Copp On Ice, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) Read Online Free PDF

three quick gunshots broke the peace up there. Sounded like a handgun and almost certainly on the grounds, not within the mansion.
    Before I could react, the jeep backed out of the drive and headed down the hill with its lights off. I went after it, heard yelling and cussing followed immediately by alarm sirens as I passed the driveway, turned on my headlamps then and tried to close on the jeep.
    Didn't even find the jeep.
    A police cruiser tore past me wailing and flashing as I approached the boulevard. Quick response. Turned on my radio, then, and tried to catch the play but there was no play. So I picked up the mike and checked in. "This is Copp. What's the play above Foothill?"
    A female dispatcher responded, "Gunfire report, Chief, Ellenmount area. I've dispatched a patrol unit to check it out."
    "Back 'em up," I ordered. "The disturbance is at 726 Craggy Lane."
           "Got that," responded a cool male voice. "Unit four- oh-one responding."
           "Beware of guard dog," I told him.
           "Ten-four."
           I waited while another unit was dispatched to the scene, then I requested a spot on the jeep, gave the license number. The dispatcher replied, "That's, uh, a restricted."
           I said, "Right. I just want a location spot."
           Another car checked in: "She just passed me on Montezuma, headed into Helltown."
           "Helltown?"
           "Zone Four." the dispatcher explained.
           Zone Four or Forty made no difference to me, I was a stranger in town, but you have to be careful what you say on a police radio these days. Anyway, I could guess about Helltown—a place where anything goes, and usually does, a place outside the jurisdiction of the Brighton PD.
           I could leave it to the police machine to determine who had shot at what, and why. I wanted to know why Lila Boobs had run from that shooting and gone from the sublime to the ridiculous—the mountainside to the cesspool.
           So I went to Helltown too.
     

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    A city, you know , is legally defined by its geographical boundaries as a political subdivision of a county, and a county is usually regarded as a political entity that is composed of cities, towns, villages and rural areas. The latter distinction does not always hold true, of course. The county of San Francisco, for example, contains nothing whatever outside the city of San Francisco. Some years back the city of Indianapolis extended its political boundaries to include the entire county of Marion and the two governments merged to form a single entity.
    The Los Angeles metropolitan area involves more than thirteen million residents, no less than five counties, and hundreds of cities. I meet people all the time who do not know which county they live in, and there are even those who are confused about which city they live in. Some do not even live within a city and are not aware of that. There is a blending and homogeneity within this area that blurs political distinctions for those who are not politically minded, as well as for some who are very much so.
    You can live in a highly developed section of Glendora, for example, that is almost indistinguishable from most other neighborhoods in that city—and your neighbor across the street is in the same neighborhood as you but he lives in Azusa, and most of the neighborhoods in Azusa are virtually indistinguishable from yours. You'll find in both towns the same names for theaters, supermarkets, drugstores, department stores, restaurants, and what have you. You will even find common streets which move serenely from city to city without changing names.
    Start in Azusa on Foothill Boulevard and drive east to San Bernardino—a distance of some thirty-five miles— and you will pass through the cities of Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona, Claremont, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana and Rialto as well as Brighton without ever touching a rural area and with