Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“Don’t remind me.” Nadir lowered his drink to the table and his head to bury his hands in his thick dark hair.

“Push it, then.”

“You’ve seen Molina more recently than I have. She seem any mellower now that the Barbie Doll Killer case is solved and she isn’t playing cat and mouse with that undercover narc?”

“Nope.” Max stretched out his legs. “I don’t remember her from before my near-death experience, but I can tell you that woman is not going to soften one tiny bit … unless you push it.”

“She must be still bending the rules if she’s hiring you for something. And now there’s another guy found conked out in the Goliath mechanical systems.”

“He made it out. Don’t let the blood fool you. I cut off his air temporarily and used a sharp head blow. A quick out cold, but not forever. And don’t think you can turn my exploits on Molina’s behalf into blackmail. What’ll impress a fiercely protective, seriously paranoid single mother like her will be how upstanding you are. And you are now, aren’t you?”

Nadir rubbed his furrowed temples but still didn’t raise his head. “I guess so. Your friend Garry got me a chance at the Oasis. I’m in line for the security chief job, but I’m not the dead cop hero Carmen made out I was to the kid.”

“Carmen. I bet C. R. Molina despises that girly name.”

“She always did.”

“Whoa.” Max poured a bit more whiskey into Nadir’s glass. “Wait a minute. I was wrong. You can blackmail her. Don’t you get it? You don’t have to live up to her lie, but she has to live down lying to the kid.” Rafi nodded, seeing the light. “That’s something kids don’t understand and forgive. She needs you to cooperate and help her explain away that unforgivable breach of trust. No wonder she’s been such a mama grizzly. Hell, if that were a qualification, she could run for president on that platform. If I were you, I’d make nice and then nail her.”

“Are you suggesting I date her?”

“No, of course not. I’m telling you to. And getting her into bed would seal the deal.” Max laughed at the sight of Nadir’s struck-dumb expression. “You’ve said you get along with the kid—”

“Mariah.”

“—with Mariah already, since she and the always entertaining Miss Barr were competing in that teen talent reality show.”

“Yeah. It cuts like a knife to hear Mariah wants that media-perfect ex-priest to take her to the junior high Daughter–Dad dance. What’s he got that I haven’t got, besides looks and money?”

“I could say the same thing, since he cut me out with Temple.”

“You’ve got looks and money,” Rafi growled.

“Had,” Max said. “Had it all, and a live Garry Randolph.”

Rafi slanted a suspicious glance his way. “Kinsella, are you getting drunk?”

“Maybe so.” Max eyed the low level of Irish whiskey in his glittering glass and fixed that. “Not to go all metrosexual on you, but you’re a buff, decent-looking guy. You turned your life around. You really care about being in that young girl’s life. I say, use it. You and Molina had something going once.”

“You must be drunk.” Rafi sat staring into his glass, then grabbed the Jameson for a refill.

Yeah, Max thought. First had come the recent rerun of the Goliath episode he still didn’t remember. Now Rafi’s account of his almost-fatal Neon Nightmare plunge was bringing back haunting glimpses. Both incidents merited a good dose of anesthetic.

And … where would Max with a Memory be now, instead of drinking with Rafi Nadir? Maybe at the Circle Ritz, sleeping with Temple Barr. The idea seemed ridiculous at first, but she sure had known how to reintroduce a morose amnesiac to his own life.

“Come home, Max.”

Her parting words, sounding shell-shocked but game, would never leave his rebooted memory going forward. She had guts and grace, that little woman. And if Vegas still didn’t feel like “home,” nowhere did. Maybe the Circle Ritz could have. Maybe being with her again would bring everything flooding back.…

Max ended the maybes. That was the liquor nattering on.

He didn’t need to star in a romantic melodrama. He needed to find out who was out to kill him, and why so many innocents were being drawn into that murderous endgame.

For now, if he could sic Rafi on Molina, distract her from the remaining unsolved criminal matters that she obsessed about, he’d have a much clearer field of operations for his own investigations.

Once he was totally sober again, that is.

Chapter 14

Gossip Guys: Doing One’s Nails

Well, trim my toe hairs with a hedge shears!

Or just step on a crack and break my mother’s back, why not? She will make you pay, believe it. One does not mess with Ma Barker, and you do not tug on Superman’s cloak or Midnight Louie’s tail.