The Good Neighbor

by Martin Rosenstock

About the Author: Martin Rosenstock's stories have appeared in Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, as well as on Literally Stories. For Titan Books, he has edited Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of Seven and Sherlock Holmes: A Detective's Life.

Excerpt

He is not sure it’s her, or rather he doesn’t allow himself to acknowledge that he is. Pencil-grey strands seem as if painted into her wavy brown hair, and she is wearing fashion model sunglasses even though the day is overcast. His lungs press against his rib cage. How could she have come here? But isn’t he sitting in a café in Kreuzberg, run by a Syrian refugee who is serving coffee in all styles Middle Eastern? It makes sense, in a roundabout way, that she is here. Probably also that he is. Even after all these years, he likes Turkish coffee and the smell of shisha, though he doesn’t smoke.

He’s been coming to this place for a few weeks now, since arriving in Berlin in late May, as soon as the semester ended. On his first stroll through the city, he saw the sign, in German and Arabic, separated by the image of a brass Arabic coffee pot. In the late nineties, an older colleague of his had the smarts to pick up a high-ceilinged two-bedroom with wooden floors here, for a year’s salary, apparently.

“You’d be doing me a favor, Jim. It needs airing out. And I can’t go over this year …”

Story Comments