"Two," Dick pointed to a picture on the sushi menu, "please. And an Asahi." He sat down at the bar picking the chair by the wall and hanging his coat off the back of the seat beside him.

"You don't do that." The guy behind the counter said. "For another customer." He emphasized his words by chopping through a slab of bright, red tuna with a loud, "thwok!"

"Oops, sorry," Dick tried to chuckle but he hated the sound. It came out high and nervous, and he suddenly hated this guy for ridiculing him right here in public. He hung the coat on the back of his own chair but sneaked a foot over onto the other seat's cross-member to tell any schmuck who might walk up that this was no place to sit. But then if the it was a schmuck he probably wouldn't understand a signal that subtle. Hell that was why Dick had used the coat in the first. Now he would probably have some greasy, load elbow jabber beside him who...

The beer came and Dick realized he had probably been muttering out loud again from the look the sushi guy gave him. He took a sip and was careful to smile as if he had just thought of something smart and amusing. But now he was seething. This guy was abusing him. Dick was a paying customer, just looking for some quiet and this guy was giving him trouble again just for sitting here.

The sushi came and a bowl of rice in rapid fire. They dish rocked for moment after it hit the counter. Dick tried to take his time eating at first, but he ended up gulping it all down just to leave and wishing while he ate he had remembered to bring a magazine so he wouldn't have to notice the stares of the people down the bar. He didn't catch them staring because he was too smart to look up and give them the pleasure. He paid and got up just as the predicted schmuck showed up to try and take the chair beside him. He had finished in time, and the small victory brought a genuine smile to his face, but he hid it quickly when some angry old lady by the door gave him a look like, "What are you smiling about? Should I smack you upside the head to quiet you down, boy!" So he hid the smile but not without cocking an eyebrow at her to let her know he wasn't taking any of that sort of thing off of her.

The sidewalk outside was empty and pure, but he made the turn at the alley anyway so nobody had a chance to come along and spoil it. His coat was a little hot in the summer sun, but he liked the pockets for his hands and the weight on his shoulders. The alley was empty too which was a relief because he always dreaded meeting the sort of people that might actually hang around in alleys. He hoped he never did. He snagged the fire-escape ladder and climbed up the three stories to his window and into his apartment. It was harder this way than taking the stairs or even the elevator, but he didn't have to pass that Rhonda person and her accusing silences.

He sat down and then hoped up again to check the refrigerator. He wasn't paranoid or anything, but he had half a pie in there and Rhonda had eyed it when he brought it back from the store yesterday. Anything could have happened while he was away at lunch. The pie was there and Dick began to relax. Lunch had gone pretty well. It was almost pleasant really or as close to good as a day in this dump ever was.

He sat down to his puzzle with a satisfied sigh. The Mystery Castle puzzle was tough, but he was making great progress. He loved the way the pieces came together, each bearing some little bit of logic not just in how it was shaped, but in the way each added on each as clues to the grisly murder of the castle grounds keeper. The puzzle had been his own gift to himself, and he thought he might solve it tonight, and celebrate with another piece of red cherry pie.

"Get your goddamn mail!" A meaty fist slammed into his apartment door and Dick jumped. Rhonda's hateful voice shrieked at him, "It's hanging out of your box again!"

She might not know he was there. He had been quiet walking around the apartment and the floor hadn't squeaked that he could hear. Still, she did live beneath him, maybe she had heard? He decided to play it safe and keep mum. He could always say he had been in the toilet when she knocked, or on an important phone call. That was it. He would say he was on the phone to a very important person like a city commissioner or something. She would feel embarrassed and apologize even. He would do something about her behavior then. He was a friend of commissioners and important people. She would have to understand that he deserved respect.

Outside he heard her heavy footsteps as she stomped away from his door. He wondered how she had ever sneaked up on him in the first place, she was forceful and noisy. She stomped back up the stairs after a moment and dozens of envelopes and torn catalogs appeared beneath his door. She methodically pushed everything all the way under his door with one short finger then her voice came through the crack there, "I can see you're goddamn feet, asshole."

They were my shoes, he thought. You see my shoes and I wasn't in them when you came by. But he felt the roaring in his ears as his blood rushed to his face and those telltale ear tips. This sort of embarrassing behavior was why he avoided Rhonda. He could never understand why the landlord had given her so much responsibility as a manager. He often wondered if she was only claiming to be the manager after all. Dick decided to contact that landlord. Maybe he could do something about her after all. Cursing was certainly not something any landlord would be likely to condone, he was a paying tenant after all, not some welfare case, or at least not entirely, with the trust. There should be some dignity in that as he saw it.

With dignity in mind, he picked up the junk mail she had forced on him and began sorting it into the trash. It was all addressed to Current Resident and that sort of thing. His bills were included in the rent except for the phone, and he had paid that only last week. There was one yellow envelope with a white paper label for the address and a thin preprinted return address sticker. The letter was neatly addressed to him by name, "Richard Anduile." It was from his uncle Ted and his aunt Maureene. The postmark was six days before.

Uncle Ted had always called him "Richard." Dick smiled and touched the shining silver watch which his uncle had bought him the day Dick left the group home. Some of the chrome had warn off the edges to show brass beneath, but it was the nicest thing Dick had ever owned.

He carefully opened the envelope with a big kitchen knife. He pulled out a shiny white card with a picture of a cake and candles. There was a twenty dollar bill inside and "Happy Birthday!" in fat, balloon letters. The signature read, "Hope you are well, Ted and Maureene."

Uncomprehending, he stared at the nearly blank bit of mass produced cheer. Uncle Ted was his sole remaining blood relative, and Uncle Ted and Aunt Maureene were wrong about Dick's birthday by almost exactly six months.

He set the card and money on the little eating nook that separated the kitchen from the main room of the studio apartment and walked back around the wall to sit at his puzzle again. He became aware that the knife was still in his hand.

Just then, a meaty fist boomed against his door again. "Goddamn it! I know you're in there, asshole. Open this door!"

Her cursing, he thought, She shouldn't be cursing all the time. Maybe he could do something about her after all. He looked at his puzzle. And now it was just pieces too him--scattered pieces all over the place. He looked back over his shoulder at the yellow envelope. Really, he should visit Uncle Ted and Aunt Maureene. This sort of thing just couldn't be allowed. The pounding on the door became constant.

Dick wondered if he should get the door.

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