Lucy studied the photograph for a second. “He a cop?” she asked Esperanza.

“A sports agent.”

“Oh.” She did not ask for further elaboration. “Because this could get us in trouble.”

“How so?” Myron asked.

“The photograph. The girl is topless.”

“So?”

“So it’s illegal. Topless girls aren’t allowed in 900 ads. We’re going to get screwed if the government sees this.”

“We?” Myron repeated. Again the clever interrogation techniques.

“I’m one of the owners of these dial-a-porn companies. A lot of the lines work out of this building.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Myron said. “What do you mean, topless girls are illegal? Almost every girl in that magazine is naked.”

“Not in the ads for 900 lines,” Lucy corrected. “Couple years back a law was passed. Nine hundred lines had to go clean. Look here.” She turned a page and pointed at another ad. “The girl might look suggestive, but she can’t be naked. And look at the name of the lines. Stuff like ‘Secret Confessions’ or ‘Talk to Girls.’ Now look at the ones for the 800 lines. Hard core. ‘Cum Between My Tits,’ stuff like that.”

Myron remembered his conversation with Tawny on the 900 line. He had been struck by the fact that she said nothing dirty. “So you can only have phone sex on the other lines?”

“Right. You see, you need real permission for those. That’s how the government sees it. Any asshole can call a 900 line. The charges are automatic. They start almost immediately after your call is answered. But not with an 800 line or one of the other numbers. You have to use either your credit card or a callback. That’s the way you get billed.”

“So all that talk about 900 lines being dirty—”

“Is bullshit,” Lucy finished. “They’re cons. We can’t say one dirty thing on those lines. We use them as lures mostly, because they’re so easy to use. A guy just has to dial. No credit card. No callbacks. Most of the time we talk about skinny-dipping or massages—suggestive but not sexual. Get him excited, you know what I mean?”

“I think so, yes.”

“These guys call horny anyway. I mean, most are so hard up, they’ll stick it in a knothole to get relief. What we try to do is get him to say the first dirty word, which usually isn’t too difficult. Once he does, we say, ‘Oh, baby, I can’t talk dirty on this line, but you should call me back at X number with a credit card.’ The guys call it and get charged all over again.”

“Aren’t they afraid of how it’ll look on their credit card bill?” Myron asked.

Lucy shook her head. She was still undulating. It was a combination of irritating and erotic. “The company names are usually pretty discreet,” she explained. “We bill under names like Norwood Incorporate or Telemark—not Hot Lesbos or Sucking Starlet. You want to see it?”

“See what?”

“The operation upstairs. Where we answer some of the calls. Lots of people work out of their homes, but I got a crew of six or seven working the lines now.”

Myron shrugged “Yeah, sure.”

Lucy took them up one level. Some sort of sickening stench engulfed the stairwell. When they reached the landing, Lucy opened a door. They stepped through and quickly closed it behind them.

“This is Fantasies Forever Lines,” Lucy said. “Not to mention Dick-a-Lick, Hootersline, Telefun, and a dozen others.”

Myron could not believe what he was seeing. His mouth dropped open. He had expected ugly women or fat women or old women. But he had not expected this.

They were men. All but one of the workers were male.

“Gay lines?” Myron asked.

Lucy shook her head, smiling. “Very few gay calls come in. Maybe one in a hundred.”

“But … these are men.”

Myron Bolitar, the essence of keen observation.

He heard a man in a gruff, truck-driver voice say, “Yeah, big man, slide it all the way in. That’s it. Oh, yeah, that feels good.”

Lucy smiled at the man. The man rolled his eyes and continued, “Don’t stop, Stallion. Ride me.”

Esperanza, Myron was glad to see, looked equally confused. “What’s going on, Lucy?” she asked.

“It’s the times,” Lucy said. “In this economy men are a cheaper source of labor. Most of the girls are on the streets. These are brothers, cousins, street kids.”

“But their voices—”

“They use a voice changer. Sharper Image sells them, but I get them cheaper in the Village. You can make little girls sound like Barry White, or vice versa. These guys can become a husky woman, a teenage virgin, a little girl—whatever the line calls for.”

Myron was stunned. “Do the customers know this?”

“Of course not.” She turned to Esperanza. “Dumb. But he is kinda cute.”

Myron Bolitar, Lesbian Fantasy Man.

The room looked like any telemarketing office. The phones were high-tech. Dozens of lines lit up, each marked for what role was to be played. Horny Housewife. Dominatrix. Cross-dressers. Busty Babes. Even Foot Fetish. Each employee also had another phone for Visa and MasterCard verification.

“The lines with a C next to them got to be kept clean,” Lucy explained. “We also have another hundred or so people working phones from their homes. Most of those are women.”

“Horny housewives?”

“Some of them. Most are just plain housewives. Anyway, that’s why I found the ad strange. A 900 line shouldn’t have a topless girl.”

They left the room and walked back down to the studio. Myron almost tripped over a wino who chose the moment Myron was stepping over him to stand up.

“Is ABC one of the companies upstairs?” Myron asked.

“Yeah.”

“And we know Gary Grady called you yesterday. Can you tell us why?”

“Who?”

“Gary Grady.”

Lucy shook her head. “Don’t know him.”

“How about Jerry?”

“Oh yeah, him.” She gave a small laugh. “I figured that wasn’t his real name. He was always real secretive.”

“So what did he want?”

She nodded as though something had just occurred to her. “I get it now.”

“Get what?”

“He was asking me about a photograph I’d taken a couple years back.”