“Was her boyfriend from Guatemala?” I asked. The synapses in my brain were starting to connect Cathy Vega and Carmen Luzano. Two women, approximately the same age, the same appearance, leave town or disappear on the same day. One’s dead, the other missing. “Did she have any friends from Guatemala’?”

“The only person I ever met was Pete, who I told you about. It’s kinda weird, ‘cause she used to get a lot of phone calls from different people, but nobody ever came over. You’re the first one of her girlfriends I met. One of them’s been calling a lot lately. I thought you were her, but you’re not. She’s more of a soprano, plus she don’t have that kind of Southern accent like you do.”

The woman leaned over and turned on a telephone message machine that was perched on top of a stereo speaker.

“... I gotta go to Guitar City this afternoon.”

“... Lucy, it’s Amber. I gotta borrow that black velvet blouse of yours, ok?”

“Calling to see if you’re back yet. Can’t wait to see you.”

Damn. I knew that voice myself. It was Monica Fullbright.

“You never saw that woman with Cathy?”

The roommate yawned again and shrugged. There was a crashing noise from the next room as if JoJo had fallen out of bed, a lamp hitting the floor and then the gurgle of the toilet flushing. She rolled one of the white tabs around the top of the table with her finger.

“Hey, man, we got to get going. We got a sound check. You seem cool. I’d put you on the guest list, but we already got too many,” she said, handing me one of the fliers from the table to add to my collection.

I didn’t feel cool. I felt hot, agitated. What was with Monica Fullbright? Why was she lying to me? I got up.

“Hey, if you see Cathy, tell her we’re late on the rent. I need some of that bread from her.”

The metal freaks were still shuffling heavily around their stoop as I left Cathy Vega’s apartment. The Salvadoreans had gone inside, leaving doors flung open and the air a babble of television noises. Out over the Pacific the sky was purple and pink. It made me thirsty. I wanted to call Monica Fullbright from some place with refrigerated air and lots of ice cubes.

A young couple was courting on the hood of my car, so I left it where it was and walked down Cherokee toward Hollywood Boulevard. There was a bar a few doors before the Boulevard. I went in. Lava lamps and blowfish with light bulbs stuffed in their bellies made the room glow yellow. Several large carved tiki gods guarded the bar where I seated myself.