JONATHAN KELLERMAN. THERAPY

“Is the office building where Pacifica practices a government deal?”

“Doesn’t seem to be,” he said. “But not because it’s in Beverly Hoohah. Koppel owns two B.H. properties—a senior residence hotel on Crescent Drive and a shopping center on La Cienega—that were financed with tax bucks. The hotel qualifies for an HUD gift and the strip mall got a FEMA grant because the stores that stood there before were earthquake-damaged.”

“He knows how to work the system,” I said.

“He works it well. The only time his name appears on court documents is when he sues someone or someone sues him. Mostly the former—back-rent and eviction cases. Once in a while he gets tagged with a slip-and-fall by a tenant. Sometimes he settles, sometimes he fights. When he fights, he wins. He distributes his business among eight different law firms, all downtown, all white-shoe. But get this: He doesn’t even live in a house, let alone a mansion. His primary residence—and it was hard to find—is an apartment on Maple Drive in Beverly Hills. Which sounds nice, but it’s not one of the fancy condos, just an old building, kind of shabby, six units. One of Koppel’s limited partnerships owns the place, and Koppel lives in a two-bedroom at the back. The manager doesn’t even know her tenant’s really her boss, because she referred to Koppel as ‘the heavy guy, real quiet’ and said the owners were some Persians who lived in Brentwood. On several of his rentals, Koppel hires a couple named Fahrizad to serve as his front.”

“Elusive fellow,” I said.

“Let’s challenge that.”

*

Sonny Koppel’s stretch of Maple Drive lay between Beverly Boulevard and Civic Center Drive. Mixed-use neighborhood, the west side filled by a granite-clad behemoth that served as Mercedes Benz headquarters, a high-profile, extravagantly landscaped office complex that catered to entertainment lawyers and film agents, and construction dust from a fulminating high-rise.

Across the street were two-story apartment buildings, souvenirs of the postwar building boom. Koppel’s was one of the dingiest examples, an off-gray traditional with a cheap composite roof. Three upstairs units, three down, a scratchy lawn, struggling shrubs.

Koppel’s Buick was parked in back, squeezed into one of the half dozen slots in the open carport. We cruised and found each of Koppel’s other cars parked within two blocks, each with Beverly Hills street parking permits that were up-to-date.

An Olds, a Chevy, a Dodge. Gray, gray, dark green. Lots of dust on the first two. The Dodge had been washed recently. I idled the Seville as Milo got out and examined each vehicle. Empty.

I parked, and we headed for Koppel’s building.

*

Sonny Koppel answered the door palming popcorn out of a chartreuse plastic bowl. The fragrance brought to mind the theater-lobby smell of Pacifica’s building. Before Milo had his badge out, Koppel nodded as if he’d been expecting us and beckoned us in. He wore a royal blue U. sweatshirt over plaid pajama bottoms and fuzzy brown slippers.

Five-eight, 270 at least, with a melon gut and thinning reddish brown hair that frizzed above a high, glossy pate. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his stubble looked like dandruff. Saggy blue eyes, pendulous lips, short, thick limbs, beefy hands with stubby nails.

Behind him, an old nineteen-inch RCA TV blared financial news from a cable station. Koppel lowered the volume.

“My girls told me you were by,” he said, in a sleepy basso. “It’s about Mary, right? I was wondering if you’d get in touch—here, sit, sit.”

He stopped to study a stock quotation on the tube, switched off the set, cleared a massive pile of newspapers off a plaid sofa, and brought them over to a metal-legged dinette table. Four red vinyl chairs ringed the table. Hardback ledgers filled two of them. Half the table surface was taken up by more ledgers and legal pads, pens, pencils, a hand calculator, cans of Diet 7-Up, snack bags of assorted carbohydrates.

The apartment was basic: white walls, low ceilings, a front space that served as the living room–eating area, a kitchenette, the bathroom and bedrooms beyond a stucco arch. Nothing on the walls. The kitchen was cluttered but clean. A few feet from the counter, a PC setup was perched on a rolling cart. Aquarium screen saver. An air conditioner rattled.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *