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benefactor of the arts, and was now widely imitated by drag queens.
    So distracted was I by Miriam Grundy, I almost missed the young man who came in behind her. When I did notice him, I had to look twice before I realized it was the manboy from the night before, walking determinedly to the elevator, which whisked him away before I could get my bearings.
    I called Nadia from the house phone in the lobby.
    â€œWhat?” she snapped.
    â€œI just saw him, your fiancé!” I said. “He’s on his way up. You can stop worrying.”
    â€œOh, thank God,” she said.
    â€œYou need some time alone with him now?” I asked.
    â€œNo, no, we have to go meet someone,” she said.
    â€œThen may I come up?”
    â€œIn about five or ten minutes,” she said, hanging up without saying good-bye.
    I gave her fifteen minutes before I hoisted my sorry carcass up and dragged it to the elevator. Just as the elevator doors were about to close, a man stuck his hand in, a very handsome man, fortyish, with a passing resemblance to Gregory Peck. At first, he didn’t seem to notice there was anyone else in the elevator, but around the third floor he smiled, and looked at me in a very seductive way, with a combination of Christlike empathy and manly desire. I got a buzz off the eye contact, I admit.
    â€œHi,” he said.
    â€œHi.”
    â€œYou look familiar. Do you live here?”
    â€œNo. I’m staying at a friend’s place.”
    â€œI’m Gerald,” he said.
    â€œRobin. Do you live here?”
    â€œNot anymore, but I used to. How long will you be here?”
    â€œI don’t know. You see, my apartment burned down—”
    I didn’t get a chance to finish. The doors opened at seven to another woman, around my age, with masses of frizzy brown hair. As soon as she saw Gerald, she started screaming.
    â€œYou thieving bastard! Where have you been? I hope you brought my money,” she yelled, her accent either Scottish or Irish.
    â€œMaggie, I was delayed. I have to meet someone …” Gerald said.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œIt’s confidential. I’ll be back with the money later tonight or tomorrow.”
    â€œI’ll be out tonight.”
    â€œTomorrow then.”
    â€œYou’d better not be lying, you bastard!” she shouted. “Or I’ll feed you to the dogs.”
    Mercifully, I was able to push past them and escape the fray. Gerald tried to escape too, but the woman with the frizzy brown hair got on the elevator and wouldn’t let him out. The doors to the elevator closed, shutting out their argument behind me.
    The seventh floor was pretty lively. The man in the horrible toupee was in the hallway, talking to a bald, tattooed bodybuilder who was standing in his doorway, lifting hand weights. The bodybuilder didn’t even seem to see the guy in the bad toupee, and just stared, stone-faced, past him. Down the hall, a door next to Tamayo’s opened and a pile of men’s clothes flew into the hallway, followed by a short, compact man with a leonine mane of white hair, wearing boxers and an undershirt. The door slammed shut. The man began to put on his trousers, and had them half on when the door opened again and a blond woman in a dressing gown came out and threw a pair of shoes at him, one after the other. The poor guy tried to duck the shoes while pulling on his trousers, and fell over. From the floor, he said something in Spanish to the woman that sounded very sweet and apologetic to me, but it didn’t move the blowsy blond woman. She swore in Spanish, went back inside, and slammed the door again.
    What a nuthouse, I thought. There was a reason residents referred to this place as “The Mothership.” Not that I was judging, mind you. The whole world is nuts.
    As a courtesy, because Nadia was a friend of Tamayo’s, I knocked on the door instead of using my key. The door opened with the chain