“A well-worn thirty-eight, like the caliber of my favorite gun. The ‘dude’ is from hanging out with the kid.”
Matt wondered what else in Rafi Nadir’s life might “be from hanging out” with Mariah’s mother hen, all-pro homicide lieutenant C. R. Molina. A guy with major hotel security responsibility playing singing coach? Was this a way to edge Mariah’s secret father into her life? Because Molina was well qualified to tutor her daughter herself, given her own fantastic vocal talents.
“If you have any influence, I wish you could persuade her mother to get back to performing,” Matt said, hardly realizing he’d spoken aloud.
Rafi refused to share his status with the lieutenant or her family, just saying, “Carmen’s torch singing was a classy act. And nobody persuades Molina to do anything,” Rafi added, probably unaware of the naked bitterness Matt detected in his tone.
He went on. “The kid gig is because I used to be a…what you’d call an amateur ‘talent developer’. Don’t judge her mother. She has a huge job responsibility as a woman on the rise in law enforcement. Puttin’ on the ritz now and then at the Blue Dahlia can’t be on her agenda these days.”
“She has a great voice, though. I’d want her to sing at my wedding any day.”
“Wedding. That in the cards soon?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you don’t want to be offed in a free-for-all fight at the Lucky Stars nudie bar, do you? Might annoy the bride-to-be.”
“No. But I don’t want to make that big a step without knowing what my rotten stepfather was up to in Chicago and then here that was so bad it, thankfully, widowed my mother. That has got to be linked to something big.”
“Stubborn, aren’t you?” Nadir swung the steering wheel ninety degrees. Matt looked around to see Woody’s house. “I guess if you’re going to live long enough to get married, you should creep into the home place unnoticed tonight.”
“I’m not staying. I’ve got to clean up and get to work for the night shift at the radio station. What have you done to me? I’m leaving early tomorrow morning with my fiancée for Minneapolis. My jaw will be a dead giveaway.”
“Sleep on an ice pack and you’ll be normal by morning. Say, I’d still sure love to see a condo or apartment at the Circle Ritz. Let me know if you and the lucky little woman are going to leave a vacancy.”
Matt sighed and opened the SUV door, trying not to land hard on the asphalt. Every little move he made right now was not magic. Ouch.
Rafi leaned over the passenger seat to pull the door closed after Matt. “Remember. ‘You’ve got a friend.’ Carole King. ‘I’ll Be Watching You.’ The Police.”
“Babysitting not appreciated,” Matt said. “I don’t know if you’re my guardian angel or worst nightmare.”
“Sometimes, dude, they are the same thing.” Rafi Nadir winked and pulled the door shut with a nerve-shattering bang, at least for Matt’s nerves at the moment.
Being hauled away from his first serious investigative move like a delinquent teenager could be considered humiliating.
He didn’t humiliate, though; he persevered. For Matt, the evening’s debacle was proof that Clifford Effinger was gone, but not forgotten, and was still of deep interest to both the crime and punishment sides of Las Vegas. How could Matt marry Temple with that kind of threat from his past hovering over them?
He couldn’t.
So the only way forward was to ID and eliminate the threat.
Matt groaned. He was beginning to sympathize with Max Kinsella.
First, he had to get the Jag out of Wetherly’s garage before the old guy came back. The ramshackle door didn’t have a lock. Woody must consider himself theft-proof for some reason and would know who had taken it.
Then Matt had to get home to ice his jaw for a while, drive to his radio talk-show gig, and rise and shine early tomorrow to look fine and accompany Temple to Minneapolis to meet his future in-laws.
Right now, he might prefer to be Max Kinsella on the run from Kitty the Cutter.
13
Call Girls Inc.
“I’ve found the visiting house louse. Are you game for some vermin extermination?”
Temple blinked to hear her cell phone’s rude but mystifying announcement this late in the evening. The gritty voice didn’t even sound like Electra’s. Her watch showed 11:06 p.m. She’d just finished packing. She and Matt could nap on the plane, but Temple was eager to get some sleep now.
“What kind of vermin? Something creepy invaded the Circle Ritz?”
“Just my dirty rat ex-husband, who hasn’t been in town for years, and who swore he wouldn’t sell his land without telling me first.”
“He’s here? Now?” Temple’s adrenaline was kicking into overdrive.
“No. In town, hiding out. At the Araby Motel.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, that dump. He must have needed money fast.”
“How’d you find him?”
“I called his latest ex-wife, Diane, and she wasn’t surprised he hadn’t told me he was in town. His recliner furniture business in St. Louis hit the skids in the Great Recession. Jay has been gambling again to get back on his feet, which means he’s only losing more money.”
“You certainly have colorful exes.”
“Look who’s talking? And that’s why they’re exes.”
“So what do you need me for?”
“I’m not dumb enough to go to the Araby Motel at this hour. Alone.”
“And little me would be a witness and protection? Matt’s already left for his midnight show, but I could call—”
“No. I want as few people as possible to know my business.”
“So a Fontana brother or two—?”
“Out of the question. This is women’s work. I’m not afraid of Jay. It’s just that the Araby Motel is a two cell-phone destination. One with a 9-1-1 autodial for me, and one with a 9-1-1 autodial for you, if I have to resort to violence. That’s how the hookers work it, in pairs.”
“Oh, great.”
“Great witnesses, though, if something goes wrong.”
“This is crazy, Electra. It’s late, and Matt and I are leaving early in the morning.”
“I have to talk to Jay, and he’s liable to move around, dodging people he doesn’t want to see, like creditors or ex-wives. Listen. Jay is really a pussycat. I just need to do some instant lion taming. There’s got to be a way out of this deal he supposedly wrangled. We split the Circle Ritz and some surrounding acres in the divorce, with him agreeing to give me right of first refusal on a deal for his acreage. I can’t imagine him reneging like this. Please!”
“Okay, Electra. I’ll go with you, but you’re forcing me to do the unthinkable.”
“What is that?”
“Wear jeans and my ugly running sneakers. At least it’s dark out.”
Temple had slipped her cell phone into a wrist case so she could use it fast.
They drove Electra’s old Probe. Temple rebelled at her landlady’s suggestion of them riding the Hesketh Vampire motorcycle that had originally been Max Kinsella’s. It was fast but noisy at high speed (hence the screaming vampire reference), and not low profile. For the same reason, Temple was not about to take her Miata convertible.
Sixty years ago, the motel had been a chi-chi little motor lodge, the latest thing in Western Accommodations for travelers wishing to see the U.S.A. in their Chevrolets. Today it was someplace Bette Davis could loathe. Dump Central. Not many cars littered the asphalt, but they all were missing something—paint, various windows, wheel rims.
It wasn’t that the Araby Motel didn’t have the usual Vegas vibe, including a snazzy neon sign. The Araby Motel was laid out like an exclamation point: a long, low one-story string of rooms stretching out from a registration office that sat under a tower of tired neon. Earthworm-pink neon cursives spelled out ARABY MOTEL above a sputtering green minaret and a huge purple genie wafting up from a blue bottle.