Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Topaz Tango

We weave in and out of the forest of moving legs, leaving squeals and curses in our wake, rather like Moby Dick, only unlike the white whale, we are black. And not a marine mammal.

Black Legs leads us on a hard chase all through the casino and then the shops and then the meeting areas and then the service areas to the utter rear of the building. A last gray metal door opens at his push, a one-way exit. Before it shuts on his vanishing heels with the one bent nail we elect to eel through.

The heavy door slams shut, but we have split—literally—to either side and the shadows. He turns to check that no one is coming through the door behind him.

A Dumpster awaits; his goal all along. I hear the huge truck gears grinding a few blocks away. This one knows a fast trash pickup will swallow the evidence he deposits now in minutes.

He will leave his load and vanish. We need a way to ID him. My shivs are still throbbing from marking his rear pants. At least they were not denim, but something sleazier for dancing. I am betting he is not dumping those, because his blood is on the ass. Not enough to drip and leave evidence unfortunately.

“We must mark him,” Topaz’s hot breath wafts in my right ear. She has slipped into my shadow.

I explain I already have, and how.

“Something visible to humans,” she insists.

“I know. I suppose I could claw his face.”

“You are already bruised from fighting this man. He would smash you to the ground.”

I am not afraid of taking on this literal bruiser again, but claw marks would only mean something to someone who knew and believed in my crime-fighting nature, like Miss Temple.

The light from the dim security lamp in the distance catches on Topaz’s collar.

“Duck,” I tell her, nudging her behind me, with her amber crystal drops swinging like a lady’s earrings.

“How do these come off?” I ask. “When the tourists collect them for the prize?”

“Something called a ‘spring ring.’”

“Sit still. I am going to see if my front fang can spring one of those babies free.”

“Louie! This is no time to be collecting prizes. You are cheating.”

“No, but he will be. Now be patient and keep quiet.”

“Well!”

But she does. Of course I am forced into some very intimate quarters, mouth to mouth almost, as I struggle to work a topaz drop free without the aid of an opposable thumb.

Our hot breaths mingle. I growl a little. Topaz unintentionally purrs a little. I could get used to this, but— dang !—the glass jewel suddenly is in my mouth. I mean, good!

Our quarry is squatting by the open guitar case, drawing out the black accessories of villainy: the flat-brimmed hat and cloak. Which he folds back in the guitar case. He stands and strips off his long-sleeved black shirt, revealing pale white skin. He dons a short-sleeved shirt from the case and sits on the concrete to take off the flamenco boots and pulls out a pair of simple black slip-on shoes. His folded pants are beside him.

I slip up on them soft and silent as a shadow, and tuck the pendant in the left rear pocket. Just for a backup. And because I am enough of a street cat still to believe that tagging a perp should fit the crime, I use my strongest remaining front shiv to slash an initial into the back heel of one shoe: the letter L .

Fenced In

After a not-so-jolly room service breakfast at eight, Rafi sat on the suite’s sprawling main sofa manning his cell phone and jotting notes on the hotel stationery.

He was Mr. Action Center. Molina sat beside him, frowning and periodically checking her own cell phone. Forensics wouldn’t have much to report for hours. Rafi’s security staff was checking out the entire Dancing With the Celebs support staff and cast, but only after Molina had put Rafi through a catechism of where they were allowed to investigate and how they were to deal with any evidence they found. Dirty Larry was on another couch, far away, analyzing his informal footage for likely Zorro candidates.

Temple curled up on the couch opposite Rafi and Molina with Matt, who was soon to head for rehearsal with Tatyana. Mariah and EK were still sleeping in their bedroom, after the late hours and excitement of this day’s very wee hours.

Louie’s presence was MIA. He had exited with the waiter to go off on errands of a peculiarly mysterious nature.

Temple hoped he was getting the goods on someone.

Meanwhile, this was Rafi’s operation, his hotel, his expertise.

He flipped his cell phone shut and regarded his ex. Professionally. Like they were long-standing colleagues, which they had been, long ago.

“The fencer was found safe at home in his hotel room, pretty zonked.”

“That can be faked,” Molina noted.

“Not with hooker twins zonked out next to him on the bed. My people roused him enough to learn his Zorro and other costumes had always stayed in the wardrobe room.”

“They roused him?” Temple asked alertly. “The hooker twins?”

“No. My staff.”

He eyed Molina again.

Temple watched them both. Such an interesting situation. She had her cops, he had his hotel cops. Wow. Equal again, in a way, as when they’d been rookie uniformed officers together on the streets of L.A.

Temple was torn between feeling sorry for Molina and cheering on Rafi. She wondered where Mariah would fall on that continuum if and when she learned Rafi Nadir was her father.

At the moment, he looked like an okay candidate, and her mother, wearing vintage seventies garb and fighting whatever physical problem she had been, looked pretty lame and tame.

It was always a mistake to underestimate Molina. Rafi was feeling pretty cocky now, for all the right and wrong reasons.

Matt stirred, his head on Temple’s shoulder heavy but welcome.

She swallowed. Hard.

He’d been ambushed alone by a seasoned swordsman, Matt armed with nothing but his occasional martial arts workouts and his wits. He’d done a Max Kinsella job of coming out of that intact. Except for his left hand, which rested on her thigh, under the loose clasp of her contrite right hand.

Could one have a contrite right hand?

She did. She’d encouraged Matt to enter this orgy of dance, publicity, and public self-revelation. Temple Barr, fiancée, expert PR woman, and rotten advisor in all roles.

Rafi looked up at Temple. He then announced fresh info from his staff, probably just to frost Molina.

“Zorro costume’s missing, all right. I guess the sword was left in the attack area because it had no fingerprints, the usual quick ditch and run for it.”

He glanced at Molina, whose olive skin had flushed deeply red at that phrase, “a quick ditch.”

And hadn’t she done just that to Rafi, fourteen years ago in L.A.?

Temple shivered, partly from the idea of Matt’s bandaged hand and wrist on her thigh, partly from watching Molina come apart before her eyes. Max would enjoy this. Or . . . would he? She was petty enough to like it on his behalf, scared enough to dread it on Matt’s behalf. Someone had tried to kill him!

She needed Molina and all her homicide skills, as Molina needed Rafi and his hotel security history.

Shoot! She and Molina were twins right now, needing exactly the people they most despised and distrusted.

Temple eyed Rafi. His usual five o-clock shadow was now purely 3:00 A.M. satanic smudge and his Cheshire cat expression said that he was aware of every damn nuance Temple was.

He winked at her, then his glance moved to the sleeping Mariah and Ping-Ponged between anger and regret.

Yeah. He had daddy genes, probably to his own great surprise.

She wondered if Matt or Max did, and could think of half a dozen reasons why either might not . . . or did. A dozen reasons why she didn’t want to be her own mother, wobbling erratically between seasoned insight and neurotic overcontrol of her only daughter and youngest child.