Carole Douglas - Cat in a Midnight Choir

“What do you care?”

“You…you’re crazy.”

“That’s projection.”

She tried to wrench her hands out of his. “Psychoshit! You’re all full of it.”

“All who? I’m only one guy.”

“No, you’re not. Your name is legion.”

He laughed. “Now I’m the demon.” He spun her quickly 360 degrees, lifting his arm so she twirled, a human top. Her long, snaky earrings flashed like comets.

She reeled a little as he resumed the relentless step in, step out, pull her close, push her away motions.

“You mean my ex-profession,” he said, a little breathless himself. “We priests are all alike.”

“Yes! Liars and hypocrites.”

“Some, I suppose. There are some of those everywhere. Are you so perfect then?”

“No, but I admit I’m bad. I know I’m bad. I don’t pretend to try to be good.”

“Sometimes pretending to be something is the only way to become it.”

“A liar’s way. Is that what you are, someone who pretended to be a priest?”

She glared as he pulled her in, her eyes pure hatred now, the seductive veneer rubbed away like a cloud of silver polish on a mirrored tray.

“And are you pretending to be a temptress, an assassin? I don’t think so. I think you’ve done all that. I think you’re exactly what you want the world to think of you as: a very bad girl.”

She finally was able to pull one hand free, although it must have hurt.

He let the other go. She was dizzy now, not only from the dance but from something inside of her he had released. It wasn’t pretty, but at least her actions were hurting her for a change, instead of somebody else.

“Then don’t mess with me. Don’t make me do something you’ll regret.”

“Either way, I’ll regret it.”

She smiled, tilted her small, dainty head. “Now you understand. It’s a lose-lose situation. You might as well get it over with.”

“Maybe you’re right. Where? When?”

She backed up, went around to the passenger side of the car. She downed the rest of her champagne in a long-throated gesture. Then finished his mostly full glass. She started stashing the equipment in the car’s rear seat.

“No. You don’t get to plan. To prepare. The next time you see me. I choose. If you want to enjoy it, you’re allowed, you know. But I think you’ll hate it. All I can say is just think of England. Or your landlady or that island mama you work for, or this little carrot-top wetting her Gap capris.” She gestured at the other side of the car, where Matt didn’t dare look because he didn’t want to remind her she was leaving him with another woman.

“What if I surprised you?”

“You can’t. That’s what’s so delicious about it. You couldn’t surprise me in a hundred years. So keep that ring warm for me.”

She darted into the front passenger seat and slammed the car door shut.

The engine started with a quick, quiet hum. The car pulled away, the tires peeling like black Band-Aids from the loose gravel on the surface.

Matt rushed to pull the girl away from the departing tires. Her ankles and wrists were circled in duct tape.

She mewed behind the silver gag.

“It’s all right. It’ll take a while to get this tape off without hurting you.” He looked around the deserted lot, then pushed his arms under her knees and back, picked her up, and headed toward the Blue Dahlia.

Main Course

“It’s a good thing they trust me to lock up,” Molina said, pouring lighter fluid onto a cleaning rag she had found behind the hall door, the one that didn’t lead to her dressing room but to a maintenance closet.

“If they couldn’t trust you to lock up, who could they trust?”

She gave Matt a look — a long, hard Molina look — then soaked the tape over the girl’s chin. “There you go. I know you want to sing out right now like Britney Spears, but ripping this tape off would give you a rug burn for a week. In the movies, they just tear away duct tape, but that’s make-believe. There. It’s coming. Just a bit more, and don’t lick your lips unless you like the taste of kerosene.”

While Molina calmed the captive and eased the gag off, Matt dowsed the girl’s wrists with fluid.

The reek was stomach-turning. He watched her pale face turn delicately green.

“Off!” Molina announced the obvious.

She squatted beside the girl they had propped on a restaurant chair, looking like a den mother in her jeans and vaguely Native American suede jacket with odd bits of beads and fringe.

“What’s your name?”

No “dear,” no “honey,” Matt noticed. Nothing infantalizing. She wanted this victim to feel like an adult. In charge again. Able to answer. Able to point fingers.

Matt started untwining gummy duct tape that had adhered to him as it released her.

The girl noticed the phenomenon. Her lips trembled into a small smile. “Guess I got Mr. Midnight into a bit of a jam.”

“ You were in a bit of a jam,” Molina said, sympathetic but not enabling. “Your name? It’s okay. You’ve lucked into an off-duty cop.”

“You?”

“Yeah, me. Lieutenant Molina. Now…you.”

“Vicki. Vicki Jansen.” She glanced at Matt, almost apologetically. “I never expected to see you again so soon.”

“Same here,” he said.

“Who was that witch?”

Molina eyed Matt, curious to see what he’d tell an innocent bystander.

“A…rabid fan, I guess.”

“Kinda like me.”

“You weren’t rabid.”

“A little.” She flushed. Redheads had that tendency. “It made her mad. That I kissed you.”

Molina’s frowning eyebrows told Matt what she thought of that.

“You were just impulsive,” he said. She shouldn’t blame herself.

To him guilt was an untallied cardinal sin. He didn’t want to lay it on anybody else. But he wished Vicki hadn’t confessed her indiscretion outside the radio station. Still, Molina had to know. A gushing nineteen-year-old throws herself at him at 1:00 A.M. one night. The next night she’s a captive audience for Kitty the Cutter’s elaborate revenge.

“Are you all right, other than sticky?” Molina was asking, working on the ankle tape. “Anybody you need to call? You’ll have go to the police station to make a statement. Don’t worry. I’ll take you. It’ll be very discreet.”

“I just have a couple roommates at UNLV. I dropped my purse in the dorm parking lot there when she…held that gun on me.”

“What’s the address?” Molina picked up her cell phone. “I’ll have a patrolman drive by, try to get the purse. What time did this happen?”

“Gosh, eight P.M. or so. What time is it now?”

Matt jumped up. “It’s after eleven. I’ve —”

“I know.” Vicki smiled up at him despite the reddened skin the gesture aggravated. “You’ve got to get to the station. Thanks so much. It was really wonderful the way you distracted her and made her let me out of the car.”

He could tell Molina was itching to hear his version of the encounter and shuddered to think what Vicki might tell her while he was off doing his job.

“Sorry.” He pulled out his key ring, immediately spotting the ugly reminder of Kitty’s ring. “I guess I’m making everybody have a late night.”

“That’s your job.” Vicki smiled again, this time with tremulous, fannish adoration. “Keeping us all up late.”

“She’ll be fine.” Molina sounded brisk and possibly annoyed. “I guess we all just love being kept up late.” Definitely annoyed.

Matt rushed out to the parking lot, mounting the Vampire and donning his gloves and helmet, looking for lurkers and finding none. He peeled out of the lot. He had a lot of anonymous listeners to think about. And one no-longer-anonymous tormenter.