Read Online Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh - Free Book Online

recovered, he said to Dana, “Partner, there’s no way we can book this guy.
     I can dine out on this story.”
    Dana Vaughn said to the new father, “Okay, honey, turn back around and call your brother to come get you.”
    The trio standing on the sidewalk never noticed the nondescript gray Honda Civic motoring slowly past them on Melrose, where
     the mechanic had earned his freedom by unintentionally providing the officers of 6-X-76 with a locker-room tale. The man that
     Tristan and Jerzy knew as Jakob Kessler glanced their way but was not curious, checking his watch because he had to be at
     the restaurant before Suzie got off shift.
    Suzie was waiting for Kessler when he got there. She was a recent college graduate who’d majored in art history and, like
     thousands before her, had gotten employment where she could, usually in Hollywood eateries. The young woman looked nervous
     and was fiddling with her auburn ponytail when Kessler walked into the chain eatery on Sunset Boulevard. The stools were all
     taken, as were most of the tables, and Jakob Kessler, wearing his usual dark suit and plain necktie, waited until a customer
     vacated one of the stools.
    He sat, ordered a cup of coffee, and used a paper napkin when he lifted the cup to his lips, so as not to leave fingerprints
     when he was working a job. As for DNA on the cup, there was nothing he could do about it short of carrying a spray bottle
     and washing it. He dismissed his action as a silly example of his growing anxiety with the work overload being forced upon
     him, and he dropped the paper napkin.
    Suzie brushed past him, touching his back when she took an order to the kitchen, and when she returned, she paused behind
     his stool, removed the skimmer from under her apron, and handed it to him. Jakob Kessler took the skimmer, which was the size
     of a cigarette pack, and put it under his suit coat in a small bag hanging from his shoulder. As Suzie was walking away, she
     had her hands behind her and held up four fingers on one hand and five on the other, meaning that she’d skimmed nine credit
     cards.
    Jakob Kessler put money on the counter for his coffee and counted out two $50 bills for Suzie. He felt he was being overly
     generous, but she was new and he wanted to keep her in the game. They passed close to each other when he headed for the door
     and she freed her right hand from a tray of dessert and grabbed the money, slipping it into her apron pocket. He didn’t have
     a replacement skimmer with him and made a mental note to have his wife go on the Internet and buy several new ones. After
     all, they were only $50 each and worth their weight in diamonds.
    For his next stop he had to drive over the hill to a mall in Sherman Oaks. Once again he considered the way he was doing business,
     wearing out tires and shoe leather when there were competitors doing it the easy way. He knew several Hollywood Armenians
     who were putting their skimmers inside service station gasoline pumps. He’d been told that it was ridiculously easy to do,
     since one key opened all pumps. The Armenians would simply wait until the service station was closed, then install the skimmer.
     After a few days they’d return to the pump and remove it as easily as they’d installed it.
    The Romanians were more ingenious, and experts in Bluetooth technology. They’d simply aim their device, which would seek,
     find, and connect, relaying the information from the skimmer. They didn’t even have to take the risk of dealing with a device
     that might get discovered by a service station owner who’d then alert police. The city was full of cyber thieves trolling
     the airwaves.
    He drove to a Hollywood shopping center and entered a hardware store, one of the chains that employed at least a hundred employees
     in each store. He picked out a roll of duct tape that he did not need and headed for the checkout line manned by a longtime
     store employee named Harold Swanson, a man who