Jimmy Killingsworth always told me I keep too many irons in the fire. He was the first person to give me a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow, the man who turned me on to Pynchon, so I was inclined to take his advice in every area but that one. It was also a delight to entertain him with ridiculous stories of how I managed to…
“You know what day it is?” “Tuesday?” “Thursday, actually. But no, the date.” “I don’t know the day of the week and you think I know the date?” “They’re not the same thing.” “I don’t know. It’s October, right?” “Right.” “So. Thursday in October.” “Think about it.” “I don’t know how to think about it.” “What day is it?” “You already asked me. I…
On my first official day of work with the Agency, I went to the main office on Wilshire Boulevard and was told to report immediately to a separate location in West Hollywood. The Agency was expanding and setting up a new office, and I was one of the lucky elite who would help set up that office. It sounded neither lucky nor elite to…
When I first came to Hollywood, a cauldron of unholy loves sang all around my ears. Which is to say, I was a production assistant at a talent agency that specialized in representing fashion models. This may sound like the ideal job for a young hetersexual male, but while interacting such women may be the object of most male fantasies, the professional reality of…
Tuesday is always a good day to visit the Fairfax Farmer’s Market. There’s rarely a crowd, only in summer when long tour buses line up along 3rd and hordes of Japanese and Germans crowd the market. Since the grass knoll and flashy shops of the nearby Grove were built, the place has also become a haven for yuppie moms pushing four-figure strollers, often two-seats…
Napoleon was an angry little man. This is common knowledge. It is written: Napoleon was short and insecure. Psychology even names a type of inferiority complex after the little general. But like so many things in this darkling world, there is little veracity to this tidbit of common knowledge. Point of fact: Napoleon was five-six, which is only three inches shorter than the average…
When the phone rings and wakes you in the dark of the night, sometimes it takes a moment to get your bearings. It was about half-past two in the morning when my telephone rang and woke me in my Chelsea hotel room. I’d been asleep a little over two hours after a five hour plane flight, so it took me a few seconds to…
What the hell am I doing in New York? Every time I come to this city it’s raining. Seattle has the reputation for precipitation but it’s New York that really gets the rain. Gazing out the taxi window I can only remember the last time I was here, which was a long time ago. As in, Reagan was President. What the hell am I…
Gabe Nachman called me in the middle of the afternoon. He wanted to come over right away. “I’ve got the pitch of the century,” he said. “Let me hear it,” I said. “Not over the phone,” he said. “Some fucker at the NSA will hear this, quit his job, and beat us to the punch.” Gabe is an old enough and important enough friend…
It was more than just one thing that brought Harry down. It was in fact an entire series of events that led to the predicament that put poor Harry in this place. To begin with, he was out in Wyoming with the Professor before anything happened. Whether they were on some kind of paleontology dig or just digging recreationally was never made clear, but…
Owning property has its risks. The torture of escrow is not always the end of the horror. Plumbing and electrical problems can drive a home owner to bankruptcy. Structural issues can make an erstwhile home into a house of death. Then there are the utility and maintenance costs. The average homeowner often seems to occupy one of the middle rungs of Hell. But owning…
Have you ever sat with your bare skin exposed on naugahyde or vinyl long enough that your skin became adhered to the fabric as if someone had put glue there as a joke? You sit for just a second, and when you stand there a quick swishing sound as your skin peels away from the furniture, and it feels as if you left some…
It’s true that I live the kind of life where a simple trip to buy office supplies turns into a weeklong debacle that includes kidnapping, international espionage, a drunken brawl, some minor facial surgery, hostages, and a trip to Bermuda. It hasn’t always been this way. Just since I moved to Hollywood. The walk from my apartment building to the office supply is a…
It was not wrong of Jenifer Ridley Gale to ask me to find Elias Croehe. Aside from the personal debt of history, prior to my retirement finding lost people and lost things was my forté. Most of my life I have had a particular talent for the task of ferreting out the lost, secret, and hidden. My ability to discern obscure patterns in the…
There is the question of why I withdrew from society for so many years. It is a question I am hesitant to answer, mostly due to my natural reluctance to admit weakness in this predatory world. But the facts and results of the investigation of the missing cannot be completely understood without some knowledge of the events that led to my retirement as an…
How did I become drawn into the case of the missing Elias Croehe? It’s not as if I seek these things. Not any more. I had left that sort of business behind me long ago and walked away from the trade. The only way I could be drawn back into would be to repay an old life debt, to honor a close friend. Years…