11. Dirty Laundry and The Dishwater Blonde

If there's one thing I've learned in Hollywood, it's never trust a foreigner with no discernable accent. He's either your average American nobody hiding behind an exotic, assumed name and some wildly fictitious back story, or he actually is a creepy little immigrant who's just a little too good at blending in.

Though he called himself "Atti," his name was Attila -- no lie -- and he was an actual, honest to God Hun, though his family name had been bastardized to "Hunnic" centuries before they ended up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall and lost all their raping and pillaging savings to the Communists. I wasn't following much of any of this as we stood inside Quiznos waiting for the tow truck he'd be happy to pony up for -- provided I was willing to become his mole inside Hollywood Division. A freelance paparazzo working with all the top gossip sites, he was strictly interested in the sort of super sexed up dirty laundry that had somehow gone un-aired. "You mean like a cover-up?" I said. "What makes you think I'd know about something like that?"

"Don't toy with me, blondie," he said.

"Don't call me blondie unless you want a sock in the jaw," I returned. Lowering my voice, I shared that I could, in fact, use a few extra dollars under the right circumstances. Here I was trying to get back on my feet after a run of bad luck, and boom, I get smacked with a nineteen hundred dollar hospital bill when my roommate blinds me with a botched set of permanent eyelashes. "Then she up and disappears with the fridge empty and the rent past due."

"Let's you and I help each other," he said, opening the bid theoretically with half a California Turkey Club and a sip of his bottomless Diet Coke. "I can make it very worth your while."

"Are you kidding me, dude?" I  looked around for the hidden camera in the event I was either getting punked by Ashton Kutcher or set up by Internal Affairs. "I might not be a sworn officer, but I signed a whole lot of papers swearing to keep my mouth shut. I've been finger printed, lie detected and background checked up the ying-yang. I could get fired for even talking to you."

"You know something," he said, with a greasy little smile. "Who do you think you're dealing with, an amateur?" In black jeans and turtleneck, sporting a limp little pony tail and coke bottle glasses, he certainly looked like one of the smug stalkerazzis I could never get to pay attention to me before. Here I'd be, walking some celebrity-studded red carpet or another on the arm of a little agent assistant I met on the treadmill at Crunch -- and the lightbulbs would suddenly stop flashing. All those years I couldn't get arrested in this town, and here was my bright, shining moment. Why not become famous for being a famous whistle blower, wasn't it the right thing to do anyway?

I opened my mouth to spill what I knew about the botched arrest of Dr. Demented, interrupted by the commotion of the manager shooing out a homeless woman with a baby, caught panhandling among the diners.  "That's enough, lady," he said.  "Try outside the Arclight, there's always a long line of Hollywood liberals with deep pockets." Briefly meeting her eyes, for some odd reason I flashed on those horrible crime scene pictures I'd seen of the as yet unidentified dead girl hacked to pieces only blocks away. Though nobody had come forward to claim her, she must have been somebody's baby, not so long ago. Whatever had become of her life since, who was there do do right by her now?

Turning to my pal Attila, I pulled a switcheroo. "You know the beloved former child actress who starred in that alien movie?" I asked. "She got popped for peeing in public while smoking a doob." If he had any inkling I held the key to a much bigger police scandal brewing, he didn't show it.

"You got pictures? Witnesses? Anything?"

I shook my head no. "Seems to have been a little snafu in the evidence room if you know what I mean. But you might be able to locate a booking sheet under her birth name -- Tanya Blanowitz. Kind of has a ring to it, don'tcha think?" I wrapped up my half of the sandwich, still untouched, and headed for the door. "Wait. Don't you need me to pay for your tow?" he asked with his mouth full. So uncouth, those Huns.

"I'll take the bus," I snorted. "I didn't give you anything that isn't public record. I just told you why nobody's been looking for it." He nodded, standing to shake my hand. "Don't push your luck," I advised. He said he'd be in touch and I told him he'd have to touch himself. I was lying, as things would turn out, but it felt pretty awesome at the time.

I left him standing there with mayonnaise on his face, hurrying down Sunset Boulevard to catch up with the ejected homeless mother and child withdrawing into the shadows for the night. That could have just as easily been me, without crazy Rita opening her door to me only a few weeks before. I didn't even know she was dead, and already she was haunting me, crying out for help from a friend who may or may not be up to the task. "Hey! Would you like a sandwich?" I called out to the lady.  "It's still nice and toasty."