Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Topaz Tango

“Maybe even Hank Buck,” Temple said.

“What are you getting at?” Rafi asked.

“Let’s say he always was in this to get Matt. I know, we don’t know why, but it looks like that. Let’s say . . . he saw he could use the competition to get other people too. Then he went wild, was a revenge machine. All these celebrities going wild in Hollywood and Vegas, getting away with things. That could irritate a law officer, right?”

“Irritate. Not drive nuts.”

“What if he already was nuts?”

“Any evidence?”

“Only in what he did at the other end of his mania.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m getting at, who could hate Glory B., Olivia, Chef Salter, Wandawoman, Motha Jonz, and Matt enough to persecute them? Persecute. But kill? The only person Hank Buck tried to kill was Matt.”

“He’s the most innocent of the innocent,” Molina protested.

“That before his tango, or after?” Rafi asked.

“Forget the dancing,” Molina snapped. “The last thing this is about is dancing. The dancing was the pretext.”

“Amen,” Temple said. “And there was Hank Buck, full of whatever venom he had, having all these people on his turf, and at his mercy. Most of all, for reasons we don’t know, Matt.”

Dirty Larry’s buzz-cut dirty blond head came through the greenroom door.

“Our boy Buck is reaching smack high. He’ll be singing his soul out like Janis Joplin and I’ve got the camcorder and a tape recorder rolling to capture every sweet, demented syllable of it.”

Hank Buck was handcuffed, wrists in front of his body, his face was relaxed and dreamy.

Temple couldn’t believe this man had been active enough less than fifteen minutes ago to grab her, lift her, try to kill her.

Two young uniformed EMTs sat near him.

He was wearing hospital scrub pants. The uniform cargo pants were laid out beside him, one rear pocket torn and traces of blood on the seat and down the legs.

Matt and Temple looked inquiringly at Molina.

“Your cat removed the rear pocket when he went berserk,” she told Temple. “I don’t know how he ID’d Buck. Maybe by smell. When we got Buck subdued we saw the blood and the emergency people took a look.”

She paused, took a deep breath. “It’s like he got caught on a fence with exposed nail heads recently. He’s got four infected gouges down both sides from his buttocks to his calves. Must have hurt like hell. Maybe your cat just smelled blood.”

Or maybe, Temple thought, Louie just recognized a man he had marked earlier, perhaps when Matt had been attacked by Buck posing as Zorro.

But, wait, Louie had been sleeping hard in her bedroom when Matt managed to reach her cell phone, so that couldn’t be.

Just another mystery to go unsolved.

“Bastard,” Buck crooned gently as he recognized Matt, rocking back and forth on the sofa so many celebrities had sat on. “It would’ve felt so good to kill you.”

“Why?” Molina asked. “Why kill Matt Devine?”

“Bastard,” he muttered. “ Umm, feels so good. Felt so good getting those stupid, pampered ‘celebs.’ They all get off too easy.”

Rafi stood behind Molina, a cell phone to his ear. “Alch says Buck did work the gangsta rap slaying case,” he whispered in her ear. “Just, ah, guarding the crime scene stuff. But he saw the main players, the dead boy, the glitzy car.”

“So you did the dirty tricks,” Molina pushed.

“Sure. Hey, it helped up the votes and donations. I was jes’ helpin’ those poor little bald cancer babies, right? Good guy. Better guy than some rich, spoiled assholes making fools of themselves on the stage. I am a good guy! Bitch got it all wrong. Needed some slappin’ around.”

He suddenly giggled, a truly chilling sound: childish, secret, mean.

“Took her out for a few dances around the floor. Mop it up with her. Had her trained to do housework on her face.”

Temple felt her stomach turn.

Molina turned to stare at Rafi.

He nodded soberly.

“Girlfriend or wife?” Molina asked.

“Wha’ does it matter?” His head was rolling on his neck, his eyes not connecting with anything. “Not there anymore. I don’t care now. She’s quiet. So quiet. Bastard. Thinks he’s God? Tellin’ women things. Interferin’ in my life. My wife. Leave? Leave? Tell her to leave? She’s left now, bastard. She’s gone. Who you gonna tell now? You gotta die. I’m gonna do it. Finish the job. It feels so good. I was so smart. Stupid, stupid cops. Turn on a brother. They do it too sometimes. Bastard. Get ’tween a man and his life. Uh, man and his wife. She’s gone.”

Rafi was whispering into the phone. “Check any domestic abuse trail, or gossip. Yeah? On it already? Jesus Christ!”

Molina turned, frowning at the loud expletive.

“Jesus Christ is comin’,” Hank Buck crooned, “comin’ on a snowy white cloud of smack for to carry me home. Why dint anyone tell me heaven was full of horse, huh?”

She nodded Matt and Temple into the hall, Rafi trailing her.

“Amateurs are out of here. You’ve got your answer,” she told Matt.

“His wife is someone who called my ‘Midnight Hour’ advice line, who I told to leave an abusive husband?”

“Before you try to say it’s your fault,” Molina went on, “this guy was going to blow anyway. Rafi, Alch tell you what I think he did?”

“Yeah. He was already checking Buck’s personnel files and in touch with any family he could find. The guy’s sister-in-law reported her sister missing two weeks ago. No trace so far.”

“So we’ve bagged a murderer?” Temple asked, appalled that a confirmed killer had been stalking the show and Matt.

“You’ve got all the info you’re going to get,” Molina told Temple. “Both of you get outa here and those so extreme costumes. I don’t want to see anything more tonight but uniforms and hear anything but the location of that poor missing woman’s body.”

She turned to go back into the greenroom.

Rafi clicked the cell phone shut.

“Well?” Molina barked at him. “You coming or not? He’s your boy too. We’re not done here.”

She moved on, leaving Temple, Matt, and Rafi staring after her, stupefied.

“Guess I’m on the team,” Rafi finally said as he shrugged and followed her.

Topaz Tango

The audience has finally emptied the house, the crew has left, and only the ghost light is on in the wings, along with the soft ambient lighting along the aisles.

I sit center stage. Alone.

Waiting.

At last a lone figure comes slinking slowly down one aisle from a seat on the very back wall of the theater.

Legs longer than yesterday. Doing the model walk, one lean smooth gam crossing in front of the other. Eyes glittering in the semidark, fixed on me, not on the ladder of steps she is descending. The jewels at her neck matching their color and fire.

I was made for nights like these.

I wait. Rock solid, holding my powerful limbs in check, no longer breathing hard from my earlier heroic exertions, breathing hard from expectation.

I wait and she comes to me, crossing the wooden dance floor surefooted, never faltering even on the slippery section.

She walks straight up to me until our blinkless gazes are only inches apart.

At the last second she veers left, brushing my side, coiling her long black train around my powerful shoulder.

I stand and look over my shoulder blade, her head is turned likewise toward mine.

She executes a sudden spin and then stalks close along my side again, brushing her face fast against mine before she is walking away.

I follow with one sharp step forward, catch her passing train and draw my mitt along it. She stops. Makes two dazzling shrugs with her sexy shoulders, then our feet are moving in the time-honored way of our kind, making impatient stuttering, kneading little steps, flicking around each other, between each other.