"I didn't want to interrupt."
Lieutenant C.R. Molina gazed down at them from an artificially abetted height. "I spotted you two the moment I came on stage, but you seemed so . . . self-absorbed."
Temple looked down, to Molina's feet. High-heeled platform shoes.
Molina had the actual nerve--at her already intimidating height--to wear platform shoes Black suede. With straps over the toes and anchoring the heel. Clunky forties shoes, like the Andrews Sisters used to wear. Where were Molina's sisters? Wasn't this a sister act? No, Molina was apparently here solo, a spotlight hog!
''You're really wonderful," Matt was saying, his confusion instantly converted to effusion.
''We could have been listening to the radio, or a record. CD," he corrected himself quickly.
Not many CDs in the seminary, Temple would bet.
Molina allowed herself a modest smile. Gollie, Temple thought, she sure looked silly with that blue-velvet orchid perched behind her left ear. At her height, someone might mistake her for a jacaranda tree.
"You mind if I join you? I'm on a ten-minute break.''
"Of course." Matt leapt up to snag a chair from a neighboring table.
Molina sat between them, smiling from one to the other with the serenity of an unwanted maiden aunt who is quite sure that her presence is both unexpected and annoying to all parties.
Temple sourly studied the woman's outfit now that her shoes were hidden under the table--a midnight-blue silk-velvet draped frock from the forties, like all clothes of that era both no-nonsense and as subtly slinky as a snake.
"That time you came to the Convention Center," Temple said with dawning suspicion, "when the ABA killer was after me and the entire fire department showed up. You were wearing some vintage getup, too--black crepe with copper beading!" she accused.
"What a memory. You've caught me red-handed." Molina spread the hands in question to show her supposed defenselessness. ''I can't commit to a regular performance schedule here, but I come in and do a gig when I get some time off. Every cop should have a hobby."
"Hobby," Matt repeated, his tone contradicting her. ''You sing like a pro."
''Maybe." Molina's smile was the slow, slight one that's not for show, but for one's self. "Not much commercial demand for my kind of music. I'm lucky to find a place willing to put up with my hours. You really didn't notice me, did you?"
"Well ..." Matt glanced at Temple.
"We didn't even expect live music," she said quickly, irked at being so unobservant. Matt was definitely a bad influence. She hated that Lieutenant Molina might come to the same conclusion, and she would. "We've never been here before."
"You'll probably never come here again," Molina suggested silkily.
Of course they both protested, in tandem and too much. The idea of conferring about private matters against the background crooning of a homicide lieutenant was pretty off puting.
"Only the manager knows what I do for a living," Molina went on, her long fingers turning the heavy class ring she always wore. Her nails were cut almost straight across. Temple noticed, her own crimson claws drumming the padded white tablecloth, and didn't give off even a glint of clear polish.
The street-length dress had a bouquet of velvet flowers at opposing hip and shoulder; Molina wore no jewelry beyond the class ring, not even a wedding band. With her physical presence and blue eyes, even earrings would have been too much. Her only apparent makeup was a vintage shade of Bloody Murder Red lipstick so dark it looked black in the lamplight. Now those lips thinned into a Dracula's Daughter smile.
"Serenading cops are not marketable,'' Molina noted, "except on St. Patrick's Day. I'd appreciate your keeping my real occupation to yourselves."
They swore that they would, in breathless unison and much too intensely.
Molina frowned, looking exactly like an undercover cop in drag. "You two aren't up to something in the amateur crime detection department again, are you?
"Who . . . us?" Temple provided the indignant chirp. She was so good at it. "Absolutely not.
Counselors and publicists need to get away from the job, too."
''Well--" Molina stood slowly, as only a woman as long as she was could. She smiled down on them in the dramatically dim light. In this environment, in that getup, her leonine air seemed as feminine as it was languidly dangerous. "Enjoy yourselves."
The sax man huffed and puffed a bluesy intro on his gleaming instrument. Molina threaded through the tables to the small stage, moving like a leopard thinking about an appetizer.
Temple glanced anxiously at Matt. He still looked stunned. And a bit guilty. "She really is first-class." He glanced at Temple to find her frowning. "I mean, at singing. Who would have thought it?"
''I don't know. Everybody has their surprises to spring." Temple noted with intent to point fingers.
He smiled disarmingly. "What's yours?"
''I haven't decided yet. But don't expect me to break into 'Melancholy Baby.' I couldn't carry a tune in a violin case." She remembered Matt's expert organ-playing at Electra's wedding ceremony. "Can you?"
''Only in church choirs," he said, too lightly.
If Temple could have kicked herself with one of her doffed shoes she would have. She had attended a Catholic mass only once in her life, for a cousin's wedding. The priest had intoned--
sang--several parts of it. Of course Matt sang; it once was a career requirement.
Now Lieutenant Molina--or her surprising alter ego. Carmen--was singing again.
And now that they knew exactly who was providing the restaurant background music.
Temple and Matt found themselves glued to their chairs like good little kids: hands folded, heads attentively tilted, unable to look away from the stage or say a single discouraging word to each other.
Their food finally arrived, providing a distraction they dove into with knife and fork as if the harmless stainless steel utensils were hammer and tong.
In fact, Molina's sardonic "Enjoy yourselves" had created the reverse effect.
"It's blue murder," Temple muttered after dismembering her fried catfish fillet, "to discover you know the performer you're ignoring. And even harder to ignore her once you know who she is."
"It's especially hard when you know she's a homicide lieutenant," Matt added, attacking a pair of pork chops as if they were renegade wild pigs.
By eating only half their servings and foregoing dessert, they were ready to leave in twenty minutes flat.
By then a lot of diners were paying attention to Molina and her music. She perched on a stool at center spotlight, where the over bright light faded her skin into a luminous mask. Only her Joan Crawford eyebrows and maroon mouth stood out: dark, well-defined, like the empty features in a mask of tragedy.
Carmen Molina had launched into the lengthy Cole Porter masterpiece, ''Begin the Beguine,'' so they were stuck for an-other ten minutes.
When Matt whispered to the waitress for the check, Temple piped up, ''A doggy bag, please.
For the cat."
She was soon delicately flicking fish flakes and pork into a hinged styrofoam box in time to Molina's tempestuous tango beat while the lieutenant moaned about nights of ''tropical splendor'' and a lost love "evergreen."
"It used to be one of my favorite songs," Temple hissed to Matt.
He looked sympathetic. "And this--Molina--has ruined it for you?"
"Her and somebody else." Temple watched Matt lay two twenty dollar bills on the tray bearing the bill. No credit card. Yet. Why hadn't she seen all these signs sooner? Lord, he could have been an escaped convict and she'd have never noticed.
When his change came, Temple insisted on leaving the tip. Then they left, bumbling in the way that aims at being super-quiet but makes a spectacle of itself instead. As they exited the restaurant, surrounding diners clapped enthusiastically. Molina's dark head bowed repeatedly in the spotlight, so it looked like the damn silk orchid over her ear was blowin' in the wind. Another ex-favorite song after tonight. Temple thought sourly.