In the bathroom, I washed my face and hands at the sink. Then I went to my room, took the chenille spread off the bed, folded it, put it on a shelf in the closet, and then turned down the bedclothes, so that I wouldn’t have to do all that later. The day was warm, the room stuffy. I put up the lower sash of the window for ventilation.
In the kitchen, a note was fixed to the refrigerator with a magnet: Tell Donata when you’re home. She’ll bring dinner and stay so you can sleep in your own bed. Love you more than anything. Mom.
A couple of days had passed since I’d had tea with Mr. Yoshioka, and I had not seen Fiona Cassidy again. I considered going up to the attic for a few minutes, to listen for whatever I might hear in 6-C. Just as I decided not to be stupid, the doorbell rang, and through the fish-eye lens, I saw Mr. Yoshioka.
When I opened the door, he said in a whisper, “Good evening, Jonah Kirk. Has the day been gentle with you?”
Taking my cue from him, I also whispered. “Gentle? I guess so. What about you, sir?”
“I have known worse, thank you. I wish to have a word.”
Stepping back, I said, “Oh, sure, come in.”
“A word alone,” he whispered.
“There’s no one here but me.”
He entered, closed the door, and stood with his back to it, as if to brace it shut against some hostile force. “I am sorry for the intrusion.”
“No problem,” I assured him. “You want to sit down and have something to drink? I can’t make tea, but I can make hot chocolate or maybe open a root beer or something.”
“You are very kind, but I can only stay a moment. My apologies.”
“What’s up?”
“Miss Eve Adams has not been noisy, not at all. However, on two occasions, each lasting an hour, there has been a most disturbing”—he looked pained, as though by the necessary crudeness of his next word—“stink.”
“A stink?”
“Yes. Quite strong.”
“What kind of stink?”
“A chemical smell. It is like but not precisely the same as trichloroethylene. That is the fluid used by dry cleaners. Being a tailor, I know it well.”
“Maybe it’s something she’s using to take up the old linoleum.”
“I do not think so. Not at all. No.”
His brow was furrowed, his lips pinched.
I said, “You seem worried.”
“It is like trichloroethylene but I believe more volatile.”
“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.”