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  The front door was open, surprisingly, seeing as how there was no secretary, no furniture, and all the work seemed to be coming from the back. Beyond the back door came chatter and the scratching sound of pens scribbling on paper.

  I walked into the back room. A small, empty warehouse of gray cement floors and bare drywall. Along the opposite wall was a small office space containing stacks of paper on the floor. A man sat at a table with two small stacks in front of him. A dark man, probably Mexican. He grabbed a piece of paper from one pile, scribbled something onto it, then placed it into another pile. Someone was sitting across from him doing the same work. I couldn’t see who it was, but the Mexican man was talking in Spanish and laughing occasionally.

  I approached the door, a little nervous having no weapon on me, and the Mexican man saw me before I reached them.

  I smiled, “Hola.”

  The man stood up with fear in his eyes and started speaking in rapid Spanish.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay. I’m a detective.”

  The other man stepped out from inside. A tall, black man with glasses. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I was looking for Nathan Roscoe. I had some questions for him, but he left before I could catch him. Maybe you could help me instead.”

  The Mexican man said something in Spanish. The black man said something in Spanish back.

  “He thinks you’re INS,” he said to me. “He says his visa doesn’t expire for three more months.”

  “No. I’m not with immigration,” I said. “My name is Marshall Santone. I’m a private investigator.”

  His eyes flickered a bit at the mention of my name. “May I see some ID, please?” I showed him my license.

  “Marshall Santone,” he said. “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to know what it is you do here.”

  “We work for Mr. Roscoe. Private business.”

  “Uh-huh,” I pulled out my notepad. “And what private business is that?”

  ”I’m not allowed to say.”

  “Looks like you’re just signing a bunch of papers. Mind if I look at a couple of them?”

  “Yes,” he said and looked at me while he removed his glasses.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “I think you should leave. It’s our quitting time anyway.” he said.

  The Mexican man started gathering papers, keeping the piles separated and putting them into a cardboard box on the ground.

  “I just want some information,” I said.

  “You’ll have to speak with Mr. Roscoe.”

  He stepped forward and I realized I wasn’t talking to a scrawny man. He was big, barrel-chested and his head damn near touched the top of the door frame as he stepped through.

  “It’s time for us to go home,” said the black man while the Mexican flicked the light off and closed the door to the little room.

  “Sorry to bother you. Have a nice day.” I said and walked back to the front.

  I heard them talking after I ducked into the bathroom. Couldn’t understand them, though, they were speaking in Spanish. I had never heard a black man speak Spanish before and it struck me as a bit odd.

  Their voices grew louder as they exited the warehouse and walked through the front room. Sounded like they were arguing about something, but maybe that’s just what Spanish sounds like. The front door opened and shut and was followed by the jingles and clicks of keys locking the door from the outside. Moments later, the revving of two engines from two cars and four pairs of tires squealing away until it was silent again.

  I ticked the door open a pinch and made sure the coast was clear, then made my way back to the warehouse.

  Took me a while to find the light switch, it was darker than midnight, but I did and the florescent lights came on. I saw the door to the little room and thought I might need my lock picking tools which were still in the dash of the Beemer.

  Luckily, I didn’t. The Mexican man had left it unlocked. I flipped another light on and saw the stacks all over the room. The cardboard box was left on the table. I opened it and removed a sheet from the top:

  “Assignment of Mortgage” was printed on it. Further down the page was “MORTGAGOR: American Home Mortgage Servicing” and “MORTGAGEE: John Stockholm.” The property was in Pasadena. At the bottom of the page was: “IN WITNESS THEREOF the undersigned agrees to these terms on this date 6/16/2012.” It was signed by “Linda Green” with the words “Vice President” beneath it.

  I rubbed my finger along the signature. It smeared a bit. The ink was still fresh, but I had a hard time believing either one of those men’s real name was Linda Green. There were other signatures also; of a notary public and guarantor. Also fresh ink.

  I picked up another document from one of the piles along the wall. Another mortgage assignment. Mortgagee was Nancy Bresser in North Hollywood. Mortgagor was A Bad Ben.

  “A Bad Ben?” What the hell did that mean?

  This document was also signed by Linda Green, Vice President, on 3/18/2012. How far back did these go?

  Another document. A different mortgagor, the same vice president.

  I rummaged through the stacks. All mortgage agreements or titles of trust. All signed by Linda Green, Linda Green, Linda Green. Ownership documents of who knows how many people’s houses. All of them right here in a little warehouse in Ventura County.

  I wrote down Nancy Bresser’s name and address in my notepad and left the room.

  Just before I opened the front door, I realized there was no way I could lock it from outside. If they suspected a break in, the first person they’d suspect was me. I did give them my name, after all. So I went back to the warehouse and slipped under the bay door.

  Shortly after I got back into LA County, I called Cedar-Sinai and asked for a status on Samantha Roscoe, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.

  Moments later my phone rang.

  ----------------------------

  “Detective,” I said. He was waiting for me outside Musso and Frank’s. “Always a pleasure to see you.”

  “Heard about your little scuffle the other night. Glad to see you alive, Santone.”

  “Are you?”

  “So I can ask why the fuck you’re still poking around.”

  “Believe me, Detective, I don’t want to be. But this case just doesn’t seem to want to let me go. Keeps pulling me back in. Like that Al Pacino movie.”

  Grayson smirked.

  “You find Nora Massey?” I said.

  “That’s what I came here about.”

  “Oh?”

  “Let’s get some dinner. I’m fucking hungry.”

  That sounded good. I hadn’t eaten all day.

  The place was too crowded so we went to a cheap pizza joint across the street. Hollywood Avenue doesn’t have much else besides pizza joints, lingerie shops and tattoo parlors.

  I dug into my slice of New York style white pizza. Grayson got a slice of margarita that he inhaled like a starving Rwandan.

  “Where’s Marber?” I asked.

  “His kid’s birthday. God, I’m so fucking hungry.”

  “Didn’t know he had kids. Doesn’t seem like the father type.“

  “Well, he is. Now...” he put the slice down for a second and sipped his Coke, “about Nora Massey. NYPD has been looking for her for the last two days and she hasn’t turned up.”

  “What about her office? At the agency?”

  “Not there either. In fact, they said they haven’t seen her in three weeks.”

  “Three weeks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about her cell phone? You can’t trace it?”

  “We don’t have enough evidence to do that.”

  “Is she a suspect?”

  “At this point she’s considered a possible accessory.”

  “So what are you talking to me for?”

  “You’re the only person here who has a connection with her.”

  “I already gave y
ou everything I know.”

  “So you know she never went back to New York?”

  This actually didn’t surprise me. Nora had been a wild card from the beginning. Now I knew she was involved and had been stringing me along. There was no doubt of that. But whether she was the victim or the perp, I didn’t know. All you need is a hook into someone’s life, something to control, and they’ll do anything you say. Someone had their hooks in Nora. At least, I hoped they did.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Flight records. Nobody named Massey flew out of any airport in Southern California within the last 36 hours.”

  He finished his slice and sneered at mine like a hungry Rottweiler, asked if I was going to finish it. I said I was saving it for later. He used his signature word again.

  “Do you have any idea where she might be if she’s still in Los Angeles?” he asked.

  Nora left the Beach Motel with Bartholomew Leitner. Leitner was working for Grossman.

  “The Long Walk,” I said. “I’d start there.”

  “What is that?”

  “Check it out,” I stood up. “You’ll like the place.”

  We left the pizza joint and walked back to Grayson’s car. The afternoon was closing and it started to cool.

  “You better hope we find her, Santone.”

  I looked at him.

  “Whoever it was that killed Jack Slavas, she helped. And you’re the one who let her get away, then lied to us about it. If we don’t find her, I’m coming after you.”

  He closed the door and drove into the neon jungle.

  -----------------------------

  Nancy Bresser’s home was on Calvert Street just off of Vineland. An iconic kind of place that looked like a Norman Rockwell scene come to life. A woman was in the garden, poking away at the dirt and wearing tight jeans.

  “Excuse me?” I asked. She stood up and turned around holding a trowel.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but are you Nancy Bresser?”

  “Who?”

  “Nancy Bresser.”

  “No, I’m sorry, you must have the wrong house.”

  I checked my notepad. “Is this 11026 Calvert Street?”

  “Yes, but my name is Catherine.”

  “Mom!” It was a young boy calling from inside the house. He poked his head through the window. “Danny won’t let me play Xbox with him!”

  “Okay, honey, I’ll be there in a minute. I’m talking with someone.”

  The kid looked at me. His hair was thick and blonde and his cheeks were round and his lips were red as if he’d just eaten a cherry Popsicle. I smiled and he smiled back.

  “Honey, go inside.” He ducked his head back in and disappeared. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Do you know where Nancy Bresser would be?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I haven’t lived here very long. Just since last April.”

  April, I thought. The document in the warehouse said Ms. Bresser acquired the mortgage in March.

  “Thank you for your time,” I said.

  A fellow with an oxygen tank answered the door. A tube ran across his face and under his nose.

  “Yes?” He said, with difficulty.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but I’m looking for Nancy Bresser. She lived in the house next door. Do you know where she might be, by chance?”

  “Nancy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I haven’t...seen her in months.” He took a deep breath. The oxygen tank hissed.

  “Do you know where she might be?”

  “She moved,” another deep breath, “Last I heard, she...was living with...her son.”

  “Her son. Where does he live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “...Jacob, I believe. Why do you need to know?”

  I wrote it down. “I have something of hers. Appreciate your help, sir.”

  He nodded and closed the door.

  I found Jacob’s address in the phone book, after I tried to search online with my Blackberry, but the keys are too damn small and my fingers are too damn big.

  ------------------------------

  “Can I help you?”

  “Hello, Mr. Bresser?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Marshall Santone. I’m a private detective. I was hoping I might be able to speak with your mother about her property in North Hollywood.”

  “My mother’s in bed, but I’d be happy to speak to you.” It came out with an excitement in his voice, as if he’d been waiting decades for me.

  “Please.” He opened the door.

  It was a two-bedroom apartment in Glendale, above an Indian restaurant. The smell made it obvious.

  “I’ll show you to the patio,” he said quietly. “Mom’s a light sleeper. Can I get you something to drink? A coffee?”

  A drink sounded good. But not coffee.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  He showed me through the front room to a sliding glass door that opened onto a deck with two lawn chairs drenched with the smell of curry.

  “Have a seat.”

  I sat. If I couldn’t have a drink, I wanted a cigarette.

  “Do you mind if I...” I held up my cigarette box. He said “Not at all” and I lit up then grabbed my notepad.

  “So...why do you need to speak to my mother?”

  “I’ve been working a case, Mr. Bresser, and I recently came across a document, a mortgage agreement, that stated the mortgage on your mother’s house began last March, but when I went to the house earlier, someone else was living there who said they moved there in April.”

  The look on his face was something close to shock.

  “That’s impossible,” he said.

  “That someone else was living in the house?”

  “The bank sued her for foreclosure in February. We tried to fight it because last year she applied to refinance, but the bank didn’t have the paperwork that proved they owned the house. They said that work had been outsourced to a mortgage servicing firm. So we went to them and...basically, hit a dead end.”

  “They didn’t have the papers either?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then who holds the deed to the house?”

  “I would give anything to know that, sir.”

  I was scribbling all this down. “How could the bank foreclose on the house if they couldn’t prove they owned it?”

  He shrugged. “One day she found an eviction notice on her door. So she came here. Those bastards.”

  I asked “Which bank was it?” though I already had a strong hunch which one.

  “Angel City,” he said.

  Some ashes dropped from the tip of my cig. I blew a plume of smoke out over the railing.

  “Can you do anything about this?” he asked me with a tremble in his voice. “That house was her whole life. Forty-eight years. It’s where I grew up, where my family comes from,” he wiped his eyes. “It was all she had.”

  There was nothing I could say. It would’ve been rude to give the guy false hope with a phony promise of justice. I said I’d keep in touch; whatever good that would do.

  Chapter 18

  It was the same nurse behind the counter at Cedar-Sinai. She recognized me and quietly scoffed.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m wondering if I could get the status on Samantha Roscoe. She came in for surgery earlier today.”

  “I remember. She’s in the ICU and she’s stable. That’s all I can tell you.”

  A wash of relief came over me. “Can I see her?”

  “Not unless you’re immediate family.”

  I looked down the hall.

  “Detective?”

  I whipped around. It was Roscoe. He was alone. “You’re still here?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I was concerned.”

  “Well, I thank you for that.”
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