Fausto took the medal in his hand and said, “Who is this, anyways?”

“Saint Michael, patron saint of police officers.”

Handing it back to her, he said, “Keep him in your purse right alongside the hideout gun.”

Mag, who wasn’t thin like Budgie and was nearly a foot shorter, had all the curves she needed without enhancement, and came off as more of a bondage bitch. She wore a black jersey turtleneck, black shorts, black plastic knee boots that she had bought for this occasion, and dangling plastic earrings. She’d tied back her glossy blunt cut in a severe bun.

Her look said, “I will hurt you but not too much.”

When the rest of the midwatch gave Mag the same catcalls and whistles, she just struck a pose and slapped her right hip and shot them a steaming look, saying, “How would you like me to whip you with a licorice rope?”

During the regular roll call, the vice cops escorted their borrowed undercover operators to their office to get them wired and briefed about the elements of 647b of the penal code, which criminalized an offer of sex for money. The decoys had to remain passive without engaging in an entrapment offer, while the cagier of the tricks would try to make them do it, knowing that entrapment would vitiate an arrest if it turned out that the hookers were cops.

After roll call, the Oracle took Fausto Gamboa aside and said privately, “Stay away from Budgie tonight, Fausto. I mean it. You start hovering around the boulevard in a black-and-white, you’ll screw it up for everybody.”

“Nobody should be giving that job to a new mother is all I got to say,” Fausto grumbled and then turned and went to partner with Benny Brewster for the night.

When Budgie and Mag were sitting in the backseat of a vice car being driven out onto east Sunset Boulevard, Mag, who had been loaned to the Trick Task Force on one other occasion, and Budgie, who had never worked as an undercover operator, kept their energy up with a lot of nervous chatter. After all, they were about to step out onto the stage, find their marks, and wait for the vice cop director to say “Action!” All the time knowing that the part they were playing brought with it an element of danger that higher-paid Hollywood performers never had to face. But both women were eager and wanted to do well. They were smart, ambitious young cops.

Budgie noticed that her hands were trembling, and she hid them under the green plastic purse. She wondered if Mag was as nervous and said to her, “I wanted to wear a little halter top but I figured if I did, they wouldn’t be able to hide the wire.”

“I wanted my belly ring showing,” Mag said. “But I thought the same thing about concealing the mike. I still like my ring but I’m glad I resisted the impulse to get the little butterfly above the tailbone when it was so popular.”

“Me too,” Budgie said, finding that just doing girl talk calmed her. “Tramp stamps are out. And I’m even thinking of losing my belly ring. My gun belt rubs on it. Took almost a year to heal.”

“Mine used to rub,” Mag said, “but now I put a layer of cotton over it and some tape before I go on duty.”

“I got mine right after work one day,” Budgie said. “I wore my uniform to work in those days to save time for a biology class I was taking at City College. You should’ve seen the guy when I walked in and took off my Sam Browne. He gawked at me like, I’m putting a belly ring on a cop? His hands were shaking the whole time.”

Both women chuckled, and Simmons, the older vice cop, who was driving, turned to his partner Lane in the passenger seat and said, “Popular culture has definitely caught up with the LAPD.”

Before they were dropped off at separate busy blocks on Sunset Boulevard, the older vice cop said to Mag, “The order of desirability is Asian hookers first, followed by white.”

“Sorry, Budgie,” Mag said with a tense grin.

“Bet I’ll catch more,” Budgie said also with a tense grin. “I’ll get all the midgets with a tall blonde fantasy.”

“For now I want you just one block apart,” Simmons said. “There’s two chase teams of blue suits to pull over the tricks after you get the offer, and two security teams including us who’ll be covering you. One is already there watching both corners. You might have some competition who’ll walk up to you and ask questions, suspecting you’re cops. You’re both too healthy looking.”

“I can look very bad very easily,” Budgie said.

“Won’t that mess up our play?” Mag asked. “If we get made by some hooker?”

“No,” he said. “They’ll just catch a ride ten blocks farther east and stay away from you. They know if you’re cop decoys, we’re close by watching out for you.”

Lane said, “Most tricks’re sick scum, but this early in the evening you might catch some ordinary businessmen driving west from the office buildings downtown. They know that better-class whores work the Sunset track and once in a while they look for a quickie.”

Budgie said, “I haven’t been in Hollywood all that long, but I’ve been in on some drug busts as transporting officer for trannies and dragons. One of them might recognize me.”

“The trannies mostly work Santa Monica Boulevard,” Simmons explained. “They do good business with all those parolees-at-large who like that track because they got a taste for dick and ass when they were in the joint. They’re disease-ridden. They avoid needles for fear of AIDS, then smoke ice and take it up the toboggan run. Does that make sense? Meth is an erotic drug. Don’t even shake hands with trannies or dragons without wearing gloves.”

Knowing it was Budgie’s first show, Lane said to her, “If you should see an Asian hooker on the Sunset track you can figure she might be a transsexual. Sometimes Asian trannies make good money up here because they can fool the straight tricks. Goose bumps from shaving don’t show as much on them. They might arrive just before the bars close, when the tricks’re too drunk to see straight. But all trannies and dragons should be considered violent felons in dresses. They like to steal a trick’s car when they can, and most tricks don’t like to admit how the car got stolen, so the tranny or dragon never ends up on the stolen report as a suspect.”

Simmons said, “Just avoid all the other hookers if possible-straights, dragons, and trannies.”

“Other hookers?” said Budgie.

He said, “Sorry, you’re starting to look so convincing I got confused.”

When the women were dropped off half a block from the boulevard, Simmons said, “If a black trick hits on you, go ahead and talk but look for a too-cool manner and a cool ride. He may be one of the pimps from a Wilshire track checking out the competition, or trying to muscle in. He may talk shit and try to pimp you out and we would love that to happen, but keep both feet on the sidewalk. You never load up. Never get in a car. And remember, sometimes there’s interference on the wire and we can’t always make out exactly what the tricks’re saying to you, so we take our cues from what you say. The wires have been known to fail completely. If you ever get in trouble, the code word is ‘slick.’ Use it in a sentence and we’ll all come running. If necessary yell it out. Remember: ‘slick.’”

After all that, they were both back to being nervous when they got out. Each spoke in a normal voice into their bras and then heard the cover unit say to Simmons and Lane on their radio band, “Got them loud and clear.”

The older vice cop seemed clearly more safety conscious, and he said, “Don’t take this wrong. I hope I’m not being sexist, but I always tell new operators, don’t take foolish chances for a misdemeanor violation like this. You’re competent cops but you’re still women.”

“Hear me roar,” Budgie said without conviction.

The younger vice cop said, “Showtime!”

Both women had some twilight action within the first ten minutes. Budgie traded looks with a blue-collar white guy in a GMC pickup. He circled the block only once, then pulled off Sunset and parked. She walked over to his car, mentally rehearsing the lines she might use to avoid an accusation of entrapment. She needn’t have worried.