Still feeling a bit woozy from the stomach-turning touchdown, I stumbled along the dimly lit, red-carpeted hallway to my right, looking for the door marked 96. I found it quickly, but didn’t knock right away. I just stood there like a dope, taking a few deep breaths and staring at the room number as if it were an indecipherable algebra equation. Finally, after several more moments of nervous hesitation, I raised my hand and rapped my knuckles on the door.

No answer.

I knocked again.

Still no answer. I put my ear to the jamb and listened for noises inside the room, but all I could hear was the thumping of my own heart. I tapped on the door again and again, but there was no response at all. Finally accepting the evidence that nobody, not even Aunt Doobie, was there, I groaned and turned back toward the elevators. But right before I walked away, just for fun (okay, spite), I gave the door one last knock. A really loud one this time.

To my enormous, eye-popping surprise, the door flew open and an exceptionally good-looking man with a towel wrapped around his waist started yelling his head off at me. “Shut up, already!” he roared. “Stop that goddamn knocking and get lost! I’m trying to get some sleep in here!” His brown eyes were blazing and his bare chest was heaving. With his dark wavy hair falling down over his forehead and his lips pulled back in a toothy snarl, he looked like a cross between Dean Martin and a rabid Great Dane.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I must’ve made a mistake. I thought this was my Aunt Doobie’s room.”

Was it my imagination, or did his eyes grow fiercer when I mentioned my dear auntie’s name? Did he know who Aunt Doobie was? Was he related to her in some way? Was he, perchance, Uncle Doobie?

“You’re nuts,” he growled. “Do I look like somebody’s aunt?”

I had to admit that he didn’t. There was nothing at all aunt-like about his broad shoulders and brawny biceps.

“You’d better go down to the desk and get the

right room number,” he said, pulling his shoulders straighter, and his towel tighter around his hips. “There’s no Aunt Doobie here.”

“But this is room ninety-six, isn’t it?” I asked, doing my best to look and act like an anxious niece. “That’s what it says on the door. And that’s where I was told to come. My cousin Gray said Aunt Doobie was expecting me.” (If the first bell doesn’t ring loud enough, try a gong.)

“Gray?” he muttered.

“Yes,

Gray,” I stressed, studying his face for a reaction. “Gray Gordon.”

If the name meant anything to him, he showed no sign. “Look, I don’t care who told you to come here,” he said, glowering, “but whoever it was made a mistake. This is

my room, not your aunt’s. And I booked it so I could get some sleep. So will you please get the hell out of here and go bother somebody else? I’m going back to bed.”

To emphasize the import of his words, he stepped back from the door and then closed it, like a book, in my face.

Chapter 14

THE ELEVATOR RIDE GOING DOWN wasn’t as eventful as the one going up. The other Puerto Rican operator was older, less excitable, and more attentive to the landing than the takeoff. He piloted our car to a sure, steady descent and parked it perfectly at the bottom. I gave him a grateful smile, then swooshed into the hotel lobby, heading straight for the main desk.

The gaunt, middle-aged man behind the counter gave me a look of total boredom and exhaustion. “May I help you?” he asked, clearly hoping my answer would be no.

“Oh, yes, please!” I begged, adopting, once again (and much to the desk clerk’s dismay), the role of a frantic neice. “I’m very, very upset! I was supposed to meet my aunt here today, in her room on the ninth floor, but now there’s somebody else in ninety-six! I don’t know what happened! Did she move to another room, or did she check out altogether? I don’t know where to go or what to do!”

The man sighed and shrugged his thin shoulders. “Room ninety-six, you say? Let me check on that for you. What’s your aunt’s name?”

“Aunt Doobie,” I said, madly searching for an appropriate surname to tack on the end. “Isn’t that funny?” I stalled. “I’m so used to using her nickname, I can’t think of her real name… Oh, now I remember!” I cried. “It’s Gordon!” (At least that seemed a likely choice.) “Mrs. Dorothea Gordon.”

“I’ll take a look,” he said, heaving another weary sigh, opening the guest ledger and slowly sliding his finger down the page. “Gordon… Gordon… Gordon… uh, no, miss… nobody by the name of Gordon is registered in the hotel at this time. Is it possible your aunt made a reservation under a different name?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” I said, fluttering my lashes and giving him an urgent, pleading look. “All I know is she was supposed to be in room ninety-six. And I’m supposed to be meeting her there right now!” I was working myself up to ask for the name of the room’s current occupant, but it turned out I didn’t have to.

“Well, there must be some mistake,” the droopy desk clerk said, “because a Mr. Jonathan Smith checked into that room on Friday and reserved it for the rest of the holiday weekend.” He paused and gave me a pleading look. “Are you sure your aunt isn’t registered in room ninety-six of another hotel? Perhaps the Plaza? It’s just across the park, you know.” He inched his hand toward the phone. “If you’d like, I could call the Plaza and ask them-”

“No, thanks!” I hurriedly replied. “I’ll just pop over there and see for myself.” I gave the tired but dutiful fellow an appreciative smile, then made a run for the hotel exit. I saw no reason to stick around.

Except for the air-conditioning, I soon realized (i.e., the very second I stepped outside to the street). The thick, steamy afternoon heat was so overwhelming I wanted to duck back into the Mayflower and reserve a nice cool room for myself. I would have done it, too, if I could have been sure to get a room on the ninth floor, or-to phrase it in a simpler, more direct way-if I’d had enough money.

But all I had left in my purse was a half dollar. One measly fifty-cent piece. It was enough to get me home on the subway, but it wouldn’t buy me a hamburger at the White Horse, or a pizza at John’s, or even a chicken salad sandwich at Chock Full-which was a rotten shame because I was hungry.

Maybe Abby will be home, I thought as I trudged back to the Columbus Circle subway stop. Maybe she has some bagels left over from breakfast. It was either that or the leftover bread, salami, cheese, and green pepper I had in my own Frigidaire. I focused my hopes on a bagel-not because it was my dining preference, but because it would come with some lively conversation and an ice-cold gin and tonic on the side.

“AUN T DOOBIE IS A MAN?!” ABBY croaked. She was obviously excited by the news.

“I didn’t say that!” I cried. “What I said was, there was a man in Aunt Doobie’s room. There’s a big difference, you know. You’re always jumping to conclusions!” I took a quick drag on my cigarette and exhaled with a swoosh. “The guy could be Aunt Doobie’s son, or her lover, or her husband, for all we know. Or, he could be a man named Jonathan Smith who just happened to check into room ninety-six right after Aunt Doobie left.”

“Doobie who?” Jimmy asked. The brilliant and beautiful bearded poet had been sitting at Abby’s kitchen table with us for over an hour, listening to every detail I recounted about my afternoon crime-busting adventures, and he still didn’t have a clue.

“Never mind, Daddy-O,” Abby said, curling her fingers through his sleek dark Vandyke and blowing her words directly into his ear. “Mama will tell you all about it later, when we’re alone. Here, have another piece of pizza.” She held the last slice of our cheese and tomato pie up to his mouth and fed him like a baby-or a dog, depending on your point of view.