Hollywood

Hollywood provides a shifting urban backdrop to the search for Donny Salcido Mate. A redevelopment-era file locates him in an abandoned building near Western and Hollywood; when Alex Delaware later checks the address, the squatters are gone and a major remodeling project is underway. The location connects street-level investigation to the redevelopment that had brought transient residents under official scrutiny.

Setting and Redevelopment

Hollywood enters the investigation through a temporary police initiative prompted by redevelopment. Councilwoman Goldstein’s office asked the police to keep tabs on transients, leading to a short-lived operation known as the Bum Squad. Its officers canvassed squats and could make arrests if they found drugs or other crimes, but the stated purpose was largely to appease the councilwoman’s office.

Salcido’s Building

A file reviewed by Milo Sturgis and Petra Connor placed Donny Salcido Mate in an abandoned building near Western and Hollywood. Petra recalled a large frieze on its front, apparently depicting Louis B. Mayer or another film figure associated with the building. The file noted that Salcido had a felony record. It listed no known associate, so Petra thought he probably lived alone.

The squad recorded that Salcido claimed to be gainfully employed but could not provide supporting evidence. Its members considered him mentally ill and probably a drug user, and suggested that he seek help at a community mental-health center; he refused. They did not arrest him. Nor could they evict him without a complaint from the building’s owner, a limitation that left him in the squat at the time of the squad’s inquiry.

A Lead That Disappears

Hollywood remained a possible place to look for Salcido: if he was the homeless man Mrs. Krohnfeld had seen, he might still be in the area. That possibility also fit Milo Sturgis’s idea that Salcido could have been stalking Eldon Mate. Petra Connor, a Hollywood Division homicide detective whom Milo considered particularly well informed about the streets, was identified as a useful contact for pursuing that lead.

By the time Alex Delaware visited the building, however, Salcido and the other occupants were gone. Construction workers were present, and the site was undergoing extensive remodeling. The address therefore offered both a traceable record of Salcido’s recent circumstances and an unstable lead: the building could be documented, but its former residents were no longer there to question.