"Yes?" She sounded as if she were feeble and might want to weep. I found myself speaking loudly and carefully as though to the hearing-impaired.

"Mrs. Ochsner?" "Yes."

"My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm calling from California and I'm trying to reach the woman who's staying next door to you in apartment 315. Do you happen to know if she's in? I've just called and I let the phone ring about thirty times with no luck."

"Do you have a hearing problem?" she asked me. "You're speaking very loudly, you know."

I laughed, bringing my tone down into a normal range. "I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't sure how well you could hear

"Oh, I can hear perfectly. I'm eighty-eight years old and I can't walk a step without help, but there's nothing wrong with my ears. I counted every one of those thirty rings through the wall and I thought I'd go crazy if it went on much longer."

"Has Pat Usher stepped out? I was just on the line to the building manager and he said she was there."

"Oh, she's there all right. I know she is because she slammed the door not moments ago. What was it you wanted, if it's not too impertinent of me to ask?"

"Well, actually I'm trying to locate Elaine Boldt, but I understand she didn't make it down this year."

"That's true and I was awfully disappointed. She's part of a bridge foursome when Mrs. Wink and Ida Rittenhouse are here and we count on her. We haven't been able to play a hand since last Christmas and it's made Ida very cranky if you want to know the truth."

"Do you have any idea where Mrs. Boldt might be?"

"No, I don't and I suspect the woman in there is on her way out. The condominium bylaws don't permit sublets and I was surprised that Elaine agreed to it. We've complained aplenty to the association and I believe Mr. Makowski has asked her to vacate. The woman has her back up, of course, claiming her agreement with Elaine covers through the end of June. If you want to have a conversation with her yourself, you'd do well to get down here soon. I saw her bringing up some cartons from the liquor store and I believe… well, I should say / hope she's packing up even as we speak."

"Thanks. I may do that. You've been a big help. If I get down there, I'll stop by."

"I don't suppose you play bridge, do you, dear? We've been reduced to playing hearts now for the last six months and Ida's developing quite a mean mouth. Mrs. Wink and I can't take too much more of this."

"Well, I've never played but maybe I could give it a try," I said.

"A penny a point," she said brusquely, and I laughed.

I put in a call to Tillie. She sounded out of breath, as though she'd had to run for the phone.

"Hi, Tillie," I said. "It's me again. Kinsey."

"I just got back from the market," she panted. "Hang on until I catch my breath. Whew! What can I do for you?"

"I think I better go ahead and take a look at Elaine's apartment."

"Why? What's going on?"

"Well, the people in Florida say she's not there, so I'm hoping we can figure out where else she might have gone. If I come back over there, could you let me in?

"I guess so. I'm not doing anything except unloading groceries and that won't take but two shakes."

When I reached the condominium again, I called her on the intercom and she buzzed me through and then met me at the elevator door with a key to Elaine's apartment. I told her the details of my conversation with Elaine's building manager down in Florida, filling her in as we rode up to the second floor.

"You mean nobody down there has seen her at all? Well, something's wrong then," she said. "Definitely. I know she left and I know she fully intended to go down to Florida. I was looking out the window when the cab pulled up out front and gave a toot and she got in. She had on her good fur coat and that fur turban that matched. She was traveling at night, which she didn't like to do, but then she wasn't feeling good and she thought the change in climate might help."

"She was sick?"

"Oh, you know. Her sinuses were acting up and she'd had that awful head cold or allergy or whatever it was. I don't mean to criticize, but she was a bit of a hypochondriac. She called me and said she'd decided to go ahead and fly on down, almost on the spur of the moment. She wasn't really scheduled to go for nearly two weeks, but then the doctor said it might do her good and I guess she booked the first flight she could get."

"Do you know if she used a travel agent?"

"I'm almost sure she did. Probably one close by. Since she didn't drive, she liked to deal with businesses within walking distance where she could. Here it is."

Tillie had paused outside of apartment 9, which was on the second floor, directly above hers. She unlocked the door and then followed me in.

The apartment was dim, drapes drawn, the air dry and still. Tillie crossed the living room and opened the drapes.

"Nobody's been in since she left?" I asked. "Cleaning lady? Tradesmen?"

"Not as far as I know."

Both of us seemed to be using our public-library tones, but there's something unsettling about being in someone else's place when you're not supposed to be. I could feel a low-level electrical current surging through my gut.

We did a quick tour together and Tillie said it looked all right to her. Nothing unusual. Nothing out of place. She left then and I went through on my own, taking my time so I could do it right.

This was a corner apartment, second-floor front, with windows running along two sides. I took a minute to stare down at the street. There were no cars passing. A boy with a Mohawk haircut was leaning up against a parked car directly below. The sides of his head were shaved to a preexecution gray and the strip of hair that remained stood up like a dry brush in the center divider of a highway. It was dyed a shade of pink that I hadn't seen since hot pants went out of style. He looked to be sixteen or seventeen, wearing a pair of bright red parachute pants tucked down into combat boots, and an orange tank top with a slogan on the front that I couldn't read from where I stood. I watched him roll and light a joint.

I moved to the side windows which looked down at an angle through the ground-floor windows of the small frame house next door. The roof had been gnawed by fire, the eaves of the house showing through like the frail bones of an overcooked fish. The door was boarded up, the glass broken out of the windows, apparently by the heat. A FOR SALE sign was jammed into the dead grass like a flimsy headstone. Not much of a view for a condominium that I estimated must have cost Elaine more than a hundred thousand dollars. I shrugged to myself and went into the kitchen.

The counters and appliances gleamed. The floor had apparently been washed and waxed. The cupboards were neatly stacked with canned goods, including some 9-Lives Beef and Liver Platter. The refrigerator was empty, except for the usual door full of olives and pickles and mustards and jams. The electric stove had been unplugged, the cord dangling across the clockface, which read 8:20. An empty brown paper sack had been inserted in the plastic wastebasket under the sink, a cuff neatly turned down at the top. It looked as if Elaine Boldt had systematically prepared the apartment for a long absence.

I left the kitchen and wandered out into the entrance hall. The layout seemed to be a duplicate of Tillie's apartment downstairs. I moved down a short corridor, glancing to my right into a small bathroom with a sink shaped like a sunken marble shell, gold-plated fixtures, gold-flecked mirrored tiles on one wall. The small wicker wastebasket under the sink was empty except for a delicate gray-brown clump of hair clinging to the side like the light matting when a hairbrush has been cleaned.

Across from the bathroom was a small den, with a desk, a television set, an easy chair, and a sofa bed. The desk drawers contained the usual assortment of pens, paper clips, note cards, and files, which for the moment I saw no reason to examine more closely. I did come across her social-security card and I made a note of the number. I left the den and moved into a master suite with an adjoining bathroom.