"So why this night, do you suppose?"

"Don't know. It's why I'm talking to you. I was with Ollie awhile. I want to do right by him."

"This woman was different," I said.

"I guess."

We sat silently.

"You find any videotapes in Ollie's office?"

"No."

"Nothing? Porn tapes, people fucking, like taken from a secret camera?"

"No."

Then Johnny said, "You got a gun in that desk drawer that's open."

"I do."

"I'm gonna take something outta my coat pocket," Johnny said. "It ain't a gun. I don't want you shooting me."

I picked up the.357 from the drawer.

"Take it out slowly," I said.

"You don't trust me?"

"Trust but verify," I said.

Johnny stood. He was wearing a brown tweed overcoat with big patch pockets. He took a videotape out of the right-hand pocket and put it on my desk.

"Ollie had a bunch of these," he said. "We used to watch 'em in the office. I scooped this one, show to my girlfriend."

"You know where he got them?"

"No. But they're, like, real people doing it, you know. They don't look like regular porn stuff."

"Maybe they're a clue," I said.

"I figured they might be," Johnny said. "I hope you catch the sonova bitch."

"How many did he have?"

"'Bout half a dozen, I'd say."

"You know where he kept them?" I said.

"I thought he kept them locked up in his desk in the office. He let me borrow this one, but he told me I better fucking bring it back."

"I'll take a look," I said.

"You got a broad, watch it with her. Some of it's pretty hot."

"Good tip," I said.

Johnny nodded and turned and left.

I called Frank Belson.

"Anybody find any videotapes in Ollie DeMars's place?"

"No."

"His home?"

"No."

"Crime-scene people go over that couch in Ollie DeMars's office?" I said.

"Sure."

"They find anything?"

"Besides Ollie's, they found forty-seven separate DNA samples. All female."

"Anyone we know?" I said.

"Nope."

"Well," I said. "At least Ollie kept busy."

"Yeah," Belson said. "Nice to know he didn't live a meaningless life. What's with the videotapes?"

"Guy told me there were some, now there aren't. I figured it was worth asking."

"Videotapes of what," Belson said.

"Don't know."

"Who told you this."

"Guy named Johnny," I said.

"Johnny what?"

"Don't know."

Belson was silent for a moment.

"You're bullshitting me," he said. "I know it. You know it. And you know I know it."

"You think?" I said.

"I know," Belson said.

"Frank," I said. "Are you losing that buoyant optimism we've all learned to expect?"

"Fuck you," Belson said. "You're being cute again. You got something."

"I didn't have to call you," I said.

"You needed to know what we found."

"Would you tell me?" I said.

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Uh-huh."

"I owe you," Belson said. "We both know that."

"You know that," I said. "I don't."

"But owing you and giving you a free ride ain't the same thing," he said. "I have to, I'll put you in jail."

"I ever cheat you, Frank?"

"Not maybe exactly," Belson said. "But you are convinced of how smart you are, and you got all these odd fucking things you'll do and not do. I am not in deep fucking despair over the sudden demise of Ollie DeMars. World's probably a better place. But it's still against the law to shoot him."

"I ever find who shot him, I'll explain that to him."

"I find him first," Belson said, "and I find out you were covering up something that mattered, you go, too."

"-I'll race you," I said.

"Guy that gave me this tape said if l had a broad, I should watch it with her," I said.

"And I'm the broad you chose?" Susan said. "How flattering."

"I was told the tape was hot," I said.

"Well, then of course you chose me. What is it?"

We were in my living room. Susan had a martini. I had scotch and soda. Pearl had her accustomed two-thirds of the couch, leaving Susan squeezed up against me on the other third. I didn't mind. The videotape was in the player. We were ready.

"I don't exactly know. I haven't seen it yet. But it might be evidence in the Ollie DeMars case."

"Which involves April," Susan said.

"That's the case," I said.

"Do you have any idea, yet, what's going on with her?"

"Other than that she is lying to me?" I said. "No."

"But you think this tape might be a clue?"

"This is one of six that are missing from Ollie DeMars's office after his death."

"Do you have the other five?"

"No."

"So maybe somebody took them?"

"Maybe."

"Well, maybe it is a clue," Susan said.

I picked up the remote.

"And maybe it isn't," I said. "We'll have to watch to find out."

"And it is, after all, hot," Susan said.

I clicked the remote. The tape started. There was no sound, no titles. The picture was in black-and-white and there was no camera movement. A man was having sex with a woman. It took me a minute.

"That's Amy," I said.

"Amy?"

"One of April's girls," I said. "She's a grad student."

Amy was agile and vigorous. The man was maybe fifty, pretty good shape.

"He's quite well endowed," Susan said at one point.

"It's just the camera angle," I said.

Susan smiled. "That aside," she said, "the camera work is not inventive."

I got it.

"It's fixed," I said. "Security camera. Ollie got hold of the security tapes from April's house."

"Security tapes, even in the bedrooms?"

"Apparently. "

"I'll bet the clients didn't know that," Susan said.

"I would guess not."

Several times during the action, Amy's partner was full face into the camera.

"I don't think that's an accident," I said.

"I'd say none of it is an accident," Susan said.

"No, I mean the full face to the camera. I think she maneuvered him into position."

"Blackmail?" Susan said.

"I don't think so," I said. "They start blackmailing clients, pretty soon they won't have any clients."

"What then?"

"Protection. If they have trouble with a client. They have leverage."

Susan nodded. Pearl in her languor had allowed her head to slip off the couch and it now hung almost to the floor. Her feet stuck up in the air as a sort of counterbalance, and her interest in the sex tape seemed minimal. We watched the rest of the tape. It featured Amy and several different men, each of whom was full face to the camera at least once during the proceedings. Finally, it simply ran out.

"You get any tips?" I said to Susan.

"Ick," she said.

"Is that a Jewish word for wow, what a hot tape?" I said.

"No."

"It is a sort of ungainly business, if you sit and watch it."

"It's a participant sport," Susan said. "This, at least, was not tiresomely gynecological."

"Nor particularly contemptuous of the participants," I said. "Most porn is humiliating."

"You don't enjoy it," Susan said.

"No, not much. If someone says, 'I have a nude picture of an attractive woman, wanna see?' I'll say sure. If he says, 'I've got a tape of sex-crazed bitches hungry for hot sex,' naw!"

"I like a man with standards," Susan said. "What do you make of the tape."

"I can see why they would have the security cameras. Even in a high-class house, you get some weird guys. And Ollie must have copped some of the tapes somehow, and probably was going to blackmail April, or the clients, or both."

"He'd have to know who the clients were," Susan said. "I assume he wouldn't recognize them on sight."

"Good point," I said. "Just the tapes, and their potential for damage, might have given him some bargaining edge with April for something."