“Whatever Devereaux did to anger Forex, it wasn’t prostitution,” I said.

“Nope.” Ollie disengaged his seat belt. “Let’s do us some evicting.”

Forex answered the bell in seconds. She was dressed in jeans and an untucked blue cotton shirt. With her hair pulled back and sans makeup, she looked years older than she had in the Cowboy. And tired. She also looked like she’d just dropped her kid off for soccer.

“It took you long enough.” In a loud whisper.

“Good morning, Foxy. We’re good. And yourself?”

Forex’s eyes flicked past Ollie and did a quick scan of the street. Holding the door wide, she stepped back.

“You’re asking us in?” Ollie wanted an explicit invitation.

“Yes.” Hissed.

“All of us?”

“Yes.” She made a fast scooping gesture with one hand.

Ollie entered. Ryan. Yours truly. Forex quickly closed the door behind us.

I looked around. We were standing in an overfurnished parlor that L’ed into an overfurnished dining room. Dark, heavy carved stuff like my grandmother had. The carpet was moss, the sofa aqua and green stripes, the wing chairs a shade of turquoise that didn’t really blend.

A staircase rose on our left, two steps to a landing, then a right turn and up. The usual framed pictures of babies and graduates and brides angled up the wall above the banister.

Straight ahead was a kitchen. In an alcove I could see a Mac computer, its screen filled with a spreadsheet. Ledgers and printouts filled the countertop to either side. Black loose-leaf binders crammed a shelf above.

I noticed that Ollie was also eyeballing the workstation.

“Doing a little payroll?” he asked.

“I keep the books for a couple of businesses. It’s perfectly legal.”

“That what you tell the neighbors? You’re an accountant?”

“What I tell the neighbors is none of your business.”

“You’ve got skills. Why turn tricks?” Ollie sounded sincerely curious.

“Because I like it.” Defensive. “Now. Are you going to get that bitch out of my house?”

“Tell me why you want her gone.”

“Why? I’ll tell you why. I took her in, and she violated my trust.”

“Aurora Devereaux.”

“Yes. I opened my home. Charged her next to nothing.”

“She’s not paying the rent?”

“It’s not that. I made my rules clear. You live in my house, you’re frickin’ Doris Day. No men. No booze. No drugs.” Forex’s face was going deeper red with every word. “How does she thank me? She gets coked to the eyeballs night after night. Once maybe I can overlook. We all make mistakes. But this little miss is a hard-core junkie. Here, under my roof, she’s shooting up or snorting or tweaking or whatever the hell she does.”

Ollie tried to ask a question, but Forex was rolling.

“I get home from the Cowboy, you know what she’s doing? Sitting bare-ass naked in my backyard.” A palm smacked the blue cotton. “Singing! It’s goddamn two in the morning, and she’s doing strip karaoke outside my house!”

“Singing what?” Ollie asked.