“Maybe it’s not. But the girl fits stat-wise: sixteen, around five-seven, skinny, with dark hair, brown eyes, nice tight little body.”

An appreciative tone had crept into Schwinn’s voice. Milo pictured him with the source—some street letch, the source laying it on lasciviously. Hookers, pimps, perverts, Schwinn probably had a whole stable of lowlifes he could count on for info. And Milo had a master’s degree . . .

“She’s supposed to be cute,” Schwinn went on. “No virgin, a wild kid. Also, at least one time before, she got herself in trouble. Hitchhiking on Sunset, got picked up by some scrote who raped her, tied her up, left her in an alley downtown. A juicehead found her, lucky for her he was just a bum, not a perve fixing to get himself some sloppy seconds. The girl never reported it officially, just told a friend, and the story made the rounds on the street.”

“Sixteen years old, tied and raped and she doesn’t report it?”

“Like I said, no virgin.” Schwinn’s hatchet jaw pulsed, and his Okie squint aimed at the ceiling. Milo knew he was holding back something.

“Is the source reliable?”

“Usually.”

“Who?”

Schwinn’s headshake was peevish. “Let’s concentrate on the main thing: We got a girl who fits our vic’s stats.”

“Sixteen,” said Milo, bothered.

Schwinn shrugged. “From what I’ve read—psychology articles—the human rope gets kinked up pretty early.” He leaned back and took another big bite of burrito, wiped salsa verde from his mouth with the back of his hand, then gave the hand a lick. “You think that’s true, boy-o? Think maybe she didn’t report it cause she liked it?”

Milo covered his anger with a shrug of his own. “So what’s next? Talk to the father?”

Schwinn righted his chair, swabbed his chin, this time with a paper napkin, stood abruptly, and walked out of the room, leaving Milo to follow.

Partners.

Outside, near the unmarked, Schwinn turned to him, smiling. “So tell me, how’d you sleep last night?”

Schwinn recited the address on Edgemont, and Milo started up the car.

“Hollywood, boy-o. A real-life Hollywood girl.”

Over the course of the twenty-minute ride, he laid out a few more details for Milo: The girl’s name was Janie Ingalls. A sophomore at Hollywood High, living with her father in a third-floor walk-up in a long-faded neighborhood, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard. Bowie Ingalls was a drunk who might or might not be home. Society was going to hell in a handbasket; even white folk were living like pigs.

The building was a clumsy pink thing with undersized windows and lumpy stucco. Twelve units was Milo’s guess: four flats to a floor, probably divided by a narrow central corridor.

He parked, but Schwinn made no attempt to get out, so the two of them just sat there, the engine running.

“Turn it off,” said Schwinn.