I looked through the peephole and confirmed my suspicions. Baxter Flynn stood there with Mrs. Slade-Woodsley from 9A, the apartment a little way down the hall.
“Oh, he’s definitely home,” Baxter was saying, with a big, bright smile.
“I’m sure he would be foryou, sweetheart,” she said back with a sly flicker of the eyelids. “But perhaps he really isn’t in the building?”
“He’s there,” Baxter said firmly.
I leaned back with a sigh, then unlocked the door.
“Well, look at that, you were right!” Mrs. Slade-Woodsley said in delight. Long past seventy, she was dressed in a barely-there negligee, her golden curls and makeup immaculate despite the hour. As usual, she carried her tiny Chihuahua in one arm. The dog—Mitzi—gave me a baleful look as I opened the door, as though it was I who had disturbed her night.
“Good evening, Mrs. Slade-Woodsley,” I said with a smile.
“Barbie, Angelo,pleasecall me Barbie. I do so like to think we’re friends.”
“Barbie,” I said with a nod and another smile.
“I haven’t seen you around foreons, Angelo.”
“Well, you know I travel a lot for work. But to what do I owe the pleasure tonight?”
Barbie Slade-Woodsley threw her non-Mitzi-holding arm around Flynn. “Well,” she began. “This young gentleman was simplydesperateto get in and see you. He said he’d been buzzing and buzzing with no response. But he was very certain you were home, and here you are!”
“Yes,” I said. “Here I am. Barbie, it was very kind of you, but we’ve talked before about how important it is not to let strangers into the building—”
“Oh, but he’s not a stranger. He says he knows you. Don’t you know him, Angelo?”
I looked at Flynn. Flynn looked at me.
“Yes, but—”
“Well, then, everything’s just perfect, isn’t it?”
“Hello, Angelo,” Flynn said. “I know it’s late, but I really did need to talk to you.”
“I see.”
“You should get the superintendent to have a look at your buzzer, Angelo,” Mrs. Slade-Woodsley said brightly. Then she pushed past me to inspect it herself. Mitzi the Chihuahua bared her teeth at me as they passed, and I pressed myself up against the wall to avoid provoking the tiny terror further. “Why, here’s your problem, you had it on mute.”
“How silly of me,” I said.
“No wonder you couldn’t hear me buzzing,” Flynn said, eyes wide. “But thanks to Barbie, all’s well that ends well.”
With both of them staring at me expectantly, I gave in with grace. “As you say. Thank you very much for letting in my friend, Barbie.”
“I’ll let you two get on with yourmanbusiness,” she said, with a lecherous wink, and then whirled away in a cloud of chiffon and Chanel No. 5.
Flynn’s face immediately fell from simper to deadpan. “Well?”
“Come on in, Special Agent Baxter Flynn,” I said, and waved him into my apartment.
Chapter Nine
Angelo
“Not ‘Special Agent’ anymore,” Flynn said as we went down the hall to the living room. He looked around with alert eyes. “You know, when I was here the other night, it was pretty dark. I felt like there was something missing, but it didn’t fully hit me then. Now it has. This place is empty. A shell. A facsimile of a place someone like you might live.”
“Did you come to critique my interior design, or was there something else?”
