Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit Read online

I find myself expected.

  Karma is not hiding under the furniture, as is her wont. (These psychic types loathe daylight.) No, this time she is sitting there bold as a bronze statue of Bast. The gaze she casts upon me, though as gloriously blue as Miss Lieutenant Molina’s, is pure steel and just as caustic.

  She is a leggy rangy lady, her coat a longish soft cream shade and her mitts all gloved in pristine white. Yet she wears the brown facial mask of the formidable Siamese martial arts expert, which only emphasizes her blue-heaven eye color. While she is lovely to look at, one does not wish to annoy her. The breed is deemed sacred for defending a dalai lama against assassins ages ago. They have never forgotten it, nor should they. Nor do I. Hence their mystical gifts, if you believe in that sort of thing. I sort of do, despite my street sense. But at the moment she is crooning a not entirely welcoming song at me.

  “By the prickling of my pads, this way comes the king of cads.”

  “Oh, I say, Karma! That is harsh. If you are miffed that we have not had discourse lately, I have been mondo busy with various and sundry cases all across Las Vegas, from desert to downtown.”

  She emits a sound that wavers between a growl and a purr. No wonder we dudes do not stick around the females of my species. They are one tough house to please.

  I decide to play the mum dude-about-town and simply polish my nails on my shiny black sleeve.

  “Oh, very well. Come in.” She rises and leads the way into the dim room where vintage pieces of upholstery graze like bison of yore … huge, dark, shaggy, and humped. They are mostly mohair or covered in large jungle prints.

  No wonder a dude does not feel welcome in this dark, vaguely hostile homescape.

  “Miss Electra Lark?” I inquire politely.

  “Is absent.” Karma turns to give me another piercing look. “It is just we two.”

  “Somehow it is never ‘just we two’ when I consult you.”

  “Oh, so you have elevated me to a consultant. I thought you had dismissed me as a flake.”

  I raise a defensive mitt. “Now do not get your dander up. I have had more than one brush with the mantic arts.”

  “Your current case is hardly in that direction.”

  “No. It is a silly-sounding affair. These human kits are quite playful, you know, and the females are overpampered. In fact, our kind has become the mascot of their blooming femininity. Have you heard of the Hello Kitty and Pinkie’s Palace phenomenon? Everything pink and frothy and marabou and glittery for girls from three-to-thirteen is decorated with the more beauteous of the feline species.”

  “Crass commercialization. We are the superior species. We are not clowns.”

  I do not know about that. I have encountered some pretty big clowns in every species.

  We are in the room where the green globe on top of the fifties television cabinet shines like a cat’s eye at midnight.

  Karma sits down again, tucks her fluffy train around her feet like a thirties torch singer, doses her eyes, and begins to croon.

  “Very bad, Louie. I sense danger for all of the ‘little dolls’ under your protection, and now they are legion. Well, at least thirty or so. I see blood. I see many evil intentions. I see boiling oil. And that is just the normal course of events when so many competitive females are assembled together.

  “I see … oh, my! You will be subjected to much of the health food that you so unwisely deplore. I see weight loss.”

  “No! I need my fighting strength.”

  “Not yours, alas. I see … hidden ways and motives and means.”

  “Like what?”

  The blue eyes slit open. “That is for me to know and you to find out.”

  So, fine. I do not like the sound of blood and boiling oil, but at least they are forthright, unlike Karma.

  “You are warned,” she intones in her most inscrutable whine. “You will encounter three divine emissaries of Bast herself and an old ghost. You will find the way of the dog your most useful weapon. Your efforts will get no credit.”

  So what is new? I offer Karma a polite bow in farewell, taking care not to back into anything damaging to my undercarriage as I make my retreat.

  As with all seeresses, Karma is best understood in retrospect.

  Still, I have a few things to bear in mind. Particularly the boiling oil and the dog part.

  Chapter 8

  Separate Lies: The Sequel

  Little Red Riding Hood put on her visiting duds, picked up a basket, and walked through the woods to grandmother’s house, only a big bad wolf was waiting for her.

  That night, after failing to sleep, Temple put on her best red Dorothy shoes, low-heeled slides with rhinestoned vamps across the toes, packed a basket full of adult goodies like a French loaf of jalapeño-cheese bread, a bottle of Chianti, and cinnamon-scented massage oil, among other delicacies. She then got into her red Miata to drive to Max’s house, where a recently distracted wolf was not expecting her.

  She couldn’t explain her post-midnight raid on Max’s place, except that she wasn’t happy with their recent interactions, or lack of same. It was time to face the music and dance, like the song said. Or not. Either way, she’d know what the future held.

  The horse knew the way, although that was from another fairy tale, the one where grandmothers’ houses still lurked down rural lanes.

  The Miata’s hundred-some horses took her to Max’s neighborhood, all the houses decently dark. It was just past eleven P.M.

  She parked three doors away and watched her back as she approached the familiar front door.

  What she would do if he wasn’t home, she didn’t know. She also wasn’t sure he would be home. Max was up to something he wasn’t telling her about. She hoped it was something she could live with if she found out what.

  No huntsmen seemed to be lurking in the vicinity, a good sign.

  She rang the bell. Boldly. How else can you ring a doorbell at eleven P.M.?

  When the door swung open, Granny was nowhere in sight. Just Max in his usual black, looking surprised, then pleased, then … worried.

  “Temple.” He immediately grasped the purpose of the basket. “On a mission of mercy. To me. I could use it. Come in.”

  “I’m not disturbing you—?”

  “Oh, you are, but in the nicest of ways.”

  He led her into the living room where a talk show she seldom stayed up long enough to see dominated a wide plasma TV screen.

  “That’s new.” She pointed to the screen.

  “This is newer.” He dredged the blue velvet one-shouldered maillot swimming suit from her basket. It was 50 percent spandex and looked just big enough for a Barbie doll. “You want to hit the spa?”

  “Sort of the idea.”

  “I could use it myself but … there are reasons. Why don’t I just open the wine. You can get warmed up in all that hot water?”

  Actually, she was getting pretty warmed up without the aid of a hot tub.

  She changed into her suit in the guest bathroom, then brought the basket out to the deck where an underwater Blue Hawaii light lit the bubbling hot water from below.

  Heavenly!

  Temple hadn’t realized how worried she’d been about her impromptu expedition to Max’s turf until she slipped under the hot water. Aaaah. Who would have thought the young woman had so much tension in her?

  Two bubbles of glassware appeared on the drink indentations built into the spa’s side. Red wine, gleaming like Burmese rubies. Max sat on the hot tub lip.

  He tugged at her one blue velvet shoulder strap. “Can velvet get wet?”

  “Modern miracle, spandex for water babies.”

  He chuckled and offered her a cracker with cheese from her CARE basket.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d still be up,” she said.

  He gave that remark the long pause any inadvertent double entendre deserved.

  She laughed and sipped room-temperature wine, which felt cool compared to the hot tub.

  “I’m glad you
came,” he replied soberly, in kind.

  “We seem to have been passing like ships in the night lately.”

  “Agreed.” Max sipped from his wineglass, then spoke. Soberly. “I’m working up a new act. It’s secret. That’s why I’ve been so distracted. So absent.”

  “Ummm.” She put her wet arms up to clasp his stillclothed ones, cables of steel. “No wonder you feel like Superman. That’s wonderful! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know when I’ll be ready to make it public. Maybe not for … months. It takes—”

  “Discipline. Zen mania. Max! This is great news. I thought—”

  “What?”

  “That you’d lost interest in … things.”

  “In magic, or you? Never you. Am I now breaking my thirty-five-year-old back to make waves in the magic game? Yes. Guilty. I can’t say when my new apprenticeship will end. I have to make a spectacular comeback.”

  “Of course. I’m so glad. I thought you’d given up on magic.”

  “No.”

  “Well then.” Temple snuggled down into the churning water. The aquatic blue light reminded her of something? The Blue Light special at Kmart? “I have to tell you. I may be AWOL myself for, oh, a couple weeks or so.”

  “So long? Really?”

  She nodded, her chin dipping into a froth of bubbles.

  “I have to … go home. Minnesota. My dad. A minor cardiac thing. A stent? Anyway, they want me there.”

  “Of course.” He kissed the top of her head. “I hope your father is all right. I’ll miss you,” he said.

  What a liar she was! She didn’t deserve sympathy! At least Max wouldn’t worry about her.

  “I’m sorry, Temple.” His voice vibrated somewhere above her head but she felt it in her heart. “Things will be better later, won’t they?”

  “Absolutely. And now … they’re just perfect.”

  “Just perfect.” He pulled away to lift his wineglass as her fingers curled around the stem of hers. They drank ruby velvet.

  “Get in,” she said. “You don’t need a suit.”

  “Can’t. I’ve got a midnight appointment.”

  “With whom?” She hadn’t meant to sound sharp, she was just surprised.

  Max trailed a hand in the warm, bubbling water. It ran up her arm. “I’m working out in secret. Using the Caped Conjuror’s home setup while he’s dazzling the second-show set at the New Millennium. I can’t stay.”

  “But—”

  “But there’s no reason you can’t stay here and enjoy the spa. The door will lock automatically on your way out.”

  “I didn’t come here just to enjoy the bubbles.”

  “I know. And do you think I’ll enjoy several hours of working out twenty-five feet above a terrazzo floor on bungee cords?”

  “Max! It sounds—”

  “Dangerous? Yes, what I’m doing is dangerous, Temple.” His blue eyes looked opaque, black against the night’s own darkness.

  “But spectacular.”

  Max laughed. “If you mean I could make a spectacle of myself … . Comebacks are hell, Temple. You have to give up a lot, including your dignity. And a private life.” He bent down to kiss her. Her fingerprints made darker blots on his black sleeves.

  “Rain check? Ciao.”

  It almost never rained in Vegas but when it did, it was a gully washer.

  Temple floated in the spa’s programmed turmoil, feeling her internal boiling point mounting.

  Odd. The blue lagoon waters now reminded her of something less pleasant than tropical nights: Lieutenant C. R. Molina’s sharp, ever-watchful laser-blue eyes.

  But no one they knew was here. Now. Temple let the water roll her over as she turned to watch Max’s back disappear into his house on his way out.

  Magicians did that. Disappeared. For a living.

  Sometimes lovers did that too.

  Bitter disappointment made Temple rain two teardrops into the sizzling spa water. They instantly eddied away, lost in the sea of foaming warmth. Temple knew better than to feel rejected, but she did, dammit.

  Selfish Temple! She knew how hard Max worked at both of his professions. Now, at last, he was reclaiming the public persona of magician instead of being consumed by the invisible cloak of spy. Times were more perilous worldwide than they’d ever been and Max had been out there, was still out there, trying to prevent disaster.

  A game little woman would stand behind her man, even when he wasn’t there. Especially when he wasn’t there.

  Still … Her hand slapped the water. This time droplets jumped up at her eyes, stinging them into blinking.

  Blink. And Max had been gone without explanation. Blink. Lieutenant Molina had come asking brutal questions, painting the missing Max as a likely murderer. Blink. Enter Matt Devine, ex-priest, new neighbor, always there to help or tempt through no fault of his own.

  Love and fidelity were great … when a couple actually spent time together now and then. But Temple was no longer feeling loved, even if she was, and Matt—God, Max! Wake up and smell the latte!—was finally outgrowing all those years of celibacy and coming on to her with Intent to Commit Relationship.

  Temple laid her chin on her hands on the spa’s hard-shelled rim and let the swirling eddies float her body up, up, and away.

  Men! They were maddening. Eve must have wanted to strangle Adam when he’d blamed the Apple Incident on her! Temple bet Eve had missed becoming humankind’s first killer by … this much! Justifiable homicide, in her opinion.

  Like the song says: a total eclipse of the heart

  Chapter 9

  Bling-Bling Babies

  Molina sat, sober as a judge, on her comfy old living room sofa, reading for the fourth time the entry form that Mariah had filled out.

  She’d reached the fiction part now, Mama Molina’s own creation: Julio Sanchez, heroic off-duty cop killed helping a citizen change a flat tire on the side of the notorious Los Angeles freeway system.

  Would the TV-show staff research the contestants’ family histories? Or take them at face value?

  “You’re still not mad at me,” Mariah said hopefully from the armchair, where she lounged on her tailbone, petting Caterina.

  “Not mad. Disappointed.”

  Silence. Mariah was still new enough to teenhood to cringe a little at that word. Disappointment.

  Molina tossed the entry form aside, making a mental note to fax a copy to Temple Barr. Had to give the kid credit; she’d beat out a lot of candidates to get a chance at the reality show slot.

  Molina sighed and checked her watch. Mariah surreptitiously checked her mother’s face.

  Standing up, Molina stuffed her bare feet into moccasins. “Come on. The mall’s open until six. A Teen Queen wannabe will need some new duds for her stay at the Teen Queen Castle. In fact—” Inspiration hit. It was a galling inspiration, but then the whole situation was galling from the get-go.

  She drew her cell phone and hit a preprogrammed number. To this she had sunk.

  Mariah watched, blinking.

  “Yeah,” Molina told the phone when the ringing stopped. “Mariah and I are hitting the mall for some drop-dead Teen Queen garb. Maybe you’d better come along. Yes, it’s ‘kinda an order.’ Half an hour. Right. We’ll meet you at—?” Molina lifted interrogative eyebrows at her daughter.

  “Junior department at Dillard’s.”

  “Junior department at Dillard’s.” Molina flipped the phone shut and grabbed her buckskin hobo bag.

  “Who was that?”

  “Image consultant,” she said.

  “Who’d you know that I’d want having anything to say about my clothes?”

  “You’d be surprised.” Molina shot a smile Mariah’s way as she snatched the car keys from the kitchen countertop. “You go to all the trouble of being on a national TV show, no matter how tawdry, you ought to get a little help.”

  Molina felt naked as she followed Mariah into the dark garage. She wasn’t carrying tonight, fo
r the first time in a long time. It would have been too awkward. Mama needed a new pair of shoes, and then some too. She just hoped to heck that tonight was not the one some gang member decided to go postal in the mall’s Hallmark Card Shop.

  Temple Barr appeared to know the junior department as well as Mariah.

  In fact, Mariah had about three inches on the woman. Molina hoped she’d stop growing soon. But maybe too tall was no longer a female liability.

  Molina stood uneasily in the main aisle, eyeing rows of skirts the width of cummerbunds and see-through mesh tops skimpier than sports bras. The color and glitter were showgirl seductive, but there were so many clothes, and so little of them.

  For the first time she felt like her own mother.

  Red head and espresso-brown head bowed together over the racks, pulling out selections and tossing them over arms or thrusting them back onto the chrome poles, rather like blasé strippers.

  “Cool color.” “Oh, too rad.” “To die for.”

  The murmurs were both vapid and excited. Molina smiled, maternally, as she observed Temple and her daughter together. Temple acted like an older sister, caught up in the same girly ritual but far more sophisticated than Mariah with her cherubic halo of baby fat still intact, thank God.

  Good pick, Molina told herself. Temple Barr was exactly what she herself always had lamented not ever being—petite and pretty enough to pass as a teenager.

  Temple looked up as if Molina’s speculation about her was tangible and she’d felt it. Good instincts for an amateur. “Mama have a budget for this extended prom party?”

  “Whatever you think she needs.”

  Temple’s eyebrows raised, borrowing that tic from Molina. She consulted the two stapled sheets advising “contenders” on “what to bring.”

  “We are in plastic heaven, kiddo,” she told Mariah. “Let’s rock.”

  Two hours later they emerged from the dressing room, giggling like classmates on a spree. Temple’s arm held almost as many draped items as Mariah’s. That’s what Molina had hoped for: Mariah’s taste would clue in Temple on current hot teen items, and Temple’s PR influence would guide Mariah to what worked on TV.

  If Molina had cherished any reason but bodily safety to encourage a relationship between the two, she might even have found their bonding … sweet.