FBI Given the Slip : Law enforcement: An informant, held at a local hotel for a murder and drug investigation, has unofficially checked out.

Somewhere out there, Joshua Hillel is probably still laughing.

And somewhere out there are some very unhappy FBI agents who are desperately looking for him.

Hillel, who was arrested Jan. 12 in Memphis on heroin distribution charges, was brought to Los Angeles recently to help authorities in a major investigation of a local murder and drug trafficking, sources say. But just before Hillel was to spill the beans Monday morning, he escaped--by simply walking away.

By the time his FBI escorts noticed he was missing from the Guest Quarters Hotel in Santa Monica, where they had been staying, Hillel had vanished without a trace.

“They turned their back,” Santa Monica Police spokesman Bill Brucker said, “and off he went.”

Hillel, 43, apparently was heading for a hotel room shortly after 9:30 a.m. when instead he opened the door next to it--which led down some stairs, authorities said.

Assistant hotel manager John Denson said the FBI agents then rushed downstairs in hot, but discreet, pursuit.

“They came down and asked the front-desk clerks if they saw a guy with a dark jacket on,” Denson said. The clerks, he added, said no.

The FBI immediately set up and later disbanded a command post at Santa Monica police headquarters, which is just across the street from the Guest Quarters. Several FBI agents, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department, Santa Monica Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department helped look for the fugitive, to no avail.

“It’s obviously something we wish hadn’t happened,” said one FBI official, asking not to be identified. “But the realities of the world are such that things sometimes turn out for the worst.”

Authorities are continuing their search for Hillel. FBI officials said they are following several leads, but would not say where they are looking.

“We haven’t found him,” was all FBI spokeswoman Joanne Wilfert would say. “We’re still looking.”

One police source said “nobody has a clue” as to Hillel’s whereabouts. The fugitive was last seen walking up 4th Street toward downtown Santa Monica, a hotel employee said.

Federal authorities aren’t saying much about the case or about Hillel, an Israeli citizen described as 5-feet, 9-inches tall, weighing 200 pounds, and “dumpy looking,” in the words of one local police officer. He has a large scar on his chin and lip and a recently injured eye, a severe under-bite, crooked teeth, dark hair, a “swarthy complexion,” and was last seen wearing a black leather jacket, authorities said.

FBI spokeswoman Karen Gardner said that although fugitives are usually considered dangerous, Hillel is not believed to be a threat to a community. She said escaping while in federal custody could bring Hillel an additional five years in prison.

Ed Bradberry, an FBI spokesman in Memphis, confirmed that Hillel was “assisting us in an ongoing investigation,” but declined further comment.

Law enforcement sources familiar with the case say authorities are hoping Hillel is found soon, before he is silenced.

“If he is who he purported himself to be, his life is in great danger,” one official close to the investigation said. He said Hillel was a suspect in at least one murder, and that he “was heavy into some drug trafficking organization that killed a lot of people. He was here to show where the bodies were buried and who was involved.

“I think the government is more worried about him turning up dead without giving them the information,” the official added, “than they are with making sure he serves a sentence” for alleged possession of 2.2 pounds of heroin.

Authorities also are trying to find out exactly how Hillel’s FBI escorts could have let such a high-profile--and potentially valuable and dangerous--informant get away, and what will happen to them.

“We figure they’ll probably be doing duty in North Dakota or Alaska or somewhere like that,” said one official. “Their bosses aren’t going to be happy. Not at all.”