Healing Wolves
Part Two - The Search
By Scott J. Welles
scottjwelles@yahoo.com

ER and all related characters are the property of Warner Bros., Amblin Entertainment, and ConstantC productions, used here without permission. This story has been written entirely for entertainment value. No copyright infringement is intended, and no form of profit is being made on this work. Any errors in continuity, characterization, or common sense may be blamed entirely on me. Sorry. If this hasn't given you eyestrain already, read on.



If Glorianna Rossili was living in Los Angeles, she should be relatively easy to track down. Of course, that assumed that she didn't mind being found and wasn't taking steps to avoid it. It also assumed that her name was still Glorianna Rossili. If she'd gotten married, she could now be Glorianna Jones, or Glorianna Mendelsohn, or Glorianna Higgenbinkle, in which case she was probably in hiding, out of sheer embarrassment.

Of course, if she was in show business, like half the people in this town, or trying to break into show business, like the other half, she might have had her name changed to something less ethnic, like Glorianna Brown. Or maybe she had become a performance artist and now referred to herself simply as "Glorianna!!"

For that matter, she might not even live in Los Angeles. Maybe she was just passing through, stopping at Sea World or Knott's Berry Farm, when she suddenly decided to call Kerry Weaver in Chicago. Maybe she really lived in Batsbreath, Arkansas, or Purvis, North Dakota. Maybe she had emigrated to Budapest or Manitoba or Zaire, and was now living in a small, poverty-stricken village where she had been adopted by the local tribe and given a new name like Dances With Earthworms. This might just make her moderately more difficult to locate.

There was no listing for Glorianna Rossili in the Los Angeles telephone book. I found two Rossilis, nine Rosselis, and one Rossilini, none of whom claimed to know anyone named Glorianna or Glory. Of course, if it was that simple, Kerry Weaver wouldn't have shelled out top dollar to buy peace of mind from a local gumshoe. Economic Reform or no.

I made several more phone calls, and had received answers to most of them within forty minutes. Glorianna Rossili had not applied for a driver's license in the state of California, and she had no Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. A guy I know at the LAPD informed me that there were no wants or warrants for Glorianna Rossili, and no criminal record. The hospitals had no one by that name, and no Jane Does fitting her description had come in since Kerry Weaver talked to her on the phone. She wasn't hiding in the used bookstore downstairs, either, as I confirmed when I went out for lunch. You never know.

I tried calling Richard Wintergreen to let him know that we were employed again, but he wasn't at the Gentlemen's Club he usually hangs out at. I called his home number, and after two rings, his answering machine formally invited me to vent my tale of woes. He's like that. I left him a brief description of the case, mentioning Glorianna Rossili's name and Kerry Weaver's. I doubted that he'd get back to me on this one. These days, if it's not a locked-room puzzle worthy of Hercule Poirot, he's not interested. Maybe if I implied that Glorianna Rossili was a secret agent or an international art thief, and that's why I couldn't find her, it'd get his attention.

An hour and ten minutes later, I was sitting on top of my desk in the lotus position. That seems to stimulate my thinking. My chair is more comfortable, but I tend to doze off when I sit in it. I wondered, if I were to go to the local toy store and buy a bunch of toy animals and cartoon character figurines, and put them all over the floor, if it would look as if I was gazing down on them like Zeus from Mount Olympus. If I had a Bambi figurine, I could put it on the floor next to the inflatable Godzilla's feet, and see who got the joke.

The phone's ringing saved me from further thoughts of cruelty to cartoon animals. It was a woman I know at Pacific Bell, who had been on break when I tried her earlier. I asked her if she could trace the phone number Kerry Weaver had given me. She could, but I had to promise her Dave Matthews tickets to get her to do it. Which meant, in turn, that I would have to come up with Dave Matthews tickets somewhere. But eventually, I got what I needed. An address, and a name.

Gloria Russell.

Anyone want to place bets on this one?

I hung up and looked at my watch. Maybe two hours had passed since Kerry Weaver had left my office, and already I had Glorianna Rossili pinpointed. Without even leaving the desk.   Except for lunch. I smiled at the medieval gargoyle statuette perched on my desk, tapping on his little stone laptop computer, and said, "How about that, Murgatroyd? The Fox has done it again."

Twenty minutes later, I had driven past Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, the most expensive shopping district in the world, past West Hollywood, Koreatown, and the Miracle Mile, and parked in front of Gloria Russell's apartment building on Western, just south of Melrose Avenue. The apartment complexes in this area were mostly built in the 1930's, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and you could see a Spanish influence in the décor. A barred security gate fronted a small courtyard with a couple of five-story palm trees and a decorative fountain with a pair of benches on either side. The fountain was dry and cracked, and the benches didn't look frequently sat on. Most of the inner apartments had windows that looked down on the courtyard, so anyone who came to the front door was an object of public scrutiny.

The listing by the gate's intercom included "G. Russell >> 402," and I thought about the best way to gain admission. The obvious approach was to buzz her and identify myself and state my business plainly, but that wasn't necessarily the wisest course of action. If Gloria Russell didn't want anyone to know that she was actually Glorianna Rossili, she wouldn't be likely to admit me. Or even if it wasn't a secret, people aren't often comfortable about private investigators asking to see them. Too afraid I'm here to bust them for taking home office supplies.

Maybe I could get in by claiming to be Ed McMahon and announcing that Gloria Russell had won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. Could my voice pass for Ed's? I tried saying "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" softly, but it sounded more like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining." Besides, if she had a window overlooking the courtyard, she could just look out and see for herself that I wasn't Ed. Or Jack.

As I was working up another idea with as much chance for success as Wile E. Coyote's latest, a fortyish black man in jogging sweats unlocked the gate and went in without looking at me. I caught the gate before it could shut and followed him across the courtyard. As we neared the front door, he caught sight of my reflection in the little windows and looked back at me.

I gave him the Jim Carrey smile. "Thanks," I said, "Andy forgot to give me a spare key before he went to work."

"Uh huh," he replied, warily, but he unlocked the front door anyway. I followed him inside like I belonged there. You can get into almost anyplace if you act that way. He turned to the mailboxes, and I went up the stairs. I wondered idly if there was actually anyone named Andy living in the building. Most people in this city wouldn't know their neighbors if they tripped over them.

At 402, I knocked three times and waited. After a minute, Glorianna Rossili opened the door. She wore tan slacks and a brown flannel shirt open over a gray tee shirt. She was maybe ten pounds heavier, and had a few extra smile lines, but it was her. Same teeth, same hair, same freckles. Glorianna Rossili. Damn, I'm good.

"Ms. Russell?" I said, and she nodded. "My name is Daniel Fox. I'm a private investigator." I showed her a photostat of my license. "Kerry Weaver asked me to find you."

Glorianna Rossili's face had held a kind of open, expectant look like we all have in those can-I-help-you moments. But when I mentioned Kerry Weaver's name, it went sort of slack and pale, as if she had heard the air raid sirens and knew that the atomic bombs were on their way.

A burly guy her age appeared behind her. He wore khakis and a red flannel shirt and his hairline was receding. He said, "Glory, is this guy bothering you?" Kind of hoping she'd say yes so he could throw my ass out and prove his manliness.

"No, it's all right, Gary," she said, finding her voice, "I, um..."

"Whatta you want, pal?" Gary said to me, trying to give me the Dominant Male look. He did okay at it. Not well enough to actually dominate me, but okay.

"I'd like to speak with Ms. Russell for a few minutes, if it's all the same to you, Gary," I said. "Or, for that matter, even if it isn't."

You could see him getting pissed at me. Maybe enough to press the point physically. If he came at me, he'd have to shove between Glory and the doorjamb, and that would slow him down enough for me to step out of his way and let him have it before he could turn.

Glory was glancing nervously from Gary to me and back again. She could see him gearing up, too. She put a hand on his arm. "Gary, could you give us a couple of minutes, please?"

You could tell he didn't like it at all. He glanced from her to me, in pretty much the same way she had. Then he said, "I'll be down in the car." He slid past her, resignedly. I stepped back to let him out, but he made a big deal of bumping shoulders with me anyway. Mr. Tough. I let it go, and he went downstairs.  Some people are just like that.

When Gary was no longer a distraction, Glorianna Rossili turned her attention back to me. "Sorry about that," she said.

I gave her the good smile, with a little Kurt Russell in it. "That's okay. I'll work it out in therapy."

"Gary had a little trouble with the police once."

"Plenty of people have. Anyway, I'm not a police officer, Ms. Russell. Is it Russell, or Rossili?"

"Russell. I tried being an actress for a while, so I changed it." You see?

"Yeah, me too," I said. My last name used to be Faulkner. "Well, Ms. Russell, I've just been hired to locate you, not cause you any trouble."

She nodded. "Kerry hired you?"

"That's right. She got your phone call, and she was a little concerned by the tone." We were still standing in the hallway.

"She's not here with you, is she?"

I made a show of looking up and down the hallway and around me. "Nope. Not right now."

Glory closed her eyes and let out her breath. "Good."

"She is in town, though, and she'd very much like to see you."

She shook her head. "Well, I don't want to see her."

I was beginning to feel awkward standing in the hallway. "May I come in for minute, Ms. Russell?"

"No. I mean, Gary and I were just on our way out." Glory let out a deep sigh, like Kerry Weaver was an insistent problem she'd been plagued with for far too long, and she was just at her wits' end. Maybe Kerry Weaver wasn't any more fun around her old friends than she was around me. "Look, Mister..." She'd forgotten already.

"Fox. Daniel Fox."

"Mr. Fox. Kerry means well, I'm sure, but she kind of assumes that she knows what's best for everyone around her, better than they do. She tries to tell people what to do, and harps on it when you disagree with her. I got sick of her being my conscience years ago."

"So why'd you call her, that's how you feel?"

"I don't know. It was stupid, I just..." She waved off the rest of the sentence, then stepped into the hall and locked her door. "Look, Mr. Fox, you found me fair and square, okay? You delivered your message. But please don't tell Kerry where to find me. You don't have to, right?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm required to respect your wishes in that regard," I admitted.

"Good." Glorianna Rossili walked past me toward the stairs.

"She's staying at the Bonaventure Hotel if you change your mind," I said to her back.

"I don't care," she said without looking back, and then she was gone.

I leaned against the wall for a while. Sometimes I get sick of being a go-between for people's petty disagreements. Sometimes I think that Jerry Springer's got the right idea. Just get everyone involved together and let the chairs fly between them and leave the rest of us out of it. Maybe they could all just sort of consume each other, Glory and Gary and Kerry and Jerry. One big human cockfight.

"Do you believe this?" I said to the empty hall. Then I turned and went home.