Mystery (28 page)

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 Westside 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.”

“Did drugs or booze have anything to do with that?”

“People get tired without drugs and booze.”

“No substance abuse issues.”

“Some people have self-control.”

“Her mother didn’t.”

“What mother? She had no mother,” said Olga Koznikov.

“She was born in a test tube?”

“Her mother died when she was a little girl. In Colorado.”

“What town in Colorado?”

“Vail. She grew up in the snow. Once upon a time.”

“That so.”

“Her mother taught skiing, died in an accident, she was raised by the county.”

“What about her father?”

“Swiss tourist, she never knew him.”

“She told you that.”

“She showed me a picture.”

“Of Vail.”

“A pretty woman with a baby. Snow.”

“Interesting,” said Milo.

Koznikov’s cheeks fluttered.

“Olga, her mother was a woman named Maude Grundy. She was an alcoholic streetwalker from New Mexico who gave birth to Tara when she was fifteen. Tara’s birth certificate says father unknown. Maude had a rough life, moved to L.A. at some point but we can’t figure out exactly when. Whether or not Tara brought her here is unclear. If she did, they probably had a falling-out because Tara let Maude live in a dump that burned down two and a half months ago. Maude died in the fire and Tara didn’t pay a cent to bury her.”

Koznikov had listened impassively. Now she took long sips from the can. Suppressed a belch and smiled. “You are telling me this to make me sad.”

“I’m telling you in case Tara told you anything that was actually true and might help us find who murdered her.”

She turned to me. “Your question I can now answer. Yes, the old ones liked her. I thought okay, she has no father, makes sense. This much is true, even if he was not Swiss.”

“What does having no father have to do with them liking her?” said Milo.

“They liked her because she liked
them
. That’s all of it—love, sex, pleasure. You like me, I like you. One of them—what if once upon a time one of them, a very old, kind man, told me Tara was ‘patient’? That would explain it, no? That would help you understand.”

I said, “Patience is a good quality in a young person.”

“Good and so rare.”

“How about a time line?” said Milo. “When did she start working with you, when did she finish?”

“Three years is a long time to do anything.”

“How long have you had this place?”

“Eighteen years.”

“You don’t get tired.”

“I am lucky.”

“Three-year stint,” said Milo. “How long before that had she been in L.A. working for bad people?”

“A year.”

“So she arrived seven years ago.”

“You are good in math. I need calculators.”

“Did she talk about living anywhere else but Colorado?”

“Yes, but now I don’t know what’s true and what is not.”

“We can sift that out, Olga. Where else did she say she lived?”

“Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma.”

“Not New Mexico.”

“No.”

“What else can you tell us?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing, huh?”

“Unfortunately.”

I said, “What did she do after she quit?”

The hand left her breast and fluffed her hair. Curls expanded then sprang back like metal springs. “The computer.”

“She started selling herself online?”

“Not selling,” said Koznikov. “Advertising. For relationship.”

“She told you she wanted a relationship.”

“I don’t meddle with the baby birds.”

“But you found out she’d gone online.”

“Things get around.”

“Did you talk to her about it?”

“The computer,” she said, “is magic. It can be black magic.”

“No security,” I said. “Unlike a face-to-face business with guys like William for protection.”

“William sells furniture.”

“Did you ever find out who she hooked up with online?”

“My guess is a rich man.”

“She never told you.”

“I don’t meddle.”

“Things get around,” I said.

“They do.”

“You didn’t resent her leaving.”

“Some jobs you can do when you are tired.”

“Not Tara’s.”

“The cow with empty udders doesn’t give milk.”

“Why do you guess she was with a rich man?”

“I saw her getting out of a car,” said Koznikov. “Rodeo Drive, the fancy stores for the skinny girls. Nice little BMW. She carried bags.”

“From which stores?”

“Too far to read the bags.”

“Was she by herself?”

“Yes.”

“You assumed a rich boyfriend was paying for her shopping spree.”

“She didn’t have an MBA.”

Milo said, “I’m going to give you a fact, Olga. Because we value your help. The rich man she found was named Mark Suss.”

“Okay.”

“Old guy. Was he one of her regulars?”

“I don’t know this Suss.”

“You know another Suss?”

Koznikov tugged a curl. “I don’t know him, I don’t know what Tara did with him, I don’t know anything.”

“She never talked to you about Suss?”

“How do you spell this?”

“S-U-S-S.”

“Short name,” she said. “It’s real?”

“Quite. Rich Beverly Hills family.”

“You think they hurt her?”

“Not at this point. How about the bad men she worked with before she found guidance? Would any of them still be angry enough to hurt her?”

Koznikov’s laugh was the sputter of a faulty ignition. “We are talking dirt.”

“Dirt can have a bad temper.”

Her eyes chilled. “Dirt gets stepped on.”

“So no need to bother looking for her first pimps.”

“No need.” She rolled a hand into a fist. “This Suss, you have talked to him?”

“He died.”

“Ah.”

“After she left, did she ever return to you?”

“For what?”

“A social call?”

She went quiet. Relaxed pudgy fingers.

“Olga?”

“Okay, I will tell you something. She came back one time. For advice.”

“When?”

“Maybe two years. Give or take.”

“A year after she retired.”

“Okay.”

“What’d she want advice about?”

“How to build a good relationship.”

“With who?”

“She didn’t say. Later, I see her in her little BMW, the clothes.”

“Striking it rich and wanting to settle down?” said Milo. “Every call girl’s fantasy.”

“Big joke to you,” said Olga Koznikov, “but not always funny.”

“It happens, huh?”

“I could give you names. Girls acting in movies, wives of rich men. Even lawyers.”

“Even.”

Koznikov grinned. “Not everyone knows how to use the mouth right.”

I said, “Tara wanted to build a relationship. Something more than sex.”

“She was happy, I was happy. She was a nice girl.”

“What else can you tell us about her?”

“Nothing.” Staring at us. “Now it’s
really
nothing.”

Milo said, “Did William know her?”

“William sells furniture.”

“Even so.”

“Even so, no.”

“Back in the theoretical days, you had others like him. To set limits.”

Koznikov held out her hands.

“Was one of your musclemen a guy named Steven Muhrmann?”

Koznikov yanked a curl hard enough to shake loose several snowy hairs. They floated midair, wafted onto her desk. She brushed them away. “Why do you ask about him?”

“So he did work for you.”

Her fingers drummed the desk. She picked up the soda can, crushed it with one hard squeeze. “Briefly.”

“When Tara worked for you.”

Silence.

Milo said, “Were he and Tara close?”

“No.”

“You seem sure.”

Koznikov rubbed her forehead.

“What, Olga?”

“Him,” she said. “I told Tara, she agreed with me.”

“You told her to stay away from Muhrmann.”

“All the girls,” said Koznikov. She pitched forward, bosoms intruding on the desk. “You are saying he’s the one?”

Milo said, “We’re saying he associated with Tara after she retired. We’d like to speak to him but haven’t been able to find him. Any ideas?”

“Did he do it?”

“We don’t know, Olga.”

“But it’s possible.”

“Anything’s possible but no, he’s not a suspect and I don’t want you to act on that assumption.”

“I don’t act.”

“I’m serious, Olga.”

“Fool,” she spat. “He is the actor.”

“He wanted to act?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“He lied.”

“So?”

“Lying is good practice for acting.”

“What’d he lie about?”

“Goofing around, not working.”

“Booze, dope, rock and roll.”

“Loser,” she said.

“How’d you find him?”

“One of my properties, we did construction. He was digging foundation. Big muscles. I thought maybe he’d be okay, because he’s gay.”

“Muhrmann’s gay?”

“I thought,” she said. “Taking care of the body like that, the yellow hair, very tan.”

Milo smiled. “Only gay men do that.”

“Gay men are the best,” she said. “Take care of the girls, no problems.”

“Muhrmann didn’t take care of anything.”

“Bum,” she said. “Loser.”

“Did he have a particular thing for Tara?”

“No. Fool.”

“Not a smart guy.”

“I’m talking about
her
,” said Koznikov.

“She was stupid for hanging with Muhrmann.”

“You play, you pay.” She rubbed her hands together. “Okay, I’m finished.”

Hoisting herself out of her chair, she pointed to the door. No more than five feet tall. Thin, tight lips gave her the look of a venomous toad.