GADGETRY, GIFT OF GAB SERVE TODAY'S GUMSHOE VAN NUYS' DETECTIVE AGENCY MARKS CENTURY OF SLEUTHING.

Byline: DANA BARTHOLOMEW Staff Writer

VAN NUYS - The private eye sat scrunched inside a minivan, lurking behind tinted windows and a long-range video lens.

His job: to stake out a dad for possibly dealing drugs and imperiling his kids.

``The hard part of this job is constantly watching -- it's boredom until something happens,'' said J. Corey Friedman, owner of Nick Harris Detectives & Detective Academy, never letting his eye stray from the apartments across the street.

``Then it's, `Wow -- we've got him!'''

For the past 100 years, Nick Harris private investigators have surveilled philanderers, tracked down debtors, sleuthed missing persons, pursued bail-skippers, traced hidden funds, hunted down frauds -- from workers' compensation to insurance scams to identity thieves -- debugged offices, retraced old murders and scratched the pale underbelly of Los Angeles.

Founding gumshoe Nicholas B. Harris coined the term ``crime does not pay'' for his first radio who-dunit series that would glamorize private eyes.

And Milo Speriglio, the late author and owner of Nick Harris Detectives, went to his grave swearing that Marilyn Monroe got whacked by the Mob and ``Superman'' actor George Reeves died by someone else's hand.

Nick Harris dicks, according to the agency, fought crime long before the FBI and have conducted more than 1 million investigations.

The Nick Harris Detective Academy, the oldest in the nation, has trained more than 10,000 private eyes.

But Friedman, its third owner, is anything but Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade -- boozy P.I.s as fast with their fists as they were with their trigger fingers.

Instead, the balding Magic Castle magician, like many of the nation's 60,000 licensed private investigators, favors high-tech wizardry over brass- knuckled force.

``You name it, I can put a camera in it,'' Friedman said, before showing off a collection of camera and recorder caps, shirts, calculators, watches and briefcases. Even his minivan sports cameras front and rear.

``What I tell people is that we're licensed stalkers -- we can legally follow people where somebody else might get arrested. But we're doing it for good, not evil.''

Nick Harris Detectives & Detective Academy, located in an aging storefront in an industrial section of Van Nuys, is celebrating its centennial with free classes and seminars for qualified applicants.

A secret bookcase door now connects it to Friedman College and Friedman Lock and Key, two of numerous licensed entities of Friedman's that allow him and his investigators to pose as locksmiths, contractors, ministers, journalists, paramedics, legal servers and more.

Mementos cover the walls of an agency founded downtown in 1906 by the son of the founder of the Chicago Daily News. The academy was launched the following year.

``You Know I Am `Fighting Crime All The Time,''' boasts Harris, a former Los Angeles crime reporter and cop famous for such quirks as not handling anyone's pen, in a 1920s ad.

A letter from then-Vice President George H.W. Bush hails the agency for ``a job well done.''

``Nick Harris has one of the best reputations out there, if not the best,'' said Jimmie Mesis, owner and editor-in-chief of PI Magazine, the only trade publication for P.I.s and law enforcement detectives.

``Corey (Friedman) is the absolute guru of P.I.s industrywide,'' added Tony Gomez, a 44-year-old studio grip who recently graduated from the academy.

Gomez said he got the private-eye bug while working on the set for ``Charlie's Angels.''

Within weeks of learning how to track people through the agency's more than 500 databases, he was working a lost-child case, shadowing a home in Glendale where a 16-year-old runaway girl had laid-up with her boyfriend.

``I love it. It's great. It's absolutely wonderful,'' said Gomez, now one of 2,093 state-licensed private eyes in Los Angeles County, of his work.

For Friedman, finding people for hire requires a polished silver tongue. He's got a license or business card for every ruse.

Consider the lovelorn man who wanted the cell phone number of the world's top 30 models. ``We got 28 out of 30 cell phone numbers -- all by calling them up and saying we were doing a movie or newspaper article,'' Friedman said.

Or consider the Van Nuys doctor who was drunk, ran into a police car, then skipped bail for Canada. ``I found him in 48 hours,'' Friedman said. ``I told (a relative) he may be entitled to a refund on a utility deposit -- so he called me.''

But Friedman says neither he nor his agency employ tactics that could put them on the wrong side of the law.

``First of all, I never lie, I absolutely never lie,'' said the former paramedic, deputy and bail bondsman from Granada Hills, ``which is why I have so many different licenses.''

It was the work of Nick Harris Detectives that tracked down a witness who would help absolve Roberto Sandoval, wrongly accused of helping abduct a Woodland Hills mother and daughter at gunpoint in 2003.

Sandoval, who spent 20 months in jail during three trials, said the PIs helped him reunite with his family and restaurant business.

``Nick Harris and all his investigators did a tremendous job. They found the one witness the police and D.A. were trying to hide,'' said Sandoval, co-owner of Victorio's in North Hollywood, clutching his baby boy after an evening shift.

``If I have pizza dough and sauce, I can make a pizza. If the investigators have a witness, they can prove my case,'' he said. ``And that's what they did.

``My investigators, my attorney and the truth set me free.''

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) J. Corey Friedman, owner of Nick Harris Detectives & Detective Academy, favors high-tech gadgetry over the brass-knuckled style of fictional sleuths Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(2 -- color) Private investigator J. Corey Friedman uses surveillance equipment in the back of his van while he waits long hours for the subject of his stakeout to appear.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer