Jonathan Kellerman: Heartbreak Hotel

I laughed. “No reason to doubt her.”

“She introduced herself that way? I’m almost a hundred.”

“She worked it into the conversation.”

“Why not?” she said. “Last that long, you’d want to strut your stuff. My great-aunt Martina lived until ninety-eight and advertised it in every conversation. ‘Canned green beans, anyone? Been eating them for ninety-eight years and I’m still breathing.’ ”

She picked up a sandwich, nibbled, put it down. “Delicious, you’re the perfect man... so why would a hundred-year-old chick call you ?”

“She didn’t go into details.”

“But you agreed to do a house call?”

“She’s one of Ruben Eagle’s donors.”

“So you do a good deed and get to escape the office. It has been a while since the Big Guy called. I’ve been wondering when it would get to you.”

“I’ve been restless?”

She kissed my nose. “No, darling, but I know you. The crime rate falls, good for society, boring for you.”

She took another bite of sandwich. “A hundred years old, huh? Imagine the things she’s seen.”

When you’ve lived in a city for years, there’s no need to know much about hotels. Robin and I sometimes ate or drank at the Bel-Air and back in my hospital days I’d attended fundraisers at Hiltons and such. My exposure to the Aventura had been driving west on Sunset and passing a directional sign staked at the mouth of an entrance framed by palms. First time for everything.

The opening fed to a cobblestone drive. The palms were overgrown, bordering on unruly. A second sign legislated 5 MPH. Speed bumps placed every twenty feet enforced the rule. Combined with the cobbles, that made for a kidney-thumping crawl.

Beautiful, sunny L.A. day. Isn’t it always? But when eucalyptus joined the vegetative mix, branches dense enough to form a roof created an artificial dusk. Ten spinal concussions in, I reached a fork marked by a clot of massive banana plants. Valet and self-parking to the right, hotel entrance to the left.

I pulled the Seville into a surprisingly shabby asphalt lot boxed on three sides by pale-pink stucco walls and backed by fifty-foot Canary Island pines. Out-of-state plates and rental cars predominated. A couple of golf carts in Reserved slots. No valets in sight.

I parked, walked for a while, finally arrived at a structure that might’ve been designed by Clive Xeno during a bender: two stories of tile-roofed hacienda in the same pallid pink, attached to a four-story steel-and-bronze glass cylinder.

Cracks had formed in the older building’s stucco where it merged with the tower. Spanish Colonial mama struggling to birth a giant alien baby.

The only indication of the hotel’s identity was a rusty iron A above glass doors centering the newer addition. When I was two steps away, the panels hissed open, creating a maw that led to a three-story atrium — a tube within a tube. Background music was a brain-eroding electronic mantra flicked with random bird peeps. The ceiling was matte black embedded with starry-night LED bulbs. What might have been actual constellations, but I’m no astronomer.

To the right, thirty-plus feet of waterfall trickled down a pebbly glass wall. A scatter of leather deco-revival chairs dyed a strange liverish red were sided by chunks of resin pretending to be boulders. Empty chairs but for a hipster couple in their thirties facing each other as they worked separate iPhones. A girl around five stood near the woman, limp doll in her hand, thumb in her mouth.

Ranchero Revival meets Missile Silo meets twenties Paris meets Fred Flintstone via Beijing.

With an overhead tribute to the Griffith Park planetarium.

Maybe dealing with that on a daily basis helped a hundred-year-old brain stay in shape.

To the left, a pair of chrome elevators preceded glass doors leading to the older wing. At the center, Reception and Concierge shared a poured-concrete counter. Three pallid, ponytailed people in their twenties were on duty, a woman and two men, each the same five-six or so and wearing Asian-style tunics colored the hepatic hue of the chairs.

No name tags, no notice of my approach as thirty fingers continued to tap laptops.

When I reached the counter, one of the men smiled with astonishing warmth while continuing to type. “May I help you?”

“I’m here to see Ms. Mars.”

“Thalia,” said the woman. Now three wan faces found me fascinating.

“We love Thalia,” said the other man.

The woman said, “You’re her doctor. She said to send you right over.”

“She’s in Bungalow Uno,” said the first man.

The woman eyed the glass doors. “If you go through there, you’ll be in El O-ree-hee- nal. Just keep going and go outside and you’ll see a sign leading to The Green.”

I said, “O-ree—”

The first man said, “Ori-hi- naaal. Spanish for ‘original.’ ”

Second said, “What’s left of the old hotel. The Aventura believes in preservation and synthesis.”

The woman said, “Uno’s the last bungalow.”

First said, “We love Thalia.”

On the other side of the glass was a rose-carpeted hallway lined with numbered oak doors. The first few rooms had been converted to computerized card-slot entry. The rest retained heavy cast-bronze knobs and keyholes.

Partially ori-hi- naaal.

The corridor emptied to an echoing loggia that led outdoors. The air smelled like freshly cut grass. The Green was a wide stone path swathing through more palms, plus ferns and bromeliads. Like the entry drive, dimmed by overgrowth.

The first bungalow appeared fifty feet in, white clapboard, tar-roofed, swaddled in green. A sign over the door read Ocho: 8. The countdown continued with a series of identical structures through Dos: 2.

Then, a traipse through jungle until a larger building backed by a high pink wall slipped into view.

Uno: 1 was set on a raised foundation with three steps leading to a screened porch. A roof pitched higher, a brick chimney, and black shutters set it apart from the other bungalows. Paint flaked from boards, the roof was patched with tar where shingles had come loose.

Once upon a time, the VIP suite?

The location afforded privacy, the high wall security. But the distance from the parking lot would mean a serious hike for an older person. Maybe Thalia Mars was one of those super-specimens.

The porch door was open. As I climbed the steps, the arid voice I’d heard over the phone said, “Dr. Delaware! Who knew you’d be so handsome?”

Eighty or so pounds of vintage humanity in a Ming-blue dress sat in a rattan peacock chair and smiled up at me. The chair looked identical to the throne Sydney Greenstreet had occupied in Casablanca. The actor had been four times that weight and overflowed the cane. The current occupant evoked a toddler playing grown-up.

“Ms. Mars.” I extended my hand and received a quick, firm shake by fingers that felt like chopsticks. A ring set with a huge amethyst collided with my knuckles.

Thalia Mars’s wide amused mouth was augmented by meticulously applied coral lipstick. Her eyes were clear brown. Shoulder-length hair tinted the ivory of old piano keys had been whipped into a meringue of waves. Nearly a century of gravity had done its inevitable thing with her jawline, but a dagger-thin face below the cloud of hair retained enough integrity to suggest a once-firm chin and prominent cheekbones.

The blue dress was silk with long, tapered sleeves defining pipe-cleaner arms and a knee-length hem that revealed brief segments of seamed stocking. Yellow kitten-heeled sandals dangled well above the floor. Red toenails, silver manicure, diamond chips in her earlobes, a pearl necklace dangling from the dress’s high neckline well past the waist of an attenuated torso.