“I panicked. Having a kid made me even more vulnerable on the job, not to mention my druthers.”
“Did you consider doing what you accused me of not wanting, ending the pregnancy?”
“None of your business.”
“Carmen, listen to yourself.”
“Yes. Okay? I couldn’t do that, anyway. I wasn’t looking for anything like that. I was probably a hormonal mess by the time I realized what was happening.”
“So you ran. Did you ever think what that might do to me?”
She shook her head. “Try being pregnant. It’s all about you and the baby. I’d decided you’d won the rookie contest and wanted me at home and pregnant, like my stepdad wanted my mom to be, even if it took my child labor to keep the family fairy tale going.”
Rafi didn’t say anything more, just pulled out his smartphone. Molina was thinking if she saw another one of those today, she would scream.
“Okay, we’re caught up on our past. What about Mariah’s future?” he asked.
“You can’t seriously be saying it’s anything more than school and good grades and some career direction in choosing a college.”
“Would that scenario excite you?”
“No, but I had to leave home and put myself through a criminal justice degree on my own. I had no support. Nada. I can afford to provide Mariah with what she needs. If you want to informally help underwrite that and won’t be interfering, I’m okay with it.”
Rafi just laughed. “This is sounding like a two-party deal in Congress these days. You get all the authority and time with our daughter, I get to provide underwriting.”
“What do you want, outings with her at the Circus Circus Adventuredome? All you can eat brunches off the Strip? Twice a month, say.”
“Carmen, Carmen, Carmen.” He watched her flinch at every repeat of the name only her intimates dared use, like Detective Morrie Alch on a good day, smiling almost tenderly at her obvious unease. “That would have been fine a few years ago, when Mariah was a kid. Now? No. Mariah is a young adult and she’d run away screaming from those lame, useless outings, and you know it.”
She did, but didn’t admit it.
“Let me help her with her dreams, Carmen, like I did with you those many years ago.”
“Singing? I never went anywhere with that,” Molina said.
“You still could. I was pretty good as your agent-manager, and nowadays, everybody’s their own record mogul.”
She thought, desperately seeking wiggle room.
“You’d keep her away from sleazos like that Crawford Buchanan leech,” he said.
She kept silent.
“And, the real sweetness of the deal is that you don’t have to introduce me as her father, just as the guy from the teen TV reality show house. She almost won that talent show.”
“If that obnoxious Zoe Chloe Ozone hadn’t distracted everybody with such a ridiculous rap number.”
Rafi smiled. “Come to think of it, Temple’s persona had that Lady Gaga freak thing going before Lady Gaga became a household name. What do you say? I’d find Mariah a really good voice coach, help her make some credible YouTube showcases. Drain off some of that incredible energy that could get her into trouble on her own. And,” he added, “she likes me.”
Molina had seen that, and it worried her. “You won’t expect paternal credit.”
“She’s not ready, you’re not ready. I’m not ready.”
“But … if we keep that from her, she’ll be angry at both of us if it should … when it came out.”
Rafi smiled to himself, as if thinking of something else, before meeting her pointed gaze head-on. “Yes, that takes the burden off you being the only liar in the house.”
Bingo! He was right, dammit. “It was a necessary evasion.”
“It was a Big Lie, Carmen, and I could make a Big Stink about it if I wanted to blow up your credibility with Mariah. But that would hurt her more than we could hurt each other. So. I’m not backing down on the bottom line that she knows me as her father. Someday. And maybe I’ll earn a chance from her you never gave me.”
“Below the belt, Nadir.” Lieutenant Molina was back in there, punching.
“Deserved, Officer Molina.”
Amazing. Rafi had offered her a built-in way of fending off Boyfriend Day and ceding his own high moral ground over her own pretty unforgivable fiction of a dead hero father.
And from the steadfast, noncommittal look he was giving her, he knew it.
“Deal?” he asked, extending a hand.
She met his gesture halfway. “Deal.”
It never made it to a shake. They shared a mutual understanding for the first time in many years. Molina felt a burden liberate her chronically clenched shoulders, not ready to explore yet what had changed, and why they were holding hands.
“Guys!” a voice chided.
Hands dropped; heads turned.
“Hey, it’s awfully quiet in here.” Mariah stood in the hall archway, looking perfect ’tween queen with her new bobbed haircut and the leggings and short skirt, cell phone in her hand, frowning as she looked from one to the other. “Am I going to have to insist on a feet-on-the-floor-at-all-times policy around here?”
Rafi laughed his head off, recognizing that she quoted a parental edict for entertaining boyfriends, which Mariah didn’t have quite yet. She was too busy trying to be a media star.
Mariah eyed them suspiciously.
“What are you doing out here?” Molina asked, more flustered than she ever wanted to be.
“I thought,” Mariah said, tossing her Katie Holmes hair, “it’s what you wanted. I’m supposed to quit ‘hiding in my room.’”
“It’s okay when there are people in the front room trying to hold an adult conversation without having it drowned out by Justin Bieber.”
“Yeah. You’re just sitting here. Don’t think I don’t know that something is going on. Embarrassing, dudes.”
Mariah made a face and vanished back down the hall, her bedroom door shutting with a clap a second later.
Molina blinked at their quick dismissal by the resident media princess. “Daughters and mothers,” she told Rafi. “This is a rough stage. She seems to accept you,” she admitted.
“I accept her.” Rafi smiled. “I’m not under the daily pressure with her you are. Say, that’s nice.”
Molina was confused by his apparent change of subject. “What?”
His forefinger made a circling motion near the protective wing of her hair. “Those thin, big hoop earrings you’re wearing nowadays.”
“I did have pierced ears, if you remember. From babyhood. It was a cultural thing.”
“I remember, and you used to wear tiny turquoise stud earrings, your sole concession to femininity off the job.”
“I … they’d closed down, the piercings, so I thought I’d try again. Not for wearing at work nowadays either, of course. That’s … silly.”
“No, not for at work. But not silly.” His eyes squinted at her for too long to be comfortable. She was seeing the hunky young cop again. “If you do any more Carmen gigs,” he said, “throw out the retro silk flower over your ear and go with high-end shoulder-duster earrings.”
She shot him a glance. If? Why … why?
“They’d uplight those electric eyes.” Her manager speaking again, after all these years.
Carmen didn’t know what to say. Any answer would tick off Molina.
Rafi’s lips made a slight moue. “Mariah sure missed out there when she inherited your dark voice and my dark eyes. On the other hand, we get to see yours.”
Chapter 57
Invitation to a Duel
From an early evening wedding to a worknight. Matt usually came in a half hour early for his Midnight Hour talk show, which ran two hours, thanks to popular demand.
Hosting a live radio talk show five nights a week was a responsibility. He’d been used to relentless timetables when he was a parish priest, so he always allowed for small,
unexpected delays. Oooph, those 6 A.M. Masses. Now he was a night owl.
And he’d much rather be at the Circle Ritz having another honeymoon night with Temple. She’d made his mother shine and he wanted to return the favor.
He filled two tall cardboard glasses with chilled Dr Pepper and headed from the station kitchen to the control room, where he lifted them to greet his boss, Letitia.
She was nearing the end of her nightly gig as “Ambrosia,” the black-velvet voice of consolation and Top Fifty songs from recent decades fit to soothe the savage soul.
Ambrosia cooed soft encouragement to her latest caller and started Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” to put that stressed caller to bed.
“Matt,” she mouthed through glass, waving him closer with a flounce of one long, knuckle-brushing orange chiffon sleeve. She dressed like Joan Rivers for the red carpet, if Joan had been black, thirty years younger, and weighed two hundred pounds more.
But hyper and abrasive were the opposite of Ambrosia’s style, on or off mic.
“Toodle your globe-trotting tuckus over here for a hug.”
He set down the soft drinks before obeying. In a moment, he was encompassed by a warm, spice-scented cloud of affection the color of a desert sunset.
Ambrosia had taught him that if you didn’t feel good about yourself, you couldn’t make other people feel good about themselves. Her listeners pictured a seductively sympathetic siren reclining on a chaise longue while extending a languid hand to press a button and surround them with healing song and, well, schmaltz.
Darned if they weren’t right.
“So how was that ‘toddling town’?” she asked about his trip home and indirectly about the job opportunity.
“Interesting,” was all Matt was going to say. Moving to the network and Chicago was history now.
“You’re early.” Ambrosia checked the glitzy Home Shopping Network watch on her wrist. A long lacquered false fingernail colored dead-on orange to match her caftan tapped him on the hand.
“I have a special request tonight,” he said.
“Anything for you … insane, illegal, whatever. Unless it’s fattening.”
“Calorie-free,” he promised. “The one thing you won’t like is I don’t want any questions or second guesses.”
“That’s tough. Second-guessing is my favorite hobby. Okay. You’re the guy on the way up. What is it?”
Commercials were still blaring. He’d developed her instinct for knowing how much time off the air they still had.
“I brought a golden oldie you can slip in that I want you to play at the end of your set as a segue into mine.” He handed her the DVD.
She glanced at the label. “John McCormack? Not on my playlist.”
“Great but long-dead Irish tenor. Just say it’s ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen,’ from Mr. Midnight for ‘she knows who she is.’ Then you finish your show with a second song, requested by Anonymous. ‘I Know You’re Out There Somewhere.’”
“Matt, honey, what a great idea! Vintage schmaltz. I betcha this DVD is some ancient Irish crooner with crackle in the vinyl recording and all. Is this for your mama in Chicago, you favorite son, you? You do realize every Kathleen, Kathy, Katy, Kat in the world will think she’s Mr. Midnight Hour’s ‘she’?”
“Just play it. I’ll worry about the reaction.”
“Hmm. That Moody Blues oldie is so fine, like a moose call on a hunting trip, only to an old flame. ‘I Know You’re Out There Somewhere.’ Everybody has somebody they think of that way. You too, honey?”
“Oh, yeah.”
* * *
An hour and forty minutes later, Matt was winding up a call from a grandmother worried that her granddaughter had taken Lady Gaga for a role model, at least in her wardrobe.
“Kids all go through trying to look different from the crowd,” he consoled her. “I doubt meat dresses will catch on. They’re too expensive, require a freezer for a closet, and attract flies as well as paparazzi.”
Leticia had left, chortling over Matt the mama’s boy and his old-fashioned “tribute” to his visit home to Mom.
If only.
Why was he doing this, trying to draw Kathleen O’Connor out? Couple obvious reasons: He felt guilty—always a personal failing with him—that he hadn’t told his cohorts in private detection that he suspected Kitty the Cutter was stalking him again.
And, in his judgment, better she should tangle with him than with her long-sought love–hate object, Max Kinsella. He’d lately been unable to dodge the feeling that Kinsella was his resented, older, sexier, savvier brother. With his memory in meltdown, all the fabled Kinsella advantages boiled down to making him a sitting duck. And Matt did not need a dead martyr for a romantic rival.
He eyed the LED clock that counted down seconds as well as hours and minutes. Luke in the control room was signaling “end” with the hand karate chop gesture Elvis had loved to use in his stage shows.
Matt removed his padded headset and pushed the big wheeled chair back from the now-dead mic. Luke was making his final bows to the equipment boards, setting up programmed music for the rest of the night.
WCOO-AM wasn’t the biggest little radio station in the West, but it had two syndicated shows between Ambrosia and him. She’d been so supportive when his initially local hour show had gone to two hours and national. Matt smiled as he exited into the night air, the usual Las Vegas warm soup.
His silver Jaguar sat alone in the parking lot. That gift from the Chicago producers was an albatross. Maybe expensive wheels were okay if you went from costly city apartment to major office building, both with locked and guarded garages, but Matt’s pattern was from modest and quirky little apartment building to remote radio station to the grocery store and gas station.
Unless he and Temple moved to Chicago and a life of parking valets.
He approached the Jag, already beeping it open. Then he remembered to check for tire slashing. A tour around the gleaming streamline body revealed … no tampering.
Gosh, Matt thought as he allowed the front seat leather to wrap around him, and the engine to clear its expensive throat, he couldn’t even match Max Kinsella at attracting psychos. He’d always been a substitute for the real object of Kathleen’s warped affections and now he felt as impelled to protect the newly vulnerable Max from Kitty the Cutter as to save Temple.…
Still, he scanned his surroundings, checking the rearview and side mirrors until the red blinking light atop the WCOO tower was zooming away behind him like a suddenly shy retreating UFO.
Matt saw nothing in the rearview mirror. At 2 A.M. this was a deserted stretch. The person who’d followed him several times by motorcycle months ago along here knew that.
Out of nowhere, the rearview mirror showed what Matt hoped was a car with a burned-out headlight. Spotting those had been the object of a classic car-traveling game called padiddle.
“Padiddle,” Matt said to the road-level Cyclops. Nobody else was riding along to give him points for spotting it, and, frankly, newer cars didn’t seem to burn out their perpetually “on” running lights. Only the old junkers.
Wait. Some crook in a junker could be interested in carjacking the Jag.
Matt sped up, but the light behind matched him. The radio station was situated in a semi-industrial area pretty dead at night. He’d noticed that more when he rode the Vampire motorcycle for a time.
Back when the phantom motorcycle had shadowed him.
Had that rider been pursuer, or protector? Those episodes had ended. Matt had never known whether he was haunted by the ghost of Elvis, who’d been “calling” in to his show at the time, or whether he was escorted by Max Kinsella. And, if so, whether Kinsella had been guarding Matt’s skin or the prized Hesketh Vampire motorcycle’s sheen.
And, of course, it could always have been Kathleen O’Connor.
Or … considering how Max Kinsella swore she’d died, in a motorcycle pursuit of his car, Miss Kitty’s ghost. Both Max and he later swor
e they’d seen her dead, but they both had been wrong.
Or … a cop. His reverie had upped his speed well beyond the limit—easy to do without noticing when driving a car designed to slip through wind resistance like an eel—and he could have run afoul of a speed trap.
Any possibility he considered was a trap of some kind he wouldn’t like.
So he pulled over under the nearest streetlight to stop. And wait.
Chapter 58
Domesticated Species
Aaah.
I do love it when an act of derring-do has made me the solo King of the king-size bed once again. I omit the white-tie wedding nonsense and finally recall our shared adventure at the Oasis.
Here we recline in the very wee hours, my Miss Temple and me. She has showered off any remaining Essence du Elephant and I have given up my gilt-brocade throne for a simple zebra-pattern throw.
I have arrayed myself along her side, permitting her easy access to stroking my noble brow, my masculine shoulders, my svelte sides and back. I do enjoy a good massage, and contemplate rolling over for an undercarriage petting, except I am opting for the dignified, superior, and mysterious role at the moment.
Miss Temple sighs. “Here we are, Louie, alone together by the phone again. What a long, big day, from Marriage Bureau to wedding banquet. No wonder Matt was a little distracted at dinner and headed off to WCOO early, but he should be on the way and calling to let me know now. I am beginning to get why he wants a daytime talk show.
“Louie, would you ever want to return to Chicago after those nasty thugs kidnapped you?”
You bet! That was the most fun I’d had before climbing Mount Elephant and tangling up the ankles and black bedsheets of the Synth’s heist team at the Oasis Friday night.
As often happens, Miss Temple picks up my thoughts.
“On the other hand, I shouldn’t be so eager to see Matt. Just how much does he need to know about my part in that busted Oasis heist ‘production’ and wake for the Synth at Neon Nightmare afterward? Matt might frown on my consorting with Max.”
She sighs again. “Being a fiancée is not always simple.”
Cat in a White Tie and Tails Page 32