Midnight Louie 14 - Cat in a Midnight Choir (43 page)

“Bedroom games,” he agreed. “We’re well matched, Lieutenant,” he repeated. “Shall we call it a draw for now?”

The “shall” reminded her of his Continental adventures. Her law enforcement instincts had always told her he could have been, could be, involved in something serious. Something big-time. International. Now she knew it.

She scuttled away along the metal wall, more repelled by herself than by him. He would try anything; she didn’t have to.

“You’re a criminal.”

“Sometimes. To some.”

She shook her head, didn’t look at him. “Get out of here.” Said as shortly as she would dismiss a snitch.

He left, as she said, as he had always wanted to.

And in that momentary turning away, she leaped, kicked a foot out from under him, followed up with a hard knee to the small of the back as he went down, had his right thumb in a painful lock as she forced his arm into an ugly angle behind his back, used her free left hand to slam his head into the asphalt and stun him long enough to grab the handcuffs out of her Excaliber fanny pack, snap the left wrist in, jerk it hard over to…finally…meet the pinned right wrist and…presto.

One magician, hogtied on the rocks.

Molina sat back, both winded and revved. Practice makes perfect, and God knew she had done her share of takedowns in L.A., but that had been years ago.

This one felt better than all of them put together.

For a moment she gloried in being a successful street cop: quarry run down, pinned down, about to go downtown.

She caught her breath and rose, bending to grab his elbow and force him to his feet. She kept his arm in custody while she retrieved the Glock from the truck hood.

“Not leaving your license number?” he asked.

She didn’t answer, just hustled him along to her car, trying not to grin in triumph.

Moments later she realized that not once during the whole confrontation — not once — did she ever consider going for her ankle gun.

Not bedroom games
, she said to herself, breathless but satisfied.
Just old-fashioned, street-smart police work.

Hallelujah Chorus

As I gaze upon my Miss Temple sprawled on the asphalt, coughing and spitting like a half-drowned red tabby, I feel a strong surge of pardonable pride.

Thank Bastet that I decided to pause at Baby Doll’s en route to my rescue mission for Midnight Louise!

It looked dicey for a minute or two, when I feared Miss Temple would not heed my clarion call for some reason. Luckily, I had arranged for backup.

Although I have not worked with this gang long enough to unleash them on a perpetrator in an orderly disorderly fashion, they certainly were in fine voice and alerted Miss Temple just in time to upset her attacker.

Our continued caterwauling attracted more help of a human nature, but rather than stick around to answer for such a scruffy band of companions, I decide to press on to the next crisis.

“So that is your live-in,” a hoarse voice growls in my ear. “Not much for size or looks. And I think she’s deaf. Have you had her tested by the vet? I presume a privileged fellow like you has a vet.”

“You are not seeing my Miss Temple at her best angle, Ma. Upright. And she has heard me perfectly well on previous occasions. Must be that awful howling music pouring out of Baby Doll’s. We better split before someone mistakes us for street musicians and starts hurling projectiles at us.”

At that I jump down from the fence and back into the mean streets, all in the hopes of ending the discussion. My dear mama, I discover, has enough wind to trot alongside me and still belabor my plans, my significant other, and sundry other details about my person and life.

I begin to wonder if this raid on Los Muertos will be worth it.

I Once Was Deaf but Now I See

Temple pushed down on the heels of her hands.

She couldn’t see, but at least she didn’t hear that horrible shrieking anymore. She had a queasy suspicion that she had contributed to it at the end there.

No one was touching her either.

She pulled herself up against the van and tried to open her eyes.

Blinking, burning. She forced her eyes ajar an eyelash-width again, catching her breath.

Then two hands grabbed her arms above the elbows.

She inhaled to screech, solo, when someone shook her slightly.

“Hey. Tess. It’s okay.”

The voice sounded familiar.

She forced her eyes wider despite the searing saltwater they drowned in.

Rafi Nadir. She was wrong!
He was here and he had always been the one.

She pulled away, screamed, kicked, punched, spun her ring, grasping for the pepper spray canister again.

“Hey! Simmer down, Tess. It’s okay! I decked him pretty good. He’s out until someone wants him talkative.”

Him?

Temple gasped, stopped flapping like a fish out of water. (She would never eat fish again.)

She tried to focus on the dark asphalt at her feet, between the two vans.

A long figure lay stretched out facedown.

While she stared, Rafi Nadir whipped out a cell phone and dialed 911. “Mugging suspect down at Baby Doll’s strip club parking lot, Paradise and Flamingo. We need a squad car fast.”

He kept the phone to his ear and frowned at Temple’s gaping expression. “If it hadn’t of been for those nutsy alley cats serenading the strip club from the fence, I never would have noticed you fighting this creep in the shadows here. Don’t you know better than to park your car between two behemoths like this? Put yourself in the dark, a perfect target for a mugger, or worse.”

“I — I think it’s ‘worse’. I think that’s the stripper killer.”

Temple did not explain that she’d parked in the dark on purpose to hide her car. An undercover operative does not give away trade stupidities…er, secrets. Especially not at Secrets. Was she still a little punchy?

“Good thing you had that pepper spray.” Nadir paused to answer a question on the open line. “North side of the lot. Yeah.” He shook his head at Temple. “I don’t know what to do with you, Tess. If this guy
is
the stripper killer, and I kinda think it might not be that bad, you just walked right into his hands. Haven’t you got anybody to look out for you?”

“Alley cats?” Temple suggested, shrugging. The tears were stopping and so were the shakes. “Who is it?”

“We’ll let the police handle that, little lady.”

“No. I really, really want to know. Now.”

Rafi Nadir stared at her. She knew she looked worse than a drowned, red-eyed rat. She knew he thought she was stupid and reckless, which she had been, but only because she was smart and tough, in secret. And she knew he thought women needed to be bossed around for their own good. But. She really needed to see who this guy was.

And he saw that she had earned that right.

So he bent down to roll the guy over. Tall, lanky, all in black. Not as tall as Max, but close enough to stop a heart, hers, for a minute. Black Levis, black work shirt. Not Max. Not the photographer.

“Oh, my God!” She pointed as if Nadir couldn’t see for himself. “It’s that sound machine kid. The club DJ. He gets around from place to place too, like a stripper, doesn’t he? Don’t the DJs do that?”

“Yeah —” Nadir was looking down at his victim with more respect. “But he’s just a kid.”

“A kid in a candy store. I bet these guys get the idea they own these women they work around.”

Nadir started to say something, looked at Temple, then shut his mouth.

“Listen,” he said. “I’d better not hang around.” Sirens were wailing like alley cats in the distance. He looked over his shoulder. People who had been peering out the club’s open door now were starting to trickle onto the asphalt. “They’ll help you keep him down if he gets antsy. Just use your spray. And try not to let it blow back in your face.”

Temple regarded the shadowy figure on the ground. Her fingers found the spray can among the spandex.

“Smart idea.” Nadir’s hand rested on her shoulder for a sexless, bracing second. “You take full credit for this one, kid. You didn’t see me.”

And then he left.

Temple slumped against the van.

Wow.

She aimed her pepper spray at the ground near the young man’s head.

She was wrong. Her hand still shook.

She was thinking about what would happen to Max if she had been left dead like Cher Smith in a strip club parking lot.

Siren Song

“You’re wrong,” he said.

“You’ll have all the time in the world to prove it.”

Her voice was level, strong, intense. But Molina was worried.

He had been the hardest takedown in her career, and she was half-afraid that he had let her win in the end, not because he was a gentleman but because it suited him.

So now she had Max Kinsella, handcuffed, to put in her personal car, which was equipped with nothing but a police radio.

She sure didn’t want him behind her, so the passenger seat was the only option and it wasn’t a good one.

“Get in,” she said, as if she just loved the idea of putting him there.

She shoved him into the seat, pushing down on his head to force him inside.

His height was still too much for the Toyota’s roof line, and he banged his skull.

Good, maybe it’d daze him a little. It was a twenty-minute ride to headquarters and she didn’t want to distract herself calling in or doing anything but keeping him in custody until he was safely locked up somewhere even an magician couldn’t abracadabra his sleazy way out of.

Kinsella sat hunched forward in the seat, partly because of his height, partly because with his hands manacled behind his back he couldn’t lean back. Tough.

“Temple’s life could be on your head,” he said. Sounded strangled, like he really cared. And getting…cozy with her if it would help get him free. What a creep!

“Can it.”

She snapped on her seatbelt, started the car, put it into gear, checked that he was still bound and pulled out of the Secrets parking lot.

“You don’t know that Temple
isn’t
in danger,” he said, “and you really don’t have anything solid on me.”

“I’m sure I can work up a probable cause that would curl a judge’s hair. You have been caught on too many dirty scenes too many times.”

“Not caught. Not until now.”

“Why do I think that you think you’re not really caught?”

He shrugged, stared ahead, intently watching the street as if he were behind the wheel, not she.

Just fifteen more minutes and she’d be rid of him.

The radio squawked. She wanted to turn up the squelch dial, but couldn’t risk leaning down into the well of the car. Perfect opportunity to sandbag her.

After a buzz of competing calls, she heard the words, “Baby Doll’s.”

Kinsella thrashed a little against his bonds. Solid-steel suspicion, that’s what she had on him. It would have to be enough.

She had to lean forward to pick up the mike. Had to. Kept her eyes on him as if she was a staple gun and he was wallpaper.