I have always been a backseat driver and my personal “four on the floor” have massaged dark, discreet interior carpeting from economy cars to limousines. Miss Temple would seem the logical one to stick with, but she will drive alone and this time I will not be entertained by her spiritedly hostile cell phone banter with the Crawfish.
I toy with the notion of riding with Awful Crawford himself. That orange Hummer tickles my fancy, reminding me of my Halloween birthday. I would enjoy being a surprise passenger in an automotive pumpkin. Has a nursery rhyme and reason to it, like blackbirds baked in a pie.
Besides, just who Crawford will whine to on his cell phone after his interrogation might be very informative.
I do not have long to weigh options as I lurk in the scant exterior shrubbery this clime provides.
A Miata has no backseat at all. Luckily, my Miss Temple, being short, obligingly keeps both seats set forward; the empty passenger seat holds her essential tote bag at the ready. This leaves a dude a smidge of wiggle room to hide behind either seat without being noticed. She is on the cell phone anyway; probably trying to rouse . . . I mean, roust Mr. Matt.
So I decide to indulge my craving for a novel experience and honor Mr. Crawford Buchanan with my guardian angelship for a time. Not that I would lift a split shiv to save him from even a case of dandruff. I hunker under his wheels.
As I suspected, he is on the cell too. Apparently he is alerting his radio station.
“I have an interview with a homicide lieutenant,” he boasts, turning an interrogation into a journalistic coup in his own beady little eyes. “Might have a whole new angle on the teen pop tart phenom. Lots of human interest. I am on the trail of the story now. Might be a spectacular linkup to my surprise new gig at the Oasis.”
I notice that he does not mention the possibility of needing bail money.
That would be a happy ending, I decide.
Interestingly, the Crawf did put out an All Points Bulletin of his own about the Molina kid to contacts in the teen talent industry at points west, all the way to L.A.
Meanwhile, my Miss Temple has paused to put the Miata’s top down for a breezy drive home. So I shelter under the low car. Once the top is down and she’s busy starting it up, I loft over the low side into the very mini “rumble seat” behind the front seats. Oofda! Squeezes the interior organs like a Swedish masseuse.
What a convoy of two we make. The smooth, small, sassy red Barr Miata, and, bringing up the rear, the hulking, boxy, orange Buchanan Hummer H3 with its shiny chrome grin of a front grille that so sums up the Crawf’s sleazy personality.
Miss Temple is in such a grim hurry that I almost lose a tail tip shadowing her into our car. I could just dispense with the secret agent routine, but she seems to have enough on her mind that I do not care to add to it.
Also, once we are a decent distance from Molina’s place, she exceeds the legal limit as if we were a squad car in pursuit. Maybe we are. Buchanan’s vehicle is soon a gaudy memory in the rearview mirror. We squeal into the Circle Ritz parking lot on a sharp turn, the headlights flashing across the gleaming eyes of a whole startled row of Ma Barker’s gang in the bordering bushes.
She runs into the building so fast the big outside door slams shut before I can get through, an unheard of occurrence. No problem. I can take the palm tree trunk up to the secondary bathroom window she keeps open for me.
I know then that something big is up and resolve to be something little but essential in helping her out.
Road Scholars
Temple dashed out of the Circle Ritz into the parking lot, hoping not to be spotted by any residents. Leaving in the wee morning hours when it was still dark felt like eloping.
She also felt like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar, in a scene from a summer teen slasher movie. She couldn’t believe the sinister, big black SUV, a Tahoe, throbbing in idle near the back door security light was waiting for her. Nor could she believe who sat in the driver’s seat.
Rafi Nadir.
What a wild scenario. She felt like the rebellious little Goth girl being picked up by disapproving Mommy and Daddy. At least Molina had phoned to warn her they had a third wheel, a very volatile “third wheel”!
A pregnant Molina had run out on Nadir fourteen years ago, never telling him about Mariah, but he had ended up here finding out anyway. Temple didn’t know why they were so bitter toward each other but she suspected Matt might. If Molina confided in anyone, it was Temple’s ex-priest sweetie.
Short form, they’d been rookie cops/romantic roommates in L.A. Now Molina was a woman homicide lieutenant in a major city and Nadir was making a comeback as assistant security chief at a midtier Vegas hotel-casino. Rafi had met Temple briefly before, but he’d totally bought into her as Zoe Chloe Ozone at the Teen Queen reality TV show house, where she’d been babysitting contestant Mariah for her worried mom. He’d—ironically—taken them both under his wing, realizing something dangerous was up. So Temple didn’t feel the hate Molina did for her ex. More important, neither did Mariah.
Big Daddy got out of the driver’s side to inspect the huge suitcase and three duffle bags Matt had helped Temple wrestle downstairs.
“You need all this stuff?” Rafi asked, easily slinging the luggage into the cavernous storage space. He was wearing black denim jeans and a muscle T-shirt, looking like the laid-back manager of a Goth girl, who would also be counterculture.
“No, but Zoe Chloe Ozone does. You’re driving?”
“My vehicle. Yeah, it’s amazing she’d let me take the wheel. Must be because of whatever she’s got.”
“Flu.”
“If you all say so.”
“What else would it be?”
“I don’t know. You ride in the backseat, kiddo. Don’t I wish I could.”
He escorted Temple around the SUV and opened the side door. She made a major effort to haul her five-foot frame onto the high step up. Rafi turned it into a giant leap for womankind by boosting her inside with a hand under the elbow.
“They don’t make these monsters for shrimps,” Temple complained. “Getting in this is like climbing an Alp for me.”
“At least you don’t have Molina riding shotgun.” His quiet tone was glum.
Temple placed herself in the center of the middle bench seat, thinking she was going to be in the middle figuratively for this whole road trip. At least here she could see both of her traveling companions. She’d noticed a couple of backpacks and duffle bags in the rear storage area. Molina and Rafi had a lot less to get together and pack. They weren’t the star of this expedition. But they had a lot more “baggage,” nevertheless.
She smiled to remember Matt’s wee-hour amazement at this rapid turn of events when she knocked on his door at 3:00 A.M., as predicted. Why had not been predicted.
“You’re going off to L.A. with Molina and her hated ex-cop boyfriend to audition for a teen talent show? With them posing as your . . . parents?”
“Hey, I can look positively adolescent at times. But, no, nobody got that carried away.”
“How can you create a pop tart entity from scratch?”
Temple grinned. “I’m hoping tomorrow you’ll talk your agent, Tony Fortunato, into playing along and ‘repping’ my appearance at the contest finals with those folks. Molina’s minions will set up the security end of it. Crawford Buchanan will dutifully pimp the Zoe Chloe mystique on his radio spots. It’s not hard to become a fullblown media phenom these Internet days. I’ll be working with pros, remember.”
“Molina and her ex?” Matt snorted. “I hope you’re a good marriage counselor, caught between those two.”
“I’ve been listening religiously to a really fine radio counselor all my lonely midnights.”