DEATH BY PARKING – Episode 4 – Stack Parking


All This FromGood Mexican Food and Tequila?


My good Lord. Those little black windup things with the W BY JVH


HAT IS THAT DAMN RINGING SOUND? OH, THEALARM– 6 a.m. already?


I grab at the clock, and it falls off the nightstand and keeps ringing. When I stand up to look for it, I step on it and bruise my foot. It’s still ringing.


luminous dials really can take abuse. Ding .. ding…. ding….. ding……………ding. Finally, it runs down. It must have been thatMexican food I had last night at El


Cholo onWestern. It was gooooood, but I mixed it with nearly a fifth of tequila and… What an amazing dream. I usually don’t remember dreams


all thatwell. Just the last couple ofminutes. But thismorning, it’s playing back like a news reel at the Bijou. The coffee is brewing, and the Hills Bros. is smelling great.


That new automatic coffee maker Shirley gave me actually works. I wasn’t sure that just by setting the hands on the clock face I could automatically brew my coffee in the morning. But,


ah, the wonders ofModern Science. I take a cup out on the veranda and look out over the LA


Basin. The thin layer of smog gives it a light-brown veneer, not pretty, but friendly. Like the nicotine color on a picture that’s been hanging in a local bar for 20 years. I think back on the dream. Parking? How can I have any-


thing to do with parking? There’s the phone call, the murders, Shirley tossing water in


my lap in the hospital. That I remember. Then there was the movie star with that funny voice, sort of a combination of a soft fountain and a she-wolf’s howl.And the shootout in BelAir to protect the money laundry that a crooked parking lot owner was running and trying, without success, to keep one step ahead of


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JANUARY 2010 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com


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