Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

The hostess paused at a door and knocked. "Come on in, the water's fine, and the whiskey isn't too bad, either," a voice Matt didn't recognize called.

But the woman who waited inside, sitting at a Goodwill dressing table with delusions of Sunset Boulevard, was indeed C. R. Molina.

She spun on the bench, having just removed the trademark blue silk dahlia from her hair.

"You're a cheap date," she said, nodding at the Coke in his hand.

He noticed a plain glass, half-full of amber liquid, on the blue mirror-topped dressing table.

Perhaps the whiskey of her greeting. He backed onto some sort of chest and sat.

She nodded to something on the dressing table surface. "I like to wind down after a gig, but apparently you had other ideas. How'd you know I'd be here?"

"I didn't."

Her eyes met his, showing some surprise. "Took a chance, did you, Father Matt?"

"Not a very big one, Carmen."

Gone were Lieutenant Molina and Mr. Devine. Matt realized they had somehow fallen into a double-decker relationship, because of what their guarded, often-invisible personal lives had in common. A religion, an ethic, a burden.

"I almost feel I should smoke in this room," she said, eyeing the small space nostalgically.

"It would be bad for your health and your voice." He hesitated. "You would need a long enameled cigarette holder, of course."

"Of course." She smiled, then picked up the object on her dressing table.

Effinger's sketched likeness.

"How did you like Janice?" she asked.

"Janice? Oh, the artist. Fine. She was great at digging out all the little details." Matt felt an unfortunate flush coming on. He felt guilty, as if he sat before Mother Superior after having been caught writing mush notes to a fourth-grade girl.

"She's quite a psychologist, in her way. Well, this is a thoroughly unsavory character. Can I have a copy?"

"Sure. I should have thought of that." Matt leaned forward on the chest. "Actually, I'd like a copy of his rap sheet, or a description, if a copy is not allowed."

"Oh, Matt." Molina shook her dark head. "The police department is as riddled with bureaucracy as the church. I can sum up; I can't hand over. But you're used to limitations, are n't you."

"Maybe, and maybe not enough used to getting around them. I bet you are."

She looked at her watch, a slim band with a vintage look. "Look, I've got to get back to Mariah and let the sitter go." She sighed and picked up the blue silk flower. Her eyes met his in the big round mirror, and the indirectness of the look was oddly exciting.

"Want to follow me home? We can discuss this in more natural circumstances."

He stood. "I've ... I've got a motorcycle."

"A motorcycle, you?" Her eyes, which exactly matched the silk dahlia, widened. "You've got Max Kinsella's motorcycle."

He nodded. "Electra lends it to me. It's hers now."

"Bullshit! It was Kinsella's and I bet he'll have it again. He wouldn't let go of anythi ng that belonged to him."

Matt didn't argue.

"He know you're riding around town on it?"

"I don't know."

"I do. He doesn't miss much. Neither do I. So. You've got a motorcycle. I imagine it can roll right into Our Lady of Guadalupe's neighborhood."

"Not very quietly."

"It's not a very quiet neighborhood."

Molina approached, making him wonder why, then lifted the Coke glass from his hand and put it on the dressing table.

"Wait up front by the hostess station. I'll be out in a wink."

Matt doubted that, given the complicated cut of her vintage velvet gown, but he could wait patiently. That was the first thing he had learned in seminary.

"You're a friend of Carmen's," the hostess stated when he took up a post on one of the waiting benches.

"More like a business associate."

"What business are you in?"

"Counseling."

She nodded, tucking stray hairs into her blond French twist as she closed down the cash register for the night.

Not even Muzak drifted through the restaurant, just the distant clink of dishes being done.

For a moment, the place felt like a happy home after a big holiday dinner.

"That's the neatest thing about this job," the hostess commented.

"What?"

"Hearing the music from in there. Carmen sings like, I don't know, like something else."

"She has a lovely voice." He hated stilted comments, and most of all when they came from him.

"Thank you."

Molina was there, a garment bag draped over one crooked elbow, a knit headband holding back her short bob, in flat-heeled shoes, dark slacks and a sweater. Carmen had dissolved like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz .

Matt found himself on the brink of stammering with surprise. This was a halfway Molina he didn't know, and didn't know how to relate to. She looked normal almost, almost. . . casual.

He followed her out into the lot, the Vampire a diamond solitaire shining against the empty black asphalt. Molina went right to it, her car keys jingling like a winning slot machine in her hand.

She stood staring at the motorcycle, fists on hips, as if challenging it to a silent duel.

"I don't like it," Matt said.

"No, of course you wouldn't." She walked around it. "It's Max Kinsella's, all right." She flashed a glance over her shoulder. "You ever search it?"

"Search it? No! It's Electra's now, and none of my business. I'm only using it until I can afford my own car."

"Probably secondhand at that."

"I'm not used to better, and I certainly can't afford it."

Molina tore her attention away from the motorcycle. "Neither can I. That's mine."

She pointed to a well-used Toyota station wagon. "Perfect for hauling giggly eleven-year-old girls on all sorts of expeditions, but no beauty."

"Columbo did all right with his junker."

"Right. Call me Columbo. Okay. You know where the parish church is; I'm about four blocks northwest. Just follow my taillights."

Matt nodded.

Molina stopped halfway to her car and looked back. "You do have a helmet for that thing?"

"Of course." He mimicked her earlier words down to the tone.

Following a police officer is a nerve-racking task, Matt found. He kept straining to read the speedometer, fretting when she slightly exceeded the limit, gritting his teeth when she slowed down enough to make the Vampire snap at its figurative bit.

The neighborhood was only fifteen minutes away. The dark streets thrummed with t he high-volume bass of the occasional cruising low-rider. He wondered what this neighborhood would be like on a weekend, and how safe the Vampire would be here then. Already he was fretting about leaving it outside Molina's house.

She had anticipated him, pulling into the driveway but leaving space along the side for him.

The garage door elevated on vibrating rails while Molina got out and waved him inside.

She locked her wagon, then followed him into the attached garage, hitting the remote-control close button so soon that the door nearly clipped her as she walked in. She didn't seem to have noticed.

"Your bike is safer inside. Come on."

He followed her into a dark utility room and then into a kitchen lit by a pale overhead fluorescent light.

He sensed age and small spaces, just like at the Circle Ritz, but on a much more modest scale. Somewhere a television set blared through a closed door.

"Bedtime for you, young lady," Molina's voice ordered as she disappeared down the hall.

"We've got company for a little while. No, you don't need to see who. I'll be back soon."

She came back down the hall trailed by a stocky Latina girl with long, curly almost-black hair.

"Yolanda, this is Matt Devine." They exchanged nods. "How'd everything go?"

"Fine, fine. Mariah is such a fine girl. Muy sympatica ."