as though it was evening, and all the cars on the streets were using their headlights. It would have been easy to believe that dawn was still a few hours away. Haydon avoided the freeways and headed straight down Main. He had plenty of time, so he didn’t fight the traffic, which gave him time to think. He hadn’t bothered to make reservations at any of the hotels in Guatemala City, preferring to remain flexible. As it was, he was going empty-handed. Since this wasn’t a trip for official inquiry, he left the slim files on Lena Muller back at the office, and he would have to leave his Beretta at home too, which made him more than a little uneasy.
He passed through midtown, past the Vietnamese shops and restaurants and clubs, and then under the Southwest Freeway, where the character of the street quickly changed as the ancient and giant water oaks loomed over the wet streets and formed a vast green canopy over the old wealthy neighborhoods of Broad Acres and Shadow Lawn and Southampton, and the Rice University campus. Just as he reached the Museum of Fine Arts, he turned right onto Bissonnet, into an area popular for its art galleries sprinkled among the fine homes in small streets lush with subtropical vegetation.
Turning into one of these lanes, he immediately pulled into a small gravel drive and stopped in front of the Galerie Deux Femmes, an old two-story home that had been renovated into large, open spaces for a gallery on the bottom floor. The top floor belonged entirely to Nina’s architectural firm, which she had founded eleven years before with another woman architect, Margaret Lessing. Haydon & Lessing concentrated solely on residential designs and had decided from the beginning to keep the firm small, handling only one commission at a time in order to devote their full attention to each project. Their decision to concentrate on quality rather than quantity had paid off early on, and now their reputation was such that when they finished one commission there was always another one in line.
Haydon got out of his car and walked up the stone steps of the old house to the long veranda that ran its length. Inside the bright foyer of the first floor, he saw Denise Ronsard, one of the two inquisitive sisters who owned the gallery and the house. He returned her wave and smile, his breath billowing in plumes, and turned toward the stairs halfway down the veranda. In a moment he had rounded the first landing and was at the top of the stairs and walking across to the frosted-glass door that opened into the studio.
Even the ample distribution of skylights in the high ceiling did not allow much illumination from the day’s gloomy sky, and the studio was lighted brightly with electricity, which wasn’t often the case. Several large rooms opened off a spacious central space, with hardwood floors and white walls throughout. There was a conference room with a large oval cherry table directly across from the entry, and to Haydon’s right he could see Margaret working in the model room from which issued the resinous odors of wood shavings and glue.
Margaret was a roan-haired woman with alabaster skin and blue eyes that almost closed when she smiled, which was often. She had a demurring manner that masked a hard-as-nails resolve and a distinctly ribald sense of humor. Just now as she worked over the model of the Careyes house, she had the hem of her long skirt tucked up into the thick leather belt cinched around her small waist, a makeshift style of convenience that resulted in the exposure of a considerable amount of one of her pale legs, while Pavarotti bellowed “ La donna è mobile ” from the speakers they kept in the model room. Bent over the table in a straight-legged stance, Margaret was looking into the model from an angle below grade. Without straightening up, she turned her head and saw him and smiled, not uncomfortable at being caught with her skirt up, her wavy hair floating around her head like a henna
He passed through midtown, past the Vietnamese shops and restaurants and clubs, and then under the Southwest Freeway, where the character of the street quickly changed as the ancient and giant water oaks loomed over the wet streets and formed a vast green canopy over the old wealthy neighborhoods of Broad Acres and Shadow Lawn and Southampton, and the Rice University campus. Just as he reached the Museum of Fine Arts, he turned right onto Bissonnet, into an area popular for its art galleries sprinkled among the fine homes in small streets lush with subtropical vegetation.
Turning into one of these lanes, he immediately pulled into a small gravel drive and stopped in front of the Galerie Deux Femmes, an old two-story home that had been renovated into large, open spaces for a gallery on the bottom floor. The top floor belonged entirely to Nina’s architectural firm, which she had founded eleven years before with another woman architect, Margaret Lessing. Haydon & Lessing concentrated solely on residential designs and had decided from the beginning to keep the firm small, handling only one commission at a time in order to devote their full attention to each project. Their decision to concentrate on quality rather than quantity had paid off early on, and now their reputation was such that when they finished one commission there was always another one in line.
Haydon got out of his car and walked up the stone steps of the old house to the long veranda that ran its length. Inside the bright foyer of the first floor, he saw Denise Ronsard, one of the two inquisitive sisters who owned the gallery and the house. He returned her wave and smile, his breath billowing in plumes, and turned toward the stairs halfway down the veranda. In a moment he had rounded the first landing and was at the top of the stairs and walking across to the frosted-glass door that opened into the studio.
Even the ample distribution of skylights in the high ceiling did not allow much illumination from the day’s gloomy sky, and the studio was lighted brightly with electricity, which wasn’t often the case. Several large rooms opened off a spacious central space, with hardwood floors and white walls throughout. There was a conference room with a large oval cherry table directly across from the entry, and to Haydon’s right he could see Margaret working in the model room from which issued the resinous odors of wood shavings and glue.
Margaret was a roan-haired woman with alabaster skin and blue eyes that almost closed when she smiled, which was often. She had a demurring manner that masked a hard-as-nails resolve and a distinctly ribald sense of humor. Just now as she worked over the model of the Careyes house, she had the hem of her long skirt tucked up into the thick leather belt cinched around her small waist, a makeshift style of convenience that resulted in the exposure of a considerable amount of one of her pale legs, while Pavarotti bellowed “ La donna è mobile ” from the speakers they kept in the model room. Bent over the table in a straight-legged stance, Margaret was looking into the model from an angle below grade. Without straightening up, she turned her head and saw him and smiled, not uncomfortable at being caught with her skirt up, her wavy hair floating around her head like a henna
Similar Books
