“Hey, Sarah, it’s Elvis Cole. I never heard from Lisa Topping. Would you please reconsider giving me her number? Thanks.”

Cole left his cell number, and hung up. He checked the time. He had been waiting for only eight minutes, and Chen might get hung up forever.

Cole couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he thought about Grebner. Grebner had really blindsided them with that business about Jakovich, which seemed all the more believable because Rina had so readily admitted she knew him. They both seemed believable, but Cole knew from experience the best liars are always believable, and the very best lies were mostly the truth. Here was Grebner with his party house in the hills, and here was Rina, who claimed to have attended his parties along with other Serbian prostitutes so Grebner and his gang-set buddies could boogie with girls they trusted.

Cole wondered if there was a way he could find out if this was true, and thought he might be able to get the information from one of the other prostitutes.

Cole didn’t have the files, but he had his notebook. He had copied the dates of Rina’s arrests, and now he phoned the district attorney’s general administration office. He worked his way through three clerks and spent almost twenty minutes on the phone before he found someone to look up the case number and identify the deputy district attorney who handled the case.

“That would be Elizabeth Sanchez.”

“Could I have her current posting and number, please?”

Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Sanchez was currently posted to the Airport Courthouse in Playa del Rey, south of the Los Angeles International Airport.

Cole thought he would likely get a voice mail, but a woman picked up the call.

“Lauren Craig.”

“Sorry. I’m calling for Elizabeth Sanchez.”

“Hang on, I think I can—”

Cole heard her call out, then the muffled clunks of the phone being handled, and a different voice came on the line.

“Liz Sanchez.”

Cole identified himself, gave her the date and the case number, and told her he needed the names of the other prostitutes scooped up in the sting.

Sanchez laughed.

“That was almost six years ago. Wow, I was still a Grade Two. You can’t really expect me to remember their names.”

“I thought it might stand out because of the nature of the arrest.”

“A vice sting?”

“A Serbian sex ring. They worked for a Serb gang set.”

“Ah. Okay, that sounds familiar. NoHo Vice took down thirteen or fourteen girls over by CBS Studio Center. A joint task force deal with OCTF.”

Organized Crime Task Force.

“That’s it.”

“Serbians. Okay, sure. They had cribs all through those complexes. They had so many hookers around the pool over there it looked like the Playboy Mansion. Not that I’ve ever seen the mansion.”