The Narrows

smiled.
    "You're right. I guess it's a shrewd move. Name a place of female degradation and slavery after a female and it doesn't sound so bad, does it? It's packaging."
    "Slavery? Last I heard these women were volunteers. Some of them are supposedly housewives who come up from Vegas."
    "If you believe that, then you are naive, Bosch. Just because you can come and go doesn't mean you're not a slave."
    I nodded thoughtfully, not wanting to get into a debate with her about this subject because I knew it would bring me back to examining and questioning things in my own past.
    Rachel apparently wanted to drop it there, too.
    "So which one do you want to start with?" she asked.
    I pulled the car to a stop in front of Tawny's High Five Ranch. It didn't look like much of a ranch. It was a conglomeration of three or four trailers that were connected by covered walkways. I looked to my left and saw that Sheila's Front Porch was of similar design and configuration and it had no front porch. Miss Delilah's to my right was the same and I got the distinct impression that the three seemingly separate brothels were not competitors but rather branches of the same tree.
    "I don't know," I said. "Looks like eenie, meenie, minie, moe to me."
    Rachel cracked her door open.
    "Wait a second," I said. "I've got this."
    I handed her the file of photos Buddy Lockridge had brought to Vegas the day before. Rachel opened it and saw the front and side shots of the man known as Shandy but presumed to be Robert Backus.
    "I'm not going to even ask where you got these."
    "Fine. But you carry them. It will have more weight coming from you, since you've got the badge."
    "For the moment, at least."
    "Did you bring the photos of the missing men?"
    "Yes, I've got them."
    "Good."
    She took the file and got out of the car. I did likewise. We both walked around to the front of the car, where we stopped for a moment and surveyed the three brothels again. There were a few cars parked in front of each. There were also four flat-head Harleys lined up like a row of mean chrome in front of Miss Delilah's House of Holies. Air-brushed on the gas tank of one of the bikes was a skull smoking a joint with a smoke ring forming a halo above it.
    "Let's take Delilah's last," I said. "Maybe we'll get lucky before we need to go there."
    "The bikes?" "Yeah, the bikes. They're Road Saints. I say let sleeping dogs lie."
    "Good enough for me."
    Leading the way, Rachel marched toward the front door of Sheila's. She didn't wait for me because she knew I would be following in her wake.

CHAPTER 31
    Inside Sheila's we were greeted by the sickly sweet smell of perfume mixed with too much incense… We were also greeted by a smiling woman in a purple kimono who did not seem the least bit surprised or put out by the idea of a couple coming into the brothel. Her mouth drew into an edge as straight and sharp as a guillotine's when she saw the FBI credentials Rachel flipped open.
    "That's nice," she said with a falsely pleasant note in her voice. "Now let me see the warrant."
    "No warrant today," Rachel replied evenly. "We would just like to ask a few questions."
    "I don't have to speak with you unless you have a court order telling me to. I run a legal and fully licensed business here."
    I noticed two women dressed in a page from Victoria 's Secret sitting on a couch nearby. They were watching a television soap opera and seemingly uninterested in the verbal skirmish brewing at the front door. They were both attractive in a certain way but worn down around the eyes and mouths. The scene suddenly reminded me of my mother and some of her friends. The way they looked to me when I was a boy and I watched them getting ready to go out at night and work. I suddenly felt completely ill at ease in this place and wanted to go. I even hoped the woman in the kimono would succeed in sending us out.
    "No one is doubting the legality of your operation," Rachel said. "We simply need to ask a few questions of you and… your staff and then we'll be gone."
    "Get the court order and we'll be happy to oblige."
    "Are you Sheila?"
    "You can call me that. You can call me anything you want as long as you're saying good-bye when you do it."
    Rachel raised the ante by going to her don't-fuck-with-me voice.
    "If I go for that court order, I'm going to first call for a sheriff's unit and I will have that car sit out in front of this trailer until I get back. You might run a legal operation here, Sheila, but which