Cat In A Topaz Tango

Emerald City Express

Los Angeles was only three hundred miles away but it seemed as distant as the Emerald City in Oz.

Facing the endless highway in the morning, when you needed mouthwash and had left a trail of gas station rest rooms behind you, the mirage of a huge, phantom city seemed to loom white and gray and glassy green under a haze of predawn heat.

Midnight Louie was sleeping alongside Temple’s hip, just as he’d done at the Circle Ritz.

Midnight Louie was sleeping alongside Temple’s hip, just as he’d done at the Circle Ritz.

Temple screeched, waking Molina in the front seat. She turned her head to glare around the headrest. Nadir frowned as he looked over his shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

Talk about waking up to a pair of grumps!

Temple sighed. “Uh . . . nothing. Zoe Chloe Ozone has just acquired a purse pussycat.”

Molina’s gel-roughened bob loomed over the front passenger seat’s back. She looked as happy as Godzilla on No-Doz. Eek!

“Balls!” she said, getting into character.

“He does still have them,” Temple admitted, “but they’re shooting blanks.”

“God!” Molina was violating all of her bad language rules at once. “Can’t you go anywhere without that big old alley cat traipsing along? What’s your new bridegroom going to say in the honeymoon suite?”

“I don’t expect him to be much into conversation,” Temple said as Zoe Chloe. “Chill, Cop Chick. This ole boy is a fab undercover op. Paris Hilton and her scrawny Chihuahuas are so over. Louie’s got claws and he knows how to use ’em.”

Rafi Nadir chose that moment to chuckle.

Molina turned on him like a whipsnake. “Our daughter is truant, missing, in danger . . . and you find a hitch-hiking cat a laughing matter?”

Rafi cocked an eyebrow at Temple. He hadn’t missed the “our daughter” either. He wisely didn’t draw attention to the phrase. Instead, he went for sweet reason.

“The cat’s great cover, Carmen. That Teen Queen Web site had a big mock Pink Panther podcast featuring the thing slinking around the competition house.”

“The name is Louie, Midnight Louie,” Zoe added, pouting. “He is not a ‘thing.’ I can improvise his travel supplies at the next gas station store. It will only take a few minutes.”

Molina glowered at her.

“Come on, us people will have to make comfort stops.”

“Just keep him riding shotgun in that big, zebra-striped tote bag of yours,” Nadir advised. “Now, where are we shacking up en route?”

“Nowhere,” Molina said. “We drive straight through, find and grab the kid, and retreat. The story is she’s another of our stars.”

“And we’re the entourage.” Rafi shook his head. “Our IDs?”

Molina tossed him a packet while rolling her eyes. “Phony baloney time.”

Rafi riffled through his new ID. “Raphael d’Arc, garage band impresario? Whoever cooked this up must have had archangels on the brain.”

Molina frowned, then got the reference. “I called Buchanan and had him dream up these “hip” fake IDs so I could keep this expedition unofficial.”

“And you are?” he asked.

“Carmina Regina,” she read reluctantly, as if making a confession. “Ex-singer with the Paper Hangers and PR rep.”

“Sure mangled your given and middle names, but we’ll respond more readily to identities that sound like our real ones. Smart. Cheer up, Carmina.”

“You’re betting everything that Mariah will end up down the road at an audition.”

“We can’t be everywhere.”

“I sent out her school photo, but God knows what she looks like after all those ‘makeup’ parties she claimed to be going to.”

“L.A., Phoenix, Denver, ’Frisco,” he said. “Those major urban centers have been savvy on runaway kids since the sixties. The cops there will see through any extreme makeup and clothes. They’re pros, like us.”

Molina didn’t have the energy to challenge that “us” any more than she had “our daughter” a few minutes earlier. Instead, she bit her lip.

Temple noticed that she’d been through a makeup session, too, probably from rookie cop days when she’d decoyed johns. The frosted lip gloss she wore made a lot more of her mouth than those dark forties lipsticks “Carmen” wore on the Blue Dahlia club stage. The make over meant she was pouting almost as much as Zoe Chloe. And Rafi Nadir was noticing.

Interesting.

Temple stroked Louie as she held him close in the big tote bag. She doubted he’d make an easy rider, but he needed to appear docile for the crowds and the cameras.