The Good Thief

by Hannah Tinti

  Ren closed Don Quixote and slid it back onto the shelf. He understood now why the dwarf had been afraid. Without Mrs. Sands, he had no food, no clothes, no family. He was completely helpless.

  Outside, a whistle sounded. The dwarf pushed open the door. Smoke was rising from the factory. The mousetrap girls rushed into the streets in their blue uniforms, a few clutching bits of breakfast. They came from every corner of the town and flowed in the same direction.

  “We’ve got to lock up the pantry,” said the small man. “They’ll eat everything if we don’t.”

  “Don’t they pay for their food?”

  “They get two meals a day. But with my sister gone they’ll take everything.”

  Morning spread across the rooftops, the sun so pink that it made the gutters shine. The streets below were slowly coming to life, the shops opening and the brothels closing. All the mousetrap girls had disappeared into the factory, and the door closed behind them like a giant mouth.

  Ren looked out at the river circling the town. He felt the hem of his coat. The stitches there were straight and evenly paced. They traveled along the seams, across the shoulders and down the sleeves. He thought of Mrs. Sands pushing the needle and thread, draining the water from the drowned boy’s clothes until they were a perfect fit.

  The dwarf handed him the jar full of tea. “When you see Mary,” he said, “I want you to remind her that she said that she would always take care of me. She promised after our mother died. A promise is a promise.”

  For a moment Ren wished that he could trade places with the dwarf. He would not mind staying on the roof, he thought, if Mrs. Sands was always at the other end of the chimney. He put his hand on the brick and peered down into the darkness. It was as steep as the well at Saint Anthony’s. Ren pulled the jar close. Mrs. Sands’s tea was heavy in his arms. He tied the rope around his waist, climbed onto the chimney, and hoped that it would not break.

  TWENTY-TWO

  It easier going down. Ren simply pressed his feet against the inner bricks of the chimney and lowered himself, a bit at a time, holding on to the rope. Only once did he slip a bit, nearly dropping the jar, when he felt a wave of fatigue across his shoulders. Ren’s days and nights had been completely upended, their beginnings and endings blurred. He was now more than likely to be awake at four in the morning, to be curling in a dark corner for a brief nap at noon. Ren had always thought of days in a physical sense, like the clock face in Father John’s study—a sun and moon divided in two, morning and night. Now he understood that there was no precise moment when evening crossed over into morning—that there was never a brand-new day.

  When he reached the end of the chimney, he heard low voices in the kitchen. He dropped quietly into the fireplace and saw Benjamin and the Harelip. She was sitting on his lap and spooning preserves from a jar into his mouth.

  Benjamin had his hand under her skirt. Where the side was hitched up, Ren could see one of her black stockings. The seam was coming apart, revealing the delicate skin at the back of her knee. Benjamin was whispering something into the girl’s ear and she was smiling.

  “I’m already late,” she said. The Harelip slid off Benjamin’s lap, her cheeks flushed. When she saw Ren standing in the fireplace, it was hard to say if she was embarrassed or angry. She snatched her shawl from the peg, then stuck her tongue out at him and left.

  Ren waited until the door had closed, then crawled into the kitchen and set the jar of tea on the floor. He untied the rope from his waist and shook the dust from his clothes.

  “Father Christmas!” said Benjamin. He was wearing a new coat, with a blue velvet collar that matched his eyes, and brand-new boots with rounded toes. The leather was hand-tooled and the laces barely creased.

  “Where’ve you been?” Ren asked.

  “Following the bartender. He lived out in the country, but it was worth it in the end. His whole family’s gone. Struck down with a fever.” Benjamin brushed soot from Ren’s jacket. “How the hell did you end up in the chimney?”

  Ren didn’t have any excuses ready, and so decided to tell the truth. First he explained about finding Mrs. Sands, then meeting the hat boys on the road. Benjamin frowned over the murders, then touched the cut on Ren’s cheek. But as soon as the money was mentioned, Benjamin grabbed the boy’s coat and began going through his pockets. He pulled out the bills that were left. He threw them down on the table.

  “Where’s the rest?”

  “I used it to pay the doctor.”

  Benjamin pushed Ren away from him. He went to the fireplace and began to throw logs onto the irons.

  Ren stood still, his fingers gripping the chair. “They said she was going to die.”

  “You’re supposed to steal from other people,” said Benjamin. “Not me.”

  “I wasn’t stealing.”

  “What would you call it, then?”

  Ren remembered what Benjamin had said on the road, after they’d stolen the farmer’s horse. “Borrowing, with good intent.”

  Benjamin looked up and shook his head, as if he were having his own private conversation with the ceiling. Then he threw another piece of wood onto the fire. “Look,” he said. “You just can’t go around taking care of people. They’ll grow to depend on you, and then you won’t be able to leave them when you have to.”

  Ren watched him bend over to light the wood. The same scent of ashes had filled the farmer’s kitchen when his wife stirred the fire, trying to bring it to life enough so that she could serve them dinner.

  “What if I don’t want to leave them,” said Ren.

  “Who?” Benjamin asked. “The dead man?”

  “He’s not dead. He’s my friend.”

  “Now who’s kidding themselves.” Benjamin threw a pine branch into the flames, and the needles crackled and smoked. “I shouldn’t have left him with you.”

  “But you did,” said Ren. He picked up the jar of wormwood tea from the floor and set it carefully on the kitchen table. “I told him that he could stay with us.”

  The fireplace was now blazing, the cinders sparking in the ash. Benjamin ran his fingers across his chin and sighed. He pulled a seat forward and motioned for Ren to take it.

  “That man’s not your friend. He’s a murderer. If he gets it in his mind, he could kill any one of us.” Ren started to protest, but Benjamin held up his hand. “I’ve seen his kind. Men that don’t feel anything anymore. One minute they buy you a drink, and the next they slit your throat, or cut open a woman beside you, or saw off a person’s hand for no reason at all.” Benjamin rubbed his nose, then looked at the boy to make sure he was following. Ren thought of the man with the red gloves, eating with the bartender’s spoon. “His only value is what he can do for us. I’ve tried to show you what I know,” Benjamin said. “Anytime you get attached, you’re putting yourself in danger.”

  Ren felt the heat on his face. It was too warm for a fire. He knew that Mrs. Sands would not approve of wasting wood, and he worried that the chimney would not cool in time for the dwarf to collect his supper. Benjamin must have been hot in his new coat, but he stayed in place, his forehead growing damp, waiting for Ren to tell him what he wanted to hear.

  “I’m not in danger of anything.”

  “Good,” said Benjamin.

  They went out searching for Tom that afternoon. Ren looked in O’Sullivan’s, and Benjamin visited three brothels on Darby Street, but no one had seen him. They bought a package of walnuts on the way back to the boardinghouse, and Benjamin proceeded to eat them all, cracking one after the other at the kitchen table and pulling out the meat.

  “He’ll show up soon,” Benjamin said. But Ren could tell that he was worried.

  Together they went upstairs to check on Dolly. They could hear his snores in the hall as they approached. Benjamin crouched on the bedroom floor, sizing up the man underneath the mattress, like a piece of property he was not sure of keeping.

  “I don’t know why he sleeps so much.”

  “It se
ems like he needs to,” said Ren.

  Benjamin stood up and brushed the dust from his knees. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but if I had a second chance at life, I’d live it.”

  There was not much to eat for supper. The mousetrap girls had made short work of the preserves, just as the dwarf had predicted, but there was still some salted pork and potatoes. Benjamin chopped the pork into pieces and fried it in lard. He sliced up a few of the potatoes and threw those on top. Then he added half a dozen eggs from the chickens in the yard, and threw the whole pan into the oven. When he took it out, the mixture had hardened, and he cut it into pieces, just like a pie.

  “What is it?” Ren asked.

  “Something I learned in Mexico,” said Benjamin.

  Ren tasted a piece. The consistency was strange, and he rolled the food around in his mouth, trying to find a way to swallow it. “Was it very terrible there?”

  Benjamin blew on his fork. “It wasn’t good. But some men took to it.”

  Ren tried to imagine what those men were like. Then he realized they were probably like Dolly. He picked at a piece of potato. “Did you know that I was going to be sent into the army?”

  “Father John may have mentioned that.”

  “Is that the reason you picked me?”

  “One of them.”

  Ren lifted his head. He felt he should thank him. And so he did.

  For once Benjamin seemed at a loss for words. He cleared his throat and gathered the plates. He brought them over to the counter, looked for a place to set them down, then balanced them carefully on top of all the other dirty dishes that had accumulated since Mrs. Sands had left.

  There was a knock on the window. Benjamin seemed relieved. “That’ll be Tom.”

  Ren went to the door, leaned his weight back on the handle, and swung it open into the morning light. He squinted, then blinked his eyes once. Twice. For there stood Brom and Ichy. Wet, shivering, and frightened nearly out of their minds.

  “I’ve brought your fellows,” said Tom, reeling, pushing the twins roughly forward into the room. “Now we’re a family at last.”

  The boys fell to the floor and immediately got to their feet again and scurried to the corner of the room, trying to put as much distance and furniture between themselves and Tom as possible. To Ren they looked like beggars, their shirts torn, their pants too small, their jackets threadbare and full of holes.

  “Have you lost your senses?” Benjamin shouted. “What do we need three boys for?”

  Tom pulled off his coat, threw it onto the ground, and stumbled into a chair. Ren had never seen him so far gone. He could barely walk, and it was hard to imagine how he had made it all the way to Saint Anthony’s, never mind what he had said to Father John to get the boys. Then Ren remembered what Brother Joseph had said about Brom and Ichy—that no one would ever adopt them—and he knew that Saint Anthony’s had handed over the twins as easily as they had given him to Benjamin.

  Tom fished for a soggy bag of tobacco and threw it on the table. From his other pocket he took out a bottle. “They’re his fellows.” Tom pounded his fist on the table. “A boy needs his fellows.”

  “We’re sending them back,” said Benjamin. “Tonight.”

  “I’m their father,” Tom said.

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  “You’ve got Ren.”

  Benjamin walked to where Brom and Ichy were huddled together. One by one he took hold of their chins and pulled the boys forward into the light. Benjamin shook his head in disbelief. He threw his arms up in the air. “Twins! Bad luck’s going to follow us now, I can feel it.”

  Brom and Ichy had been crying. Their eyes were red, their faces bleary. Ren hooked his friends by the elbow and pulled them round the corner, up the stairs, and into the bedroom. The twins followed him blindly, too exhausted to ask questions. They seemed somehow younger than the boys he had left, more like children, even though they were nearly his age. Ren was grateful to see them, and as soon as they were alone, he threw his arms around them both.

  “He told us he was bringing us to you,” said Brom. “But we couldn’t be sure of anything.” He looked thin and pale. “Ichy didn’t want to come.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “No, you didn’t. He hid in the garden and he wouldn’t get his things. And then he cried all the way on the road. And Papa got furious, and said he’d strangle us both if Ichy didn’t stop.”

  “He told us to call him Papa.”

  “He said he’d strangle us if we didn’t do that, too.”

  Ichy took hold of Ren’s jacket. “Do you think he’ll really strangle us?”

  Ren knew that his friends had already been scared enough, so he decided to do what Mrs. Sands would have done, if she had been there. He found some water so the twins could wash their hands and faces. From the landlady’s room he took some nightgowns and some extra quilts. The boys got changed quickly, peeling off their muddy clothes and then crawling into bed together, pulling the blankets around them.

  “He took our rocks.”

  “He threw them away on the road.”

  “He told us that Father John was a cheat.”

  “And he said that God didn’t exist.”

  The mattress beneath them began to tremble. The twins looked at each other, uncertain. Then the bed itself suddenly shifted, lifting from the ground for a moment, floating back and forth in the air, and then settling back on its legs. Ichy screamed and Brom gripped the bedpost.

  “It’s only Dolly,” Ren said. “The bed moves when he rolls over.”

  The twins peered over the edge. Dolly was underneath, still in his monk’s robe, his mouth open and his chest rising and falling against the mattress.

  “Where did you get him?” Brom asked.

  Ren hesitated. “We found him on the road.”

  Ichy reached down and nudged Dolly with his finger. “Why does he sleep under there?”

  “He just likes it, I guess.”

  Tom’s voice came shouting up from below. There was the sound of a dish breaking and a chair being thrown over. The twins looked anxiously at Ren.

  “This isn’t what we thought it would be like at all.”

  “Do you think he’ll bring us back if we ask him to?”

  “You could come with us.”

  Ren thought of his life at Saint Anthony’s. Of Brother Joseph and Father John, and being scrubbed by the charitable grandmothers, and waking each morning in the small boys’ room. He remembered the letter he’d written, that first night alone in the basement. He’d never mailed it. But he saw now that it was just what the boys needed—good news.

  Ren showed them his new clothes, the drowned boy’s jacket and trousers, how well they had been mended, the long underwear inside, the socks darned with care. He described Mrs. Sands’s breakfasts, full of muffins and fresh milk and eggs and bacon and sausages, with second helpings and thirds, too, if they wanted. He talked about going to bars and being given whiskey to drink, and staying up as late as he wanted. Then he remembered the toys that the dwarf had made. Ren sneaked out of the room and came back with an armful, dumping them like an avalanche of presents across the bed.

  The boys were too old for playthings, but all the fear and exhaustion left the twins’ faces as they looked over the intricately carved wooden pieces. They lifted toy after toy and passed them back and forth, petting the little pigs, opening and closing the mouths of the fish, dancing the marionette across the headboard. Ichy tried on the mask of the moon and stood by the window, saying, “I’m the full moon!” Then, turning to his side: “Now I’m the half-moon!”

  Ren watched his friends play but felt no inclination to join them. He remembered the broken soldier they’d shared, still resting somewhere at the bottom of the well, underneath all that water. No one even knew he was there, except for the three boys in this room.

  Ichy was standing on his toes, trying to get a look at himself in the mirror. The moon mask was too large for his face. H
is eye was peering out where the nose should be. On the other side of the room Brom bit his lip in concentration and rode the Viking ships across the blankets, arranging the quilts into the ripples of the ocean. There was a storm ahead, a tidal wave coming. He lifted the end of the sheet and sent all the ships rolling.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The frogs were out. Earlier it had rained, and now as the wagon passed the marshes in the dark, there was a chorus of syncopated croaking. Benjamin sat in the driver’s seat, a lantern balanced on the floor. Tom was beside him and Dolly and the boys were in the back, clinging to the sides as they bounced over holes in the rocky path. The horse strained through the night against the weight of them all. Every half-mile she stopped, as if she had given up completely. Benjamin flicked the whip, and the mare trudged on.

  “Where are we going?” Ichy whispered.

  Ren glanced at Benjamin and Tom, their shoulders hunched together in the darkness. “Fishing,” he said.

  The wagon crossed a covered bridge that groaned and creaked and seemed to take forever to end. When they emerged on the other side they turned south. The country here was full of swamps and wetland. Ren kept an eye on Brom and Ichy, their faces half-scared and half-exhilarated, and thought of how far they’d come from Saint Anthony’s. He slipped his fingers into his pocket and felt the edge of his collar. He carried it with him everywhere now, as if the three blue letters of his name could protect him from the rest of the world.

  The trees by the river gave way to open, rolling fields. Split fences marked the boundaries between farms. Occasionally a light shone from a house nearby. Brom and Ichy whispered to each other and peered at Dolly, propped up beside them and sleeping. Tom was leaning near the edge of the driver’s seat, his face pale and hungover. The wagon went over a bump and he moaned.

  “It’s your own fault,” said Benjamin.

  “Don’t talk to me,” said Tom.

  “You’re going to slow us down.”

  “I’ll be fine. Just stop talking.”

  It had taken most of the day and night for Tom to sober up. When he did, he stumbled out into Mrs. Sands’s garden and spent several hours curled beside a giant rosemary bush. The twins watched him from the window, biting their lips with worry. Ren looked at their worn-out shoes, their ill-fitting coats tied together with string. They did not know where they were headed, and Ren was not going to warn them.