Carmen Molina sat on the breakfast barstool in her kitchen.
Lieutenant C.R. Molina’s paddle holster, 9-mm semiautomatic, ankle holster, and .38 were locked in the gun safe in her bedroom closet.
That locked Lieutenant Molina in the closet too.
Sunday afternoon. Carmen could lounge around in jeans and flip-flops over a mug of gourmet coffee. Sunday afternoon, and she was actually at home, only the cell phone on the laminated countertop a link to the job that never died.
The heel of her right flip-flop hung half off her foot. Something furry tickled her sole. One of the cats, also at play on a lazy Sunday afternoon. No early mass today, thanks to attending Saturday evening. No hot homicides at work. No mas. No more. For now.
She sipped the black brew, as full-bodied as dark ale. Just the right temperature: barely cool enough to drink.
Mariah came charging from the hallway, through the living room, into the kitchen and almost out the back door.
“Goin’ over to Merrrodee,” she mumbled in passing.
“Whoa! Chica.” The long arm of the law—and Carmen stood almost six feet tall in her flip-flops—reached out to corral her daughter’s shoulder. “I didn’t recognize that name. It’s not Miguelita?”
“No. She’s—”
“She’s what?”
“We’re not tight anymore.”
Tight?
“Well, that happens,” Carmen said. “So who’s the new best friend this week?”
“Oh, mo-ther! Melody. I’m going over to Melody’s.”
Carmen frowned. “What’s the last name?”
“Honestly, you have to know everything! I might as well live in the city jail.”
Carmen examined her daughter as if she were someone else’s.
Mariah had shot up three inches in the last year and two inches in front. She was pushing thirteen now. She wore cotton flowered capri pants that were a bit too tight and showed the baby fat still on her stomach, and a midriff-baring top that Carmen’s own mother would have made her burn. But that was close to thirty years ago in east L.A., and little girls today grew up a lot faster, even the ones in Catholic schools designed to retard the onset of that ol’ devil puberty.
Puberty still played by the old rules. In the last few months Carmen had gotten used to sullen glances sliding away, long silences, rolled eyes, and the favorite expletive of the preteen set: “Oh, mo-ther !”
In Mariah’s case, the Put-upon Almost-teen could add “Oh, mother the cop!”
“I just want to know the girl’s name and family, chica.”
“Melody Crowell.”
“I’ve never heard you mention her before.”
“Because she’s new at school.”
“Her family moved into the neighborhood?” The core of the community was Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and school and the residents were mainly Hispanic-American.
“She was transferred,” Mariah said, looking down. “From Robison Middle.”
Robison. Molina saw numbers. The highest in the middle school system. Almost forty arrests, knife incidents, two gun incidents. Assaults on students and even a couple teachers. Controlled substances. The worst public middle school. Juvenile Delinquent Central. Not quite fair. Lots of kids got through there just fine. And lots didn’t and so parents tried to straighten them up by sending them to “stricter” Catholic schools. Ai-yi-yi-yi, as Ricky Ricardo used to say about his own live-in juvenile delinquent, his wife, Lucy. Back in the Stone Age before digital everything.
“So what’re you two doing?”
“Our nails, all right?” Mariah fanned out her stubby fingers, the nails alternating metallic purple and teal polish. Both chipped. Being a girly girl involved a lot of maintenance.
“Looks like you need it.”
Mariah relaxed a bit. “Melody’s cool. She’s got this, like, white-white hair. Straight to her shoulders.”
“Natural?”
“Mo-ther.”
Eight-year-olds were into painted finger and toenails nowadays and carrying purses and cell phones. Ten-year-olds were spray-painting their hair. Eleven-year-old chicas were going blond and chicos were bleaching their buzz cuts platinum.
Who was she to stop the preening of America?
“You in too much of a hurry to wait a minute?”
“What for?” Said suspiciously.
“Want some coffee?”
Mariah’s big brown eyes got bigger. “Coffee?”
“Yeah. I made plenty.” Carmen pulled out the other stool and patted the olive vinyl seat.
“Well . . . yeah.”
Carmen got up to fill another mug, doctoring it with a long shot of hazelnut-flavored creamer. When she came back to the countertop Mariah was perched on the stool, her precious little girly purse with the sequined Palm Beach tootsie emblem set primly in front of her.
Carmen pushed the steaming mug over to her daughter and watched her sip, fight off making a face, then put the mug back down as carefully as she had deployed her purse.
Carmen had given her only daughter a pretty name, one with Latina roots but skewed Anglo, all the better to bow to her heritage and still blend into a melting-pot world. A hell of a song associated with Clint Eastwood (and mama Molina had an unconfessable weakness for Clint Eastwood) went with it. What more could a girl want?
To be called “Mari.” Not pronounced “Mary,” but Mah-ree.
Carmen hoped it was a stage and wondered if her daughter realized that was a French pronunciation. Probably not.
Mariah sipped again, her eyes not watering as much this time.
They sat quietly for a few moments.
“Is anything bothering you?” Carmen asked.
Mariah sighed. Obviously, too many things to count.
“I wish . . .
“What?”
“I wish . . . I didn’t have to go to stupid Catholic school. Otherwise, I’d be in junior high already and not be treated like a baby.”
Carmen nodded. “That’s true. Not treated like a baby in what way?”
“Duh! Dorky uniforms!”
“They are pretty dorky.”
Mariah eyed her with the usual suspicion mixed with a dash of surprise. “I thought you loved dorky. All mothers do.”
“No. You’re right. I wear a uniform too. I need to not attract attention to myself in my job. Doesn’t mean I like that.”
“And those clunky shoes you wear to work. No heels.”
“I’m not trying to be Cher, hon. Just a working cop.”
“You’re a lieutenant.”
Carmen smiled at her daughter’s rare tone of pride. She couldn’t explain she had to be an officer and a lady. And to her mind that meant dull. “So what’s really bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
Carmen waited. Mariah sipped bitter coffee, a bigger sip, less of a face.
“I guess they try at OLG.” She rolled her eyes. “Next fall they’re having a Father-Daughter dance. Oh, goodie.”
“Um. Well, at least you get to dress up, right?”
“Yeah! But they already put out a list of what we can’t wear: no bare midriffs, no miniskirts, no hip-huggers, no bustiers. What a drag!”
Carmen had to swallow her laughter with a big gulp of coffee to imagine Mariah finding a bustier in 29A-tween size.
Then she sobered. She suspected that finding a “father” for an escort was the real problem. Who? Morrie Alch was a sweetheart, and had a grown daughter of his own. He’d understand this stage.
Carmen eyed her daughter, reading the unsaid plea behind the disparaging words. Every teeny bopper, as they’d said in her day—which was irrevocably a “day,” she realized—wanted to play Cinderella.
“Maybe,” Carmen said with a strange reluctance, “Matt Devine would be available.”
“Matt? Really? Oh, Mom, he’s so hot!”
Carmen blinked at the reaction. No mo-ther, she noticed.
Mariah jumped off the stool, antsy with excitement. “That would be so rad! All the girls would be so jealous! I mean, he’s almost young! And such a babe!”
Where, oh, where has my shy, retiring daughter gone?
Morrie would have known how to handle this hot preteen potato. Would Matt? Sure. He’d been dealing with grade school crushes since seminary. Not to worry.
“You want me to ask him?”
“No.”
Carmen blinked again. She’d thought she had a sure sell there.
“I want to ask him. I need practice calling up guys, anyway. Do you have his phone number?”
On my one-touch dial system, daughter mine. Only I don’t have your nerve.
Carmen nodded, then frowned maternally. “No bare-midriff dresses, though. Not until . . . high school.”
She couldn’t believe what she was saying. Maybe that fashion fixation would be toast by high school, along with pierced navels. Maybe not.
“Oh, moth-er!”
“Maybe I should drive you over to Melody’s,” she said, rising from the stool.
Her cell phone rang, answering that suggestion.
“Gotta go,” Mariah said, already using the call to fade halfway out the door.
Carmen stood there, semipleased and half-distracted out of her mind.
The voice on the other end filled her in, fast and emotionlessly.
Her maternal frown gave way to a professional one.
“What do you mean ‘celebrity involvement?’ Amelia Wong? And who else? Danny Dove? Celebrity suspects? If Alch and Su are up for this case, by all means, let them have at it. No, Captain, I don’t think Su will have any problem handling America’s most successful Asian-American entrepreneur. I don’t. Yes. I should. I’ll get on it.”
Lieutenant C.R. Molina, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Crimes Against Persons Division, a.k.a. CAPERS, a.k.a. Homicide, pressed the cell phone off and slammed it down on the kitchen countertop.
She headed for the bedroom, unzipping her jeans and walking out of her flip-flops for the cats to have at, the key to the gun safe, which she always wore on an unseen chain around her neck, in her fingers.
Sunday morning, and all’s normal in Las Vegas. Hell to pay for Saturday night.