by Clea Simon
Care cranes forward, eyes wide. She is listening, as well, I can tell from the intense concentration on her face. She is looking for Peter. Or, more likely, some word about him, for she must realize the price he will have paid for defending us. For holding off those who would have taken me from her. She is thinking, I imagine, about AD.
I glance up, wondering if this is the time to reveal myself. There is much I could tell her – that while the stones are neither slick with blood nor wet from recent washing, violence has been done here. Spatter and tears and sweat augment the age-old fetor of decay and rot, but the blood shed here is not life’s blood – not yet. The body she found was brought from elsewhere, from inside.
It is just as well. Such information would act as catnip to the girl, and I do not want her following the trail as I did, inside this building and up the stairs. Not that this is likely. Despite some inkling of consciousness, of connection, she sees me as a dumb beast. Then again, this could prove useful, if need be. If I make myself known, she would hesitate, out of fear for me. She would sacrifice her own hunt to save me.
I am debating this move. Weighing the pros and cons, when she acts. Keeping low to the ground, she runs. There are no shadows on this open space, but the uneven paving dapples the light, and she is still small and light. Her footsteps are near silent, as close as her kind’s can be, and the laughter of the pub provides cover. The men by the fire do not look up, and she crosses undetected. From my own perch, I see her sidle up to the low stone building, flatten herself against its wall, to reduce her own silhouette. It is a matter of moments for me to join her. A sharp squeal announces my presence, but she ignores it, rightly attributing it to the kind of creature that will not raise any further alarm.
Moving slowly, each step deliberate, she follows the line of the building. It is as I have feared. She means to enter – to follow the path of her onetime leader and uncover the cause of his death. What she hopes to achieve here, I cannot tell. She owes nothing to the dead man, and will gain nothing from such knowledge – nothing that will avail her, I fear. But when she reaches behind her to draw forth the shiv, a shudder passes over me, causing my fur to ripple. It is good she has a weapon, for these are dangerous times. It is the way she eyes the blade, weighs the handle in her hand that unsettles me. She is not following a case nor seeking knowledge. She is thinking of the body she found on the sands below here. She is remembering AD, and the damage he once did.
The groan alerts her. A sound more animal than human that causes her to start back into the shadow before she peers cautiously around the stone wall. A low pile, still warm, shifts a little and moans again. A man, or the remains of one, left for the night like so much refuse. My ears go back as she approaches him, for I had hoped she would not notice the smell of blood, the heat of a bruised body beginning to cool.
‘Peter?’ She moves quickly, once she ascertains that nobody else is nearby. ‘Is that you?’
The slight movement could be a nod, and she kneels by the battered face. Blood oozes from where the neck and shoulder join. A hole the size of a coin. A hook.
‘Oh, Peter, they did this to you.’ She bites her lip, remembering. ‘You saved me, you know. Me and my cat.’
‘They would’ve killed you.’ The words are barely audible, even to me. ‘I owed you.’
Maybe she doesn’t hear. She’s too focused on his wounds. She removes her jacket and rolls it into a cushion for his bloody head.
‘I’ve got to get help. Get you somewhere warm.’
He shakes her off when she tries to move him, however, raising one hand in protest.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘They made me.’
Care looks down at the man before her. I cannot read her thoughts, but I fear they do not echo mine. That she does not plan on plumbing this man for answers while he is still able to speak.
‘It was a setup,’ she says, and my ears prick up. Perhaps my training has been retained. ‘You hiring me to find your friend. You know who took him. You know where he is.’
A sigh that seems to deflate him. ‘I got him into this. I told him to take the job. Wanted him – out of here.’
‘But you two were a team. You’d worked together.’ She is trying to understand, but I would that she ask more and speak less. His time is running out.
‘They’re taking the young men. The strong ones. It’s no kind of life.’ He licks dry lips, his eyes fluttering. ‘I remember.’
‘Remember what?’ Since she can’t raise him, she leans in. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘The boss wanted you busy. Working, so I could follow.’
He pauses, and she shakes her head in confusion.
‘To find him. Your partner. He gave me the marker, so I could see …’
Another pause. The tip of a tongue. The man is fading.
‘They said they’d release him. They wouldn’t make him go.’
‘Go where?’ It’s the wrong question. ‘What partner?’ It no longer matters. In the silence, she repeats her final question, even shakes the man’s shoulder ever so slightly. But it doesn’t take senses as acute as mine to ascertain the truth. Care can read it in the way his arms hang loose. In the way his head falls back. Her client is already gone.
She releases his shoulder. And then she carefully removes the folded jacket from beneath his head. The economy of poverty informs her actions, but I believe she also has the sense to know not to leave any sign of her presence here. Besides, the night has grown cold, and she is shivering as she dons the thin coat again, as she sits back on her heels by the corpse.
I would comfort her. I would press my body against hers and share my warmth and the softness of my fur. Besides, I, too, would pay respect to the dead man, now that his utility is past. Were it not for his interference, I might have met my end in that dark sack, or soon thereafter at the hands of those thugs. I have my reasons for holding back, but I am at the point of abandoning them.
I begin to approach, when footsteps from the other side of the building cause me to freeze and Care to draw back in alarm. She barely has time to seek shelter, crouching beside the bulkhead, when the two men appear. They have been drinking, the reek of cheap whiskey precedes them, as does a faint whiff of that bitter smoke – scat. I hunker down at their approach. In such condition, it is unlikely they will be overly perceptive, but they are not so intoxicated that they would not be dangerous to one such as Care.
In the dark, their vision is limited. The girl’s is, as well, but I see her raise her head slightly to peer over the brick bulkhead. Even without my sensory acuity, their gait should make it obvious that they are inebriated. That does not mean they won’t notice the movement or see the reflection of her eyes. At least she holds still. Even her breathing, as I can hear, is soft and level. She is on her guard.
And they are careless. Two men, one larger, but clumsy with it, as he stumbles, his boot caught by the body of the man who expired only moments before.
‘What the—?’ He rights himself, only to bend over to peer at the dead man. ‘It’s the cripple,’ he says. ‘The one who pulled a knife on Sarnsby.’
‘What’s left of him.’ His friend has an evil laugh. He kicks at the corpse as his friend looks on.
‘Damn, that gave me a start, though,’ says the larger man, considering the body at his feet. ‘Why’d they leave him here?’
‘Had other jobs to do, didn’t they? Besides, the boss had an interest in this one.’ The smaller man crouches by the body, his hands inside Peter’s jacket. ‘Here, give me a hand.’
His colleague hesitates, though whether out of distaste at robbing a corpse or some other, more primitive concern I cannot tell.
‘Come on.’ His friend looks up, and I can see the sallow cast of his skin. ‘It’s not like he’s got any fight left in him.’
‘I don’t know, Mack.’ He has put his hands in his pocket. He would leave, I believe, if he could. ‘If the boss wanted him for something …’
‘Not going
to be doing any jobs for him now, is he? Give me a hand.’ He is patting down the dead man, running his hands up his legs. ‘They probably left him here to go over later themselves. Now, do you want a share or not?’
The big man sighs and bends to help his friend. ‘What’s a loser like this going to have on him anyway? Sarnsby took his knife, I hear.’
‘He got called in by the boss.’ A whisper, now, but urgent. ‘Had a big commission, I hear. But he never checked back. And the boss – he’s on a rampage.’
I sense, rather than see the girl start at these words. The men are too involved in their low task to notice. Mack – the smaller one – grunts. He pulls a wad from Peter’s shoe, currency wrapped in a torn sheet of paper. The bills he pushes into his pocket. The paper he examines and throws to the ground.
‘Damn it.’ The smaller man looks around. ‘The others’ll be back soon, and they’ll want a cut. Here, Nudge, pick him up, why don’t you?’
‘Pick him up?’ The big man hesitates, but something in the other man’s tone is not to be questioned, and so with a grunt, he bends once more over the corpse. Taking it by the waist, he lifts the lifeless body.
‘I want him upside down. Hurry!’ His companion is growing impatient. The alcohol wearing off, perhaps. But although his friend is large and strong, he is clumsy, perhaps again the result of the drink, and it takes several tries before he manages to get a firm grasp on the dead man and lift him. Only when he has him suspended, holding onto his knees, does his friend rise. A rattle and clink follow as several small objects fall to the ground. The coins Mack pounces on. A small round object – a rock, perhaps – he picks up, too, although he discards it once he has looked it over.
‘OK, now in the drink with him.’
‘But the others – if they left him.’ Nudge pauses. Adjusts the weight of the corpse.
‘Are you daft?’ His friend’s voice has become a hiss. He holds up a coin, its sheen obscured by filth and blood. ‘Look at this! I’m not taking a chance that the boss wants his cash back. No, let Sarnsby and the others answer if anyone comes looking.’
‘Do it,’ he says, as the other man hesitates. ‘Tide’s changing anyway.’
The big man – Nudge – grunts and heaves, and a wet thud follows. The girl winces, and I know she’s remembering her onetime leader, on the sand. This one will follow shortly. The tide has already turned. I can smell the fresh salt rising, even if it has yet to reach this far.
Maybe Nudge can sense this. Maybe he looks for something else, out in the dark, over the water.
With that, he undoes his pants and relieves himself over the edge. I hear, from behind the bulkhead, a soft sob. But the two men have not my ears, and besides, the bigger one is clearly preoccupied, his gaze directed over the low wall, to the harbor floor below.
At least, they do not linger. And once they have left, the girl rises. She wipes her face with her sleeve, but makes no more sound. Her grief, if grief it is, has gone silent. This time, she is careful. She peers around the corner of the building, to the open space before it, and waits, before returning to the bulkhead.
I still have not approached her, wary of either startling her or causing her distress. Still, when I see she would enter, I reconsider my decision. Evil has happened in this building, and despite the current quiet, evil lurks there still, imbuing the very atmosphere with its pungency.
It is with rare indecision that I linger, tail lashing, as she fusses with the lock on the bulkhead door. At least, I realize, she is too large to find entry as I did, through the rotting brick. And the shiny new lock, of a more recent vintage than the rest of the building, withstands her efforts to pick or break it. Finally, she sinks back to the ground, her back to the brick wall. Her breathing is ragged. She is near tears, and I cannot hold back any longer.
‘Blackie. How did you …?’ The advantage of being deemed a lower creature is that I am not held responsible, and there are no recriminations prompted by my presence, by my obvious escape.
Instead, she greets me with open arms, holding me close as I rub against her warm body. I do not like her arms wrapped around me. They hinder my movement and, I fear, dull her sense of the world around us. But at this moment, for now, I am still. I let her hold me and then rest her face on the thick fur of my ruff. Her tears do not penetrate, but I feel their warmth, the shuddering of her sobs as she cries. I wait, listening and smelling the approaching tide. The body is likely gone, the moon full risen by the time she releases me. But its light catches a small object, overlooked in the darkness. It is that small stone, which now I see has been crudely carved.
The girl is sniffing, but even as she wipes her eyes, she looks about her. Sees the scrap of paper the smaller man discarded and reaches for it, holding it close to inspect it in the pale moonlight.
Such objects no longer appeal to me, beyond the odors they may convey. Instead, I find myself drawn to the carving. I nose it gently, turning it over as it lies on the ground. Not stone, I realize as soon as I am close enough to pick up its faint scent. Ivory, perhaps, or bone – the faint trace of an animal is still discernable, revived by the fading warmth of the dead man’s body. Its charcoal color, which helped obscure its fall, must be due to age or use; the incisions have been worn nearly flat by handling. Still, in the grooves and edges, I can smell the lint of his pocket, savor the tang of the blood that was shed. It must be the piece’s animal origins that so compel me, for somehow it intrigues me, in ways I cannot otherwise explain.
‘What have you found there, Blackie?’ Her warm hand slides beneath my wet leather nose, finding the object and lifting it. ‘I know this,’ she says. She holds it close, to better see it in the dim light, and turns it this way and that. ‘It belonged to my old mentor. He kept it on his watch.’
NINETEEN
I am dumbfounded. Worse than that, I am mute. A dumb beast, incapable of asking the most basic question. Of communicating in the simplest language. At her words, I sit back, blinking, as a parade of images flash before me. The carving – an amulet, the word returns, as if from deep under the nearby water – between my fingers. I rolled it back and forth, examining engraving that was, while still worn and ancient, more distinct than now. A face – a cat’s face? I can’t be sure – and symbols that even then I could not read. In memory, I recall both curiosity and frustration, as I rolled the small, round, bead-like object between digits that were thinner-skinned and more flexible than what I have now.
The frustration nearly won out, I now remember. I was sitting at my desk – Care’s desk – and had opened a drawer, ready to toss the small thing in. Some impulse stayed me, and instead I clipped it onto my watch chain, utilizing the hole drilled through the small piece’s center. And then? I cannot recall, just as I cannot my initial finding of the piece, whether by purchase, gift, or luck.
How it came to be in the pocket of a dead stevedore is another question. One that Care is now pondering, I believe, as she sits back in the dirt. In one hand, she holds the paper, in the other the carving. I can see her trying to draw connections between the two. I would warn her, if I could that the leavings may bear each other no relation. But she seems to see one, as she looks from the carving to the paper and back again.
‘Could this be what Augusta is looking for?’ She shakes her head. The piece is small and seems of little import. The paper, however, holds her attention.
‘My address,’ says Care. ‘The old man’s. Could Peter have known her – could he have known the old man?’ She shakes her head again, as if weighing the thought. No, I could tell her, I had no contact with this man before, in any form. Unless—
I jump. I cannot help it, leaping backward as if to avoid attack. The memory comes too quickly to control. A shadow – three – the central one taller. Looming. He towers over me, even as I fade and sink. Feeling, the last shreds of sentience, is leaving me. My sight is fading, too. And, yet, I know his hands were on me. Pressure and then a sudden jerk, of something snapping. A chain link to
rn. A trophy taken for no reason, but to exhibit control.
‘Blackie?’ The girl’s voice brings me back to the present, and I regain control. Willing my fur to settle, I approach her once more. ‘What a funny cat,’ she says, and returns to her examination.
‘Could he have been a client before? A friend of the old man’s?’ The girl’s voice, seeking an answer, brings me back. ‘And I didn’t know? This writing – I don’t know it. But if Peter was one of the old man’s clients, wouldn’t he have said?’
She holds the bead still, but her gaze is elsewhere, unfocused, as if she were in fact looking into the past. I lean into her, offering my soft warmth as comfort. She loved the old man, the person that I was, and misses him still, I know. And I, mute in the way of any animal, am unable to tell her that the sentiment was shared. Is shared, still, although I no longer inhabit that form.
We sit this way in silence, and I begin to relax. She must sense my affection, my allegiance, despite my inability to communicate. Despite her time on the streets, she is not so jaded as to devalue either loyalty or love. In fact, she appears to be thinking of it now. My ears perk up to catch her half-spoken words.
‘I know he was hired to lure me out, to fool me; but still, he saved you,’ she says. ‘Maybe he was another one – another one like me. He didn’t tell me everything, of course. I knew that, even before the end. But he was a friend – and loyal, too, I think.’
She sits up, her hand clasping the round thing as if it held her word. ‘Maybe that’s why I found this. It’s a reminder of a promise.’
Something in her words resonates. Not the memory I have recalled, but something older. A hand passing this piece to me. Placing it in my then-pale palm.