“Like a guy who considered himself brilliant and wanted everyone to know it. I can see him attending top schools, possibly being attracted to intellectual pursuits, but putting it aside to make money.”

“Coulda been a cognitive contender so he tries to bowl the Sweeties over with syntax and vocabulary? Like the girls on the site would care.”

I said, “Maybe he needed to think they did. To make it more than it was.”

“From the way he goes on, you’d think he was looking for Madame Curie. So who does he hook up with? Little Ms. Luuuuuuv with the helpless eyes.”

I said, “Hey, they both like cigars.”

“There’s a foundation for a meaningful relationship. Any other impressions?”

I had another go at Suss’s braggadocio. “ ‘Stylemaven’ might mean he made his money in a fashion-oriented business. Tara claimed to read Elle and Marie Claire so that could’ve provided another basis for rapport. And they both talk about adventure, so that might have attracted him … ‘newfound freedom’ could be due to a recent divorce. Or retirement. Or he was married and lying. The rest of it is pretty much puffery.”

“She bullshits, he bullshits, both of them read between the lines. ’Cause the real raison d’être for all the game playing is old guys trawling for young chicks willing to close their eyes and pretend they’re boffing a stud.”

He slipped the printouts into his case. Looked up Tara Sly in the databases. Nothing.

“Big shock, no way that’s a bona fide name. Think it was an in-joke, as in I’m craftier than I seem?”

I said, “That’s a little abstract unless she was a lot smarter than her prose suggests. Also, Sly could be fake but Tara could be real, because Ms. Tara could easily morph into Mystery.”

“How does Muhrmann figure in?”

“He could’ve provided protection for a share of the profits.”

“Your basic pimp-hustler.”

I said, “In this town they call it producing.”

He laughed. “I’ll make you a star, kid, and all you have to do is engage in geriatric sex and squeeze every golden egg out of the goose.”

“Unfortunately, the goose had the poor manners to die. Muhrmann hitting his mom up for money shortly after supports his involvement. It also fits with what we saw at the Fauborg being an audition for a new goose. Instead Tara ends up with no face, maybe because the mark was a predator with a script of his own.”

“If Muhrmann and Tara were looking for another Daddy, why didn’t they just go back to SukRose?”