Mystery

by Jonathan Kellerman

  One long stride propelled him out of the tiny office. He whistled his way up the hall.

  “Maude lives in L.A.?”

  “Pico near Hoover. No driver’s license but last year she got pulled in for shoplifting downtown. Trying to boost crapola from one of those stalls the Central Americans set up in the old theaters on Broadway. She pled to petty-t, got a thirty-day at County, was out in ten due to overcrowding. I couldn’t find any landline or cellular account and she doesn’t pay taxes, but I might as well give it a try. No matter what she is, she deserves to know.”

  I said, “Tiara lives large on Mark Suss’s dough but Mommy holes up in the inner city.”

  “Maybe the kid didn’t appreciate her pedigree.”

  The address matched a decrepit, four-story, hundred-year-old apartment building neighbored by similar masterpieces and besmirched by gang graffiti: Stompy, Topo, and Sleepy celebrating some kind of victory in greasy black Olde English lettering.

  Rusting fire escapes ended raggedly in the middle of the second story. A lot of the windows were boarded with plywood and the ones that weren’t were dark. No external mailboxes; anything out in the open would stay unmolested for an eyeblink.

  A group of shaved-head Latino teenagers who might’ve been Stompy or Topo or Sleepy slouched away when we got out of the car. Women with Rivera-mural faces pushed babies in strollers as if nothing but motherhood mattered. A shrunken old man in gray work clothes sat on a bus bench in front of the building, watching the traffic on Pico. The vehicular roar waxed Wagnerian on both sides of the boulevard.

  Milo scanned the wall art. “Why exclude Dopey and Sneezy?” He rang the shabby building’s bell.

  No bell or buzzer sounded and when he nudged the button, it fell to the sidewalk. “Let’s check out the back.”

  As we headed toward the corner the old man on the bench craned. A voluminous white mustache spread wider than his face. “Hey, police.”

  Milo said, “Hi there.”

  “You looking for someone in that dump?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sir. I like that.” The mustache was waxed, curlicued at the ends. His skin was the well-worn brown leather of a scholar’s desktop, his eyes black and avian. Rough but clean hands. Same for the work clothes. An oval over the left pocket said Jose.

  “You ain’t gonna find anyone.”

  A double-long bus rumbled up to the bench. The man sat there. The bus cleared phlegm from its craw, lurched forward just as the light turned red, crossed the intersection to a blare of horns and obscenities.

  Milo said, “Why’s that, sir?”

  “No one lives there, it’s condemned.”

  “For how long?”

  “Few months ago, maybe three. There was a fire, some immigrant cooking on a illegal hot plate. They put it out but it wrecked the foundation. Building and Safety came and closed the place up.”

  “You live around here?”

  “Not around. There.” A callused finger jabbed at a building two lots east.

  “There’s no notice posted,” said Milo.

  “How ’bout that,” said the man, chuckling. “Maybe someone needed scratch paper.”

  “Anyone hurt in the fire?”

  “The immigrant’s two kids died and I heard she got turned into something you don’t wanna look at. Couple neighbors got sick from smoke and one of them died, too. Go call the fire department, they’ll tell you. You wanna go back there see for yourself, go ’head. It’s all black and hollow and you can’t get in unless you get through the fences of the other buildings. They say they’re gonna demolish but they don’t do it. Can’t figure out why it just don’t fall down.”

  “Who owns the building?”

  “The kind of folk own buildings. Who you looking for?”

  Milo said, “A woman named Maude Grundy. Forty-four years old but she looks older.”

  “Dead,” said the man.

  “You knew her?”

  “Knew she was Maude, she never gave a last name. Even if I didn’t know her I’d know she’s dead because the person who died in the fire was the only white woman living in the place. She woulda stood out even if she didn’t behave like she did.”

  “How’d she behave?”

  “Drunk, walking around like she was crazy. Trying to sell herself.” He huffed. “Like anyone would buy that. You say she was forty?”

  “Forty-four.”

  “I’da guessed seventy. Maybe sixty-five if she put on lipstick and she didn’t. I’m seventy-seven and to me she looked old.”

  “How’d she pay her rent?”

  “Maybe she was a brain surgeon,” said the old man. “How should I know? I worked fifty years doing landscaping, made the mistake of doing it for private companies not the city so I got no bloated-up pension and now I’m stuck living here. My building, everyone pays rent, we got families, mostly good people. That place? Lowlifes. Everyone was happy to see it burn. There was all sorts going in and out, never no manager. Anyway, she’s dead. Ten-dollar Maude. So don’t waste your time looking for her.”

  “Ten dollars is what she charged?”

  “So they say. She gave me the look, I went the other way. Poor can mean unlucky but it don’t mean stupid.”

  A call to the coroner pulled up Maude Grundy’s death certificate. Two months and two weeks ago, pulmonary failure due to smoke inhalation. The body had been signed out by Tara Sly of Lloyd Place in West Hollywood and sent to a mortuary on Mission Road, across the street from the crypt.

  Milo said, “I know what that place is,” but he phoned anyway.

  Undertaker’s school, conveniently located. Maude Grundy’s remains had ended up as a teaching tool for the freshman class.

  “Donating Mom to science,” he said, “and not even to a med school. With Suss’s dough, Tiara could’ve managed some kind of funeral, at the very least a cremation. Instead she relegates Mommy to the formaldehyde gang. Okay, let’s find the mysterious flesh peddler who’s not Gretchen.”

  Rubbing his face. “Anything you want to say about that?”

  I said, “I wonder how far our princess progressed from ten-buck transactions.”

  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 Westsi
de 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.”