One woman who made it her business to speak out was Heidi Fleiss herself. She was still promoting her 2002 self-published book "Pandering," in which she spells out everything but the names in her little red Gucci address book. In 1993, Fleiss was taken in by an undercover policeman in a sting operation and charged with pandering and possession of cocaine. At the time of her arrest, Columbia Pictures was about to release the Schwarzenegger film "The Last Action Hero." Newspapers printed the names of several men tied to that film, claiming they were clients of the madam and had allegedly hired Heidi's "girls" as extras. The women also allegedly provided entertainment for some of the men, but if this executive perk was meant to boost the film's box-office performance, it failed miserably. When the $80 million film was released that summer, it barely made $50 million in domestic rentals.

"She had a lot of important clients in politics, movies and government," Fleiss' father told me when I tracked him down. "She's very open about it." Indeed, Fleiss offers sexual advice on her radio show, transmitted live on KFSD in San Diego, and appears on TV shows, such as MSNBC News, to discuss America's sexual hypocrisy. "The laws in this country are set up for men. They are patted, coddled and protected. But the women are humiliated, degraded and abused," she told me when I found her. Fleiss also said she had a video of yet another woman -- but not an ex-employee -- complaining about Schwarzenegger's bad behavior. But when I asked her to identify the woman, or provide any other details to verify the story, she was less than forthcoming. And when I asked her to confirm the stories about her girls working for "The Last Action Hero" and Schwarzenegger, she clammed up.

"I'm not going to talk about that," she said. "To me, that's in the past."

The story of Fleiss girls on the payroll of "Last Action Hero" was so well known at the time that Sony, the corporate parent of Columbia Pictures, investigated it, as reported by several papers, and as recounted in the book "Hit and Run," by Kim Masters and Nancy Griffin. Sony Corp. auditors reviewed the financial records of five films, including "Last Action Hero," but never disclosed what, if anything, they found. Around the same time, the French magazine Voici printed an interview with one of Fleiss' hookers, who claimed that the muscleman was indeed a customer. Schwarzenegger promptly sued the weekly women's magazine. In 1995, a French court found that the popular magazine had violated France's stringent libel laws, according to an item in the New York Daily News. As a result, the two parties settled. No one has ever proved that Schwarzenegger was a Fleiss client, though many have tried. Such a feat would require documentation, and as one former public prosecutor told me: "We only got those guys who were reckless or thoughtless enough to pay for services with a check or credit card."

Although it's illegal in California for both men and women to solicit or sell sex, few if any men have ever been convicted under state law. Indeed, the film industry is rife with rich men who misbehave, and hookers are simply an efficient way to transact business without having to engage in the niceties of social intercourse. "You pay a hooker $100 to have sex and $2,400 to leave you alone," one man explained. But despite claims that prostitution is common in Hollywood, several executives embroiled in the "Last Action Hero" controversy were in fact tainted by the publicity about Fleiss girls auditioning as extras; at least one producer hasn't worked much since then. But none of them returned my telephone calls about Schwarzenegger.

Meanwhile, the hunt for on-the-record sources grew more fierce inside many newsrooms. On Sept. 29, just eight days before the election, I stopped at a swank hotel in Westwood, where the Los Angeles Press Club was feting author Virginia Postrel. Amid striped cabanas and chaise longues, screenwriters, bloggers and print reporters mingled, including folks from Business Week, Playboy and Reason magazines. People are ordering martinis -- "Let the vermouth blow a kiss to the gin," one patron tells the barkeep -- and everyone is discussing the recall, and the rumors of Schwarzenegger and women.

Lots of reporters here are trying to track down similar stories. Racing in the pack are ABC News, CNN and the Los Angeles Times, which a friend says is trying "to find one remaining piece to a story." A young man from the TV show "Celebrity Justice" calls me to check out a false rumor. A few book deals are supposedly in the works, including one by John Connolly. He has uncovered something from Schwarzenegger's past that is supposed to be so amazing that his agents at William Morris may auction the book the day of the election. A version of this tale will land on a gossipy Internet site, lukeford.net, and the Tuesday item will be repeated by several papers by week's end -- a rumor reported as news. (But in fact, Connolly's agents would drop him a few days later, for political reasons, the writer says.)

Here, just eight days before the election, few of the dozens of reporters chasing the story had found sources who would both talk and let their name be used. By now, the terrain feels like a fox ranch at the height of pelting season. "It's appalling to watch it unfold," one friend confides. The story of the story has become the story. I made a few other calls and visits, including one to a movie agent on Sunset Boulevard. The agent all but tells me to throw in the towel. "A lot of young men don't care about Arnold's past, no matter how shocking. They just want change." That pretty much sums up the attitude of all the men I interviewed for this piece. Not surprisingly, the Hollywood male assessment is diametrically opposed to that of the women, and the two conflicting currents will grow stronger in the days to come.

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