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Something is shifting in the Los Angeles smog. The old\u00a0grifters are getting pushed out. A new syndicate is moving in.<\/p>\n
Keith Birmingham\/Pasadena Star-News<\/p>\n
(With apologies to Raymond Chandler<\/a>)<\/p>\n The Santa Ana winds were blowing hot<\/a> and mean over the mountains. It was the kind of weather that sends city\u00a0council members and rats scurrying for deeper shadows.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a private dick\u00a0\u2014 name\u2019s Marlowe\u00a0\u2014 and I was in my Hollywood Boulevard office, nursing a lukewarm bourbon out of a glass that had seen better days. Just like the city outside my window, Los Angeles. But something was shifting in the smog. The old\u00a0grifters were getting pushed out. A new syndicate was moving in.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n I wish I could tell you this caper launched with a blonde walking through my door with a tear in her eye and a dead husband in her trunk.<\/p>\n No. It started with basketball.<\/p>\n A mid-level fixer with a big Venmo balance hired me to look into noise buzzing around the Lakers. Mark Walter, the Guggenheim money man who thought he owned the world because he owned the Dodgers and our precious purple-and-gold, was sweating. Somebody was making a play for the team, and they weren\u2019t using a bank loan. It was this Kushner kid<\/a>, capo of the White House family syndicate, and he was rolling into town with bags of cash from Nueva York, Silicon V, maybe Arabia. Neither the green nor his partner Mouse Man provided any real leverage. It was Kushner\u2019s lineage that frightened. He was brother to the son-of-law of the president, who enjoyed bringing federal prosecution on a whim.<\/p>\n Trust-fund baby Ellison is moving on\u00a0Warners after seizing Paramount, and he isn\u2019t acting alone. The White House family syndicate is backing him.<\/p>\n Jay L Clendenin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Turned out the federales were holding a magnifying glass to Walter\u2019s financial plumbing, threatening to turn the whole Guggenheim machine upside down<\/a> if he didn\u2019t cough up his LakeShow equity. Give us the keys to the franchise, Marky Mark, or we send in the G-men.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n I wanted to stop there. I couldn\u2019t. I kept pulling that thread, and the whole damn shirt of Southern California unraveled<\/p>\n This was the Plot Against Los Angeles.<\/p>\n How far did it go? I drove my old Plymouth over the hill to where the studio lots sit like walled fortresses. The mood there was as cheerful as a mortuary on a slow Tuesday. The trust-fund baby Ellison was moving on Warners<\/a> after seizing Paramount<\/a>, and he wasn\u2019t acting alone. The White House family syndicate was backing him and squeezing the state AG. Approve the studio merger, or the industry would move to Tennessee, or worse, the syndicate would audit the town back to the silent era.<\/p>\n You\u2019d think a town with a Pulitzer-winning paper would be screaming blue murder from the rooftops. But the watchdog had its teeth pulled and its mouth wired shut. I took Sepulveda all the way to the Gundo, to visit the L.A. Times. The billionaire doc who bought the paper to play savior had rolled over and showed his belly. Why? Because the South African Sawbones had skeletons in his biotech closet that danced the rumba. RFK Jr. slid into the doctor\u2019s orbit, rasping about health initiatives. Soon the old rag\u2019s owner allied with the anti-vaxxer<\/a> branch of the syndicate, and the paper 86\u2019d the ed board<\/a>.<\/p>\n The con of Los Angeles is on a scale that would make robber barons blush like rookie shoplifters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mario Tama\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Feeling hot around the collar, I took Imperial west to cool off at the beach. To my surprise, the bad guys were already there on PCH. Howie Lutnick, title of commerce secretary (21st century slang for bag man) wanted the whole damn coast so the syndicate could build, pave, drill oil, launch rockets. That Lutnick lug was using the syndicate\u2019s playbook. Suddenly, the Coastal Commission was under investigation. The play: Drown the watchdogs in federal inquiries while they stole the sand from under Jane Q. Public\u2019s bare feet.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n I could barely wrap my arms around a heist this big\u00a0\u2014 Lakers, Paramount, Warner, Malibu\u00a0\u2014 when my phone rang with a tip. These grifters hadn\u2019t stopped at the water. RFK Jr. and HUDsucker Turner were in Echo Park. They had their fingers in two big pots\u00a0\u2014 homeless services and Medi-Cal\u00a0\u2014 and were using anti-woke to justify taking billions for their own purposes.\u00a0The swamp must be drained! The progressives have failed! Cancel Corruption! <\/p>\n I had to tip my Borsalino hat. It was a beautiful con, smarter than any Eddie Mars<\/a> pulled off. \u00a0On a scale that would make robber barons blush like rookie shoplifters.<\/p>\n The picture was complete, pinned to the corkboard in my mind. The Trump syndicate was tying up every asset SoCal had\u00a0\u2014 the sports, the studios, the beaches, the housing, the media, the social services and soon the Olympics\u00a0\u2014 and denying the cash to anyone who didn\u2019t kiss the ring.<\/p>\n Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight<\/strong> are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect<\/strong> the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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