Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit (3 page)

“
So what was the Blue Dahlia crack for?" Molina
asked after rinsing her palette with a swallow of clean, sharp vodka martini.

“Odd you should use that expression. Dirty Larry did a cocaine deal there once.”

Molina frowned. He tended to refer to his undercover persona in the third person. Weird.

“A one-off," he went on. "Nothing habitual. The client had a thing for you."

“Oh, great."

“People get their kicks where they can."

“And here I think I'm singing for dedicated vintage music lovers. Listen—"

“It's okay. My lips are sealed. Your pseudonymous
singing habit is safe. Everything I do undercover is off
the record unless it involves criminal charges."

“
You're not undercover now."

“
I take . . . vacations. R and R. It messes your mind to play an undercover role too long. I'm doing accident investigations for a while."

“
From drug traffic to traffic? Isn't that a bit tame?”

He nodded. "That's the idea. Nice quiet beat. After the
fact. Fascinating, really. The evidence of a crash and burn
but nobody there to threaten you or haunt you. Only evidence. Nice inert, cool evidence."

“
People die on the streets from vehicular accidents too."

“
But I'm not down in that pit with them. Biggest risk to
undercover agents? Not gettin' fingered or found out. Not getting killed. Getting hooked."

“So why am I the receptacle of all this useful information from the opium den?"

“
Just explaining where I'm coming from and going to.”

“
Going to. Which is?"

“
One more big score. There's a funny ring operating. Dirty Larry can't get near it. I'm going to have to come back as someone else and try again. Meanwhile, I detox
on Traffic Accident detail. But the instincts don't turn off."

“
And . . . ?"

“
And I never bought your act the other night with the re
port on that Nadir guy. I can read upside down and back
ward in my game too, Lieutenant. That address pan out?"

“
Yeah. Thanks."

“
Why would you think you could con an undercover guy?"

“
Because I had to.”

He nodded. "Good reason. Why did you ever think you
could keep Carmen a secret?"

“Because I want to."

“Better reason.”

They each sipped from their drinks, gazing at the spectacular 180-degree view, then back at each other.

“
If you don't want something," she said finally, "and everybody does, why did you get me away from the office?"

“What's the worst I could do with what I know?”

“Blackmail? But I don't think so."

“
No. Just exposure."

“
I deny. I stop. Carmen gets paid in cash. She has no
Social Security number. You could mess up my friends at
the Blue Dahlia a little, but I could mess you up a whole lot more. And Carmen could fall off the planet. Officialdom would never notice."

“
I would. Notice. I'd never do that, burn Carmen. She's a class act. I oughta know. Acts, that is."

“Then . . . what do you want?"

“
Nothing. Everything. Just to get the cards on the
table.”

Molina stared at the tiny circle of plastic cocktail table holding their Art Moderne drink glasses. "What cards? What table?"

“
This one. Here. Now. Call it a social occasion with overtones of business.”

She finally got it. "You think this is a
date?"

“
Yeah. I thought you knew.”

Her jaw would have dropped for the second time that
night, figuratively anyway, if she'd allowed it to. She
looked away and found an irritatingly famous face in
every direction. Holographic portraits imbued the place's
few interior walls, both hung on and burned into the wall.
The Ghost Bar was a highly desirable destination in Las Vegas, and Dirty Larry had gotten them first-row seats.

A frivolous woman would have been impressed.

“
You've got a lot of nerve," she told him, not happy.

“
Oh, yeah.”

He grinned and knocked back a big swallow of Burn
ing Bush. Maybe the name was also a political statement.

The line for the elevator when they left a few minutes
later was even longer, snaking through the casino. Lustful eyes followed them, envying their leaving a place most of
them would never get into this night or even by four
A.M.
the next morning when the Ghost Bar closed.

Dirty Larry had just shrugged when she beat him to the
credit card draw and slapped her Visa down on the tiny table. Thirty bucks plus a high-rise tip for a view through
Go Ask Alice's
rabbit hole and a little atmosphere. That
was the New Vegas, converted from cheap everything to
entice gamblers to overpriced everything to entice
tourists.

The parking lot was jammed but well lit.

“So you have pull with the pit bosses," Molina noted.
"In
which persona?"

“Just as me."

“Who is?"

“Just plain Larry Paddock."

“I like Dirty Larry better."

“Figured you might.”

He followed her to her car. "Where are you parked?" she asked finally.

He waved in a vaguely distant direction.

“
I'll drop you at your car," she offered. Insisted. "You don't have to."

“
You're sure it's safe out here with you bare-faced?”

“
Should be. People look but they don't really see.
That's always been my edge."

“You sound like a magician."

“Not a bad comparison, but you sound like you don't much care for magicians.”

She leaned against the still tepid side of her Toyota. It took a load off her feet but also made their heights equal for a moment. She topped him by an inch or more.

“
So what do we have here—?"

“Sergeant Paddock."

“Sergeant Paddock."

“
We have a homicide lieutenant with a secret undercover role and a not very healthy interest in a drug-bust
suspect, and we have a narc with a yen to play Joe Citizen
for a while."

“
Why play that role with me?"

“Because I like your style."

“I don't have one. Just a job."

“Right. That's the style I like."

“And you want?"

“
Maybe I can help you with that Nadir guy. He was clean on this Maylords bust but something's wrong with him."

“
I don't need help.”

He grinned again. "That's my girl."

“Do you know how long it's been since anybody's had the nerve to call me that?"

“Too long?”

She jingled her key ring and let out a disgusted sigh. "I
don't 'date' inside the department."

“No. You don't date, period."

“It's mandatory?"

“No, but it might be fun."

“I outrank you."

“I'm a free agent. I make daily life and death decisions commanders don't face. Rank doesn't intimidate me." She straightened. "I'm taller than you are."

“Rock climbing's my hobby when I want to relax.”

“I'm older than you are."

“Now how did you know that, Lieutenant?"

“I checked your record. I routinely do that on anymembers of the force I have dealings with for the first time."

“
Ditto. Except I checked you out after that deal went
down at the Dahlia. You shouldn't have tried to rip off my
file on Nadir. It got me interested again."

“
Why?"

“
I think you've got more secrets than going
Blue Velvet
every now and again at a local club. I find homicide lieutenants with secrets irresistible."

“
Dangerous too, I bet."

“Hope so."

“And this is how you ask for a date?"

“Hope so.”

Molina eyed the PG-model of Dirty Larry. He still had the sloppy posture of a
guy
guy, but his hair was almost buzz cut and his angular, currently genial features went
down smooth with a cocky charm that probably stood
him well in undercover work. He looked like an ex-pilot, civilized but a little bit warped in some wild-blue-yonder way. Not her type at all. But then it'd been so long, she didn't know what her type was anymore.

“
You want to drag me out to some trendy hot spot
again?" she asked.

“
You're a dynamite singer but you're an even tougher audience. Not drag. Accompany. And not so trendy. Dinner.”

She opened the unlocked driver's door and nodded for him to go around to the passenger side. A concession, but a small one.

“
We don't have a thing in common," she warned him
as he got in the aging car over the grumble of its engine. "Except police work."

“A negative."

“We both have to play roles every day to survive.”

She didn't comment on that because she was too busy backing out without being crushed by one of the many Hummers scattered through the lot. Or because she was too uneasy about answering that assumption.

“
West side of the lot. Black Wrangler." He push-
buttoned down the window and braced an elbow on it, showing none of the unease most men did when they weren't driving, and a woman was.

One positive point to Dirty Larry.

“I've got two kids," he told the open air. "Shared custody with the ex-wife in—of all places, divorce central—Reno."

“Divorced ex-cop. Just the worst."

“You are too."

“I never married, but you know that.”

He didn't deny it. "Smart." Nodding, looking out the window. "Saved yourself a lot of grief. Was it a cop?”

She declined to comment, instead slowing the car.
"Here we are."

“
All right." He got out, then leaned his angular yet
boyish face through the window. "Thursday night dinner,
say seven. Civvies. My treat. No ghosts. I'll pick you up
at home."

“
You're nosy as well as nervy, you know that?”

“Yeah. My best qualities. What can you lose?”

She didn't answer that but pulled away as he hit the re- mote open for his car.

Molina did a quick postmortem. Nancy Reagan had
been right. She should have just said no.

Why hadn't she? Because she needed to figure his angle, and because he did indeed know too much about her.
And because some of damned Max Kinsella's taunts
when they were tussling in the strip club parking lot had gotten under her skin and were still festering there, like a splinter you can only get out through some deep digging with a sharp needle.

Finding out Dirty Larry's game might refute the magician's nasty insinuations that night. Like how she was too
uptight for a real life, for a real man. A sense of shame
still lingered from that flat-out physical encounter, a con
frontation she'd lost for winning. Even though she'd fi
nally won, had him down and cuffed, she had to wonder
if he'd let her. Never arm wrestle a snake.