“Porn’s okay?”

“There’s no evidence they’re into porn.”

A beat. “So why are we talking?”

“They know some people who’ve come to the department’s attention. Speaking of which, let me run some names by you. Steven Muhrmann.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Tara Sly?”

“Now, that’s a porn name,” he said. “Or a stripper name—is that what they are? Pole-riders?”

“Markham Suss.”

“Nope.”

“Anyone named Suss?”

“Nope.”

“What’s the rent on the house?”

“I wanted two thousand, we settled for sixteen hundred plus they handle all the utilities and gardening. And plant flowers and keep them up nice. The place looks okay?”

“Charming. Do they pay by check?”

“Auto-pay account through Wachovia,” said Marshbarger. “They never miss. So it’s okay for them to stay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay … what did you say your name was? Just in case things do get complicated.”

“Phone West L.A. Division and ask for Lieutenant Sturgis.”

I gave him the number.

He said, “That’s not you.”

“Lieutenant Sturgis is the boss.”

“Sure, but—”

I hung up, silently thanking Robin for insisting we get a blocked number. Left a detailed message at Milo’s private cell, plugged in divana layne lori lennox lingerie.

The computer spit out five Japanese websites and two from Bangkok. Canned translations turned the text into malaprop-laden gibberish that elevated camera manuals to Shakespeare.

Not a problem; the images said it all.

Page after page from Asian trade shows. Divana, Lori, and other similarly endowed beauties strutting Tokyo runways in various combinations of satin, lace, rayon, fishnet.

Name recognition for underwear models. They’d achieved minor celebrity in a culture with a genius for micro-delineation and exquisite refinement.

The most recent show was three years ago. Both women were old enough to have begun modeling over a decade ago.

That gave them plenty of opportunity to hook up with any combination of Suss males. A few years on the other side of the planet, then back to L.A. where they’d reunited with the twins.

So far they’d made the grade.

Tara’s fate said they’d better hope that continued.

The house on Old Topanga Road was owned by one Olna Fremont.

I turned the name into a keyword. The information highway spread out before me.

I sped. Slowed to rubberneck.

Screeched to a halt.

Chapter 35

ori Lennox née Lorraine Lee Bumpers came to her door, hair in curlers, wrapped in a white terry bathrobe lettered Hilton on the breast pocket.

Female Caucasian, five seven, 121, a DOB on her license that made her thirty-two.

A genuine birth date on a twenty-one-year-old LAPD arrest form made her thirty-nine.