Hella Nation - Evan Wright [79]
Troy Langdon and Sean Southland never stand trial for robbery, conspiracy or insurance fraud. With the death of Simberg, the main witness against them, their attorneys negotiate lenient deals in which they plead to lesser fraud charges and are sentenced to time served—the few days each served in jail after their arrests in October.
While awaiting final disposition of his case, Langdon continues to live in Carefree with his wife, who just gave birth to their second baby. He still works at his in-laws’ pharmacy, though he has dissolved Peak Physique and quit the HGH business. “People in my neighborhood look at the HGH business almost like it’s sleazy,” he says.
Langdon attributes the “bogus case” Britt and others in the Phoenix Police Department pursued against him to “jealous cops working their pissant jobs, and they can’t figure out how a kid like me is making this much money. They conclude with their pea-size brains that I’m doing something illegal.”
Langdon and Southland aren’t as close as they used to be. But Langdon still calls Southland a “good friend” and Sea Castle “a damn good idea.”
For his part, Southland expresses his sincerest remorse at all the events of the past year, even Simberg’s murder. He stands in the half-light by his private basketball court watching his son and daughter shoot hoops. “It’s really sad,” he says. He’s alone with the kids tonight, as he is most nights, since Olga spends every free hour working to pay for their home and his legal defense. And, he laments, he has become something of a pariah. “Parents don’t let their kids come over,” he says.
13. “THE TWO TITTY-DANCING SISTERS”
CHRISTIE’S CABARET, the club where Ksenya and Olga still perform their act, is one of the largest in Phoenix, with a vast interior that somehow manages to be dark and glittering at once. Most nights you can see the sisters working their act up onstage before they begin to solicit lap dances from customers. They are a bit of an odd couple. Olga, tall and angular, holds her head high like an Olympic figure skater gliding past the judges. Ksenya, shorter and rounder, projects a sort of defiant barroom sloppiness. She drinks on the job, chain-smokes and greets the looks from her customers with a churlish snarl.
Though Olga and Ksenya work together on physically intimate terms, they hate and fear each other intensely. Ksenya believes that Southland is responsible for Simberg’s death; Olga fears that Ksenya’s testimony might send Southland or even her to prison. Even though their breasts will sometimes touch in the course of a lap dance, they seldom talk to each other, except to exchange the briefest, most impersonal information. Explaining how they manage to work together, Ksenya says, “I don’t think about my sister or the customer or anything. I only think about the money.”
When she gets off work, at about two A.M., Ksenya invariably thinks about Simberg. She often remembers the day the police showed up at her door and asked Ksenya to sketch one of Simberg’s four tattoos. She drew a sunburst that had been high on his arm. When a policeman looked at Ksenya’s sketch and nodded, she knew it meant her Konstantin was dead.
Later, Ksenya drove up to the Yavapai County morgue to identify her boyfriend’s body. “What they did to him was disgusting,” she says. “His face was swelled like a ball, and his skin was burned off the top of his head.” She prefers to remember the last time she saw him alive. He had big plans then. He said, “I’m getting money. Tomorrow we are going to Vegas, and we are going to have so much fun.”
14. AFTERMATH
CHRIS ANDREWS TURNED HIMSELF IN to police in January 2002, and in 2003 he was tried and convicted of murdering Simberg. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Dennis Tsoukanov was tried as an accomplice to murder and convicted. He will be eligible