Twilight at Mac's Place by Ross Thomas Page B

of her hopping into bed with Michael Padillo anytime she wanted to.”
    “You and Padillo? Dear me.”
    “I fell in love with him when I was five and wrote him all about it when I was six. I wrote it with a crayon. A blue one. Pop was my mailman. Padillo wrote back that we should wait awhile. I’m still waiting, but Isabelle didn’t have to. And neither did about a hundred and one other bimbos.”
    “Still want her to drown?”
    “I guess not.”
    “Just as well. She’s a damn good swimmer.”
    “How do you know?”
    “We used to go skinny-dipping together.”
    “When?”
    “When she was seven and I was six. Or maybe vice versa. In Nice.”
    “I bet she was gorgeous even then.”
    “I always told her she was too fat.”
     
    Just past the Hilton Hotel where Reagan was shot, Connecticut Avenue began curving its way to the bridge that was guarded by the stone lions. A block or so before the bridge, Erika McCorkle flicked her left hand at an imposing gray stone apartment building that Haynes guessed to be sixty or seventy years old.
    “Where my folks live,” she said. “It’s one of the city’s first condos. They bought theirs in ’sixty-eight during the riots when Padillo convinced them that riots and revolutions are the best time to buy property and diamonds.”
    “Sounds like an oft-told family tale,” Haynes said.
    “It is—and ’sixty-eight must’ve been one weird year. Can you remember it?”
    “Only the Italian version.”
    “What d’you remember most about the sixties?”
    Haynes didn’t reply for several seconds. “The music,” he said. “And, in retrospect, the innocence.”
     
    It was 4:47 P.M . when Erika McCorkle parked next to a NO STOPPING, NO STANDING sign in front of the seven-story apartment building at 3801 Connecticut Avenue. Because the rush hour was nearing its peak, Connecticut Avenue had increased the number of lanes going north and Haynes had only a moment to thank her for the lift.
    She gave the building a curious glance. “Who lives here?”
    “Isabelle.”
    “Shit.”
    An irate driver behind the Cutlass started honking. Erika McCorkle gave him the finger.
    “That can get you shot in L.A.,” said Haynes as he climbed quickly out of the car. The irate driver honked again.
    “Fuck off,” Erika McCorkle snapped as Haynes slammed the door. The Cutlass sped away. Haynes watched it go, wondering whether her farewell had been aimed at him or the honker.
    He turned to study the apartment building from the sidewalk. It was built of a brick that Haynes, for some reason, had always thought of as orphanage yellow. The only frill the architect had allowed was the white stone facing around the severe casement windows. A sign in front claimed that one-bedroom and studio apartments were available. Minimum maintenance, maximum rents, Haynes thought, and wondered whether Isabelle Gelinet, after moving in with his father at the Berryville farm, had kept her apartment as a bolthole.
    After he reached the building entrance with its inch-thick glass door, Haynes noticed the intercom system to the left that featured the usual tiny speakerphone and the usual row of black buttons. He ran a finger down the buttons until it came to the inked-in name of I. Gelinet. He pushed the button and waited for the speaker to ask who he was. Instead, the buzzer sounded, unlocking the glass door.
    Haynes made no move toward the door until the buzzer stopped. He then reached over to give the metal handle a tug. The door was locked. Haynes turned back to the intercom and again pushed the I. Gelinet button. Again, the speaker failed to ask his name or business. But when the unlocking buzzer sounded this time, Haynes went quickly through the glass door and into the lobby.
    Unless four newspaper vending machines and rows of stainless-steel mailboxes counted, there was no furniture in the lobby. To the right of the mailboxes was a narrow reception cubicle with an almost chest-high counter that was guarded by