Cat in a Topaz Tango

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “Good. That’s the best-case scenario.”

  “And the worst?”

  “That the worst will find her before we do.”

  We.

  Temple got it. Zoe Chloe Ozone, unintended hottie Internet freak, could go anywhere on-and off-line, and snoop.

  “The black wig, again?”

  “Blond never did it for Zoe. She lost the competition’s final performance as a blonde. Black is the best disguise.”

  Temple absorbed all the bad news. Given the prominence of teen and preteen female pop stars, it was only natural that talented kids like Mariah would want to try it. Back in the film industry’s silent days, pretty girls as young as fourteen flocked to Hollywood, snagging adult roles. Many had their mothers, as stage-happy as their daughters, along as managers.

  Temple studied Molina, grim, hollow-eyed, strained. She’d obviously been ill, and now this. Of course, a starstruck girl would hardly want even a healthy police lieutenant as an accomplice. Mother and daughter’s common singing talent was working to separate, rather than unite, them. That was a pity. Or . . . could it ultimately carve out some common ground?

  Would Matt want his fresh new fiancée reviving this oddball persona? Why not? He sympathized with single mother Molina and knew Temple had a nose for the nefarious.

  “I’m between freelance assignments,” Temple said. “What do Zoe and me do first?”

  “First, I squeeze Crawford Buchanan of any iota of information the creep might have.”

  “That sounds . . . rewarding.”

  “It better be. An interrogation room is the place for it but we have no time. Alch has softened him up by now, so a tough impromptu grilling here should do the job.”

  “The Crawf and all his works do need explaining.” Temple smiled to picture him on the receiving end of a Mad Mama Molina grilling.

  Mariah’s absence was troubling, but probably a harmless kiddie prank that would resolve quickly. Watching Crawford Buchanan’s slimy soles being put to the fire before the happy ending? Priceless.

  Grilled Crawfish

  “Lieutenant,” Buchanan whined, “I’m just a local media personality. Ask anyone around town. I’m a pussycat.”

  Molina studied the man sitting in Mariah’s desk chair. He resembled a pretentiously hip wolverine. He was just this side of greasy, one of those small, dandyish men blessed with huge egos and an old-time radio actor’s deep voice.

  “Aren’t pussycats predators?” she asked.

  “Me?” For an instant he became a mouse. “No, sir! I mean, ma’am. I’m an impresario. I give these kids a chance to sing on my radio show. Do a two-minute routine: ‘Vegas Voices of Tomorrow.’ It’s going to lure American Idol out here next season. Paula, Simon, Kara, the black guy. Our local talent will be presold.”

  “You have more than a radio show. You have a Web site.” Molina hadn’t sat. She liked to loom. She bent to activate the mouse roller ball. Mariah’s computer flat-screen flashed open on Buchanan’s Teen Queen Dream ’n’ Scream site. “Looks a lot like you’re selling teen girl pinup photos.”

  Molina was clicking through photo after photo of kids who’d gotten themselves up to look like Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears before she became Britney Bombed-out. She paused the cursor on one eager young chipmunk face highlighted with glitter makeup.

  “This one is my daughter. My way, way underage daughter. How’d she get her photo on your site?”

  “Uploaded it. And . . . and lied about her age.” He swallowed hard.

  “You’re saying my daughter is a liar?”

  “I’m saying she knows how to spin a résumé. They all do it, add a few years. If you wait until you’re eighteen on a singing or acting career nowadays, you’re Methuselah.”

  “Why are you running this site?” Molina asked.

  “That’s the site motto. See? Teen Queen Candy-dates. Tomorrow’s Stars Today. “

  “You do this for free?”

  “No, the site costs something. The girls pay a small fee to be featured.”

  “How small?”

  “Uh, just one-fifty.”

  “One hundred and fifty dollars? Where’d these kids get that kind of money?”

  “Usually their parents. Every mom’s a stage mother these days.”

  “Not this mother.”

  That shut him up for a few precious seconds.

  “I’m a DJ,” he said. “I also cover Las Vegas attractions, pop culture. I can’t help running across new talent. There are reputable agents in L. A., Phoenix, Seattle, Denver, the whole Left Coast, who check with me on fresh talent here in Vegas. In the old days, a young talent had nowhere to go but nowhere.”

  Molina straightened. Her back ached, as well as her side. Nowadays, at her age, it numbed her rear to perch on a stool at the Blue Dahlia to sing the oldies. She was a never-was who fiddled around sometimes. The creep had a point about ultra-early starts. That didn’t mean wanna-be performers weren’t targeted by predators.

  “The Web is cheap, accessible,” Crawford was saying. “These auditions are legitimate. All the major media want fresh talent. Network talent shows, cable TV, the networks, movies. An ordinary person could be king, or queen. The wanna-bes may have more of a chance than ever before but they still need a platform and a facilitator. That’s what I do.”

  “You’re the next Dick Clark.”

  Crawford Buchanan ran a neat manicured hand through the froth of silver curls at his nape. Even wolverines preened. She supposed someone found them cuddly and cute.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m a matchmaker between the average kid with superior talent and the big, bad world out there.”

  “Then where is my kid?”

  His narrow shoulders sagged as he realized that one of his online protégés who was following her star was a police person’s missing daughter. “She’s a good little trouper with a nice big voice, if I remember rightly.”

  “You’d better remember damn rightly, Buchanan, because you are going to be my guide into the girls-gone-glitzy world. Where would she have gone to further her so-called career?”

  He grimaced. “L. A., maybe? There’s an all-talent, mega-audition next weekend. Singing, dance, acting, the whole ball of media stardom. Winners of other regional auditions can pile up points competing with another area’s pool of wanna-bes.”

  “Next weekend? What’s she going to live on? Who’s she going to depend on?”

  “They’re, uh, real go-getters, these kids. Great at improv. Hang out with each other, get tips.”

  “So do street kids. Do you have any idea how many parents would like a piece of your smarmy, sorry ass? That’s not including the jail-house rodeo riders you’ll be meeting in stir.”

  His face went as white as the silly froth of curls at his nape. “Oh, Lieutenant, sir, I will do anything I can to cooperate. I have, uh, local references.”

  “Like, uh, what? Who?’

  “Uh. Temple Barr, right here in your house.” He nodded to the hall. “Yeah. Lead PR lady around town. She can vouch for me. Knows I’ve been getting sweet personal appearances for my stepdaughter—well, it’s not official with her mother, but kinda stepdaughter—Quincey. She played Priscilla at the Elvis tribute impersonator event at the Kingdome not too long ago. Quincey is a boxing ring girl at Caesar’s and getting some real good leads out of that.”

  “And the original Priscilla was not a rock star’s underage child plaything?”

  “No, sir. No, ma’am! It was olden days, but the King did it right. Besides, he was from a rural culture, like Jerry Lee Lewis, and they married young girls young then. Not your daughter, of course! She is purely a commercial property at this stage. I mean, too valuable to mess with. These girls get on Excess Hollywood, for God’s sake. Quincey would give her scheduled boob job for a chance like Mariah’s getting. Ouch! What the hell was that for?”

  Molina had slapped the back of his head in farewell, NCIS TV show style, which she hated but which seemed the only approp
riate reaction to a cad who would pimp out his teen “sorta” stepdaughter as a boxing ring girl.

  She plucked him up by the scruff of his sport coat collar and steered him out of Mariah’s room, pleased she hadn’t plastered him against one wall and cut off the air to his sleazy wolverine windpipe. But no doubt she was being unfair to wolverines.

  Wolverine Dreams

  Molina walked Buchanan into the hall, slammed him against the wall, and told him to “Stay.”

  In the living room, Morrie Alch was waiting with Temple Barr, who’d been disappointed not to sit in on the interrogation. Did that woman have any boundaries? Probably not, which was why she was just the girl for this undercover job.

  Molina spoke first. “I’m getting the germ of an idea to go undercover and track Mariah down, but nobody is going to like it, including me.

  “Alch, I want your mouth shut on everything for now. Tell command I’ve had a relapse. Pneumonia, but I refuse to go to a hospital. The Iron Maiden strikes again. Infectious. Home nursing care.”

  “Can’t I help besides a cover story?”

  “You’ve done enough. Keep it shut and I’ll be forever grateful, if maybe not useful to your career.”

  “Barr.” She eyed Temple as sternly as an underling, and sighed. “You’ll be doing your Zoe Floozy Ozone routine. Get your gear and act together. I’ll be at your Circle Ritz place in about four hours and I won’t be in a good mood. We may have to drive all over that audition map on the weasel’s Web site, L.A., Albuquerque, Flagstaff, so take a week’s worth of stuff along, including your cell phone, laptop, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, black wig. And the usual chutzpah.”

  “That’s it? That’s all I know?”

  “You’ll be briefed plenty en route.”

  “What about him?” Alch nodded down the hall to the self-absorbed Buchanan, who was repeatedly roughening his gelled hair so it stood up in porcupine spikes. He looked like a spiny sea urchin rather than a cool dude.

  “Let him go,” she told Alch, “with the notion that he’s under twenty-four-hour observation and needs to be available on an instant’s notice, which he will be and does.”

  “All right, but Lieutenant.” Alch eyed Temple uneasily. “What about . . . DL?”

  For a moment Molina managed to look utterly blank. As if Temple Barr wouldn’t guess Alch was referring to Dirty Larry. Then she got decisive.

  “For now, tell DL I’m on compassionate leave and I’ll be in touch.”

  “But, Carmen!”

  She stared him down.

  “Right, boss. And someone’s been holding on the landline for you. Wouldn’t hang up.

  “I don’t need ‘someone’ distracting me right now.”

  Alch shrugged. “You never know. He sounded pretty intense. Might have seen Mariah.”

  Molina sighed theatrically, winced at what such a deep breath did to her pain threshold, and stomped into the kitchen, Alch trailing her.

  She paused to turn that basilisk gaze on Temple.

  “Better get going fast. I’ll come by the Circle Ritz sooner than you’d like. You don’t want to forget a false fingernail that Ms. Ozone requires, so you can mentally pack on the drive home. And tell them at the Ritz, including your light of love, Matt Devine, you’re visiting relatives for a few days. We’re going on the road.”

  Shotgun Reunion

  Carmen Molina was definitely starting to believe in karma.

  The “intense” voice Alch had heard on the kitchen phone was indeed known to her.

  “What’s this about Mariah?” it asked.

  Rafi’s voice was loud and clear so it would carry over the clink, clang, and conversation of a hotel casino.

  “How’d you hear about it at the Oasis?” Molina asked.

  “Private cops monitor police radio bands. I heard ‘kid.’ Alch radioing he was on the way. I heard ‘missing.’ And I got a chill up my spine.”

  There was no point in dodging this very unpleasant bullet.

  “Your spine is right. Mariah’s gone off on some stupid kid quest for ‘stardom.’ All her own idea from the evidence, but we don’t want her preyed upon.”

  “Preyed upon? She’s already missing! Jesus, Carmen, how’d you screw up this badly? I thought at least you were a good mother, that you of all people would know the score when it came to responsibly supervising a teenager.”

  That “at least” stung more than she should have let it, but she was still hurting from the long slash wound, not to mention her own internal accusing voice.

  “What do you mean, a quest for stardom?” he went on.

  “You’d better come to my house. It’s easier to see than talk about.

  We’ve got an informal task force assembled. It’s a fine line right now between putting out a wide-enough net for her, and one not so huge it’ll spook her to run farther, faster.”

  “Where is your house?”

  “What? You didn’t check that out the moment you realized I lived and worked in Vegas?”

  “I’m not a stalker, just a damn surprised father despite myself.”

  She didn’t comment, only gave him the street address and directions from his apartment as efficiently as some receptionist.

  She shut her eyes momentarily after hanging up the phone.

  Morrie Alch was leaning on her breakfast bar, watching her like a loyal Scottish terrier. “That Daddy Dearest?”

  “Yup. Private cop at the Oasis. Heard some buzz on the police radio and thought of us.”

  “He’s coming here? That’ll be interesting.”

  “Yeah. Let me put a final scare into this Buchanan creep and get his every contact method before I kick him out.”

  He eyed Dirty Larry slouched on the living-room sofa. “Mr. Undercover Guy fetched a snitch list from his car and is now calling informants who hang out at the bus station. Good idea.”

  “His idea. He didn’t get any info from the neighbors?” she asked.

  “Nada. He know about Nadir?”

  She shook her head.

  “You want me to clue him in?”

  “Thanks, but it’s my responsibility.”

  “You must be beat by now,” Alch said.

  “Beat up, more like it. By myself. How could I have missed that Mariah was being way too sweet and helpful to her down-for-the-count mama, all the while scheming to make her break for fame and fortune? I should never have let her compete in that goofy reality TV show. Still, she’d showed some initiative in picking a goal and going for it. I thought that would be the end of it. Where do they get these ideas?”

  “It’s in the air nowadays. Next thing my married daughter will be racing off to that runway supermodel hunt show, although she doesn’t make the age, height, and weight requirement.”

  Molina managed a weak smile. “I can handle Rafi. He’s actually showing paternal inclinations. More than I’d like, especially now.”

  “You gave him a raw deal.” Alch’s dark, dog-loyal eyes had gone paternally stern. “Not telling the guy, just running off. Kinda like Mariah here.”

  “Shut up, Morrie. I’ m not in the mood.”

  “I’m just saying, Lieutenant.” He ambled off to give her room and time to stew in her own juices.

  She hustled Buchanan to the door, where she pumped all his phone numbers into her cell before shoving him out, while Larry ambled down the hall for another check of Mariah’s room.

  He returned to join Alch sitting on the couch. The place looked cramped with three adults around, and empty beyond belief with Mariah not about to race down the hall screaming for a missing hair scrunchie or a fresh uniform blouse.

  Carmen found her deadliest enemy, emotion on the job, almost strangling her.

  She was a cop. A homicide lieutenant, for God’s sake! She had to tackle this like any other case or she’d be no good to anyone, most of all Mariah.

  She checked her watch: 11:30 P.M. Three hours since she’d discovered Mariah was gone, three hours until Matt Devine was off wo
rk and probably on the phone with his fiancée. She’d bet Temple Barr would tell him what she was doing.

  Great! Another person to add to the jury of her peers so ready to condemn her.

  She checked her watch again. Under the pain of stitches pulled by her tensed stomach muscles and severe stomach acid, she was dreading Rafi coming here, into her life with both feet and a right to be angry.

  The knock on her front door made her start. One knock. The minimum.

  “I’ll get it.” Alch was nearest the door and opened it while Rafi still had his back turned to the house, checking out the neighborhood, the parked cars.

  He spun around like a wary prizefighter to take in Alch, Larry Podesta, even the two cats weaving around all the alien legs, sniffing. With his swarthy Lebanese-American looks and wearing the plain dark suit of a hotel security supervisor he looked like a sinister FBI man. He spotted her last.

  “Carmen.” Said with a curt nod. Everyone’s eyes snapped to him. Most had never heard anyone call her Carmen.

  Now came the ugliest moment. All hers. She turned to the two men in the room.

  “This is Mariah’s father, Rafi Nadir. He works security at the Oasis Hotel. Alch, take him to Mariah’s room and cover the bases.”

  Dirty Larry had stood, a junkyard dog uneasy about the unexpected stray on his watch.

  Rafi sensed the possessiveness immediately. “I know him”—he nodded at Alch—“from the reality TV house.” Then he eyed Dirty Larry. “And this is?”

  Molina would not have believed she’d ever see two guys getting territorial over her, or, rather, over her house and daughter. She segued into the needed introductions.

  “Dirty Larry’s usually undercover. That’s the name he goes by.”

  “Wait. You were at the reality TV show finals too,” Nadir said. “With Molina” was left unspoken.

  Larry nodded. “I saw you there too. You weren’t a guest or family member. What for?”

  “Freelance security.”