Hollywood Hills Read Free

cop had been somewhat indulged for a few months by his fellow coppers on the midwatch during a time of deep sadness for all of them. It came after Nate's partner, Dana Vaughn, had been shot dead by a thief whom Nate then killed with return fire. Nate had grieved intensely for Dana Vaughn and had needed to surmount overwhelming feelings of survivor guilt and deep regret for never having told her certain intimate things, like how she had touched his heart and what she had meant to him in the short time they had worked together as patrol partners. Now he had recurring dreams of telling her those things, and in the dreams, she never answered him but would smile and chuckle in that special way of hers that always made him think of wind chimes.
    It was during that mournful and restless period that Hollywood Nate had been offered an audition that came from working the red carpet on a warm summer night at the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. There were thirty cops there that night, all happily drawing overtime pay. Rudy Ressler, a second-rate director and producer who once had coproduced an Oscar-nominated movie, attended that affair with an up-and-coming pair of young beauties known only to people who spent their lives watching nighttime TV designed for Gen X-ers. Ressler's personal escort that evening was a UCLA theater major skinnier than Victoria Beckham and younger than his own daughter. When the event ended and the Kodak was disgorging the multitudes, Nate had occasion to apply some muscle to the stampeding paparazzi that had crowded in on the foursome as they walked to the director's rented limo.
    It wasn't that the aggressive paparazzi were interested in shooting photos of the director, but Brangelina, moving fast, had emerged from the crowd right behind the Ressler foursome. Things got very unruly very quickly, and the frightened UCLA coed began whimpering when an obese paparazzo with a camera hanging from a strap around his neck and a Styrofoam cup in his hand backed against her, mashing her into Ressler's hired limousine.
    Nate had stepped in then with pap pressing on all sides and hooked a low elbow very hard into the belly of the fat guy, causing him to let out a w0000, double over, and spew Jamba Juice all over other paparazzi. Nobody in that crush of nighttime fans, including other pap, had seen the surreptitious elbow chop, and even the groaning paparazzo didn't know what had hit him. But Rudy Ressler saw it, as did one of the security aides of the LAPD chief of police. The aide waited by the chief's ominous-looking SUV with its dark-tinted windows.
    When the Ressler party got into their limo, the director turned and said to Nate, "Thank you for helping us, Officer. If there's anything I can ever do for you ..." And he handed Nate a business card.
    Hollywood Nate said, "You may regret that rash remark, sir." And he took the badge wallet from his pocket to show Rudy Ressler his SAG card, and said, "At the station they call me Hollywood Nate because of this."
    "I'll be damned," the director said. He laughed out loud, turning to his companions and saying, "This officer is a SAG member. Only in Hollywood!"
    "Have a good evening, sir," Nate said with a hopeful smile. "Call me when you get a chance, Officer. I'm serious," the director replied, looking at Hollywood Nate appraisingly this time. Before the limousine pulled away, Nate heard Rudy Ressler sa y t o the driver, "We're dropping Ms. Franchon at her sorority hous e a nd then you can take the rest of us to Mrs. Brueger's home in the Hollywood Hills. Do you remember where it is from last time?" "Yes, sir, Mr. Ressler," the driver said.
    The limousine drove off, leaving the other cars blowing horns and flashing their high beams at the inevitable traffic jam, and the paparazzi still snapping pictures. Hollywood Nate decided to take a better look at the chief's SUV and at the LAPD security aide standing beside it, who looked familiar. When he got closer, he recognized