said, “Verified.” Under place of employment, she’d listed
1. Rick Savarin (manager, THB)
2. Christina Marsh (coworker)
I said, “You ever check out her references?”
Ballou said, “She showed me pay stubs.”
“What about previous landlords?” said Milo. “Isn’t it standard to call them?”
“I think,” said Ballou, “that she said she was from out of town.”
“Where?”
“Is this going to matter? Oh, man.”
Milo said, “Where out of town?”
“I don’t remember. She made enough money to handle the rent easily and came up with first, last, and damage deposit. So she stripped, big deal. She’s been an okay tenant.”
Milo folded the application and put it in his pocket. “Let’s have a look at her place.”
Angie Paul’s unit was similar in dimension to Ballou’s. Also neatly kept, with a smaller TV, cheap furniture, cotton throws, a couple of rose-and-kitten prints on the walls. The smell of heavy, musky perfume reached the doorway where I stood near Chad Ballou.
Milo disappeared into the bedroom area. Ballou tapped his foot, and said, “So far, so good?”
I smiled. It didn’t comfort him.
A minute later, Milo emerged saying, “Nothing moldering. When Ms. Paul shows up, don’t tell her we were here but give me a call.” He handed Ballou a card.
“Sure… can I lock up?”
“Yup.”
The three of us descended the stairs, and Milo had Ballou point out Angie Paul’s parking slot. Empty.
“She still driving a ’95 Camaro?”
“Think so,” said Ballou. “Yeah, bright blue.”
We returned to the Seville. Half past midnight. No parking ticket.
“Lady Luck’s smiling down on us,” said Milo. “Finally.”
I said, “Christina Marsh.”
“Yeah, could be.”
I started up the engine and he slapped a manic cha-cha beat on the dashboard. Three Scotches and Lord knew how many consecutive work hours, and he was running a mental marathon.
“Good morning,” I said.
“You tired?”
“Not a bit.”
“Me neither. When’s the last time you visited a strip joint?”
“Not for a while.”
“I’ve been to a few,” he said. Big grin. “Seen women strip, too.”
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
“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.”
