We were back at HQ, me pacing the room, Belafonte going through Darlene Hammond’s life, mostly documented in arrest reports. We were looking for a link outside of the hard life of runaways and the fall into prostitution and drugs. There had to be something.

“It fits, Detective,” Belafonte said. “Anointing oil, fire, the wrapping in wool – the ‘flesh of the lamb’, if you will. You said unbalanced religios use a mish-mash of symbols.”

I sat and pulled close a stack of files, the lives of three women reduced to symbols on paper. I’d been through them a dozen times, nothing. After five minutes I heard Belafonte clear her throat.

“Here’s something interesting. When Darlene got busted for hooking, another woman named Vera Garrido went down with her.”

“So what’s the big deal?” I asked. The MDPD didn’t tend to bust single working girls, preferring sweeps that net a dozen or more at a time. They’d pick a corner or an area, pack a wagon with hookers – some screaming and swearing, others giggling at the absurdity of it all – and haul them to the station. They were back at work within a day.

“Garrido … she’s got the same address as Darlene. They were roomies. Maybe Garrido could add some input. Maybe the perp targeted the girls when they were on the street and Garrido saw something.”

“Track down Garrido’s whereabouts,” I told her. “See if she’s been busted since. Bet she has.”

Belafonte went to the computer and linked to MDPD, ticking at the keyboard. After a minute she shook her head. “Nothing. And before you ask, I just checked the obituaries.”

I called Letha Driscoll, Darlene and Vera’s former apartment manager. “You didn’t tell me Darlene had a roommate,” I said, not happy.

“You didn’t ask and it weren’t no big deal.” I could almost hear the ashes tumbling as she talked.

“You happen to know where Vera is now?”

“I saw her a month back, she dropped by to crow on her new job.” A dry and humorless cackle. “She’s in the bright lights, a marquee girl.”

“A little more information might be nice, Miz Driscoll.”

“She works at a place called Red Flash Productions. And when you ask for Vera, ask for Amaretto Fyre. F-Y-R-E. How’s that for a name … hot, huhn?”

The building was in Model City, an old stucco monstrosity from the forties, plaster crumbling away, lathe visible like rusting bones. The windows were barred, and the door was black-painted steel, looking strong enough to withstand cannon fire. A postcard-sized sign proclaimed Red Flash Productions. The letters rode atop a red lightning bolt.

There was a buzzer and intercom. I buzzed.

“Yeah?” crackled a voice. Whatever happened to Hello?

“We’re here to see Vera Garrido. Or maybe Amaretto Fyre.”

“Who the fuck is ‘we’?”

“The FCLE.”

“What’s that?”

“The Florida Center For Law Enforcement.”

“We’re not doing nothing wrong.”

“If you don’t open this door, the next sound you hear will be …” I leaned against the wall and counted. I was at seventeen when the door opened and a gorilla appeared.

“Be what?”

I held up my badge to a guy maybe six-four in a wife-beater tee, hirsute, as they say, not so much body hair as fur … arms, shoulders, neck, ears. Mr Fuzzy was muscled like a power lifter, wearing tight cut-offs straining at the quads. He had his eyes set on Tough, probably to disguise his confusion. I’ve gotten to the point where I can detect stupidity by smell, and this guy was reeking.

“Whaddaya want here?” he growled.

“We’ll ask the questions, bucko,” Belafonte said from behind me, smelling it too.

“Who is it, Kevin?” called an imperious voice from above.

I started past Mr Fuzzy – or Kevin as I now knew him – but he put a hand on my arm. I tend to give the preternaturally moronic a bit of leeway.

“That can land you in jail,” I said. “They’ll shave you there, you know. Lice control.”

“Hunh?” he said, but the hand came away.

“Kevin!” the voice repeated. “Who is it?”

Belafonte and I climbed the creaking stairs. A hall turned left at top and we saw a slender guy in jeans and a pink linen jacket. He was in his early thirties and wore a hipster goatee, a porkpie hat, and had a movie-director lens strung around a pencil neck. For some reason he had painted the nails on his index fingers black. I miss all the trends.

The guy stood in the center of the hall. Further down was a door and I saw bright light streaming out. I flashed the brass pass. “We need to talk to Vera Garrido.”

“She’s busy. Come back in two hours.”

“We’re here now.”

“I take it you have a warrant?”

“It’ll take a while to track down a judge, get a warrant issued, have it run over here.” I patted my mouth in a fake yawn. “We’ll wait. Can your people fuck with cops looking on?”

“I’ll run for popcorn,” Belafonte deadpanned, getting into the game.

C. B. DeMille sighed and rolled his eyes. “Break time, everyone. Amaretto! Unwanted visitors here to talk to you.”

The light died in the room as the crew trooped out, sound and lighting, cameraman, and a guy I took to be the star, since he wore only a towel. The guy seemed to like being a celebri-stud, grinning as he passed and – I swear – shooting a greasy wink at Belafonte.

We entered the room, a half-dozen lights angled down at a bed. A boom mic was near the ceiling. The place smelled like sweat and sex. The bed was dressed with two frilly pillows and a huge pink teddy bear. A small table in the corner held vibrators and sexual lubricants. A woman with a mane of wild blonde hair was sitting on the bed, pulling a white silk robe around her, sort of. Her eyes were like little green rocks.

“Wha’ you want?” she said, sounding three-quarters fried, the extra-crispy version. Amaretto Fyre, neé Vera Garrido, weighed about ninety-five pounds. That was without the silicone, however, which added ten. She had more tats than open skin: two rows of stars encircling her neck, a tiger climbing one thigh, a spider’s web on the other, a row of Oriental characters on the left shin. A tangle of roses entwined with skulls fell from a shoulder to her right nipple. She saw me looking.

“Like ’em?” she said, probably thinking I was having sexual thoughts. She wasn’t my type. I’m not sure whose type she was.

“Just admiring the art, Vera,” I said. “You’re a Louvre on legs.”

“Hunh?”

Belafonte moved closer. “We won’t take much of your time, Miss Garrido,” she said gently. “We just want to ask a few questions about your old roommate, Darlene Hammond.”

“Dar?” Life flickered in Garrido’s lithic eyes. Her hand clasped Belafonte’s forearm, as if needing to touch another human being. “Nothin’ happen to Dar, did it? She’s OK, right?”

Belafonte turned to me. “How about you let me talk to Miss Garrido? Alone, I mean.”

“I’ll be down the hall with my buddies.”

C.B. was in the next room down, a dirty mattress on the floor, the walls painted with fake graffiti. I figured it was a rape set, some men having fantasies about women taken against their will in filthy surroundings, though I use the word men only to denote gender. C.B. and Kevin and a camera guy were looking at a monitor and watching scenes shot earlier in the day, the star working on Vera, who made high-pitched squeals every time starshine thudded into her.

“Eeee … Eeee … eeeee …”

They glanced up when I entered, then looked back to the screen. Down the hall Vera Garrido started crying. It was almost the same sound as the squeals.

“You about done?” C.B. said without looking at me, unconcerned with Garrido’s despair. “We’re behind schedule.”

“Eeee … eeeeeeee …” The sounds of sex mixed with Garrido’s weeping and my stomach was churning. I walked to the monitor and turned it off. A rat used in a Hollywood-style production had more protection and rights than a porn performer, especially the women, who were debased and degraded and used like porta-johns. I’d met one who’d performed in so many anal sex scenes that she’d lost control of her sphincter and wore a diaper. She was twenty-three.