with a suggestion that the four kings might become victims of their own success. The theory espoused was that the population of black-clad night crawlers was finite in Hollywood, and that opening and operating six lounges did not convincingly expand the client base. It only spread it out. The article noted that there were also many pretenders to the throne, a raft of inferior, uncool bars and lounges that had opened in recent years.
The story ended by noting that on a recent Friday night at midnight, there was no line of night crawlers waiting to get into the nameless club. It cynically suggested that it might be time to put up the blue arrow again.
I dropped the magazine into the binder and sat there thinking about things. I had the sense that things were coming together. I felt anxious because I knew instinctively I was close. I didn’t have all the answers but experience told me that they would come. What I had was the direction. It had been more than four years since I had looked down on Angella Benton’s body and I finally had a solid suspect.
I opened the center console and got out the cell phone. I figured there would be no harm in calling my own home number. I checked messages and found I had two. The first was from Janis Langwiser. It was short and sweet.
“It’s me. Call me but use all precautions.”
I knew that meant a pay phone. The next message was from Roy Lindell. He also followed the standard of brevity.
“All right, asshole, I’ve got something for you. Call me.”
I looked around. I was parked in front of a post office on San Vicente. My meter was up and I was out of change for both the parking and the calls I needed to make. But I figured there would be a phone inside the post office and a machine for getting change to buy stamps from other machines. I got out and went in.
The main post office was closed but in an outer room that was open after hours I found the machine and pay phone I was looking for. I called Langwiser first because I figured that I had already moved the investigation past the information I had asked Lindell to get for me.
I got Langwiser on her cell but she was still in her office.
“What did you get from Foreman?” I asked, getting right to the point.
“This has to remain highly confidential, Harry. I did talk to Jim and when I explained the circumstances he didn’t mind talking to me about it. The caveat being that this information goes into no reports and you never reveal its source.”
“No problem. I don’t write reports anymore, anyway.”
“Don’t be so quick and cavalier about it. You’re not a cop anymore and you’re no lawyer. You have no legal shield.”
“I have a private eye ticket.”
“Like I said, you have no shield. If a judge ever ordered you to reveal your source you would have to do it or face contempt. That would mean possibly going to jail. Ex-cops in jail don’t do so well.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I just did.”
“Okay, I understand. It’s still no problem.”
The truth was, I couldn’t see how this would ever come up in a court and with a judge. I wasn’t worried about the possibility of jail.
“Okay, as long as we’re clear. Jim told me that Simonson settled for fifty thousand dollars.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s it and it really isn’t that much. He was represented by a thirty-five percenter. He also had to pay filing costs.”
He’d had a lawyer who took a 35 percent cut of any settlement in exchange for working the case without hourly billing. It meant that Simonson probably cleared a little over thirty grand. It wasn’t a lot when it came to quitting your day job and starting a late-night lounge empire.
The sense of anxiety I had been feeling ticked into a higher gear. I had suspected that the settlement would be low but not that low. I was beginning to convince myself.
“Did Foreman say anything else about the case?”
“Just one other thing. He said that it was Simonson who insisted on the confidentiality agreement and that the agreement itself was unusual. It required that there be not only no public announcement about the settlement but no public record of it.”
“Well, it never went to court anyway.”
“I know, but BankLA is a publicly held corporation. So what the confidentiality agreement entailed was that Simonson be carried under a