Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

relentless, coital beat, like the rain and the rocking chair and the train pumping its iron-hearted way out of town.

And after that, the beat/beat/beat of the tom-toms, night and day. And the man that got away. And the frail that wails near the jail. House. Jailhouse rock. No, wrong song. Wrong era.

Wrong time. A kiss is just a kiss, and fundamental rules apply. Always. No matter how many kisses, how many near-misses. As time goes by. As time goes bye-bye.

"Temple." Matt leaned nearer, looking concerned.

She saw him through a musical mirage of stained glass, as if through a rain-rippled train window and he was leaving town, or she was, and nobody could run fast enough to reach the fleeing coach, to hear the rhythm, catch the beat, listen to the song.

Two and woo, love and you, missing and kissing and such a familiar song, a familiar voice ...

Matt's hand covered Temple's on the table. He still looked concerned. Concerned is nice, but

. . . dammit!

Temple twisted away from Matt, leaving her hand in his custody, like a living creature coiled in the safety of its shell. She turned to the murky stage, to the sleet of bright, piercing spotlights and the melody so familiar, in reprise.

The singer sat sharp as a silhouette in a pinspot, a brunette butterfly pinned on white damask . . . her skin tapioca satin, the flower in her hair a dark, velvet growth. Her figure was as murky as an El Greco portrait, her features carved from backlit salt.

She sang.

The old, slow-train blues classics.

In a deep, true alto that made Temple's bones vibrate like the strings of an abandoned cello in a warehouse.

She made everything moot. The past. The present. The man in black. The man in blond. She was ... so familiar, like the song and the ache.

"Matt--!" Temple managed to warn him with the last, surprised breath that was in her.

At last he turned away from her toward the shadowed, tiny stage that had caught Temple like a light-jeweled net in a silver sea.

The announcer, wherever he was, took this opportunity to add a slick, baritone coda to the night's first set,

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, an appreciative round of applause for our own 'Blue Dahlia'--our mistress of moody blue mystification, the incomparable Carmen."

"Of course. Carmen," Temple breathed, not surprised so much by the name, but by its presence here. "Makes you wonder what the bloody hell the 'R.' stands for!"

"Carmen?" Matt repeated with maddening confusion. "Isn't that--is it possible? Lieutenant Molina?"

Chapter 12

... Equals Molina in Hand

"I didn't want to interrupt."

Lieutenant C.R. Molina gazed down at them from an artificially abetted height. "I spotted you two the moment I came on stage, but you seemed so . . . self-absorbed."

Temple looked down, to Molina's feet. High-heeled platform shoes.

Molina had the actual nerve--at her already intimidating height--to wear platform shoes Black suede. With straps over the toes and anchoring the heel. Clunky forties shoes, like the Andrews Sisters used to wear. Where were Molina's sisters? Wasn't this a sister act? No, Molina was apparently here solo, a spotlight hog!

''You're really wonderful," Matt was saying, his confusion instantly converted to effusion.

''We could have been listening to the radio, or a record. CD," he corrected himself quickly.

Not many CDs in the seminary, Temple would bet.

Molina allowed herself a modest smile. Gollie, Temple thought, she sure looked silly with that blue-velvet orchid perched behind her left ear. At her height, someone might mistake her for a jacaranda tree.

"You mind if I join you? I'm on a ten-minute break.''

"Of course." Matt leapt up to snag a chair from a neighboring table.

Molina sat between them, smiling from one to the other with the serenity of an unwanted maiden aunt who is quite sure that her presence is both unexpected and annoying to all parties.

Temple sourly studied the woman's outfit now that her shoes were hidden under the table--a midnight-blue silk-velvet draped frock from the forties, like all clothes of that era both no-nonsense and as subtly slinky as a snake.

"That time you came to the Convention Center," Temple said with dawning suspicion, "when the ABA killer was after me and the entire fire department showed up. You were wearing some vintage getup, too--black crepe with copper beading!" she accused.

"What a memory. You've caught me red-handed." Molina spread the hands in question to show her supposed defenselessness. ''I can't commit to a regular performance schedule here, but I come in and do a gig when I get some time off. Every cop should have a hobby."

"Hobby," Matt repeated, his tone contradicting her. ''You sing like a pro."

''Maybe." Molina's smile was the slow, slight one that's not for show, but for one's self. "Not much commercial demand for my kind of music. I'm lucky to find a place willing to put up with my hours. You really didn't notice me, did you?"

"Well ..." Matt glanced at Temple.

"We didn't even expect live music," she said quickly, irked at being so unobservant. Matt was definitely a bad influence. She hated that Lieutenant Molina might come to the same conclusion, and she would. "We've never been here before."

"You'll probably never come here again," Molina suggested silkily.

Of course they both protested, in tandem and too much. The idea of conferring about private matters against the background crooning of a homicide lieutenant was pretty off puting.

"Only the manager knows what I do for a living," Molina went on, her long fingers turning the heavy class ring she always wore. Her nails were cut almost straight across. Temple noticed, her own crimson claws drumming the padded white tablecloth, and didn't give off even a glint of clear polish.

The street-length dress had a bouquet of velvet flowers at opposing hip and shoulder; Molina wore no jewelry beyond the class ring, not even a wedding band. With her physical presence and blue eyes, even earrings would have been too much. Her only apparent makeup was a vintage shade of Bloody Murder Red lipstick so dark it looked black in the lamplight. Now those lips thinned into a Dracula's Daughter smile.

"Serenading cops are not marketable,'' Molina noted, "except on St. Patrick's Day. I'd appreciate your keeping my real occupation to yourselves."

They swore that they would, in breathless unison and much too intensely.

Molina frowned, looking exactly like an undercover cop in drag. "You two aren't up to something in the amateur crime detection department again, are you?

"Who . . . us?" Temple provided the indignant chirp. She was so good at it. "Absolutely not.

Counselors and publicists need to get away from the job, too."

''Well--" Molina stood slowly, as only a woman as long as she was could. She smiled down on them in the dramatically dim light. In this environment, in that getup, her leonine air seemed as feminine as it was languidly dangerous. "Enjoy yourselves."

The sax man huffed and puffed a bluesy intro on his gleaming instrument. Molina threaded through the tables to the small stage, moving like a leopard thinking about an appetizer.

Temple glanced anxiously at Matt. He still looked stunned. And a bit guilty. "She really is first-class." He glanced at Temple to find her frowning. "I mean, at singing. Who would have thought it?"

''I don't know. Everybody has their surprises to spring." Temple noted with intent to point fingers.

He smiled disarmingly. "What's yours?"

''I haven't decided yet. But don't expect me to break into 'Melancholy Baby.' I couldn't carry a tune in a violin case." She remembered Matt's expert organ-playing at Electra's wedding ceremony. "Can you?"