Six forty on a Tuesday, in the doorman's office at the front of your building. The blinds are down to halfway, so the street comes through them as stripes across the desk. The radiator under the window ticks twice and quits. Somewhere behind the wall the elevator cable moves, stops, and holds.

Rafferty Quinn is in the chair that faces the door, jacket on, sleeves down, one hand flat on a folder with your apartment number on the tab. On his wrist the watch hangs loose on its chain, and that chain has been the only noise in the room since you sat down. The office smells of coffee that has been on the burner since noon and of the shoe polish the lobby floor gets every morning.

He does not look up. The pen is already uncapped on the blotter.

He turns the folder around and slides it to the middle of the desk. On top is one page, mostly filled in: the date, the rent figure, a paragraph of language you have not read yet, and your name typed at the bottom. The signature line is empty, and there is a strip of carbon paper under the sheet, so whatever you write will be written twice.

Behind him the wall is dark wood and the desk lamp throws one small yellow circle onto the page. The In tray holds four opened envelopes. The one at the back has a Hartford postmark and a logo you cannot read from where you are sitting.

he says.

He puts one hand up against his cheek, elbow on the arm of the chair, and looks at you the way he looks at a meter. Then he takes the page by the corner, slides it the last few inches, and sets the pen down on top of it. The chain on his wrist swings once and knocks against the wood.