Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

After she dons latex gloves, she teases the box open with the muzzle of the gun at arm’s length. As if that would do any good against an explosive device. Just red tissue paper. She doesn’t really expect a literal explosive device. Her stalker is too subtle for that.

She expects an explosive message.

She gets it when she eases the enclosed gift card out of its Barbie-size white envelope. The note reads, “This is what you should have been wearing for a midnight rendezvous in the Secrets’ parking lot.”

The box holds one of those sleazy sub-Frederick’s of Hollywood outfits: black garters and red satin and white lace and underwire bra and filmy chiffon.

Only one person knows about Secrets’ parking lot. She puts the safety on the Glock but not her emotion, which is sheer fury. Max Kinsella with his sick cat-and-mouse games has invaded her home, her privacy, and threatened her child.

This is war.

Home Invasion

Temple heard the knock on her door. Too demanding for Matt Devine, the only one diffident enough to ever knock. And maybe that would stop now.

Max just broke in, born second-story man that he was. As long as it was her second story. Temple used to think that was cool. She was starting to resent what she had loved before.

She opened up.

Whoa. Lieutenant Molina, looking navy blue official, like a nun or a military man. Was there a difference? Wasn’t your guilt and anxiety always to their advantage?

“Excuse me,” Temple said, trying to stretch to at least five four on her three-inch heels.

“I’m here to gather evidence,” said six-foot-something C. R. Molina. “I don’t have a court order. You can kick me out. But then I’d have to put it all on the record. If you want that, fine.”

What a witch! Temple so resented this woman breaking into her life, her condo, her sense of privacy and security.

“What do you want here?”

“Not much, and everything. Something he has touched. Besides you.”

Temple had already been backed up until she dug her heels into the faux goatskin rug under her coffee table. Make that cocktail table, because she could use about three right now. Plus her aunt Kit.

“You have no idea,” Temple said.

“You have a crime scene bonanza,” Molina contradicted Temple. “You believe in Max Kinsella. Okay. Just let me gather my evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“What would still have his fingerprints? Hmmm?” Molina produced a latex glove and snapped it on.

Euww! So like a gynecologist. Temple’s home was a laboratory? Like she had a yeast infection named Max?

“You—” Temple began.

“You give me what I want, I’m outa here. Scared?”

“Of you, no. Of your unadmitted obsessions? Yes.”

Molina marched on. Later, Temple would wonder why Molina did this take-down solo, with no paperwork. But Temple had been caught head-on, like deer being shined. No time to think.

“You live in Las Vegas,” Molina said. “You bet on this town for your livelihood. For your luck. Just something. One thing he has touched. An innocent man leaves no trail but trust. Yes? One little thing.”

They were in the bedroom by then, Temple quavering, thinking madly but not well. She didn’t want this woman in here, tainting the truth of her past and possibly even the present.

Temple’s eyes gave her away. They flashed on the second stereo system. Small but mighty. The rack of CDs. Vangelis, of course, a magician’s musician. Soaring. Dazzling. Mystifying.

“You gaze longingly at the sound system. Music is the food of love. And delusion.” Molina’s latexed fingers snared one CD. Old. Not played recently. Cosmos. Not dusted. Not wiped free of fingerprints, just Max all over it. The music, the mood, the intimate moments.

Molina read Temple’s unreeling memories and anxieties in one glance. The CD was sealed in plastic, ready to be raped of all its secrets.

Temple took that image, that notion, way too personally.

Temple sat sweating in her air-conditioning after the homicide lieutenant left.

She was dazed. Molina had only recently promised to leave Max and her alone. Now she was muscling into their intimate lives, sneering at the implicit details of their love life. Making it criminal to care. To defend and protect.

Or, was she just too tired to be Max’s personal pit bull anymore? Was she weakening because she was distracted by Matt and his needs, his attractions? Was it getting easy to give up the ghost? Max, her maybe lover?

Temple knew she should have done more to resist Molina, but she also knew that this humiliating breaking and entering wouldn’t have been necessary if Max had done less. If he’d been here rather than anywhere else. And the fact that he needed to do what he did didn’t make it one damned bit easier. For him.

Or for her.

High Anxiety

Max’s stint as the Phantom Mage at Neon Nightmare was the ideal training ground for this job at the New Millennium.

“Job”in the sense of pulling a heist.

In the deepest dark of night, against the ceiling of the black-painted area above the exhibition, he’d installed his own web of deception.