The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

said she was in porno.”
    “That would fit, except she don’t look Mexican to me.”
    “I know.”
    The phone rang again. Edgar picked up and listened a few moments and then hung up.
    “Another one that recognizes my mom.”
    Bosch took the next one.
    “I just wanted to tell you that the girl they were showing on TV was in porno,” the voice said.
    “How do you know she was in porno?”
    “I can tell by that thing they showed on TV. I rented a tape. Only once. She was in it.”
    Only once, Bosch thought, but he remembered. Yeah, sure.
    “You know her name?”
    The other phone rang and Edgar picked it up.
    “I don’t know names, man,” Bosch’s caller said. “They all use fake ones anyway.”
    “What was the name of the tape?”
    “Can’t remember. I was, uh, intoxicated when I saw it. Like I said, it was the only time.”
    “Look, I’m not taking your confession. You got anything else?”
    “No, smartass, I don’t.”
    “Who is this?”
    “I don’t have to say.”
    “Look, we’re trying to find a killer here. What was the name of the place you rented it?”
    “I’m not telling you, you might be able to get my name from them. Doesn’t matter, they have those tapes all over, every adult place.”
    “How would you know if you only rented one once?”
    The caller hung up.
    Bosch stayed another hour. By the end they had five calls saying the painted face belonged to a porno starlet. Only one of the callers said her name was Maggie, the other four men saying they didn’t pay much attention to names. There was one call naming her Becky of Studio City, and one saying she was a stripper who had worked for a while at the Booby Trap on La Brea. One man who called said the face belonged to his missing wife, but Bosch learned through further questioning that she had been missing only two months. The concrete blonde had been dead too long. The hope and desperation in the caller’s voice seemed genuine to Bosch, and he didn’t know whether he was telling the man good news by explaining that it could not be his wife or bad news because he was left in the void again.
    There were three callers who gave vague descriptions of a woman they thought might be the concrete blonde, but after a few questions into each conversation Bosch and Edgar identified the callers as cop geeks, people who got a thrill from talking to the police.
    The most unusual call was from a Beverly Hills psychic who mentioned that she had placed her hand on the TV screen while it showed the face and felt the dead woman’s spirit cry out to her.
    “What did it cry?” Bosch asked patiently.
    “Praise.”
    “Praise for what?”
    “Jesus our savior, I would assume but I don’t know. That was all I received. I might receive more if I could touch the actual plaster cast of the-”
    “Well, did this spirit that was giving praise identify itself? See, that’s what we’re doing here. We’re more interested in a name than cries of praise.”
    “Someday you will believe but by then you will be lost.”
    She hung up on him.
    At seven—thirty Bosch told Edgar he was splitting.
    “How ‘bout you? You going to hang out for the eleven o’clock news?”
    “Yeah, I’ll be here but I can handle it. If I get a lot of calls I’ll pull one of the dipshits off the desk.”
    Stock that OT, Bosch thought.
    “What’s next?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. What do you think?”
    “Well, aside from all the calls saying it’s your mother, this porno thing seems to be the way to go.”
    “Leave my blessed mother out of it. How you think I can check the porno?”
    “Administrative Vice. Guy over there, a detective-three, name of Ray Mora, he works porno. He’s the best. He also was on the Dollmaker task force. Call him and see if he can come take a look at the face. He might’ve known her. Tell him we had one call saying her name was Maggie.”
    “Will do. It fits with the Dollmaker, doesn’t it? The porno, I mean.”
    “Yeah, it fits.” He thought about this a moment, then added, “Two of the other victims were in the business. The one that got away from him was, too.”
    “The lucky one-she still in it?”
    “Last I heard. But she might be dead now for all I know.”
    “Still doesn’t mean anything, Harry.”
    “What?”
    “The porno. Still doesn’t mean it was the Dollmaker. The real one, I mean.”
    Bosch just nodded. He had an idea about something to do on his way home. He went out to his Caprice and got the Polaroid