He understood that feeling. He knew that pressure.
Tonight it would be diamonds or dust.
Cover Story
Here it had begun.
Molina’s dead eyes took in the ersatz elegance of Secrets.
It was an upscale strip club, although that term was a contradiction in terms. Scratch a strip club, no matter how high-class, and you sniffed corruption and exploitation.
She had been laboring late on paperwork when the forwarded call had come through.
“Temple, honey.”
No need to guess on whose answering machine that rye-whiskey voice — almost mannish, almost female impersonator — had left the news that Secrets was the place to be tonight.
The first question was who had sent that message to Temple Barr, and why.
The second was, what was Barr doing club-crawling when single white females were the Target of the Month at places like this?
Trying to save the scruffy, shopworn soul of Max Kinsella, no doubt.
Molina’s head ached from the wig that clung to it like a mothballed barnacle, and the incessant smoke and noise.
The glamour of undercover work was way overrated.
This could be a trap or a diversion. Barr could have gotten the message and come here, or not. She could have notified Molina in this cryptic way, or not. Molina assumed not. Barr had a history of independent action, ill-considered or not. So, she herself could have been alerted by…Matt Devine, Good Neighbor Matt. Or not. Or by Max Kinsella. Bad Scene Max. Or not.
The whole evening, the entire charade was possibly key to the case. Or not.
She had to assume that Barr at least had the smarts to disguise her appearance.
So now Molina was on the lookout not only for a possible killer, but for a civilian trespassing on police turf.
Still, she wondered what Barr had blundered into. Her informant had the kind of smoky, boozy voice of someone who knew the strip club world inside out from the time of Moses to Madonna.
Who did Barr think she was tracking? A he, of course. If the killer was a woman, it would be a shocker. From the message, it was someone who was a repeat offender at strip clubs, a regular. That included a lot of customers.
Molina eyed the men standing, sitting, drinking, ogling.
The usual batch of losers and loners. Men whose shoulders slumped, whose jaws dropped, whose eyes were dead with unspoken hopes. And the muscle crowd. Not loners. Guys in gangs, loud, profane, obscene. Pack runners not likely to go beyond the pale in public parking lots, but don’t let them run into you alone on a lonely road.
Molina had seen them all, the types. So who didn’t you see? Who was conveniently invisible?
“See anybody who ought to be in pictures?” the bartender asked.
This model was female, but she had the same easygoing attitude of her male counterparts, as if Sister Wendy doing the shimmy on the bar wouldn’t turn a hair.
“Not yet. I’m really looking for places, not people.”
What a lie! Molina was pleased with her latest cover story: location scout for C.S.I. It was the perfect justification for surveillance work: both jobs required lots of sitting and watching and soaking up the atmosphere.
Molina tried some oversalted bar nibblies despite her better judgment. Had to look semioccupied while waiting for Godot, or whoever.
Like most stakeout work, this could turn out to be another dull, wasted evening.
Terra Incognito
Matt eyed himself in the mirror. In the mirrors.
He turned away, displeased as always with his looks.
The place was plastered with mirrors, and it certainly wasn’t to visually enlarge the area. The rooms were already king-size.
He went to the window, which gave him a hawk’s-eye view of the elaborately tiled areas surrounding the many pools. The mosaic of gold, terra cotta, and white tiles, with rectangles and circles of chlorinated water thrown down among them like area rugs, was like overlooking some Roman ruin, though nothing down there or up here was ruined, except possibly his immortal soul.
The sinking sun sizzled on seminude figures ambling among the bronzed bodies arrayed on lounge chairs. Dozens more people stood in the pools, looking from up here like toothpicks impaled in blue icing. Very few people in the pools actually swam.
The entire scene reminded him of an orgy sequence from a Cecil B. DeMille film epic, The Last Days of Pompeii, say, just before the wrath of Mount Etna rained on the pagan parade and turned everybody into ashes, ashes, all fall down.
My, he was getting apocalyptic, wasn’t he? If the Devil was in the details, God, unfortunately, was not often in the Big Picture.
Las Vegas had been committing a lot of mortal and cardinal sins for decades without a peep from Anybody Upstairs, except possibly the real overseeing deity of the city, the Eye in the Sky cameras posted over all the casino tables.
Paranoid, he turned and examined the room’s ceiling for surveillance equipment, despite knowing that any devices would be too sophisticated for him to detect.
What a racket, though. The thousands of men who had done what he was about to do were ripe for blackmail. He supposed that the major hotels had a stake in keeping petty crime off their premises. Better to get their cut on the gambling concessions far below the thousand-dollar suites and million-dollar penthouses than some cheesy blackmail.
Matt eyed the room again. It was half the size of his whole unit at the Circle Ritz, maybe six hundred square feet. A mirrored wall doubled the apparent size of the bedroom. The bed seemed even larger than king-size, and was a mound of piled pillows and bedlinens covered in large, regal designs.
The carpeting was plush, deep, and the color of stale blood.
Beyond the mirrored wall was a hall lined with a long, mirror-doored closet. A door opposite them led into the marble-floored bathroom, as big as his living room at home. A huge matching marble tub reminded Matt of a Roman sarcophagus. It took about fifteen steps to get from the tub to the freestanding marble sink. The toilet and bidet were on the other side of the sink. Of course every wall of the bathroom was mirrored, so you could see yourself coming and going. Literally.
Matt would mostly like to see himself going. Out the door into the wide, well-lit hallway that overlooked a glittering open atrium to the casino attractions far below, down in the stainless-steel-lined elevator car, through the raucous casinos, past the gaudy restaurants, walking a half mile to the exit doors to breath the overheated Las Vegas air and inhale the slightest, distant tang of desert creosote. Wilderness enow.
Omar Khayyám was considered quite the romantic poet, but even he couldn’t find a plain loaf of bread in this place to go with the expected and dreaded “thou.”
“Thou” was right! It had already cost Matt eight hundred dollars to get this far, and the second stage of the evening was going to run at least another thousand.
Corruption cost, and in Las Vegas, corruption cost big-time.
Matt allowed himself a glance in the closet door mirrors.
He’d better up his estimate of costs incurred for this unconventional outing of his. His clothes were new too, bought in the brightly lit shops lining every hotel’s obligatory shopping arcade.
Big winners were expected to blow large wads in these places and they were crammed with designer labels and luxury goods Matt had never heard of.
He suspected some of the high-priced items might not be in the best of taste, but nowadays it was hard to tell highway robbery from high-class prices, especially in Las Vegas.
So he wore a two-hundred-dollar pair of slacks in his favorite khaki color, although the clerk had described it as “lukewarm café au lait.” His shirt was a cotton-and-silk blend in stone color. His blazer was a wool-silk blend a bit darker than camel, which the clerk had called “escargot.” Had Matt not known this was the French word for the humble and edible snail, or slug, he would have thought it was a synonym for calf-shit brown.
Still, even he, who hate
d mere appearances, had to admit these clothes had an easy feel and drape that evoked the hushed sound of eurodollars falling to new lows on the Aubusson carpets of the international exchange.
The least a man who was expecting a thousand-dollar whore could do was dress up to the lady’s level.
He immediately censored the word “whore.” That was the old puritan streak putting unpleasant labels on everything, and everybody.
She was a professional woman of the highest order. Like a well-paid motivational speaker, say. He could identify with that. He got an obscene amount of money for speaking engagements now, being a celibate ex-priest working as a semifamous radio shrink. What was the difference between selling a mind and a body?
Matt paced back to the window, suddenly worried if the “thou” in his unwelcome equation was going to show up. The hundred-dollar bill he’d passed as discreetly as he could to the bellman might be taken as a generous tip, instead of an order for some “classy entertainment.”
Matt winced at the phrase. He’d been coached, of course, by an expert. Well, Carmen Molina never would or could walk in his shoes, but she ought to know the routine.
So what happened if he was just being ripped off by the bellman? The six-hundred-dollar room, his seven-hundred dollar “casual” outfit, the crisp bulk of fresh hundreds in his new eelskin wallet (she would see that, of course, as well as his new underwear), his desperate gamble that one sleazy act paid for through the nose would liberate him from his demon stalker, what if nothing happened? And he was waiting. For nothing?
Then he’d be relieved. As much as he needed to do what he had set in motion, he most devoutly hoped that something would go wrong and it would never happen.
Baby Doll’s Brand-new Bag
I am only halfway across the Circle Ritz parking lot when I am accosted, if one can be accosted by an albino tumbleweed.
“Oh-oh-oh-oh,” my attacker says, hyperventilating.
“It is about time,” I say. “I cannot be about my business until I know what you have to say.”
“Uh-uh-uh-uh.”
“Um, words would be nice.”
“Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh.”
I sit down and prepare to wait, sweeping my posterior member back and forth like a cranky metronome.
“I-I-I-I-I…
“Ran…
“All…
“The…
“Way.”
“Admirable devotion to duty. But you should have saved a couple breaths for your report.”
Frankly, I am impressed. But it never does to let underlings know when they have done well. Management by creative tension has always been the watchword of my breed. Keep ’em guessing, keep ’em on their toes, and keep ’em worrying about what I really think.
“So where did she go?” I finally ask.
“Ba-ba-ba-ba —”
“Bally’s?”
“Ba-ba-ba-ba —”
“The Ali Baba Room at the Alhambra?” Not exactly a strip club, unless you consider it a Las Vegas Strip club, but they do have belly dancers.
“Eee —”
E. Now what in Las Vegas begins with E, except E lvis?
“Duh-duh-duh.”
Duh is right!
“Catch your breath and show it who is boss. There, that is the ticket. Give the old brain case a good shake to free all the fleas in your ears. Now, from the top.”
“Bah-bee.”
“Bobby?”
“Duh-alls.”
“Bobby…Dulls.” Light strikes. “Baby Doll’s!”
My informant’s head nods like one of those idiotic toys with a spring for a neck and sawdust for brains.
What else can you expect from a mere dog but extreme panting and stupid facial tricks?
“Baby Doll’s,” I repeat, to make sure I heard the little bowhead correctly. Those cranial barrettes will cramp your cerebellum. “It is a strip club. That makes sense. And you ran all the way to and fro?” This is quite a hike for a three-pound floor-duster like a Maltese.
Nose E. nods his fuzzy little face from which the tongue has protruded like the tag on a zipper the whole time. “I could not…keep up.”
Some dogs love to chase cars, but this one’s legs are so short he should chase Hot Wheels. To be fair, tailing little dolls is not his bailiwick. The Nose Pose is his game and it has made him tops in his field of drug-and bomb-sniffing.
“Did my clever marking technique work?” I ask.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Midnight. The scent you, er, drizzled on the right rear tire was impossible to lose. Unbelievably rank. I have to say you cats have it all over dogs when it comes to the odiferous art. Although I soon lost sight of it — your Miss Temple drives like an Indy Five Hundred speed demon, I might say — I was able to track the Miata all the way to Baby Doll’s parking lot. That is not a very nice place, you know.”
“I know.”
“That was not a very nice thing to do to a human’s new car, either.”
“I know, but it was for her own good and, beside, humans have the nasal sensitivity of a stainless steel beak. So you left the Miata, and Miss Temple, at Baby Doll’s?”
“Yeth.”
Funny. I had never noticed that Nose E. lisped before. Why am I not surprised?
“Good work, half ounce. I will take it from here.”
He trails me, everything jiggling like a chorus girl’s…uh, pompoms: hair, head bow, tiny white whiskers that would look about right on a lab rat.
“Oh, Mr. Midnight. I hate to leave a job half-done. Let me go with you! I like to be in on the search and seizure.”
“Trouble is, the action is not going down at Baby Doll’s. I just wanted to make sure that my Miss Temple was safely out of harm’s way. So trot back to the Old Groove, or whatever it is called, used record store your human, Mr. Earl. E. Byrd, operates. You can rest easy in a job well done. Now it is time for your biggers to take over.”
“Oh! You are just like the Federales!”
“Huh? The only thing Mexican about me is any jumping beans I choose to carry.”
“The FBI and the NSA and all those Big-time Initial Guys. They always want me and Earl E. to bow out after I have identified the perp.”
“No doubt it is for your own safety. You are civilians, after all.”
“And you are not?”
“I am an…exception. Your reward will be hearing how well everything went now that I am on the case. See you later, Tater Tot.”
I take off at a lope I know the exhausted Nose E. cannot imitate. I have heard Miss Temple bemoan her short-legged stride often enough to realize where his true weakness lies. Industrial strength sniffer, but wimpy ankles.
I try not to gloat as I streak through the dark Las Vegas night, sure and powerful as my own stride.
For once I have both Miss Temple Barr and Miss Midnight Louise safely diverted to the side while the real action is going down elsewhere. Not only am I a knight errant protecting the weaker females of the species, but I am establishing my supreme territory as Crime-Solver Extraordinaire.
My small deposit on the tire of Miss Temple’s new car is only a drop in the bucket of my forthcoming triumph in the art of territory marking.
Now I am up against the big boys: Mr. Max Kinsella and, uh, Ms. C. R. Molina.
I am in my proper element: on the prowl alone and pulling everyone else’s strings.
How sweet it is!
Secret Showdown
He came through the door like an Old West gunfighter.
In fast and hard, so even the heavy metal door swung open and came to a dead stop for a few seconds.
He paused to survey the scene.
In a Western movie, every eye in the place would have been on him.
At Secrets, he went unnoticed.
The door’s weight reversed the opening momentum and swung slowly shut. By then he had melted into the mob scene.
Or not quite melted.
One eye in the house had noticed his entrance and still foll
owed his black-clad form through the smoky haze.
Molina couldn’t believe her luck.
Kinsella here. Undisguised. Wearing his signature black, looking almost naked in a sleazy turtleneck (which probably meant it was ) and tailored slacks, looking a lot like a ninja as he circled the crowd and the stage, looking for someone.
Who?
Likely Temple Barr, but Molina would have spotted her even if she had been got up like a Munchkin from The Wizard of Oz. The notion was so pleasing that she smiled into her sob-sister margarita…it was criminal how weak they mixed these drinks in the strip clubs…not her jurisdiction, thank God.
But Max Kinsella was. Baa baa, black sheep, have you any bull? Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full.
Midnight Choirboy
I cruise by the Secrets parking lot, but not much seems to be happening.
Much as I would like to settle down at the edge of the parking lot and watch two ace trackers from different hunting parties stake out the same watering hole, I find that when I have a chance to sit still, I get antsy instead.
It has been just too long since I last heard head or tail of Miss Midnight Louise.
I know for a fact that my Miss Temple is safely deployed at the one place the dude in question is not likely to show, Baby Doll’s.
I do not know anything about the disposition of Miss Midnight Louise other than that she is not at the Crystal Phoenix, or the Circle Ritz, or here or anywhere she should be breaking a nail to get to with a report, at least.
While I sit there chewing my nails I find my noggin cogitating. I am not sanguine about finding Miss Louise in that cavernous place, and I do not like contemplating the many unseen, if not unsniffed, signs of major muscle of a feline nature about the place.
It is quiet here, except for intermittent slices of unholy midnight howls that emanate from Secrets every time the single wide front door opens and shuts to let merrymakers in or out.
I am a bit perturbed that all is normal here. I am even more disturbed to see a stripper leave the premises for the night escorted by a dude with major workout issues. Apparently Secrets has installed a killer security system: see the ladies to and from their cars. With everyone but me carrying cell phones these days, it makes sense.
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