Schwinn told Milo to drop Tonya off on Eighth near Witmer, down the block from the Ranch Depot Steak House.

“Get yourself a hunk of beef, darling.” Slipping her some bills. “Get yourself a lovely T-bone with one of those giant baked potatoes.”

“Mr. S.,” came the protest. “I can’t go in there dressed like this, they won’t serve me.”

“With this they will.” Another handful of paper pressed into her hand. “You show this to Calvin up front, tell him I sent you—you have any problem, you let me know.”

“You’re sure?”

“You know I am.”

The rear door opened, and Tonya got out. The smell of sex hung in the car. Now the night filtered in, cool, fossil-fuel bitter.

“Thank you, Mr. S.” She extended her hand. Schwinn held on to it.

“One more thing, darling. Hear of any rough johns working the Temple-Beaudry area?”

“How rough?”

“Ropes, knives, cigarette burns.”

“Ooh,” said the hooker, with pain in her voice. “No, Mr. S., there’s always lowlife, but I heard nothing like that.”

Pecks on cheeks. Tonya clicked her way toward the restaurant, and Schwinn got back in front. “Back to the station, boy-o.”

Closing his eyes. Self-satisfied. At Olive Street, he said: “That’s a very intelligent nigger, boy-o. Given the opportunity a free, white woman woulda had, she woulda made something of herself. What’s that about?”

“What do you mean?”

“The way we treat niggers. Make sense to you?”

“No,” said Milo. Thinking: What the hell is this lunatic about?

Then: Why hadn’t Schwinn offered the hooker to him?

Because Schwinn and Tonya had something special? Or because he knew?

“What it says,” offered Schwinn. “The way we treat niggers, is that sometimes smart doesn’t count.”

Milo dropped him off at the Central Division parking lot, watched him get into his Ford Fairlane and drive off to Simi Valley, to the wife who liked books.

Alone, at last.

For the first time since the Beaudry call, he was breathing normally.

He entered the station, climbed the stairs, hurried to the scarred metal desk they’d shoved into a corner of the Homicide room for him. The next three hours were spent phoning Missing Persons bureaus at every station and when that didn’t pay off, he extended the search to various sheriff’s substations and departments of neighboring cities. Every office kept its own files, no one coordinated, each folder had to be pulled by hand, and MP skeleton crews were reluctant to extend themselves, even on a 187. Even when he pressed, emphasized the whodunit aspect, the ugliness, he got resistance. Finally, he hit upon something that pried cooperation and curses on the other end: the likelihood of news coverage. Cops were afraid of bad press. By 3 A.M., he’d come up with seven white girls in the right age range.

So what did he do, now? Get on the horn and wake up worried parents?