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-lame 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 …”
“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?”
