She’d already been all the way to the top to knock on the door of Number 14. No answer. So she’d come down to do a perimeter sweep. This kind of otherwise useless rummaging in alleys could help with the setting, and setting helped mood and mood made stories. And stories, Merv assured her, sold newspapers.
She made a note in her notebook about the oily residue under her feet. Will I ever get the smell outta my shoes? is what she wrote.
“Hey, Your Majesty,” she said.
“Yup?”
“Do you know anything about the residents of this building?”
“Junkies,” the King said, with venom.
“Okay. Know anything about the woman in Number 14? Tipsy Burrows?”
He snorted. “What kind of name is Tipsy?”
“Well,” Kaneko began, but realised she didn’t have an answer.
“What’s she look like?” the man asked.
“I haven’t met her.”
He frowned hard and a spiderweb of lines opened up along his face. “Don’t be bringing me this rubbish. How’m I s’posed to know who she is if you can’t describe her?”
“Sorry, yeah,” Kaneko said. You sound like my boss. “Thought I’d ask.”
She decided to try the apartment again. It had to be better than standing in filth.
This time when she entered the building, she could hear a washing machine on one of the floors and a television blaring through the thin walls. People were awake. That was a good sign.
She knocked loudly at Number 14.
“Yeah?” A tired voice, barely muffled by the thin door.
Kaneko leaned forward. “Tipsy Burrows?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m Ai Kaneko, from the City Tribune. You called about a story?”
The door opened. Kaneko thought she heard three or four other doors open at the same time. She didn’t turn around, only kept her smile fixed on the girl. She was young, very young, smeared in mascara and lipstick, sallow underneath that with a fine face that would look like vulnerability to a camera. Kaneko would have described her as slim but for the round knobs of her wrists and the clavicle jutting out above her flat chest. Gaunt was a better word. She wrote gaunt.
“Tipsy?”
Tipsy wore very little, some kind of singlet top over shorts where the pockets hung lower than the denim. The shorts looked like they should be tight, but they ballooned stiffly, held up by Tipsy’s pronounced hipbones and some kind of inbuilt gravity defiance.
“Yeah?”
Kaneko said, “I understand you know something about a murder that took place last week?”
Tipsy perked up. “Hey. Yeah, I rang that newspaper.”
“And here I am,” Kaneko replied. “I’m from that newspaper.”
“Hey!”
Tipsy invited Kaneko in and then curled on her bed, the only piece of furniture in the tiny bedsit. To one side was a kitchen bench. To the other was what appeared to be a bathroom. In the middle was a window that looked grimy inside and out. The place smelled of stale air and takeaway something but it still smelled better than the alley.
“What’s your name, again?” Tipsy asked.
“Ai Kaneko.”
Tipsy frowned. “What kind of name is that?”
There was nothing in her voice but curiosity, so Kaneko told her it was Japanese. Then she pulled out her phone.
“Can I take a photo?” Kaneko asked.
“Of what?”
“Of you, in your home. It’s just a memory prompt for later, when I write your story. I won’t publish it.”
“But you’ll write the story, right?”
Kaneko had met this kind before. Almost exclusively this kind whenever Merv dropped one of his notes on her desk. They wanted to be famous, but they wanted the fame to be flattering, and they wanted to make sure of that first. Tipsy Burrows probably would consent to a photo, but only after she fixed her make-up and put on some even more revealing clothes.
“Don’t worry about it,” Kaneko said. “Just an idea.” She looked down at her phone like she might be checking a number and hit the camera button with the side of her thumb. Tipsy didn’t seem to notice.
“Let’s start with your age,” Kaneko smiled. She looked around for a clean place to lean and chose the edge of the windowsill. When Tipsy looked at her blankly she added, “How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” Tipsy replied, too quickly.
Kaneko scratched 18 onto her notepad with a question mark beside it.
“And you have a power?” Kaneko prompted. “You can find dead bodies?”
“Not really,” Tipsy said.
Kaneko gave her a look she hoped was politely curious.
“I mean, I guess? I can find things, right?” Tipsy said. “But not people. Not unless they’re dead.”
The girl had an upward inflection that made her hard to follow. Everything sounded like the beginning of something else.
“That must be useful,” Kaneko commented.
“Yeah? Think I could make some money from it?”
“You need money?”
Tipsy scratched at one long, limp arm. “Yeah. I could do with some.”
“I could maybe pay you for this interview, how’s that sound?”
“Yeah?”
“It depends, though.”
“On what?”
“How interesting your story is. To my readers.”
Tipsy’s face fell. “What do your readers want to know?”
“That you’re legitimate.”
“What’s that mean, like do I pay taxes?”
“No,” Kaneko smiled, trying to soothe the expression of panic on the girl’s face. “It means, can you really find lost things?”
“I found the body, right?”
Kaneko made another note. “How?”
“I seen it, in my mind. And I told the cops where to find it.”
“And they found it, right where you said?” Kaneko asked.
“Exactly,” said Tipsy. “Just like I said.”
“And you didn’t put the body there? Obviously.” Kaneko tried to look casual. “I have to ask.”
Tipsy looked at her like she was crazy. “The guy was strangled or something. You think I look like I could strangle someone?”
Kaneko wanted to say, You look ragged, like your arms and legs are nothing but meat. But your wrists are all bone. Your head might snap your neck any minute, just the sheer weight of that giant lump of gristle teetering on top of your shoulders could send the whole structure cascading down. But you could be strong for all that, and there’s no telling what someone on speed can do.
But she didn’t. She threw Tipsy a tight smile. “How long have you been able to find people?”
“Not people, things.” Tipsy reminded her.
“Right.”
“You know that saint who helps you find lost things?”
Kaneko reflected. “Saint Anthony?”
“Okay?” Tipsy shrugged. “I think about things and I see them and then I find them.”
“Can you find something if I ask you to?” Kaneko said.
Tipsy looked dubious.
“If I can test your ability,” Kaneko said, “then I’ll know it’s worth paying for your story.”
Tipsy smiled. Her smile was full of hunger. “How much?”
Kaneko gestured. “I don’t know. How far would a hundred bucks go?”
A light came on behind the girl’s eyes. “Sometimes it takes a while to find stuff, though. I can’t always do it right away.”
“I’d like you to try.”
“You could come back tomorrow, maybe?”
“Let’s try now,” Kaneko said.
Tipsy looked like she wanted to argue, but Kaneko put steel into her voice and it seemed to hold the girl.
“I guess I can try?” Tipsy said at last.
Kaneko took a breath. She pretended to be thinking.
“A hatpin,” she said. “Can you find a hatpin?”
“What’s a hatpin?�
� Tipsy asked.
There was something feline about her face, Kaneko thought. She wrote feline on her notepad.
“I’ll describe it. It’s a long pin, like this,” she indicated the length on the inside of her arm. “It’s white, Satsuma—”
“What?”
“A kind of Japanese pottery.”
“From your country?”
I was born here, this is my country. “It was my aunt’s. Anyhow, it’s a long pin with a large bauble on the end. Ivory-coloured with a gold dragon. The glaze … well, that’s probably enough, right? How much do you need?”
Tipsy stared at her, unblinking. “What’s a hatpin, again?”
Kaneko felt her chest tighten. “Never mind. How about we try something you know? Can you tell me where my phone is right now?”
“In your bag?”
“Well, it’s in my hand. But close enough,” Kaneko said.
The girl’s face fell. She shrugged and began pulling on a scraggly wisp of hair beside her ear.
Kaneko said, “How’d you really find the body, Tipsy?”
“I guess it just happened?”
Tipsy wasn’t looking at her anymore; she was looking at her bare toes, curled over the side of the bed.
Tipsy’s answers were too vague. Like the girl’s thoughts were sliding around in her oversized skull.
“Anything else for my story, Tipsy?” Kaneko prompted.
“My sister,” she offered up, “she says I’m like the next step of human evolution. Like in the future we’ll all be psychic.”
Her words ran together in her excitement.
“Maybe,” Kaneko said. “I think you mean stage, though.”
“What?”
“The next stage of human evolution. That’s more colloquially widespread, I believe. Or … anyway. I’m being pedantic,” Kaneko caught the girl’s agonised expression behind the smeared make-up mess of her face. The expression looked permanent. “She could be right. Your sister.”
Tipsy, beamed. “They call us indigo kids.”
“Who does?”
“Like, doctors and stuff.”
“Indigo children, that stuff from the seventies?” Kaneko almost laughed.
“Maybe, I dunno.”
“Tipsy, have you ever been diagnosed with an illness? Like, learning disability, ADHD, schizophrenia? Psychopathy?”
“No?” Tipsy gave her a wounded look.
“Because a lot of those kids they called indigo children were. They were meant to be the first wave of supernatural evolution, come to save the world. But they were mostly just spoilt brats.”
“I’m not a brat,” Tipsy pouted.
“No,” Kaneko agreed. “And I don’t think you found that body, either. Am I right?”
Tipsy’s lip trembled and her eyes narrowed. She kept her gaze on Kaneko though tears began to line her eyes.
“I didn’t think so,” Kaneko said gently.
She shut her notebook and made to leave.
“That mean I won’t get any money?” Tipsy asked.
“Not for this.”
Make the story, don’t find the story. Some bedsit-living, broken kid with no future and no idea what to do beyond the next dollar. She left Tipsy curled on the corner of the bed.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
Downstairs, she turned into the alley.
“Hey. You still the King?” she called.
“Always,” he called back. “You still looking for the girl with the drunken name?”
“Not anymore.”
“You bring me a drink this time?”
“Not this time.” Kaneko squatted beside him. “Is there another name by which I can call you? For my story.”
“Yeah,” the King looked dubious. “I guess you can call me Rick. If you have to.”
“I wonder if you can help me, Rick,” Kaneko said. “I’m looking for something.”
“It’s not like, your conscience or your sense of humour or something?”
Kaneko let out a huff of surprise. “No. None of those.”
“Good. I don’t do those.”
“It’s a hatpin.”
Rick grunted. “Didn’t think Japanese women wore hatpins. You mean a hairpin?”
“No,” Kaneko smiled. “My family made them. But you’re right, Rick, we mostly didn’t wear them. They were for export.”
She described the pin in detail and with more hope than when she’d tried with Tipsy. She explained the raised gold dragon, hand-painted, the bearded nostrils, the flare of its claws. The hatpin was the only thing she’d ever lost that she wanted back, barring her youthful optimism, and Rick had already said he didn’t do that kind of thing.
Rick’s face relaxed. He gazed into some kind of middle-distance that had Kaneko checking over her shoulder. But by the end of the hatpin’s description, something sly and dark entered his eyes.
“What’s in it for me?” he asked.
“I could give you some money, pay for your story.”
He looked interested. “How much?”
“Depends how good you are.”
He grinned. “Whoop de doo, darling.”
“The hatpin first, though,” Kaneko reminded him.
“That? It’s under the floorboards.”
“Which floorboards?”
Rick frowned. “There’s a hole under a rug. A red and white rug. Under a bed.”
Kaneko felt her stomach lurch. “I know where that is. I know exactly.”
“There’s your fancy Japanese hatpin, then.”
He was beaming. Kaneko fished in her wallet and pulled out a twenty dollar note. Her hands were shaking. She pulled out another note, a fifty.
“Thanks, Rick.” She held both notes out. “Tell me. Do you know a young woman who lives in this building? Skinny, wears a lot of make-up.”
“Can you believe the shit kids put on their faces?” Rick spat, roundly, at the dumpster. “Rots your head, that stuff.”
“Yeah, well. She’s Tipsy. You ever tell her about your ability?”
“Maybe.” Rick’s face grew hard. “Why?”
“I think she’s trying to sell your story.”
“For money? Rotten bloody junkie.”
“Rick. Why’d you even tell her?” Kaneko asked.
He shrugged and looked away, his eyes rolling. “Had to tell someone. Couldn’t let the body just rot there.”
“You didn’t want to tell the police?”
“Bloody cops. Never find one when you need one. That’s irony, right? Guess I could find a dead one, though.” Rick gave her a thoughtful look. “Never knew I could find bodies. Just things.”
“How long have you been able to find things?”
He shrugged. “I was always finding stuff, even when I was a kid. Me Mum lost stuff, I found it. Earrings. Bank statements. Remember bank statements?” He said it like bank statements had been wiped from the face of the Earth.
“Have you ever known other people with powers like yours?” Kaneko asked.
Rick’s gaze had become unfixed. “Some. Hey, you believe all that stuff they’re saying in the papers? About human beings evolving?”
“I’m a journalist,” she smiled. “I’m not paid to believe.”
“Well, none of us are paid for that, Annie.”
“Is paid, none is paid,” she muttered, then cursed herself. It was a bad habit, correcting people.
Rick winked, like he got it. “Whatever.”
Kaneko thanked him and stood. “How long have you been on the streets, Rick?”
“Since I was young. Ran away from home. Got lost. Been lost ever since,” he chuckled and stroked his beard with grubby fingers. “Lucky to get this little pocket of heaven, hey?” He gestured around the alley, its stink and grime.
“Undoubtedly,” Kaneko agreed. “One more question. For the story.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s your last name?”
She wondered if he even remembered. This was a guy who’d been livin
g on the streets since he was a kid, who thought bank statements had ceased to exist.
“Gold,” he said, his head jerking up. “Rick Gold. I sound like a rock star, hey? Always thought I’d be a rock star. The junk got me, though.”
Kaneko wrote GOLD.
“But it’s a good power I got. Most of the time.” Rick smiled. “If only I could bottle it, hey, sweetheart? Make a fortune.”
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
On the way to her car, Kaneko’s phone rang. It was Merv.
“And how are you this morning?” he asked. “It’s still morning, isn’t it? And where are you, my lovely?”
“Heading back to the office. You sold me a bum steer, Merv. That girl you sent me to is a faker.”
“A good journalist can always make a story.”
“Yeah,” Kaneko muttered, more to herself, “I made a story, all right.”
Merv apparently didn’t hear her. Merv didn’t hear a lot of things.
“Was she a looker, at least?” he asked. “We can send a photographer.”
Kaneko ignored him. “I did come across something interesting. But I’m not sure how much the subject is going to like the attention.”
She got in the car and switched her phone to the other hand.
Merv grunted. “Go with the more photogenic one.”
“She was faking!”
“So make the story about that,” Merv said expansively. “Tell the story of the people who aren’t superheroes. Show us the ones who’ve been left behind, the ones faking it, not making it. The ones lying to make themselves look like they’re still top of the food chain. Give us the human soul, Kaneko.”
She drove the car forward and pulled up at lights, listening to Merv drone on about the human soul. Kaneko closed her eyes and leaned back, trying to imagine she was someplace else.
“And that numbers nut called here looking for you,” Merv said. “I gave him your mobile number. What’s the deal, giving out a desk number? No self-respecting journalist is ever at her desk.”
The drivers in the traffic behind Kaneko began to hit their horns. She jumped and moved her car into the intersection. She wanted to tell Merv to go screw himself, but she was afraid he wouldn’t hear her over the noise of the horns. She sped forward, trying to outpace the traffic.
“Thanks, Merv. Give out my number to every crazy in the book, why don’t you?”
She dropped the phone into her bag and drove until she reached her apartment block.
One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries Page 6