The taxi driver, a morose black in his early forties, turned right on Our Jack Street, which separated the two old skyscrapers. Originally, Our Jack Street had been named Warder Street during the second term of Jack T. Warder, the only governor ever to be impeached twice, the first time for graft, which he beat by generously bribing three state senators, and the second time for the bribes themselves. He had resigned in 1927, but not before pardoning himself. The disgraced governor had ended his final press conference with a sly grin and a long remembered, often quoted quip: “What the hell, fellas, I didn’t steal half what I could’ve.”
Forever after he was Our Jack, fondly and ruefully remembered by old-timers who still liked to quote his quip, smirk, and shake their heads. They finally changed the street’s name to United Nations Plaza, but everybody still called it Our Jack Street, although few now knew why and the rest seldom bothered to ask.
The Hawkins Hotel was located at the corner of Broadway and Our Jack Street in the heart of the downtown section. It was a somber gray eighteen-story sixty-year-old building, as steadfastly Gothic in design as the University of Chicago. For a time, the Hawkins had been virtually the only hotel in town — at least downtown — the rest having been felled by dynamite and the wrecker’s ball. But then a new Hilton had gone up, followed quickly by a Sheraton and, as always, a huge Holiday Inn.
The fare for the seventeen-mile taxi ride from the airport was a dollar a mile. Dill handed the morose driver a twenty and told him to keep the change. The driver said he by God hoped so and sped off. Dill picked up his bag and entered the hotel.
He found it not much changed. Not really. It had retained those soaring vaulted ceilings that gave it the hushed atmosphere of a seldom-visited out-of-the-way cathedral. The lobby was still a place to sit and watch and doze in reddish leather easy chairs and plump couches. There were also low tables with convenient ashtrays and a lot of fat solid lamps that made it easy to read the free newspapers that still hung on racks: the local Tribune; the News-Post, published in the rival upstate city that prided itself on its eastern airs; The Wall Street Journal; The Christian Science Monitor; and the pony edition of The New York Times, whose contents were transmitted by satellite, printed locally, and delivered by mail the same day, sometimes before noon if you had the right postman.
The Hawkins’ big lobby was far from crowded: a half-dozen middle-aged men who looked like crack salesmen; several couples; a young woman who was more than pretty; and an older woman, in her mid-sixties, who for some reason stared at Dill over her Wall Street Journal. He thought she had the look of a permanent hotel guest. The temperature in the lobby was a chilly 70 degrees, and Dill felt his sweat-soaked shirt begin to cool and dry as he moved toward the reception desk.
The young male clerk at reception found Dill’s reservation and asked how long he might be staying. Dill said a week, possibly longer. The clerk said that was fine, handed Dill a room key, apologized for not having a bellman on duty (he had called in sick), but added that if Dill needed any help with his luggage, they would somehow get somebody to bring it up later. Dill said he didn’t need any help, thanked the clerk, picked up his bag, turned and almost collided with the more than pretty young woman he had noticed earlier.
“You’re Pick Dill,” she said.
Dill shook his head, smiling slightly. “Not since high school.”
“In grade school they used to call you Pickle Dill. That was at Horace Mann out on Twenty-Second and Monroe. But all that ended one afternoon in the fourth grade when you beat up on three of your what? — tormentors?”
“My finest hour,” Dill said.
“After that they called you Pick instead of Pickle right through high school, but stopped when you went down to the university, although your sister always called you that. Pick.” The young woman held out her hand. “I’m Anna Maude Singe — like in scorch — and I’m — was, damnit — a friend of Felicity’s. I’m also her attorney and I thought you might like the family counselor on hand when you got here in case there’s something you want done.”
Dill shook Anna Maude Singe’s hand. It felt cool and strong. “I didn’t know Felicity had a lawyer.”
“Yep. Me.”
“Well, I do want something — a drink.”
Singe nodded to the left. “The Slush Pit do?”
“Fine.”
The Slush Pit’s name originally was the Select Bar, but oil men back in the early thirties had started calling it the Slush Pit because of its darkness, and the name had stuck until finally, in 1946, the hotel made it official with a discreet brass plaque. It was a smallish place, extremely dark, very cool, with a U-shaped bar and low heavy tables and matching chairs that were more or less comfortable. There were only two men drinking at the bar and another couple at one of the tables. Dill and Anna Maude Singe took a table near the door. When the waitress came over, Singe ordered a vodka on the rocks and Dill said he would have the same.
“I’m very sorry about Felicity,” the Singe woman said almost formally.
Dill nodded. “Thank you.”
They said nothing more until the waitress came back with the drinks. Dill noticed that Singe had a little trouble with her R’s, so little he really hadn’t noticed until her “sorry” came out almost like “sawwy,” but less pronounced than that. Then he saw the faint white scar on her upper lip, barely visible, that had been left by the skilled surgeon who had corrected the harelip. Her R’s were the only letter that still seemed to give her any trouble. Otherwise her diction was perfect with not much trace of a regional accent. Dill wondered if she had had speech therapy.
The rest of her, in the straight dark skirt and the candy-striped shirt with its white collar and cuffs, seemed well tanned, nicely put together, and even athletic. He tried to decide whether she went in for running, swimming, or tennis. He was fairly sure it wasn’t golf.
He also noticed that she had very dark-blue eyes, as dark as blue eyes can get without turning violet, and she squinted them up a little when looking at things far off. Her hair was a taupe color that had streaks of blond running through it. She wore it in what Dill thought was called a pageboy bob, a style that he understood from someone (who? Betty Mae Marker?) was making a comeback, or had made its comeback, and was now on its way out again.
Anna Maude Singe’s face was oval in shape and her eyebrows were just a little darker than her hair. Her nose tilted up a bit, which gave her an air of being either shy or slightly stuck-up — or both. Dill thought they often went together. Her mouth was full and reasonably wide and when she smiled he noticed her teeth had had a good dentist’s loving care. She had a long slender neck, quite pretty, and Dill wondered if she had ever danced. It was a dancer’s neck.
After the drinks came, he waited until she took a sip of hers, and then asked, “Did you know Felicity long?”
“I knew her just a little down at the university, but when she graduated, I went on to law school, and then when I came back up here and opened my practice, she was one of my first clients. I drew up her will. I don’t reckon she was more’n twenty-five or six then, but she’d just transferred into homicide and — well, she just thought she’d better have a will. Then about — oh, I’d say sixteen, seventeen months back — she bought her duplex and I helped her with that, but in the meantime we’d become good friends. She also sent me some clients — cops needing divorces mostly — and she talked about you a lot. That’s how I knew they called you Pickle in grade school and all.”