"You aren't my brother," he answered sardonically, "but you're sure acting like a whiny kid sister."
"You never had one of those, although I admit I was everybody's kid sister in my family.
Consider this a making-up-for-lost-time experience on your part."
"Bratty, demanding kid sister is more like it. I'll run up and get my jacket while you get yours.
And sturdier footwear is advised."
Temple pranced into her bedroom. What, did he think these dainty heels were all she owned? She had some kicky ankle-high boots for horseback-riding-if-it-ever-came-up hidden somewhere. She hadn't ridden a horse in years, so it was only in the farthest, lowest, darkest part of her closet that she found the tumbled boots and the cream-colored leather jacket.
What had replaced Matt's unexciting navy nylon windbreaker, Temple wondered as she kicked off shoes and struggled into boots. Was she going to be visited with Electra's vision of Matt-black leather? Temple shrugged into the elderly jacket, which was a teensy bit snug. Eek!
Just touch thirty and your weight was creeping up already.
She hurried back to her door as Matt arrived from upstairs. Her prediction had been right, no macho black leather for golden boy. He wore a sheepskin jacket, and looked a little sheepish.
"It's synthetic," he explained. "The real stuff is pricey, and I don't like to know a sheep died for my sins."
"Radical, and politically correct!" Temple took his arm as they walked to the elevator. "Looks good on you too. Molina will swoon and Electra will be rabid that I got to see it before she did."
He shrugged her arm off, embarrassed as usual by the thought that what he wore might attract attention. Or women. "I needed something warmer and inexpensive."
"So practical," Temple cooed, unable to resist teasing.
Yet Matt's sternly practical instincts had steered him right to the most flattering item. As far as Temple was concerned, black-leather, Marlon Brando motorcycle chic had just been dethroned.
"Molina's working late," Temple noted as they stepped out into a Maxfield Parrish twilight, the sky a warm indigo-blue bowl in the distance.
"Do you think she ever stops?"
"Only to sing for her supper."
Mutual memories of encountering Molina as the house thrush for the Blue Dahlia made them smile.
Matt unlocked Electra's shed and tossed Temple the racy silver helmet labeled speed queen.
"I love it! I feel so kicky, right out of Blackboard Jungle."
"You weren't even born when that movie came out. I'll start the cycle and ease it out of the shed. You relock the shed and hop aboard," Matt suggested.
Temple skittered outside, just happy to be there. The motorcycle was so huge close up. It dominated the small shed like a rodeo bull temporarily trapped in a chute before breaking free to kick loose in the arena.
And the noise! She quickly pulled on the bulbous helmet and fastened the chin strap. She knew when she lowered the sinister, tinted visor that she'd see night all around her and that nobody could see her face. Cool.
"These helmets don't have transceivers built in," Matt shouted, visor up, from amid the sound and fury of the revving Hesketh Vampire.
Temple nodded broadly. They'd be unable to communicate. Verbally.
The Vampire came rhur-rhuring out, then paused to gargle disgruntledly. Temple ran to padlock the double shed doors, then turned to face her moment of truth.
The motorcycle seat was longer and broader than she had thought. But she had ridden horses, great huge beasts, so this would be a piece of coconut cake. Maybe. The lift-over was as thigh-stretching as a horseback for her short legs, and she settled onto the hard leather seat with an unintentionally punishing slap. Next, she couldn't find the footrests, not until she stretched her legs way out and pointed her toes. Of course there was nothing convenient to hang onto but Matt, and her passenger position wouldn't really work unless she scooted up right behind him, which she did, snaking her bare hands into the faux-sheepskin side pockets of his jacket.
"Ready?" he shouted.
She just tightened her grip and then the Vampire leaped into the street like a runaway horse.
Galloping gallons of gas! She had never noticed that motorcycles tilted this way and that so much. As they turned into the street, Temple felt almost parallel to the pavement and clutched onto the flannel pocket linings until she thought they would rip out. The wind, absorbed by Matt ahead of her, still had plenty of pummel left in it for her.
And the traffic loomed all around them like an encroaching herd, pale circles of headlights and highly polished rumps... er, rear fenders ... of neighboring vehicles.
Temple curled her fingers into the lining of Matt's pockets for dear life.
Luckily, nowhere was far from anywhere else in Las Vegas, which still adhered to its simple desert-town layout.
"Oh, look!" Temple couldn't help shouting to the wind. "Domingo's flamingos are lit up at night!"
She actually unclutched and removed a hand to point, but a Ford Taurus sped by so fast she was almost about to be known as "Knuckles" for the rest of her life.
She replaced her hand in a hurry, remembering that Matt couldn't hear her no matter how well she projected. A motorcycle was no bicycle built for two; it was the eye of its own howlingly cold hurricane. No matter how cozy motorcycle couples look, pasted to each other as they are, she was finding it to be a solitary ride.
Soon, though, the Vampire turned into the deeper dark of the parking ramp behind the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department--again almost scraping Temple off on the concrete floor--and purred into an empty third-level space.
Temple sighed her relief as the engine rumbled to a muffled roar, then quieted entirely when Matt turned it off and kicked the stand into place. Temple wasn't sure her legs would ever desert their wishbone position; she would be doomed to bowleg around like a broncobuster forever. Her lovely shoe collection would look laughable at the ends of her pathetic, hooped legs. She would be drafted for croquet games the rest of her life!
Unbending, she tried to hop off; Matt caught her before she could fall over.
"Took me two weeks," he said, "to get comfortable on this silly thing."
"Will it be safe here?" Temple wondered, eyeing the impressive machine as they walked away.
"I locked it; that's the best you can do. If I ever have to tell Electra it's been stolen, I'd hate that."
"You'd most hate having lost something that was once Max's," she added astutely.
Matt stopped to stuff his buff leather gloves in his jacket pockets. "Yeah. I should have told you to wear gloves."
"That's okay. I had to hang onto your pockets anyway. We better forget about our mode of transportation and start thinking about how to handle Molina."
"She'll handle us, as always," Matt said dryly. "I never saw anyo ne so seriously devoted to her calling, except maybe me. Who wants to go first?"
"I should. I have the guiltier secret. She'll be mad, and rightly so."
"Temple. Don't look like an abandoned basset hound!"
"Oh, thanks! But I ain't gonna like this."
"I'll be there." He put his arm around her shoulder.
A sudden warmth and confidence spread through her chilled frame. This was better than a motorcycle ride any day.
Inside the garage stairway, signs directed them down to the ent ry level, where they had to check in with the desk sergeant. One just didn't waltz into the back door of a police station; that would mean too many could simply waltz out.
The large entry area was brightly lit, a shock after the darkening night and the parking ramp's blackness. Its wall of windows faced onto the concrete area between this building and the Hoover Dam-sheer face of the opposite building.
The sergeant gave them no guff, being a disappointingly pleasant, helpful type. He called up , and they were duly instructed that someone would be down for them.