He's No Angel, He's a P.I.
It's 10 p.m., and John Nazarian, a burly 53-year-old private eye, is hurtling around Beverly Hills in his immaculate red Scion looking for garbage. Nazarian treats trash as his private archeological site, the detritus of human existence that exposes all our hidden vulnerabilities -- financial documents, prescription bottles, booze bottles and anything, anything, that might sport DNA.
"I would love to find condoms," he said, and cackled. "It's kind of disgusting to be pawing around other people's personal waste."
Yes, it's a dirty job being a private investigator, but Nazarian is prepared to do it. As he likes to say over and over again, he is one of the most expensive private eyes in L.A., charging $10,000 to $20,000 on retainer and $400 an hour for his services. He's racked up a number of celebrity clients, including singer Peggy Lee (whom he assiduously protected from the paparazzi to preserve the public's memory of her as a blond bombshell), Dean Martin, kooky billionaire Doris Duke and her butler, Bernard Lafferty. He's caught stalkers for CBS Chairman Les Moonves and former "NYPD Blue" star Andrea Thompson.
And then there are the 20 or so unnamed Hollywood wives with philandering husbands for whom Nazarian and his crew of 22 ex-cops and sundry specialists seem to be working in perpetuity.
Nazarian is part of a long, not particularly illustrious tradition of Hollywood private eyes, from fictional antiheroes, such as Sam Spade and "Chinatown's" Jake Gittes, to real-life swaggerer Fred Otash, the investigator for the scandal sheet Confidential Magazine, and Anthony Pellicano, the infamous gumshoe who sits in jail awaiting trial on more than 100 counts of wiretapping and witness intimidation.
This is why Nazarian keeps no records. Nothing. Tonight's game plan merely consists of a 3-by-5 card with an address.
"The D.A.s get furious with me," he said in a broad Boston accent. "We've had our documents requested, and I said I don't have 'em."
For this particular jaunt around Beverly Hills and Bel-Air, Nazarian has opted for a black muscle shirt and black sweats. He is officially dressed down, having left much of what he calls his costume at home. That includes a hat, oversize designer shades and bling -- most notably his trademark rings, two hunks of gold and platinum that look like smashed golf balls. He designed them himself, as he did the idiosyncratic cut of his dyed black beard. It looks as if his goatee sprouted two slender butterfly wings. He shaves what's left of his hair, like Kojak. The general look suggests menace, and that's the point.
