government.”
“Federal?”
“Federal, state, county. A lot of his holdings seem to be cofinanced by public funds. We’re talking low-cost housing projects, senior citizen residences, landmark buildings, assisted care. And guess what: halfway houses for parolees. Including the one on Sixth Street where Roland Kristof crashes. The state legislature says we have to pay for the board and care of felonious individuals, and Koppel’s cleaning up.”
“Public-spirited,” I said.
“It’s a great arrangement. Find some building or construction project that’s eligible for bond money or a grant, split your costs with John Q, take all the income. In terms of Koppel’s background, all I can find is that he did his undergrad work and law school at the U. But he never practiced, and I can’t locate any record of his taking the bar. Somehow he got bankrolled and built up an empire.”
“Is the office building where Pacifica practices a government deal?”
“Doesn’t seem to be,” he said. “But not because it’s in Beverly Hoohah. Koppel owns two B.H. properties- a senior residence hotel on Crescent Drive and a shopping center on La Cienega – that were financed with tax bucks. The hotel qualifies for an HUD gift and the strip mall got a FEMA grant because the stores that stood there before were earthquake-damaged.”
“He knows how to work the system,” I said.
“He works it well. The only time his name appears on court documents is when he sues someone or someone sues him. Mostly the former- back-rent and eviction cases. Once in a while he gets tagged with a slip-and-fall by a tenant. Sometimes he settles, sometimes he fights. When he fights, he wins. He distributes his business among eight different law firms, all downtown, all white-shoe. But get this: He doesn’t even live in a house, let alone a mansion. His primary residence- and it was hard to find- is an apartment on Maple Drive in Beverly Hills. Which sounds nice, but it’s not one of the fancy condos, just an old building, kind of shabby, six units. One of Koppel’s limited partnerships owns the place, and Koppel lives in a two-bedroom at the back. The manager doesn’t even know her tenant’s really her boss, because she referred to Koppel as ‘the heavy guy, real quiet’ and said the owners were some Persians who lived in Brentwood. On several of his rentals, Koppel hires a couple named Fahrizad to serve as his front.”
“Elusive fellow,” I said.
“Let’s challenge that.”
Sonny Koppel’s stretch of Maple Drive lay between Beverly Boulevard and Civic Center Drive. Mixed-use neighborhood, the west side filled by a granite-clad behemoth that served as Mercedes Benz headquarters, a high- profile, extravagantly landscaped office complex that catered to entertainment lawyers and film agents, and construction dust from a fulminating high-rise.
Across the street were two-story apartment buildings, souvenirs of the postwar building boom. Koppel’s was one of the dingiest examples, an off-gray traditional with a cheap composite roof. Three upstairs units, three down, a scratchy lawn, struggling shrubs.
Koppel’s Buick was parked in back, squeezed into one of the half dozen slots in the open carport. We cruised and found each of Koppel’s other cars parked within two blocks, each with Beverly Hills street parking permits that were up-to-date.
An Olds, a Chevy, a Dodge. Gray, gray, dark green. Lots of dust on the first two. The Dodge had been washed recently. I idled the Seville as Milo got out and examined each vehicle. Empty.
I parked, and we headed for Koppel’s building.
Sonny Koppel answered the door palming popcorn out of a chartreuse plastic bowl. The fragrance brought to mind the theater-lobby smell of Pacifica’s building. Before Milo had his badge out, Koppel nodded as if he’d been expecting us and beckoned us in. He wore a royal blue U. sweatshirt over plaid pajama bottoms and fuzzy brown slippers.
Five-eight, 270 at least, with a melon gut and thinning reddish brown hair that frizzed above a high, glossy pate. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his stubble looked like dandruff. Saggy blue eyes, pendulous lips, short, thick limbs, beefy hands with stubby nails.
Behind him, an old nineteen-inch RCA TV blared financial news from a cable station. Koppel lowered the volume.
“My girls told me you were by,” he said, in a sleepy basso. “It’s about Mary, right? I was wondering if you’d get in touch- here, sit, sit.”
He stopped to study a stock quotation on the tube, switched off the set, cleared a massive pile of newspapers off a plaid sofa, and brought them over to a metal-legged dinette table. Four red vinyl chairs ringed the table. Hardback ledgers filled two of them. Half the table surface was taken up by more ledgers and legal pads, pens, pencils, a hand calculator, cans of Diet 7-Up, snack bags of assorted carbohydrates.
The apartment was basic: white walls, low ceilings, a front space that served as the living room-eating area, a kitchenette, the bathroom and bedrooms beyond a stucco arch. Nothing on the walls. The kitchen was cluttered but clean. A few feet from the counter, a PC setup was perched on a rolling cart. Aquarium screen saver. An air conditioner rattled.
Sonny Koppel said, “Can I offer you guys something to drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Koppel’s soft, bulky shoulders rose and fell. He sighed, sank into a green tweed La-Z-Boy recliner, kept the chair upright.
Milo and I took the plaid sofa.
“So,” said Koppel, “what can I do for you?”
“First off,” said Milo, “is there anything you can tell us about your ex-wife that could help us solve her murder?”
“I wish there was. Mary was a remarkable person- attractive, really smart.” Koppel ran a hand over his scalp. Instead of settling, his hair picked up static and coiled as if alive. The room was dim and he was backlit with fluorescence from the kitchen and the hair became a halo. Sad-looking, pajama-bottomed guy with an aura.
“You’re thinking,” he said, “how did someone like her ever hook up with someone like me.”
His lips curled like miniature beef roulades, approximating amusement. “When Mary and I met I didn’t look like this. Back then I was more shortstop than sumo. Actually, I was a pretty decent jock, got a baseball scholarship to the U., had Major League fantasies.”
He paused, as if inviting comment. When none followed, he said, “Then I ripped a hamstring and found out I had to actually study to get out of there.”
One hand dipped into the popcorn bowl. Koppel gathered a full scoop and transferred the kernels to his mouth.
Milo said, “You met Dr. Koppel when you were in law school?”
“I was in law school, and she was in grad school. We met at the rec center, she was swimming, and I was reading. I tried to pick her up, but she blew me off.” He touched his abdomen as if it ached. “The second time I tried, she agreed to go out for coffee, and we hit it off great. We got married a year later and divorced two years after that.”
“Problems?” said Milo.
“Everyone’s got them,” said Koppel. “What’s the cliche- we grew apart? Part of the problem was time. Between her dissertation and my classes, we never saw each other. The
“Cheating on her?”
