I go and talk with Margie.  I tell her. “I had a talk with the lady named Veronica.  We met over in Mission Bay Park.  The lady is a dancer at the Play House.  Hot looking babe with a body that just won't quit and a brain as well.  She'll maybe help us with the investigation.”

Margie asks, “What kind of help?”

“I don't have anywhere near enough information to come to the conclusion, but I begin to have a very strong suspicion that the person who killed Angel isn't one of the six girls.  I suspect that the girls may know, or at least have some idea, who the killer is.  However, they're afraid to tell on the killer.  I also suspect that the mystery killer is a boy, not a girl.  However, that leaves me short of a motive.”

Margie muses, “The girls may have had a motive, because Angel put the brakes on the gravy train.  However, I just don't see how that would provoke a boy to kill Angel.”

“I don't either.  However, if Veronica can talk to at least some of the girls, maybe she can come up with some connection.  Wait a minute!  Did any of the girls have a boyfriend, other than Augie, back when Augie was riding high?”

Margie thinks for a moment and says, “I think that Roz was living with Raleigh, even when she was one of Augie's girls.  I don't think that any of the other girls had a steady boyfriend in the Augie days.  I can check on Roz.”

“Okay.  What did Roz and each of the other girls do to earn money, when they were Augie's girls?  I can see Augie maybe having a live in lady, but six live in ladies just doesn't work.  I can't see a guy paying all of the living expenses for a party girl.”

Margie says, “It does seem a bit unlikely.  A guy like Augie could probably get his girls something like a secretary job with one of his clients.  I can check.”

“That leaves us with the possibility that one of his drug clients killed Angel, since they might have been left without product to sell, once Augie got nabbed.  Or, it might have been someone who was selling to Augie.  However, I tend to doubt that it would have been a client.  A client of a big time drug dealer must have known that killing the snitch would bring the feds down on the beach area and kill all sorts of dope operations.  Probably best to just focus on the six girls, at least for now.”

Margie says, “Okay, I'll check.”

I leave and walk the beach.  I talk with a few guys.  I find out that trying to rent one of the Play House girls is extremely expensive and some of them just won't do it.  I then get a bright idea and ask, “What about the local high end whores?”

The answers are that there are, after Augie, an awful lot of local girls selling it in the bars and restaurants.  That's just killing the high end girls, since there's so much good looking, lower cost, pussy available around the beach.

I develop a story, “Okay, I got some customers coming in.  I may need to get 'em laid.  Who do I contact for high end pussy?”

I get a few names.  One of the names is Roz.

I get a 'service call' from the feds.  I go to the address where I'm told to go.  I go down to the address, introduce myself to the people there and get the problem, apparently a real problem, described to me.  I sit and work with the program listings for a bit.  It takes me a while, but I finally find one of the oldest, dumbest errors in the business.  It then takes me a bit of time to find the solution to the problem.  When I have the solution in and tested, I call for a supervisor, so that I can show the solution and get my pay.

In walks a girl who looks like she has a pole shoved up her ass.  She's trim, tailored and obviously a legend in her own mind.  She says, “Well, Jim Holt, did you find the problem?”

“Yes, I found the problem.  I then figured out how to solve the problem, that last took more time than finding the problem.”

The girl asks, “What was the cause of the problem?”

One of your programmers did a search and then used data from the search to try to do a secondary search.  That last is a no-no.”

The girl asks, “Why is that?”

“You have a database.  The computer crashes.  Some of the data in the database gets corrupted.  Some of the data is still good and your primary search still works.  You then grab some corrupted data and try a secondary search.  The secondary search doesn't work and may even put your database program into an infinite loop.  That's what happened.”

The girl says, “They tell me that you're a real wise ass.”

“Hello Samantha, how are you?”

“I'm fine, but my bosses are getting very impatient.  Are you making progress?”

“I have personally interviewed four of the six girls who were part of Augie's inner circle.  I have got evaluations on the other two.  I have a contact that should let me interview a fifth girl.  I'm beginning to suspect that the person who killed Augie wasn't one of the six girls.  I do need to know exactly how Angel was killed.”

Samantha says, “Whoever killed Angel used a knife.”

“That's the word around the beach.  I need to know exactly how they used the knife.”

Samantha asks, “How can that have anything to do with anything?”

“A professional kills certain ways.  An amateur normally uses other ways.  I need to know how it was done, in great detail, so that I can get a better handle on who did it.  I have some leads, more like ghosts of leads.  If I can eliminate some of the leads, I can pursue just the live leads.  Cutting down on the leads will speed things up.”