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snip snip snip . “If I do, I’m not telling. I can keep secrets, too.”
    No help there.
    A wordless interval stretched between them. “Are you sleeping okay?” she asked.
    “What is this, an interrogation? You want a urine sample? Want to run an ink blot test on me?”
    The scissors flashed, catching the light from the window.
    She watched him. He was uncomfortably close to her. He could be on top of her in one long stride.
    In psychology, a variant of political correctness insisted that schizophrenics were less dangerous than the general population. A comforting thought, except it wasn’t true. Schizophrenics were paranoid, and paranoid people could be violent. They could lash out unpredictably, ripping, biting—stabbing.
    She knew the warning signs. Rapid breathing. Loud talk. Restlessness. Richard was showing all those signs now.
    “I’m just making conversation.” She held her voice steady.
    “Mom sent you here.” He waved the scissors, quick slashing strokes. “I fucking know it. Mom’s always on my case, telling me to get it together, take my meds, be a good little boy.”
    “Mom’s dead, Richard. She’s been dead for five years.”
    “Oh...right.” He planted the tips of the scissors on the window sill and twirled them. “Right.”
    “I called you a little while ago. I called three times. Why didn’t you pick up?”
    “Didn’t know who was calling.”
    “The only way to know is to pick up. Or get an answering machine.”
    “Answering machines record your conversations. Not just conversations on the phone. All your conversations, with everybody. It’s their way of keeping tabs on people.”
    She didn’t ask who they were. “If the phone rings, you need to answer it.”
    He took a step toward her. “I’ll answer the phone when I want to. Right now I don’t want to. There’s nothing you can do about it. So just back off .”
    “I’m concerned about your welfare, Richard. That’s all.”
    “Yeah.” He snorted, like an agitated horse. “Real concerned. You care so much.”
    “I do care.” She wanted to reach out to him, but she knew physical contact would be a mistake. “You make it hard sometimes.”
    “Blame me. Always me.” He switched the scissors from hand to hand, back and forth.
    “Maybe you should put those down.”
    “I’m not a kid anymore. It’s not like I’m running with scissors.” He clicked the blades like castanets. “You’re dirty,” he added. “All scuffed up, like an old shoe.”
    Cobwebs and dust were all over her. “I was in the cellar. There was damage from the quake.”
    “Damage to the seller. What was he selling?”
    “The basement . Of our house.”
    “Yeah, like I don’t know what a cellar is. Like everything has to be explained .” He set down the scissors on a table. “I’m a doctor, you know. I’m an MD. That’s more than you are.” He’d been halfway through his first-year residency when his life went off course. Medication had only slowed—not halted—his decline. “You can’t even stand the sight of blood. That’s why you quit.”
    “It wasn’t blood. It was a cadaver. A dead body.”
    “Dead body? Where? In the cellar?”
    She looked at him, startled. “Why would you say that?”
    He ignored the question. “You found something that belonged to our great-grandfather in the cellar. Damage down there. What kind of damage?”
    “Part of a wall fell down. Just some old bricks.”
    “Bricks. Bridge. London Bridge.” He sang tunelessly. “ London Bridge is falling down …”
    “Why did you ask about a body in the cellar?” It had to have been one of his quirky associative jumps. He said so many crazy things that sometimes he hit on the truth by chance.
    “Belonged to our great-grandfather,” he repeated. “He came over from London. Falling down, falling down …”
    “Stop that. Answer me. What do you know about him? What made you say what you said?”
    “ London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady …!” He