The usual three or four girls waiting to go on were busy peeling off their street clothes and pulling on what amounted more to accessories than clothes: boots, spike heels, thigh-high hose, garter belts, G-strings, body stockings the size and shape of intertwined rubber bands.
“Say, I missed talking to Rafi,” Molina said. “He leave with anyone?”
They looked blank and shrugged and questioned her in turn.
“Can you help me with this hook?”
“This new thong look all right?”
It was girls’ dorm, only the dorm backed onto a strip joint.
Molina hooked, nodded, and beat her way out of there.
“Rafi never plays favorites with the girls,” one voice singsonged after her as she left.
Never plays favorites. So what was his angle?
Reentering the club area was like walking into a sonic boom. Her ears, eyes, nose, and throat burned from acrid smoke and one foul, gasoline-slick vodka tonic she had nursed for far too long.
Her watch said it was long past coach-turning-into-pumpkin time, but the kid in the sound booth was still nodding and shaking to the music only he could hear at normal volume.
Molina eyed the entire scene one last time, and gave up.
If just seeing Rafi (and him not seeing her) was an achievement, then the night was not a waste. But she needed much more than that. It might be time to delegate, let her own people follow up her suspicions, which had not one shred of evidence behind them but instinct.
She moved under the irritating mirrored ball that raked her face with spinning spitballs of light. Looking away, she glimpsed herself streaking past the end of the mirror behind the bar. Brown eyes. So different. Such a good disguise. At least she’d learned that tonight.
Pushing the superheavy door open—why did they always make it so hard to get in and out of these places? Never mind. Pushing the door open with all her weight, she moved out into the untainted air, still slightly chilly before spring abruptly became summer and the air was always as warm as bathwater, and more often hot-tub water.
No smoke to breathe in, just air. She took a deep, singer’s breath, expanding her lung capacity to its fullest, drawing in from her diaphragm. As she exhaled, slowly, with control, a woman’s scream hit a high note and sustained it until abruptly ending.
The sound came from…behind the building, which gave her three sides to choose from.
She raced around to the left, digging the gun from the paddle holster in her purse. The scene of the scream: parking lot on three sides, jammed with cars but deserted of people, who were all inside deaf as posts to any ugly noises outside.
That’s why he struck in strip-joint parking lots, alone in a crowd. She had to be here to see it, hear it. A perfect setup if the timing was just right for everybody to be inside yet, whooping it up.
He had to know the pulse and timing that made strip clubs predictable in their own erratic way, Molina thought as she moved cautiously through the lot, scanning parked cars, hunting for a wrong motion, a glint of reflected streetlight on something, someone in the wrong place….
The streetlights were few and far between, of course. Strip club visitors were as cagey as gamblers about not wanting to be seen coming and going.
The abrupt cutoff of the scream echoed in Molina’s mind. Not good. A killer could be doing anything now, down on the warm asphalt between the cars…raping, strangling.
She moved unheard on the well-used moccasins she had found at the Goodwill, but she could hear no one else moving either, not even a distant blast of noise as Kitty City’s door opened and closed. It remained shut.
The neon from the sign up front cast pink and blue images on the roofs and hoods of the trucks and vans and cars filling the lot.
Then…something scraped. A shoe.
Someone moaned.
Over there.
Suddenly footsteps, running.
From two directions.
She paused at the building’s rear corner.
The parked vehicles had thinned back here.
She peered around the building’s sharp concrete-block edge, then broke into the open, weapon lifted, feet and hands braced.
A man was bending over something on the unpaved sandy soil surrounding the rear Dumpsters.
Something thumped sand. Footsteps. Another man was rounding the opposite edge of the rear wall, almost like a partner forming a pincer action.
Except that she had no partners here, just suspects.
The man on the ground jerked his head around and up into a sliver of blinking neon.
Rafi Nadir.
The man who’d rounded the corner was heading right for him.
“Stop. Police.”
She didn’t shout it, but her low, deep tone had such a shocking note of parental, paternal authority that both men paused, one in rising from the ground, one in heading toward him to keep him on the ground.
“Stop. Both of you.”
The gun was held two-handed, by-the-book style, ready to fire.
Both men recognized that. They stared at her.
Then Rafi continued rising, turned and ran, heading for the cars.
“Stop!”
The second man pursued Rafi, crossing her direct path of fire.
She bellowed, “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”
He glanced her way, saw the gun was pointed dead-on at him. “He’s getting away.”
She nodded, not taking her eyes from him. “Stop,” she repeated, almost whispered. “Or I’ll shoot.”
Max Kinsella stood poised in midstep, staring like a deer in the headlights, not stricken, merely astonished into inaction. “That was Nadir!”
“I know.”
“He’s your killer.”
“It’s more important to check the person who’s down. You do it.”
“I can catch him. You handle the scene.”
“No.”
“You’re letting him get away.”
“Maybe. But I’ve got the gun, and you don’t.” She realized he might be armed, moved toward him.
Without even straightening from his running crouch, he put out an empty hand. “You don’t want to come within range, or it’ll really get serious.”
She hesitated. The police professional couldn’t afford to do anything a suspect under control suggested. Kinsella wasn’t ever under control, which he’d just reminded her. “Check her.”
He turned and did as she said, crouching over the fallen form as Rafi Nadir had only moments before.
An almost undetectable patter of running feet died into silence as she listened.
Kinsella had his fingers on the carotid artery. “Unconscious, but a pulse.”
Molina dug in her bag for her cell phone. “Call nine-one-one for an ambulance.”
“You’re crazy!” he said, even as he dialed. “We had him—uh, yeah. A woman unconscious at Kitty City, Paradise and Flamingo, rear parking lot. Assault. Lieutenant Molina, LVMPD on the scene. Right.” He looked up at her again. It was just bright enough to see that the look was bitter and accusing.
“Punch in oh-one,” she said, “but don’t hit talk.”
He did.
“Now. Put the phone on the ground and kick it, gently, toward me.”
He muttered something.
“What was that?”
“‘To the moon, Alice, to the moon.’”
“Never happen.” She bent as the phone slid toward her, keeping the gun pointed at him. She picked up the phone, hit talk, and connected to the dispatcher, asked for assistance.
“I get it,” he said suddenly. “You’re going to pin this on me.”
“Interesting idea. You were on the scene. The only witness to the running man, whoever he might be, is…me. And you, who nobody would believe. Worked for The Fugitive, TV series and movie.”
He snorted with disgust.
She sighed. “I love it. A really great scenario. But not practical. What’s her pulse?”
“Sixty-
four.”
A distant whine announced the ambulance.
“Not bad. She’ll live. I think we’ll let the EMTs handle this. Time to say good night, George.”
He stood, slowly, as if every joint hurt. “It’s not over.”
“Of course not.”
“I never thought you were crooked.”
“Funny, I always thought you were.”
“He’s dead meat.”
“I better not find your fingerprints on it.”
He moved away from the fallen girl, who was beginning to moan like someone coming out of anesthetic. Molina didn’t want any confusing memories on the victim’s part.
“Go on. Get out of here, or I’ll have to arrest you. Or shoot you. Take your pick.”
He moved, slowly, deliberately.
By the time the ambulance squealed to a stop and the emergency technicians spilled out to tend to the victim, Kinsella was just disappearing between two vans and Molina was just finishing returning her unfired gun to its holster.
A patrol car and then another screeched up. She had deliberately called them second. Uniforms were fanning out, flashlights poised, ready to search the parking lot.
It was suddenly a crime scene, overlit, crowded, filled with milling people trying to save the victim and preserve evidence. The sounds and fury weren’t too different from that inside Kitty City.
Molina gave what directions she had to, then accompanied the victim to the ambulance. A young woman, stripper going off duty, like any nurse or convenience-store clerk going into the dark to find her car and finding instead a man with a plan.
She was almost fully conscious.
“You’ll be fine,” Molina told her, bending down before the ambulance crew whisked her to the bright fluorescent lights of the emergency room.
Not exactly the spotlight the young woman had craved.
Molina watched the ambulance maneuver to turn around, saw it start off, the siren escalating into its usual ear-piercing yodel.
“Handy you were here, Lieutenant,” a uniform commented, trying not to sound curious.
“Handy,” she repeated blandly. “I’ll leave it to you. Doesn’t look like anybody died here this time.”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’d like a copy of the full report, though, first thing in the morning. This might be part of an ongoing.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Too bad Max Kinsella wasn’t one scintilla as respectful of rank.
Chapter 40
Calling the Cops
“Molina,” the phone barked.
Matt felt a moment’s qualm. She sounded pretty disgruntled. He was making a big mistake. But what else could he do? Everything he did nowadays could be a mistake, a fatal mistake.
“This is Matt Devine. It’s vital that I talk to you.”
“Go ahead.”
“No. In person.”
She sighed pointedly. “My desk is covered with case files up to my chin. This about one of them?”
“Not really.”
“It’s personal?”
“Partly.”
“Do you have any idea of what I’m up against? All right. Come in at, um, six o’clock then. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee dregs to celebrate Thank God It’s Friday.”
He hesitated.
“Yes, no, maybe?” she demanded.
“I’d rather not see you on the job.”
“Who knows when I’ll be home? I could call you when that sweet hour arrives. You’re free nights up to eleven or so, right?”
“Right. But—”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“I don’t think it’s safe to go to your house.”
“Safe? what’s going on here?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. Where can we meet where no one is likely to know about it?”
“Oh, God.” He heard voices jousting for her attention in the background.
“That’s it! A church,” he said, inspired.
“Is this a scheme to up church attendance in America? Or just mine?”
“How about early mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe?”
“The old folks’ mass at six A.M.?” She groaned.
“All right. Saturday evening mass, then. You must get some time off on Saturday.”
“I suppose five P.M. Saturday is better than six A.M. Saturday.”
“We could talk afterwards in the sacristy. Father Hernandez is an understanding pastor. He wouldn’t mind. Or…I know! The confessionals. They’ve never been removed at OLG because the old folks would be lost without them.”
“Just what I want to look forward to on a Saturday night after a monthlong workweek: an assignation in a confessional after Sunday late-snoozers’ mass with an ex-priest. Do I have to kneel?”
“You can take the priest’s seat. I’ll kneel.”
“Damn it, Devine, this had better be good.”
“No. It’s bad. Very bad.”
He hung up before she could question him further.
Always leave them wanting to know more. That’s what Temple said.
Matt’s next call was to arrange cover. He made a date with Sister Seraphina and the nuns at the OLG convent for Saturday night mass.
Kitty O’Connor, he thought, would be pleased that she had made such a dent in his social life that he could only date old nuns.
Surely they would be safe from her obsessive, possessive insanity. Or were they?
Chapter 41
Hunt Club
“Temple!”
She turned, midway across the massive, sparkling, tinkling lobby of the Crystal Phoenix, flabbergasted.
Not that she was surprised to hear her name called here. Every time she visited to check on final touches for the new entertainment areas people expecting instant answers were hollering her name right and left.
Only they weren’t Max Kinsella, doing it right out loud in public.
This one-of-a-kind event would not only scare the horses, it would stop Temple in midhurtle.
She spun in her tracks. He was almost on top of her. “What on earth—?”
Caught up, he grabbed her elbow and hustled her toward the indoor wall of greenery fencing the Crystal Court lounge. There was a look of strain on his face that she’d never seen before, except in jugglers who have six ax blades up in the air at once.
“I couldn’t reach you on your cell phone,” he fretted.
Temple began groping in her tote bag. “I have it right here. Somewhere right here. Or maybe there. Can we sit down while I dig it out?”
Max was looking around like he expected an attack by tsetse fly. “No. Where, why doesn’t matter. I’ve heard from the hunt breakers.”
She blinked at the term, finally diverting her mind from Jersey Joe Jackson and his mine ride to Max’s recent high-desert adventure.
“Hunt-breakers? Oh, those protesters who put themselves between hunters and their prey.”
“I promised to help them document the action at Rancho Exotica. They just told me a hunt is scheduled this evening.”
“That’s…nuts! Why would the ranch do business now that Cyrus Van Burkleo is dead? With all the attention his killing is getting, they risk exposing their illegal operation. The protesters must be wrong.”
“They ought to know. They’re out there, watching. I need someone inside the ranch watching too.”
“Me? Why would I go there again?”
Max grinned down at her. “Because you’re so good at plausible pretexts.”
“Pardon me, but why can’t you be the inside man?”
“Because I have to be the outside man.” He lifted his thumbs and fingers, fanned to form a frame. “Home movies, remember? I need someone inside to stop the hunt before anything is killed.”
“Anything? Or anyone?”
Max shook his head. “This has nothing to do with the murder. This is purely because of a promise I made. Look, the least I can do right now is help these people out. They’re li
able to get hurt if they come between an amateur hunter and his target. If I’m out there documenting it on film, it’ll keep them from doing anything foolish.”
“What about me getting between an amateur hunter and his target?”
“I don’t expect you to be as confrontational, or foolish, as that protester crowd. Just…distract the hunter. Scream or faint or something.”
“Max, I don’t think feminine wiles are going to work out there, not that I’ve got many of them.”
“This might.” He hefted a small matte-black gun from a pocket.
Temple took a deep breath. “What would I do with that? Throw it?”
“We never did get to a shooting range. You could always shoot it into the air.”
“What’s to keep some trigger-happy hunter from shooting me into the air?”
“They want trophies, not felony arrests. But I don’t think you’ll need this. Still, if it would make you feel better—”
“I’d feel better without it, using my wits for bullets, thank you. I guess if Leonora and Courtney Fisher are going to be there, I can stomach it. I do hate having to see Leonora again…after what I found out.” She had called Max about the news from the plastic surgeon’s office once she was home.
“It’s nasty knowing other people’s secrets, isn’t it?” Max said sympathetically. “But abused people rarely turn on anyone, not even their abuser. Even if this case is an exception, I doubt she’d bother you.”
“I’m not afraid that she might be a killer. That’s not what’s bothering me. It’s just that I’ll never be able to look at her bizarre face without picturing that awful man hitting her, crushing bones and cartilage. I suppose helping to stop a hunt before another animal is killed is one way to get back at Van Burkleo, even if he is dead. Don’t worry about me. I’ll think of something.”
“Once I’ve got the vital footage, I can step in.” Max frowned, as if remembering something. Or somebody. “Hopefully without being seen. Vintage Mystifying Max, hand quicker than eye. That’s what I expect to happen.”
Temple shook her head. “Imagine one good deed requiring so much forethought. What made you volunteer to film a canned hunt?”
Max shrugged. “These protestors! Babes in the woods on the Mojave. Well intentioned, but way too clumsy to pull off a useful surveillance operation. One mistake could turn fatal.”
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