“Wouldn’t any guy notice a girl like that?” he said. “Even guys who do this.” Aping the limp-wristed dangle.
I laughed. “Maybe he’s not as monogamous as he claims.”
“Cuties on the side and she was one of them?”
“I keep coming back to the club layout. For all his claims about hating the place, meeting there could’ve been a turn-on. How about seeing if James and Del-whatever can elucidate.”
“Common name,” he said. “How about James Brown—wouldn’t that be a hoot? Man’s world and all that.”
Half a block later, he stopped, found a panatela in a trouser pocket, rolled it between his fingers, and resumed walking. “Maybe I’m getting too far afield. I keep thinking about what Lee Cardell told us.”
“Baby’s wild ride in Vegas.”
“A bride who fools with a male stripper, a few days later a dead female stripper? Do boys and girls in that world hang out?”
“No idea,” I said. “It’s been years since I experienced the joys of the skin trade.”
He stopped again. “You’ve got a past?”
“Back when I was playing music the musicians spent after-hours at topless places.”
“And you tagged along.”
“I was eighteen and they paid for my illegal drinks.”
“Bunch of hopheads out to corrupt you. Did it take?”
I smiled.
He said, “Dr. Enigma Within A Puzzle. I’m also still wondering about the injection, the whole medical thing, so while I waited for ol’ Ronnie, I looked into the Mastros’ civil status. Distressingly clean, not a single malpractice claim, which in these days is something. A few patients of Dr. Stuart Mastro do yelp at him for having a cold bedside manner. Dr. Marilee seems to be more popular.”
“What about Dr. Wilbur?”
“No ratings at all. Maybe ranchers and farmers are too busy to spout off online. Okay, let’s head back.”
CHAPTER
7
As we neared the station, I said, “James the bouncer probably spends a lot of time in the gym. If he does live in the Valley, Moe might know him.”
“The kid’s Mr. Muscles but the Valley’s a big place, Alex.”
“It’s a long shot but we’re not talking Spinning classes. You want to get huge, you’d need serious iron.”
“Optimism,” he said. “Tsk, tsk, after all you’ve seen, you still won’t change your ways.”
* * *
—
Moe Reed was also working on Sunday, doing paperwork at his desk in the big detective room. The room was half empty and Reed wore a black T-shirt and sweats. Off-shift but wanting to tackle paper.
Milo beckoned him out to the corridor.
“Where does someone in the Valley go to look like Arnold? Or you?”
Reed stared at him. “You’re considering an exercise plan, L.T.?”
“When swine aviate.” Milo slapped the young D’s massive left biceps. The resulting sound was cardboard on teak. “Where’s your gym, kid?”
“I alternate,” said Reed. “Got a pretty good setup in my spare bedroom but there’s a limit to how much I can put in there, don’t want the floor to cave. So for the big stuff, there’s a place in Sherman Oaks—”
“Name.”
“The Iron Cage. Can I ask why, L.T.?”
Milo explained.
Reed said, “Don’t know of any Dels but there’s a Jim sometimes spots me. And a James. And a Jameson, but none are bald. There are some bald guys whose names I don’t know but the only black one’s a little guy who deadlifts four hundred.”
“Hair grows, Moses. Last names?”
Reed shook his head. “It’s not at that level, we don’t hang. Someone needs a spotter, it’s a courtesy to do it. You’re sure about the age?”
“That’s what the club owner said.”
“Then Jimmy’s too young, more of a kid, maybe twenty. James and Jameson are both in their thirties. Also, they live together, L.T.”
“A couple.”
“I assume,” said Reed.
“The club owner thought James was gay.”
“Ah…I’m not sure I see either of them as bouncers. They’re kind of…refined. Talk as if they’re educated and drive a new Jag.”
“All bouncers are apes?”
“When I did it, they were.”
“When was that, kid?”
“After I graduated high school. Just for a month, I didn’t like the atmosphere so I got a job driving a liquor delivery truck. Got to carry heavy boxes.”
Milo looked at me. “First you, now him.”
Reed said, “Pardon?”
“Apparently everyone’s got a history, Moses. Alex will fill you in on his, if we ever get some spare time. Can you get me surnames on James and Jameson?”
“I’ll give it my best, L.T.” Reed turned back to the big room. Milo caught him by the elbow.
“Do it in my office, away from the riffraff.”
* * *
—
Office in function, closet in size. The long-ago, vindictive decision of a corrupt police chief who’d retired under pressure and traded Milo for silence.
My friend’s payoff was an evasion of departmental orthodoxy: instant promotion to lieutenant, normally an administrative rank. The big payoff: allowed to continue working cases rather than drive a desk.
Every succeeding chief eventually found out about the arrangement and like any other self-righteous cleric, began by setting out to annul it. Each backed down because Milo’s close rate was even higher than the Robbery-Homicide honchos downtown, why mess with success.
The non-office stemmed from the hostile chief’s conviction that solitary confinement in a windowless room off a grubby hallway would be cruel and inhuman punishment.
Milo took to it like a bear to a den.
Along the way, he developed a working relationship with other cops when necessary, had progressed to creating a mini-cadre composed of Binchy and Reed. But he’d never forget the time when LAPD claimed homosexual officers didn’t exist and he’d endured isolation and worse and made solitude his thing.
He’d lasted long enough to see huge changes in the department’s treatment of gays and everyone else, but continued to keep a low profile and avoid advocacy.
Sticking to his personal motto: Do The Damned Job.
As he and Reed lumbered up ahead, taking up nearly the width of the corridor, I wondered how the three of us would fit in what passed for his personal space.
* * *
—
We wouldn’t. Milo and I stood outside while Reed worked the phone.
It didn’t take long, no ruse necessary. He simply began by asking the gym owner and got his answer.
Scrawling the info on a Post-it, he said, “Thanks, Rod, hoping to have time tomorrow—yeah, keeping the city safe.”
Milo said, “At The Cage, you’re a VIP.”
Reed blushed and shrugged. “I’ve interceded in a few situations. Also, I pay my membership on time.”
* * *
—
James Earl Johnson, Jameson Raymond Farquahar.
Milo called up the DMV shots.
“That’s them,” said Reed.
“Thanks. What were you doing when I interrupted you?”
“Robbery-assault, transcribing witness statements.”
“Okay, back to reality.”
“Happy to get away from it, L.T. Thanks for the break.”
“Happy to distract you when there’s something to do.”
“Bring it on, you know how I feel about robbery,” said Reed. “Assault I can deal with but the assault part on this one’s wimpy—someone got slapped.” Shaking his head and rolling massive back muscles, he trotted away.
Milo and I stepped back into the office, where he squeezed into his rolling desk chair and I stuck myself in my usual corner.
We examined the stats on both men. Johnson was six-four, two eighty-three, Farquahar six-five, two seventy-nine. The similarity ran beyond dimension: Birth dates put them a year apart—thirty-three and thirty-four—and they bore enough facial similarity to be fraternal twins.
I said so.
Milo said, “Brothers not boyfriends? You think Moe’s gaydar’s out of tune?”
“I think they look alike.”
He grunted. “Whatever the story, they live together in Studio City.”
He ran criminal searches, came up empty, checked vehicle regs and found a white Jag and a black Porsche Macan.