Up in L.A.’s Laurel Canyon, in the hills above Sunset Boulevard, it’s yuppie heaven. At least that’s what they’ve tried to make it. The twisting, narrow streets are filled with freshly washed BMWs, Mercedes and SUVs. This is where second-string producers, PR hacks and other Hollywood cogs keep their chintzy bourgeois cocoons. Everyone seems smug, happy to be alive. Like their pets — those ubiquitous golden retrievers with pelts so shiny, teeth so white that they hardly notice the collars around their necks.

The quaint little split-level home at 8763 Wonderland Ave. in Laurel Canyon seems perfect for the 40-something couple who inhabit it. They’re pulling out of their carport in a black minivan when I approach them. They stop for a moment.

No, they don’t want to discuss the murders, the man says. That was a long time ago, and it has nothing to do with them. Yes, they get approached about it all the time, but other than that, they have nothing to say. The window goes back up, and they begin their descent from Wonderland.

There’s something “Twin Peaks” creepy about Laurel Canyon in general, and this goes doubly for the little white house on Wonderland Avenue. The fresh paint and the remodeled ironwork on the balcony belie the fact that on July 1, 1981, this was the site of a quadruple homicide so bloody that it drew comparisons to the Manson Family killings, part of which occurred in nearby Benedict Canyon at the home of the late Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski.

Back in ’81, the coroner had to scrape the bodies of Ronald Launius, William DeVerell, Barbara Richardson and Joy Audrey Miller off the floor, the walls, the furniture. Someone had bludgeoned each resident of this notorious drug den repeatedly with a steel pipe.

The authorities dubbed the case the “Four on the Floor Murders,” but most folks just called it the “Wonderland Murders.” The massacre took place just down the street from what was then the home of Jerry Brown, who was California’s governor at the time. And 8763 Wonderland Ave. itself is said to have been inhabited at one time by Paul Revere and the Raiders.

To this day, the Wonderland case remains unresolved. It’s better to say “unresolved” than “unsolved,” because the cops and the press have a pretty good idea of who did it, and they’re just as certain that the late porn star John Holmes was somehow involved.

Holmes, who died in 1988 from AIDS-related complications, is mentioned as a co-conspirator in a 16-count federal indictment alleging that his old buddy Eddie Nash led a racketeering enterprise for a quarter century and participated in the Wonderland murders. Four others are mentioned as participants in the conspiracy. The indictment, which also alleges bribery, narcotics trafficking and money laundering on the part of Nash and his associates, was made public on May 19 when Nash, 71, was arrested at his townhouse in Tarzana, Calif.

It’s not the first time Nash — a Palestinian-born former nightclub owner also known as Adel Gharib Nasrallah — has been charged with orchestrating the Wonderland killings, and it’s certainly not his first brush with the law. Nash did a couple of years in the state pen for possession of narcotics right after Wonderland. The cops raided his home and found over $1 million in cocaine. His lawyer at the time argued it was for his personal consumption. The theory is that Nash had the Wonderland gang killed because they, with the help of John Holmes, had robbed Nash and his bodyguard, Gregory DeWitt Niles, a 300-pound martial-arts specialist, of a small fortune in heroin, cocaine, jewels and cash. Wonderland was payback for the home invasion and robbery, claimed prosecutors. Hence the brutality of the executions.

When California tried Nash for Wonderland in 1990, he lucked out, or so it seemed, with a hung jury of 11-1. Prosecutors tried Nash again in 1991, and he slipped through their fingers with a full acquittal. Now the feds are having a go at Nash, charging the ailing septuagenarian, who suffers from emphysema, with running a criminal enterprise of which the gruesome Wonderland slayings were just a part. The feds also claim, among other things, that Nash bribed the lone holdout on his 1990 jury.

But Nash may beat the rap again, this time with a little help from the grim reaper. The frail, shrunken alleged hoodlum tested positive for tuberculosis when he was taken to federal court for a bail hearing May 22. The hearing was called off so Nash could undergo further tests in the San Bernardino County Jail to determine if the initial skin test was accurate. On Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney’s office announced that Nash would be arraigned at 9 a.m. Monday in federal court. Clearly, Nash, who has suffered from TB in the past, is no longer considered to be contagious. Still, Nash’s sketchy health has left both his defense and the U.S. Attorney’s office wondering whether he can survive a trial.

“He’s in bad shape,” says Nash’s lawyer, Bradley Brunon. “He’s got emphysema and has had part of his lung removed. They’ve got him in horrible, almost medieval conditions. Could it kill him? I’m not a doctor, I don’t know. But it’s not going to do him any good.” Thom Mrozek, the flack for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, agreed that Nash’s health is an issue.

“That may have an impact on the prosecution,” says Mrozek. “There is a possibility that he will be too sick to go to trial. So, theoretically, it could affect us.”

Why rehash these charges 19 years after the Wonderland Murders, with Nash infirm? Mrozek’s answer is vague, but the fact that authorities have never been able to successfully pin Wonderland on Nash seems to lie at the bottom of it. They’ve been all over him like dogs on a meat truck since the ’80s. Most recently, in 1995, the feds hauled Nash away in his jammies for possessing crystal meth, but they had to let him go when it turned out the contraband in question was actually a mothball.

“A grand jury conducted an investigation and determined there was probable cause that Eddie Nash was involved in serious federal crimes,” said Mrozek, defensively. “The indictment describes Nash’s involvement in an ongoing criminal enterprise. Those murders were just part of it.”

Those murders. Seems there’s no escape from Wonderland but death. Of the five unindicted co-conspirators listed by the U.S. attorney’s office, two have already taken the last exit. Nash’s bodyguard Diles died in 1995. Holmes went seven years earlier. The other three have been convicted of tax evasion, wire fraud and the like and are “looking for a get-out-of-jail-free card,” according to Brunon. The feds better hurry. It’ll be tough to get a conviction if Nash is taking a dirt nap.

Whatever the outcome of the current proceedings, Nash has already earned a certain immortality. Those unfamiliar with his name and his alleged links to the Los Angeles underworld will doubtless recall Alfred Molina’s brilliant characterization of him in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997, polyester-bound tour de force “Boogie Nights.”

In his audio commentary on the New Line DVD release of his film, Anderson admits that Molina’s Rahad Jackson is as much Eddie Nash as Mark Wahlberg’s Dirk Diggler is John Holmes. Anderson cites as a major influence reporter Mike Sager’s article in the June 15, 1989, Rolling Stone, “The Devil and John Holmes.”

“There was this great Rolling Stone article, and I remember the description of this guy Eddie Nash in Speedos and the sheen of sweat on his body,” says Anderson on the DVD. “But a lot of details I’d forgotten. So I was kind of making it up as I go along, getting Dirk into a similar situation that I’d read about with John Holmes.”