Stone responded.

Carver had made the promise, but it had come in the fervor of the moment. As they were on the 10 Freeway leaving the beach in Santa Monica, the windows open and the sea air blowing in their faces. He was still riding the high and he foolishly told his young disciple that he could pick the next one.

Now he would have to change that. He wished he could just go back to watching Geneva, maybe catch her changing that tampon in the restroom, and leave this inconvenience for later.

“Don’t you ever get tired of that song?” Stone asked.

“What?”

Carver realized he had started to hum again while thinking about Geneva. Embarrassed, he tried to move on.

“Who did you find?” he asked.

Stone smiled broadly and shook his head like he could hardly believe his good luck.

“This girl who has her own porn site. I’ll send you the link so you can check her out, but you’re going to like her. I looked at her tax returns. Last year she cleared two hundred eighty K just from people signing up for twenty-five bucks a month to watch her fuck people.”

“Where’d you find her?”

“Dewey and Bach, accountants. She got audited by something called the California Tax Franchise Board and they handled it. All her four-one-one is right there. Everything we need to set up. Then I went and checked her out on her website. Mandy For Ya dot com. She’s a stone fox with long legs. Just our type.”

Carver could feel the slight trill of anticipation in his dark fiber. But he wasn’t going to make a mistake.

“Where exactly in California?” he asked.

“Manhattan Beach,” Stone said.

Carver wanted to reach across the glass tabletop and whack Stone on the side of the head with one of the plasma screens.

“Do you know where Manhattan Beach is?” he asked instead.

“Isn’t it down by Lo Jolla and San Diego? Down there?”

Carver shook his head.

“First of all, it’s La Jolla. And no, Manhattan Beach is not near it, anyway. It’s by L.A. and not too far from Santa Monica. So forget her. We’re not going back there for a good long time. You know the rules.”

“But, Dub, she’s perfect! Plus, I already pulled files on her. L.A.’s a big place. Nobody in Santa Monica is going to care about what happens in Manhattan Beach.”

Carver shook his head emphatically.

“You can put the files right back. We just burned L.A. for at least three years. I don’t care who you find or how safe you think it is. I am not deviating from the protocol. And another thing. My name is Wesley, not Wes, and certainly not Dub.”

Stone looked down at the glass tabletop and seemed crushed.

“Tell you what,” Carver said. “I’ll go to work on it and I’ll find us someone. You wait and see and you’ll be very happy. I guarantee it.”

“But it was going to be my turn.”

Now Stone was pouting.

“You had your turn and you blew it,” Carver said.