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hallways. Muffled voices followed me but that was nothing new, muffled voices follow everybody in old apartment houses.
    Except I kept hearing my name, or thought I did. For some reason, it made my scalp tighten.
    The morning came when I awoke to a knocking–twin knockings–on my basement door. I figured it was the cops doing a follow-up, but instead there was Ferdinand with Mojo, both of them grinning. They were each holding a bunch of paperbacks.
    “You are the wonderful writer called Will Darrow!”
    “I’m Will Darrow anyway,” I told him.
    “But why, why did you not let me know this the very day we were introduced? I await the next emergence of your tough guy character, stories of the brutal but heroic King Carver!”
    That took me back hard. Mojo pulled on his chain and tugged Ferdi into my apartment. They may have been the first guests I’d ever had inside the place. I said, “You’ve read my books?”
    “Yes, all of them! Will you please sign, yes?”
    Mojo extended a novel out to me. It had a cover I’d never seen before, printed in a language I didn’t know. Portuguese, maybe? Neither my agent nor my publisher had ever mentioned selling those sub-rights. Or any. My breath caught in my chest and I tried not to think about how much money folks might be skimming. The monkey wouldn’t let go of the book. Ferdinand said, “Mojo, give! For signing! He will return it to you!”
    A couple of the other books were in the same language, and two more were in a different one. Maybe Swedish. Danish? I had no idea. The rage climbed the back of my neck but there was also a strange sense of pride coming through, knowing people in other countries were reading my work. My hands were icy. I couldn’t remember how to spell my name and just scribbled wavy lines inside the books.
    “I ask now when shall I be able to tell my friends a new King Carver adventure shall soon be theirs?”
    I didn’t know what to say. My agent had sent all my recent manuscripts back. I tried to keep faith. “I don’t know, Ferdi. But I’ll let you know as soon as I finish a new one, all right?”
    “That will be stupendous! Will it not, Mojo?”
    Mojo went, “Ook.”
    “You hear, he says–”
    “Uh huh.”
    “–he shall effort to have patience but he excitedly waits for more King Carver!”
    “Uh huh.”
    “Tell me now, how is Miss Gabriella?”
    It was the first time I was aware that I hadn’t seen her since that day he’d moved in two weeks earlier. A minor twinge of alarm sang through me. “I don’t know, Ferdi, it’s been a while.”
    “If you see her, please say that I have inquired about her health!”
    “I’ll do that.”
    I handed him the signed books back and Mojo got mad and started hopping and banging his fists against his knees until Ferdi gave him one of the titles. Mojo immediately quieted, opened the book, and his mouth started moving, as if he really could read.
    ~ * ~
    The cops eventually came around again. All three teams, about two hours apart from one another. The nice guys weren’t so nice this time. The hardasses not as hard. The whiners still tried to plead with me to tell the truth and come clean about croaking the old man with an ice pick. I stuck firm to my story. Nobody hit me with a phone book or a rubber hose. No one asked any new questions or seemed to have any other leads besides me. I started to get a clue as to why there were so many television shows about unsolved crimes. They asked if Dr. Lauber had shown up yet, if I’d seen some guy with a stethoscope and a doctor’s bag creeping around the building. Maybe doing illegal abortions in the neighborhood. I blinked and reminded them that abortions weren’t illegal. They discussed this amongst themselves for a bit. They invited my opinion but I chose to stay out of it. I stared at them and they stared at me.
    I waited to catch sight of Gabriella. I did everything I could do in order to hang around the fifth floor. Fixing hall lights,