"I don't like it," Matt said.
"No, of course you wouldn't." She walked around it. "It's Max Kinsella's, all right." She flashed a glance over her shoulder. "You ever search it?"
"Search it? No! It's Electra's now, and none of my business. I'm only using it until I can afford my own car."
"Probably secondhand at that."
"I'm not used to better, and I certainly can't afford it."
Molina tore her attention away from the motorcycle. "Neither can I. That's mine."
She pointed to a well-used Toyota station wagon. "Perfect for hauling giggly eleven-year-old girls on all sorts of expeditions, but no beauty."
"Columbo did all right with his junker."
"Right. Call me Columbo. Okay. You know where the parish church is; I'm about four blocks northwest. Just follow my taillights."
Matt nodded.
Molina stopped halfway to her car and looked back. "You do have a helmet for that thing?"
"Of course." He mimicked her earlier words down to the tone.
Following a police officer is a nerve-racking task, Matt found. He kept straining to read the speedometer, fretting when she slightly exceeded the limit, gritting his teeth when she slowed down enough to make the Vampire snap at its figurative bit.
The neighborhood was only fifteen minutes away. The dark streets thrummed with t he high-volume bass of the occasional cruising low-rider. He wondered what this neighborhood would be like on a weekend, and how safe the Vampire would be here then. Already he was fretting about leaving it outside Molina's house.
She had anticipated him, pulling into the driveway but leaving space along the side for him.
The garage door elevated on vibrating rails while Molina got out and waved him inside.
She locked her wagon, then followed him into the attached garage, hitting the remote-control close button so soon that the door nearly clipped her as she walked in. She didn't seem to have noticed.
"Your bike is safer inside. Come on."
He followed her into a dark utility room and then into a kitchen lit by a pale overhead fluorescent light.
He sensed age and small spaces, just like at the Circle Ritz, but on a much more modest scale. Somewhere a television set blared through a closed door.
"Bedtime for you, young lady," Molina's voice ordered as she disappeared down the hall.
"We've got company for a little while. No, you don't need to see who. I'll be back soon."
She came back down the hall trailed by a stocky Latina girl with long, curly almost-black hair.
"Yolanda, this is Matt Devine." They exchanged nods. "How'd everything go?"
"Fine, fine. Mariah is such a fine girl. Muy sympatica."
" Gracias, " Molina bid her at the front door, presumably after an exchange of money.
She returned to gesture Matt to an easy chair, then moved into the s quare little kitchen.
"I could use a drink. Your unexpected arrival cost me half of my usual whiskey and soda. What would you like?"
Matt was, as usual, flummoxed by trying to anticipate what she'd have available.
"What you're having will be fine."
"Fine, fine," she mocked. "You and Yolanda are two of a kind, a good Catholic kind.
Everything is fine."
"No, it often isn't," he finally answered when she brought him a drink that was the twin to the one abandoned on her dressing table.
She threw herself onto a big Naugahyde recliner and took a generous swig of her drink before the ice could dilute it. Then she took Cliff Effinger out of her pants' pocket and slapped him down face up on an end table, like someone producing the Knave of Hearts.
"You can get me an original-size copy of the sketch?
"Yup."
"Is this a good likeness?"
"Uncanny, when you consider how long it's been since I saw him face-to-face."
"You're satisfied an ordinary observer could recognize him from this?"
"Are all police officers used to asking the same question six different ways?"
"Sorry." She grinned and leaned back against the recliner headrest. "I'm not used to subjects who are quick on the uptake. Good work. Have you tried it on anybody yet?"
"Some casino employees at the Stardust. Only--"
"Only what?"
"It isn't easy, to approach strangers with no special authority, to ask questions and get answers."
"Now you appreciate the dubious talents of your Circle Ritz neighbor."
"I've always appreciated Temple."
"Watch out that you don't get used to that. Kinsella's back in town."
"You make him sound like Mack the Knife."
"Isn't he? Used to dodging them at least--knives, that is, and the police. Seen him around?"
"No."
"I'm only trying to warn you. You've never known a man like him."
"No," Matt agreed, sipping the drink and finding it strong. He was used to watered-down rectory brandy and restaurant drinks. "But I'm beginning to, I think."
You? And Kinsella?" Molina cocked a bold black eyebrow. "Saints protect us."
"Kinsella certainly has enough saints' names to do the job for him."
"Michael Aloysius Xavier. Tricky, an acronym, MAX. Michael, the warrior archangel, was the only angel with any real guts, though. The rest--and the saints and martyrs--are wishy-washy window-dressing."
"I don't think any saint is window-dressing."
"I'm just trying to warn you. About Kinsella, and not as a police officer. He knows his way around women. Do you?"
"No, but maybe that's an advantage. Besides, I'm not in a contest for Temple's regard."
"You are if Kinsella's back, whether you want to admit it or not." She sat up and leaned forward, elbows on knees, her hair falling forward on her cheeks. "Just how good a priest were you?"
"Are you asking about the quality of my vocation and my commitment? Or are you asking if I could give an articulate sermon, or sing mass on key?"
"None of that. I'm asking if you were all you were supposed to be."
His jaw almost dropped. Molina was a policewoman, yes. She was used to asking people hard, invasive questions. But why him? He wasn't a suspect for anything. Then it dawned on him. Maybe he was a candidate. Maybe Molina wanted him to be the Judas goat that drew Max Kinsella into the open, and jealousy was to be the bait.
"I was faithful to my vows, yes. Though it's none of your business."
She suddenly smiled. "It wouldn't be any fun asking rude questions if it really were my business. You need help, Matthew."
"My given name isn't Matthew."
"That's right. Matthias. He who replaced Judas." She nodded, satisfied, then sipped deeply again from her glass. "I suppose, being so virtuous, you wondered that I even asked."
"I guess I did, and why."
"Still unused to my high-handed ways, huh? I need to get the lay of the land, for professional reasons. You're right; I'd love to have Kinsella in an interrogation room downtown. I wanted to know how big a threat you might be to him."
Matt turned his hardly touched glass in his hands, enjoying the cool condensation on his palms. It kept him alert.
"You don't understand, Carmen. I'm no threat at all. Temple and Max were all but married before he disappeared."
"That's a big 'but.' "
"Not to me."
"A priest says this?"
"A former priest. Theirs is the primary relationship in this whole mess, and I have to honor that."
" 'Honor.' " Molina stretched out long legs and crossed her feet at the ankles. Matt wondered if she wore a gun somewhere, maybe around an ankle. "That's a word you don't hear much nowadays, except among gang-bangers who use it as a synonym for 'macho.' If you worry too much about honor, Matthias, you ain't gonna get Cliff Effinger, and you ain't gonna get the girl."
"How did you get so cynical?"
"About honor, or about priests?"
"Both."
She shrugged. "I may be half-Anglo, but I grew up in a Hispanic culture. We don't sweat the small stuff, like sins of the flesh. A lot of the priests--most--I heard of in Mexico, and even in California, had a woman on the side sometime. It was no big deal. And it was better than boys."