French, he thought, though he wasn’t certain. Not many questions are asked in the off-the-books economy. He had worked for them for less than two months. He hadn’t talked much. Hadn’t made friends. All they really knew about him was that he would work for six dollars an hour.He had picked up his papers as usual the morning I encountered him, then delivered only eight papers on his route, all on my block, my own being the last one he threw. Eight papers out of nearly four hundred. They hadn’t heard from or seen him since. They had no phone number for him, just an address in Hollywood.The sun was starting to set as Harrison and I drove toward Hollywood on the 134 freeway. Behind us the San Gabriels were aglow in shades of orange and pink. In front of us, the gray line of the ocean stretched across the distant horizon, the buildings of Century City rose, and the vast expanse of greater L.A. spread out as far as the eye could see to the south past the towers of downtown. Directly in our path Hollywood descended into shadow below the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Hills.I tried to focus on facts, on the pieces of the puzzle that would bring Lacy back, but nothing was falling into place.
