Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

36

Command Performance

Molina felt like a green rookie on a stakeout.

She had plenty of reasons to be nervous.

She’d agreed to this “meet” without knowing the purpose.

She’d known the venue was fairly formal, so she’d worn the long black microfiber skirt with a discreet knee-length slit Mariah had whined for her to get for the Barr-Devine wedding reception.

In an act of rebellion against her fashion-obsessed daughter, she wore a bronze forties jacket with padded shoulders and black sequin cuffs and pointed collar. And her magenta suede platform forties shoes for when she moonlighted as the torch singer “Carmen”.

Mariah had tagged it a “Goddess” look and approved, although disappointed that it wasn’t Rafi she was dining with at the Paris Hotel Eiffel Tower restaurant. When she’d lied and said it was FBI agent Frank Bucek, Mariah made her “Oh, Mother” face. Frank was married. The man she was meeting was not.

Now Molina was shuffling forward toward the closed elevator door, as obviously unescorted as an inchworm on a maple leaf.

He appeared beside her just as she reached the brass pole end of the velvet rope and no one remained between her and the closed elevator door to the Paris Eiffel Tower restaurant and the valet who would usher her in. Her turn.

Suddenly “their” turn.

“Timing is everything,” Max Kinsella commented.

Sure was. He’d let her feel the embarrassment of an imminent “left at the altar” position. What a manipulator.

No one behind them grumbled about the last minute line-hopper. It was as if Kinsella had been invisible. Hardly. She flashed on his black shirt, black tuxedo jacket. More Oscar Red Carpet than stage magician garb.

“You look very ‘Midnight Louie’,” she said, as they turned together in the elevator to face the doors for an eleven-story ride to the elegant French restaurant.

“The highest of praise. I even filed my nails and washed behind my ears.”

“I’m not checking,” she said.

“Looks like you’ve done me one better; I’ve not glossed my lips. You’ve not been here before?”

“No. Tourist attraction. High-priced tourist attraction. Over high-priced tourist attraction.”

Max shrugged. “And on me tonight. I can understand your viewpoint. It’s hardly worth the cost unless you snag the one table at the very—point—the prow where the glass walls meet in a Vee.” His long tented fingers demonstrated. “Each person at that table for two gets an exclusive view of the Bellagio Fountains when they come on at eight and nine p.m. Sad. The fountain show and music used to play every half hour from dusk until midnight.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, “cost and conservation, I assume.” Someone had indeed buffed his nails, even more discreetly than Julio’s. To outdo a Fontana brother at being a Fontana brother was no small achievement.

He, meanwhile, was running his glance up from her shoes to her shoulders, where a large brandy-colored rhinestone pin perched on the shoulder pad of her vintage “Joan Crawford-style” power suit-jacket. It was the antithesis of anything Temple Barr could ever wear. Or maybe anyone other than Anjelica Huston or a cross-dressing football linebacker.

“Really high heels,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. “I like.”

“I don’t need to be unintimidating to you. You’re already cowed.”

He laughed, and she heard a new freedom in it. “Is that what they call it? I know a leader of men can’t ever be too much of an Amazon.”

“Not with some of the Neanderthals still on the force. The meteor has struck and they’re fading away, and still don’t know it. But let’s not talk work.”

“What else would we talk about, Lieutenant?”

“What you really want tonight.”

“I’m not that kind, I assure you,” he answered.

She laughed, skeptically. The hostess was heading their way. Molina had been scanning the room while they waited and chatted. “The corner table is taken,” she noted, raising an eyebrow. “I thought for sure you’d swing it.”

“Look again.”

She jerked her head around so fast her short bob whipped cheekbone on one side.

Empty. Reset. The previous couple abducted into the Twilight Zone somewhere. He’d invited her to look without doing that himself, as if prescient. The magician always had to surprise, not that she showed she knew it. Molina had needed to develop a shell beyond showing surprise, facing the dirty, tragic details of an endless parade of crime scenes.

The hostess waited before them, large menus cradled on one arm like a baby, to lead them to the desired corner table.

Seated, facing a view of the fountains that intersected with his somewhere in the black overlit Vegas Strip night, she wondered what she really wanted from Max Kinsella.

“Relax,” he said. “I can at last. You should try it.”

“Really?” She shook out the large white napkin to cover her black lap, to avoid looking him in the eye. They’d been…antagonists for so long. She hated the artificial, the imitation, the slippery.

She was armed. The dainty pistol at the small of her back. You never knew. Somehow, she still felt naked. Was that “relaxation”?

“Let’s just have dinner,” he said. “I feel I owe you a grand one, for the headache I’ve been.”

“I feel you’re right.”

She decided to go berserk. Appetizer for $28 Warm Lobster, Spring Onion Soubise, Basil Infused Peas.

“No Fois Gras?”

“The daughter is a member of PETA, no abused geese.”

“Don’t tell me! No caviar?”

She longed to make him pay the $290 price tag for a “Trilogy Osetra Caviar, Golden, Russian, Siberia”, but fish eggs were probably another daughter-forbidden food.

No one should expect her to avoid magnificent beef. She ordered “The King” filet mignon at $69.

He raised her to $79 with the Rossini filet mignon Fois Gras with Truffle sauce.

She frowned. “Don’t you know that ‘fois gras’ are force-fed geese livers. Brutal.”

“Yet beef is a more politically correct food than some others? All right. Being politically correct costs.” He topped her with $89 for a 22-ounce bone-in rib-eye with bone marrow.

“It’s hard to renounce being a carnivore,” she agreed, ordering a snappy peppercorn sauce while he stuck to lulling bordelaise. A steal at only 6$ each.

“Apparently,” he said later over a second glass of the smoothest red wine she’d ever tasted and must be sky-high in cost, “you’re intent on eating and drinking me out of house and home when that’s already been done.”

“You do owe me. I’ve dismissed all charges against you.”

“You can’t fool me. You can’t be bought. Not even by this magnificent dinner.” He looked beyond her. “Apparently the Strip is celebrating my innocence. The lighted fountains are flaring to life, right in time for dessert.”

Once one looked at the glorious golden rise and fall of the Bellagio fountains, which performed on an automated evening schedule, it always made viewers breathless, like viewing Fourth of July fireworks through a precious topaz lens.

Yet through the glass walls of the restaurant, it was a silent symphony in your head.

“It always reminds me of Tchaikovsky’s most popular work,” Max said, “used for fireworks displays, the 1812 Overture, celebrating the Russians thrashing Napoleon.”

“That’s a bit bombastic,” she said. “From the rhythm of the fountain highs and lows, it looks a lot more like popular music in this pantomime we see through the glass.”

“You would know, of course. Hmm. I’m thinking it might be Frank Sinatra’s ‘Luck Be a Lady Tonight’.”

“Funny. I ‘see’ Gene Kelly’s ‘Singin’ in the Rain’.”

“Apt, and you’re the musician. I’m just a magician with a tin ear. Still, those explosive bursts remind me of the Overture’s climactic volley of genuine cannon fire, ringing chimes, and the brass fanfare finale. Explosive, lethal. Defeating Napoleon doesn’t happen every day. Not as smooth as dessert here, say, but most symbolic.”

Also erotic, Molina thought, as she watched the plumes of gushing water play tag with the pulsing lights.

The waiter brought two white bags emblazoned with the Eiffel Tower restaurant name…

“Dessert to go,” Max explained. “The famous Eiffel Tower sculpted in white chocolate.”

Max held out his paper bag to her. “A souvenir for Mariah. Say it’s from Rafi.”

She nodded.

And the waiter left behind the black padded book concealing a bill on the table.

“Are you sure you can afford me?” she asked.

“My current magic wand.” Max flipped a tightly rolled bill through his four fingers like a tap-dance cane. When he unfurled the bill, the number one had a train of zeros.

“My work here is done.” He slipped the bill inside the small black book.

Mission accomplished; she must be the most expensive “date” ever. Molina concealed a smile as she bowed her head to examine the white chocolate Eiffel tower inside. Two made a mother and daughter pair. Mariah would love it. She looked up to an empty chair opposite her to say thank you.

Molina screwed herself around in her chair to rubberneck. Max Kinsella’s black back had already passed the hostess station and disappeared into the line waiting for what was now her table and soon to be available again.

She turned back to the view one last time to imprint the image of the furiously flaring fountains, spotlighted against the Bellagio’s Italian Lake Como façade. Fountains and lights were really soaring now. She recognized an unforgettable rhythm. Wasn’t Whitney Houston’s “The Star-Spangled Banner” on the roster of music? “O’er the rocket’s red glare” maybe…

“Oh, my God,” she muttered, checking inside the black book holding an over $600 charge and a bill with a one and three zeros on it. One grand. He’d promised her a “grand” dinner.

Who was the mustached man on its face? Didn’t matter. She grabbed both bags and nodded appreciatively to the waiter aching to pounce on the tray on her way out. Eighteen-twelve overture, her left foot.

She was reaching for her cell phone. Her vintage suit coat—surprise!—had real pockets.

“Detective Alch, we have overtime to put in. And ask the Captain to use any pull he has with the Bellagio management from past arrests we’ve made there. Also WET, W-E-T, the design firm that handles the Bellagio fountains and the Mirage flaming volcanoes.

“I’ve got a notion where the IRA small arms to possible rocket-launcher weapons the Feds want are hidden. Down in the biggest set of plumbing tunnels in town. I think they use frogmen to clean it. Thank God the shows are down to only two an evening. Frank Bucek is going to be ecstatic. Well, maybe a little bit more mellow.”

Molina eyed a dim reflection of herself in the elevator doors on the way down. Temple Barr had been right about one thing. She could pull together an awesome look if she tried, if she wanted to look chic while being led by the nose to the object of a quirky law enforcement quest.