Cat in a Topaz Tango Read online

  “Like you?”

  “Like anybody who gets close to you.”

  “As if you ever did.”

  “As if you wouldn’t have run away if I hadn’t.”

  “Time-out,” Temple trilled from the backseat. Zoe Chloe could be an annoying little twit. “Rafi, you’re doing more than seven miles over the speed limit. Lieutenant Molina, you’re grilling our driver into excess mileage per hour.”

  “Oh, shut up,” they snapped in unison.

  Temple beamed.

  “Togetherness. That’ll get us shinin’ through, folks. Just remember that Zoe Chloe Ozone—that’s Ozone without an a-pos-tro-phee, Lee—is hanging loose although buckled in. I want to hear you two singing detecting duets, not long-lost lover laments.”

  Silence held as the SUV hurtled into the dotted-line darkness of the night’s open road.

  “Zoe Chloe is a brat,” Molina said. “Don’t overdo it.”

  “She’s a star.” Rafi chuckled. “I saw that Web site. Brats rule, dweebs drool, right, Zoe?”

  “Oh, you so get us crazy mixed-up Internet kids.”

  “Yeah, I do.” He was looking at Molina. “I ‘got’ our kid in a few minutes a lot better than you did in thirteen years, Carmen. She’s starstruck. She has some good pipes. It was predictable that reality TV thing would fire her up to try for more. You had the hots for performing once. Why weren’t you watching better?”

  Temple saw Molina literally squirm in her seat, pulling the seat belt away from her body as if it cut her. “Easy for you to say,” she hissed, almost with pain.

  Something was wrong. Molina was way too subdued. Way too defenseless.

  “Kids are tricky these days,” Temple found herself saying in Molina’s defense. “With cell phones, text messaging, and Internet access their secrets get bigger and go farther. Faster.”

  “Speaking of secrets”—Rafi put on his blinker to pass a lumbering RV—“what’s with the whacked-up Barbie dolls?”

  Cop talk Molina could do.

  “That showed up just before the Teen Queen reality TV show got going. A girl who was going to a shopping mall audition was strangled in the parking lot. A copier image of a mutilated Barbie doll was found near her. We never tied it into anything, though: the audition, the house, the later murder there. There have been similar incidents nationally since.”

  “And now a Barbie doll is planted in Mariah’s bedroom. I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I!” Molina sounded furious.

  “I meant I don’t ‘like it’ in the sense of it being plausible. It smells. It’s too obvious a tie-in, and showing up late too obviously lays a false trail. It reeks of an inside job.”

  “The incisive instincts of a hotel cop,” Molina jeered.

  Rafi kept very quiet, while Temple held her breath in the backseat. He was not going to let that pass, was he?

  Where Molina was all bark at the moment, though, he kept quiet, like a really big dog that doesn’t need to growl.

  “So what do you know about this Larry guy you’ve been nuzzling badges with since before the Teen Queen reality show, Carmen?”

  “You’re not suspicious of Alch.”

  “Solid, steady investigator. Your type. This Dirty Larry is not.”

  Temple tensed in the backseat. Rafi wasn’t as volatile as Molina, but he still packed a hard punch.

  Molina leaned her elbow on the inside door handle and cradled her cheekbone in her hand as if she had a headache. It was full dark and they were barreling straight into an oncoming stream of headlight meteors in the oncoming lanes.

  Molina’s tone was brusque, businesslike. “He’s the typical uncover type. Loner, a chameleon, craves adrenaline highs, maybe a bit fanatic, or egotistical, but has to be to seriously risk his life for months at a time. He’s been rotated to traffic accidents to cool down for a while.”

  “So how’d he show up in your private life?”

  Temple listened with both ears straining. The road sounds made it hard to hear in the empty SUV cabin. She peered over the seat back to see Molina’s frowning face.

  “Before the Teen Queen show,” she said finally.

  “Who came on to who?”

  “Whom!”

  He didn’t take the bait, but waited, watching the road, his eyes flicking to the side and rearview mirrors, not on her.

  “Nobody came on to anybody. He showed up,” she conceded. “I can’t remember why.”

  “Undercover guys are good at that.”

  “You saying he was working me?”

  “I’m asking. That Barbie doll in the bedroom makes everyone around Mariah a suspect. And you and Undercover Boy were a couple at the Teen Queen finals. Something new for you.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t check me out when you came to town.”

  “I didn’t look up your home address like some stalker, no. I did check out Our Lady of Guadalupe, chatted up the nuns, got a line on Mariah.”

  “How the hell did you manage that?”

  Rafi finally slid his gaze to her. “I can pass as Latino if I want to.”

  “I don’t believe this.” Molina buried her face in her left hand.

  “Don’t worry. You got all As. Wonderful mother and member of the parish, supportive, on the PTA. Such a delightful daughter, no sleazy men around your house. Guess they didn’t consider me sleazy.”

  “Who did you tell them you were?” Her voice was all steel again.

  “Cousin from L.A. Thinking of moving to Vegas. Needed a school for my young son.”

  Silence and the dark and the meteors of light hurling at them all like lightning bolts of truth. Temple held her breath.

  “Little pitcher has big ears,” Molina finally said, nodding behind her.

  Rafi glanced over his shoulder at Temple, right eyebrow raised, looking remarkably like Mr. Spock if he’d been played by Enrique Iglesias.

  “Good thing they are. Miss Barr is a real asset on this assignment.”

  Molina finally managed to keep her mouth shut

  Rafi winked at Temple over his shoulder.

  Emerald City Express

  Los Angeles was only three hundred miles away but it seemed as distant as the Emerald City in Oz.

  Facing the endless highway in the morning, when you needed mouthwash and had left a trail of gas station rest rooms behind you, the mirage of a huge, phantom city seemed to loom white and gray and glassy green under a haze of predawn heat.

  Midnight Louie was sleeping alongside Temple’s hip, just as he’d done at the Circle Ritz.

  Midnight Louie was sleeping alongside Temple’s hip, just as he’d done at the Circle Ritz.

  Temple screeched, waking Molina in the front seat. She turned her head to glare around the headrest. Nadir frowned as he looked over his shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

  Talk about waking up to a pair of grumps!

  Temple sighed. “Uh . . . nothing. Zoe Chloe Ozone has just acquired a purse pussycat.”

  Molina’s gel-roughened bob loomed over the front passenger seat’s back. She looked as happy as Godzilla on No-Doz. Eek!

  “Balls!” she said, getting into character.

  “He does still have them,” Temple admitted, “but they’re shooting blanks.”

  “God!” Molina was violating all of her bad language rules at once. “Can’t you go anywhere without that big old alley cat traipsing along? What’s your new bridegroom going to say in the honeymoon suite?”

  “I don’t expect him to be much into conversation,” Temple said as Zoe Chloe. “Chill, Cop Chick. This ole boy is a fab undercover op. Paris Hilton and her scrawny Chihuahuas are so over. Louie’s got claws and he knows how to use ’em.”

  Rafi Nadir chose that moment to chuckle.

  Molina turned on him like a whipsnake. “Our daughter is truant, missing, in danger . . . and you find a hitch-hiking cat a laughing matter?”

  Rafi cocked an eyebrow at Temple. He hadn’t missed the “our daughter” eithe
r. He wisely didn’t draw attention to the phrase. Instead, he went for sweet reason.

  “The cat’s great cover, Carmen. That Teen Queen Web site had a big mock Pink Panther podcast featuring the thing slinking around the competition house.”

  “The name is Louie, Midnight Louie,” Zoe added, pouting. “He is not a ‘thing.’ I can improvise his travel supplies at the next gas station store. It will only take a few minutes.”

  Molina glowered at her.

  “Come on, us people will have to make comfort stops.”

  “Just keep him riding shotgun in that big, zebra-striped tote bag of yours,” Nadir advised. “Now, where are we shacking up en route?”

  “Nowhere,” Molina said. “We drive straight through, find and grab the kid, and retreat. The story is she’s another of our stars.”

  “And we’re the entourage.” Rafi shook his head. “Our IDs?”

  Molina tossed him a packet while rolling her eyes. “Phony baloney time.”

  Rafi riffled through his new ID. “Raphael d’Arc, garage band impresario? Whoever cooked this up must have had archangels on the brain.”

  Molina frowned, then got the reference. “I called Buchanan and had him dream up these “hip” fake IDs so I could keep this expedition unofficial.”

  “And you are?” he asked.

  “Carmina Regina,” she read reluctantly, as if making a confession. “Ex-singer with the Paper Hangers and PR rep.”

  “Sure mangled your given and middle names, but we’ll respond more readily to identities that sound like our real ones. Smart. Cheer up, Carmina.”

  “You’re betting everything that Mariah will end up down the road at an audition.”

  “We can’t be everywhere.”

  “I sent out her school photo, but God knows what she looks like after all those ‘makeup’ parties she claimed to be going to.”

  “L.A., Phoenix, Denver, ’Frisco,” he said. “Those major urban centers have been savvy on runaway kids since the sixties. The cops there will see through any extreme makeup and clothes. They’re pros, like us.”

  Molina didn’t have the energy to challenge that “us” any more than she had “our daughter” a few minutes earlier. Instead, she bit her lip.

  Temple noticed that she’d been through a makeup session, too, probably from rookie cop days when she’d decoyed johns. The frosted lip gloss she wore made a lot more of her mouth than those dark forties lipsticks “Carmen” wore on the Blue Dahlia club stage. The make over meant she was pouting almost as much as Zoe Chloe. And Rafi Nadir was noticing.

  Interesting.

  Temple stroked Louie as she held him close in the big tote bag. She doubted he’d make an easy rider, but he needed to appear docile for the crowds and the cameras.

  Text for Two

  Their triumphal road show journey to the City of the Angels to find the delinquent little angel from the Molina residence was interrupted in the dawn’s early light by the unimaginative ring tone of Molina’s cell, which sounded just like an ordinary phone. Yawn.

  Molina stared at her cell phone screen.

  “It’s Mariah, thank God!” Jubilation and relief quickly became irritation. “But what is this, Aztec?”

  Temple held out a hand. “Let me see.”

  “You think you can read teen text messaging? I hate that! She knows it. Why couldn’t she have left a voice mail?”

  “Probably didn’t want you to hear the fear.” Temple frowned at the abbreviated words on the small screen. And here she’d never taken shorthand in high school because she’d thought it was career-limiting.

  “Basically, she’s saying that something became an ‘overniter’ and they had to stay in line or lose their place. She’s so ‘SorE’ but will ‘xpln’ later.”

  “No hint of where she is?” Molina demanded.

  “‘OK n LOFln.’”

  “Laughlin?” Rafi repeated. “That’s just ninety miles down the highway from Vegas. If we backtrack we can cut off forty-five miles of highway 95. Laughlin’s a time capsule of how Vegas used to be in the eighties. What’s Mariah doing there?”

  “‘AWdishn,’” Temple said. “Who knew phonetic spelling would ever become so hip?”

  “It’s a way for kids to avoid learning grammar and spelling and parts of speech,” Molina said. “Hip-hop rhymes are now ‘high’ literacy, emphasis on the street meaning of ‘high.’ ”

  “Lunacy,” Rafi added.

  Molina looked up sharply to check if his agreement was sincere.

  Temple wondered: if she and Matt had children, what strange symbols would they have to learn to communicate? Aliens R Us. And usually our kids.

  Rafi took the phone and, while Temple hung over his shoulder and Molina leaned in to watch, texted: “U sing? Whr R U?” He hesitated and added, “Rafi.”

  He shrugged at Molina. “I don’t know if she remembers me but I might come across less threatening than Ms. Policeman.”

  New letters appeared on the screen. “Kool, R. Not sing. Dance. Aquarius.”

  “As in ‘the age of’?” Molina asked, mystified.

  “Not cool, Mombot,” Temple said. “Lyrics from Hair date you back to the Stone Age.”

  “You mean the ‘stoned’ age.”

  Temple shrugged. “Well, it was the sixties. If I didn’t like vintage and theater, even I wouldn’t have gotten your reference. I wasn’t born yet! It’s High School Musical today, and maybe a revival of Grease, not Hair.”

  “U momma dont dance,” Rafi had texted back. “Me n Zoe meetya ther.”

  “KOOOL! LOUEE 2?”

  “LOUEE 2. Main dsk. 4 hrs OK?”

  “OK.”

  Molina glared at the cell phone screen, but breathed audible relief, then caught her breath and put a hand to her side. “At least she’s still a runaway, not a hostage.”

  “Temple and I will be first contact when we get to the Aquarius,” Rafi said. “It’s a major Laughlin hotel-casino. You hang back.”

  “You hang back! I’m her mother.”

  “That’s the problem. We don’t want her rabbiting. I’m just the security guy from the last place she was a talent contestant, and Temple’s an ex-roomie, a pal. We’ll find what’s going on, and why. Then you can sweep in and put her in cuffs.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It takes discipline to rear a kid these days.”

  “And being in top condition. Come on, Carmen, you’ve got a major pulled muscle, or worse. This race to the rescue hasn’t done you any good physically or mentally. Take some Aleve and make a late entrance as a reasonable woman. We’ll clue you in first.”

  “You are a bastard.”

  “Yeah, and I’m right.”

  Temple added, “Why finally find Mariah just to scare her off? You are the police. We’re not.”

  Molina’s hands scrubbed the expression of uncertainty off her face. “Fine. I agree that you two established a more peer-style rapport with Mariah at the reality TV house.” She eyed Rafi. “Keep it that way. You don’t tell her who you are unless I say so.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Silence rode shotgun with them all the way to Laughlin. They retraced their path on Highway 15, then took 164 east to pick up the last forty-five miles on 95 to Laughlin. The highway paralleled the snaking Colorado River as it flowed out of Hoover Dam. They drove until midmorning, when they finally hit a mini-strip of Vegas-style high-rise hotels. The buildings fronted the river, a distinctively non-Vegas look.

  This was a movie model Vegas, miniatures so far. Hotel towers loomed only sixteen or so stories high. The skyline looked less pretentious, less expensive, and more fun, like the old style Vegas, as Rafi had said.

  Louie had disdained the tote bag to recline on the seat next to Temple for the drive, but now he had his front paws braced beneath the side window, surveying Laughlin with them. He seemed pretty unimpressed.

  “Looks like the kid’s performing ambitions have gone down-scale,” Rafi noted.

  “Good!�
� Molina let her anger off the leash. “Upscale is more dangerous.”

  The hotel was a pipsqueak compared to the behemoths that now ruled Vegas yet the lobby was as swanky, with acres of gleaming marble, blazing crystal light fixtures, and a hubbub of echoing voices and luggage wheels.

  Molina paced outside the parked Tahoe under the entry canopy while Rafi and Temple in full Zoe personality bustled up to the desk, eyeing the snaking lines of guests checking in.

  Louie in his tote bag bumped Zoe’s sixties-patterned hip.

  “Jeez, Midnight Louise,” she complained under her breath. “It’s like dangling Big Ben in a sack from your shoulder.”

  With that, the tote bag contents shifted and twisted. Louie lofted down to the ritzy floor. In an instant he was a puddle of flowing black India ink, slipping out of sight among the huddled feet and backpacks and wheeled carry-ons, most of them black.

  “Oh, shoot!” Zoe cried. “Now we’ve got two of them missing.”

  But Rafi was edging expertly through and around the crowds, carving a path for Zoe and in hot pursuit of Louie.

  A second later the mobs of people lining the block-long reception desk started rearing back from their prime positions, wailing in dismay. Louie’s ears and tail could be glimpsed taking the high road down the marble desk, scattering credit cards, room cards, and pens as he went.

  “That cat dude knows how to cut a swath,” Rafi said. “Come on! I think he knows where we want to go.”

  At the end of the reception desk the exclamations and curses stopped abruptly.

  Zoe and Rafi broke through the last line, leaving hurt toes and feelings behind them, to see an empty floor. Only a short desk for selling show tickets sat ahead. It took a moment to spot Louie atop it, looking as if he’d just pulled a photo of a magician on a placard out of a hat.

  “Louie Too!” Mariah screeched. She shot into view from the right, trying to embrace the big black cat, who ducked expertly behind the placard to avoid having his fur mussed.

  Temple stopped dead. “We’ve found her! And she looks perfectly all right. Perfectly normal.”

  “Yeah,” Rafi said behind her, his tone pleased. “But don’t let looks fool you. Kids this age are never perfectly normal.”