Orella figures if the owner of the van was also a customer of Puerto Bros. he probably lived somewhere in the general area, and how many old vans of that make could be in west LA anyway? With a crisp short-list from the DMV database growing damp in her hand, Orella checks out a mere half-dozen leads before finding the van at a Washington Boulevard address. The DMV list shows the van not currently licensed for road use, but that means nothing. It costs hundreds of dollars to register a vehicle for the road in Los Angeles, and under fifty bucks to register it as inoperative. Here she is, at his apartment building. It has gated indoor parking, so Orella waits on foot until a car leaves the garage and darts inside before it closes. Walking the rows of cars and trucks, her footsteps echo in the half-empty space. Daytime, most good, tax-paying Americans are at work. There, at the end of the row. A blue van with out-of-style pinstriping around it. She peers inside and sees the driver's seat has been removed and there's some kind of apparatus on the floor, probably to lock around the base of a wheelchair to hold it in place.
