Nicky, the high society private dick, was right. This CinSim Bogart had an urgent message for me and it was coming through a fellow CinSim with a double "real/reel" life link to him. And a connection to the truly creepy crew at the Karnak!

I felt a pinch on my blue velvet butt that indicated the Invisible Man was here, and goading me on. That cinched it. Claude Rains, a.k.a. the Invisible Man, had played the corrupt French inspector in Casablanca. Apparently, Claude was joining Nicky and Godfrey in urging me to give Bogey my prime attention.

I didn't know their motivations, but my own interior warning system was on red alert now too. Something huge must have happened to have the CinSims uniting to overcome their bondage and get to me.

"How is Ugarte?" I asked carefully, not wanting to spook the displaced CinSim.

"Not good, but then the greasy little con man doesn't deserve 'good'. God, this booze is worse than the stuff I serve in my own place in Casablanca. I've been burned to the core by a classy dame before or I'd take you and your big blue eyes home with me."

"Where is that now?"

"Uh…dive called the Noir Café Parisienne. Downstairs, I think. Say, what is this place?" He hunkered over his lowball glass of bourbon, brooding again and tuning me out.

I nodded Nicky over for consultation. "He's an Inferno house CinSim?" I whispered.

"Quite right," Nicky confirmed. "From one of the signature theme clubs. There's a place for every taste in the lower depths. I heard him mention that miserable lowlife, Ugarte. He's from Casablanca, but that CinSim isn't on Christophe's payroll."

"Then how would Rick get a message from him?"

Nicky cleared his throat and downed some gin and vermouth mouthwash. "Sometimes we CinSims have vague memories of the other characters in our 'set'. Sometimes we don't. I remember Nora and Asta, of course," he mused nostalgically. "They would look swell hanging out on a barstool here."

"Does the hotel allow pets in?"

"Asta is not a pet," Nicky said indignantly, quashing a hiccup.

I agreed. The lively wire-haired terrier had been a child substitute for the sophisticated sleuthing couple…until the movies had put a real baby into the fourth sequel. The series was killed with the fifth. Hollywood, and now cable and broadcast TV, was always killing series that way.

I frowned like Bogart as I thought aloud. "So a CinSim can't even move from one venue in the same hotel to another?"

"Not without breaking its lease conditions and that does something to the old bean." He tapped his forehead. "Maybe they have us microchipped. That Ugarte must have broken his house rules too. And violently. Most unusual, and disturbing. Then Rick here started muttering about blue-eyed, black-haired dames into his bourbon-vile stuff!"

"I get that you think I'm the only black-and-blue woman in the world, but how did you get to Godfrey about it if you CinSims aren't supposed to cross venues to contact each other? You two 'cousins' collaborated before when I was kidnapped by the Cicereau werewolf mob. Not that I'm not grateful, but what's that about?"

"Nightwine and Christophe keep lighter leashes on their CinSims."

"Why?"

"They got a heart?"

I rolled my eyes. "Please."

"They have an interest in the bigger picture in Vegas and they find us useful beyond being mere cosmetic curiosities."

"Hector and Snow are secret allies?"

"Nah, just brothers in individual enterprise. They don't like mobs moving in and taking over."

"Isn't that a little late for Vegas?"

"The Strip reinvents itself every day, Miss Street. Look at you. Hmm, don't mind if I do again. Nora would look splendid in that gown. What's wrong with our friend Rick there? I thought some female company would unlock his lips."

"I haven't really tried yet," I whispered, spinning back to my dour drinking partner. "Hey there, Mr. Blue."

He glanced up, weary and worn and unreachable. Casablanca had revealed that the cynical Rick had a sentimental, even a self-sacrificing streak. Better play the queen of hearts.

"Mr. Blaine," I said, all breathless, taking on pleading (ick) Mary Astor tones from The Maltese Falcon. Some of those thirties supposed femme fatales were manipulative wimps. "I've got to get out of Casablanca. The Nazis think I'm a spy. You know what they'll do to me. Mr. Ugarte said you had some letters of transit. I can pay whatever you want." I put a fake little catch in my voice that Sam Spade called Bridget O'Shaughnessy on in Maltese Falcon, widely available on DVD. "Whatever you want."

Rick Blaine's unfocused eyes raked me. "Yeah, I got the documents and you seem to have all the right accessories too."

Holy shit! Irma intruded. You've done your vamp act a bit too well. Let me handle this poor bastard for you. All of us girls have a bit of groupie in us. Except for you, Iron Virgin.

I tuned her out and concentrated on redirecting my source.

"I've got to get away to save my husband." Mention of a spouse usually put off the rogue womanizer and Rick had been forced to come to terms with Ilsa's marriage in the movie.

I saw some of that cinematic pain speed through Rick's glance. Then he reached into his suit pocket. For a precious visa I didn't really need?

He pulled out… a tiny case.

Rick frowned at the object. "This thing isn't what Ugarte left with me for safe-keeping. It's in the same pocket, though. I must be drunk."

I stared at what lay in his hand. It was wildly out of period with Casablanca, but not contemporary Las Vegas. It was my Lip Venom case, which I must have lost during the leap through the Egyptian goddess's moon-mirror headdress.

I'd been too woozy from crossing physical barriers to even notice it was gone.

"Ugarte said this was just what you needed," Rick droned on. "He said it was a matter of life and death that I get it to you. I feel like death, but I have. Mission accomplished, sweetheart. Now get out of my joint. I want to drown my sorrows in all that gin myself."

I edged off the bar stool and backed away, surprised and amazed and scared.

Peter Lorre-and somehow I thought the actor and not the CinSim had successfully struggled to escape his role to accomplish all this-had violated every physical law governing CinSims to get this to me, and had shaken Humphrey Bogart loose from his distant Inferno station to do it.

I wondered what the Invisible Man and his cohorts Sherlock Holmes and Ricardo Montalban would think of such a feat and what it could mean for a future CinSim insurrection.

Mostly I wondered whose life and death depended on my getting the message that Rick Blaine had brought me tonight.

Chapter Twenty-nine

"Loitering again?" a harsh voice asked.

I looked up, expecting Snow. He usually hassled me in the Inferno Bar.

Instead, it was his security chief, Grizelle, wearing heavy metal and black leather like a motorcycle nightmare goddess. The boss must be recovering from the Seven Deadly Sins performance. How do walking, strutting unhuman rock-star vibrators relax after the show?

The only things on my cell phone from my Karnak visit were photos. I needed more inside info on the Egyptians fast. The Internet would have that.

"I need a computer," I told Grizelle.

"They sell them online and at mall kiosks."

"Now. I need a computer right now!"

"Tough."

"It's a matter of life and death, at least so your CinSim over there says."

Her green eyes, brightened as they glanced Rick's way. They radiated fury.

"One of our CinSims? At large without permission? He must return immediately to his slot in the lower depths."