Hollywood Hang Ten by Eve Goldberg

Author:Eve Goldberg [Goldberg, Eve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thistle Publishing
Published: 2017-10-04T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

I woke up feeling pressure. It was like a pile of bricks pressing down on my chest. Each brick had a name inscribed on it. Panozzo . . . Sutton . . . Leon . . . Cora Flynn . . . Victor Dargin . . .

One of Lou’s favorite sayings floated up into my mind:

There are no coincidences. Coincidence is just the word people use when they don’t know how things are connected.

Panozzo’s murder and Sutton’s blackmail. I had to figure out how they connected. Solve one and other would fall into place. I was sure of it. Not sure in the way you know if it’s Monday or Tuesday, or that two plus two equals four, but sure nonetheless.

As for the bricks pressing down on my chest: it wasn’t just about the blackmail. It wasn’t just about proving I could solve the case — proving it to my client, proving it to Lou, or even proving it to myself. It was about Oscar Panozzo. No matter what Panozzo did or didn’t do in terms of blackmailing Steve Sutton, he didn’t deserve to die. What the cops did about Panozzo’s murder was their business. Sometimes they solved a crime, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes even a good cop like Terekov couldn’t. Besides, in this case I had more of the puzzle pieces than the cops did. Pieces that, for the sake of my client, I couldn’t share with the cops. And that brick was the heaviest of all.

I drove to the office.

After half an hour of beeps and disconnects and voices too faint and crackled to hear, I finally spoke with someone who knew English. What I learned about searching for someone through JAT (Yugoslavian Airlines) or through JZ (Yugoslav Railways): Don’t bother.

Lou knew a PI in London with connections to Interpol who had helped out on a couple of his cases. But Sutton hit the roof when I suggested to him that I use this guy to find Leon.

“Are you out of your mind!?” he bellowed. “Leave Leon alone. Let him enjoy his goddamn vacation. Find me those photos or I’ll find myself someone else who will.”

So I got into my car and hit the road.

The sky was clear and blue. The KRLA Surf Report announced three foot swells at Malibu. But I was headed in the opposite direction.

I drove south, past the monster oil drums of the Chevron refinery in El Segundo, cut east on Rosecrans and drove inland. I passed dairy farms and oil derricks, rusted farm equipment and decrepit sheds. Then miles and miles of new tract homes with neatly mowed squares of lawn. The further east I drove, the hotter it got. Finally, I reached my destination: a swath of desert some developer had paved over, put up some traffic signals and tract homes, and named Norwalk.

I pulled over at Rosecrans and Pioneer, where a goofy metal tower trying to look like an oil derrick rose up from the middle of a humongous parking lot.

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