I Guess You Could Say She Booked Him

Armed with a search warrant, LAPD officers entered a house at 7 a.m. looking for evidence in a murder case. One cop said to another, “Hey, Raz, check the bedroom.” This perked up one of the occupants, who asked the second officer, “Are you Det. Razanskas?” He said yes, and she left the room. When she returned, she asked, “Would you sign my book?”

She was holding a copy of Miles Corwin’s “The Killing Season,” an account of a Times reporter’s summer with Pete Razanskas and Marcella Winn of the LAPD’s South Bureau homicide squad.

Razanskas said yes, she could have his autograph--after the search. As it turned out, no evidence was found. He signed the book, “Sorry for the early wake-up call. Enjoy the book--Raz.”

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REVERSE ENGINEERING: Evidence of a city road crew in Sylmar that was trying to go back in time was found by Fatima Baxter (see photo). Oh, yes, the Oct. 8-Oct. 6 notice was posted Oct. 13.

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HUNAN SACRIFICE? Andrea Calhoun of Santa Monica came upon a Westside restaurant whose dishes include such ingredients as chicken, beef, shrimp and, oddly enough, consumer reporter David Horowitz (see accompanying). Calhoun noted that an endorsement from Horowitz had appeared on the restaurant’s previous menu. And this is the way the place treats him?

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FOR THE SPORTS FAN WITH EVERYTHING: Some treasures of local interest listed in a guide advertising a Nov. 12-13 telephone sale by Leland’s Auctions in New York:

* An Orlando Magic jersey once worn by the Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal ($800) and later owned by another celebrity--”a former chauffeur to the stars of the NBA.”

* A 1979 USC Trojans Rose Bowl champion ring ($300), offered by an unidentified team member (well, so much for the school saying, “Once a Trojan, always a Trojan”).

* One of the last baseballs signed by President Richard Nixon before he was forced to resign from office ($300).

* A 1950 Valdosta, Ga., minor league jersey from the collection of former L.A. Dodger Roger Craig ($200). The jersey “was obviously used in the humid climate of Georgia.” (Please! We don’t want to hear any more!)

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NOCAL VS. SOCAL: Rarely have I seen California dissected in such a colorful manner as it was by novelist Irving Stone in a magazine piece in the mid-1950s.

“Northern California,” Stone wrote, “is a lean, hard-bitten mountain man, a Jedediah Smith or Joseph Walker, fighting his way across the snow-clad Sierra with a hunter’s gun slung on his back; male, rugged, disciplined, carrying the indestructible seed of a new civilization.

“Southern California is a lush, red-lipped sensual female who came from Acapulco in the cabin of a well-rigged Spanish ship, and now suns herself in a patio surrounded by bougainvillea, her gown cut sufficiently low to intimate how abundantly the coming generation may be nourished.”

OK, but where does that leave Fresno?

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THE CHAUFFEUR WASN’T INCLUDED: My former colleague Roy Ringer saw a 1973 Rolls-Royce on sale for $12,000 in Malibu. Nothing unusual about that except it was being offered at a garage sale. No doubt a red-lipped sensual female was sunning herself in a patio somewhere in the vicinity too.

miscelLAny:

The L.A. Daily Journal reports that attorney Wendell Peters has devised a line of hot sauces called “Judicial Flavors,” with such names as “Lawyer’s Breath,” “Shyster Sauce,” “Under the Influence” and “Contempt of Court.” Wonder how one of the sauces would taste poured over some David Horowitz?

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.