She couldn’t resist this one, approaching the cab of the truck, even though it was very dark in the alley. She climbed up on the step and listened nervously when the scar-faced trucker in a wife beater and cowboy hat said, “Fifty bucks. Here. Now. Climb on up and suck me off, honey.”

This one was so bizarre that when the second cover team showed up, one of the vice cops said to the guy, “Wonder what your boss would say if we booked you into jail and impounded your vehicle.”

Budgie said to the cowboy, “Are they going to be slaughtered?”

The cowboy was so pissed off he didn’t answer at first but then said, “I suppose you don’t eat veal? I suppose you shoot your goddamn lobsters before you put them in boiling water? Gimme a break, lady.”

This one presented so many logistical problems that after a field release the cowboy was allowed to continue on his way with his cargo.

When Budgie was finished at the CP and taken back to her corner on Sunset Boulevard, she tried not to remember the doomed calves bawling. It was the first time that evening that she was truly sad.

Budgie wasn’t standing on Sunset Boulevard for three minutes when a Hyundai with Arkansas plates pulled up with two teenagers inside. She was still feeling depressed about the calves and about the pathetically reckless husbands and fathers she and Mag had hooked tonight, and she wondered what diseases all these losers would bring home to their wives. Maybe the fatal one. Maybe the Big A.

She could see right away what she was dealing with here: a pair of Marines. Both had tan lines from the middle of their foreheads down, and skinned whitewalls with an inch or two of hair on top. Both were wearing cheap T-shirts with glittery names of rock groups across the front, shirts that they’d probably just bought from a souvenir shop on Hollywood Boulevard. Both had dopey nervous smiles on their dopey young faces, and after being inexplicably sad, Budgie was now inexplicably mad.

The passenger said to her, “Hey, good-lookin’!”

Budgie walked to the car and said, “If you say, ‘Whatchya got cookin’?’ I might have to shoot you.”

The word “shoot” changed the dynamic at once. The kid said, “I hope you’re not carrying a gun or something?”

“Why?” Budgie said. “Can’t a girl protect herself out here?”

The kid tried to recover some of his bravado and said, “Know where we could get some action?”

“Action,” Budgie said. “And what do you mean by that?”

The passenger glanced at the driver, who was even more nervous, and said, “Well, we’d like to party. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Budgie said. “I know what you mean.”

“If it’s not too expensive,” he said.

“And what do you mean by that?” Budgie said.

“We can pay seventy bucks,” the kid said. “But you have to do both of us, okay?”

“Where’re you stationed?” Budgie asked, figuring a chase or cover team was getting ready.

“Whadda you mean?” the passenger said.

“I was born at night, but not last night.” They’re no more than eighteen, she thought.

“Camp Pendleton,” the kid said, losing his grin.

“When’re you leaving for Iraq?”

The kid was really confused now, and he looked at the driver and back to Budgie and trying to retrieve some of the machismo said, “In three weeks. Why, are you going to give us a free one out of patriotism?”

“No, you dumb little jarhead asshole,” Budgie said. “I’m gonna give you a pass so you can go to Iraq and get your dumb little ass blown up. I’m a police officer and there’s a team of vice cops one minute away, and if you’re still here when they arrive you’ll have some explaining to do to your CO. Now, get the fuck outta Hollywood and don’t ever come back!”

“Yes, ma’am!” the kid said. “Thank you, ma’am!”

And they were gone before her cover team drove slowly past the corner, and Budgie saw that cute vice cop named Turner shake his head at her, then shrug his shoulders as if to say, It’s okay to throw one back, but don’t make a habit of it.

The vice cops knew that their operators would need a break about now, so they suggested code 7 at a nearby Burger King, but Mag and Budgie asked to be dropped at a Japanese restaurant farther west on Sunset. They figured that the male officers wouldn’t eat raw fish, and they’d had enough of that gender for a while. Thirty minutes to rest their feet and talk about their night’s work would be a blessing. The vice cops dropped them and said they’d pick them up for one more hour and then call it a night.

Turner said, all the time looking at Mag, “Another hour and it’s a wrap.”

When Budgie and Mag got inside the restaurant, Budgie said, “Jesus, in this division all the coppers use movie expressions.”

Mag ordered a plate of mixed sashimi, and Budgie a less courageous sushi plate, trying to observe protocol and not blatantly scrape the wooden chopsticks together, as so many round-eyes did at sushi joints. She lowered them to her lap and did it, dislodging a few splinters from the cheap disposable utensils.

Budgie said, “Do I ever regret borrowing these stilettos.”

“My canines are barking too,” Mag said, looking down.

“How many you hooked so far?”

“Three,” she said.

“Hey, I pulled ahead by one,” Budgie said. “And I threw a pair back. Jarheads from Camp Pendleton. I was the righteous bitch from hell they’ll always remember.”

“I haven’t found any worth throwing back,” Mag said. “Lowest kind of scum is what I’ve met. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn the S &M wardrobe.”

“You still into competitive shooting?” Budgie asked. “I read about you in the Blue Line when I worked Central.”

“Kinda losing interest,” Mag said. “Guys don’t like to shoot with me. Afraid I’ll beat them. I even stopped wearing the distinguished expert badge on my uniform.”

“Know what you mean,” Budgie said. “If we girls even talk about guns, we’re gay, right?”

“U.S. Customs had a recent shoot that I was asked to compete in. Until I saw it was called ‘Ladies’ Pistol Shoot.’ Can you believe that? When I got asked, I said, ‘Oh, goody. With high tea and cotillion?’ The guy from Customs didn’t get it.”

Budgie said, “I had three guys tonight ask me if I was a cop. I was tempted to say, ‘Would you like to ask that again with your dick in my mouth?’”

Both laughed, and Mag said, “I got a feeling Simmons would call that entrapment. Did you get a good look at Turner? Mr. Eye Candy?”

“I got a good look at him getting a good look at you,” Budgie said.

“Maybe he’s into bondage bitches,” Mag said.

“I got a feeling he’d be interested if you wore overalls and combat boots.”

“Wonder if he’s married.”

“God, why do we inbreed with other cops?” Budgie said. “Why not cross-pollinate with firemen or something?”

“Yeah, there must be other ways to fuck up our lives,” Mag said. “But he sure is cute.”

“Probably lousy in bed,” Budgie said. “The cute ones often are.”

Mag said, “Couldn’t be as bad as a twisted detective from Seventy-seventh Street I used to date. The kind that buys you two drinks and expects to mate in his rape room within the hour. He actually stole one of my thongs, the creep.”

Budgie said, “I hooked a drunk tonight who could hardly drive the car. When the cover team called a shop to take him to jail, he asked me if I was seeing someone. Then he asked me if I could get him out of jail. He asked me a dozen questions. When they took him away I had to tell him, ‘Yes, I’m seeing someone. No, I can’t get you out of jail. No, I can’t help it that you have strong feelings for me. And no, this encounter was not caused by fate, it was caused by Compstat.’ Christ, I just turn on my dumb-blonde switch and they can’t let go. The guy tried to hug me when they were writing the citation! He said he forgave me.”

Mag said, “One trick wanted to really hurt me when they badged him, I could tell. He was eye-fucking me the whole time they were writing him up, and he said, ‘Maybe I’ll see you out on the street sometime, Officer.’”