The last time Molina had stood outside this address in the dark of night, she’d been wearing camouflage black, slinking around to the back of the premises to break in.
The last time she’d been inside the place, an unidentified intruder had paid a simultaneous visit, resulting in an eighty-six-stitch wannabe scar across her left rib cage and hip.
Now she stood at the front door, under the subtle entry light, ringing the doorbell.
* * *
Max pressed his eye against the peephole, cursing the long Black Irish lashes obscuring his vision, trying to ID the shadowy figure outside, a suited six feet with no other identifying features he could make out in the dim light.
Door-to-door salesmen hardly showed up at 9:00 P.M.
Was he an international counterspy or a mouse? Might as well find out what lamb or lion had called at this house of mourning.
He opened the door, his hand on the SIG Sauer P226 butt now nestled in the small of his back.
It didn’t help that he needed to lean against the wall after all the past four hectic days and nights had done to his recently broken legs.
* * *
“Mister Max Kinsella,” she told the lurking figure in the dark hallway, rather than asked, when the door opened, “I’m here on unofficial business.”
“I’m here on official home ground,” he answered.
“I know. I’ve checked the ownership of this property. Orson Welles, once upon a time. My, my. Garry Randolph is the resident of record, but the paperwork had always listed you, Max Kinsella, as co-owner. In his absence, I’ll assume you’re the man of the house.”
“I won’t buy anything.”
“I’m not selling anything.”
“You still want to come in?”
“Oh, yes indeed I do, Mister Kinsella.”
* * *
A woman? he’d wondered at first. If so, she was tall and her vocal range was low. She sounded authoritative and … she didn’t carry a purse. What did she carry? How did she know Garry was “absent”?
“I need some ID,” he said.
“Turn on a light.”
He liked the dark at his back, so he simply turned up the rheostat on the outside entry light as she pulled her blazer aside in a universally familiar gesture. Brass badge and gunmetal black at her hip played well in the improvised spotlight. A command performance, you might say.
“And you are…?” he said, waiting for verbal ID.
She eyed him oddly. “Lieutenant Molina, Metropolitan Police.”
“Come in.” He leaned into the front door to shut it after her. The Temple harasser, in person.
“Head on in,” he said. “The living room’s on the right.”
“I know.”
What the hell? Oh, right. She’d broken in after he’d disappeared. Miss Temple was an informant worth her weight in eighteen-karat gold. And that cost the world these days.
Max managed to touch the walls from stride to stride and so make his way to the living-room arch without his feet making the betraying dragging sound of a limp. He trusted no one interested in crashing Garry’s house party, but Rafi Nadir had certainly been prepped and employed by Gandolph. Was there any way this was another prearranged Vegas contact? No. This is the lady who wanted to hang him for murder.
He leaned inside the living room to turn on the first table lamp within his long reach, but her forearm cut across his gesture to stop it.
“Just getting some light,” he said.
“Are the light-proof shutters drawn?”
“Tight as a … well, it’s not a fit comparison to make in front of a lady.”
“I’m not a lady, and like you’d worry about that.”
She walked into the center of the room as he turned on the overhead central fixture, all Craftsman bronze and creamy milk glass. She wheeled to confront him.
* * *
Now she believed in ghosts … not the vague, airy-fairy, sheet-draped ones, but the ones fresh from the graveyard after having clawed their way to some gaunt semblance of their former selves.
“You look like hell,” she told him.
“So you’ve … seen me before looking a lot better?”
Molina was stumped. First he wanted her name, then he wanted an opinion on his previous condition? Did he think she was a damn doctor? Oh. Did he think?
In the overhead light, she spotted a healing slash peeking out like a murder weapon in a game of Clue from under the lock of black hair that brushed his forehead.
Vastly … shrunken physique. Head wound … She was a detective, wasn’t she? Put two and two together.
“You’ve obviously been through hell,” she said. “You’ve seen the shield and the piece. Can I get a drink? Because you could sure use one yourself.”
“Do I know you?”
Now his disorientation was out of the closet. He’d worked for her briefly before, tracking Rafi. Why confuse the man? Or waste the gift of amnesia? She thought for a long moment.
“No, Mister Kinsella. You don’t.”
* * *
He couldn’t argue with her instincts. Interesting that when he had gestured through the dining room she had gone straight on through and into the kitchen.
He caught up with her, laboriously, to find her staring at the countertop. All he saw there was an empty blender and a full knife block.
“Uh,” he said, “I know where the wine cellar is, but…”
“No bar in the dining room,” she’d observed. “Hard liquor and glasses are kept up here,” she said, pointing.
“A lot of cabinets to page through.”
They started a methodical search from one end of the kitchen to the other, opening the birch doors, Max leaning on them subtly. They ultimately opened a pair into each other’s knuckles, saying “Scotch” and “Whisky” simultaneously.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“I’m the law. You are a suspicious character back in town. And I want to hire you.”
Max hadn’t heard such a tasty come-on since some long-forgotten noir film.
* * *
She was glad he had poured the Johnnie Walker Black neat, the European way. Jerking open all those cupboards had irritated her midsection’s taut, healing incision. Her right hand even quivered a little now. Ice would have chattered and given away her lingering vulnerability.
Maybe the nerves weren’t just from her big-time deception. If everything Temple Barr had said about this guy’s counterterrorism career was true, he was formidable—despite the shocking physical deterioration and the healing evidence of a nasty head wound. And she’d already tangled with him a time or two he’d so conveniently—for her—forgotten. Maybe. At least he was treating her like a stranger.
Clearly now, Kinsella was leaner and probably meaner, and had a pile of personal vulnerabilities. The perfect patsy.
They sat in the living room, sipping. It would not be unfair to say a contented air commanded the room.
“Why do I look like hell?” he asked after a while.
“You died.”
He only bothered to raise his eyebrows, not his heavy Baccarat crystal glass.
“Apparently, you died,” she added. “I’m willing to concede some semblance of life.”
“What did I look like before?”
“More weight, more … arrogance, less like your last best friend had passed on.”
“He did.”
“Randolph?”
Max nodded, drank.
“Too bad. Where?”
“In a forgotten spot in Ireland.”
“Northern Ireland, you mean?”
He shrugged.
“Nothing has come through on Interpol.”
“It wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Doesn’t reflect well on either ex.”
“‘Either ex’?”
“The ex-IRA and the ex-anti-IRA. It never ends even when it ends.”
“But you’re home on sabbatical now.”
“You could put it that way. What do you want done? I’m not an assassin. I’m not a snitch. I’m not a doctor, lawyer, or gentleman thief.”
“What a disappointment. How do you know all that if you don’t remember?”
“You don’t forget soul.” He looked into the empty hole of his glass. “Johnnie’s run out on me.”
“Sure has.” She recognized that dark, lost mood. Recent events seemed to confirm his secret “good guy” counterterrorism history and had give her many fewer bones to pick at all with Max Kinsella. Even so, a memoryless Kinsella was still better. That put her in the driver’s seat.
“I’ll get the bottle,” she said.
At least neither of them needed any ice.