The City (The City 1)

“Volatile? I know some piano, nothing about chemicals.”

“More flammable,” he explained. “Possible fire, explosion, catastrophe. I do not mean to be an alarmist.”

“Volatile,” I said, and I thought the word applied to the woman as well as to whatever chemical Mr. Yoshioka had smelled. “You sure it came from Six-C?”

“Last evening, I went to the sixth floor to smell.” His skin was not dark enough to conceal his blush. I wasn’t sure what embarrassed him—maybe that he’d been snooping on a neighbor, maybe that I would think he was an alarmist. “The odor was strongest at her door.”

“Did you tell Mr. Smaller?”

“I decided to wait and see if it happened a third time, this evening. But minutes ago, when I came home from work, I found this in my kitchen.”

From a pocket, he produced four pieces of a photograph taken with a Polaroid camera. He handed them to me, and I didn’t have to fit them together correctly to see they constituted a photo of the six-panel painted-silk screen that featured two tigers.

Mr. Yoshioka said, “The pieces were stacked and then pinned to my cutting board with a knife taken from one of my kitchen drawers.” I returned the scissored photo, and his hand shook as he accepted the pieces. “I believe it to be a threat. I am being warned not to come smelling around her door again—or to complain about the stink.”

“You think Eve Adams saw you at her door?”

“I do not know what to think.”

“How’d she get into your apartment to take a Polaroid?”

“How indeed,” he wondered, his hand trembling as he returned the fragments of the picture to a suit-coat pocket.

“Your door was locked?”

“Yes. And like you, I have two deadbolts.” He started to say something more, but then looked around the room, focused on one of the street-view windows, and finally looked down at his right hand, first at the palm, then at the back of it, at his slender well-manicured fingers, as he continued. “I have come here only to tell you that I intend to stay away from this woman, stay away from the sixth floor, and give her no reason to be angry. I believe you should do the same, for your sake and your mother’s.”

A voice in memory: I like to cut. You believe I like to cut?

“What is it?” he asked.

“I haven’t told you everything about this woman.”

“Yes, I am aware.”

Surprised, I said, “You are? How?”

“What do they call the face of a good poker player?”

“A poker face,” I said.

“Yes, I believe that is correct. You do not have one. I have no idea what you have withheld, but I am aware you are withholding.”

I hesitated but then said, “She threatened me with a knife.”

Although I thought he was shocked, I couldn’t tell for sure, because he did have a poker face. “Where did this occur?”

“Here in the apartment. Remember how I said she can appear like magic, where she wasn’t a moment ago.”

“Why would she threaten you with a knife?”

I cleared my throat, wiped my nose on one sleeve even though it didn’t need to be wiped, laced my fingers together and cracked my knuckles, and at last said, “Well, see, she left the door open to Six-C, and I kind of like took a tour of the place.”

Poker face or not, he couldn’t quite conceal the fact that my nosiness struck him as offensive. “Why would you do that?”

I was not ready to tell him that I had seen her strangled and dead in a dream. “I don’t know. She’s … different. I kind of … maybe I had a crush on her. A crush at first sight.”

His stare was direct, and somehow I met it, and after a moment he said, “That will be good enough for now. We all have things to say that can be said only when the time is right to say them.”