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“Holy Moses,” he groused as he sorted through the paper sleeves. “Every damn week you come in here and bother me.”

To them, he was a real comedian and they laughed again. “We don’t come that often but we love your store,” the younger guy told him. They didn’t appear at all offended as he continued to insult them and their presence, but then did accept their money.

They said goodbye and thank you, which he ignored. The little bell that hung above the door didn’t chime when they exited—it only made a clicking sound. Maybe the clapper was gone.

“What the hell do you want?”

This time, he was talking to me. “Hello. I’m your neighbor,” I said. “I just moved into the Milaflores Building.”

“Well, hot damn. Let me pick myself up from the floor, where I fell in my shock and happiness.” He waited a moment and then gestured angrily, spinning his hand in the air to show that he wanted me to continue and then also voicing it. “What the hell do you want?”

“I’m trying to identify a song. I think it’s an old song,” I said. “I thought that an older individual might know it.”

I was surprised again because his expression changed to a smile, or at least, it seemed less angry for a moment. His lips moved in a slight upward curve but then quickly returned to a sneer. “Don’t you have a phone? There are apps for that,” he informed me.

“My phone can’t do it.” I wasn’t sure why that was, but the app kept refusing to help me. The song had gotten louder over the past few weeks, not dramatically and not all at once, but enough that I could now definitely catch that it was a repeating tune and not different music all the time. It also wasn’t happening all the time, which was weird…

“This is a place of business.” He pointed at a sign on the wall behind him. It read, “NO LOITERING.”

“I’m not loitering. Could please you help me figure out what this is? I’ll hum it,” I offered. He didn’t say no, so I cleared my throat and tried to replicate the tune that I heard multiple times a day. I had only gotten out a few seconds of it before he held up his hands.

“Stop! Holy Moses, what is that noise issuing from your throat?”

“That’s a song—”

“It sounded like a sick goat,” he told me. “Never, ever do that again.”

“I was only humming! I know that I’m not a singer—”

“Not a singer? With vocal cords like that, I’m surprised that you can speak. Get out.”

I opened my mouth again.

“Out!”

The sad bell clicked as I made my exit. It had been a weird idea, anyway. I had just thought that if I could I could figure out which song it was, then maybe I would have an idea of why the man above me kept playing it.

Now I knew that his name was Oliver, Oliver Marchand. But I hadn’t gotten that information from him. A few days before, I had knocked on the door of the building manager who lived in an apartment on the ground floor. Mrs. McGlothen had been worried when she first saw me.

“The rumors about bedbugs in 4B are false!” she had declared, which also made me worried. But when I’d told her that I only wanted to learn about the man who lived above me, she had grinned.

“He’s what I call a cutie-patootie,” she had confessed. “A doll. Am I right?”

I hadn’t known exactly how to answer that, because I hadn’t really evaluated his looks. I had been so annoyed by his behavior with the music that my mental image of him included devil horns.

But he must have had some positive traits—like, he seemed to be a good runner. I had seen him that one day on the street when I’d tried to keep up, but since then, I’d been carefully avoiding him and timing my own exercise for when I didn’t think he would be out there. I had been watching from the window in my living room, though, and had spotted him several times.

About a week before, I had encountered him in person by mistake. I had been coming back in from a quick trip to the party store for a few cans of peach sparkling water, and he had just been leaving the building. He had worn a suit and, unlike me, he’d been prepared with an umbrella.

“It’s raining,” I had unhelpfully announced when he opened the door and held it. Anyone could have seen, felt, or heard that.

“Yes. Goodbye,” he’d answered and he’d left, rolling a bag behind himself.

Later that night, I’d heard the music again and it was the first time that I’d been able to pick out that there was a male singer. I had left a note on his door requesting that he please turn it down but he hadn’t responded, which had led me to talk to the building manager.

But before we’d gotten to my problem, I’d had to respond to her “cutie-patootie” remark. “I guess he is. If you like tall guys.”

“Tall and handsome,” she had added. “Athletic. And I always get worked up about a blonde.”