The Good Thief

by Hannah Tinti

  The man in the purple suit sat in the wagon and blinked against the moonlight. There were rings under his eyes, as if he had been sleeping for weeks. His features were large and brutish—a jaw that flared out below his ears, a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. Now that he was sitting up, he seemed to fill the entire back of the wagon. His shoulders stretched from either side of his neck like a wall. Even sitting down he was taller than Benjamin.

  Ren stepped forward to get a closer look. Just as he did, the man closed his eyes and slumped against the side of the cart.

  “Is he dead now?” Tom asked.

  Benjamin felt the man’s neck hopefully. “No.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “We can’t leave him,” said Benjamin. “Someone will find out.”

  “Then we’ll bury him again. He’ll never know the difference.”

  Benjamin stood for a moment, weighing this possibility. He rocked back and forth, his shadow swaying over the man at his feet. “We don’t have time,” Benjamin decided. He jumped down. He shoved Ren toward the horse. “Fetch me some rope. He’s coming with us.”

  Ren found some cord underneath the driver’s seat and Benjamin began tying up the dead man. The tools and bodies were covered with blankets. Tom fumbled in his pocket for the flask, but when he tried to drink it was empty. He slipped next to Ren and took the reins.

  “Get back,” he growled.

  Ren climbed over the driving board. He held on to the side of the cart as they jostled down the street. Underneath the blankets the bodies were stiff but yielding, like pieces of wood just beginning to rot. It was hard for Ren to distinguish where one body ended and another began. He scrambled over them as quickly as he could, trying not to imagine their faces as he made his way to the back of the wagon.

  The dead man was not wearing a shirt. His purple suit had holes in it—tiny ones that showed bits of skin and hair. His feet were bare as well, and somehow this made his hands seem naked, resting open in his lap, the fingers thick and dry. Above the collar of the suit his neck laid itself out in folds. The skin was circled with dark bruises.

  Ren kept as close to Benjamin as he could. He crouched down and grasped the edge of the wagon. He counted everything inside. There were three bodies, two thieves, one dead man, and him. The horse continued to pull them all, its hooves echoing against the stones in the street.

  Benjamin sat on the edge of the cart, his fingers in his hair. Every so often he would reach out and slap the dead man hard in the face.

  “Hey there,” he said. “Still with us, now?” There was a low gurgling noise from the suit in return. “I guess you are,” said Benjamin. “I guess you’re with us for good.”

  SIXTEEN

  Tom and Benjamin struggled as they carried the man up the stairs. Ren moved ahead, holding the lamp, opening doors, turning keys, telling them to shush for a moment until he was sure that Mrs. Sands was not in the kitchen. It was close to four, the final chilled breaths of night before morning. The dead man was still snoring lightly when they rolled him on top of the bed.

  “What’ll we do with him?” Tom asked. “Can’t leave him here.”

  “For now we will,” Benjamin said. “There’s no choice but that.” He reached into the back of his pants, pulled out the revolver, and handed it to Ren.

  “Watch him,” he said. Then he blew out the light.

  It took a few minutes for Ren’s eyes to adjust. He listened to the men go down the stairs, then pushed the curtain aside to watch them leave. He could make out Tom in the back of the wagon. Benjamin was at the reins now, and Ren could tell by the way he leaned forward in his seat that he was worried. If they didn’t get the bodies to the hospital before daylight, they would be left with a wagon full of corpses.

  Ren stood alone in the dark, thinking of the mourners coming to pray over the empty coffins they had left. Behind him, the purple suit snored. The sound was heavy and wet, increasing with each exhale, until the dead man seemed to be filling not only the bed but half the room, all the way to the ceiling.

  The boy climbed onto Tom’s mattress and rested the gun on his knee. He ran his finger over the back hammer. The metal was cold. If he pulled the trigger, the bullet would go right through the man’s heart. That would stop him for sure. But Ren hoped it would not come to that. What would he tell Mrs. Sands if she came and saw that he’d killed someone? She thought he was a good boy, and he did not want her to know the truth.

  Ren went over to the door and listened. The house was silent. Mrs. Sands was still asleep, unaware of the stranger they’d brought underneath her roof. Ren moved back to his spot, relieved. A small spider was crawling across the dead man’s stomach, pausing for a moment before scurrying on. There were probably lots of bugs, Ren decided, and now they were all in his bed.

  The man’s mouth was open, his teeth glistening in the moonlight. Ren wondered how he had been buried alive—if a doctor had missed his heartbeat, or if the man had found some way to pull his spirit back from heaven. This wasn’t like Saint Anthony in The Lives of the Saints, raising a child to clear his father’s name. It didn’t feel even remotely holy. Ren reached over the blanket and flicked the spider with his thumb and forefinger. It landed on the floor and Ren quickly stood upon it, grinding the spider into the boards. When he was finished he saw that the dead man was awake.

  Ren lifted the gun. It was heavy held out in the air and his hand shook a little.

  The man blinked his eyes. His belly spilled over the edge of the bed. He had his hands tucked together underneath the side of his face, as if he was used to not having a pillow. He seemed even larger now, and looked as though he could bring his foot down on a boy just as easily as a spider. Ren’s arm was already feeling tired. He used his left to prop up the right, the nub just beneath his wrist.

  “It looks like you’re dancing,” said the man. He reached up and brushed something off his face. Ren saw a small insect hit the floor. It had many legs, and it used them now to run toward the boy’s foot. Ren lifted his shoe and brought it down again, twisting at the ankle from side to side.

  “There you go again,” said the man. “Where’s the music?” His voice was deep and ragged, as if he had not spoken in years. A creeping sensation began up the back of Ren’s legs, as if the man had been buried not for just a day but for a century. The room was dark, but an even greater darkness seemed to seep directly from him, like a thick and evil fog. The man closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m cold.”

  Ren tucked the gun under his arm and yanked one of Mrs. Sands’s quilts across the bed, his hand shaking.

  “Well, that’s a treat,” said the man. Then he was quiet for a while, and Ren thought he might have fallen asleep again. Ren lowered the revolver and kept a lookout for bugs. Then he realized that the man was crying.

  Ren had always believed that crying went away when you got older. Now, as he watched the man sob, he felt it must be a thing that never stopped. The bed was shuddering, the purple suit rocking back and forth. There was a deep sound coming from the man’s chest, the heavy kind of moan that bends people over. Ren had heard this sort of crying before in the small boys’ room. It came on bad nights, when the children remembered their mothers.

  Ren sat down on the edge of the bed. The smell of the fog had spread, so ripe and so foul he could nearly taste it. He touched the man’s ankle through the quilt and felt it flex beneath his hand. Ren patted the foot. He sat there gently and continued to pat the foot, and eventually the man quieted.

  The silence that came after was unnerving. The man did not wipe his eyes or his nose. He let them both run, until they dried into tiny rivers on his face. It was as if he had never cried before in his life. The man inhaled deeply, his nostrils letting out a tiny squeak as he released the air. He coughed.

  “I’m thirsty.”

  In the hallway Ren found a bowl and filled it at the wash-stand, then tucked the revolver in his pocket and carried the bowl back to the ro
om. When he opened the door, the man was sitting up. He had taken off his jacket. His shoulders were lumpy and his body wide, his stomach hanging below his thick, hairy chest. His forehead was wrinkled, as if he was trying hard to remember something.

  “What happened to the others?”

  “They’ll be back soon,” said Ren. He held out the bowl of water and the man reached for it.

  His hands were enormous—three times the size of Ren’s—the palms hard and muscled, the fingers stubby and wide. He drank in gulps, his bruised neck silently throbbing. When he finished, he set the bowl on the floor. “Who’re you?” he asked.

  “I’m Ren.”

  “I’m Dolly.” He eyed the gun, and Ren could see that he was considering whether or not to take it from him. “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ren admitted.

  “Good,” said Dolly. “Because I don’t think I can sit up anymore.”

  Ren helped him lie down, lifting the quilt, and saw a dozen crawling things set out across the mattress.

  Dolly sighed. “Thank you,” he said. He turned his face to the ceiling and scratched at the hair on his chest. He did not seem concerned about his circumstances, or the fact that he’d been buried. There were tattoo marks across the man’s sternum—an anchor, and a chain that wrapped around his thick waist twice. The links were shaded in black and about the length of Ren’s finger. He half expected them to rattle as Dolly breathed, but they only stretched the skin, silently coiling in and out.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “New York.” Dolly passed a massive hand across his chest, then traced each circle at the end of the chain. “Philadelphia. Boston.” He looked up at Ren and his face hardened. “It’s how I keep track of things.”

  Something in the way he spoke made Ren tighten his grip on the gun. The fog was crossing the room now and the boy felt desperate, wishing for Benjamin to return. Even so, he could not stop the question from coming out. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to murder someone.”

  Ren had seen it coming, and now he could barely whisper. “Did you do it?”

  “No. I didn’t have the chance.” Dolly patted his stomach where the chain ended. “But I’ll finish him. And then I’ll get another job. New England’s full of grudges, and there’s lots of people that need to be murdered, and people looking for someone to murder them. I’ve been doing it for years. I was made for it.” Dolly pointed to the row of links. “There’s a mark here for every man I’ve killed.”

  He was boasting. Even as the stench of the grave clung to him; even as he brushed insects off his face. It was clear to Ren that he felt no sympathy for his victims, no regret for what he’d done in his life. Something about the man was off; as if he were not of this world, or the next. It was chilling to be standing this close to a murderer, but Ren also considered for a moment what it might be like—to have no feelings, no guilt. To never say penance again. “Is that how you hurt your neck?” he asked.

  “No,” said Dolly. “I was strangled.”

  Ren looked at Dolly’s throat again, the purple bruises patterned like fingerprints. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “People don’t get strangled for nothing.”

  “Well,” said Dolly, “I suppose it was for something.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  Dolly looked thoughtful. “They came after me with a rope,” he said. “Two men with old hats. Surprised me in the stairwell of a tavern. Got the cord around my neck and started pulling. I broke off a piece of railing, then used it to beat one of them in the nose until he let go. I knocked the other down the stairs, but not before he got his teeth into me.” He lifted his arm and showed a pattern of half-moons. Scars of bites up and down his skin.

  “Then what?”

  “I kicked their faces in. Those two won’t come back.”

  “But you did.”

  “Yes,” said Dolly. And he did something with his face that might have been a smile. “When I woke up it was morning and I was at the bottom of the stairs. I kept thinking, Why hasn’t anyone come? And then the landlady walked in and she screamed and she cried a little and closed the lids of my eyes with her fingers. She thought I’d saved her from being robbed. She sent for the undertakers to remove the other bodies and paid for a coffin for me.”

  “The undertakers covered my face with a sheet. They stole my shoes and my shirt but left my suit. They said it was too ruined to sell. I heard them complaining about how heavy I was. I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t lift my arms. And then I was in the coffin. And then the lid was on. And then the nails came. One went straight through my ear.” Dolly lifted his hand and pointed. On the lobe there was a caking of red scab. Behind it the upper throat had been pierced, just above the line of purple bruises.

  “Everything split once that nail went in. I was lifted and I was lowered. I could feel the weight of the dirt as they shoveled it in. It was like a blanket pulled over my head.” Dolly said, “I’m just supposing now.” As he spoke he drooled; there were two small stains of saliva gathering on the pillow, white foam in the corners of his mouth.

  Ren took up the side of the quilt and wiped the foam away. Then he folded the area of wetness over and tucked it underneath the mattress. Dolly could not have been underground long, Ren decided. It might have been hours, it might have been a day, but it was a miracle that he was alive at all.

  “Am I awake?” Dolly groaned.

  “I think so,” said Ren.

  There was a light banging coming from somewhere in the house, and Ren knew that it was Mrs. Sands, cleaning out the ashes from the fireplace in the kitchen. Dolly began to cry again, and Ren went back to patting his foot. The man’s sobs were softer now. He cupped his giant hands over his mouth, as if he were trying to catch the words he was saying.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Ren didn’t know what Dolly was sorry for, but he knew what it felt like to want to take something back.

  “I know,” he said.

  Dolly began to rub his eyes. There were streaks across his cheeks and chin from the tears, and it made him look pitiful, as if someone had just thrown dirt in his face. His jaw clenched, and suddenly his massive arms grabbed for the boy. Ren panicked, thinking he was going for the gun, but instead Dolly seized Ren by the stump and squeezed it hard, as if it were a hand.

  Ren was sure that he could hear Benjamin on the stairs. He tried to twist his arm away, but Dolly was holding fast.

  “We’re friends now.”

  It was not a question. Still, Ren answered it. “Yes.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Benjamin slipped into their room after dawn. His clothes smelled strange, sharp and sweet, as if they had been soaked in spirits.

  “Where’s the purple suit?”

  “Under the bed. I think his eyes hurt.”

  Benjamin lifted one of the blankets. When he was satisfied that Dolly was asleep, he opened his coat. “Look at this.” Inside his pockets were mounds of bills and coins. It was more money than they’d made from the church, or the stolen jewelry, or from Mother Jones’s Elixir for Misbehaving Children. It was more money than Ren had ever seen.

  “You should have seen us outside the hospital gates,” said Benjamin. “Tom had the shakes, and I thought we’d never get in. But the doctor was waiting for us, just like you said. He had the money all out and ready.” Benjamin picked up a handful of coins. “You’re lucky to me, did you know?”

  The boy shook his head. He felt a small flush of pride.

  “I should have picked you up sooner.”

  The bills were spread across the bed, and together the two of them began counting. Ren knew how to multiply using his fingers, his thumb working back and forth across the tips. Fifteen. Thirty-six. Forty-two. Sixty-seven. Seventy-five. He piled the numbers on top of each other, and Benjamin seemed impressed when he counted the bills for a second time and came to the same amounts. When they were finished, he ga
ve a few dollars to Ren. Then he unscrewed a knob from one of the bedposts, rolled the rest of the money inside, and put the knob back in place.

  “I’m going to buy a new pair of boots.” Benjamin sat down on the bed. “How about you. Another orange?”

  Ren lifted the bills to his nose and inhaled. The money smelled of dirty fingers. His mind swam with all the objects that had been bought and sold with it—new clothes and peaches and horseshoes and lumber and books and ribbons and frying pans. He closed his eyes. He was too tired to think.

  Benjamin took his knife from his boot. He opened it and cleaned the blade with the edge of his shirt. “Here,” he said. “Why don’t you take this until you think of something.”

  Ren had seen the knife before, but never up close. A bear was carved into the handle, its paws reaching around the center as if it were climbing a tree. The animal’s head rested on the end with a sleepy expression, the eyes twice as large as the nose. Ren touched the tip of the knife with his finger. It was sharp and gleaming and threw a small bright spot of light onto his face.

  “That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile,” Benjamin said.

  Ren was smiling. He could not stop. He felt his teeth against the cool morning air, his cheeks tightening until they began to hurt. The knife rested in his open palm, shiny and dangerous. It was more than a gift—he had earned it. Benjamin had trusted him to see the night through, and he had come out the other side.

  A factory whistle sounded, followed by another. Ren could hear the boots of the mousetrap girls leaving. One pair paused for a moment outside their door, then continued down the stairs. Ren glanced out the window and saw dozens of girls dressed in blue running in the street, their shawls over their heads. It was raining.

  There was a moan from Dolly underneath the mattress. Suddenly the bed lifted off its feet, levitating for a moment before settling back to the floor. Benjamin and Ren stepped against the wall and waited until they heard the man begin to snore again.