MAN'S DISAPPEARANCE WORRIES FAMILY, PALS.

Byline: Holly Edwards Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - Authorities are searching for a Santa Clarita man who mysteriously disappeared more than a week ago after he went to collect a $1,000 debt, friends and family members said Tuesday.

James Clement, 32, has been missing since April 17, when he drove to a Saugus condominium complex to meet a Lancaster man who owed him money, said Richard Kronen, a longtime friend of Clement's.

While Kronen blasted Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials for dragging their feet on the case, investigators said they are doing the best they can with little information.

``We've been investigating this since day one and still don't have a solid lead,'' said Sgt. Delores Scott of the Sheriff's Department's missing persons unit.

Investigators were expected to activate the anti-theft device in Clement's 1996 Ford Ranger on Tuesday evening in an attempt to locate the vehicle.

Clement, a construction worker for local filming studios, had been selling glass water pipes to the man in the months before his disappearance, Kronen said. He was last seen by a friend just after 3 p.m. April 17 at the condominium complex where he was supposed to meet the man.

Clement called his wife three times that day, but after 3:40 p.m., there is no record of incoming or outgoing calls on the cell phone.

But there was a threatening message left on Clement's cellular phone by an unknown man saying, 'If you want to bring it on, you better bring it on strong,' '' Kronen said.

Clement's wife saw his pickup truck on the evening he disappeared and again the following morning a few blocks away, Kronen said. However, when she returned the following evening to have it towed, it was gone.

The longer Clement is missing, Kronen said, the more his family fears something terrible has happened to him - and that their lives could be in danger.

``He lived for his three kids and he loved his wife dearly,'' Kronen said. ``And if someone killed him, they have his car keys. And if they have his car keys, they have his house keys.''