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your way to the stairs and elevator, but not enough to penetrate the far corners.
    The Farraday was silent and I was in no hurry. I had about five hours till midnight and a puzzle to work on. I didn’t think I’d solve it. I took the elevator, an ornate wire cage from the days of Diamond Jim Brady. The elevator never quite came awake. It moved slowly upward in a swaying daze. Usually I walked.
    On the way up I looked through the chipped gilt mesh at the offices on each floor where lies were sold. You want a lie to believe in? The Farraday was the place for it. Want to become a movie star? There were four agents in the Farraday. Want to sue everyone who ever told you the truth about yourself? You had a choice of lawyers, almost one to every floor. Did you want to think you were irresistible? Escort services for ladies and gents were on the second and fifth floor. Want to think you’re beautiful? Choice of two photographers, one of which was Maurice, Photographer to the Stars. The other was Josh Copeland, Glamour Portraits at a Reasonable Price. Bookies, pornographers, doctors of everything from throat to stomach, a single dentist—Sheldon Minck—who sold the promise of a winning smile and perpetual Sen-Sen breath. And then there was me on the sixth floor, where the elevator came to a jerky stop. I sold the lie that there was always one last chance when all reasonable attempts to solve your problems failed. Sometimes, usually because it was easy or I was lucky, I actually helped a client.
    I pushed open the hinged metal doors and heard their clang echo down the halls and into the lobby below. I took a step toward the “suite” I shared with Sheldon Minck, D.D.S., S.D. (The S.D. was Shelly’s invention. It meant either “Special Dentist” or “Superb Dentures” or whatever he thought up that week.)
    Someone laughed behind a door on the floor above. I recognized the laughter—it had come from Alice Pallis, wife of Jeremy Butler, mother of Natasha Butler. When Alice laughed it did more than echo. When Alice cried, it did more than moan. Alice was massive, almost as big as Jeremy. She had once had an office in the Farraday in which she published pornography. Jeremy had made her see the light and together they produced a baby and little books of poetry. They lived in the Farraday. They were the only ones who did, or wanted to.
    I took out my key and went into the reception room of the office. I hit the light switch and didn’t bother to look around. The reception room was about the size of the inside of a Frigidaire. It smelled like an ashtray and was strewn with magazines, on the floor, the little table, and both of the mismatched waiting chairs. I picked up a three-month-old Life magazine and opened the inner door.
    Shelly’s office offered a richer panorama of smells: a combination of wintergreen, cloves, cigars, stale food, and days-old coffee. It smelled like that for a good reason. I found the light switch on the wall, hit it, and discovered Dr. Sheldon Minck himself, asleep in his dental chair and fully dressed in gray trousers, a plaid jacket, a white shirt, and a tie that looked like the tongue of a giraffe I liked to feed in the Griffith Park Zoo. Shelly’s pudgy hands were clasped in front of him on his stomach, rising and falling with each overweight exhalation of air. A little pointed cardboard party hat was perched on his bald head. The rubber band intended to keep it there had crept up to his nose in an attempt to meet the thick glasses, which were creeping downward. Clamped in the right corner of his mouth was an unlit and particularly rancid-looking cigar.
    I found myself wishing Dali were there to see the sight. I considered turning and getting the hell out of there before I had to deal with whatever had brought Shelly here on New Year’s Day. Instead of leaving, I tiptoed to the broom closet I used for an office, opened the door—taking about a month to do it so it wouldn’t wake Shelly—and