Cat In A Topaz Tango

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m a matchmaker between the average kid with superior talent and the big, bad world out there.”

“Then where is my kid?”

His narrow shoulders sagged as he realized that one of his online protégés who was following her star was a police person’s missing daughter. “She’s a good little trouper with a nice big voice, if I remember rightly.”

“You’d better remember damn rightly, Buchanan, because you are going to be my guide into the girls-gone-glitzy world. Where would she have gone to further her so-called career?”

He grimaced. “L. A., maybe? There’s an all-talent, mega-audition next weekend. Singing, dance, acting, the whole ball of media stardom. Winners of other regional auditions can pile up points competing with another area’s pool of wanna-bes.”

“Next weekend? What’s she going to live on? Who’s she going to depend on?”

“They’re, uh, real go-getters, these kids. Great at improv. Hang out with each other, get tips.”

“So do street kids. Do you have any idea how many parents would like a piece of your smarmy, sorry ass? That’s not including the jail-house rodeo riders you’ll be meeting in stir.”

His face went as white as the silly froth of curls at his nape. “Oh, Lieutenant, sir, I will do anything I can to cooperate. I have, uh, local references.”

“Like, uh, what? Who?’

“Uh. Temple Barr, right here in your house.” He nodded to the hall. “Yeah. Lead PR lady around town. She can vouch for me. Knows I’ve been getting sweet personal appearances for my stepdaughter—well, it’s not official with her mother, but kinda stepdaughter—Quincey. She played Priscilla at the Elvis tribute impersonator event at the Kingdome not too long ago. Quincey is a boxing ring girl at Caesar’s and getting some real good leads out of that.”

“And the original Priscilla was not a rock star’s underage child plaything?”

“No, sir. No, ma’am! It was olden days, but the King did it right. Besides, he was from a rural culture, like Jerry Lee Lewis, and they married young girls young then. Not your daughter, of course! She is purely a commercial property at this stage. I mean, too valuable to mess with. These girls get on Excess Hollywood, for God’s sake. Quincey would give her scheduled boob job for a chance like Mariah’s getting. Ouch! What the hell was that for?”

Molina had slapped the back of his head in farewell, NCIS TV show style, which she hated but which seemed the only appropriate reaction to a cad who would pimp out his teen “sorta” stepdaughter as a boxing ring girl.

She plucked him up by the scruff of his sport coat collar and steered him out of Mariah’s room, pleased she hadn’t plastered him against one wall and cut off the air to his sleazy wolverine windpipe. But no doubt she was being unfair to wolverines.

Wolverine Dreams

Molina walked Buchanan into the hall, slammed him against the wall, and told him to “Stay.”

In the living room, Morrie Alch was waiting with Temple Barr, who’d been disappointed not to sit in on the interrogation. Did that woman have any boundaries? Probably not, which was why she was just the girl for this undercover job.

Molina spoke first. “I’m getting the germ of an idea to go undercover and track Mariah down, but nobody is going to like it, including me.

“Alch, I want your mouth shut on everything for now. Tell command I’ve had a relapse. Pneumonia, but I refuse to go to a hospital. The Iron Maiden strikes again. Infectious. Home nursing care.”

“Can’t I help besides a cover story?”

“You’ve done enough. Keep it shut and I’ll be forever grateful, if maybe not useful to your career.”

“Barr.” She eyed Temple as sternly as an underling, and sighed. “You’ll be doing your Zoe Floozy Ozone routine. Get your gear and act together. I’ll be at your Circle Ritz place in about four hours and I won’t be in a good mood. We may have to drive all over that audition map on the weasel’s Web site, L.A., Albuquerque, Flagstaff, so take a week’s worth of stuff along, including your cell phone, laptop, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, black wig. And the usual chutzpah.”

“That’s it? That’s all I know?”

“You’ll be briefed plenty en route.”

“What about him?” Alch nodded down the hall to the self-absorbed Buchanan, who was repeatedly roughening his gelled hair so it stood up in porcupine spikes. He looked like a spiny sea urchin rather than a cool dude.

“Let him go,” she told Alch, “with the notion that he’s under twenty-four-hour observation and needs to be available on an instant’s notice, which he will be and does.”

“All right, but Lieutenant.” Alch eyed Temple uneasily. “What about . . . DL?”

For a moment Molina managed to look utterly blank. As if Temple Barr wouldn’t guess Alch was referring to Dirty Larry. Then she got decisive.

“For now, tell DL I’m on compassionate leave and I’ll be in touch.”

“But, Carmen!”

She stared him down.

“Right, boss. And someone’s been holding on the landline for you. Wouldn’t hang up.

“I don’t need ‘someone’ distracting me right now.”