Tough love.
“Anyone?” Her voice trembled.
“Anyone.” He was adamant.
Mira swallowed, digesting the back draft of her emotional meltdown, finally listening. “That can’t come overnight.”
“No. But it can start right here, right now. It has to, Mom. We can’t go on otherwise.”
She sighed, her shoulders straightening. “If someone wants what’s in that file safe, I can give it up.”
“First,” Matt said, “we’ll look at what’s in it. Temple and I.”
Mira’s look of panicked appeal at Temple made it hard to insist she really had to see the contents. But it was her cat, her case. She did.
“Possibly fraudulent tax returns might seem scary,” Temple said. “So is what those thugs called to say about my cat. If someone wants what Cliff Effinger had, considering he was probably killed by the mob, we’ll all be a lot better off knowing where and what it is.”
Chapter 22
We Call the Wind Mariah
Rafi Nadir’s palms were sweating.
He’d been street-tested in East L.A. and Watts. He could handle facing down a gun barrel. He’d been among a detail that had subdued some King Kong on angel dust without going all Rodney King on the guy. He’d patted down a transsexual hooker who was armed, drunk, disorderly, and threatening to cut off all working parts in the vicinity, his, hers, and theirs.
But he’d never had to call Carmen Molina and ask if she’d allow him to take her and their daughter out to eat. Maybe Kinsella was right. He should start solo with Molina and work into “them.” He couldn’t decide which tactic would make his ex-significant other more suspicious.
He finally touched the Contact bar on his cell phone, bracing his feet on the hassock in his apartment and preparing to sound confident and relaxed.
“Yes?”
Jeez, she sounded irritated already, and he was sure his home number wasn’t on her cell phone.
“It’s Rafi.” At least he had a distinctive name. There’d be no confusion. Not that she’d had many men but cops calling her at home, or calling on her, just that Columbo clone, Detective Alch.
“I can see that,” she said.
So she did have his number. In the right way. Before he could segue into a casual approach, she continued.
“I’m glad you called.”
What?
“Do you know what your encouraging Mariah’s American Idol ambitions has done now?”
“I know kids need encouragement and ambitions, but I didn’t okay her running off to chase them.”
“Oh, Mariah hasn’t run off.”
Good. Mariah “running away” from home to enter another reality-TV teen talent show had led to exposing Matt Devine and Temple Barr to a deranged killer.
“Or rather,” Molina went on, “she’s run off only at the mouth. She used her friend’s karaoke machine to record a song she wrote and mount it on YouTube.”
“YouTube? Really? What’s the song called?”
Pause. “Bleu Doll-ya.”
“Isn’t that the name of the place you used to sing sometimes?”
“I still could.”
“The YouTube site isn’t coming up on my iPhone. Just the local nightclub.”
“Mariah’s version is spelled B-l-e-u D-o-l-l-y-a.”
“Bleu as in the cheese?”
“As in the French.”
“I knew that, Carmen. It’s French cheese. Yeah. Here it is.”
“Cheese as in cheesy,” Molina grumbled.
“Let’s see. Production values are nil … tween friend’s bedroom. Standard laptop camera and mic, but the song is kinda catchy.”
“Like the measles.”
“We need to discuss this new wrinkle in person. Maybe we can grab a bite.” He got inspired. “At the Blue Dahlia, say.”
“That’s more than ‘grabbing a bite.’”
“So who says you don’t deserve a quiet dinner out? And I hear the band is good. Where’s Mariah now?”
“Grounded.”
“You have a handy watchdog for her, right? Being you’re on call.”
“A couple live in the neighborhood. I could check. I’m not sure I’m—”
“Ready to go out on short notice? You never wore much makeup. Didn’t need it.”
“Not ready to see you in a social setting.”
“Oh, come on. I helped out on that last case, didn’t I? And we have a big something in common to discuss.”
“Apparently you’re primed to do the town since you got that Oasis assistant security chief job.”
The comment was out of left field and a bit catty for Molina, but Rafi shrugged it off. “I’ll be by in half an hour, okay?”
Another pause. “Angela is off today. I saw her working in her yard when I got home.”
“Done deal.” His thumb ended the call before she could change her mind.
He ran the YouTube song again with the sound higher. The kid had perfect pitch and decent pipes, and she was smart enough not to cover copyrighted songs. Lyrics and melody were not there. She needed to study her mother’s songbook, get some classic underpinnings.
He remained slouching on his secondhand couch, thinking.
* * *
Molina was already regretting her decision. She was glad Mariah was staying in her room while her mother was bumbling around her own bedroom, hunting up nonwork clothes that looked good enough for more than kicking around on errands.
She ended up recycling Dirty Larry odds and ends, like the dressy top she wore to Mariah’s performance at the Teen Queen reality TV show and the side-studded jeggings and … she paused in casing her selection of low-heeled boots, loafers, and moccasins on the floor of her closet. There were those kitten-heeled electric-blue pumps Temple Barr had nagged her into getting, on sale, when they were shopping for undercover clothes for Zoe Chloe Ozone and Mariah for that same show.
She got on her knees to pat down the dark at the back of her closet until she dragged them out. She’d never worn them, needing to minimize her five-foot-eleven height. Tonight … let Rafi stretch his spine a little, kinda like on the medieval rack. She was not kowtowing to male insecurity with him.
“You look nice,” Angela said when she arrived to house-sit and Molina opened the door, sounding too surprised and then looking dismayed.
The twenty-something cop needed to master noncommittal demeanor. And not insulting her superiors. Not too nice, Molina hoped. So clever of Rafi to invite her to the Blue Dahlia, her sometimes singing venue. She had an image to uphold with the management there even when she wasn’t appearing as the chanteuse “Carmen.”
Mariah had finally learned about her mother’s hidden hobby and occasional gigs there. That didn’t help matters either. Molina had plenty more reason to carp at Rafi.
She slipped out of the house before his car arrived to avoid inconvenient introductions, and slid into the front passenger seat as soon as it did.
“I need to make an early evening of it,” she warned.
His cursory glance was as noncommittal as Angela’s wasn’t. “You’ve worked there; we should get fast service.”
“I’m not sure what you want.”
“Neither am I, besides the obvious.”
She didn’t want to put Mariah’s name on the table until they were seated at a dinner table masquerading as a bargaining table. Meanwhile, she should keep things pleasant.
“How’s the Oasis job going?”
“Good. The head security guy is leaving and I’m up for the slot.”
“Already? That’s a suit-coat job.” She eyed his black denim jeans and the Bob Seger screaming eagle graphic T-shirt worn under a black linen blazer.
“Yeah, like a detective,” he agreed.
“How’d you get the major hotel-casino gig, anyway?”
“A well-connected friend gave me a rave review.”
“A friend? Here in Vegas?”
“Not anymore.”
She saw his jaw tighten. Had to be a bruising backstory there. Rafi knew how not to give away emotions, but that had failed him for just a moment. Interesting.