Flesh And Blood

mouth.”

We made our way past the valets, up brick stairs, and through a low picket gate to the front patio, turning the heads of the see-and-be-seen crowd. Lots of free-floating anxiety and ponytails on heads that didn’t deserve them, big white plates decorated with small green food. Some high fashion, though quite a few people were dressed worse than Milo. But at much higher cost, and everyone knew the difference. The maitre d’s were two white- jacketed, black-T-shirted sticks, both too busy to stop us. But one of them did notice us enter the inner dining room at the rear.

The room was low and dark and cheap-chic, noisy as a power plant. As we made our way among the tables, I heard a man in a five-hundred-dollar Hawaiian shirt urging a waiter, “Speak to me of the crab cakes.”

Gretchen Stengel sat at a corner table opposite a sleek young woman with blue-black skin. A blue liter of esoteric water stood between them. The black woman picked at a salad, and Gretchen twirled a crayfish on a toothpick.

No problem recognizing the Westside Madam; three years ago she’d been evening news fodder for months, and, but for a few age lines, she hadn’t changed much.

Sunken cheeks, lemon-sucking mouth, stringy brown hair, skinny upper body but broad-beamed below the waist. An ungainly waddle as her lawyers hustled her to and from court. Brown eyes that claimed injury when they weren’t shielded by dark lenses. Today the glasses were in place – oversized black ovals that blocked expression.

It would have been easy to ascribe her pallor to the twenty-five months she’d spent behind bars for income tax evasion, but she’d been pale before then. Floppy hats, kabuki-white makeup, and the omnipresent black glasses fed rumors that she hated the sun. Interesting choice, if it was one, for a girl growing up at the beach. Then again, most daughters of Pacific Palisades corporate lawyers don’t grow up to be pimps.

Gretchen Stengel had been raised on two acres overlooking the ocean, attended the Peabody School and summer camps designed to pamper, vacationed at private villas in Venice and chateaus in southern France, flown the Concorde a dozen times before entering puberty.

Rocky puberty. Her arrest led to journalistic archaeology of the Stengel family and discovery of childhood learning problems, drug and DUI busts, and half a dozen abortions beginning when Gretchen was fourteen. At twenty she dropped out of Arizona State, having never declared a major. Unsubstantiated stories had her starring in a series of bottom-feeder porn loops featuring a variety of partners, not all of them two-legged.

Prior to her arrest none of her teenage problems had leaked out of sealed records, nor had she been disciplined by the system. Mildrew and Andrea Stengel were senior partners at Munchley, Zabella, and Cater, a downtown firm with a wide reach. After leaving college Gretchen moved back home to a guesthouse at their estate, attending openings of bad art and premieres of films that lost money, hanging out with the sweating throng of Eurotrash that filled Sunset Plaza cafes. Telling anyone who cared to listen that she was working on a screenplay, had a deal pending at one of the big independent production companies.

At some point she discovered long-hidden organizational skills and began mustering a small army of hookers: girls with great bodies and fresh faces and the ability to operate a credit-card machine. None was older than twenty-five, some had been Peabody School acquaintances, others she spotted on Sunset or the Colony. Many had never sold sex before. All were terrific at faking innocence.

The nerve center of the operation was Gretchen’s free digs behind the parental swimming pool. She called her employees “agents” and put them to work in the lounges and bars of hotels with “Beverly” in their names. Clients paid for the room and the flesh, the girls divvied up for clothing and cosmetics and birth control, and Gretchen financed quarterly medical checkups. Other than doctor bills, phone and credit company charges, her overhead was nil. By the time she was twenty-five, Gretchen was pulling in seven figures a year and lopping off a zero when she filed with the IRS.

What tripped her up was never made clear. The rumor mill spat out the names of famous clients: movie stars, assorted film industry lampreys, politicians, developers. Supposedly Gretchen had run afoul of the LAPD. But no john list ever materialized, and Gretchen sat mute during her indictment.

Her trial was slated to be the Next Big Media Event. Then Gretchen’s lawyer pled her to a single evasion charge and a money-laundering misdemeanor, and bargained her sentence to thirty-two months in federal lockup, plus restitution and penalties. Gretchen served solid but truncated time: no interviews, no wheedling, seven months lopped off for good behavior.

Now she was selling used clothes in a high-rent closet that reeked of weed and hiring ex-employees to stroke the customers.

It suggested an inability to learn from experience, but maybe Gretchen had learned something other than crime doesn’t pay.

Blaming her parents was easy but, like most pat solutions, that was just an excuse not to puzzle. Gretchen’s older brother had achieved honors as a flight surgeon for the Navy, and a younger sister ran a music school in Harlem. Following Gretchen’s arrest someone had suggested middle-child syndrome. They might as well have indicted the lunar cycle. Mildrew and Andrea Stengel were high-powered lawyers but by all accounts attentive parents. The week after Gretchen’s conviction they resigned their partnerships and moved to Galisteo, New Mexico, purportedly to live “the simple life.”

Milo and I walked up to the table. Gretchen had to have seen us, but she ignored us and tweaked the tail of the crayfish. Edging the creature toward her mouth, she changed her mind, drew back her arm, flicked the crustacean’s tail as if daring it to resuscitate. Then back to her lips. Licking but not biting. Some weight-loss behavior-mod trick? Play with your calories but never ingest them?

Nearby diners had begun to stare. Gretchen didn’t react. Her companion lacked Gretchen’s composure and started fidgeting with her salad. Scallops on something saw-toothed and weedlike. She was young like Gretchen, with cropped hair, felonious cheekbones, and slanted eyes, wore a sleeveless yellow sundress, pink coral necklace and earrings, long, curving nails painted a lighter shade of coral. All that color achingly dramatic against flawless black skin.

Gretchen’s cuticles were a wreck. She had on a shapeless black sweatshirt and black leggings. Her hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a week. The black lenses did their trick, putting her somewhere else.

Milo moved so he could smile down at the black woman. “Nice dress. Does it have a past?”

Painful smile in response.

“Have a bug,” said Gretchen, waving the crayfish. “That’s what they are. Bugs.” Her voice was nasal and scratchy. The black woman grimaced.

Milo said, “Thanks for the biology lesson, Ms. Stengel.”

Gretchen said, “Actually, they’re more like spiders.” To the black woman: “Think spiders taste any good?” Her lips barely moved when she spoke. The black woman put her fork down and picked up her napkin.

“What about flies and caterpillars?” said Gretchen. “Or slugs.”

Milo said, “Lauren Teague.”

The black woman wiped her mouth. Gretchen Stengel didn’t budge.

Milo said, “Lauren-”

“It’s a name,” said Gretchen.

The black woman said, “If you’ll excuse me, please,” and started to rise.

“Please stay,” said Milo.

“I have to go to the little girls’ room.” She reached down for her purse. Milo had placed his foot over the strap.

“Please,” she said.

Conversation at neighboring tables had died. A waiter came over. A glance from Milo made him retreat, but seconds later one of the white-jacketed maitre d’s arrived.

“Officer,” he said, sidling up to Milo and managing to spit out the word while smiling wider than his lips had been built for. “You are a police officer?”

“And here I thought I was being subtle.”

“Please, sir, this isn’t the place and time.”

Gretchen twirled the crayfish. The black woman hung her head.