When we finished identifying every number Faustina called, I phoned Golden Escorts again. The same man answered in exactly the same way.

"Golden Escorts, discreet and professional."

"I saw your ad in the Hard-X Times."

"Groovy. You need a date for tonight?"

"Can I get someone to come to my motel?"

"No problem. We take cash, Visa, and MasterCard, no AmEx, and we offer both male and female escorts for nonsexual outcall companionship. Prostitution is illegal and that's not what we sell. Anything that happens between you and the escort, well, that's between you and the escort. You understand?"

He gave me the boilerplate in case I was Vice.

"I understand."

"Groovy. Tell me where you are, how much you want to spend, and what kind of companion you're looking for."

"I'm at the Home Away Suites. You know where it is."

"Like the back of my teeth."

"Groovy. I'd like the same girl I had last time."

"You've used us before?"

"Oh, sure. Three times."

"Who is this?"

"Herbert Faustina."

The line went dead. After three conversations, he knew Faustina's voice well enough to know I wasn't him.

I called a friend of mine at the phone company and gave her the number. If it turned out to be a cell, we would have to backtrace through the billing address, and all of that could take a long time. If we got lucky, it would be a hard line. We were lucky. Ninety seconds later she gave me their address.

Groovy.

Golden Escorts occupied a tiny clapboard house in Venice north of the canals, six blocks from the ocean. The neighborhood was typical of Venice, where microscopic houses were set on lots so narrow they shouldered together like cards in a deck. To the untrained eye, many streets in Venice looked like tenements, sporting broken sidewalks, beach-bum decor, and rent-a-wreck parking, but the cheapest house on the block would go for six hundred thousand dollars. Location was everything.

The house itself was a Craftsman knockoff sporting a tiny front porch, yellow paint, and a weather vane shaped like a whale. The windows were lit, but women with heavy makeup weren't lingering on the sidewalk and a red light didn't burn over the door. Escort services weren't brothels with prostitutes lying around in negligees; they functioned more like dispatchers for independent contractors-they ran ads, fielded calls, and doled out assignments by phone. Sometimes they provided a driver for the girl, but most times not, and the smaller services were almost always located in a private home or apartment.

Pike and I parked on the cross street, then walked back to the house like two citizens out for a stroll. Pardy and Diaz would have to hope for cooperation, but Pike and I weren't Pardy and Diaz.

Pike said, "Give me a minute."

He waited for a car to pass, then slipped down along the east side of the house and vanished into the shadows. I continued on to the next corner. It was a nice night in Venice. The ocean smelled fresh. Six minutes later, Pike reappeared. I walked back and joined him in front of the house.

"One man, one woman. Kitchen's in the rear, living room in front, bed and a bath to the right of the kitchen. She's making dinner and he's in the living room with a headset and computer. Looks like they live here."

"Don't you hate it when people drop by at dinnertime?"

"They're going to hate it more."

We waited for two more cars to pass, then went to the front door. Pike stood to the side so he wouldn't be visible when the door opened. You see Joe Pike, you know you have trouble. I put on my best nonthreatening smile, and knocked.

After I knocked the second time, the door opened, and a man in his early thirties peered out. He had dark hair combed back, a wide face, and a cordless telephone headset. The earpiece was pushed to the side because he had come to the door.

He said, "What's up?"

I smiled wider, then pushed him hard in the chest, catching him off guard and shoving him backward. Pike came in behind me. Not particularly discreet, but very professional.

"Hey, what is this? What are you doing?"

"You don't have a problem. We just want to talk to you."

The man backpedaled, pushing out both hands like he was trying to quell a riot.

"You're the guy who called."

Pike stepped past him into the living room. The guy with the headset tried to back up so he could see both of us at the same time, but he was already against the wall.

"Where are you going? Hey, I live here. This is my home. Get out of here."

"What's your name?"

"Fuck you. Get out of my house."

A wallet was in a bowl on a table inside the front door. I found his driver's license and compared him to the picture. Yep, it was him. Stephen Golden, the proud proprietor of Golden Escorts. Criminals amaze me. I dropped his wallet back into the bowl as a woman came out of the kitchen. She had a narrow face with a gap between her front teeth and soft eyes, but she didn't scream or make a scene, either. You don't make a scene when you're afraid of the police. I gave her the encouraging smile.

"It's okay. The police will be here in a little bit."

The man said, "That's bullshit. They have some kind of beef with a client."

"We don't have a beef. One of your clients is dead."

The woman said, "Oh, that's terrible."

He snapped at her, his voice harsher toward her than me even though I had invaded his home.

"Don't say anything. We don't know anything about that. They can't just come in here."

I gave more of my smile to the woman, like he wasn't in the room with us, just me and her.

"What's your name?"

"Marsha."

He said, "Don't say a goddamned thing."

Marsha's face had the translucence of murky water: pale skin, faded freckles, and lashless eyes that gave her an innocence she probably did not possess. She wore a Tenacious D T-shirt over shorts, with butterflies tattooed above her ankles. The shirt was cropped and the shorts were low, letting a tattoo peek out across her lower belly.

"It's going to be fine, Marsha. Do you know what Stephen does for a living?"

"Yeah, it's our business. We don't hurt anyone."

"You his wife, girlfriend, what?"

"Don't talk to him! It's none of his business!"

It was just me and Marsha.

"We live together."

"Okay, cool. You don't have to be afraid."

"I'm not."

A laptop computer was set up on a dinner tray by a club chair in the corner of his living room so Golden could watch TV while he worked. I went over and looked at it.

"Get away from there! Leave my stuff alone."

Pike said, "Shh."

A six-line phone base with an auto-forwarding repeater was on the floor next to the chair, slaved to the computer. A phone directory was set up on the laptop, showing what was probably the names and numbers of his prostitutes. A Telecredit window was open to run Visa and MasterCard charges, so the computer probably held his billing ledgers and records of who earned what. I went back to him.

"Okay, Stephen, here's what we want. A man named Herbert Faustina was staying at the Home Away Suites up in Toluca Lake- "

"I don't know anything about that."

"Three times during the past nine days, Mr. Faustina phoned you-"

"That's not true."

"We know because the phone records show he called your number."

"I run a legitimate business. What happens between-"

"Faustina called you last night for the third and final time. This morning, at approximately two forty-five, he was shot to death. You see where I'm going with this?"

Golden crossed his arms and chewed the inside of his lower lip. He shook his head.

"I'm going to call my lawyer."

"No. We're not the police, so we're not going to waste time with your lawyer. The police will probably roll by tomorrow. You can call your lawyer when you talk to them, but right now you're on your own. We're going to go see whoever you sent to Faustina."