“A stand-off.”
“Right. What to do? I had to subdue him or lose Mr. Slippery again. And all I had was ‘suspicion’ of being the Stripper killer. But it was good enough to take him in for, with him right there on the site of a previous crime, and having been seen there earlier.”
“So you radioed for backup.”
“He was going to walk, daring me to shoot him.”
“So—?” Matt was really curious now, sitting forward on the sofa, a terrific audience for her defining, and dumbest, moment.
“So, I slapped my weapon down on the nearest pickup hood and we went hand-to-hand.”
“Carmen!”
“I’ve been trained. The sexist watch commanders in L.A. set little old rookie me taking down three-hundred-pound brothers and drug dealers with Uzis in Watts. Loved that Latino-black rivalry. Adding a woman to the mix was even more amusing.”
“Yeah, but . . . Max is a world-class strong man.”
“He’s not that tough. I did cuff him.”
“Maybe he let you. So that’s the problem? You cuffed him and what? Um, I know. He uncuffed himself.”
“And me to the steering wheel of my car! Never arrest a magician. By then, the radio was announcing the takedown of the Stripper Killer, thanks to your pal Temple’s meddling. I would have had to let him go anyway.”
“But he would have escaped before then. What’s so irregular about that scenario? You found and captured a reasonable suspect then freed him when fast-moving events proved him innocent.”
“Don’t ever apply the word ‘innocent’ to that man. Yes, he got away. Yes, no one knows about our parking-lot round but he and I. And that’s how I know—I know now!—that he’s my stalker.”
“How?”
She took a deep breath. “When we were fighting, he thought he had the upper hand at one point. He came on to me. Seriously. Your lovely little Miss Temple was off the radar. He had turned my pursuit of justice into some sick psycho-sexual game between us. It was real, believe me. If she had seen it, she would have dumped him like that. I’m protecting her, in a way, from having her illusions sent to Sing-Sing for life.”
“What did he do, say?”
“I’m too embarrassed to tell an ex-priest.”
“Try me.”
“Just that our cat-and-mouse game was substitute for what I really wanted and needed, a good screwing.”
Matt winced. As much as he was adjusting to secular society and its rough edges, crudity still impacted his priestly sensibility. Suddenly, he looked at Carmen from under those baby-blond eyebrows, his penetrating brown eyes so unusual in one of his Polish coloring.
“Intense feelings can flip either way, love or hate.”
“Don’t say love.”
“Passion or hate, okay?”
“You ever feel either one?”
“More than you can imagine, Carmen.”
For a few fixed instants, she believed him. “Right. You hated your stepfather. I assume that’s resolved now that he’s dead.”
Matt shrugged. “Nothing’s ever resolved. It just evolves, or we do. I see your confidentiality problem. I see why you think what you do. What I don’t see is Max Kinsella as a stalker. He’s like Lucifer. He’s got too much pride. So do you.”
“I am the law!”
“No. You’re a representative of the law. You may not realize this, and I can’t say more because I do honor confidences, but Max is a representative of another kind of law.”
“Another kind?”
“He’s a seeker of justice.”
“And I’m not?”
“He’s an émigré from an abused minority.”
“And I’m not?”
“So. You have a lot in common.”
“No way! Matt, you’ve gone over the edge here. Stay out of it.”
“May I still take Mariah to her father-daughter dance?”
“Yes.” Said begrudgingly. For her daughter’s sake.
“Sure. I will. But, you know, as long as we’re being bottom-line frank here, I think her real father should do the honors.”
He had gotten up and was halfway to the door.
“Are you crazy? Do you know what her father is?”
“I know who he is, but, no, I don’t know what he is. Do you?”
And the bastard walked out of her house unscathed, as Max Kinsella himself had done not a day before having left his sleazy rose-scented threat behind.
Molina fumed, her teeth taking her frustration out on her lower lip, raking it with fury. It was a bad day when a former priest and a former magician could make her own home taste like bitter ashes in her mouth.
Mum
Matt speed-dialed Temple on his cell phone before his Crossfire had left Molina’s curb.
She answered after five rings. Sounds of frantic activity buzzed behind her cheerful hello.
“I need to see Max as soon as possible.”
“Matt? Hello to you too. He’s not very accessible these days.”
“Just get to him and tell him to get to me, fast.”
“What’s this about?”
“Him and me talking.”
“About what?”
“I can’t say.”
“You can’t say? Now you’re sounding like Max.”
“Maybe. Just get me through to him somehow.”
“And you won’t say why?”
“I can’t say why.”
“It’s a secret?”
“Not mine.”
“Max’s?”
“Maybe.”
“Who else’s then?”
“I can’t say.”
After a silence, she said “Oh, that secrecy of the confessional thing?”
“Call it that. Call it ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ I really, really need to see Max, Temple. You’ve trusted him through a whole heaping helping of thick and thin. I’m asking you to trust me just this once.”
“You know I’ll die of curiosity.”
“That might be better than the consequences if I don’t speak to Max, fast.”
More silence.
Then, “I’ll call him. Leave a message and your phone numbers. Your local answering service signing off.” The natural bounce had left her voice, and she hadn’t said good-bye.
Matt’s hold on the cell phone turned homicidal, then he realized he’d better not disable one of two thin threads of communication that linked him and Max Kinsella.
He hoped Temple would stress how important this was, how fast the contact needed to be made, before Molina got her “evidence” back, before Temple heard about this from the police. Before Max would be a seriously wanted man.
But the afternoon dragged on as he clung to his apartment at the Circle Ritz. The shadow of the lone palm tree in the parking lot elongated like a dark tightrope strung across the asphalt.
And nothing. Neither phone rang.
He heard the throaty little engine of Temple’s Miata over the air-conditioning. Rushing to the spare bedroom window that overlooked the lot, he was just in time to spy a woman with strawberry-blond hair running out on high heels to get in the passenger side. The Miata spurted out of the lot, off for the evening, Matt sensed. Girls’ night out. He grabbed his cell phone to call Temple, but . . . Max might call. He might miss it.
Matt tried to watch the TV news, some silly network programming. More news. The phone never rang.
The Miata wasn’t back by eleven thirty P.M. when he had to leave for WCOO. Listen, he told himself. One more day won’t make that much of a difference.
It was just the secret burning a hole in his pocket. He wanted to warn Max so Temple wouldn’t be hurt. He wanted to confront Max, so he could find out if the man had done something to hurt Temple, something beyond forgiving, that would make her forever give up on him.
His noble and ignoble motives rubbed together like two worn coins in his pocket. Sometimes he felt one under his fingertips, sometimes the other.
For Temple’s sake, he hoped Max had an answer, an alibi. For his own, and maybe Temple’s in the long run, he half hoped Max didn’t have an answer, an excuse. For once.