Therapy

CHAPTER 36

The Hungry Bull, West L.A. branch, was on Cotner off Olympic, in an industrial zone that smelled like rubber cement. Next to the club was a Rolls-Royce junkyard, husks of once-glorious chassis and auto viscera piled high behind chain-link.

Not much farther was a co-op art gallery where a gifted painter had been strangled to death in a bathroom. The last case Milo and I had worked together. If he was thinking about that, he wasn’t showing it.

The club was housed in a windowless hangar painted matte black. Double-quilted chromium doors looked tacked on. A neon sign promised strong drinks and beautiful women.

The industrial setting was perfect: no daytime neighbors with NIMBY fever, no one to complain about the hyperdisco two-four boogie beat punching through black stucco.

The strip joint billed itself as a “gentleman’s club.” The parking lot was full of dusty compacts and pickups, and the two dark-haired guys guarding the doors were elephantine and tattooed. Somehow, I doubted we’d find jowly hale-fellows savoring cognac and fine cigars amid book-lined, mahogany splendor.

Milo showed his badge to Elephant One and received a bow-and-scrape. “Yessir, what can I do for you?”

“Rick Savarin on tonight?”

The bouncer’s cantaloupe face was bisected by an old gray knife scar that ran from the middle of his brow, changed direction across the bridge of his nose, meandered across his lips, and terminated in the crook of a chin you could lean on for support.

“Yessir. He’s in his office. Someone will direct you, sir.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Elephant Two, even bigger and sunglassed, held the door. Immediately inside, yet another giant, this one lanky and long-haired and Caribbean, ushered us to the left, down a short corridor that ended at swinging doors, also quilted, in black vinyl.

The main room’s color scheme was black with crimson trim. Three steps led to a sunken pit where intent-looking men ringed a circular stage. Two women danced naked, pulling off some pretty good gymnastic moves, and making love to stainless-steel poles. Both were ultrablond, big-haired, rail-thin, with breasts inflated well past biology. Each wore a red garter on her left thigh. The girl with the sun-ray tattoo bluing her entire back had more cash stuffed in hers.

We reached the black vinyl doors. The lanky giant pointed and pushed them open. He stayed behind as we entered a short vestibule with two unmarked wooden doors and one with an aluminum sign that read MANAGER.

Before Milo could knock, the door opened, and a young man wearing an extravagant black toupee smiled and held out his hand. “Rick Savarin. Come on in.”

Savarin had on a soft-draping, powder blue suit with shawl-lapels, black silk T-shirt, blue Gucci loafers with no socks, a gold chain around a too-tan neck. His office was small and functional and smelled like a Shirley Temple. On his desk was a framed photo of a plainlooking woman and a puzzled toddler.

Savarin said, “My sister, back in Iowa. Sit down, make yourselves comfortable. Can I get you guys something to drink?”

“No thanks,” said Milo. “You from Iowa, too?”

Savarin smiled. “Long time ago.”

“Farm boy?”

“That was a real long time ago.” Savarin slid behind his desk, sat, wheeled his chair to the wall, braced himself with a loafer on a drawer handle. On the wall were several nude calendars with the Hungry Bull logo and one from a liquor distributor.

“So,” he said, tenting his hands. He looked around thirty-five, was well built, with puffy blue eyes and a tense mouth. When the mouth opened, a band of flashy dentition blared forth. Snowy caps. The hairpiece looked borrowed.

Milo said, “Angie Paul.”

“Angie?” said Savarin. “She worked here a while back. Her stage name was Angie Blue.”

“The nails.”

“The nails, the G-string, she drove a blue car. It’s a competitive environment, and the girls figure they need something distinctive. In Angie’s case a nice rack would’ve helped, but she convinced herself blue was a big deal.” Savarin chuckled. “So what’s she been up to?”

“We’re looking for her as a person of interest,” said Milo. “When did she stop working here?”

“Four months ago.”

“Did she quit or was she fired?”

“She quit,” said Savarin. “One of the customers- one of her regulars- swept her off her feet.”

“Fraternizing with the customers?”

“It’s against the rules, and we do our best to enforce it. But the girls who work here aren’t exactly into rules.”

“Who was the regular?”

“Some middle-aged guy, used to show up two, three times a week, then we wouldn’t see him, then he’d be back.”

“To see Angie?”

“Always,” said Savarin. “Lucky for her.” He passed a hand over his chest. “Some guys like the natural look. With all the silicone and saline I see all day, frankly a girl with a sweet face and a natural rack is a turn-on for me. But most customers?” He shook his head. “Even guys who like natural want something, and Angie was pretty near flat. I didn’t want to hire her, but she had good hips and a good butt, moved good during her audition. Also, she caught me at a time when I was low on girls.”

“This regular really went for her.”

“He came only on days when she was dancing, sat right in front, kept his eyes on her nonstop. She started doing her thing for him. He tipped her heavy; I guess they developed a relationship.” Savarin scratched his head. “I never saw her do a lap dance for him; that should’ve tipped me off.”

“How so?”

“He had no need for lap because he was getting it after hours.”

“Describe this guy.”

“Middle-aged, pretty ordinary,” said Savarin. “I never learned his name because he always paid cash and sat by himself and one time when I went over to ask if there was anything he needed, he blew me off.”

“What’d he say?”

“He just waved his hand, like don’t bother me, I’m concentrating. Fine with me, it was his cash. He drank mostly soft stuff but a lot of it. Five, six Cokes a night. With lime. Occasionally he’d want some rum in it.”

“Middle-aged,” said Milo.

“I’d say fifty. Six feet tall, kind of skinny- kind of slumpy.”

“Slumpy.”

“Standing bent over, you know? Like something was sitting on his shoulders.”

Milo nodded. “What else?”

Savarin said, “Let’s see… gray hair.”

“Gray comb-over?”

Savarin flinched. “I wouldn’t call it a comb-over. Not a formal, sprayed-in-place comb-over. This was more like he was shoving what he had to one side and forgetting about it.”

“What about his clothes?”

“Casual- sweaters. I can tell you what he drove. Little Baby Benz, black, or maybe gray. Dark. Mr. Businessman. I figured him for money, some guy with an office, a lawyer or something.”

“He always come in by himself?”

“Always. Kept to himself, too.”

“Angie ever mention his name?”

“I’m thinking,” said Savarin. “Maybe Larry? She only mentioned it one time, and that was when she gave her notice. To be honest, I wasn’t sorry to see her go.”

“Small rack,” said Milo.

“That and not the best attitude. Up there- onstage, it’s all about putting yourself in a special place. A giving place. You’ve got to convince the clients you care about them. Angie had a sullen thing going on. Some guys dig that, the thrill of the chase, you know? But most of ’em want big smiles, this big welcome. That’s what we’re all about.”

“Welcoming the clientele.”

“Hospitality,” said Savarin. “When someone spunkier came along I’d probably have let Angie go. You can teach someone moves, but if they don’t want to learn hospitality, you can’t teach them.”

“So she came in here and gave notice and said she was going off with Larry.”

“I think it was ‘Larry,’ ” said Savarin. “Don’t ask me to swear on it.”

“What she say about him?”

“She said she’d gotten a better offer from one of her regulars. Making it sound like she was getting some kind of important job, but I figured he was putting her up on the side.”

“Why’s that?”

“Guy like that,” said Savarin. “Money to burn, she’s thirty years younger than him. You don’t come in here looking for office managers.”

“She said he had an office?”

“Maybe… this was months ago.”

“Could the regular’s name have been ‘Jerry’?” said Milo.

Savarin brightened. “You know I think it was. Larry, Jerry… who is he?”

“A guy.”

“He hurt her?”

Milo shook his head. “What about Christina Marsh?”

“Christi? Friend of Angie’s. Referred Angie to us. She quit, too, maybe a month after Angie. Her I was sorry to see go. Not huge in the chest department but big enough, and with a real nice shape to them- like pears, you know? Sweet little pink nipples, she didn’t have to rouge ’em. Her whole body had this milk-fed thing going on. Limber, too. She could really work the pole.”

“Why’d she quit?”

Savarin shook his head. “Her I don’t know, she just stopped showing up. I called her once, twice, she didn’t return, I moved on.” He held out his hands. “This business, pays to be philosophical.”

“You have a number for her?”

“Probably somewhere. The owners come in periodically and clear paper, but maybe something’s still there.”

“Who are the owners?”

“Consortium of Chinese-American businessmen. Lucky guys.”

“Business is good,” said Milo.

“Business is great, wish I had a piece. I get bonuses, though.”

“Where’s corporate headquarters?” said Milo.

“Monterey Park. The original club is there, it was designed for an Asian clientele. There are seven others besides this one. Ontario, San Bernardino, Riverside. All the way down to San Diego County. My cash flow’s among the best.”

“Any other owners besides the guys from Monterey Park?”

“Nope.”

“Who owns the building?”

Savarin smiled. “Nice little eighty-year-old lady from Palm Springs who inherited from her husband. Grace Baumgarten. She came in one time, watched the girls dance, said she remembered when she could move like that.”

“Anyone else involved in the business?”

“Besides employees?”

“Any other owners?”

“No, that’s it.”

“What about bouncers? Any others besides the guys on tonight?”

“I use some Cal State football players from time to time,” said Savarin.

“Ever use a guy named Ray Degussa?”

“Nope. Who’s he?”

“A guy.”

“Okay, I won’t ask,” said Savarin. “But can I ask why you want to know about Angie and this Jerry guy and Christi? What I mean to say, is it something that could affect business?”

Milo showed him the death shot. Savarin’s tan lost some bronze.

“That’s Christi. Oh, man. What the hell happened to her?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“Christi,” said Savarin. “Oh, man. She was basically a nice kid. Not too smart, but nice. Talk about your farm girl. I think she was from Minnesota or someplace. Natural blonde. Oh, man. That’s a shame.”

“Big shame,” said Milo.

“Let me see if I can find you that paperwork.”

Out in the vestibule Savarin unlocked one of the unmarked doors on a closet full of boxes and bottles of cleaning fluids. He rummaged through file boxes. It took a while but he came up with a single sheet of pink paper labeled Employee Data that listed a Social Security number and a mailing address for Christina Marsh and nothing else.

Vanowen Boulevard, North Hollywood. Not far from Angie Paul’s apartment complex. Christina Marsh had begun working at the club eight months ago, stopped showing up six months later.

Soon after Gavin had begun therapy.

Milo said, “There’s no phone number here.”

Savarin took a look at the sheet. “Guess not. I think she said she hadn’t gotten one yet. Just moved, or something like that.”

“From Minnesota.”

“I think it was Minnesota. She looked Minnesota, real creamy. Sweet kid.”

“Not bright,” I said.

“When she filled this out,” said Savarin, “it took her a real long time, and she was moving her lips. But she was a great worker.”

“Uninhibited,” I said.

“She’d squat for a dollar tip, show you everything. But there was nothing… foxy about it.”

“Sexy but not foxy?”

“Sexy because it wasn’t foxy,” said Savarin. “What I’m trying to say is there was nothing teasy about her. It was like fucking the pole and showing everything was just a way to show off what nature gave her. Wholesome, you know? Guys like that.”

Milo said, “Did she mention where she worked before?”

Savarin shook his head. “When I saw how she moved, I didn’t ask any more questions.”

“She have any regulars?”

“No, she wasn’t that way, she circulated.”

“Unlike Angie.”

“Angie knew she couldn’t compete physically, so she concentrated on finding one guy, really worked him. Christi was a people person, pulled in max tips. That’s why I was surprised when she didn’t show up. How long ago was she… when did it happen?”

“Couple of weeks ago,” said Milo.

“Oh. So she was doing something in between.”

“Any idea what?”

“I’d say dancing at another club, but I’d have found out.”

“The club grapevine.”

Savarin nodded. “It’s a small world. Girl moves to the competition, you hear about it.”

“Who’s the competition?”

Savarin rattled off a list of clubs, and Milo copied them down.

“The girls working tonight,” he said. “Any of them know Christi or Angie?”

“Doubt it. None of them have been here longer than a couple of months. Not at this branch, anyway. That’s our big thing. We cycle the talent.”

I said, “Helps avoid too many ‘Jerrys.’ ”

“Keeps everything fresh,” said Savarin.

Milo said, “It’s a small world. Maybe one of the girls knew Angie or Christi from before.”

“You can go backstage and talk to them, but you’d probably be wasting your time.”

“Well,” said Milo, “I’m no stranger to that.”

Backstage was a cluttered corridor crowded with costumes on racks and makeup on tables, bottles of aspirin and Mydol, lotions and hair clips, ambitious wigs on Styrofoam forms. Three girls lounged in robes, smoking. A fourth, slender and dark, sat naked with one leg propped on a table, trimming her pubis with a safety razor. Up close, the pancake makeup caked. Up close the girls looked like teenagers playing dress-down.

None of them knew Angela Paul or Christina Marsh and when Milo showed them the death shot, their eyes grew frightened and wounded. The girl with the razor began to cry.

We muttered some words of comfort and left the club.

The detectives’ room was empty. We continued to Milo’s office, and he kept the door open and stretched in his chair. It was nearly 2 A.M.

He said, “So what’re they doing in Minnesota? Milking the cows? Harvesting wild rice?” He shook his head. “Milk-fed.”

I said, “Too early to start calling locals?”

He rubbed his eyes. “Want coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

He pulled out the picture of Christi Marsh and stared at it. “Finally, a name.” Switching on his computer, he ran her name through NCIC, the local databases. No hits. Not even a driver’s license, and her Social Security number pulled up no record of employment.

“Phantom girl,” he said.

“If she was freelancing at a cash business,” I said. “There’d be no need for record-keeping?”

“A pro, like you suspected. So where’d she meet Angie?”

“Working at a club that doesn’t file paper. Or Angie was hooking, too. The Vice guys didn’t know Christi because she was new in town, hadn’t gotten caught.”

“Minnesota,” he said. “I’ll start calling there in a couple of hours. Got lots of calls to make. Sure you don’t want some coffee? I’m gonna have some.”

“No sleep for the weary?”

“I got out of the habit.” He pushed himself to his feet, slouched away, returned with a Styrofoam cup. Plopping down, he drank, rubbed his eyes some more.

“When’s the last time you did sleep?” I said.

“Can’t recall. What, you’re fading?”

“I’m good for a while longer.”

He put his cup down. “It’s like there are two parallel things going on, the Jerry Quick side and the Albin Larsen-Sonny Koppel side. I’m having trouble putting them together. Let’s start with Jerry: shady guy, sexually inappropriate, uses prepaid phones, travels a lot, allegedly to trade metals but doesn’t make much money at it. Doesn’t pay his rent on time, chases tail, and doesn’t bother to hide it from his wife. When he’s in town, he leaves his wife alone at night so he can enjoy his favorite stripper. Eventually, he hires her away to be his alleged secretary even though her nails are too damn long for typing. Savarin was probably right, Jerry kept Angie on the side, put her in the office as a way to make it look legit. That way, she’d be in proximity if he felt like a little desktop aerobics. Now he’s gone, and so is Angie.”

“The two of them hiding out together,” I said.

“The question is: hiding from what?”

“Things are falling apart, the scam’s gone bad. Jerry and Angie know why Gavin was murdered. Know they could be next.”

He considered that. “I still can’t see any role for Quick in the scam, but who knows what the hell he’s really about… okay, so maybe he even feels guilty about Gavin, but most of all he doesn’t want the truth to come out because that’ll point the finger at him as helping cause his kid’s death. He cleans out Gavin’s room, stashes Sheila at her sister’s, plans to go back home and finish the cleanup but gets scared and lams, taking Angie with him. She’s got to be freaked out, too- losing her friend, Christi. The girl she and Jerry hooked up with Gavin, to keep Gavin happy.”

“Angie didn’t seem freaked when we talked to her,” I said. “She blinked when you showed her the picture- but that’s still pretty cool.”

“True,” he said. “Cool girl. A pro.”

“In terms of Jerry’s role in the scam, maybe he worked for Sonny as a fixit guy, some kind of procurer. What if he hired Angie away from the club for more than sex on the side? A hooker/stripper might know some cons, and cons are raw meat for the scam.”

“Jerry’s a pimp… They’d have Bennett Hacker and Ray Degussa to supply cons.”

“For all we know,” I said, “it was Jerry who put Hacker and Degussa in contact with the others. Degussa is a bouncer, and a guy like Jerry who frequents strip clubs would meet bouncers. Through Degussa, Jerry met Hacker. He introduced the two of them to Sonny Koppel, who just happened to have an interest in some halfway houses.”

“Jerry’s being Sonny’s tenant was a front, and Sonny spun us that yarn about Jerry not paying his rent to snow us.”

“And to distance himself from Jerry. An enterprising fellow like Sonny would’ve seen the opportunity. He’s got the halfway houses and, because of Jerry Quick, the contacts. Toss in an ex-wife with an interest in prison reform and her partner, a guy with a twenty-year history of making money off misery, and it would’ve seemed perfect.”

“Meeting of the nasty little minds,” he said. “Perfect till it wasn’t.”

I said, “Gavin’s accident started the downward spiral. He underwent personality changes, turned into a stalker, got busted, and needed court-ordered therapy. Sonny could fix that, by sending Gavin to someone who could be counted upon to say the right things to the court. But that good deed came back to bite him, because Gavin started thinking of himself as a muckraker. He snooped and found some serious muck.”

Milo closed his eyes, and sat without moving. For a moment I thought he’d fallen asleep. Then he sat up and stared at me, blankly, as if he’d been dreaming.

I said, “You still with me?”

Slow nod.

“Jerry lied to us about the referral, made up the story about Dr. Silver being his golf partner precisely because he wanted to hide his ties to the group. He suggested it was a sex crime. Another attempt to deflect you.”

“Dear old Dad,” he said. “Claims to be a metals dealer, but he’s really a pimp.”

“With Gavin’s stalking problem, Jerry probably figured he was being a great dad by setting him up with Christi. And Gavin seemed happy, bragged to Kayla about his sex life with his new girlfriend. The only trouble was his brain injury continued to skew his thinking. He took down license numbers, including his father’s. Someone found out, and that got him and poor Christi Marsh killed. Mary Lou figured it out, and it scared the hell out of her. Bilking the Department of Corrections is one thing, murder’s another. Maybe she pressured Sonny and Larsen to drop the whole thing. She knew Sonny carried a torch for her, thought she had him under control. But cornered, Sonny wasn’t harmless, at all. And neither was Albin Larsen.”

“If Bumaya can be believed about Larsen, we’re talking monster.”

“Monster with a Ph.D.,” I said. “Clever, calculating, dangerous. Mary Lou overvalued her own charisma.”

“What about Sheila? In the dark about all of it?”

“Sheila’s got serious emotional problems. She and Jerry have been unavailable to each other for years, but he’s stuck by her for appearances. Now one kid’s out of the house, and the other’s dead. Toss in some panic, and it would be the perfect time for him to split.”

“Appearances,” said Milo. “The house, the Benz, B.H. school district for the kids. Then Gavin gets his cranium shaken up, and it all falls apart. What about the impalement? The sexual angle? For simple executions, shooting would’ve been enough.”

“The impalement’s icing on the cake,” I said. “Someone who enjoys killing. Someone who’s done it before.”

“Ray Degussa,” he said. He got up, walked to the door, looked up and down the empty corridor, said, “It’s quiet,” and sat back down. “So Mary scammed but couldn’t handle murder?”

“She could’ve rationalized the scam, told herself they were doing good, just padding the bill a bit. Who was the victim anyway? A corrupt prison bureaucracy.”

“It’s exactly the line of bullshit an asshole like Larsen would’ve fed her.” He frowned. “Problem is, this whole house of cards is predicated upon a scam, and we don’t even know one exists.”

“I’ll check with Olivia in a few hours.”

“You really think Mary Lou would be foolish enough to threaten Larsen and the others? Would she be blind to the kind of people she was dealing with?”

“Believing your own PR can be very dangerous.”

“What about Gull?”

“Either he was involved, or he wasn’t.”

“I wonder why Gavin fired him.”

“Me, too.”

“Crazy kid,” he said. “Stupid, crazy kid. Crazy family.”

“What about the other kid in the family?” I said. “The one who didn’t come home after her brother died. Sometimes it’s the ones who get away who have the most interesting things to say.”

“Kelly, the law student at BU.”

“Her first year at law school would be over by now. But she stayed in Boston.”

“Another item for the old to-do list. Lots of to-dos. I need to sleep.”

“We both do,” I said.

He struggled to his feet. The rims of his eyes were scarlet, and his face was gray. “Enough,” he said. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”