Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

Molina. Hot cop guy? Mr. Max’s former premises? Butcher knife? Unapprehended perps?

“What happened to the leggy veteran chorus chick you yourself witnessed in possession of those fabled premises not two days ago?” I ask.

“Good question, Pops. That is the way your Miss Temple escorted by Mr. Aldo Fontana may have been meant to see it. Now it is full of all the old furnishings and as busy with trespassers coming and going as a park marked Do Not Step on the Grass: “

“Aha! That order is usually because there are already snakes installed on the same grass.”

“Apparently one was loose in Mr. Max’s former quarters. His clothes were slashed into fringe, from what I overheard.”

“They did not catch you?”

“No. Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina had been so badly clawed she had to lean on Mr. So-called Dirty Larry, the undercover narc.”

“No! She would not lean on a crutch if both her legs were broken. Where is she now?”

“He said he was driving her to medical care of a top-secret nature

“Then the house is empty.”

“That is why I am here, Rip Van Wrinkle. You want to take a stroll through Mr. Max Kinsella’s formerly secret domicile and figure out how it changes from sold and inhabited to not sold and vacated in forty-eight hours?”

I push my muscular legs into four inches of cotton batting, seeking to gain purchase. It is a cushy venue I am deserting, but something very strange is happening at the house formerly known as Mr. Max’s.

“We will have to hitchhike: Louise warns me as I land with an impressive thump on the wooden bedroom floor.

“Fine. I am sure we can catch a ride on somebody slinging Review Journals to the driveway at this hour.” Louise flicks her tail in annoyance at yet another ride from heck. “Where is your usual resident tonight?”

I jerk my head heavenward.

Miss Midnight Louise gets my drift immediately. “Maybe you can bunk with Ma Barker’s gang if you cannot stand the bedroom antics anymore. Are they getting any free grub here yet?”

“I have told Karma to implant the idea in Miss Electra Lark’s noggin while she is sleeping, but the Sacred Cat of the Dalai Lamas claims our landlady’s head holds too much ‘static’ these days and nights to be influenced subconsciously. I guess you could call that, I suppose, ‘bad Karma:”

“Well, Miss Electra Lark is suspected of murder. That is enough to braise any mere human’s brain. We are going to have to raid a Petco for free food if your humans do not come through.”

“Actually, I have found a temporary solution myself.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And?”

“I have plenty of Free-to-BeFeline around the place. I have been inviting the gang in via the palm tree trunk to have a nibble of kibble now and then. They may loathe the stuff as much as I do but these beggars aren’t too choosy right now, thank Bast.”

“You are ‘palming’ Free-to-BeFeline off on a gang of starving street cats?”

“It is very nutritious. So say the label and my Miss Temple.” I dampen a mitt and run it over my rakish eyebrow. “And she is absolutely delighted that I am eating the swill down to the crumbs so well these days.”

Chapter 46

Sewed Up

Imagine a barrio doctor having access to dissolving stitches, Molina thought as Larry drove her home from ninety minutes of patching up on the sleazy side of town. And of sheer hell medicated only by some straight shots of cheap tequila.

Her blue eyes had fooled the doctor and ,the various gang types lounging around getting knife cuts sewn up too. They spoke in quick, idiomatic Spanish, and she got every word. Far more than Dirty Larry.

Larry had managed to find her a separate room: the tiny laundry room rather than the kitchen table. For his trouble the doctor assumed Larry had done the deed in a domestic dispute. “This was a nightmare,” she told Larry in her car, which he was driving. “How are you going to get back for your vehicle?”

“ ‘Vehicle,’ ” he mocked. “Six shots of tequila, a knife wound as long as a ruler, and you still use cop talk.”

“Listen. I wouldn’t dis me if I were you. They were spilling their guts both ways in that place, literally and conversationally.” Only she said it “convershashionally.”

“Right. I got some of it. What’d I miss?”

“Big score going down in the Mercado parking lot tomorrow night.”

“Great. Not another wild cocaine chase, I hope. Thanks.” He pulled the car into her driveway. “Mariah?” He’d first met her thirteen-year-old daughter-turning-diva during the dreadful Teen Idol stage, and case.

“On a class trip. End of school year. End of grade school. Junior high, ready or not.”

“Sure. I see you planned for everything but a maniac killer. Can’t blame you for being caught napping.”

“I was not napping. I am not napping now.”

“Sure,” he said, helping her out of the car. “I’ll check the house in case your stalker was busy here while you were busy getting stalked in the magician’s house.”

That hadn’t occurred to her. Between the pain and the liquid painkiller, she could only nod sagely.

Larry used her garage-door opener to enter the house and left her on the living-room sofa while he did a room-by-room and closet-by-closet check. He was fast and thorough.

“Clear,” he reported, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his nylon windbreaker and looking down at her on the couch. “I can get you into the bedroom.”

She regarded the fistful of big white tablets the doctor had given her for pain. Probably Vicodin. She wouldn’t take them. “No.”

“I wasn’t ever going to get you into the bedroom tonight, no way, no how, was I?”

“No. Not tonight. But thanks anyway.”

His eyebrows were so blond they disappeared unless he frowned. He was frowning now. “You didn’t say not ever.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I guess we should leave it at that.”

“Right.” She waited until he was in the kitchen, behind her back, on the way out.

“Thanks for the backup, though.”

The kitchen door shut. She heard the garage door rattling closed a few seconds later. And then nothing.

She supposed he’d hitch to where he was going, or catch a bus, or call a snitch.

She didn’t worry about it. She worried about getting herself and the house right for Mariah’s return in the morning. And getting herself into work looking unhurt and unfrazzled. She’d need a giant bottle of Tylenol for that, and a really good acting job.

And then she needed to think about Max Kinsella’s house. A shiver snaked down her spine. She’d been there, in that legendary hideout. With someone who apparently disliked him even more than she did. She wouldn’t have slashed all that expensive clothing.

Who would? And if he was being stalked, even after he’d pulled a disappearing act, could it be the same person who was stalking her?

Or was it all a Kinsella sleight-of-hand act to erase her suspicions and put her out of commission and off his case? He was capable of attacking himself to put her off the trail.

Molina put her hand to her head. Her forehead was feverish and damp. Even MIA, Max Kinsella was the biggest headache in her migraine-ridden life lately.

What more could go wrong?

Chapter 47

Mop-up Operation

Were there still milkmen, we would have arrived with them at the humble, or at least low profile, abode formerly known as Mr. Max’s.

As I predicted (call me Mr. Karma!), we hopped a lift in a newspaper delivery van. The night was still dark, but to our feline eyes a faint glow of dawn was creeping over the edge of the world.