“At least you got the phones.”

“Yeah,” Medino said. “But only one per unit. City doesn’t want us to become too spoiled. The individual dicks still have rotaries. Just look at the crappy colors they give us—pinks and blues and reds. Now how can you have a professional image with a pink phone? Place looks like a nursery school.”

“I noticed the playpen back there.”

Medino nodded. “We get our share of kids dumped at the doorstep.”

“I just got one of those,” Decker said. “She wasn’t dumped at the station. I found her wandering the streets. No one’s claimed her.”

“How old?”

“Two.”

“Black?”

“White.”

Medino shrugged.

Decker said, “Her pajamas had blood on them.”

“That’s unusual,” Medino said. “Kid okay?”

“Appears to be fine,” Decker said. “Can’t say I’m feeling too optimistic about her mama, though.”

“Another one bites the dust,” Medino said. “What’s your connection to the gimp? He wanted for something out there?”

“He’s an old buddy of mine,” Decker said.

Medino whistled. “You should start hunting for some new friends.”

“How deep is his shit?”

“From what I remember, neck high and still rising.”

“What do you know about the victim?” Decker said. “Besides the fact that she was a whore.”

“Not much more than that,” Medino said.

“Do you know if she had a rep for tricking with rough johns?”

“No idea,” Medino said. “Why don’t you go upstairs and try Vice?”

Decker asked, “Chris Beauchamps still work Vice here?”

“Baby-faced Beau?” Medino said. “You bet. One of our best undercover men. Looks so fucking sincere. I think he came in about an hour ago. Go up and talk to him. I’ll buzz you when Andrick is back on my nifty new push-button intercom. LAPD goes high tech.”

“Myra Steele,” Beauchamps said. “Yeah, I’ve got a file on her somewhere.”

Decker stared at the Vice detective, finding it hard to take the kid seriously. Surfer-blond hair, deep blue eyes, Malibu tan—the kind of looks that screamed party hardy, let’s shoot the curl.

Beauchamps pulled out a folder and said, “Here we go. Old Myra Steele, aka Plum Pie, Cherry Pie, Brown Sugar—a lot of them use that moniker.” He handed Decker a file. “The only thing I have on her was a bust three months ago.”

“That bust happened when Letwoine Monroe was still her pimp,” Decker said, scanning the papers. “Before he was whacked.”

“Right,” Beauchamps said.

Decker asked, “Was he whacked in Hollywood?”

“I don’t know where he was whacked, but we found him here, stuffed in the trunk of a black Caddy stolen from North Hollywood.”

Decker said. “Myra Steele doesn’t look eighteen to me. She barely looks pubescent.”