“Apparently, you’re not the only one who thinks so,” Molina responded. Mariah missed the sardonic tone, andthe veiled reference to Max Kinsella. “She certainly delivered when it came to crisis control. Let’s all go out and celebrate. No, don’t slink away, Miss Barr. You too, `roomie.’ Larry can take you girls in his car and I’ll run ahead and get things ready.
“First I have to settle the hash of the creep behind all the nasty pranks on the set.”
“You’ve got him?” Temple asked.
“My excellent undercover officers.” Molina looked a bit uneasy. “They found incriminating materials in his camera bag but it seems he hated cats as well as women.”
“Often goes together,” Temple said. “Both can be independent.”
Molina sighed at her political comment.
“Whatever.” She paused, then grimaced and plunged ahead with the apparently galling facts. “Seemed he tried to kick a couple of Persians out of his way during the mass exodus. My guys were already looking to grab him, but they found him pinned to the latticework wall beside the pool by a pair of rabid black cats and Savannah Ashleigh. I think she broke every artificial nail on her fingers clawing tread marks into his face. The arresting black cats, being shorter, went for tender parts lower down. We don’t have to worry about getting a confession.”
“Gross. But what’s the big secret about tonight?” Mariah was finally coming down from her performance afterglow and tuning into her mother’s strange comment.
“You’ll find out soon,” Molina said. “If Hollywood doesn’t come calling right away, we can leave.”
“Oh, Mom. I knew I wasn’t gonna win. But who needs to?”
“That’s a very mature attitude, Mariah.”
“Who needs to be a stupid ‘Tween Queen? I’m going for American Idol next.”
Molina speechless was a sight to behold. “We’ll see,” was all she could come up with Temple tried to slip away. “Stay,” Molina said. “Sit,” Molina said next.
They were commands you gave to a dog, but Temple decided she would be magnanimous and not ruin Mariah’s big night. Poor kid. She was about to learn the bodyguard at the competition was her daddy.
Molina had more guts than Temple gave her credit for.
Larry winked as he moved over to give Temple his seat, as if guessing every turn of her internal debate.
After the closing hoopla was over, Kit came running up to them.
“Fabulous job, girls! Of course you both earned my top honors and should have won your divisions but that cretin Dexter was fixated on boob size and that tipped the balance, excuse the expression. I am so disgusted. The other judges and I are making protests but frankly without Elvis—I mean just by the numbers—we’re not likely to make anybody listen. The cameramen and producers are fixated on boob size too.”
Her effusions stopped as she regarded Temple. “Ah, a limo service has arrived to convey me back to my hotel, but the vehicle seems rather crowded by individuals and accessories of purely Italian manufacture. Am I going to get ‘taken for a ride’ out into the desert, or what?”
Temple grinned. “I see the fabulous Fontana Brothers have arrived. You may recall my mentioning them to you.”
“Yes, I do. And they are as collectively cute as a silencer on a Beretta, but is going with them safe?”
“I don’t know, Aunt. Do you particularly care?”
“You’re so right. I’ll take two aspirin and call you in the morning.” She was off on her high-heeled Blahnik slides. Off to see the Wizards of Las Vegas. Wicked!
“I don’t get it,” Mariah said. “They sent her multiple limousine drivers?”
“It’s a very long stretch limo. Let’s blow this crooked contest, kid.”
Mariah and Temple/Xoe left in turn as the crowd shuffled out. No easy way for Rafi Nadir to fight the flow and reach them, though Temple knew he could if he wanted to.
But she never saw him again, not even when she and Mariah stood under the porte cochere and waited for Larry and whatever kind of car he was driving.
“Good job,” she told Mariah again. “Your mother nearly flipped when you sang that song.”
“She liked it? I couldn’t see with all those lights.”
“She loved it. And I did too.”
“It didn’t win me anything though.”
“How about your mother’s confidence? That’s a hard thing to get when you’re thirteen to nineteen. Trust me. Been there, haven’t done that yet.”
“Your mother doesn’t have faith in you?”
“Yeah, sure, in a general way. But mothers have a hard time trusting that you’ll hang with a decent crowd at school, or wear non-slutty makeup and clothes, or lock your car doors when you’re driving alone at night.”
“I don’t have to worry about that driving thing for three years, remember. You’re the one who harped on it.”
“Right.”
“So your mother still doesn’t really trust you. And you’re … ancient.”
“That’s true. My mother doesn’t entirely trust my judgment and I’m ancient.”
“It’s not us then, it’s our ‘judgment.”’
“Right. They think any hunky guy can send it out the window.”
“My mom thinks your hunky guy should go out the window. I know that.”
“She’s not my mom, thank goodness. The one I have already is enough.”
“What do you think of that Larry guy?”
“Too soon to tell. What do you think of him?”
“I can’t believe she’s, like, dating him. I’ve never seen her date anyone. Is that what she wants to tell me, the secret, do you suppose?”
“Too soon to tell.” Temple felt like a skunk for ducking the issue, but this really was just between mother and daughter.
A black Jeep Cherokee pulled up. Larry’s angular face caught the wall-mounted torch light as he leaned over to open the passenger door.
Mariah hopped into the back seat, leaving Temple to scramble up into the SUV passenger seat in her tight skirt and heels.
Larry gave her one of those quick assessing male looks that said he wasn’t displeased but not personally interested. Maybe Molina had hit paydirt.
Temple looked around, hard, before they took off. Rafi Nadir was nowhere in sight.
Now why did that scare the living shih tzu out of her?
They ended up in the Blue Dahlia parking lot.
Temple gave Larry a warning look when he came around to help her and Mariah out of the Jeep.
He shrugged at Temple and gave Mariah a reassuring grin. “That was a world-class performance, kiddo. You’ve got a ripe set of pipes.”
Temple scanned the parking lot for signs of Rafi Nadir. That was the trouble. If he was here, there would be some.
“You always this nervous?” Larry asked with a quick whisper.
“We did just come from a murderer-grabbing scene.”
“History. I have a feeling you don’t dwell on it. Neither do I. What else is bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
He laughed. “Women are the best little stonewallers in the business. And we guys call you the weaker sex.”
Temple eyed Mariah nervously. She’d been through a lot, plus the poor kid was half-starved.
“It’s their business,” Larry warned.
“True, but why do I feel you’re butting into it?”
He laughed again. “You’re one sharp cookie, aren’t you?” His hand on her elbow was custodial as he steered her inside behind Mariah’s happy jazz steps as she took in the artsy neon and the bluesy adult façade of the Blue Dahlia.
It was the kind of place Travis McGee would boogie into without a regret.
Temple hoped that more modern folk of the female persuasion wouldn’t regard it as a hothouse of worse things than mere regret.
“‘This place is so cool!”
Mariah eyed the cocktails on the surrounding tables, the all-adult clientele.
She was feeling thirteen-going-on-thirty tonight, an emotion Temple remembered well.
So this was the secret Molina was going to unveil. A small, glamorous secret to start with, before the main course, which was large, hard to swallow, and indigestible.