Unknown - Cat_In_A_Midnight_Choir-spaces_ru

“How right does she have to be?”

“Not involved with anyone else.”

“And you found one who was.”

He shrugged. He didn’t have to tell her about Temple.

“So there is one woman somewhere you’d have no trouble sleeping with.”

He nodded. “If we were married.”

“Married?”

“Married. But…I realize that’s a high qualification. I believe that I could slip off the straight and narrow if I weren’t careful.”

“Okay. You have a libido.”

He nodded, cautiously.

“Then I can help you.”

“I don’t seem to be cooperating tonight.”

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“No, and it’s because you sensed that my heart isn’t in this. You’re not used to dealing with reluctant clients. I don’t blame you for feeling insulted. I would be in your shoes.”

“If you were in my shoes, honey, you wouldn’t be here.”

She’d expertly slipped into a vaudeville drag-queen twang that he couldn’t help smiling at, even as she waggled a foot in the outlandish high heels.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, “to be such an atypical client. I was looking at you as a means, instead of a person.”

“That’s the way I’m generally looked at.”

“How do you stand it?”

“I’m a very desirable, high-paid means. Look at what you’ve spent on me already.”

“True.”

“Let me show you I’m worth it.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“I still get my money, right?”

“Right…”

At that instant Matt realized that he had invested too much, in every respect, in this evening to chicken out. Or maybe the wine he had drunk realized it.

Vassar had become a person for him in the last few minutes. She was funny, she had a history, she was willing to take him on. And she was a paid professional. At least one of them would know what she was doing.

Max: Gloves Off

“Police shootings of unarmed men these days,” Max said as he raised his empty hands, “even white guys, get more bad press these days than they’re worth. Suspension. Internal investigation.”

“Like you’re not armed.” Molina’s tone was scoffing.

“I’m not. Ever. Once in a blue moon maybe, but when have you last seen a blue moon over Las Vegas?”

“What about police woundings?”

He was silent.

“I’m saying you’re wanted for questioning and by God this time you’re going to come downtown and sit in an interrogation room and call a lawyer or sweat bullets or whatever you want to do, but you are coming in.”

Max finally turned, very slowly, to face her, just as a car’s departing headlights pinned him in a moving spotlight glare like a man caught fleeing across a prison yard. “It really messes up an investigation to have a police lieutenant playing undercover agent.”

“You’re a pro?”

“Maybe.”

“Wouldn’t doubt it. It messes up your plans, you mean.”

“Are you pursuing a case, or protecting your ass?”

“My integrity is none of your business.”

“And mine is yours?”

“You don’t have any.”

“What if…what if, Lieutenant, in this case I had more integrity than you?”

She laughed. “Is that how you snooker Temple Barr? Pretending to some mysterious higher moral ground? I am not Little Miss Mischief. This is a nine-millimeter Glock, buddy. It, and I, mean business. And if I have to punch a hole in your kneecap to keep you here, I will. Try doing your usual vanishing act with a knee brace, Mr. Moto.”

“Mr. Moto wasn’t a magician,” Max said, as if they were having an idle conversation that required minor corrections.

He had already examined the parking lot for unexpected quick exits and found himself caught disgustingly out in the open. Could it be that Molina had planned her approach that well?

Meanwhile, the sense that Temple was in danger was ticking like a maddened metronome in the back of his head, where migraine headaches start.

Of course, the more he worried, the less he dared show it, feel it. If he lost this game of cat-and-mouse here, he wouldn’t be free to rush to Temple’s rescue anywhere.

“This isn’t the end of the world, Kinsella.” Molina neared, the weapon still raised. “All I want to do is talk.”

“You want me to talk.”

“Well, talking usually is a two-way street.”

She was using the cajoling tone of interrogation-room cops the world over, a condescending parental teasing: you want to be a good boy, don’t you?

No.

He lowered his arms, a little.

“I think Temple’s in danger. I’m not going to hang around discussing whether you’re going to destroy your career by shooting me or not, in the knee or not. I’ll give you a rain check. Let me go to Temple, and I’ll come in to see you in twenty-four hours.”

“I do not make appointments with scum. I do not bargain with human vanishing cream. Now.”

“No.”

He moved closer to a row of parked cars.

Her feet scraped asphalt as she skittered faster than a whipsnake to block his movement.

The gun was leveled at his chest.

Was it going to be a game of shoot-me, shoot-me-not?

Yes, because Max was not going to be stopped. Even now Temple might be…Sean.

He moved again.

And stopped at an unexpected sound.

Molina had slammed the Glock down on the hood of the parked Ford-150 behind her.

Max couldn’t help wincing for the paint job.

“You can say no. I can say no.” She stepped toward him, in front of him, blocking his way, protecting her piece, daring him to go for it.

He lifted his arms from his sides. “You finally believe me about something, that I’m not armed.”

“Oh, you’re armed, and dangerous. I know that. I’m just saying you’ll have to go through me to get out of here.”

Max glanced to the pant-legs that covered her ankles. “And your side piece.”

She nodded. “I’m not going to drop my guard to bend down to take that off. Maybe you can grab it when I kick your head off.”

“That’s the most interesting proposition I’ve had all night, and that’s saying something after one too many hours in a strip club or two or three.”

“So you admit to patronizing the clubs.”

“I admit to doing what you’re doing here: investigating the clubs.”

“Who made you junior G-man?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I would love to be surprised about you, Kinsella. Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Now. Into my car and down to headquarters. Or not?”

She came closer, sideways stance.

It was to be, as the British say, fisticuffs.

That put him off balance. He had to play this out here, in its own time, or he could never get away to go to Temple.

For a nightmarish moment Molina morphed into Kathleen O’Connor, and he was back to the night when a stupid adolescent dalliance became his salvation and his cousin’s Sean’s death warrant.

But Molina was not the porcelain, poisonous Kitty. Her deadliness was direct: she wanted to wage war, not love, or at least not love as a variety of war.

There was no option. Max would have to fight her. And win.

Given Molina’s size, profession, training, and fierce personal stake, he couldn’t consider winning as the usual given.

Max, the semiretired, had once been expert in half a dozen martial arts, but he was two years rusty by now. Molina, he would bet, hadn’t worked out much recently either.

Still, she had the confidence, and the anger, to challenge him. It went against all the rules of police work. It was deeply personal.

Interesting. The only woman he’d had for a mortal enemy up to now would never confront him physically.

Max began calculating, not how to pass Molina to reach the gun but how to draw her into a weaker position. He didn’t feel an ounce of chivalry about the coming struggle. Her slamming the Glock down had released him from all that. If she wouldn’t hide behind the gun she certainly wouldn’t hide behind her gender. She wouldn’t hold back either.