Hidden Moon

4

There was a knock on the door. One of the old women from downstairs stuck her head into my apartment. “A phone call for you, Inspector.” She grinned. “It’s a woman. Sounds like she needs you. Sort of breathless.”

“You want to listen in on the other line, or can I just file a report when I’m done, Mrs. Chang?” I was lying down, thinking about dinner.

The old woman laughed and opened the door wider. “You better hurry along, she might hang up and call someone else.”

The phone sits on a wooden box in the hall just inside the front entrance to the apartment house. It was off the hook when I got there, and a young man was pacing impatiently nearby. “Can you speed it up? Someone is going to call me any minute.”

“They might be calling right now, for all you know. Relax, they’ll call back.” I picked up the phone. “O here.”

“Inspector, this is Miss Pyon, remember me?”

“Yes, the delightful Miss Pyon, of the beautiful golden noodles. Or perhaps it should be the other way around. What can I do for you?” I didn’t know Miss Pyon well, but I owed her money. Salary was episodic, expenses were uninterrupted. Some restaurants were getting very strict about being paid. Miss Pyon had agreed I could have a bowl of noodles whenever I showed up if, in turn, I would establish a protective bubble around her place. There were only seven or eight tables, so it didn’t have to be much of a bubble. She said she’d been having troubles-of a sort she wouldn’t specify-and thought regular presence on my part would help. Exactly how, she wouldn’t say and I didn’t inquire. Probably she was prone to hysteria. As far as I could see, it was a quiet place, and the noodles were alright, dependable. How she got my number was a question I might want to have answered. I had never told her where I lived. Maybe some customer had recognized me, or maybe she had made some inquiries.

“Could you come over and sit in my shop for a while? Just have some noodles and radiate your calming presence.” She didn’t sound hysterical, but there was a note of unease in her voice.

“Problems again?” I smiled at the impatient young man.

“Maybe we can avoid that if you are here.” In an instant she was past unease, edging toward anxiety. “A couple of drunks.”

“Surely not.” I tried to sound reassuring.

“They’ve been around before, and the last time they did a lot of damage.”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s not nothing! It’s something. This isn’t the normal drunken shuffle.” Anxiety was in the rearview mirror, and we were heading toward hysteria.

“I’ll be there.”