Guardian Satan

In a fix? This handyman can.

Comments (0) By Johnny Angel Wednesday, Jul 14 1999

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As long as he can get up and go, his health problems have probably sharpened his perspective. He doesn’t have the energy to be reckless. "Discretion was and is everything," he says, recounting the tale of a woman who came to him with problems over Henry (also not his real name), a high-powered trick and Beverly Hills lawyer.

When cops nailed the woman for carrying bogus painkiller script — and roughed her up in the process — she figured Henry was setting her up. It was his script, after all, and the lawyer he got for her didn’t show up at the arraignment. "She starts talking blackmail, and I tell her to be cool. What she’s gotta do is get her own lawyer, and take pictures of where the cops hurt her. I figured that her man was testing her, seeing if she was loyal and would hold her mud.

"Don’t you know it, he springs for the lawyer and all is cool. I was right."

Another happy ending? Even better in this case. Henry was so impressed that he put the mechanic on a $500-a-week retainer. "I go to meetings with him, and I sit there and say nothing while these clients run their shit on him. I tell him who is on the up and up, where these guys are really coming from. I can think like a junkie thief, which Henry can’t do," he says. "It’s the only way a lowlife gangsta from East L.A. would ever make it into Century City boardrooms, man, but I’m not complaining.

"Everybody needs a mechanic."