Cat In A Topaz Tango

One-armed Bandit

“How bad is CC’s arm wound?” Rafi wanted to know.

They’d all been waiting in the suite for Molina to return.

“Nasty,” she said, collapsing into an armchair. “But everyone’s happy, including the Cloaked Conjuror, because they can put him on pain pills, wrap up the arm, and he can still dance the tango for the final round tomorrow. The mishaps just up the ratings. Showbiz!”

She laughed, adding, “Look at you all! I’ve never seen a sadder set of glum clowns, including me. The show will go on, but I’m not sure the junior division will be onstage for the awards shows.”

“Mo-ther, no!” Mariah wailed from the huge ottoman she shared with EK.

“There’s been gunplay on the stage, sweetie. No way am I going to risk any minors.”

“Did Motha Jonz fire the shot?” Matt asked. He’d returned to the suite and shared one of the living-room love seats with a sober-faced Zoe Chloe Ozone.

Molina raised an eyebrow. “You supposed to sling an arm around that underage professional brat?”

“I’m eighteen, copper,” Zoe crowed, sticking out her tongue, much to Mariah’s giggly approval.

“Forget staying in character,” Molina said. “It’s wearing; on us, if not you. We all have some serious thinking to do. I haven’t given the producer the go-ahead on the show. They’re continuing rehearsals for now.”

“You can shut this whole thing down?” Matt asked.

“You betcha, chorus boy.”

“Mo-ther!

Molina glanced sourly from Matt to her daughter and back. “And you’ve all got dance fever.”

“You don’t want to shut down the show,” Rafi said.

“And you have a say in this, because—?”

“I don’t have a say in it, but I am involved, Carmen, and you know why.”

During the ensuing silence, Mariah glanced from Rafi to her mother, sensing the unspoken tension and wondering how a security guy could call a police lieutenant by her first name that almost nobody used, even her mother. Except when she sang.

Molina’s jawline grew tighter than a drum skin in the show band. “I would think the assistant director of security at this hotel would want to avoid further disruptive . . . violence.”

She left it unclear just what kind of violence she was referring to.

Rafi remained unruffled. “These are acts of sabotage so far. You didn’t answer the question. Did the shot that hit the Cloaked Conjuror come from Motha Jonz’s gun?”

“Yes.”

Matt got it. “So . . . a prop gun was loaded, instead of just having a dummy smoke-generating shell in it. Nobody offstage was shooting.”

“And this is better, how?” Molina asked Rafi.

“It’s criminal endangerment so far. Nothing lethal. You shut down the show, we’ll never catch who’s doing this.”

“Sometimes avoiding violence is better police work than catching perps and risking lives.”

Rafi shook his head.

“It’s always better to catch a stalker than let him disappear back into the woodwork to crawl out again. I think that’s what we’re dealing with here, and what you’ve dealt with before. I wouldn’t want my teen daughter on the loose without it being settled. I’m sure if you ask the other junior moms, they’ll go along. Me and my staff will cover those girls like a blanket. I have a lot of good female staff. They’re bunking together, easy to supervise. Your people can handle the adult cast.”

Molina’s sallow cheeks flared with color at his reference to a stalker. “If anything happens to those kids, I’ll have your job and your head.”

“Nothing new, Carmen.”

Again, one of those loaded silences. Temple snuggled into Matt’s shoulder, glad it was unwounded. “I wish you didn’t have to go back and forth to the radio station nights,” she whispered.

Molina must have had ears in the back of her head.

She hiked her neck around to stare at them. “I am not in the mood for eavesdropping on Love’s Young Dream. You don’t want to follow through as Zoe Chloe, Barr, so much the better for me and my nerves.”

She snapped her head back to face Rafi. “Okay, Nadir. You’ve got the whole world in your hands. Don’t freaking drop it.” Only she didn’t say “freaking.”

Mariah’s gasp was audible, but she managed to ask, “Does that mean EK and the other guys can still finish out the show?” “Guys” stood for the teen girls and their pop star partners.

Molina nodded, once. “And then there are those Hermanos brothers to guard like British royals. Aii, carumba.”

“Tango’s the last dance,” Matt put in.

Molina’s glare was so toxic that he rose right away. “I’d better get along to the radio station.” He eyed Rafi. “Zoe Chloe is one of the ‘juniors’ you’ve sworn to protect, right?”

Rafi rose to shake Matt’s hand before he left. “Absolutely. Although I’ll probably need to protect Crawford Buchanan from her more than her from anybody else.”

“Crawford!” Zoe spat. “I can outemcee that dude in a New York, New York hotel minute. Talk about useless. I don’t even know why he’s here.”

“That’s a very good point,” Molina said after Matt left, staring at Temple. “He has a stake in the show attracting media.” She turned to her daughter and little pal. “Okay, kidlets. Time to hit the hay. Into your trundle beds and no whispering, giggling, or eavesdropping.”

The pair, ecstatic about the reprieve, hustled away, eager to engage in all specifically forbidden activities.

Temple and Zoe Chloe were a pretty tickled pair too. The so-called “trundle beds” were a pair of imported cots, and the staff had been disdainful to the max to import such homely items to a high-roller suite.

As the door shut on the kids, sounds of two forbidden activities trickled under the door, whispering and giggling.

“Mama” Molina did sorta know how to handle tweens.

At that very moment Mama Molina sat heavily and lifted a curled hand. “Some of that fancy freebie wine,” she ordered Rafi.

Amazingly, he complied, and poured glasses for Temple and himself. He delivered Temple’s next, with a wink.

It was just the three of them again, and that felt scarily right, Temple thought.

After all, they’d been in on this almost from the beginning.

“How many have access to Ma Jonz’s prop gun?” Rafi asked.

Molina said, “Anyone backstage, and anyone who wanted to wander backstage. You’ve got to plug those holes.”

“It’s a typical showbiz operation,” Temple said. “Even at a major regional repertory theater that I PRed, like the Guthrie in Minneapolis, putting on shows is chaos.”

“I know,” Rafi agreed. “Vegas is no exception, but ‘typical showbiz’ will kill us. Or someone else.”

Temple sighed heavily. “We’ve all got someone at stake here. We better solve this thing.”

“What if it’s more than one thing?” Molina asked.

Rafi turned a desk chair around to straddle it. “What have we got for incidents so far? Motives? Suspects?”

“You always wanted to make detective,” Molina charged. Remembered. Her tone had been dangerously . . . personal.

Rafi winced. Temple read his reaction. He was so far from that lost uniformed officer position. Molina was a lieutenant of detectives. He looked at Temple to escape staring the implications in the eyes.

“You have any ideas, Ms. Ozone?”

“Ah . . . yes.”