and spent a fitful night, tossing and turning as he dreamed about killing Payne with the skewer from his Weber. The dream played out on the inside of his skull like one of those IMAX theaters, totally surrounding him as if it was real. In the fantasy, he saw himself drinking a Coors Light outside his mobile home while the Weber grew hot. The skewer glowed yellow over a huge mound of coals so hot the air rippled. Payne stepped out of the trailer, and said, "I confessed. I went to Los Angeles, and told them our nasty little secrets, and now I feel better. They know all about us, and now the dead will carry you down into Hell, but it's okay because I feel better, and isn't that what confession is all about, me feeling better while you pay the price?" Frederick was swept by a tsunami of fear, betrayal, and indignation. In his fantasy, he snatched up the skewer and drove it through Payne's belly into his lungs, screaming, "YOU TRAITOR!"
The next morning-before he opened the station-Frederick went back to Payne's when the sky was misty with light. He worried that Payne had written a confession or journal or diary, or had some sort of incriminating scrapbook hidden away. He searched every drawer, cabinet, box, closet, and hiding place he could think of, trying to find something that would explain why Payne had gone to Los Angeles, and whom he had gone to see.
Frederick searched high and low for the better part of three hours, growing more and more frantic at what Payne was saying, and where; finding nothing until he saw the Los Angeles Yellow Pages waiting on the kitchen counter. It was the San Fernando Valley East edition.
If Payne had gone to Los Angeles, he would need a place to stay.
Frederick opened the Yellow Pages to the section on hotels. Dozens of hotels were listed, but none of them stood out. Frederick flipped deeper into the book to find the listing for motels. A scrap of paper marked this page. A blue dot of ink indicated a motel in Toluca Lake.
Home Away Suites.
Frederick checked the time. Toluca Lake was less than thirty minutes away. If Payne was down there ratting him out, Frederick would make sure he paid.
19
Where Margaret Keyes had met me in an anonymous location, Janice lived near Dodger Stadium and had no problem with me coming to her home. Janice shared an exclusive condominium with her boyfriend, a wealthy Israeli named Sig who wanted to make a name for himself directing gonzo porn ("Sig's family has so much money they shit green."). Janice started talking the moment she opened her door, and talked so much I had to interrupt to keep her on point. Janice started tricking while a senior at an exclusive girls' prep school ("It was nasty, and I LOVED it!"), got implants on her eighteenth birthday ("They were a present from my mom."), and started stripping while a freshman at USC ("It's like getting paid to be me!"). Janice talked so much it was like drowning in a verbal Niagara Falls. She told pretty much the same story as Margaret Keyes, except in her version Faustina had received no phone call-she had stayed for an hour, and was paid two hundred dollars in cash. To pray.
Dana Mendelsohn was the last escort on my list, but the first to have visited Herbert Faustina. I didn't expect Dana to tell me anything new. I stopped for an outstanding turkey burger at Madame Matisse in Silver Lake, then sat in my car, searching for Dana's address in the Thomas Brothers Guide. I had just found her street when my cell phone rang. It was Starkey.
She said, "I left three friggin' messages. Didn't you get them?"
I looked at the little window on my cell phone. It showed no messages.
"I've had my phone with me all morning. It didn't ring and it doesn't show any messages."
"I know I got the right number. It's your stupid voice on the message."
My stupid voice.
I hated my cell phone. I was the last person in Los Angeles to enter the Jetsonian world of cellular communications, and I have regretted it ever since. Before I got the cell, everyone asked how I got by without one, and my clients complained. I weakened under the cultural weight of a city filled with satisfied cell users, ponied up, signed a service contract, and was doomed to crappy cell service. I rarely