Requiem For Radio
I found her in Paris I lost her in Rome She always knew best How to light the way home. She always gave back Much more promise than fear Then the tubes all burnt out And there was nothing to hear. You think of her fondly All the lessons she taught All the truths she...
South Of Primm, Nevada
South of Primm, Nevada, soaring across the dry lakebed, they sipped the last of the lukewarm coffee. Nick and Caroline listened to Slaid Cleaves. They raced across the Nevada state line and half an hour later, checked into a hotel just beyond the border of the...
The Highway Call
The highway call swirled up again, droning like a Peterbilt groaning up the slow lane of a long grade. What he heard was unmistakable. The echoes of deeper yearnings bounced off his inner walls. The highway call rarely came from the road itself. Its origins were...
In The Parking Lot At Ralph’s
In the parking lot at Ralph’s on Weyburn Avenue, Caroline tried to get into one of the Cypriot detective’s cellphones. Nick worked on opening the purloined laptop. Neither made progress. Shortly after midnight, they decided to take a break and resume with the...
Outside Monticello, Utah
Outside Monticello, Utah the front right tire blew out. Then the van taking the oil and gas industry lobbyists to their conference at the lodge sailed off the road. At the San Juan Hospital, the sole survivor briefly regained consciousness. He described the van’s...
Farther Down Kingsley Drive
Farther down Kingsley Drive a massive orange fireball suddenly lit the sky. Nick and Caroline heard the first narrow crack of the explosion, then the broader dull echoes of the blast which bounced between buildings on the narrow street. Farther down Kingsley Drive, a...
Shakey’s Pizza On Sunset
Shakey’s Pizza on Sunset was short on critical acclaim but you couldn’t help but admire its longevity. Fifty years and counting. Nick and Caroline were in Shakey’s parking lot. “He’ll have another phone with him to track his devices,” said Nick. “I don’t think we...
Never On Kingsley Drive
Never on Kingsley Drive had such intrigue unfurled so quietly. It was as if a trance had captured the street. Caroline left the apartment building pulling what Nick recognized as the Cypriot detective’s luggage. A backpack was slung over her left shoulder. She...
Later On Kingsley Drive
Later on Kingsley Drive, a callous gust swept away the illicit pizza aromas billowing out of Shakey’s. They swirled up through a crack in the sky. The detective from Cyprus and the young woman Nick figured was the man’s daughter passed through the big front door of...
The Silver Hyundai
The silver Hyundai pulled in off Sunset. It groaned with the unmistakable anonymity of a rental car and wedged into a parking spot across from the old apartment house. Nick watched a small man with improbably long arms retrieve his luggage from the trunk. He moved...
The Shadows On Kingsley Drive
The shadows on Kingsley Drive should have fallen softly and gathered slowly. But they did not fall softly and spread so suddenly Nick shuddered. It was as if an hour had passed in a minute. If he had fallen asleep it couldn’t have been for long. The shadows on...
Tacos Guelaguetza on Melrose
Tacos Guelaguetza on Melrose should be enshrined. It reinforced Nick’s love of simple food. He ate slowly and watched the front of the apartment house on Kingsley Drive. Then it occurred to him the Cypriot detective could be dropped off by an Uber driver. This hadn’t...
Waiting For The Cypriot
Waiting for the Cypriot detective to show up to visit his daughter, Nick considered the difficulties and cataloged the challenges. He had a clear view of the front door of the apartment building on Kingsley Drive which the man would presumably enter. But he couldn’t...
The Kingsley Drive Stakeout
The Kingsley Drive stakeout was about to unfold. He stopped at Tacos Guelaguetza on Melrose for a bag of chicken tacos to go. Then Nick cut down to Sunset and drove east to Kingsley. He wasn’t looking forward to this. Then again, he had never been on a stakeout. ...
Kingsley Drive
Kingsley Drive never made the front page. It wasn’t that kind of street. Even the Armenians who had moved in to the neighborhood didn’t pay it much mind. Nick found her apartment just off Sunset. It overlooked the drowsy street from the ground floor of a small but...
East of the Hollywood Freeway
East of the Hollywood Freeway on Melrose Avenue, Nick weighed the pros and cons of catching up with the detective from Cyprus. If this could unravel and expose the illegal duplicities of a big oil company, that’s the only way it might possibly prove worthwhile....
Off Bel Air Road
Off Bel Air Road Nick holed up in cramped quarters over his uncle’s garage. He was ready to get back on the trail of the Cypriot private detective. Off Bel Air Road, the scent of the Eucalyptus after the rain was just as good as he remembered.
Outside Tucumcari, New Mexico
Outside Tucumcari, New Mexico, Dorothy had an early dinner at the Mexican restaurant she’d read about. It wasn’t what she had in mind because they were out of hatch chiles. She missed the Santa Monica Mountains and the camaraderie. Outside Tucumcari, New Mexico,...
