Molina hit the paperwork on her desk, her khaki blazer hung on her chair back, her short-sleeved khaki-and-white cotton blouse sticking to her shoulder blades despite the air-conditioning.
The paddle holster was in a drawer and her pen was tapping paper. What the heck was Temple Barr up to her hooker-high heels in now?
A set of knuckles brushed her door ajar. Dirty Larry was peering puckishly around it. He could afford to be puckish around the office. His street role as an undercover narc had him playing down and dirty. 24/7. Hence the nickname.
Molina regarded Larry with a twinge of regret. She’d let him bulldoze his way into her private life. She wasn’t sure she knew his motive, although he’d certainly taken his opportunity. Why? A woman doesn’t work her way up in a police department as an officer on a career track without questioning everything, especially herself.
Larry led with a question. “Kid come down off of Teen Idoldom?”
“Somewhat. They never get their feet fully on the ground at this age.”
“Me neither.” Larry sidled in. “So. You still having second thoughts?”
“About what?”
“Your big ‘reveal’ at the Blue Dahlia.”
“Reveal. I loathe that reality TV word! It’s so bogus.”
“Like you aren’t? Well, aren’t you?”
Larry had taken the single plastic chair in front of her desk. He didn’t sit so much as lounge. Molina suspected he had a spine like a Slinky.
She didn’t really trust him, but something about him was oddly winning. No doubt that served him well when he was risking his neck among the Dangerous and the Depraved.
His close-cut hair still blared “dirty blond.” He seemed the eternal hard-bitten kid you’d glimpse from railroad yards as the train pulled away from the worst neighborhoods in town. Any town. His face would haunt you like a Depression-era photograph until you saw a blurred green ribbon of bushes and trees beyond the moving window, not hovels and kids with nothing better to do than stare at themselves in passing train windows.
“I sense regret.” Larry picked a square notepad block off her desk to play with.
“You’re a narc. Regret is the sludge in which drugs grow.”
“Stay a narc long enough, you can’t come in out of the dark.”
“So, how’s accident reconstruction treating you?”
Larry came down from his dangerous game by taking on innocuous assignments for a while.
“Great. Instead of blood-spatter patterns like the crime techs fixate on, I’ve got shattered-glass patterns. Instead of crack houses, I get to go to toney nightclubs like the Blue Dahlia in my off hours.”
“Toney? Please.”
“I get to see and hear ‘Blue Velvet.’ ” His smile was suddenly boyish, radiant. The passing train was a glittering, rattling string of diamond-mirror glass shattering the night.
Molina frowned. The song was one of her best. But the matching vintage gown, à la Topsy, had “just growed” in her closet, a single unsuspected moonflower in a midnight meadow. Or something sinister, like mold. Midnight blue mold. She didn’t remember buying it.
Everything was coming at her so fast, the Cannonball Express. Her daughter blossoming into dangerously empowering girlyhood. Herself revealed. Part professional huntress. Part . . . moonlighting torch singer.
“Any luck on that off-time assignment I mentioned?”
Larry pulled a narrow notebook from his linen blazer pocket.
“You sure are one paranoid lady, but I suppose it goes with the job. First a rogue L.A. cop, then this. You’ve sure got me guessing.” He quirked her his crooked grin, but his eyes were suddenly hotter than she liked to see on the job. Who was using whom here was still not settled, but it was unsettling.
“Get on with it,” she said.
Larry settled even lower on his Slinky spine in the unfriendly plastic visitors chair, blue-jeaned legs crossed over his lean thighs. Undercover narcs tended to be super-casual, but he was taking a holiday from the drug wars in the Traffic Department for a while. So he was handy for her “black projects,” like keeping her private life, such as it wasn’t, private.
“This is hit and miss, you understand,” Larry said. “When I have a moment. Gotta say this is not a shit assignment: nice neighborhoods, low crime, and the best tail I’ve tailed in my career.”
“Save the sexist chitchat for your brother apes on the force.”
“You are way too easy to rile, you know that?” He grinned again. “I just meant it was nice to do a wholesome bit of tailing for a change. Not very interesting . . . subject goes from home base to major Strip hotels; the New Millennium lately. Um, detour to a couple of real funky little joints on semi-shady blocks across from the worst section of Charleston Avenue.”
“Really.” Molina sat up to take notice.
“Yeah. By the Blue Mermaid Motel. Names of . . . Leopard Alley, the Bee’s Knees, and, uh, a real kinky one, the Indigo Albino.”
“Sounds like a list of sleazy clubs.”
Larry leaned forward, forearms braced on knees. “Vintage shops,” he whispered. “I even spotted a bong in one and an opium ring in another.”
“An opium ring? What’s that?”
He reached into his baggy jacket pocket again. Linen was like that, shapeless and prone to wrinkle. Molina hated it. For her own wardrobe. On guys it looked good: fashionable but not like they cared that much.
He pulled out a slender silver object, a tiny curved, sterling pipe, with a ring band just under the etched bowl.
“I got you it. Can’t say I never gave you a ring.”
“How exquisite.” Molina turned the lightweight object in her fingers. It might make a good pendant.
“Ladies used ’em back when a little naughty drug use was a fashion accessory, kind of like cocaine spoons today. The twenties, I’d guess.”
“I’ll actually keep this,” she told him. He raised his almost invisible flaxen eyebrows. “History of crime artifact.”
But she was . . . what? Taken aback. Pleased? Larry had not only done her off-shift tailing bidding gratis, but had thought to bring her a pretty neat souvenir.
“I’ll have to visit those vintage dives someday.” She frowned. Her supply of vintage velvet gowns wasn’t shrinking, but expanding. Maybe she had a magic closet. Yeah.
“You ever want a guide to the dark side of trendiness,” he said, “I’m your man.” His eyes glittered at the unsaid implications of his phrase.
Molina tried the ring on her right third finger. It would glitter if she wore it at the mike at the Blue Dahlia. She seldom wore jewelry, but this was exotic and just slightly sinister. She discovered she liked the exotic and just slightly sinister.
“Thanks,” she told Larry. “Anything else?”
He shuffled through the notebook. “A couple of Strip shopping expeditions with the middle-aged chick who’s staying with her.”
“Oh, really? You know who?”
Larry gave her a rebuking look. “Talked to the landlady. “Aunt from New York City. Same type, just more miles on her. This is interesting. Aldo Fontana seems to have come and go privileges at the Circle Ritz these days. That black Viper of his is a regular in the parking lot.”
“Oh, the Fontanas are fans of our subject from way back.”
“This is Aldo, solo. And he seems like a real fan of the aunt, who must be fifteen years older than him, at least. Though she hasn’t got a bad tail either.”
Molina was thinking too hard to object to his terminology.
“So, she has an aunt in town who’s hooked up with the Fontana Brothers? Odd. Where do they go, Auntie and Aldo?”
“Everywhere hot, loud, and expensive. We could do a double tail some night.”
“I don’t like heat, noise, and throwing money around.”
“Anything for a collar,” he said.
“Anything more on the real object of this investigation?”
“Temple Barr? Naw. Cruises by the Stuart Weitzman store in the
Caesar’s shopping arcade at every opportunity. Um, visited one of those older gated communities not quite near Henderson. Stopped by a veterinarian’s on the way home for some suspicious-sized bags of something called Free-to-Be-Feline. Do you think it could be fertilizer?”
“If cat leavings are volatile, yes. Never mind. Just leave me the list.”
“What’re you looking for?”
“Something suspicious, but she’s obviously just been a diversion for you during your off hours.”
“Not much. Now tailing you—”
Molina felt her right hand clench under the bizarre accessory of the opium ring. She’d been some places lately she wouldn’t want anyone to know she’d gone.
“Forget it. You’re off this detail. Temple Barr is the same simple, shallow girl I always suspected her to be.”
“What did you expect to get on her?” he asked, handing the notebook over her desk.
Max Kinsella, she answered herself. She had expected to find his fingerprints all over her and her life. Why wasn’t he there anymore? Maybe he had other interests now.
Bastard! But weren’t they all, given half a chance?
Molina thought about the men in her life: past, present, and future tense. Very tense. Rafi Nadir. Haunting. Unsuspecting parent and patriarch. Failed policeman. Successful ghost and potential blackmailer. Dirty Larry. New kid on the block. Brassy, pushy, sexy, suspect. Max Kinsella. Mortal enemy. Mysterious. Taunting. Murderous?
She didn’t trust one of them. Except Morrie, who was too decent to count on for the ethical pinch she was in.
Carmen began to get an idea of what her blooming adolescent daughter was up against.
Larry left, both pleased with his report and puzzled by her behavior, her goals.
She regarded the opium ring. She really liked this little toy, and his thoughtfulness in buying it for her. Nobody had bought anything for her for a long time. Nobody had ever bought her anything interesting and beautiful. Maybe there was more depth to Larry than street smarts. Maybe this . . . bribe, was supposed to make her think so. Turn her into a silly woman believing a man, believing in a man like Max Kinsella, as Temple Barr did.
Not her. Not Carmen Molina.
Not ever.
Depend upon It
“The police?”
Temple was astounded by what Randy told her when she buzzed by the New Millennium to check on things and ran into him in the lobby. He looked frazzled.
“A body was found about five A.M. this morning. On the damn exhibition site,” he whispered, hustling her back to the area. “There’s no way we can duck the disastrous publicity consequences.”
Temple didn’t contest the word “we.”
Randy paced when they reached the entry area, then pounded his forehead with one palm. “This exhibition opening is starting to feel like a season debut of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”
Temple thought for a moment. “Not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe we can get a ‘curse of the Romanovs’ rumor going. Did a lot for King Tut.”
“We’re supposed to support rumors of vivified czars strutting around nights stringing people up?”
“Not as creepy as mummies, I agree. What do you think it really is? A botched robbery?”
“Why? Not one priceless artifact has been taken out of the vault and displayed yet. This is not encouraging for that ever happening. The insurance will skyrocket.”
“It does seem . . . premature. Why would anyone with designs on the artifacts tip his hand like this? Security will just get tougher.”
“Maybe someone likes a challenge.”
“Or needs a distraction,” Temple suggested.
“Or maybe someone wanted to warn us. Because someone sure has.”
“Or maybe someone wanted to short-circuit a heist.”
“Why?” Randy asked. “Who?”
“Almost a million new whos arrive in Las Vegas every week,” Temple said. “You should put casino security on red, white, and blue alert. What do the executives say to do next about the exhibition?”
Randy shrugged. “This is Las Vegas, a twenty-four-hour town. The show must go on. And it’s our job to see that it does.”
Temple sighed. How dismaying to think that the pristine white exhibition space, before it had been used for the first time, had already been the scene of someone’s death, even if he had been up to no good. Was it her presence on the job? Did Death have a yen for good PR? Was she the Typhoid Mary of PR women? What else could go wrong?
“I’m afraid,” Randy said, “you need to see the scene of the crime too.”
“What’s to see?”
“The body’s still hanging there. Obviously dead, so the CSI people want to examine every square inch above and below it, and probably every cell of the air around it.”
* * *
Temple thought she was cool with seeing the body.
She’d had a habit of tripping over murder victims. Maybe it was her red hair. Unlucky. Fey. But it wasn’t looking red these days. So she could rule out the hair.
Yellow crime scene tape kept Randy and her by the cushy stadium seating ringing the exhibition area.
CSI techs in latex gloves were swarming like worker ants over the sleek cone of the spiral exhibition space and up in the dark flies above it. They were laying out grids, like archeologists, preparatory to recording every element of the huge crime scene.
It was the single limp figure in black suspended halfway between the literal “heavens” of a stage set and the milk-white curves of the high-tech exhibition mounting that riveted her glance and then her emotions.
Trouble was, she’d nearly had a heart attack, seeing that black-clad body dangling from a bungee cord cradle high above. It was so Max: solo, daring, dangerous. Thinking ahead, she knew she couldn’t blame Molina for thinking the same thing when she saw the death scene photos. Well, she could blame her, but that was hard to justify.
Temple hadn’t been able to reach Max by cell phone recently, but what else was new? He’d been putting her off for weeks, telling her he was working up a new “act.” She had a muzzy memory of him visiting her bedroom, way late. She’d been unusually loopy on wine and Tylenol PM. Not a good date prescription. The hour had been too late for her to wake up enough to take advantage of that hit and run visit of his. Something was eating up every spare moment of his time, night and day. Something too consuming to be the easy suspicion of another woman.
If Max was making a comeback as a magician, it would take months of secret preparation. On the other hand, if he was planning to knock off the New Millennium’s White Russian exhibition, he’d be on the same impossible schedule.
“Art Deckle,” Randy said out of the blue. Or the white haze, rather.
The bizarre name echoed in the huge New Millennium exhibition space. Randy shrugged after saying it.
“They found an ID on the body.”
“That’s the real name of the dead man? Not a nom de huckster?’ Temple asked, still envisioning Max twisting silently in the air-conditioning wind, although this man looked far shorter than Max’s limber six foot four.
“Could be an alias. He has a record under it.”
“Not the music industry kind, I take it?”
“Thief. Would charm the lonely lady tourists, get to their rooms and run off with their credit cards.”
“Doesn’t sound very profitable. They’d be onto him pretty early the next morning.”
Randy smiled. “In a twenty-four-hour town you can buy a lot of bling with a credit card between two and ten A.M.”
“So he played the happy winner. Hitting big at the tables and buying the girlfriend a big gift? On her card.”
“Right. A lot of these gambler guys owe everybody. And some of them do hit once in a while.”
Temple gazed at the vaulted space above the exhibition area. “A con man, but not a world-class art thief.”
“His reach exceeded his grasp. That’s what the police think.”
“I
ncluding Lieutenant Molina?”
“Who?”
“You haven’t met the homicide queen-pin yet?”
Randy shook his head. “So you’ve an in at the LVMPD?”
The initials referenced the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police department, as opposed to the separate and smaller North Las Vegas force.
“I did think so,” Temple muttered.
“What’re we gonna do about the media?” Randy asked her.
“Smother them with sound bites on how high security is on this show. The flypaper caught a fly, didn’t it?”
“You mean he killed himself.”
“Can the police prove otherwise?”
“Not . . . yet.”
Temple sighed. “I better run home and get my full address book of general contacts. I can prepare e-mails and releases from the computer setup here once I have that. I, um, know some magicians and high-wire acts around town. I’ll look into what they think really might have happened here.”
“Could you? That’d be great. We could get a local story about their opinions on it. If they suit us.”
“Let me talk to them first and see.”
“Right. No spills from uncontrolled leaks.”
Temple doubted that Max had ever been uncontrolled in his life.
At least he wasn’t maxed out in a black spandex body suit, twisting in a deadly vortex for all to see. And whoever had killed Art Deckle, improbable name, had blown the whistle on the exhibition as a serious target for someone.
She returned to the Circle Ritz one downhearted frail, as the blues songs called sad women. Ick! She didn’t want to even think of Molina the torch songstress.
So running into Danny Dove bouncing out the back entrance to her building was not the upper it should have been. He looked puckish again, though, instead of as shrunken and sere as an autumn leaf.
“Why, Miss Temple. Imagine meeting you here.”
“Are you renting at the Circle Ritz after all?”
“Almost.” He doffed his sunglasses, revealing eyes still blasted with strain. “And how are you doing? Looking a little peaked for a Teen Idol contender, hmmm?”
“Please, Danny. That was undercover.”
“Speaking of undercovers—”
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