Zen and the Art of Murder by Elizabeth M. Cosin

Author:Elizabeth M. Cosin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

It was just before noon, making the road to Beverly Hills rife with lunch-hour traffic. I was happy not to see any blue Mercedes on my back. Maybe they got what they wanted from Harry. Maybe they had switched cars.

Both thoughts made me shiver.

Despite the traffic, I managed the drive to the hotel in twenty minutes, pulling into its ivy-covered circular drive with the rest of the luncheon crowd.

Renovated more times than the Gabor sisters, the Beverly Glen Hotel has managed to retain the charm and glamour of old Hollywood. Tucked in a quasi-residential neighborhood, the Art Deco pink stucco structure had become a favorite of the rich and famous who wanted a break from their adoring fans. Its history made it a popular tourist spot, but it was so hard to find that the regular Instamatic-camera crowd didn’t descend in droves. So much for maps to the stars.

It was a great place to hide, and for someone in my profession, it was worth knowing about.

I valeted the Alfa and arrived in the lobby bar drymouthed and, I thought as I passed by a gilded mirror at the entrance, looking the part of the hipster. Fortunately, I’d chosen black linen pants and a black silk shirt. Dressy, but casual. Quintessential LA garb.

The bar of the Arroyo Grande was starting to fill up when I walked in and looked around for Latisha. It was a moment before I spotted her, sitting by herself in a corner of the small room.

She was paying rapt attention to the drink before her, a short glass. She held it in her hand, swirled it around, took the smallest of sips, then returned to the swirling.

She hadn’t seen me yet, so fascinating was her drink, and since the bar was closer to the entrance, I stopped and ordered beer. They didn’t serve Anchor Steam, but I felt in the mood for something darker, so I got a glass of Guinness instead.

I watched her across the room, wanting to make sure she was drinking alone before approaching. There was also the weight of what I had to tell her. I didn’t mind putting off the inevitable, even if it was only for a moment.

A few people went up to Latisha and extracted her autograph. One guy even tried to take a seat at her table, but she was clearly not in the mood for company. This was surprising in a room that seemed mostly full of Hollywood’s young and hip—just Latisha’s type, I would think.

I’d really come to like LA and found that a lot of the stereotypes about it were untrue. I loved the town’s playfulness, a wide-open “anything goes” attitude that influenced everything from clothes to architecture. It was a tough town to meet people, but, like Cleveland and Philadelphia, it could be cruelly underrated. I’d spent a summer in New York and fell for the Big Apple as every young kid does, but although I’d get shot on both coasts for saying so, I

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