The Mysteries of the Chalfonte Hotel

by Brett Busang
For lovers of gingerbread, the Chalfonte Hotel is Shangri-La and Sunset Boulevard.  It is a Studebaker that's just come off the line, a loaf of bread that's hot as it is shapely; a piece of wrought iron beaten into the leafy multiplicities it would seem, on paper, to imitate so poorly.  In a photograph, the old Chalfonte seems like the citadel no such place - situated, as it is, on a city street - can be.  Its bright-fronted majesty is such that it is impossible, when you're anywhere near it, to look at anything else.  And it is as white as a celluloid collar.  No, whiter than ...