by Clea Simon
‘Blackie!’ Despite the note of surprise, her voice is muted. She is careful, this girl. Aware as I of the violence in the men around us. ‘I thought you’d taken off. I never know what you’re thinking.’
I would tell her, if I could. She crouches down beside me, not far from the sooty pile, and her hand is warm on my back. She is waiting, I can tell from the tension in her body, the careful intake of breath, although I do not know for what.
This place is not safe. The blackened lumps beside her are now cold and still, but other, more dangerous elements have begun to gather: the hook boys who work the ships – or used to, back when vessels regularly plied these waters. Known for the grappling hooks they carry, they hold themselves above the regular laborers, those who fetch and carry for a penny. Their tools have other uses, though, ugly ones. Memories emerge as if from shadow but far more sure, prompted by the sight of these rough men. I do not know if they are why she has come here, if she follows the rumors that they spread of a ship or trade.
For now, the girl is hidden, tucked in the shadow of the alley, her scent covered by old smoke and ash. For myself, I would move on from here, if it would not disrupt her concentration. Other senses are more vital to me than sight, a faculty on which these men rely overmuch. I would take advantage of this weakness – avail myself of shadows, of the glare of this bright day – to approach the enclosure without their notice. Such proximity, coupled with distance from the fire’s reek, would enable me to make my own exploration – reviewing odor and sound to fill in what may have happened over the intervening hours. What may yet happen here on this busy street of busy men.
As it is, I am thwarted, my nose constrained by smoke and ash. Anchored by the girl even as she takes her hand from me to rest on the curbstone and shifts, preparing for the wait to last.
But fire does not stop my ears. Regarding her, I can tell she does not hear, as I do, the footsteps inside that high metal wall. The drag and clatter of materials being moved inside. If she could, perhaps she could make sense of the pounding that follows. The shouts and the commands. Perhaps she does sense them, in some vague and unclear fashion, and perhaps these are what weigh upon her thoughts. What bring her back, again, to this strange cage-like structure, so close upon the river wharf, a still, cold place at the heart of the city’s commerce.
Or perhaps she has another quest in mind, I think, as the gate itself moves and two men march out. Together, they survey the street, as if they could sense us here. A prompt of memory, more likely. Then one sets out. A patrol of the perimeter, I suspect. The other stands, though once his mate has gone, he removes a cigarette from some hidden pocket and lights it. Even without that gesture – the distinctive smell of cheap tobacco – I would recognize him. It is the guard who last night left the gate ajar. Whose negligence enabled the boy’s release.
Beside me, she nods, with a low wordless sound revealing that she has reached this same conclusion. The gasp that follows causes me alarm. The guard has looked up, his cigarette dangling from his lip. But it is not his colleague who approaches. The rounds of the pen take longer than the few moments that have passed. It is another, scrawnier figure who darts like a rat from a neighboring building. Tall and lean – his ragged clothes separate as he moves to reveal ribs and welts like tiger stripes along his back. To reveal, as well, a long wooden handle, like that of a tool, tucked into the waistband of his pants. He scans the street even as he runs, and when he comes close to the guard, they both move back, as if to shelter by the wall.
Care is frozen. I can feel how tight she holds herself, studying the two. Their exchange is brief – less than two breaths’ worth – and then the scrawny man retreats, crouching low before he runs back across the street and disappears into an alley not far from where we shelter. There was something familiar about the man, about his gait and build. But as I lift my nose to catch his aroma, to capture something other than cold ash and smoke, I find myself disappointed. I had expected something else – a bitter, biting odor – and not the funk of sweat and fear. Still, I know this man. Or knew him …
‘AD,’ says the girl beside me, her voice aghast.
Of course! My tail lashes in frustration. Sight is an imperfect sense, but in this case one that has proved more reliable than those my feline self enjoys. The wet leather of my nose finds his scent and I scrutinize it for confirmation. The man, AD as he was once known, no longer stinks as he once did, infused with the acrid smoke of the drug that he produced.
Nor does he move with the swagger and pride that were his wont. For the sorry creature who has slunk away was a leader once, the alpha male of a small pack of feral children. Care was one of these, when I first met her, a waif who took his dubious protection in exchange for acting as a courier. For helping to distribute the noisome substance, and although she did not, like some, fall under its addictive spell, the web of threat and violence with which he maintained control is not one I would wish on any living thing, much less a child.
This memory – this man – recalls me to a different time. I was of another form when first I met this girl, this Care, and became aware of that man. Even then, I recognized her superior intelligence and strength of character. It was my wish then to free her from this man and from his mode of life. That I have succeeded, even as my own fortunes have changed so absolutely, amazes me. Not that I alone take credit. The girl herself has shown a wit and fortitude beyond what I had hoped. Through her efforts, this man has been foiled – removed by the authorities for penal service or for worse.
Or so I had thought, as his reappearance throws into question his apprehension and sentencing both. His condition – starved and bruised – speaks of some punishment, and his furtive manner suggests that he may have escaped rather than been freed. Both these factors may have weakened him. May lessen whatever power he has over this world, over the girl. But I cannot dismiss his guile, nor whatever object he has secreted beneath his shirt. The man is a danger, still, and one I had not anticipated. My fur bristles at the thought of him, even as his all too human odour fades.
So, too, should his memory pass away. Across the street, the second guard has made his round, and the two now wait for the gate to readmit them to the pen. It is a very different scenario than what we saw last night, more disciplined by far, and my ear twitches back as the girl beside me shifts. She, too, must note the difference. Must wonder what it means.
But, no, I have read her wrong, if I thought she meant to examine this pen again. To seek out the source of the sounds of pounding and of laboring within. As the gates close behind the two, she rises. And to my dismay, she turns from the street to tread softly toward the alley that led the scrawny man away.
I hesitate, full of foreboding. I have dreaded her return to this area, her investigation of whatever had engaged her so. But to follow, instead, her old gang leader? That is foolishness, an errand as likely to deliver trouble as any useful intelligence. She is free of this man, and he is clearly hunted and unwell.
And yet, she has a look about her with which I am intimately acquainted. A way of holding herself in readiness, her body near to quivering with curiosity barely kept at bay. I smell no fear on her, brave girl, nor any of the lesser trepidation that might serve to caution her. But she is wise for her age, and she has learned. As she turns into the alley, she crouches low, keeping to the shelter of the near wall.
I do not know what she hopes to gain, or why. But I love this girl, whose life is intermingled with my own. And so, unable to communicate my concern, I make the only choice that’s left. I glance around the street for signs of pursuit. I sniff the air for signs more fresh than one old fire, and then I follow, quick and low.
TWO
She is not a cat, this girl, but she has learned some of my skills. As she tracks her prey – that scarred and scrawny man – she stays low, hugging the side of the alley and then the street beyond. In this way, she can follow without being seen.
I am grateful for her caution. This city is n
o safe place for a lone creature, especially not a female of her tender years. It has not escaped my notice that those who come to her for help are primarily female, too. A network of advice and whispers refers them to her, as, like the apple vendor, they solicit help to find the lost or redress for petty theft. These tasks she has fulfilled, and thus a reputation grows.
As I follow the girl down a deserted street, I am reminded of her innate ability. Not only how she follows, holding herself back and avoiding any sudden moves. But that she retains an awareness of her environs – and of the danger that a cornered man may offer, even one as starved and ragged as she now follows. It is daylight, and yet she remains unseen. Although she is larger and of a different hue than I, she shelters, as I do, in shadow, darting from stoop to doorway, from the rusted out hulk of a vehicle to a pile of bricks, the remains of the building that once filled a vacant lot.
She moves quietly, as well, although I could tell her that the man is too far ahead to hear any sound her slight form might make. I observe as she steps charily, mindful of the loose slabs of concrete that could tip and throw her or dislodge stones that might draw attention.
But she is not a cat. She lacks my acuity of smell and of hearing, and thus she does not know what I do: that this man she follows has abstained from the drug that once gave him both wealth and a kind of power. The substance on which he built his trade, and which, in turn, caused his capture. Instead – as we pause at a corner, I raise my nose and open my mouth to take in the air, fresher now – I catch pheromones of another sort. Not sexual, but close. The man exudes eagerness and a kind of glee. Nor does her inferior hearing pick up that his steps are becoming lighter as he races down the city street. For all that he appears to be on the run, he is heading toward something – or someone – that promises happiness of a sort.
When he pauses before a large brick building, I hear her gasp. She throws herself back against a wall and blinks, as if to clear her eyes. In truth, I did not know where the man was headed, but I am not surprised. This warehouse, a looming structure both larger and better maintained than many in this district, is known to me – to us. Unlike many in this ruined city, it retains its original use – a place where goods are stored while readied for transit, either out onto the water or back into the city. Care and I know this well. We have been inside its high black doors, have gone up the wide, worn stairs, to meet with the men who do business here. We have also seen authorities encircle it. Witnessed some – such as this man – taken into custody, while others met more permanent ends.
If the girl thought that it would no longer be in use, she is more naïve than I would choose. But perhaps it is simply the surprise of seeing her onetime protector return to the site of his most heinous crimes that has, for the moment, stolen her breath. The realization that some things in this crumbling ruin of a city will never change.
I, for one, am not taken aback. Although the reappearance of this ruffian is unexpected, his destination causes me no shock. For although this girl, this Care, may have thought she snuffed out an evil when she turned him in – when she brought about the raid that swept up AD and so many of her former colleagues – I have long known better. Indeed, it is with a sinking feeling that I see her crouch and lower her brow, the better to examine the building that lies across the way.
She came here on the heels of that man AD, a fugitive by all apparent signs. That he may seek his preferred poison is a likely possibility. That he may be searching out the few criminal associates who remain another. Whatever his motive, he has led her to a place of evil, and, I fear, back into the realm of one more toxic to us both. As she settles in to wait, crouching in the shadow of the neighboring building, I make my presence known, leaning my body into hers. The hand that settles on my back is warm and dry, the pressure comforting in ways I do not fully understand. And as she sits down at last, back against a pitted wall, I too relax, wrapping my tail around my forepaws as my eyes begin to close.
The afternoon sun passes, the shadows growing longer. One in particular extends, a finger reaching out across the empty street. Through slitted eyes, I see it creep, and I remember another time and another shadow.
Three, tall against the sun, the central one approaches, looming larger. Menacing. ‘What have we here?’ His voice is cold, his colleagues do not answer. Nor do I. Held against my will before – beneath – them I can only stare back. I try to memorize the face …
‘Blackie!’ I wake with a start. The girl beside me looks on with alarm. I have lashed out, I can tell, from the way she holds her hand up to her open mouth. From the tension in my claws. I am ashamed, a mere beast incapable of holding still. And yet, that dream – if dream it was – must not be lightly discarded. The threat in it, if not its timing – here and now – is real.
For all her wits, this girl is woefully ignorant of one important fact. And I, in this feline form, cannot share what I know. To wit: the shadowed figure, the one who haunts me, is very real. And unlike the evildoer who once controlled this building, he is still at large. The very fact that Care’s old gang leader has returned here sends a shiver through my luxurious fur and, perhaps, sent that vision as well. It has certainly raised another option, one that I would I could share. He has many minions, this foe, and AD’s arrival here leaves me wondering if something more than mere appetite has drawn him here. This place, this warehouse, was where Care helped bring him down. If he or one who controls him sought to understand how that was done, this would be a place to begin.
Would that I could warn her. He is not one of the great men, the ones who broke the world, this hidden man, this shadow. But he is of their ilk, a man of power. A big man, and although I do not believe he would consider smaller entities such as we are under other circumstances, this girl Care has come to his notice. Though unintended, the girl did him a service recently, exposing through her work a minor perfidy – a man whose laziness, or whose eye for a greater gain, had him holding out on his superior. Until the end, that is, when the girl’s investigation, although otherwise directed, brought on that foolish man’s head a terrible vengeance, one that still causes her to cry out at night and disturb her sleep.
This could be, perhaps, what has brought her to his attention, through some vestigial sense of honor. Why it is that he regards a girl of no apparent worth and has even, I suspect, made gestures to ease her path as she attempts to ply her trade. Perhaps. A prickle along my spine suggests otherwise, and if I do not always understand the clues that make my fur bristle so, I have learned to respect them. Is it the scent of a larger predator – whether man or feral dog – that has raised my hackles, or another sense, one honed in a previous existence, that makes me ever heedful? Such questions serve no purpose. Better I be on my guard for whatever may yet come.
But not today. The sun has sunk behind the building where we shelter, stretching the shadows almost to that towering hulk, and still we wait. If that starved man, that AD, has left, he has done so by another egress, and while I would wish it so – would wish him gone – I understand the girl as she mutters to herself.
‘He came to the front door,’ she says now, as if weighing the words. ‘No reason he’d sneak away.’
Plenty of reasons, I would tell her. Many of which depend on what he found inside. Perhaps he retrieved some relic, some token, that would explain his fate. Perhaps he was directed on. This place was routed, after all, and may no longer be a seat of power. Still, she has a point. And more relevant still, she could not keep her guard on all entrances at once, even with my aid. I gaze up at her, my green eyes seeking hers, and believe myself recompensed when she smiles down at me.
‘I guess we’ve wasted enough time here,’ she says lightly, as if I were a child. ‘How about some dinner, Blackie? Tomorrow is another day.’
It is with tail up that I trot alongside her, back to the office we call home. I have my suspicions, and there are leads I would investigate. This girl is better off away from here, however. Away from that broken man and
the shadow I fear he has returned to serve.
I muse on the possibilities as we make our way to the open square that serves as a market these days. With coin in hand, the girl is able to purchase fruit as well as bread, and a small block of cheese brought in from the provinces. I see her glance over at me, and I turn away. She is generous and would share her provisions, but I can fend for myself. Indeed, I have fed on fresher fare than any on offer here.
She must sense this, I believe, because she avoids the corner where the butcher displays his wares. The meat he proffers is overpriced for either its quality or its freshness. I cannot tell what her nose discerns, but surely she must smell the rancid sweetness that hangs over the bloody cuts, even if she cannot quite make out the animal source of those smaller, darker steaks.
‘I got some cheese,’ she tells me. Her marketing done, I have trotted to her side. ‘We’ll have a feast.’
I am warmed by her generosity, but I do not respond. It concerns me that she did not notice me, watching her. That she has settled in to celebrating this bounty so easily. However, the day has been long, and we have covered much ground. Although I may appear as glossy as a younger beast, I feel my age. The scars on my hide bind and catch as I walk; the badly knit bones of my left hind leg begin to ache.
‘You’re limping!’ Her voice catches me up, and I stop just as she bends to scoop me in her arms. ‘Poor Blackie,’ she says. ‘It’s your bad leg, isn’t it?’
I can no more sensibly answer her question than could that block of cheese. But the kindness meant, as well as the warmth of her arms, wring their own response out of me. My eyes close and I begin to purr, and when she settles me into her carryall, atop that fragrant cheese, I am content.