From a mail carrier with graying hair and walrus moustache:

"Here's the last address we got on him. Gimme the ten-spot."

You'd write down what you learned and turn in the paper for reprocessing. The lawyers would follow up through other channels, pin down a new number on a new street, and send you off again.

Slowly, you closed the gap. You'd started out a couple years behind him in the beginning. Over time, you narrowed it to months. Now, the trail is only weeks old.

He'd been a blank at the start, too. Now, you know what he looks like. White, about thirty, a tad over six feet tall, slender, with short, dark hair.

Sure, that description could fit thousands of guys in the city. But if you get close, you've picked up a few other things to help identify your quarry.

He smokes cigarettes. A sourpuss landlady in Pico Rivera mentions this, complaining about getting the smell out of drapes.

There's a mole at the base of his throat and a tattoo, a crude star in blue, on his right hand. These hints come from a former neighbor in a cheesy apartment building in Covina--a shapely redhead, who comes on to you while answering questions.

He drinks Corona beer and likes loud music, according to the rheumy old man with a room beneath one in Venice that Wixom used to occupy.

You want this guy. It's a matter of professional pride to nail him. You've gone after thousands of lowlife debtors and, outside of a few who croaked or a handful that fled to other states, beyond your reach, not one you went after has escaped service--not one.

Wixom won't get away, either, if you can help it. You've got your reputation to consider.

You head back downtown, drop off the bundle of served papers in the night slot at Stein & Fleisch's plush law offices at the western end of the Miracle Mile, then swing north up Fairfax.

At Hollywood Boulevard, you cruise east in no particular hurry, dodging curb-hopping skateboarders and knots of sightseers wandering the world's most famous street. You gawked along here yourself when you first arrived in town and still had big dreams.

Nowadays, your main ambition is to paper somebody on the A-list, like Harrison Ford or a big-name director, to whom you can pitch your screenplays before you're shooed off the premises. Problem is, those types never run up tabs they can't pay. So the best you can hope for is to bend the ear of the low-level production assistants, over-the-hill child stars, out-of-work character actors or broken-down stunt men who occasionally show up in the stacks of summonses.

On the boulevard, the Roosevelt Hotel, with Louis Armstrong's star embedded in the sidewalk right out front, is bustling this evening. Opposite, the Chinese Theater shines in gaudy neon splendor, illuminating tourists stepping into the footprints of dead screen legends. There's a line outside the Wax Museum, where visitors can peek up the skirt of a Marilyn Monroe figurine. Past the Egyptian's faded glory, Musso and Frank's chophouse, Frederick's purple passion palace, the staid Janes House oblivious to all the glitter, you cross the intersection of Hollywood & Vine. There's not much left to show this was once the heart of The Industry--just the Capitol Records Tower up Vine, like a stack of 45's.

Continuing east, you approach Normandie, and for a fleeting minute think of turning south to your comfy apartment below Sunset. But you've got a job to do first. Might as well get to it.

Left on Rampart. Right on Temple. Left on Alvarado and onto the Glendale Freeway. Then take the I-210 towards San Fernando. On to Lowell and Honolulu Avenue. Lots of traffic tonight.

It is after nine p.m. when you pull up to Wixom's most recent address far up Tujunga Canyon Boulevard. You coaxed the number out of a young, balding fellow who once worked part-time with the man you're after. Nice guy, if a little talkative--you wouldn't want a blabbermouth like baldy for a friend--especially with a couple of beers in him. Beers you, posing as Wixom's long-lost buddy, sprang for.

The place is on a dinky side street, where the road rises towards the bulk of the San Gabriel Mountains. It's a run-down, two-story clapboard house sitting all by itself beside a lone eucalyptus, blushed pink by the dying sun.

You wonder if you've been steered wrong again. Or set up by Wixom's chum, who maybe wasn't as loaded as he let on, and decoyed you out here to give your prey time to escape to some other hole.

Might as well check it out, long as you're already here. Park a hundred yards below the joint, behind a clump of chaparral that hides your car from the house, and walk up. The air is cooler, cleaner here than downtown. A balmy breeze, perhaps a harbinger of the Santa Anas, ruffles your hair.

A light burns in a downstairs window. The door to the screened-in front porch is locked when you try it. Heavy-metal music thumps inside. Somebody lives here. Wixom?

Cat-foot it around the side of the house. In the driveway sits an old beat-up dark Ford. Jot down the make and license plate number on the back of somebody's business card from your wallet, just in case. Might be worth extra cash to you.

At one of the side windows on the first floor is a half-inch gap between the shade and the bottom of the sill. Put an eye to it.

Living room. A detergent commercial plays on a silent TV set in one corner. In the middle of the room is a scarred coffee table piled high with newspapers, empty takeout food containers and Corona beer bottles. An arm's length away is the back of an overstuffed chair. A hand with a lit filtered cigarette stuck between the first two fingers appears on the armrest of the chair, goes away again, followed by a cloud of exhaled smoke.

Hike around back. The veneer of the door here is peeling away in strips. Knock.

After a minute, a yellow bug light comes on overhead. The door opens a few inches, letting out loud, so-called music. In the lemony glow of the bulb, the man peering out seems the right age, the right height, his hair dark and shaggy. His eyes narrow to slits, sweep you up and down. "Who're you?" There is surprise in his voice.

"Brent Wixom?"

The space between door and frame widens. He's wearing tank top and cutoffs. There's a dime-sized brown spot, like a drop of chocolate, where his neck meets the black mat of chest hair. "What if I am? How'd you find me?"

Moments like this, when you finally corner a slippery debtor, make the job worth it.

"Well, Brent," you say, voice rich with satisfaction, "I've brought you something." Reach for the paper in your breast pocket.

His star-tattooed hand comes out from behind the door. "No, you don't!" he yells, pointing a finger at you.

A finger that gleams.

A finger with a hole in the end of it.

A finger that roars and catches fire.

You jackknife away but something slams you in the gut, lets the air out, and collapses you like a punctured balloon. Drop in a heap at his feet, clutching yourself, trying to hold back thick, warm liquid seeping between your fingers.

Wixom stands over you, the gun aimed at your head. The bore looks big as a tunnel. "How you like that, jerk?" he sneers. "Thought you'd just waltz in and blast me, didn't you? Thought I wouldn't fight back, that I'd rabbit again, huh? Well, I'm through running. Gonna go to the cops, tell 'em what I know. What you think of that?"

What the hell is he yapping about? you wonder vaguely, drowning in a sea of pain.

He kicks you lightly in the thigh with the toe of a sneaker. "S'matter, big man, got nothing to say? You honchos always think you're tough. Don't look so tough now."

You want to tell him he's made a terrible mistake, that you're just a harmless process server, but you don't have the wind for it. Fumble with a bloody hand for the paper in your pocket.

"Don't try it." He jams the warm muzzle of the pistol against your temple and bends to slap your hand away. "I'll take the piece."