Geopolitical business as usual.

At some level, aren’t we all statistics?

Now she stood at the ladies’ room mirror, blew her nose, primped her hair.

Thirty years old and my face is starting to sag.

Arching her back in order to flaunt whatever bosom Fate had provided her, she batted her lashes, fluffed her hair, struck a vixen pose.

Hey sailor.

Then she thought of the dead sailor, Darren Hochenbrenner, brained and left in a skid-row alley.

The other June killings.

Eleven days until June 28 and she was no further along than when Isaac had presented her with his little gift.

The kid was out there, looking eager.

She straightened her posture, put on a businesslike expression, erased all traces of femme fatale- as if there’d been any to begin with.

He stayed at his desk until she beckoned him over.

“What’s up?”

“As far as I can tell, law enforcement doesn’t know much about The Players. Currently, there are five alleged members in prison. Alleged, because all five deny membership in any group.”

Petra took out her notepad.

Isaac said, “I’ve got it saved, can print it out for you.”

She put the pad away. “Who’s in prison?”

“The two you found- John and Charles- are grandsons of Robert Leon. A nonrelative named Anson Cruft was convicted of possession of false identification papers, and a woman named Susan Bianca who ran a legal brothel in Nevada then tried the same thing in San Luis Obispo is locked up for pandering. She’s a younger sister of Robert Leon’s second wife, Katherine Leon. Robert’s kind of interesting. Forty years ago, he did some fashion modeling, then he got a few small parts on soap operas, here in Hollywood. But after that, nothing. Somewhere along the line, he turned to crime. How he started is unclear. He’s Guatemalan but has lived here most of his life. His first wife was Mexican, the daughter of a Nuestra Familia gangster. She died of cancer and he doesn’t seem to have ever hooked up with N.F. At least that’s what the prison people say. He did manage a porno theater in San Francisco, as well as some strip clubs and adult bookstores. That’s where he met Katherine, she was a dancer. I suppose any of those environments could’ve put him in contact with other criminal types, but maybe it’s a gang thing.” He shrugged. “That’s all I know.”

“That’s all, huh?”

“Your best bet is probably to talk to local police.”

“I was kidding, Isaac. You did great, that’s more than I could’ve pulled up.”

The compliment seemed to zip right past him and he remained grave.

She turned to her own computer, pulled up Robert Leon’s file on NCIC. The most recent mug shot showed a lean, silver-haired guy with a long, seamed face. Thick wavy hair combed straight back, jet-black mustache.

Sixty-three but he looked younger. Good bone structure, she could see hints of the young male model. On soap operas he’d be cast as a Latin lover.

Leon had smirked for the booking officer. Despite the wise-guy quality to the smile, it managed to be engaging.

Above the smile, the hard eyes of a seasoned con.

“Did you come across any sibs for the brothers?” she asked.

“Not specifically,” said Isaac, “but I did find a story in a free San Francisco weekly that said Robert Leon had lots of kids. Kind of a gypsy king situation, but they’re not ethnic Gypsies.”

“Anything else interesting in the article?”

“Not really. It wasn’t very well written. Hippie prose- kind of a retro-sixties thing. I’ll print it, too.”

Petra, born in 1973, considered all the hippie stuff quaint history. What could it mean to him?

“Okay, thanks,” she said. “You’ve given me something to work with.”

“On June 28, I haven’t come up with anything new.” He hesitated.

“What?”

“Maybe I made something out of nothing.”

“You didn’t,” said Petra. “It’s definitely something. Let me run with what you’ve given me on Leon and his gang, then let’s get together later- say four or five- and brainstorm the June 28 stuff. If you’re free.”

“I am,” he said. “Definitely. I’ve got some things to do on campus but I can be back by then.”

His smile was big as the ocean.

Petra phoned Lompoc a second time and got the details on Robert Leon’s visitors. Three names interested her. An eighteen-year-old female named Marcella Douquette with a Venice address on Brooks, and two guys in their forties who’d listed residences here in Hollywood: Albert Martin Leon, forty-five, Whitley Avenue; Lyle Mario Leon, forty-one, Sycamore Drive.

She tried all three phone numbers. Disconnected.

Back to NCIC. Albert and Lyle had both done time for nonviolent crimes, Albert in Nevada and Lyle in San Diego. Mug shots showed a clear resemblance to Robert Leon- the same leanness, the wavy hair. Albert’s was already gray and he wore it parted in the middle and down to his shoulders. No looker; his nose was mashed and off-center and his eyes crowded the misshapen cartilage. His stats said his body was full of scars. He was a bad-check artist.

Lyle Leon’s hair was still dark. Clipped at the sides, bushy and squared-off on top- an eraserhead-do far too young for his age. An earring and a bristly soul patch said this guy thought himself quite the hipster. He’d been busted for peddling worthless cleaning solutions to old folk, had done less than a year in San Diego.

Smalltime hustler trying to look like the Big Dude?

There was no mention of the relationship between either man and Robert Leon. Given the age difference, the patriarch might’ve sired sons early. Or Albert and Lyle were Robert’s cousins, whatever.

No criminal record for Marcella Douquette. The girl was young, give her time.

Maybe none of it meant a thing, but it was time to do some legwork.

Albert and Lyle Leon’s addresses were bogus. Same setup as Sandra’s: multiunit apartments, no record of either man ever living there. Neither con was on parole and neither had registered any motor vehicles, so there was no way to trace them.

Petra drove to Venice. The Brooks Avenue house was one of three clapboard single units on a dirt lot in definite gang territory. Teeny little shacky thing, sitting askew on a raised foundation. Tar-paper roof, ragged boards. The surrounding lot cordoned by chain link and full of litter: spare tires, an old washing machine, rolls of plastic tarp, soda bottles, beer cans, splintered parts of wooden pallets.

It was one P.M. and the shaved-head crowd was sleeping in. Petra could smell the ocean- a nice, salty fragrance with just the slightest undertone of rot. The shack was a total dive but only a quick hop to the beach. Venice Beach, where deviance was the norm and scamsters worked the tourists every Sunday.

Perfect for The Players and their ilk. Petra’s chest twitched. Maybe she was finally on to something.

She got out of the car, looked up and down the block, let her fingers settle atop the spot on her hip where her gun rested. A platter of soupy, gray fog pressed down on the ocean- the usual June gloom- and the entire neighborhood was washed in newspaper-photo tones.

Maybe that’s why the head-basher chose June to do his thing. Depressed over ugly weather.

She waited some more, took in Marcella Douquette’s alleged residence from a distance and made sure no low-riders were cruising. The chain-link fence was locked and bolted but low, barely at waist level.

Petra approached the property, waited for the requisite pit bull to show. Nothing.

She checked out the street one more time, got a toehold in a chain-link diamond, and was over.

No doorbell, no answer to her assertive knocks. She was about to walk around behind the shack when the door to the neighboring unit opened and a man stepped out, squinting.

Hispanic, mid-twenties, bare-chested, wispy crew cut. Wispy mustache to match. Like that old actor… Cantinflas.