Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“You know he’s back,” Matt said.

“Of course. And still an elusive bastard.”

“Really elusive this time. You know his memory is shot,” Matt added.

“Poor boy hit his head in a very bad fall.” She eyed him slyly. “Just like the poor call girl who met with you here before. Only she died. Much good you did her. Jumped down to the casino’s glass ceiling far, far below.”

“Or was pushed.”

“Are you confessing, Father?”

“I rather hoped you would.” He watched her. She wasn’t mad, with no grasp on reality, he was convinced, just very damaged. “Tell me about your relationship with Max Kinsella.”

“You priests like all the filthy details in the dark of the confessional.”

“Those dark confessionals are passé, Kathleen. And, from what I’ve heard, you were a lot less dark then. Wasn’t it a romp with the two naïve American boys lighting up dreary Belfast with high spirits and healthy but innocent hormones?”

“Oh, quite the engaging lads, they were,” she said between her teeth, her Irish accent strengthening. “Still blushed at first kiss, but that didn’t stop them from wanting one thing. You all do.”

“Boys, you mean. Men, you mean. That’s nature. I went against nature for a long time, but it didn’t work, because it was out of cowardice, not conviction. Not for the reason I thought it was.”

She settled back against the pillows. “Tell me about your deflowering and I’ll tell you about mine.”

“I know about yours and I’m sorry that I do.”

“Sorry! Don’t be sorry for me. Be sorry for yourself when I’m done with you.” She’d leaped up from the bed and grabbed her constant talisman for these sessions, the straight razor, from the veined marble top of the nightstand.

“Your skin is very white, very sensitive,” he observed.

She immediately unruffled her defenses as a cat’s bristled fur settled down at the sound of a familiar voice, a familiar hand. Seducing, bespelling a man was the only way she could permit herself to be petted.

“Have you used that razor on yourself?”

“What?” She glared, hardly believing the question.

“The thin pale scars would hardly show on that skin of yours. I imagine that was some comfort, to hurt yourself and feel it, rather than being hurt by somebody else and trying not to feel it.”

She flung a string of gutter Irish expletives he could barely understand, much less take offense at. “Manipulating, lying, Judas priest and freaking bastard,” was the decipherable end of it.

“I guess we share that ‘bastard’ label,” he said mildly. Very mildly. “Toast to that?” he lifted his lowball glass.

She slammed the razor back down on the marble and paced between the bed and the wall, a mirrored wall that reflected the long mirror on the opposite wall, so she met herself coming and going. “Smug, superior professional eunuch,” she spat at him, quite literally, her lips wet from a series of savage sips at the drink in her hand. “You’re not man enough to bother seducing.”

“But Max Kinsella was, and is. You seduced Max once, when he was seventeen. Is that why not finding him is so maddening? You need to seduce Max again, but can’t, now that he knows what you are?”

Her knuckles went white on the shaft of the folding razor. “You underestimate yourself, priest. You’re my target now.”

If only, Matt thought, the Northern Ireland peace hadn’t deprived her of a “cause” to justify her fury and sexual manipulations. She had to seduce and bedevil someone.

“Ex-priest,” he said again. Calm. “Tell me about the ones who abused you.”

She sat on the bed’s foot, the razor under her supporting palm, and leaned near. “I’m sure you’ll find this very exciting.”

She certainly did.

Chapter 24

Law and Order: Truce or Consequences

“I thought,” Max said, “I was to be allowed a long leash.”

He was still gobsmacked that Molina had invited him onto her home turf for a conversation, instead of to the usual scuzzy confidential-informant meeting place.

The unexpected civility put him off his game. He actually was sounding apologetic. “I’ve barely had time to survey Goliath and the Oasis Hotels for any lingering taint from the time dead bodies occupied the casino ceiling and were shanghaied onto sinking-ship attractions.”

“Circumstances change,” Molina answered.

They sure had; she’d gone from hunting him as a murderer to accepting his secret counter-terrorism past and finding him a useful covert investigator.

“Your bias against all things ‘me’ certainly has,” he agreed. “You’re asking to see me so often, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m a candidate to take Mariah to the Dad–Daughter dance next fall.”

“You know about my daughter’s school events? How?”

The truce was still iffy. Max laughed. “Scrub that Mama Grizzly look off your face and relax. Since the leading favorite for that honor, Matt Devine, is making visits to Chicago with Temple and cat in tow, he may not even be in Vegas by then. I smell a job opportunity for our golden boy.”

“Really? Apparently you still keep in touch with old acquaintances, even if you don’t remember much of them?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Devine has always visited Chicago regularly for TV talk show gigs. Your rival is a media darling.”

“Ex-rival. I’ve conceded. This most recent Windy City visit by the happy couple is enough to plant suspicions. Your daughter would be crushed to lose her Prince Charming.”

“Maybe not so much now.” Molina sat back on her slouchy family couch. “Mariah is all about becoming a YouTube sensation these days. Why do you think I can even consider … entertaining you at home?”

“She’s off with her girlfriends,” Max speculated, “singing into home karaoke machines and trying out new Girly Gaga looks.”

“Something like that.” Molina’s smile was nostalgic.

“I can see that’s in the genes. How did your secret singing career get started?”

“Church choir.”

Max nodded. “Makes sense. Singing alto on ‘Little Drummer Boy’ is perfect training for crooning torch songs at a neighborhood club.”

Molina wouldn’t be baited. “Your sarcasm,” she said, “is not going to make me ‘sing’ about how my undercover hobby got started. One good thing about today’s teen mania for fame and fortune and American Idol: It keeps them off the streets at night.”

Max smiled to hear that. He knew Rafi was getting what he wanted, quality time with his kid. And, because of that smart parental compromise, Max was getting a mellowed-out Molina. She’d actually given him a beer when he arrived.

“So what can a man with no memory tell a homicide lieutenant?” he asked, back to business.

“What are you getting from those two cold case deaths? Casino robbery interrupted?”

“Probably.”

“Does it seem … like the mob?”

“The mob?” Max repeated. “Vegas mobsters are only in museums now, aren’t they?”

“Are they?”

“You’re the one who’s supposed to know, Lieutenant.”

“Call me Molina.”

Max donned an impressed expression. “Sure thing. I could even shorten it to ‘Mole.’”

She did not look amused. “Maybe,” she said, “someone is trying to fake a fresh mob presence on the Strip. We did have one nasty murder that recalled the old-time mob methods of threats, torture, and death.”

“Anybody I know the victim?” Max asked carefully.

“You know about him. That scumbag named Clifford Effinger. He was bound to the prow of the sinking Treasure Island boat attraction and drowned.”