Cat In A Topaz Tango

Car Chase

Sometimes choosing the right ride is the most crucial decision the private operative will make.

When there is a sudden abandonment of Chez Molina this evening by two parties driving two vehicles, I am confronted by a basic choice: staying at the scene with an unsupervised Rafi Nadir and Dirty Larry, who bear watching, in my humble opinion, or heading out with one of the dear departing; my lovely roomie or the unlovely jerk we both know and loathe.

I have always been a backseat driver and my personal “four on the floor” have massaged dark, discreet interior carpeting from economy cars to limousines. Miss Temple would seem the logical one to stick with, but she will drive alone and this time I will not be entertained by her spiritedly hostile cell phone banter with the Crawfish.

I toy with the notion of riding with Awful Crawford himself. That orange Hummer tickles my fancy, reminding me of my Halloween birthday. I would enjoy being a surprise passenger in an automotive pumpkin. Has a nursery rhyme and reason to it, like blackbirds baked in a pie.

Besides, just who Crawford will whine to on his cell phone after his interrogation might be very informative.

I do not have long to weigh options as I lurk in the scant exterior shrubbery this clime provides.

A Miata has no backseat at all. Luckily, my Miss Temple, being short, obligingly keeps both seats set forward; the empty passenger seat holds her essential tote bag at the ready. This leaves a dude a smidge of wiggle room to hide behind either seat without being noticed. She is on the cell phone anyway; probably trying to rouse . . . I mean, roust Mr. Matt.

So I decide to indulge my craving for a novel experience and honor Mr. Crawford Buchanan with my guardian angelship for a time. Not that I would lift a split shiv to save him from even a case of dandruff. I hunker under his wheels.

As I suspected, he is on the cell too. Apparently he is alerting his radio station.

“I have an interview with a homicide lieutenant,” he boasts, turning an interrogation into a journalistic coup in his own beady little eyes. “Might have a whole new angle on the teen pop tart phenom. Lots of human interest. I am on the trail of the story now. Might be a spectacular linkup to my surprise new gig at the Oasis.”

I notice that he does not mention the possibility of needing bail money.

That would be a happy ending, I decide.

Interestingly, the Crawf did put out an All Points Bulletin of his own about the Molina kid to contacts in the teen talent industry at points west, all the way to L.A.

Meanwhile, my Miss Temple has paused to put the Miata’s top down for a breezy drive home. So I shelter under the low car. Once the top is down and she’s busy starting it up, I loft over the low side into the very mini “rumble seat” behind the front seats. Oofda! Squeezes the interior organs like a Swedish masseuse.

What a convoy of two we make. The smooth, small, sassy red Barr Miata, and, bringing up the rear, the hulking, boxy, orange Buchanan Hummer H3 with its shiny chrome grin of a front grille that so sums up the Crawf’s sleazy personality.

Miss Temple is in such a grim hurry that I almost lose a tail tip shadowing her into our car. I could just dispense with the secret agent routine, but she seems to have enough on her mind that I do not care to add to it.

Also, once we are a decent distance from Molina’s place, she exceeds the legal limit as if we were a squad car in pursuit. Maybe we are. Buchanan’s vehicle is soon a gaudy memory in the rearview mirror. We squeal into the Circle Ritz parking lot on a sharp turn, the headlights flashing across the gleaming eyes of a whole startled row of Ma Barker’s gang in the bordering bushes.

She runs into the building so fast the big outside door slams shut before I can get through, an unheard of occurrence. No problem. I can take the palm tree trunk up to the secondary bathroom window she keeps open for me.

I know then that something big is up and resolve to be something little but essential in helping her out.