It started to drizzle as I left my car. Does the sun ever shine on this place? There was a doorbell that produced no sound when I pressed it. I waited a minute or two, then knocked with similar results. I turned the big brass knob, pushed, and the door opened. I went in, out of the rain. The place looked and smelled like a nightclub the morning after, before the cleaning people come in to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. All around me were dirty glasses, empty wine bottles; overflowing ashtrays, and parquet floors covered in grime, discarded tissues, and cigarette butts ground into the wood by the nightly visitors. There is nothing as depressing as grandeur gone to seed. If I had my druthers I would rather be in the BB Trailer Court. It made no pretense of being anything other then what it was and succeeded admirably. Hillcrest was greener pastures covered in cow dip. “You from the police?” She appeared in the dark passage beyond the grand staircase. In the gray light of a rainy day, I saw a slim woman in a shapeless print dress and bedroom slippers.
