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time,” I said, catching the wisp of surprise that flickered over his face. “In fact, your guy isn’t blackmail material at all. He’s got money, all right, but it’s so fucking much money that threatening him could get you very dead.”

He nodded at the back-alley logic: Anyone who did the kind of research you need to work a stable of edge-girls would know that some tricks are too high up to touch. That kind, they have a stable of their own—assassins with diplomatic immunity.

When I was sure he was with me, I asked: “So why not spend some of that money in front, eliminate all the back-and-forth?”

“I don’t under—”

“There’s places in L.A. where you can rent a Bentley, but that’s all about front. The rental places might call you ‘sir’ they might ass-kiss like a doorman at a Beverly Hills hotel…but they know. It’s in their eyes. They’ve got your number. If you were the real thing, why would you be renting?”

“You mean—?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know this ‘missing’ girl. So I don’t know who was running her. But I know their kind. And if the price was right…”

“Are you saying—?”

“Your record’s stuck in the same groove. You know as well as me that humans get sold all the time. They’re just a commodity, like wheat, or pork bellies. What lawyers call ‘fungible’ goods; one grain of wheat’s the same as another. But some humans are unique property.

“Even for sex, there’s a general market price, but it still varies, depending on the person and the packaging. A lap dance in a backstreet dive in Queens won’t cost you anything close to the same thing in some upscale Manhattan joint.

“Girls who turn lump tricks get used up quick. The harder and longer they get used, the less they’re worth. Baby-sellers know how quick the price drops for used goods—you think pimps are any different?”

Now it was his turn to shrug. “I told you, this isn’t about money. Or law enforcement. This is very, very simple: the client wants his baby returned to him. We want to satisfy the client. That’s the place where you come in. The only place.”

I caught his meaning, and the warning it was wrapped in: If their precious prince had bought himself a human sacrifice, that wasn’t their problem. And I better not make it mine.

“What’s all this about ‘patterns,’ then?” I asked him. “What do you need me for?”

“Without the baby, the client appears to have stopped his…nocturnal activities.”

“So?”

“So we don’t believe we’ve come close to interviewing all the other women he may have…used. But we don’t know any places to look for them that we haven’t tried.”

“You think maybe one of the pain-for-pay girls set him up?”

“How would we know?” Pryce said, reasonably. “We found some of them by going back down the money trail. But that’s such a murky world that there must be others. And we were told there are women who do…this kind of thing for their own reasons. Not prostitutes, women who actually seek out such encounters.”

“Sure,” I said, putting a “who doesn’t know that?” look behind it.

“As I said, that world presents a rare barrier for us. Money will provide access, but not to the…depth we require, especially in the time allotted.”

I got it then.
    * * *
    T he woman who opened the door for me was wearing a maid’s outfit. A costume, not a uniform—she wasn’t dressed for housework.

“Hi, Rejji,” I said.

“It is you,” the fantasy-dressed brunette squealed. “Those ‘security’ cameras—you can never be sure.”

“Shut up, you stupid little bitch,” a tall blonde whose severe black dress did nothing to de-emphasize her outrageous breasts snapped. She gave the maid a mild slap and pointed toward a corner of the living room. “ I was sure, or he never would have gotten past that simpering little ‘concierge’ downstairs.”

As the brunette stood in the corner, hands clasped obediently behind her back, the blonde smiled at me. “You finally decide to come out of the