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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.
    â€œYou’re Pick Dill,” she said.
    Dill shook his head, smiling slightly. “Not since high school.”
    â€œIn 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?”
    â€œMy finest hour,” Dill said.
    â€œAfter 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.”
    â€œYep. Me.”
    â€œWell, I do want something—a drink.”
    Singe nodded to the left. “The Slush Pit do?”
    â€œFine.”
    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