Mystery

Westside vice detective named David Maloney, who was old enough to remember, summed up the history of high-priced Westside sex-work after Gretchen’s arrest. We met in the big D room, where Maloney commandeered a corner desk.

I’d seen Maloney before, in his long-haired, multi-pierce days. Now he had gray CEO hair and dressed like a pro golfer. Three holes in each ear were undercover souvenirs.

He talked fast, automatically, as if delivering a quarterly report to bored shareholders.

The first pimp managing the five-star hotel market was a woman who’d turned tricks for Gretchen named Suzanna “Honey Pot” Gilder. Long suspected as a front for Gretchen during her boss’s incarceration, Gilder was subjected to the same tax pressure that had ended Gretchen’s reign. She endured two years before quitting and moving to Las Vegas, where she married the wayward son of a Mormon senator, self-published a confessional memoir, and raised babies.

Soon after Honey Pot’s retirement, two Ukrainians and a Latvian working out of warehouses in Orange County ran slews of girls brought over from former Soviet republics. A few girls died and within a year, two of the men were found at the bottom of Lake Elsinore. The survivor shifted his business to Fresno and Honey Pot’s stable resurfaced under the good graces of a woman named Olga Koznikov, who’d been Gretchen’s longtime competitor.

Milo said, “She have anything to do with the guys in the lake?”

Maloney offered his first smile. “There’s logic, then there’s evidence. Olga’s slowed down but she’s probably running a small, select group. The big thing now is the Southeast Asians, all those massage parlors. But I’d start with Olga because she fits your time frame.”

Milo said, “Thanks, I’ll pull her record.”

“You won’t find one. She has no bad habits and always kept her head on straight, including paying taxes.”

“How’d she launder the money?”

“Our best guess is by running booths at flea markets and antiques shows and importing furniture from China. She also owns a bunch of Russian restaurants. There’s probably stuff we’re unaware of.”

“She on or off the radar?”

“We’re concentrating on the parlors.”

“How do I find this gem?”

“Easy as opening the phone book, she lists her business office. But I got it for you anyway.”

“You’re a prince, Dave.”

“No prob. Sorry I couldn’t help I.D. your vic. I triple-checked and no one knew any Tara Sly or Tiara anything and her picture didn’t ring bells. But Olga’s good at covering her tracks.”

Far Orient Trading and Design Modes operated out of a red, barn-like building at the rear of a complex of discount furniture outfits on La Cienega south of Jefferson. Quick, direct drive to LAX; easy to bring all kinds of things in and out.

Made-yesterday antiques were displayed in front of the barn. A row of parked vehicles included the silver Suburban that was Olga Koznikov’s sole registered vehicle. No tinted windows, tricked-up wheels, or any adornment and the interior was impeccable. A baby carrier was belted to the middle row of seats.

As we approached the barn, a pretty Vietnamese girl in skinny jeans, a black turtleneck, and gold-lamé flats exited smiling.

“Hi, guys, can I help you with something?”

Milo fingered a huge, green funerary jar, then a mock-rosewood tansu that might last one dry summer. “Nice. What dynasty?”

The girl giggled. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

“Is Olga around?”

The girl’s smile froze. “Hold on.”

She hurried back inside. We followed, watched her scurry up a narrow aisle lined with tables, chairs, cabinets, altars, and plaster Buddhas.

Before she made it to the rear, a man came out. Thirty or so, black, dressed in charcoal overalls over a white T-shirt, he had the height of a shortstop and the width of a defensive tackle. The girl said something to him. He patted her head, as if comforting a toddler, and she ducked out of sight.

He came toward us smiling pleasantly, thighs beefy enough to turn his walk into a waddle. The denim scrape was audible.

“I’m William. May I help you?” Boyish voice, Jamaican lilt, meticulous enunciation.

The overalls were stitched in orange, fit well enough to have been custom-tailored. His face was clean-shaven with glowing skin and his milk-white teeth were perfectly aligned.

The healthy, happy visage of O.J. before the fall.

Milo badge-flashed. “I’m Lieutenant Sturgis. Is Olga here?”

“May I ask what it’s about?”

“Reminiscence.”

“Pardon me?”

“Shooting the breeze about old times,” said Milo.

William’s right thumb flicked the chest pocket of his overalls. He removed a pack of gum, slipped a stick between his teeth, and began chewing. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”

“No need to imagine.” Milo moved forward. William didn’t budge.

Then he did.

The woman eating a sandwich at her desk was white-haired, heavyset, looked older than the sixty-seven years her license claimed. The hair was curly as a poodle’s show-do and cut mannishly short with ridiculous bangs. The face beneath the frizz was a near-perfect sphere, tiny-mouthed, hog-nosed, pale with pink accents. Droopy but unlined; fat’s a good wrinkle filler.

The sandwich was an architectural masterpiece of pastrami, ham, turkey, coleslaw, white and orange cheese, red and green peppers. But the woman’s aqua frock was spotless, as were her lips. Her eyes were soft, hazel, world-weary. The office was large, bright, unpretentious, set up with a photocopier, a small fridge, and an old gray PC that would’ve brought a sneer to the lips of the Agajanian sisters.

Olga Koznikov looked like a woman who accepted herself at face value, and that brought a certain serenity. Only longish nails, French-tipped and glossy as they clawed the sandwich, testified to tension and vanity.

“Hello,” she said, motioning us to the two chairs that faced the desk. “It took you a while.”

She wrapped up what remained of the sandwich, lumbered to the fridge, and exchanged the food for a can of Diet Pepsi.

“Something for you?” Faint but distinct Russian accent.

“No, thanks.”

“You’re here about Tara.”

“You know that because …”

Because Gretchen told you it was coming.

“I know because I hear she’s dead.” Sigh. “Poor little baby.” Another sigh. “Sometimes I think of them as my babies.”

“Them being—”

“Young people looking for happiness,” said Olga Koznikov.

“You’re the guide.”

“I do my best, Lieutenant Sturgis.”

Milo hadn’t introduced himself.

“Tell us about Tara.”

“You want reminiscence. Too much remembering can be upsetting.”

William hadn’t passed that along. Amid the clutter of the barn were mikes and cameras and who knew what else. And she wanted us to know.

Milo said, “We’re not Vice.”

“If you were,” said Koznikov, “we wouldn’t be talking at all.” She drank soda, reclined. “Now please unbutton your shirt, Lieutenant Sturgis. Your handsome colleague, as well. Also, turn out all your pockets, if you don’t mind.”

“If we do mind?”

“I’m an old woman. Memory fades.”

“First time I’ve been asked this, Olga.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But if you don’t mind.”

“Do we get background music?”

“I could hit the desk with my hands if you like.”

When we’d buttoned back up, Koznikov said, “Thank you. I hope it wasn’t too embarrassing.” Winking. “You both have nice chests.”

Milo said, “Thanks for not taking it further.”

“There is a limit, Lieutenant Sturgis. I’ve always believed in limits.”

“Tell us about Tara.”

“What I will tell is a story. Like a fairy tale. It could be a fairy tale. Understood?”

“Once upon a time.”

“Once upon a theoretical situation. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Then I begin,” she said. “What if once upon a time a beautiful young girl comes to California and makes mistakes? What if she meets bad men who wait near bus stations and train stations and airports? It could be sad, no?”

“Tara got turned out by a street pimp.”

“What if this beautiful girl has several what I will call bad experiences? What if she is lucky to survive without serious physical injury?” Koznikov popped open another soda can and drank. “What if she is more lucky and meets good people who take care of her? That would be happy, no?”

“Someone like a mother figure.”

“Mothers are good.” She rested a soft, liver-spotted hand on her left bosom. “Everyone needs a mother.” Smiling. “Maybe a grandmother.”

Milo said, “Once she found proper guidance, what was her turf?”

“What if it was wherever the client desired? With limits, of course.”

“Outcall.”

“It’s a big city.”

“What kind of limits?”

“It’s a very big city. Gasoline is expensive.”

“She stuck to the Westside,” said Milo.

“The Westside is nice.”

“What other limits did she have?”

“What if,” said Koznikov, “she got tested every month, always used condoms, and the people she met were screened to make sure they were nice and would not force her to use body parts she didn’t want to use.”

Dr. Jernigan’s description of anal scarring flashed in my head. So did pictures I tried to shut off.

“Sounds like a good deal. Did the Westside include the Fauborg Hotel?”

Olga Koznikov blinked. “Lovely place.”

“Did Tara work there?”

“If a client wanted a quite lovely place, that would be a good choice, no?”

Thinking of the Fauborg’s typical guest, I said, “Was Tara a favorite with much older men?”

She studied me. “It’s good you don’t shave your chest hair. Men do that, now. I don’t understand it.”

“Did older men—”

“You are asking me to remember things from long ago.”

Milo said, “How about theoretically? Was she theoretically into geezers?”

Koznikov’s hand pressed down on a heavy bosom. “This is so long ago.”

“Olga, something tells me you remember everything you’ve ever done or thought.”

“A sweet thing to say, Lieutenant, but we all fade.”

“Tara never got the chance to fade. That’s what we’re here about.”

Koznikov flinched. For less than a second, a real person seeped through the kindly madam act.

As good as any therapist, Milo seized the moment: “She didn’t go easily, Olga.”

He placed a death shot on the desk.

Koznikov’s face didn’t change but the hand on her chest whitened.

“Help us, Olga.”

“She was so beautiful. Barbarians.”

“Any particular barbarians come to mind?”

“Why would I know people like this?”

Milo said, “Any barbarians, a name, anything.”

Koznikov shook her head. Slowly, balefully. “I would tell you. I’m sorry.”

“How long has it been since Tara worked for you?”

“Three years.” First time she’d strayed from theoretical. She realized it and her jaw tightened. “Three years is nearly a thousand days. I like to count. For exercise. Mental. For my memory.”

Prattling.

Milo said, “She left three years ago.”

One year before going cyber.

“I like crosswords, too. For the memory. But the English? Too elevated.”

“Why’d she leave, Olga?”

“People get tired.”

“Personal problems?”

“People get tired.”

“Did drugs or booze have anything to do with that?”

“People get tired without drugs and booze.”

“No substance abuse issues.”

“Some people have self-control.”

“Her mother didn’t.”

“What mother? She had no mother,” said Olga Koznikov.

“She was born in a test tube?”

“Her mother died when she was a little girl. In Colorado.”

“What town in Colorado?”

“Vail. She grew up in the snow. Once upon a time.”

“That so.”

“Her mother taught skiing, died in an accident, she was raised by the county.”

“What about her father?”

“Swiss tourist, she never knew him.”

“She told you that.”

“She showed me a picture.”

“Of Vail.”

“A pretty woman with a baby. Snow.”

“Interesting,” said Milo.

Koznikov’s cheeks fluttered.

“Olga, her mother was a woman named Maude Grundy. She was an alcoholic streetwalker from New Mexico who gave birth to Tara when she was fifteen. Tara’s birth certificate says father unknown. Maude had a rough life, moved to L.A. at some point but we can’t figure out exactly when. Whether or not Tara brought her here is unclear. If she did, they probably had a falling-out because Tara let Maude live in a dump that burned down two and a half months ago. Maude died in the fire and Tara didn’t pay a cent to bury her.”

Koznikov had listened impassively. Now she took long sips from the can. Suppressed a belch and smiled. “You are telling me this to make me sad.”

“I’m telling you in case Tara told you anything that was actually true and might help us find who murdered her.”

She turned to me. “Your question I can now answer. Yes, the old ones liked her. I thought okay, she has no father, makes sense. This much is true, even if he was not Swiss.”

“What does having no father have to do with them liking her?” said Milo.

“They liked her because she liked them. That’s all of it—love, sex, pleasure. You like me, I like you. One of them—what if once upon a time one of them, a very old, kind man, told me Tara was ‘patient’? That would explain it, no? That would help you understand.”

I said, “Patience is a good quality in a young person.”

“Good and so rare.”

“How about a time line?” said Milo. “When did she start working with you, when did she finish?”

“Three years is a long time to do anything.”

“How long have you had this place?”

“Eighteen years.”

“You don’t get tired.”

“I am lucky.”

“Three-year stint,” said Milo. “How long before that had she been in L.A. working for bad people?”

“A year.”

“So she arrived seven years ago.”

“You are good in math. I need calculators.”

“Did she talk about living anywhere else but Colorado?”

“Yes, but now I don’t know what’s true and what is not.”

“We can sift that out, Olga. Where else did she say she lived?”

“Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma.”

“Not New Mexico.”

“No.”

“What else can you tell us?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing, huh?”

“Unfortunately.”

I said, “What did she do after she quit?”

The hand left her breast and fluffed her hair. Curls expanded then sprang back like metal springs. “The computer.”

“She started selling herself online?”

“Not selling,” said Koznikov. “Advertising. For relationship.”

“She told you she wanted a relationship.”

“I don’t meddle with the baby birds.”

“But you found out she’d gone online.”

“Things get around.”

“Did you talk to her about it?”

“The computer,” she said, “is magic. It can be black magic.”

“No security,” I said. “Unlike a face-to-face business with guys like William for protection.”

“William sells furniture.”

“Did you ever find out who she hooked up with online?”

“My guess is a rich man.”

“She never told you.”

“I don’t meddle.”

“Things get around,” I said.

“They do.”

“You didn’t resent her leaving.”

“Some jobs you can do when you are tired.”

“Not Tara’s.”

“The cow with empty udders doesn’t give milk.”

“Why do you guess she was with a rich man?”

“I saw her getting out of a car,” said Koznikov. “Rodeo Drive, the fancy stores for the skinny girls. Nice little BMW. She carried bags.”

“From which stores?”

“Too far to read the bags.”

“Was she by herself?”

“Yes.”

“You assumed a rich boyfriend was paying for her shopping spree.”

“She didn’t have an MBA.”

Milo said, “I’m going to give you a fact, Olga. Because we value your help. The rich man she found was named Mark Suss.”

“Okay.”

“Old guy. Was he one of her regulars?”

“I don’t know this Suss.”

“You know another Suss?”

Koznikov tugged a curl. “I don’t know him, I don’t know what Tara did with him, I don’t know anything.”

“She never talked to you about Suss?”

“How do you spell this?”

“S-U-S-S.”

“Short name,” she said. “It’s real?”

“Quite. Rich Beverly Hills family.”

“You think they hurt her?”

“Not at this point. How about the bad men she worked with before she found guidance? Would any of them still be angry enough to hurt her?”

Koznikov’s laugh was the sputter of a faulty ignition. “We are talking dirt.”

“Dirt can have a bad temper.”

Her eyes chilled. “Dirt gets stepped on.”

“So no need to bother looking for her first pimps.”

“No need.” She rolled a hand into a fist. “This Suss, you have talked to him?”

“He died.”

“Ah.”

“After she left, did she ever return to you?”

“For what?”

“A social call?”

She went quiet. Relaxed pudgy fingers.

“Olga?”

“Okay, I will tell you something. She came back one time. For advice.”

“When?”

“Maybe two years. Give or take.”

“A year after she retired.”

“Okay.”

“What’d she want advice about?”

“How to build a good relationship.”

“With who?”

“She didn’t say. Later, I see her in her little BMW, the clothes.”

“Striking it rich and wanting to settle down?” said Milo. “Every call girl’s fantasy.”

“Big joke to you,” said Olga Koznikov, “but not always funny.”

“It happens, huh?”

“I could give you names. Girls acting in movies, wives of rich men. Even lawyers.”

“Even.”

Koznikov grinned. “Not everyone knows how to use the mouth right.”

I said, “Tara wanted to build a relationship. Something more than sex.”

“She was happy, I was happy. She was a nice girl.”

“What else can you tell us about her?”

“Nothing.” Staring at us. “Now it’s really nothing.”

Milo said, “Did William know her?”

“William sells furniture.”

“Even so.”

“Even so, no.”

“Back in the theoretical days, you had others like him. To set limits.”

Koznikov held out her hands.

“Was one of your musclemen a guy named Steven Muhrmann?”

Koznikov yanked a curl hard enough to shake loose several snowy hairs. They floated midair, wafted onto her desk. She brushed them away. “Why do you ask about him?”

“So he did work for you.”

Her fingers drummed the desk. She picked up the soda can, crushed it with one hard squeeze. “Briefly.”

“When Tara worked for you.”

Silence.

Milo said, “Were he and Tara close?”

“No.”

“You seem sure.”

Koznikov rubbed her forehead.

“What, Olga?”

“Him,” she said. “I told Tara, she agreed with me.”

“You told her to stay away from Muhrmann.”

“All the girls,” said Koznikov. She pitched forward, bosoms intruding on the desk. “You are saying he’s the one?”

Milo said, “We’re saying he associated with Tara after she retired. We’d like to speak to him but haven’t been able to find him. Any ideas?”

“Did he do it?”

“We don’t know, Olga.”

“But it’s possible.”

“Anything’s possible but no, he’s not a suspect and I don’t want you to act on that assumption.”

“I don’t act.”

“I’m serious, Olga.”

“Fool,” she spat. “He is the actor.”

“He wanted to act?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“He lied.”

“So?”

“Lying is good practice for acting.”

“What’d he lie about?”

“Goofing around, not working.”

“Booze, dope, rock and roll.”

“Loser,” she said.

“How’d you find him?”

“One of my properties, we did construction. He was digging foundation. Big muscles. I thought maybe he’d be okay, because he’s gay.”

“Muhrmann’s gay?”

“I thought,” she said. “Taking care of the body like that, the yellow hair, very tan.”

Milo smiled. “Only gay men do that.”

“Gay men are the best,” she said. “Take care of the girls, no problems.”

“Muhrmann didn’t take care of anything.”

“Bum,” she said. “Loser.”

“Did he have a particular thing for Tara?”

“No. Fool.”

“Not a smart guy.”

“I’m talking about her,” said Koznikov.

“She was stupid for hanging with Muhrmann.”

“You play, you pay.” She rubbed her hands together. “Okay, I’m finished.”

Hoisting herself out of her chair, she pointed to the door. No more than five feet tall. Thin, tight lips gave her the look of a venomous toad.

Milo said, “If you could direct us to any girls she worked with, that would be helpful.”

“I don’t know any girls, I don’t know anything.”

“You knew Tara was dead.”

“I watch TV,” she said. “Mostly Home and Garden network, sometimes Do It Yourself. Good-bye.”

“Olga—”

“Good-bye. Please don’t come back.”

She flung the door open. William stood inches from the jamb, chewing gum energetically.

“Hey,” he said.

Koznikov said, “Take them out.”

Milo said, “If you think of anything else—”

“I am old, I do not think well.”

William made a move toward Milo’s elbow, thought better of it, and gave a small bow and stepped back. “After you, sirs.”

Milo proceeded up the aisle but I was restrained by Koznikov’s hand on my wrist. Hard grip, just short of inflicting pain.

Tiptoeing, she placed one arm around my waist, pushed her mouth an inch from my ear.

I tried to move away but she held fast. Put her mouth near my ear. Hot breath, then a whisper:

“Thank you for helping Gretchen.”

I peeled her arm off, walked away.

She laughed. “That’s what I figured you’d say.”