KEY POINTS:
Nai Yin Xue spent his first $20 on a taxi-shuttle into Chinatown - the perfect place to lose himself among the 400,000-strong Chinese population of Los Angeles.
Arriving last Saturday, he would have looked no different from the scores of other men as he went about his business dressed in his favoured dress jacket and trousers, with an open-necked shirt.
And a check in an internet cafe would have given him no need to worry about the authorities, as news of the dumping of his 3-year-old daughter Qian Xun - nicknamed Pumpkin - had not yet broken.
He could have booked into a hotel, and if he had stayed at the Dragon's Gate Best Western, he could have enjoyed a session with the complimentary tai chi swords provided for guests.
From there he could have done whatever he wanted - gone to Shanghai Travel for tickets, the Cathay Bank to exchange money or to one of the many supermarkets and restaurants nearby.
But Xue's headstart was evaporating yesterday - all six Chinese newspapers at the Chinatown kiosks carried stories on the international manhunt for him after his alleged killing of wife An An Liu and the dumping of little Qian Xun in Melbourne.
It was news among Asian and mainstream media alike - stories ran in the Los Angeles Times and on radio, as well as on television channels 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13 and CNN.
But it is unlikely Xue stayed here long.
Far from being the frantic hustle-bustle zone some would expect, Chinatown covers only a few city streets and on a drive-through looks little different to the rest of the city - recognisable as Chinese only by the signs
It is not the heartbeat of the Chinese community in Los Angeles - more a window to the wide expanse out east, where Xue lived in 2000.
It is here, in the suburbs of Monterey Park and Alhambra, that you can go 30 blocks through neighbourhoods filled with Chinese car yards, restaurants with names like Dumpling Mastery, and big churches, including Chinese Baptist, Chinese Evangelist and Chinese Methodist.
It is here that some in Chinatown think Xue will be if he has stayed in Los Angeles. People who know him say he knows the area well.
The Weekend Herald visited Xue's former home in the suburb of Rosemead and found a decrepit Californian bungalow where a man who could speak only Chinese sat in a lounge with a microwave cooker beside the television.
Others in Chinatown last night said Xue might have used his local knowledge to get much further away - to travel within the US, or even out of the country.
Having withdrawn thousands of US dollars before leaving New Zealand, he certainly had the means.
"Uncle" Chan, 84, sat with a friend doing tai chi and said through an interpreter: "They will never catch him. He change himself."
Mr Chan, who was outside the Foo Chow restaurant once used in a Jackie Chan film, said Xue could grow a moustache or a beard and be in Hong Kong or New York by now.
Mary Li, a jeweller who read about the case in the Chinese Times, said Xue had a "dishonest face".
"His face looks cruel but the lady looks very nice. I do not understand."
She said that if he had not left Los Angeles, he would be in Monterey, where there were illegal immigrants who were good at hiding people.
Staff in restaurants along the main street of Broadway gathered as the Weekend Herald sought information, discussing the case and often commenting on the mismatch between Xue and An An Liu.
It was not only Chinese who were interested.
Channel 4 television reporter Doug Kriegel was dining at the Plum Tree Inn after covering the Phil Spector murder case, in which the jury is deliberating.
"So the most wanted man in New Zealand came to Chinatown. How about that?"
