The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

else.”
    Bosch didn’t need the psychology lesson.
    “C’mon Ray, I’m in court and I’m trying to run down this case. Get to the point. What about Gallery?”
    “What I’m saying is that with Gallery the situation’s unusual ‘cause it’s been almost three years and she never came back. See, they always come back. Even if they’ve fucked over a producer so bad he had to do reshoots, they always come back. They start at the bottom-loops, fluffing-and work their way back up.”
    “Fluffing?”
    “A fluff is off-camera talent, you could say. Girls who keep the acts up and ready to perform while they’re getting cameras ready, moving lights, changing angles. Things like that, if you know what I mean.”
    “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
    Bosch was depressed after hearing about the business for ten minutes. He looked at Mora, who had been in Ad-Vice for as long as Bosch could remember.
    “What about the survivor? You ever check with her on this tip?”
    “Never got around to it. Like I said, I dropped it when you dropped Church. Thought we were done with the whole thing.”
    “Yeah, so did I.”
    Bosch took out a small pocket notebook and wrote down a few notes from the conversation.
    “Did you save any notes from this? From back then?”
    “Nope, they’re gone. The original tip sheet is probably in the main task force files. But it won’t say more than I just told you.”
    Bosch nodded. Mora was probably right.
    “What did this Gallery look like?”
    “Blonde, nice set-definitely Beverly Hills plastic. I think I got a picture here.”
    He rolled his chair to the file cabinets behind him and dug through one of the drawers, then rolled back with a file. From it he pulled an 8? 10 color publicity shot. It was a blonde woman posed at the edge of the ocean. She was nude. She had shaved her pubic area. Bosch handed the photo back to Mora and felt embarrassed, as if they were two boys in the schoolyard telling secrets about one of the girls. He thought he saw a slight smile on Mora’s face and wondered if the vice cop found humor in his discomfort or it was something else.
    “Hell of a job you’ve got.”
    “Yeah, well, somebody’s gotta do it.”
    Bosch studied him a moment. He decided to take a chance, to try to figure out what made Mora hang on to the job.
    “Yeah, but why you, Ray? You’ve been doing this a long time.”
    “I guess I’m a watchdog, Bosch. The Supreme Court says this stuff is legal to a point. That makes me one of the pointmen. It’s gotta be monitored. It’s gotta be kept clean, no joke intended. That means these people’ve gotta be licensed, of legal age, and nobody’s forced to do something they don’t want to do. I spend a lot of days looking through this trash, looking for the stuff even the Supreme Court couldn’t take. Trouble is, community standards. L.A. doesn’t have any, Bosch. Hasn’t been a successful obscenity prosecution here in years. I’ve made some underage cases. But I’m still looking for my first obscenity jacket.”
    He stopped a moment before saying, “Most cops do a year in Ad-Vice and then transfer out. That’s all they can take. This is my seventh year, man. I can’t tell you why. I guess because there’s no shortage of surprises.”
    “Yeah, but year after year of this shit. How can you take it?”
    Mora’s eyes dropped to the statue on the desk.
    “I’m provided for. Don’t worry about me.” He waited another beat and said, “I’ve got no family. No wife anymore. Who’s going to complain about what I do, anyway?”
    Bosch knew from their work on the task force that Mora had volunteered for the B squad, to work nights, because his wife had just left him. He had told Bosch that he found it hardest to get through the nights. Bosch now wondered if Mora’s ex-wife was blonde and, if she was, what it would mean.
    “Look, Ray, I’ve been thinking the same things, about this follower. And she fits, you know? Gallery. The three vics and the survivor were all blondes. Church wasn’t choosey but the follower apparently is.”
    “Hey, you’re right,” Mora said, looking at the photo of Gallery. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
    “Anyway, this four-year-old tip is as good a place to start as any. There also might be other women, other victims. What’ve you got going?”
    Mora smiled and said, “Harry, doesn’t matter what I got going. It’s dogshit compared to this. I gotta vacation next week but I don’t leave till