Milo pulled a steel-handled straight razor out of the hooker’s purse.

“Hands on the car.”

“That’s for protection, sir.” Husky voice.

“On the car.” Pocketing the knife, he stashed the purse in the trunk, put the hooker in back of the car, squeezed in next to her.

“Your turn to drive, pard.”

I slid behind the wheel.

The hooker said, “I love company.”

Next to Milo, she looked small and frail. Mid-to late thirties, hair stiff and shagged, platinum at the roots, copper at the tips. A hatchet face oatmealed by pimples gleamed through bronze pancake. Pert nose, plump lips, glitter-flecked cleavage, big hoop earrings.

Cobalt eyes under gritty half-inch lashes struggled not to bounce.

Below all that, a muscular neck. Pronounced Adam’s apple.

She saw me looking at oversized hands and slipped them out of view.

Milo said, “This is Tasha LaBelle.”

“Hi, Tasha.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, sir.”

“Let’s get moving,” said Milo.

Tasha said, “Where we going?”

“Nowhere in particular.”

“A few hours, Disneyland’s gonna open.”

“Fantasyland your thing?” said Milo.

No answer.

I pulled onto Highland, hit a pothole that rattled the car’s suspension.

Tasha said, “Ouch. Such a teeny car for such big men.”

Gliding past Sunset and Hollywood Boulevard, I headed east on Franklin, drove past darkened apartment buildings, antique foliage. No people on the street. A solitary dog rooted near some hedges.

Tasha said, “What I done, you taking me for a ride?”

Milo said, “We like company. When we run your prints, what name’s gonna come up?”

“Prints? I didn’t do nothing.” Tension kicked the voice a few frets higher.

“Your name for the record.”

“Record of what?” A tinge of aggression lowered the timbre. Now I was hearing a nasal street guy, cornered and ready for fight or flight.

“Our investigation. There’s also the issue of your little nail file.”

“That’s a antique, sir. Got it on eBay.”

“What name were you born with?”

Sniffle. “I’m me.”

Milo said, “No doubt about that. Let’s not make this a bigger deal than it needs to be.”

“You don’t understand, sir.”

“I do. The past is the past,” said Milo. “Right?”

Hushed “yessir.”

“But sometimes history is important.”

“What’d I do, you take me in this car?”

“Besides the blade, you were witnessed engaging in solicitation and prostitution. But you can be back at Gordito’s in fifteen minutes instead of in lockup. Up to you.”

“What’re you investigating, sir?”

Milo’s pen clicked. “First your given name. Not one of the monikers you use when you get busted.”

“Sir, I have not been arrested in… thirty… eight — seven days. And that was in Burbank. And it was just shoplifting. And charges were dropped.”

“Charges against who?”

Pause. “Mary Ellen Smithfield.”

Milo said, “Like the ham.”

“Huh?”

“What’s on your birth certificate, Tasha?”

“You’re not gonna arrest me?”

“That’s up to you.”