Frank doubts it. You can read the papers and know the San Fernando Valley produces billions in porn every year, and these kids don’t look like billionaires. Maybe, maybe, they have the arm on a few operations, but that’s about it.

Still, it’s lucrative. How many times did Mike Pella try to get me to invest in the porn business? And how many times did I refuse? For one thing, it used to be all mobbed up, back when it was illegal. Two, as I told him, “I have adaughter, Mike.”

But since porn went mainstream, most of the money in it is strictly legit. You set up shop, or you invest, like you would with any other business. So what…

“Bootlegs,” Mouse Junior explains. “We invest in the studio so we can get a good master. We distribute a bunch of those on the legit market, but for every one we sell legally, we bootleg three.”

So they sell one of the company’s videos and three of their own, Frank thinks. Basically, they cheat their own partners.

“It’s even easier with DVDs,” Travis explains. “You can press them out like pancakes. The Asians can’t buy enough of blondes with big tits fucking and sucking.”

“Watch your mouth,” Frank says. “This is my home.”

Travis turns red. He forgot what J. had warned him, that Frankie Machine doesn’t like profanity. “Sorry.”

Frank talks to Mouse Junior. “So what’s your problem?”

“Detroit.”

“Can you be a little more specific?” Frank asks.

“Some guys from Detroit,” Mouse Junior says, “friends of ours, have done a little porn out here, and okay, maybe they introduced us to some people. Now they think they’re owed.”

“They are,” Frank says. He knows the rules.

Besides, Detroit-aka “the Combination”-has had a piece of San Diego forever, since back in the forties, when Paul Moretti and Sal Tomenelli came out and opened a bunch of bars, restaurants, and strip clubs downtown. Back in the sixties, Paul and Tony ran a lot of heroin through those joints, but after Tomenelli was murdered, they settled into loan-sharking, gambling, strip clubs, porn, and running whores.