Grandpa said, “Are you able to do that for me, Donata? Go next door? I’d be most grateful if you could.”
“Absolutely,” she said, “I’ll do it right away.”
“Better put on your raincoat,” he said. “It’s nasty out there.”
She carefully stepped over the puddle of vomit, retrieved her raincoat from the closet by the front door, and went out into the storm.
Tilton got up from the piano bench. “Mr. Bledsoe, I’m no threat to you or to anyone. Let me go. You’ll never see me again, I swear. You know you never will. You know.”
After regarding Tilton in silence for a long moment, Grandpa said, “Sit down,” and Tilton sat.
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When Mr. Smaller stepped close to the bed and shot Mr. Yoshioka, something about the reaction of the body wasn’t right. He threw back the light blanket—and found only more blankets shaped into a human form.
I never knew that in addition to tailoring and Asian art and haiku, Mr. Yoshioka was interested in martial arts. Neither did Mr. Smaller. Later, my friend explained it to me: “I introduced Mr. Smaller to my apartment. I introduced him to one wall and then to another. I showed him the door and then another door and then the floor. We took a tour, and though he knew the apartment from his years as the building superintendent, he seemed to be repeatedly surprised by what he encountered.”
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Next door at our neighbor’s house, after Mrs. Lorenzo called the police, she was sufficiently self-possessed to ring Diamond Dust and have my mother brought to the telephone immediately at the end of the number that she was performing. By the time Mom could make her way home through the storm-washed city, police cars cluttered our street, their emergency beacons flashing red and blue, so that the falling raindrops almost looked like showers of sequins. Drackman had been loaded into an ambulance and taken away. Policemen had succeeded in subduing Fiona, who became dangerous again when she saw them arrive; though in great pain and bleeding from her shattered hand, she nonetheless shrieked and kicked and bit with all the ferocity of a wildcat. As my mother hurried up the walkway, the paramedics were conveying a bound and bitter Fiona to the second ambulance.
In the living room, two plainclothes detectives had sorted out things with Tilton, who remained as docile as Fiona Cassidy had been obstinate. They cuffed him, and a uniformed officer escorted him toward the front door. Just then my mother entered, a vision if ever there was one, her hair diamonded with rain, as lovely as a princess in a fairy tale, raincoat flaring like a royal’s cape. Tilton looked up, met her eyes, and seemed to be surprised, not only that they should encounter each other at this last possible moment, but as if he both knew her and did not know her, as if he might be seeing the real and complete Sylvia Bledsoe for the first time, because among the other emotions kaleidoscopic in his face, the most striking was a look of wonder. In her face, by contrast, there was neither anger nor pity, nor contempt; she would not give him the satisfaction of an emotional response, but regarded him as she might have any piece of furniture, and after a moment she stepped aside, out of the way, so that he might be moved elsewhere.
She came to me and dropped to her knees on the rain-slick floor and took my face in both of her hands and kissed my forehead. For the longest moment then, we stared into each other’s eyes, neither of us capable of speech even if there had been anything we needed to say. Grandpa stood over us, smiling and, I think, a little bit bewildered by what he’d been called upon to do and by what he’d done. Finally she said, “You know you’re up way past bedtime,” and I said, “Yes, ma’am, but it won’t happen again.” She said, “It better not,” and I knew then that we were at last safe.
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