“Yeah. Man of Steel meets Bullet of Magnum Force.”
“I cannot believe you got me out of there.”
“I cannot believe you put yourself into a position you needed to be gotten out of … actually, I can, and rather fondly recall
-”
“You’re delusional.”
She notices my faithful bedside presence and has the grace to turn scarlet. I do so love the human capacity to change fur color. Also the fact that my Miss Temple takes my presence personally.
“Just rest,” she tells Mr. Max, “and we will figure out what happened in the morning.” Righf. That is what they all say.
Chapter 57
Dead Ends
If a horse throws you, you’re supposed to get right back on it. If a motorcycle gang throws you, maybe you just breeze back into work the next day as cool as you please.
That’s what Temple did, leaving Max dreaming the dreams of the young and the restless. He hadn’t been kidding about being exhausted. Temple, awash with gratitude for all his good points, regretted that their reunion wasn’t a bit more up close and personal.
She also wondered what else he was doing besides writing Gandolph’s book and secretly following her adventures at Maylords. It would take a lot more than that, and a bullet or two in the back, to put Max down for the count in the sack.
Midnight Louie had awakened her with an orgy of licking and purring, seeming to press a certain advantage.
He too looked a bit worse for wear-could he really have been among those lean and hungry feral cats that had mixed it up with the motorcycle gang? Nah. She must have hallucinated his presence. Not Louie. Another black cat. Poor homeless creatures. They probably thought those saddlebags contained food.
She’d have to see that Maylords did something to help those poor cats, and Maylords, i.e., Kenny and Barb, would probably be eager to do anything now that would result in good publicity.
Temple could just see the sound bites and headlines: “Drug Bust Results in Homeless Cat Rescue: Catnip Trumps Cocaine.” Temple sighed as she reached the Miata in the Circle Ritz parking lot and hit the unlock button on her key-ring remote control.
Matt and Molina together? At her door. At an ungodly hour of the morning. Both looking equally desperate.
Now, that was a story she was dying to cover, chapter and verse.
Apparently they’d heard about her rip-roaring abduction.
She expected Matt to care about that, but Molina?
Okay. The woman was a law enforcement official. No matter how much she harassed Temple about Max, she certainly didn’t want an innocent bystander like Temple spindled, folded, or mutilated by some anonymous druggie biker. Maybe.
Temple still felt twinges about turning Matt away from her door.
He’d just gotten off work, poor guy. He comes home and hears about Temple’s spectacular vanishing act. From Molina, probably. He must have been frantic. He would have been tired, but maybe not too tired to demonstrate just how frantic he had been… .
Arrgh! Temple yelled at her own overripe imagination. Just get in the car and go to work like the rest of the working stiffs. Do not
go there.
Go to Maylords, and do your job. Especially the part that is none of your business.
At least this time shattered glass didn’t strew the store’s public areas.
All the damage had been done out back, where it didn’t show, as she ought to know.
The storescape seemed oddly peaceful, especially without Beth Blanchard around to bully the staff.
Temple peeked her head into the designers’ area, and noticed a lot of empty cubicles. Either madly out working, or …
mad at the management and … out, for good. Hard to tell which.
Rafi wouldn’t be here. He’d been let go a day early. So she’d lost her inside man.
Molina would love the inside man on the drug deal to have been Raf, but Temple didn’t think he was. Last night was not an act. The incriminating thing was that he had her gun, and no one knew it was her gun. She was sure Molina wouldn’t think to ask, and Rafi would be too stubborn to say so if she had.
Of course there were fingerprints, but Temple had never been printed, although Raf probably had, even if just for the police job. If Molina tried to say he was part of the biker gang, and if he didn’t kill her for it and end up with a murder charge, Temple might just have to come forward and speak up for him.
Imagine. She was not often a potential advocate for everybody’s worst enemy.
She shrugged to herself as she wandered the circling stone path, hearing Amelia Wong’s fountains and bells tinkling in the distance. They were pleasant sounds in a sere desert city, Temple had to give feng shui that.
Some people laughed at the idea that fountains and hanging bells could affect an environment. Not Temple. She had read that feng shui translated to “wind” and “water.” Look what those unseen and liquid elements had done to shape the desert landscape and the life upon on it: animal, insect, reptile, and human. Sometimes it seemed that reptiles and some humans were more closely related than thought possible.
But that was giving reptiles a bad name.
Tonight Amelia Wong would end her duties with a bang and another cocktail reception. This event would climax with the drawing for the winner of the Cadillac CTS.
Wouldn’t it be great if tonight would also unmask the inside man? Or woman. Too bad Beth Blanchard wasn’t around anymore to take the rap.
And she would miss Simon, just because he had been so nice to have around.
It didn’t make sense! The nicest and nastiest Maylords employees had been killed. They had nothing in common except their workplace.
Now that the drug deal was history, the inside person had to be nervous. And angry. Money was not going to be forthcoming. Rafi had helped queer the deal (would he love that expression!), but he was gone. Temple had done it too. She still had one more night to work, and then she’d be gone as well.
She stopped’ near the kelly green vignette, again aware of how easy it was to get lost and isolated in this circuitous floor plan equipped with several dozen rooms leading into each other or sudden dead ends.
She heard a shoe scraping stone, as if someone had abruptly turned. Or ducked off the path of the hard surface flooring, so as not to be heard.
Ooh. She was as good as alone here.
The inside person would know she had suspicions about the operation, or she wouldn’t have been out by the loading dock
last night.
That person would have no idea how much she knew. Temple turned in a circle, seeing only gorgeous, empty rooms.
Water pattered into bronze bowls. Bells swung and rang in the draft from the air conditioning.
Temple examined every dust ruffle in sight, the sides of every entertainment unit or bookcase, hunting a lurker. Whoever had stabbed Simon and Beth or just Beth if Beth herself had stabbed Simon), was still in the store.
Another sound. Temple jumped. Then followed it, setting her rubber-soled clogs down flat and silent on the polished stone.
The rustling had sounded almost like an animal worrying at something. Maybe the cat colony from last night had sneaked
into the store during the confusion.
Temple moved into a room setting filled with heavy furniture perfect for lurking behind. The sounds seemed to come from
there.
She peered around the false wall dividing the setting from its neighbor and saw a pair of suede shoes protruding from the bed’s brocade dust ruffle.
Another victim!
But then a shoe moved, and the owner backed out into the room.
“Jerome! What are you doing here?”
He turned to see her over his shoulder, looking startled. And guilty as sin.
“M-Miss Barr. What are you doing here?”
“I asked first.”
He pushed up on his knees, then pulled himself upright by a bedpost.
Jerome’s plaid shirt and baggy khaki pants made him seem like a little boy, but she noticed that his upper body strength when he pulled himself up was pretty effective. He’d done a lot of carting and toting for the late Beth Blanchard.