“No fights to break up?” said Milo.
“None that I had to deal with. We’re talking sad wimpy guys who didn’t even catch on to watered-down booze. It was depressing.”
Milo said, “Who was the other bouncer?”
“I worked with a bunch of them,” said James Johnson. “Like I said, people came and went. Good security’s in demand, at solid places you get full benefits plus serious gratuity potential if there’s people wanting you to VIP ’em. No way Salami could hold on to serious staff.”
I said, “No VIP lounge at The Aura.”
He laughed. “Not hardly.”
“Salawa said there was a bouncer named Del something.”
“DelRay Hutchins. You guys follow the Olympics?”
“Some of it.”
“DR powerlifted on the 1990 team. Guy could dead close to eight hundred pounds, back in those days he could’ve qualified for one of those World’s Strongest Man competitions. Not anymore, Eddie Hall just went eleven hundred pounds. But Eddie’s Eddie and who wants to bulk up to four-hundred-plus and wear a breathing machine?”
Milo said, “Del worked with you for how long?”
“Maybe the last couple weeks I was there,” said Johnson. “Nice person. There were also some foreign guys—Russians, Finns, Croats, a massive dude from Morocco, an Israeli into that Krav Maga. Mostly older dudes, doing it part-time for a retirement gig, can’t tell you their names. Soon as I found out the Roxy was hiring, I got the heck out of there. Door work wasn’t my main focus, anyway. After a couple of years at Cal State L.A. and the weights team, I transferred to Tulane and got to defensive tackle. The NFL would’ve been nice but not with my injured ACL.”
He massaged the back of one leg. “The goal was to get myself a high school coaching thing or build a career as trainer. I ended up with training, best thing ever happened.”
He checked the time on his phone. “Five more minutes. Brentwood client’s a producer’s wife with an eating disorder. She is not into waiting.”
Milo said, “What can you tell us about Kimba?”
“Good looking, quiet, like I said, not putting on any sexy moves onstage—basically she’d get up and fake it. Can’t blame her, the losers coming in there weren’t exactly stuffing Benjamins in g-strings.”
I said, “Going through the motions.”
“Minimal motions,” said Johnson. He got to his feet with astonishing speed and grace, rounded his back. Letting his arms sag, he sidestepped to the right, the left, then back.
“The shuffle, you know? Like guys who can’t dance but they’re with a hot girl who can so they try to be part of it? That was her. Back and forth.”
He sat back down and took another swig of vegetable matter.
I said, “Low-key and quiet.”
James Johnson thought about that. “Not unfriendly-quiet. More like…reserved. She’d come in and say hi but she wasn’t like the others.”
“Not a lot of reserved dancers.”
Johnson smiled. “I did it long enough so I can generalize. Girls like that, they’re basically show-offs—exhibitionists. Same deal with actresses—some of the dancers still think they can become actresses.”
I said, “Look at me, look at me, look at me.”
“Exactly. Look at my body, look at my sexy face, look at my moves. Kimba wasn’t into that—oh, yeah, she dressed different, too. I’m not talking her stage stuff. What she wore when she arrived.”
He smiled. “Guess that’s what you meant by jogging the memory.”
I said, “What were her street clothes?”
“Baggy sweaters, jeans, running shoes. No makeup, hair in a high pony. Okay, here’s something—another jog. She carried a backpack instead of one of those big fake designer things the other girls were into.”
“Did her being different lead to conflict?”
“Not that I ever saw. But like I told you, I am not the expert, here. She definitely didn’t hang with the other girls. In between shifts, the rest of them would be drinking or smoking or on the phone or doing their nails, whatever. Kimba would go into a corner, take a book out of her backpack, and read. Or she’d write something in a book, like a diary.”
“Maybe a puzzle book?”
“Hmm,” said Johnson. “Yeah could’ve been a Sudoku, crossword, word search, something like that. Jamie—my husband—gets into bed with one of those numbers thing and…” He mimed a giant yawn and grinned. “So, yeah, maybe. I wasn’t paying close attention.”
He took another look at his phone. “Two minutes.”
I said, “What car did Kimba drive?”
“Some compact, Toyota, Honda, they all look the same to me. Gray, maybe? Or brown? Or blue? Honestly, I wasn’t paying attention. Now I really have to go.”
He stood, took car keys out of a pocket, and faced the Macan.
Milo said, “Just one more thing, sir. Do you have DelRay Hutchins’s number handy?”
“No reason I would. What I can tell you is I think he moved to Lancaster. He got himself a high school football thing.”
Milo thanked him again and handed over his business card. “Anything else comes to mind, sir, please call.”
“Sure. Kimba a victim. Man, that’s sad. Where did it happen?”
“At The Aura.”
“She went back there? Why the heck?”
“Good question, sir.”
“Wow,” said James Johnson. “Life’s short, man, it’s short.”
CHAPTER
8
Three public high schools in Lancaster. DelRay Hutchins didn’t work at Lancaster, Eastside, or Antelope Valley. Same for half a dozen religious academies in the area.
I said, “Maybe he didn’t score a high school gig.”
Milo nodded. “Time to dial down.”
Moments later, the utterly uncurious receptionist at Piute Middle School said, “Coach? Let me try to find him.”
A few beats later, Milo had finished a brief conversation with the fifty-three-year-old former powerlifter/AFL footballer/bouncer now training tweens in the fine art of collision.
No, Hutchins had never worked with a Kimba or a Kimby but maybe there was a girl named Kimmie-Lee who matched the victim’s physical stats? Don’t hold him to it.
Milo said, “Anything you remember would be useful.”
“There’s not much,” said Hutchins.
His hazy recollections jibed with James Johnson’s: quiet girl, stuck to herself, no problems with anyone he’d ever noticed, yeah, he’d heard The Aura closed down, why in the world would she return to “that trash dump”?
He was able to give Milo the numbers of two other dancers at The Aura (“friends of mine, no problem telling them I told you, they love me”).
* * *
—
Anja “Catwoman” Przdowek and Brooklynne “Slinky” Baker roomed together on the western rim of Los Feliz. Both had arrests for minor drug possession and, in Slinky’s case, for prostitution, twice.
They came on the phone simultaneously, giggling about being questioned by a “murder detective.” Both proclaimed their “total adorable love” for Hutchins. “We don’t see DR much since he moved but when he lived in Hollywood, he was kinda like a father to us.”
Neither of them had other than a faint remembrance of the girl they recalled as Kimmy.
Quiet, stayed to herself.
Catwoman said, “Not mean-quiet, like shy-quiet.”
Slinky did recall “two bizarre things.” Kimmy didn’t drink or smoke and she liked to read.
“Like a nerd,” said Catwoman.
Milo said, “What did she read?”
“Like I’m gonna notice? You notice, honey?”
Slinky said, “Like I’m gonna notice? It’s like she wasn’t there, sir.”
Milo said, “Staying in the background.”
“Yeah,” said Catwoman. “Not a star, that’s for sure.”
“Do you have numbers for any of the other girls who worked with her?”
“Negative,” said Slinky. “Them bitches come and gone. Me and Cat are a couple.”
“Got it.”
“Hope you do. We’re in love!”
Shared laughter.
Milo said, “You guys have been helpful. Anything else you want to say?”