Deception

“No, I guess not… are you going to write the letter?”

“If you want me to.”

“Can I think about that?”

“When’s the application deadline?”

“Couple of weeks.”

“Give me a day or two’s notice.”

“Okay.” Shooting out a spindly, dry hand. “Sorry if I’m being a butt. Things are just weird and all.”

The merest hint of shrink-talk would necessitate teenage sarcasm.

I said, “You’ll get over it.”

CHAPTER

42

 One week later, I received an email, posted at two a.m.

dr delaware, it’s me, you probably won’t see this until tomorrow. if you still think it’s appropriate, you can do it. either way, it’s okay. thanks.

In late December, I received a follow-up, also sent during the early-morning hours:

dr delaware, it’s me. due to profound and alarming lack of judgment on the part of the yale admissions committee, i got in. i’m deferring for at least a year, going to try a seminary in ohio. there was some turmoil which was to be expected. but i’m holding fast.

Read on for an excerpt from MYSTERY,

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published by Ballantine Books

CHAPTER

1

Like a con man on the run, L.A. buried its past. Maybe that’s why no one argued when the sentence came down: The Fauborg had to die.

I live in a company town where the product is illusion. In the alternate universe ruled by sociopaths who make movies, communication means snappy dialogue, the scalpel trumps genetics, and permanence is mortal sin because it slows down the shoot.

L.A. used to have more Victorian mansions than San Francisco but L.A. called in the wrecking ball and all that handiwork gave way to thirties bungalows that yielded to fifties dingbats that were vanquished, in turn, by big-box adult dormitories with walls a toddler can put a fist through.

Preservationists try to stem the erosion but end up fighting for the likes of gas stations and ticky-tack motels. Money changes hands, zoning laws are finessed, and masterpieces like the Ambassador Hotel dissolve like wrinkles shot with Botox.

The Fauborg Hotel was no Ambassador but it did have its charm. Four somber stories of Colonial brick-face, it sat on a quiet block of Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills, wedged between a retirement home and a dry cleaner. A short walk but a psychic universe from the Eurotrash cafes of Canon Drive and the shopping frenzy on Beverly and Rodeo, the Fauborg appeared in few guidebooks but managed to boast one of the highest occupancy rates in the city.

Built in 1949 by a French Holocaust survivor, its design aped the mansions in the American movies that had transfixed Marcel Jabotinksy as a teenager. Jabotinksy’s first guests were other postwar emigres seeking peace and quiet. That same desire for low-key serenity continued with the hotel’s clientele divided between the genteel grandparents of Eurotrash and the odd knowledgeable American willing to trade glitz and edgy and ironic for a decent night’s sleep.

I knew the Fauborg because I drank there. The lounge at the back was smallish and dim with nothing to prove, paneled in dark riff oak and hung with middling Barbizon landscapes. The eighty-year-old hunchback behind the bar concocted the best sidecar in town and Robin likes sidecars. An assortment of pianists, mostly former studio musicians on pension, worked the big black Steinway in the left-hand corner, never intruding upon the pleasant buzz of conversation and the harmonious clink of crystal glasses. The staff was attentive without being nosy, the snacks were decent, and you left the place feeling as if you’d been re-civilized.

Robin and I spent a lot of Sunday evenings in a cracked leather rear booth holding hands, nibbling on cheese crackers, and inhaling Gershwin.

One Saturday morning in the spring, Robin was delivering a new guitar to an aging rock star who lived in the flats of Beverly Hills and the drive took her past the Fauborg. A sign strung up over the fanlight announced

LAST NIGHT TOMORROW: COME CELEBRATE—OR MOURN—WITH US. THANKS FOR THE GOOD TIMES.

The Family of Marcel Jabotinksy

Robin shouldn’t have been surprised; the previous week we’d shown up at a Thai place we’d enjoyed for half a decade only to find an abyss surrounded by chain-link where the buildings had stood. The month before that, she’d run into an old high school friend and asked how her husband was.

“Which one?”

“Jeff.”

The woman laughed. “Jeff’s ancient history, sweetie. Cliff’s recent history but he’s gone, too.”

Tissue paper city.

Robin said, “Not much of a choice, is it? Surrender to the inevitable or risk a whole bunch of mawkish nostalgia.”

We sat on the living room couch with Blanche, our little French bulldog, squeezed between us, following the back-and-forth.

I said, “I can go either way.”

She pulled on a curl, let it spring back. “What the heck, I’ll never get a sidecar that good and it’s a chance to put on a dress.”

“I’ll wear a suit.”

“I like you in a suit, darling. But not the black one. Let’s pretend it won’t be a funeral.”

Who knew?

CHAPTER

2

We showed up at nine p.m. The light behind the fanlight was dingy.

Crescent Drive was depopulated except for a man with a walkie-talkie leaning against a parking meter just north of the hotel. Thirties, tall, broad, with short yellow hair, he flashed us a slit-eyed appraisal before returning to watching the empty street.

His suit was black and it draped his bulk uneasily. An interesting bulge swelled his breast pocket, a spiral cord ran from an earpiece down the back of his collar.