“I got an email through the site and it just said that they had information on a family member of an important man in the city. They were vague with the details, particularly how important this man was.” She retold the events leading to the publishing of the article with a detached, almost bored affectation. It was as if she wanted to convey to me that this job didn’t matter to her and she rather hated it but was resigned to doing it. For now, anyway.

“Then what happened?”

“Nothing. Total radio silence. I wrote it off as a crank — you get a lot of these. Though part of me sensed this one was legit, I wrote back and never got a reply. Until four days ago. I got an email late in the night that laid out all the details, the baby out of wedlock, the underage angle, and most importantly, the identity of the important man.”

“Who was it?” I asked. I needed to confirm if we were talking about the same family. The woman eyed me suspiciously, trying to figure out my angle, if there was one.

“If you represent the family, then you should know, right?”

“But I first need to know if you know.”

“Oh, I know who it is.”

“Did you verify the source?” I asked.

“Of course I did. I wouldn’t have pushed the story otherwise.” There was an element of nicked pride in her response, as if she was hurt that I questioned her ethics in publishing unseemly stories about people’s private matters.

“And they are credible?”

“As credible as it gets,” she responded mysteriously.

“What does that mean?”

She suddenly felt the power shift over to the futon and took the opportunity to exploit it.

“Can we work out a deal?” she asked tentatively. She was as new to the shakedown as I was. I had stopped by the ATM on the way, expecting this moment. I placed twenties in various amounts in various pockets in case she played hardball and I could claim “all the money I got” routine. Little did I know that fifty bucks was all it would take. I gave her the extra ten because I felt bad for her.

“So who was the source?”

“The source was the source,” she answered with a riddle and the annoyingly sly expression people make when telling riddles.

“Your source was Jeanette Schwartzman?”

The woman touched the side of her nose. We apparently switched from riddles to charades.

“How did you know it was her?” I asked, still not quite believing it. The logic wasn’t working.

“It was her. She had photographs on her phone with Carl Valenti. She looked just like the girl in the photos. And they knew details that made me very comfortable they were who they said they were.”

“Who was she with?”

“Some boy, sort of effeminate, probably Hispanic but I shouldn’t guess ethnicity without being sure.” I had never believed Nelson was involved in anything nefarious but now it was a question if he and Jeanette were in on something nefarious together. “I don’t think he was the father.”

“Why do you say that?”

She gave me a “don’t make me say it out loud” look. She wasn’t comfortable discussing people’s ethnicity and it seemed she was equally uncomfortable discussing someone’s sexuality.

“Let’s just say the baby didn’t look like him,” she said, avoiding anything inappropriate. For a gossip blogger, she held pretty high standards.

The fact that the person behind the placement of the story was the subject of the story itself was a puzzler that I still couldn’t quite comprehend. I probed to see if Jeanette gave any kind of insight into why she was doing it.

“I asked her that. She was vague and didn’t really want to answer. She was quick to point out that it definitely wasn’t for money. I sort of believed her.”

I moved off the events in the past and focused my attention on the future. Standard practice in Corporate America was to conclude every meeting with someone asking, “What are our next steps?” It was an admirable attempt to convince everyone that, although we had just sat around talking nonsense for fifty-five minutes, it wasn’t without purpose and we needed concrete proof that it was all worthwhile. Humans have an enduring desire to feel like we are making progress.

For me, I didn’t want to let a lever go un-pulled. I needed this woman as an ally if Jeanette ever contacted her again. And although it was unlikely, perhaps she could be used to lure her back home. But I didn’t want her to think that she could exploit this situation for more money. Given her recent negotiation skills, I deemed this risk rather low.

“We could use your help, if you are up for it.” I handed her my business card and scribbled my personal number on the back. “If you ever hear from Jeanette, please call me first. The family would be grateful.”

She watched me take a quick glance around the cramped studio apartment and her face expressed a look of shame. I never intended to make her feel bad. It was an unfortunate habit of mine when meeting people like her in Los Angles. I felt the urge to piece together their history that led them to their current situation — a bright, personable-enough woman with a set of values still intact, sitting in a crummy apartment, picking her feet, and waiting for the sun to go down to provide at least a modicum of relief from the heat.

“Never thought I’d end up in a job like this,” she said, as if sensing what I was wondering.

I pointed to the card she held in her hand.

“If some copy editor positions open, I’ll let you know. We could always use a good proofreader.”

This appeared to bring a little bit of brightness to her day. My desire for progress equaled everyone else’s.

***

With one step in purgatory, I decided to make the full leap into hell.

Pacoima was another ten miles from the North Hollywood apartment. On the drive there, the flirting-with-triple-digits heat was consummated and never looked back. The change in temperature from the climate-controlled car to the blacktop surface of the parking lot at Sheila Lansing’s convalescent home involved a thirty-degree swing. The initial thrust was oddly pleasant, like the first moments of a hot shower. But then the oppressive nature of the heat enveloped me and for a brief instant, I thought I would collapse on the walk from my car to the front door of the home. The heat coming off the pavement somehow felt hotter than the one scorching the back of my neck.

The handle on the glass door was as hot as a pan left carelessly over an unattended burner. I scurried into the lobby and eagerly breathed in the antiseptic-scented air.

“It’s a hot one,” the front desk attendant chirped.

“My word,” I replied. “How do you handle it?”

“It’s a dry heat, so it’s not so bad.” Dry or not, that kind of heat was unbearable.

“I’d like to see Sheila Lansing.”

“Why, of course. Let me have someone show you there.” She picked up the phone and scanned the numbers. “The old girl is getting quite a treat today,” she said absently.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“So many visitors in one day.”

The attendant put the phone down when she saw a young man in scrubs passing by. She asked him to escort me upstairs. I looked around and but didn’t see the attendant I was really interested in.

“Is the other attendant in?” I asked casually. “I forget her name but she’s Filipino, dark hair, wears it in a braid…” They didn’t seem to make the connection, “…a little heavy-set?”

The front desk attendant and my escort shared an awkward look.

“Tala? She’s not here today.”

“Do you expect her?”

“Hard to say, honestly.”

There was hesitancy in her voice. To me it sounded like she hadn’t been to work in a while and no one seemed to know why.

I was led upstairs to the second-floor balcony. A mister and fan system blew micro-droplets of water that provided instant relief when it touched your skin but tasted like rust when you breathed it in.