Meeting Mr. Wrong
Molina’s instincts had made her crave neutral ground, but she couldn’t think of any.
She’d called the Oasis Hotel, where he purportedly held a security job now.
Darned if she didn’t get a secretary. To avoid leaving the telltale physicality of a written message, she had to identify herself.
“Certainly, Lieutenant. I’ll page Mr. Nadir at once. He should call you back in a couple of minutes, if nothing urgent is under way.”
Molina snorted after the woman hung up. Nothing would be more urgent to Rafi Nadir than this call.
She paced in the homicide unit’s tiled women’s restroom, holding one hand to her touchy stomach. No one usually came in here between shifts. It was 7:00 A.M. Monday. She’d come in early to make this call. Her wound still squealed at any stretching movement. She was worn ragged from concealing her condition and lying to everyone about her absence for a week a month earlier.
Still, she needed to pace, cradling the cell phone against one shoulder, waiting for it to ring.
“Carmen?” His voice was low. He was holed up somewhere semiprivate too. Lord!
“We need to talk privately,” she told him.
“Not much of that in Las Vegas.”
“What about your place?” Better his than hers.
“I’m not where you visited before—”
“I know.”
“All police, all the time,” he said.
“You got it.”
“I’m on night shift.”
“Morning. Nine A.M.”
“Ten.”
“Done,” she said.
“Tomorrow. Tuesday,” he said.
Same old, she said, he said.
“You got it.”
“You want to hint what this is about, Carmen?”
“What has it always been about?”
“Fine. Tell me when you get there. You want directions?”
She’d let him tell her, a pulse in her neck throbbing. She really didn’t feel up to this. But if she waited to feel better about it, it would never happen.
Now it was Tuesday morning, and everything about the visit made Molina uneasy.
She’d debated between taking her personal Volvo or a cop car. She hated having her personal license plate on display outside Rafi Nadir’s house, but a police plate was worse. It was daylight. She’d have preferred the dark of night. But he worked then. Couldn’t be helped.
She’d driven the neighborhood first, looking for parked cars with people in them. Nada. Nobody under surveillance.
The house was modest, not more than fifteen years old, the first edge of the wild housing boom that had hit Vegas and environs like a whirling dervish and had not stopped until the mortgage bust. Now the Strip was booming with obscenely priced high-rise condominiums, like Miami Beach, and sales had nearly stopped.
Rafi’s house was distinctly low-rise. Still, it was as respectable as her twenties bungalow in Our Lady of Guadalupe parish. She could have afforded something modern and sleek in the suburbs, but she’d wanted Mariah to know her Hispanic roots, to be part of a real community that only church, school, and home within walking distance can provide. Call it old-fashioned . . . being a single mother gave her the opportunity to do what she believed in, no questions asked. By nobody.
She walked up to the door, facing north, smart in this climate. On the other hand, when you barbecued supper in the backyard, you broiled too. The idea of Rafi barbecuing was so funny, she smiled.
Unfortunately, she was caught in the act when he opened the door before she could ring the bell.
“So this is a social visit,” he said, raising dark, heavy eyebrows.
“Sorry. I was thinking of something else.”
“And that makes you smile. Come in, anyway.”
She entered like a cat, slowly, sniffing out the atmosphere. Also, she didn’t move that fast with eighty-some stitch scabs still pulling at her side and stomach.
The new carpet was a pale sunset color, beige-peach. Developers and people who wanted to sell their homes loved those blah neutrals. The walls were off-white. They were in a cathedral-ceilinged main room-den with an eating bar dividing it from the small kitchen.
Everything was tidy. Tidier than Casa Molina. No kid, no cats, no working mother in residence.
Rafi was wearing khakis and a black T-shirt. There were dark circles around his eyes—swarthy skin was prone to that—but he looked trimmer, tauter. Funny, he was looking better and she was looking worse.
“You still like calorie-free Dr Pepper?” he asked.
“I can drink it.”
He popped two cans and brought her one.
After eyeing the seating pieces, low, beige, and cushy, she opted to hike one hip on one of the three barstools drawn up to the den side of the eating bar. She wasn’t about to mire herself in upholstered furniture when she couldn’t be sure of pushing herself up again without a slight struggle or a grunt of pain.
Rafi leaned on the counter behind the raised eating surface like a bartender.
“So what do I owe—?”
“We need to talk, I told you. I don’t want to do this right now. About you meeting Mariah. It’s not a good time for me.”
“And Mariah, when would it be a good time for her?”
“In my book? Never.”
He just watched her. That was different. He’d never been wary before.
“I don’t suppose there’s any point in denying anything,” she said after a bracing sip of Dr Pepper. She hadn’t had one since . . . well, since the day she’d decamped without warning, without word. Leaving L.A. fourteen years ago.
He sighed. “Why’d you do it, Carmen? It was bad enough what we were both going through in the department. Then, bang. You’re gone. Most of your things are gone. No reason. No message. No way to trace you. A cop knows how to disappear.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“The kid? But you didn’t run home. I didn’t think so, but I checked. Why run? You thought I’d want you to get rid of it? You, pregnant? That’s one possibility I never even dreamed about. You made plain from the first no kids, no accidents. I can see that a pregnancy would shake you up, but you could have at least consulted me. That’s all I can think of. You didn’t ask. Maybe I would have said have an abortion then. I don’t know. That’s the problem. I had a right to know.”
Her forefinger pulled a drop of condensation from the soft drink can into a long tail on the eating bar Formica. “That’s the thing. I didn’t think you’d want me to abort. I thought you’d fixed it so I got pregnant without my knowledge and cooperation.”
“Me. Got you pregnant? How? Sure, foam and condoms have failure rates. That’s why you used a diaphragm too. God, it was like having sex in a bubble bath every time. Sure, we hadn’t talked about it. But . . . man, I had enough problems on the job, like you did. Baby was the furthest thing from my mind. You were escaping the tension starting up your singing gig, and I was helping you. Don’t you remember? We’d comb those funky L.A. vintage shops, trolling for movie star leavings. We invented ‘Carmen.’”
It was his turn to write an invisible word in a drop of cold water. “Yeah, we were stressed. The brass was loading us with shitwork, the Anglos were on both our tails. Why would I want a baby in a situation like that! I don’t want a baby now.”
“You do. You want access to my baby!”
“She’s a kid. Not a baby. Very fast getting not to be a baby, Carmen. And she’s my kid. She’s got my eyes. Freaked me when I first saw her. Maybe some chin too. You got pictures?”
“Pictures?”
“Baby pictures.”
“Yes. But I didn’t think to bring them. Sorry, daddy dearest.”
“So why did you think I made you pregnant deliberately?”
“I couldn’t believe it when it happened. You know we weren’t ready. I sure wasn’t. I couldn’t believe my diaphragm had failed. I examined it up against the bathroom fluoresce
nt. There was a minute pinhole in it.”
Silence.
Rafi slammed his pop can off the counter. It clattered to the cheap vinyl floor and rolled, spewing brown fluid like tobacco juice.
“And that’s it? Convicted without trial, without an interrogation even? You think I was running around with a needle sticking holes in your diaphragm? Are you crazy, woman? We didn’t need that. I didn’t need that. Why the hell would you even think that?”
Suddenly her reasoning seemed weak, stupid, insulting even.
“I was doing better with the force. They were getting the message that they needed some token women, and I wasn’t buckling on the ‘hood patrol like they’d thought. Hoped.”
She looked up from drawing in her new water blob. “I knew I was in line for a promotion. And you weren’t. I knew you wouldn’t be happy about that. I figured you had figured it out too, and wanted to put me out of the running.”
He took all that in, ignoring the still rocking pop can.
“You knew and you figured. Wrong. No, I wouldn’t like the gender card dealing me out. Yeah, I’d be mad. But I wouldn’t have sabotaged you. Some of my Anglo ‘peers,’ maybe, if I’d have a chance. But not you. That’s it? Our whole lives off track because you assumed I’d trick you. Usually it’s the woman who pulls that ‘Gee, I’m pregnant’ stuff.”
“That was the last thing I’d wanted, and I was really pissed, because I couldn’t ditch all that Catholic upbringing. I couldn’t do an abortion.”
“Sorry now?”
“No.”
“I’m not either.”
She caught her breath, which hurt like Hades.
“Yes, I’d like to meet my daughter besides on a crime scene. I got to know her a little at that Teen Idol reality TV show. I’d decided she was an okay kid even before I figured it out. Yes, you can break it to her gently. Doesn’t she wonder about her father, for crissakes?”
“No. I told her he was a policeman who’d been hit and killed by a drunk driver while helping a stranded motorist.”
“At least that’s a likely story. And what’d you do for photos of the hero dead dad?”
“I clipped a newspaper story, told all about it. The funeral, everything. I told her that was the only memento I could bear to keep.”
“At least you told her that he was a cop.” Rafi laughed in disbelief. “Written out of my own life. You did a good job.”
“I can’t keep you out of mine, though, can I?”
“I just want to meet my daughter. Spend some time with her. What you did put me in a tailspin, Carmen. I blew everything. Yeah, I did that, but did you ever stop to think what disappearing like that without explanation did to me? I followed up on every unidentified female body around L.A. for years. I didn’t dare report it, because you took your stuff, but I couldn’t believe you’d leave me without a reason.”
“I had one.”
“A freaking fairy tale.” He looked up at her, hard. “I’m not letting you off the hook. I have parental rights, and I want them. I’ll keep it quiet, if you will. I didn’t deserve what you did to me.”
“Maybe . . . not.”
“You can be lukewarm about it, but it’s almost fifteen wasted years of my life. I’ve got some friends now. I don’t have to fall back on the freaky edge of being a bitter ex-cop. I’ve got a new job and I’m pretty good at it. Private cops get better pay and more respect. There’s no reason you shouldn’t let me have a small part in my daughter’s life.”
“No.”
“No? You’re not fighting me on this?”
“No.”
“Something’s happened.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re not going to tell me. Someone pressuring you to let me into Mariah’s life?”
“Only you.”
“A thrown pop can isn’t much pressure, Carmen.”
She managed a small smile. “It wasn’t much of a temper tantrum, either. No, I’ve reconsidered, realized that I might have been wrong. I have no reason not to believe your version of events, unless you give it to me.”
He laughed again. “ ‘Version of events.’ Cop talk is not the only way to communicate, you know.”
“I know. But I need some time.”
“Time! I’ve wasted almost fifteen years.”
“A little time. There are a couple of loose ends I have to tie up, at work and at home. Then we’ll . . . arrange something. Since Mariah met you while you were on guard duty, it might be best to build on that, not tell her right away. She’ll be mad, but you said you bonded a little at the reality TV house. That’ll win her over. She’s crazy about a TV singing career.”
“She’s got some pipes. Next she’ll be going for American Idol.”
“So she says.”
“Kinda like you. Determined. You got determined in the wrong direction about me.”
She pushed herself upright, sighing. He never suspected she was in pain.
“I guess.”
“We need to talk more about that. It’s important.”
She looked at him for the first time. The man she’d been in like with, at least. Maybe not right for her for the long haul, but worth something then, or they’d have never gotten together.
“You’re looking good, Rafi.” She smiled as his wary facial tension collapsed with utter surprise. “That hotel security job sounds like a new start. That’s what Vegas is for. The gambler.”
He came around the barrier to see her to the door.
“You’re way different from what I thought.”
She turned on the threshold. “Maybe you are too.”
He was still gaping after her when she left, a little giddy on inner and outer pain, pain pills, and revised attitudes.
Ex Marks the Spot
Time was flying and Temple was getting desperate.
She found it mildly suspicious that Ralph set up the bachelor party and it was his girlfriend who bribed the driver to turn the limo over to her. But Asiah had been pretty open about the bribe and also about her lack of interest in roping a Fontana brother into matrimony.
Temple meandered back into the kitchen, sensing the tension in the parlor and bar areas as she passed through. The police would have to be called soon. Then, at least, some of the suspects could be cleared enough to be sent home.
Matt had stood as she’d passed through the bar, his face tense. It was now almost noon on Tuesday. He had to be on the air, live, by midnight.
She needed a sign, something to put her on the trail of a disloyal or maybe just royally misguided girlfriend. They were listlessly hanging out around the large homey kitchen table and sitting on the quartet of stools at the eating bar. The radio was playing country and western plaints. The girls looked tired, bored, and rebellious.
One of them must have gone very wrong, but which one?
Life coach Meredith; Wanda, the honey-blond massage therapist; raven-haired Judith, the runway model; white-blond Jill, a pharmacist; the mahogany redhead who trained horses, but maybe hoped to control her Fontana brother, Alexia; Tracee, the superfit Pilates instructor; Evita, a ventriloquist who could certainly call in sick for a missing chauffeur, or Asiah, right Jill-on-the-spot to drive the huge silver boat and its unknowing cargo to a totally wrong location.
But Temple didn’t think it would take a ventriloquist to ensure that a driver call in sick. All the women had probably shown up at Gangsters to hook up with their guys a time or two. All would be familiar with the operation, even with the drivers.
The women eyed her with weary disinterest. Wanda yawned.
Eeny, meeny, miney . . .
All at once, Temple’s glance was drawn by a motion on the carpet. A fat black tail extended from under the kitchen table. Two feet away, so did a fluffy one. And another narrow one and a fluffy one. Her first glimpse of Louie, showed him in cat cahoots with Midnight Louise and cathouse mascot Baby Blue, but whose was the fourth tail?
The tips were twitching ever so slightly. In time. If
the radio hadn’t been playing, Temple could have heard the tap, tap, tap of feline impatience.
Not impatience, signaling!
Because every tail pointed in one direction: to the breakfast stool on which one Fontana girlfriend in particular sat slumped and unhappy.
“Come with me,” Temple said. She knew better than to ignore a four-feline Ouija board reading. “You might be able to answer a few questions.”
Temple wasn’t sure what ethnic gene occasionally produced blinding white hair in children that lasts into adulthood. She’d seen a few only in Minnesota, so it was no wonder that Jill’s last name was—”
“Johanssen, right?” Temple asked, spelling it out.
“That’s right!” Jill sat up a bit straighter. “That’s amazing. No one gets the double s and the en ending.”
“That’s because I’m such an ace detective,” Temple said, dead serious.
Jill began fidgeting with her nails, which were filed short and square, not typical for a Fontana brother girlfriend. Nor was her petite frame. Or her profession of pharmacist. Jill was striking but not sensational.
“I hear Giuseppe is crazy about you.”
Jill laughed uneasily. “So they say.”
“Don’t you know?”
“What girl does? Especially with those guys? I mean, they have all these glamorous girlfriends.”
“Including you.”
“I’m not glamorous. The others, sure. I’m the odd woman out.” Jill glanced at Temple’s platform mules. “You know what I mean. You’re a shrimp too, and they’re all sailfish.”
Temple narrowed her eyes. “I know you did it.”
“I didn’t!”
“Didn’t what?”
“What you think.”
“Which is?”
“Whatever you think.”
This was getting nowhere. Temple’s interrogation skills were nil. Of course, she had no authority.
“Listen, Jill, the police are going to regard every man and woman in this bordello as a murder suspect. Lives and reputations will be wrecked, including yours. Maybe it started as a prank, but it’s a matter of life and death now.”
Cat in a Sapphire Slipper Page 23