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 a steel mesh screen. Safely behind the steel mesh was a three-sided brass stick with raised letters that read, MANAGER. But no manager was in sight.
Haynes crossed to the four newspaper vending machines that offered the
When he got out on the fourth floor, the news section of the
Haynes went slowly down the corridor until he came to apartment 409. Standing well to the right of the door, he knocked on it with his left hand. When nothing happened, he knocked again. When there was still no response, he used his left hand to try the doorknob. It turned.
Haynes pushed the door open and found no lights on in the apartment. He took one slow step inside and was turning back to flick on the light switch when an arm wrapped itself around his neck in what he immediately diagnosed as an interesting variation on the chokehold he had been taught at the Los Angeles Police Academy. He also had been taught how to break it.
Haynes stamped down hard with his right heel, drove back hard with his left elbow and connected both times. Behind him somebody’s breath exploded. The chokehold loosened just enough for Haynes to tear himself away, whirl and thrust his pointless paper spear up as hard as possible, hoping for an eye.
But the light from the still open corridor door gave him a glimpse of his would-be strangler and made him deflect the thrust just enough to miss the left eye and smash the paper spear into Tinker Burns’s nose. The resulting flow of blood was immediate and, Haynes felt, most gratifying.
“For Chrissake, Granny,” said a snarling, bleeding Burns. “How the fuck’d I know it was you?”
Leaning forward to let the blood drip onto the carpet instead of his expensive gray suit, Burns plucked the silk display handkerchief from his outside breast pocket and applied it to his nose.
“Where’s the kitchen?” Haynes said. “You might as well go bleed in the sink.”
“Over there. One of those Pullman things.”
The only light in the apartment came from the open corridor door. Haynes switched on a lamp, closed the door and steered Burns to the stainless-steel kitchen unit. Burns bent over the small sink, turned on the cold water, soaked his handkerchief and reapplied it to his nose. “I don’t bleed long,” he announced.
“Where’s Isabelle?” Haynes said.
“For Chrissake, give me a second, will you?”
Burns stood up straight, threw his head back, stared at the ceiling for nearly half a minute, brought his head down, gently blew his nose into the wet handkerchief and inspected the results with obvious satisfaction.
Back at the sink again, Burns carefully rinsed out his bloody handkerchief, wrung it nearly dry, folded it carefully and tucked it away in a hip pocket. He then switched on the garbage disposal unit and let it and the cold water run for another thirty seconds.
It was only then that Tinker Burns turned to Haynes and said, “What’d you use?”
Haynes raised the
“Shit, I taught you that.”
“I believe you did.”
“Cute,” Burns said, patted his pockets, found his cigarettes and lit one. “Come on.”
As they crossed the studio apartment, heading toward a closed door, Haynes took note of the beige couch that probably folded out into a bed; the blond desk that held a personal computer; the round Formica-topped breakfast table just large enough for two; the small TV set and its attendant VCR; and a pair of old Air France posters that gave the otherwise monochromatic room its only touch of color.
Burns opened the door of what turned out to be the bathroom and switched on a light. Haynes followed him in. A green plastic shower curtain decorated with yellow daisies concealed the bathtub. Burns studied Haynes briefly, reached out, grasped the shower curtain and quickly pulled it back.
Isabelle Gelinet lay on her left side in the white tub. She was naked and her wrists were bound behind her with coat-hanger wire. Another coat hanger had been used to bind her ankles. Her left cheek rested on the bottom of the tub that was filled with water up to its overrun drain. Haynes knew Isabelle Gelinet was dead but wasn’t at all sure she had drowned.
Chapter 9
