Adams is a dangerous person. We are men of very different experiences yet of like minds. Of course we are friends.”
When he said “men,” I think I loved him a little then, like the way I loved Grandpa Teddy. Mr. Yoshioka didn’t pause before using the word, didn’t say it with any calculation, but included me among the grown-up and mature with apparent sincerity.
Embarrassed, I said, “Well, see, I didn’t tell Mom how I brought you cookies and then had tea.”
At nearly forty, he possessed a face as unlined as mine, most likely because he didn’t often squinch it up in dramatic expressions. His gentle smile was always slight, his frown hardly detectable, and to assess his mood, you were left with little to read other than his eyes. Now, smooth-faced, allowing no clue in his eyes, his voice without telltale inflection, he said, “You seem to keep more from your mother than you tell her.”
Abashed, I said, “Not really. We share almost everything. We really do. Sometimes she calls me a chatterbox because I’m always sharing so much. It’s just that if I tell her about the cookies and the tea, I’ll have to tell her about Eve Adams, and I don’t want to do that because—”
“Because you do not want to worry her. She has enough on her mind,” he finished for me, sort of quoting me.
Suddenly I thought I saw the solution to our dilemma. “You know, maybe instead of the security chain, we should just call the police and tell them Miss Adams is messing with stinky chemicals in Six-C, she might blow us up or something.”
Because it is impossible for me to turn pale, I am especially aware when white folks lose what color they have, just as I am quick to notice when they blush. Mr. Yoshioka was a kind of light bronze, but when I suggested calling the police, he went pale in his own way. His skin was still bronze, but a little gray now, as though it were an alloy of bronze and pewter, if there was such a thing.
“No police,” he said.
“Sure. That’s the way. They could go up there and she’d have to let them in. So if she’s up to no good—and we know she is—then the cops would see it and arrest her, and we wouldn’t have to worry about her taking revenge on us or anything like that.”
He shook his head. His skin was more pewter now than bronze. “No police. Bad idea.”
“Why’s it a bad idea?”
“Not all police are reliable, Jonah Kirk.”
“I know that. We all know that. But this woman—anybody can see she’s trouble. Not all cops are corrupt, either. Heck, not even most of them.”
“They do not have to be corrupt. Sometimes they see bad things being done, they know it is bad, and many of them are not happy about it, but they allow it to happen.”
“Why would they let it happen?”
“Maybe they are afraid. Maybe unsure. Maybe they are concerned about losing their jobs. They have to obey their superiors.”
“What superiors?”
“The chief of police, the mayor, the governor, the president. They have many superiors.” He put the nail to one of the pencil marks he’d made on the door frame, lightly tapped the head of it with the hammer, pulled the nail loose, and explained, “Starter hole for the drill bit,” as though I had asked.
As I watched him make three more starter holes, I said, “Well, this doesn’t look good for me. How am I going to explain this to my mother?”
“You could simply not say anything about it. That approach has worked for you before.”
I thought there might be a little sarcasm in his voice, but I couldn’t be certain. “I’m going to have to say something when she asks who put in the security chain.”
“Maybe she will not ask.”
“Oh, she’ll ask, all right.”
“If she does not notice right away, she will not ask right away.”
He picked up the manual drill, which already had a bit in its jaws, and began to drill out one of the starter holes.
I didn’t have to raise my voice to be heard above the soft clicking of the crank handle turning the bevel gears. “How couldn’t she notice? It’s bright brass.”
“She will assume Mr. Smaller installed it.”
“What if she asks him about it?”
He moved the drill bit from the first to the second starter hole and turned the crank. “You worry about too many small details, Jonah Kirk. Save your worrying for big problems. Life will bring you enough of those.”