“Knew she was Maude, she never gave a last name. Even if I didn’t know her I’d know she’s dead because the person who died in the fire was the only white woman living in the place. She woulda stood out even if she didn’t behave like she did.”

“How’d she behave?”

“Drunk, walking around like she was crazy. Trying to sell herself.” He huffed. “Like anyone would buy that. You say she was forty?”

“Forty-four.”

“I’da guessed seventy. Maybe sixty-five if she put on lipstick and she didn’t. I’m seventy-seven and to me she looked old.”

“How’d she pay her rent?”

“Maybe she was a brain surgeon,” said the old man. “How should I know? I worked fifty years doing landscaping, made the mistake of doing it for private companies not the city so I got no bloated-up pension and now I’m stuck living here. My building, everyone pays rent, we got families, mostly good people. That place? Lowlifes. Everyone was happy to see it burn. There was all sorts going in and out, never no manager. Anyway, she’s dead. Ten-dollar Maude. So don’t waste your time looking for her.”

“Ten dollars is what she charged?”

“So they say. She gave me the look, I went the other way. Poor can mean unlucky but it don’t mean stupid.”

A call to the coroner pulled up Maude Grundy’s death certificate. Two months and two weeks ago, pulmonary failure due to smoke inhalation. The body had been signed out by Tara Sly of Lloyd Place in West Hollywood and sent to a mortuary on Mission Road, across the street from the crypt.

Milo said, “I know what that place is,” but he phoned anyway.

Undertaker’s school, conveniently located. Maude Grundy’s remains had ended up as a teaching tool for the freshman class.

“Donating Mom to science,” he said, “and not even to a med school. With Suss’s dough, Tiara could’ve managed some kind of funeral, at the very least a cremation. Instead she relegates Mommy to the formaldehyde gang. Okay, let’s find the mysterious flesh peddler who’s not Gretchen.”

Rubbing his face. “Anything you want to say about that?”

I said, “I wonder how far our princess progressed from ten-buck transactions.”

Chapter 27

Westside vice detective named David Maloney, who was old enough to remember, summed up the history of high-priced Westside sex-work after Gretchen’s arrest. We met in the big D room, where Maloney commandeered a corner desk.

I’d seen Maloney before, in his long-haired, multi-pierce days. Now he had gray CEO hair and dressed like a pro golfer. Three holes in each ear were undercover souvenirs.

He talked fast, automatically, as if delivering a quarterly report to bored shareholders.