She expressed her anger by pushing past him to eye the premises.
Living room, eating bar between that and a tiny kitchen, a short hall probably leading to one bedroom and a bathroom.
Everything was neat and in its place, despite the shabby surroundings.
For a minute she felt the room was rocketing away from her. She was standing someplace else, on a different planet, in an apartment they’d shared in L.A. In the bathroom. Holding a diaphragm up to the light. Revelation through a pinhole. Mariah.
Her daughter should know about this man, and this apartment? Alch was nuts. Never.
“You look a little queasy,” someone was saying. “The way you always did before singing. Sit down. The bedbugs won’t bite. I Raided them out.”
Someone had thrown a blanket depicting dog breeds over a chair. Molina perched on that, aware of the paddle holster
digging into her right rear hip.
Rafi Nadir passed a palm over his face, as if hoping to wipe it clean of fatigue and anger. “I didn’t do anything wrong
tonight. Nothing illegal. I’m not afraid of the drug guys. I’m clean. You, though, I’m afraid of.”
“You? Afraid of me?”
“Well, leery maybe. I got some Sprite. Settle your stomach. You want some?”
The Sprite didn’t surprise her. The offer did.
“You can drink it out of the can, all right? Only the rats and the cockroaches in the grocery store stockroom ran over it.
Untouched by my hands. Pop your own top.”
The last comment was inciting, but she was too tired to take it up.
Instead, she took the refrigerator-chilled can of soda he brought back, sweating with icy condensation.
“Everything went wrong tonight,” he was saying. “Youthink you’re worried about me? I’m worried about that little gal the biker took hostage. The narcs shot their clips and got into rounding up the gang, and me. Her, they didn’t give a shit.”
“Little girl?” Molina parroted, thinking about Mariah despite herself.
“Ballsy little broad. Red hair. I helped her out at Secrets and she’s got some sort of nerve for a squirt.”
Molina stood, the Sprite can’s contents baptizing the apartment’s hopeless carpet.
“Temple Barr was kidnapped? From Maylords’s loading dock? Why the frigging hell didn’t anyone tell me about it?”
“Maybe because it wasn’t your case, Carmen. You are Homicide, right?”
“CAPERS we call it now. Crimes Against Persons.”
“Same diff.”
“I can’t believe the drug task force would overlook that.”
“They had big, bad me to round up. Probably on your orders.”
“No. I had nothing to do with that. I want nothing to do with you, get it?”
“Yeah, but maybe you better forget that long enough to find out what happened to this little red-haired girl.”
Three o’clock in the morning.
Molina barreled into the Circle Ritz lot and killed the motor.
This was a world away from the tawdry neighborhood Rafi Nadir had bought into. Quiet. Crickets screaming, but quiet
crickets, relatively speaking.
The black marble building shone like a polished shoe in the night lights, everybody in it decently abed.
Except possibly Temple Barr.
Molina got out of her serviceable Toyota and shut the door as quietly as she could. She paused to survey the lot.
Something softly echoed her car door’s bang and she turned. A sleek silver car puddled like mercury under the big palm tree.
A man stood by the car door. The security light made his blond hair a molten gold.
“Matt.”
He walked toward her. “What are you doing here, Carmen?”
“And you, I might ask.”
“I just got off from work.”
“So did I. There was a big drug bust at Maylords tonight.”
“My God, you’re kidding.”
“You know me. I haven’t got a kid in me, excepting Mariah.”
“Yeah, but … why are you here, then?” His eyes flashed up to the Circle Ritz’s second floor.
“I just learned your neighbor was there, and whisked away by a rogue motorcylist.”
Matt met her eyes for the first time. “Rogue motorcyclist? You don’t think Elvis-?”
“Forget Elvis! That was a demented fan. This was a drug-dealing biker gang, rendezvousing at Maylords, and one got away.”
“With Temple? Why aren’t you shaking the city down for her? Why come here?”
“I have to start somewhere. If she isn’t here-”
They both turned for the building, trotting.
Banged through the lobby doors. Took the stairs without waiting for the elevator.
Rushed down the short hall to Temple’s apartment and rang the buzzer. She rang. He rang. They waited.
Suddenly Molina looked down. “Ugh! Poison cat hair on my navy blues.”
Matt confirmed her sighting. A big black cat was silently twining though their legs, depositing hair as if they were twentyfour-hour banks.
“It’s Midnight Louie. Why’s he locked out in the hall? He always goes in and out through the bathroom window, which is always left open for him.”
Molina’s grim blue glance crossed his. “Unless it wasn’t left open tonight, as usual.”
“Then Temple wasn’t here earlier-”
“I don’t know when she was here,” Molina said, “I just know that if she isn’t here now we’ve got something to worry about.” Matt rattled the door handle until the hinges shuddered. Molina stepped back and unholstered her weapon. Temple opened the door, and gaped at them.
She was wearing a Bugs Bunny T-shirt and bunny slippers. “Yes? Thank heavens! At least I opened the door to reinforcements.”
“Weren’t you kidnapped from the Maylords parking lot tonight?”
“You mean this morning, Lieutenant? No, not exactly kidnapped. I left, hastily, when I realized I was interfering with police business.”
“Nadir said-”
Temple turned a limpid gaze on Molina. “A well-meaning guy, but sometimes he sees conspiracies everywhere.”
“Well-meaning guy?” Molina was stunned.
“Thanks for stopping by,” Temple told them, glancing from one to the other with sleepy, innocent eyes. “I’m fine. I just
need to get a little rest.”
The door shut. The dead-bolt snapped to. The chain lock grated into place.
“She’s safe,” Matt said.
“She’s lying,” Molina said.
“I’m happy to have her alive and lying,” Matt said. “Then you’re a fool.”
“Maybe, but I’m a happy fool. Can you say the same about yourself, Carmen?” She took the fifth, and left.
Chapter 56
Louie, Louie
Naturally, I have eeled unnoticed back into my home, sweet home before my Miss Temple slams the door shut on unwanted humans.
Despite the aplomb with which she answered the door and shooed away human interference, I can tell something is wrong. If she has failed to notice me she is nervous.
She immediately trundles herself into our bedroom, where I am distressed to find Mr. Max Kinsella stretched out on the king-size bed as if he owns the place. Not lately, buddy.
It does not matter that he is pseudowounded. He has no right to be hogging my zebra-pattern comforter, not to mention the
midnight comforts of my little doll.
‘Who was it?” he asks.
“Your favorite couple: Molina and Matt.”
He grins, devilishly. “Didn’t I tell you they were an item in the making?”
Miss Temple concentrates on pulling the comforter up under his chin. “I wish I knew what had happened after we left”
“Give me twentyfour hours to recover from that rubber bullet and I’ll look into it.”
“Max, those weren’t rubber bullets. That was the real thing. And the only reason you’re even conscious now is that you wore that Kevlar vest.”
He lays back, right where I am accustomed to burrow my weary head nightly, and sighs.