in front of people who aren"t sworn to secrecy," Gus said. "It is my fiduciary duty to you to have nothing to do with that winch, that tank, or anything relating to that incredibly gross dead body."
"Oh, for G.o.d"s sake," La.s.siter said. He climbed onto the stage, pushing Gus aside even though the collision took him out of his way, and went to the winch handle.
On top of the stairs, Shawn leapt back when the body started to emerge and nearly fell the seven feet to the ground. But he caught himself on the handrail and, taking the tiniest edge of the corpse"s pants cuff that he could get his fingers on, guided the dead man down the stairs as La.s.siter gradually lowered him on the winch.
As soon as the body was lying on the ground, Shawn jumped away from it, waving his hand wildly to shake off the corpse-water. "Wipe! Wipe!" he shouted.
"Wipe what?" Gus said.
"It"s not a verb; it"s a noun," Shawn said. "You"re supposed to hand me one of those little moistened towelettes they give you at barbecue joints."
"Maybe I should give you half a chicken and a brisket sandwich while I"m at it," Gus said.
"I"m the detective; you"re the a.s.sistant-"
"I am no man"s a.s.sistant," Gus interrupted. "Especially yours. I"m your a.s.sociate."
"Fine," Shawn said. "I"m the detective, and you"re the a.s.sociate. And the a.s.sociate is supposed to carry a supply of sanitary wipes in his purse just in case the detective happens to touch something disgusting."
Gus stared at him. "That"s the dumbest thing I"ve ever heard."
"Really? I thought it showed some real consideration on the a.s.sociate"s part. Also, you"re supposed to be a pretty blonde. If you"re not going to carry wipes, you could at least work on that."
Shawn dried his hands on his shirt and walked back to where La.s.siter was kneeling over the body. The man"s jacket lay open, revealing a vest bulging at the b.u.t.tons, barely holding in his gut. La.s.siter touched one of the b.u.t.tons, and the vest exploded open, the liberated stomach sloshing around inside a now-translucent white shirt.
Ignoring the dancing flesh, La.s.siter reached a gloved hand into the corpse"s jacket pocket and fished around before pulling it out with a scowl.
"No wallet."
"You wouldn"t carry your wallet to go swimming," Shawn said. "Of course, you probably wouldn"t wear that hat, either."
La.s.siter ignored him, turning to Fleck, who"d barely wasted a glance on the dead man. "You sure you don"t know him?"
"Positive."
"He wasn"t a rival magician? A stalker? Someone your guy owed money to?"
"I already told you-"
"I know what you told me," La.s.siter said. "I"m just giving you every opportunity to improve your memory, so that if there"s any chance of a connection between this man and you, you"ll remember it now, when it can still make you look better rather than worse."
O"Hara moved up beside La.s.siter. "What my partner means is that in the heat of the moment, memories sometimes get clouded in ways that make subsequent realizations look less reliable than they are."
"What they both mean is that they hope you"re lying and you"ll tell them who the dead guy is, because they don"t have a clue," Shawn said.
"Thank you for translating," Fleck said, then turned his icy gaze up at La.s.siter and O"Hara. "I am a duly sworn officer of the court, and fully aware of my legal and deontological obligations to provide a truthful statement to the police in any matter civil or criminal. If you have reason to believe that I have violated this duty, then you must report me to the bar, or arrest me. Absent such belief, I urge you to cease from making such a.s.sertions, or I will see you in court."
Shawn turned back to the police. "What he means is go f-"
"Shawn!" Gus warned.
"Go find out who the dead guy is for yourself," Shawn finished.
"I think we can handle that," La.s.siter said.
"Good," Shawn said. "We"re going to go look for a Martian."
Chapter Nine.
"Let"s face it, if you"re a Martian who"s come to Earth to study human culture, this is where you want to be." Shawn waved out the taxi window as they cruised past the Great Pyramid at Giza, a medieval castle, and the skyline of New York City. "I mean, you could get in your flying saucer and buzz the stratosphere, but think of all the gas you"d use up trying to see as much as you can in four blocks of the Las Vegas Strip."
Gus looked out at the people clogging the sidewalks and wondered what a Martian would think of them. Blinking in the sudden sun after hours in the artificial twilight of the casinos, clutching fat plastic buckets of quarters or thinner plastic buckets filled with fifty-cent margaritas, barely fitting into their x.x.xL sweatpants, they looked like a population whose spirit had long since been crushed by alien invasion. The Martian might easily be fooled into thinking that his forebears had already taken over.
Or maybe Gus was just feeling uncomfortable about the meeting they were about to have. When they got back to the Psych office after La.s.siter banished them from the Fortress of Magic, Gus flipped on the computer and discovered that Fleck"s a.s.sistant had already e-mailed them tickets for tomorrow"s first Allegiant Air flight direct from Santa Barbara Airport to Las Vegas, as well as an address for an office on East Frontage Street. There were no other instructions, not even a greeting. They were being commanded to appear by a man they"d barely met.
That didn"t bother Shawn at all. He"d talked Fleck into hiring them; he couldn"t complain if the man actually wanted them to do some work for their money. And they were getting a free trip to Vegas. Normally you had to sit through a three-hour sales pitch for time-shares to get that. They"d jet into town, do a little background, and expense a dinner buffet at one of the casinos. Or if Fleck wouldn"t agree to an expense account, they"d just win a few bucks on the slots and use that to buy dinner.
Gus had to admit the plan sounded appealing. But after finding the plane tickets, he did some basic research on Benny Fleck, and he wasn"t comforted by a lot of what he found. Fleck was one of the biggest promoters in family entertainment, and his touch seemed to be golden. He hadn"t had a flop in a decade, and with every success his shows had become bigger, grander, and more spectacular. He"d spent one hundred million dollars building a special theater for P"tol P"kah in Outer s.p.a.ce, the science fiction-themed hotel and casino, charged two hundred bucks for each of the five thousand intimately arrayed seats, and sold out every show since the gala opening eight months ago.
But Fleck"s golden touch didn"t seem to give him a thick skin. The Internet was filled with stories about the mogul"s revenge on people he felt had crossed him. He"d been sued several times for hiring private investigators to dig up dirt on reporters who got too close to him.
"Where"s the downside?" Shawn had asked when Gus told him what the research had dug up.
"Let"s see," Gus said. "We"re getting into business with a man who is famous for targeting people who let him down."
"And who does he hire for his targeting?" Shawn beamed, clearly feeling he"d bested Gus" logic on this one. "Private investigators. Which means us. So either we find the green guy and we"re heroes to the boss, or we don"t and we"re searching for dirt. Either way, we"re looking at a long-term business prospect."
"You think he"s going to hire us to dig up dirt on ourselves?"
"That would be silly," Shawn said. "I figure we can do each other. And believe me, I can give him lots of hot stuff about you."
Gus might have continued arguing against the Vegas trip if the door to the offices hadn"t banged open just then. Henry Spencer stood in the doorway, red faced and breathing hard. He looked like a cartoon bull who was about to turn into a steam engine in order to flatten the matador.
"What have you done?" he demanded. "Are you so thoughtless, so selfish, that you casually ruin other men"s lives just for fun?"
"You used to be a cop," Shawn said without even blinking. "You ruined people"s lives for money. Doing it for fun is much less selfish than that."
Henry"s hands twitched as if he wanted to put them around Shawn"s throat. Then he dropped them to his sides. "All I asked was for you to deliver a present to my friend Bud"s bachelor party. You didn"t even have to say a word. Waltz in, waltz out; night"s over."
"I"ve never been much of a dancer," Shawn said.
"Why did you have to tell Bud that Savonia was cheating on him?"
"Savonia?" Shawn asked. "An entire country was cheating on him?"
"That"s Slovakia," Gus said. "Or Slovenia. I can"t keep the two of them straight."
"Apparently a problem you have in common with the bride," Shawn said.
Henry turned an angry eye on Gus. "Don"t think I don"t blame you for this, too. You could have stopped him."
Gus knew he couldn"t have, and he knew Henry knew it, too. But all that knowledge couldn"t spare him from the creeping feelings of guilt.
Shawn stepped between Gus and Henry. "I don"t know what you want from me. I just saved your buddy from ruining his life with a woman who was cheating on him with his best friend."
"And tore his heart out," Henry said. "He"s been lonely forever, he finally meets this lovely woman from Eastern Europe who turns his life around, and you smash it into pieces. Now he won"t even return my calls. Worse, I think he"s so angry, he turned his fiancee in to the feds-when I went down there to look for Bud, there were ICE agents parked outside. And Lyle, poor Lyle . . . I tried to talk to him and he just drove away. When I followed him, he went straight to a mental hospital. I think you gave him a nervous breakdown. And all I wanted you to do was deliver one lousy gag gift."
"If it means anything, we didn"t do that, either," Shawn said. "If you want it back, you"ll have to retrieve it from evidence. Now, if you"ll excuse us, we have a flight to catch. Be sure to lock the office when you go."
Shawn marched out the door and Gus followed quickly. But even knowing the trouble he was leaving behind, Gus had gotten onto the Allegiant Air flight with a large set of reservations, which could have been a problem because it was nearly more weight than the thirty-four-seat MD-80 could carry.
He grew warier still when he noticed the cab driver was having a lengthy, quiet conversation on his cell phone, and that every time he listened to the person on the other end, he was staring back at them in his rearview mirror.
"Is something wrong?" Gus asked the driver, trying to keep the quiver of fear out of his voice. Ever since he saw Casino, he"d had an irrational fear of being vised to death and buried in a hole in the Nevada desert. Now he was beginning to worry that the fear wasn"t irrational after all.
"No wrong," the driver sang out as he accelerated through a red light and across eight lanes of cross traffic. "Very, very right."
"But you were supposed to turn left back there," Gus said.
The driver said nothing, just stomped on the gas and wove through the cars ambling up the strip.
"Shawn, do something," Gus whispered urgently.
Shawn pressed the b.u.t.ton on his door, rolling his window down a couple of inches. "I am," he said. "I"m enjoying the ride."
"But he"s not taking us to the right place," Gus hissed.
"That depends on whose definition of right you"re using," Shawn said. "By the way, you might want to hold on."
"Hold on?" Gus asked. "Why?"
The driver had drifted all the way into the far-right lane, his tires almost sc.r.a.ping the curb. The pedestrians who had spilled off the overloaded sidewalk were leaping back into the crowd. The driver took a quick glance at the road in front of him and yanked the wheel hard to the left. Cars slammed on the brakes as the cab screamed across four lanes of traffic, flew up over a divided median, and zoomed through the four opposing traffic lanes.
When the cab had come to a stop and Gus dared open his eyes, he found they had pulled into a porte cochere built to resemble the entrance to Klaatu"s flying saucer. A handsome blond man in a silver s.p.a.ce suit was opening his door.
"Welcome to Outer s.p.a.ce," the cabbie said.
"But we were supposed to go to Frontage Road," Gus objected.