CHAPTER EXCERPT

The Stakeout

"I know this john who can do the phone thing," a hooker tells Detective Bill Spradley one night on the Strip in July of 1990.

"What's his name?"

"David Starr."

A couple of days later, on July 6, Spradley tells the hooker how it's going to go down. He's got a Yellow Pages number for her to turn on, an outcall massage service that he had personally busted, and a judge had ordered disconnected. It's the ideal test.

Starr tells the hooker it will cost $250 and she passes him the marked bills and the number. Across town, at his office at 1010 Wilshire Boulevard, Terry Atchley is watching. At precisely 5:30 p.m., on July 7th, the outcall number mysteriously springs back to life. Atchley's computer screen gives him a big clue. Whoever turned on the Yellow Pages number called through one of Pac Bell's hundreds of dial-up ports and used Cosmos. Atchley, who took the precaution of placing a tap on David Starr's line, knows something else. The order was not made over David Starr's line.

#

"This is Big Brother calling," announces the man on the phone. Fine, thinks the Hollywood Vice Squad detective at LAPD's headquarters, Parker Center, who answers the anonymous call.

"What kind of trouble would someone be in if they...?" Big Brother begins tentatively. The detective listens to the elaborate, "purely hypothetical" description of Yellow Pages ads, phone numbers and computer hacking. Sounds like the stuff Spradley is working on, he thinks. The detective keeps Big Brother on the line, and talks him into a meeting with Detective Spradley.

#

Terry Atchley saunters past the line of Rolls Royces in his faded Levis, tennis shoes and sport shirt, drawing on a cigarette. He's never been to the Four Seasons before, never seen such a flagrant display of wealth. These people either have money or know how to fake it, he thinks. The fancy clothes, the jewelry, the Gucci bags.

Of all the coffee shops and restaurants in Los Angeles, David Starr has chosen the elegant, expensive hotel to meet Atchley, Spradley, and his partner, Megan McElroy. Amid the Casablanca setting, Starr delivers his lines as if he's auditioning for the biggest part of his career. "I want immunity," he demands as he sips on the Coke the investigators bought him at the bar.

The investigators don't reply.

"You've got to protect me," Starr harps shrilly. "If word gets out these people could kill me."

Spradley has seen a lot of David Starrs in his years on the Strip. Over thirty, short, with a paunch, Starr is just the sort of small time flim flam Hollywood cops despise. "You're a co-conspirator," Spradley informs Starr in his clipped monotone. "You can cooperate or risk prosecution."

#

On September 7th, Spradley hands Starr six $20 bills, and requests a Yellow Pages number invisible to Pac Bell. Starr, meanwhile, continues to insist on protecting his source.

Spradley and McElroy drop their fidgety informant at Sunset and Fuller, sit back in their unmarked van and watch the flim flam man turn down a familiar street. Before Starr walks up the sidewalk, Spradley and McElroy have a hunch their rat is heading for the house of Henry Spiegel. Years before, McElroy had the pleasure of busting Spiegel for pimping at Rock n' Roll Denny's. Spradley too, has memories. He'd served a warrant at the Martel address and been amazed at the number of phone lines leading into Spiegel's house. Spradley had returned with telephone linemen, and even after they'd clambered up the pole they couldn't sort out how Spiegel swiped so many phone lines for his telemarketing scams.

After a short wait, Starr emerges with Spiegel and gets a ride home in the pimp's Lincoln Town Car. But after the quick Beverly Hills drive, Spiegel makes a short detour. He parks on Sunset and swings open a pair of glass doors into a private post office box service. Spying with binoculars from across the street, Spradley sees Spiegel slip an envelope into a box. Perhaps the Yellow Pages scam goes beyond Starr and Spiegel, the detective wonders. As Spradley watches an empty handed Spiegel drive away, he radios two undercover cars for back up and turns his attention to the box. It's now 8:45 p.m. Positioned across the street, the three undercover vehicles stake out the P.O. box. Midnight comes and goes. Up since dawn, Spradley catches his eyes drooping toward the dash.

#

Well before Kevin pulls up at the P.O. box at the corner of Sunset and Laurel Canyon, he glances over at the Ford Bronco -- and what looks like a cop behind the wheel. Kevin has seen plenty of mail service joints staked out before to catch criminals, but he doubts tonight's surveillance has anything to do with him. Nor is he the least bit worried about the Bronco, though he knows that cops love the four wheel drive vehicle. On the drive over, Kevin scanned the FBI's channel and didn't hear any activity at all.

At precisely 2:15 a.m., Spradley rights himself and watches a thin, casually dressed man with platinum punk blond hair stick a key in the glass door. Peering through his nine-inch binoculars a hundred feet away, Spradley sees the man reach up to Spiegel's box and retrieve an envelope that looks like the one the pimp just dropped.

"We've got a pickup from the box," Spiegel radios his team.

Kevin fires up his van, then watches the Bronco quickly pull behind him to get his plate and then duck into the corner gas station. But two can play at this game. Kevin swings a U-turn, doubles back behind the Bronco at the gas station and leans forward to memorize the plate.

Kevin chuckles to himself as the Bronco pulls onto Sunset, amazed they didn't even bother with the pretense of getting gas. He lets the Bronco go, and turns back on the same side street where he was parked, stopping a couple blocks down to write down the Bronco's plate number.

Suddenly, Kevin sees a car several blocks back in his rearview mirror. He decides the attention must be because he glanced at the Bronco and because anybody visiting a P.O. box at two in the morning looks suspicious. Kevin revs up his old van and begins weaving and screeching through Hollywood. He even goes the wrong way down a one way street. A few minutes later, he pulls over and waits and nothing pops up in his rear view.

Time to do a little "dry cleaning," Kevin thinks. He heads over the dry hills to the Valley and takes a right at Laurel and drives under the 101 Ventura freeway into a grid of suburban homes. Right, left, double back, kill the headlights. Wait.

But even after all of Kevin's evasive driving, a Camaro pulls into the street, slows and then speeds away. Kevin takes off after the Camaro, pulling close enough to get the license plate. He hasn't seen an FBI Cessna or an LAPD chopper, but he's pretty sure someone up above is directing the guys on the ground. He hops on the 134 freeway, quickly gets off and then takes the first exit in Burbank. He spots an office building to hide behind and swerves hard to make the tight turn but his right tire hits the curb and explodes.

Steering the crippled van behind the building, Kevin kills his headlights. A minute later the Camaro zips by. Kevin considers his options. His van is dead. The FBI hasn't said a peep on his police scanner. It can't be related to him. Why should he worry? There's nothing incriminating in his van, unless, of course, they're looking for a hacker. Kevin grabs his black gadget bag and starts walking. A car is stopped in the street, it's blinding lights trained on him.

Kevin casually approaches the open driver's window, a woman looking at him with a pinched smile. "Hey listen," Kevin says. "As long as you guys are following me around, maybe you could give me a hand with a blowout?"

"Oh yeah?" snaps the woman.

Another car skids toward Kevin and shudders to a stop. A cop leaps out, gun drawn. "Who do you think you're fucking with?" Spradley yells, splaying Kevin against the hood and shoving the barrel of a gun against his face. "We're the fucking police!"

A cop's silver badge is waved in Kevin's face, but it's been removed from its holder, and there's no name.

"I didn't do anything," Kevin protests.

But Spradley isn't interested in talking just yet. First, he wants to ID the guy. He's got no driver's license, just a DMV learner's permit and a business card in the name of Steve Holland. The van is registered to a Jerome K. Anderson at a San Diego P.O. box.

"Where are you coming from?" Spradley asks.

"Downtown," Kevin answers.

"No you weren't," Spradley corrects him. "We picked you up in Hollywood."

"Oh yeah, that's right. I went to Hollywood."

"You were dealing narcotics."

"No, I wasn't. I met a friend of mine."

Spradley empties Kevin's tote bag. Out spills a portable police scanner, binoculars, a flashlight and a plug spinner for lock picking. In the back of the van are two chairs and an M-16 squirt gun.

"Is this where you work?" McElroy asks, waving Kevin's fake work ID in his face. "What's your name?"

Let's see, I know my first name.

"Steve," Kevin replies dumbly.

"Steve what's you last name?" McElroy snaps.

Ignore her. Try to look shocked.

"Oh god, Oh god," Kevin mumbles, faking distress.

Finally, Spradley takes out one of Kevin's fake work I.D.'s and waves it close. Kevin cranes forward.

"Steve, what's your last name?" McElroy snaps again.

"Holland," Kevin replies confidently.

Spradley tells Kevin they're narcotics cops, and they pulled him over because he was driving recklessly. But Kevin says they were following him.

"No," Spradley insists. "We started following you because you were driving recklessly."

"Then what were you doing at my mailbox?"

"Why do you have a pair of binoculars?" McElroy changes the subject. "Are you some kind of peeping Tom?"

Spradley fires another question. "Why isn't the van registered under your name?"

#

Kevin is cuffed to a bench in a narrow holding cell with a long window in the central Burbank police station. Anyone else would be terrified in his situation, but Kevin is calm and shows no fear as he waits out the last minutes before what must certainly be his capture. He's done all he can do. Now it's a question of staying cool and hoping for a little luck.

"How much money do you have on you?" Spradley asks.

Kevin pulls five $20 bills out of his wallet, and Spradley is reminded of how little it takes to commit a crime in Hollywood.

"Why do you have a hundred bucks?" Spradley asks. "Out picking up hookers?"

"No," Kevin replies. "I just have a hundred dollars."

"Where do you work?" Spradley asks.

"RCA," says Kevin, remembering the card they showed him.

#

The cops take Kevin's prints at Parker Center, the downtown headquarters for LAPD, running them through the National Crime Information Center computers and local systems for a criminal record. Meanwhile, the company and address Kevin gave Spradley don't check out.

A uniformed cop peers through the lens as Kevin stands behind the rack of black plastic booking numbers. The hacer grins, pleased with himself, his arms hanging easily at his sides, his sports collar open and platinum hair flopped in a fashionable part.

"I'll take an 8 by 10 and two wallet sized," Kevin quips.

A couple of minutes later, one arm cuffed to a bench, Kevin asks if he can call his lawyer. The cops will be logging the call, of course, so he phones the 800 extender number he's memorized for just such occasions, and then dials Eric's answering machine. It's the theme music from Eric's favorite TV show, America's Most Wanted, and it adds just the right measure of humor to his otherwise ordinary message. "I can't get to the phone right now, but if you..."

A cop stands next to Kevin, listening.

"Hello this is..." Kevin tries to remember his alias. "Steve. I've been arrested at Parker Center. They might be holding me on suspicion of stealing my van. Thought you should know. See what you can do out there."

A little after four in the morning, Terry Atchley arrives at Parker Center, careful to stay out of view of the suspect cuffed in a holding cell. They still figure the Yellow Pages man is probably a Pac Bell employee, and the last thing anyone wants is for the suspect to recognize Atchley, a co-worker. Still, when they bring the man out, Atchley sneaks a good look at the punk blond, bespectacled young man. He's certain he's never set eyes on him before.

A couple of hours later, Spradley reluctantly realizes that his suspect will walk. The computers came back with nothing. Sure, he's got the marked twenties, his story doesn't check and he jerked them around on his wild ride. But there's no real hard crime. Besides, there could be an advantage in letting him go. Spradley has been careful to mask his questions in the guise of a narcotics investigation, and he doubts the man knows why he's been followed. If they still hope to capture the Yellow Pages mastermind that ignorance might prove invaluable.

#

As he walks out of Parker Center that early September morning with Spradley and McElroy, Terry Atchley just wants to hurry home to take a nice hot shower before heading off for work. He says his good-byes, starts up his gray Chevy Celebrity, and then sees the suspect walking alone. But by the time Atchley swings his Chevy out of the parking lot he's lost him. He swears at himself for blowing the opportunity, and circles the area for several minutes, hoping to get lucky.

He finds him over a mile from Parker Center, carrying the black bag the cops returned, the one with his police scanner, flashlight and plug spinner. The suspect walks toward the Union 76 station on Alameda near the bustling Hollywood freeway, opens a phone booth door and dials. Atchley wants to get closer, but he'd have to turn right in front of the booth, too much of a risk. He loops around and approaches the station from a one way alley along the freeway. Just a twenty second detour, he figures. But the one way street turns out to be longer than he thought. The knot tightens in his stomach as the odometer passes one mile. Atchley guns it on the way back, then slows as he approaches the gas station. The phone booth is empty.

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