“Exactly,” I said, my tone low. “That’s why I doubled it. Makes you feel generous when you wrote ‘safe’ next to my name, didn’t it?”
He went quiet. Paper shuffled on his end. “Everything’s… clear.”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“It’s clear,” he repeated, firmer this time.
“Good,” I murmured. “Keep it that way. You knew I didn’t like surprises.”
“You paid for predictability,” he said, trying to sound calm.
“And you sold it cheap,” I shot back, voice sharp. “Write it so clean it’d make a news crew cry. And if I heard you’d been talkin’—about anything—I’d send somebody to remind you why fire codes mattered.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Same time next quarter?” he asked quietly.
“You’d see me before then,” I told him. Then I hung up first, because I always did.
The screen glowed dim in my hand as I set the phone down on the scarred table. The envelope for his “donation” sat ready in the desk drawer—two bills thicker than last time, because fearneeded fertilizer to grow steady. The inspector wasn’t crooked. Crooked meant sloppy. He was practical, like me.
The rain outside ticked harder against the glass. My coffee had gone cold, but the bitterness sat just right on my tongue. One call down. One thread pulled. The block would stay quiet, at least on paper.
Now for the neighbor. She was loud, nosy, and blessed with a moral compass so high she could smell smoke two streets over. I liked her. People like her kept the city sharp. And sharp things cut clean, if you knew how to handle them.
I reached for the phone again.
The phone rang twice before she picked up. Her voice was sharp, tired—like someone who’d been counting every car door slam on the block for a decade.
“What?” she barked.
“Evening, Miss Geneva,” I said, calm as a priest. “How’s that porch light holding up?”
She hesitated. “Trigger. What do you want?”
“I wanted to thank you for being the neighborhood’s conscience,” I told her smoothly. “Your calls keep this block cleaner than the mayor’s handshake.”
“Then clean it better,” she snapped. “I’m tired of the noise. The bass shakes my windows. Kids can’t sleep.”
I smiled into the receiver. “That’s exactly why I’m calling. I got you a direct line. Special number. You call it, and it rings first in the right ears. We’ll take care of the noise before the city even has time to yawn.”
She went quiet. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” I said softly. “You just get peace faster. You deserve that, don’t you?”
“I don’t trust you,” she muttered.
“You don’t have to,” I replied. “You trust quiet nights. That’s all I’m offering. A number that makes the block behave.”
There was a pause. I could hear her TV humming low in the background, the sound of some game show audience clapping.
“What if I don’t call it?” she tested.
“Then the city gets slower,” I said, voice like a blade sliding back into a sheath. “And while they take their time, folks keep playing their music loud, and your windows keep rattling. You like sleeping through that?”
She sighed, annoyed but tempted. “Give me the number.”
I recited it slow, once. She repeated it, pen scratching on paper.
“Good,” I murmured. “Now, Miss Geneva… call me before you call them. Let me prove I’m better at keeping peace than the city.”
