Albert Baantjer: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 127, No. 6. Whole No. 778, June 2006

Copyright © 2006 Robert S. Levinson

Winner of third place in our 2005 Readers Award competition, Robert S. Levinson is also a rising star on the mystery book scene. His last published thriller, Ask a Dead Man (Five Star) received a starred review from PW . It will be followed up by this month’s release of Where the Lies Begin . The California author tells us that he is currently at work on a book set in the underbelly of the music industry.

On days I was starving, I took the edge off feeling sorry for myself by crashing a funeral service. This was most days after my job fell out from under me and I had run through my so-called unemployment benefits, when I was using what bucks I had set aside for a rainy day to keep a cruddy roof over my head and cheap Premium in the gas tank.

Not just anybody’s funeral service, if that’s what you’re thinking.

Mostly a funeral service for somebody like Noel Webster, the flamboyant playboy-entrepreneur who created a multibillion-dollar empire through shrewd investments, which is how I came to make the acquaintance of people who appeared anxious to give me a funeral service of my own.

Attending a service was the price I paid for the belly-filling meal I aimed to collect afterward, when the deceased’s family members and friends gathered somewhere to reflect on their loss over steamer trays full of meatballs and shrimp; platters of cold cuts, salads, and vegetables; cookies and cakes; an array of beverages, usually including ice-cold brews — my preference whenever the options didn’t include a nice chilled Cabernet Sauvignon or a class-act champagne like Cristal or Dom Perignon.

The odds of an upscale meal were always with me after I learned the funeral trick from my actor friend down the hall, Ty Sheridan, who said it was de rigueur in his circle, a way to survive in Hollywood between casting calls or the more steady gigs waiting tables.

He used obit pages from the Los Angeles Daily in showing me which were the best memorial parks, where I could count on an upscale crowd and, after memories were shared and tears shed, an upscale gathering in some upscale part of town.

“Familiar names are the best, whenever you run across one, some civic leader or a big-shot millionaire,” Ty said. “Usually means you can count on a bigger crowd, easier to get lost in, but steer clear of the star types or the old legends, like the Milton Berles or the Gregory Pecks, where you usually run into the need for an invitation or security you won’t get past without a famous face of your own.”

He went with me the first few times, until he landed a regular afternoon shift at the Casa de Sushi, so it took me awhile to get into the rhythm of the routine. What helped was making pals with the shift guards at the entrance kiosk to Eternal Palms, the memorial park of choice among the ultra-elite. They knew the game. Their price was the occasional bottle I could pocket out of a reception, their preference being anything that would not taint their breath on duty.

That’s how the trouble began for me the afternoon I strutted like I belonged into the gathering for Mr. Webster.

The Webster mansion, located behind the guarded gates of Hancock Park, was one of those ominous-looking English manors found in horror flicks, only air-conditioned and better lit, with modern plumbing in more overdecorated bathrooms than the three-decker home had bedrooms. There were maybe two hundred people milling through the place as if they were on an unguided tour, scooping up canapés from sterling-silver trays being toted around by servers in starched white shirts, black plastic bow ties, and perky smiles. Jumbo clouds of undecipherable conversation floated over the rooms. The good-natured giggling and laughter that erupted frequently was common to every funeral gathering I had been to so far, as if it were ultimate proof of a life well-lived; more likely, in my mind, to celebrate the reality and relief of Him, Not Me.

I had just swiped a sealed pint of Stoli from a self-service bar and was eyeing a pint of Smirnoff for my other jacket pocket when a hand fastened onto my arm, surprising me. I had checked around as carefully as ever and would have sworn nobody could see me make the swift grab.

She hadn’t.

Her hand flew off me and fed into a tight embrace that led to a hard kiss on the lips as I turned to face her, her tongue chasing after mine, her eyes closed in chorus with a sigh of satisfaction that lasted until she broke the clinch and stepped back to study my reaction. At once, the sexy glint illuminating her exotic emerald eyes vanished. A lopsided grin fell into a tight-mouthed stretch of embarrassment. She turned her palms to the ceiling, shook her head while sputtering words of apology.

“You’re not who I thought you were,” she said, brushing her hands on my shoulders and down my arms, dislodging invisible lint, as if that would erase her mistake.

“It’s the story of my life,” I said, wanting to stroke her in more ways than she was working on me. She was my age, late twenties, and my kind of beautiful — a face with the bone structure of an angel and, inside a clinging black silk dress meant more for partying than mourning, a body that could bring out the devil in any man. She was the type of woman who wouldn’t give me the time of day if she owned a clock shop, even if I had the nerve to ask her the time. “Who’d you think I was?”

She shook her head. “Nobody you’d know.” Her voice the texture of cotton candy as she held out her hand and gave me the glad eye again. “Faye Allyson.”

“Ellis Hyland.”

“Like the island?”

“The island?”

“Ellis Island. Where the immigrants used to come into the country; in New York. Nobody ever ask you that before?”

“Nobody. It’s Hyland. With an H.”

“With an E.”

“Huh?”

“Faye with an E. Sometimes it’s spelled without... What do your friends call you?”

I didn’t understand the question at first. “Oh, a nickname, you mean. No nickname. Usually Ellis or, if they know me real well, Hyland.”

“With an H.” Her smile was glowing again and inspiring mine. “Me, neither. Just Faye, except for some relationships that ended with me being called Bitch or, you know, worse?”

“You’ll always be Faye to me,” I said.

“The sweetest thing anyone has said to me in ages,” Faye said. She pried her hand free of my fingers and threw herself into a clinch that climaxed with a harder and deeper kiss than before. She borrowed a pencil from the bartender and scribbled something on a cocktail napkin. “I have to leave now, but call me sometime,” she said, folding the napkin and pushing it into my jacket pocket.

She poked a hole in my chin and melted into the crowd, pausing once to turn and blow me an air kiss. I thought about tracking after her, but almost immediately was stalled at the bar by a distinguished-looking silver-haired six-footer filling out an expensive black cashmere suit garnished with a black armband and lapel carnation — his face the kind you’d expect to see on the cover of Forbes magazine; his voice as suave as his pencil-thin silver moustache.

He signaled a greeting with his wineglass and said, “Shame about our friend, Noel, wouldn’t you say?”

“We all have to go sometime.”

“Nothing Noel ever believed,” he said. “You knew him well?”

“Well enough to be here today,” I said.

He nodded as if he didn’t notice my tongue on fire. “And Doreen, I saw.”

“Who?”

“Doreen,” he said again, and leaned over, closer to my ear, as if I might be hard of hearing. “Doreen Kyle, that old devil’s mistress.” He rumbled out a salacious laugh. “We’ll never know if she’s what brought on the fatal heart attack, but as good a guess as any, since she was there when it happened.” He raised his crystal goblet and toasted her: “To Doreen, who proved the old bugger had a heart after all.”