by Clea Simon
‘He knew from the start, Gina.’ Care steps forward, away from Gravitch. Toward the woman who now cries quietly. ‘Even when he hired me to look for Dingo. It was all a cover up.’
The woman sniffs and wipes her face. Gravitch has dropped her other hand, and she retreats to the rubbish pile. Retrieves her bag, soiled and torn. But I am the only creature watching her now. All eyes are on Care.
‘Dingo wasn’t threatening to blackmail Gravitch with the authorities.’ Care is thinking. I doubt the others notice how her brow furrows. That mistake – the loss of the matchstick – has given her a moment to consider. And as Gravitch sputters, as he tries to formulate his excuses, the final connection comes clear.
‘That logo – on the truck. I know it. It’s a big business. Bigger than Gravitch’s little shop here. But it was Gravitch’s fault those papers were out there. He was charged with security, with cleaning up. And he botched it.’
The logo! Of course – the looming mountains. Only not mountains … but a man. A third man. I lash my tail, infuriated at my own ignorance. If I could only read … If I could only remember. It took the girl – a child – to piece things together. Everything I suspected, everything I feared. She puzzled it out, with the aid of the little mole man – Quirty – and the memory of another, older case. A whistleblower who tried to expose the exploitation and failed. An old man who went up against an implacable foe.
You can’t … no. I blink as her words come back to me. As I hear her calling me, as a truck backed into view, its logo clear to one who could read. You can’t know, she said. And I did not. If only I could have remembered.
‘When Dingo came to him, Gravitch set him up.’ Care is speaking as if what she says is common knowledge. As if it were as obvious as the marks on that paper are to her. ‘Had the poor fool meet him at the Dunstan. Probably told him that they would bring those files back in together. Put them back where they came from. All along, he was going to pretend Dingo had taken them. That they’d been in the files, in the Dunstan, for years.’
‘You don’t know he didn’t.’ Gravitch’s voice has some of its old bravado back. Some of its growl. ‘Your good old Dingo couldn’t be trusted.’
‘No.’ Care is calm. Certain. ‘Not once he saw what you had. Maybe these were the final straw. The way you treated Gina. How you hurt her and kept stringing her along about her boy. How you treated everyone, once they’d given you all they had. It all must have added up. But he didn’t steal these papers. He wouldn’t have gotten old Terry in trouble.
‘He got those papers from your office. Maybe they started on your desk, but they weren’t secured and when – well, when Dingo helped clean up after your party with Gina, he ended up taking them. It took him a while to realize what he’d found. Most of your crew can’t read, you’ve seen to that, but he could – a bit. Enough so that he realized he could finally help Gina out. You’d have to let her go. Give up her boy, with what he had. You see, Dingo knew you were responsible for security, all those years ago. You should have returned these papers to the Dunstan years before. Only – what? – did you get lazy? Or did you think you could use them for leverage? A bargaining chip with the big boss?’
Gravitch recoils as if he’s been struck. Only the presence of the other men – his former henchmen – seems to keep him upright.
‘What about Dingo then?’ the hatchet-faced man asks.
‘You killed Dingo,’ says the big man, and his colleagues join in, their voices angry.
The little man draws closer to Gravitch, his hand cradling his blade’s handle. ‘We only work for you because the big boss says so.’ His voice is cool. Appraising. ‘Dingo, too.’
Voices start to rise as the men crowd around. Only Care stands back – Care and Gina, who is blinking, mouth open. She appears to be in shock.
‘You were supposed to take care of that.’ The voices grow louder and more angry. ‘That’s why he gave you the shop – the right to run the kids …’
Only Care among them can hear the blowsy woman speak. Only Care and I, whose ears are sensitive to such soft sounds.
‘He said he was going to help me,’ Gina says, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘If I took his favor – if I put up with the pain … He was going to find my boy, when all the time …’
She reaches into her bag, as if for a tissue. As if for the flask. What she pulls out, however, is the blade. Smaller than the one the hatchet-faced man carries, but still sharp. And while the men are circling, she pushes her way in without hesitation. Without any fear left.
A shriek cuts the night. The iron tang of blood fills the air, and the men fall silent. One steps aside, and Gina staggers out. Her hand, now empty, is bright red, bloodied to the wrist.
Care staggers back, unsteady, as if she herself had dealt that blow. Reaches behind herself for the wall, where I too wait, watching. Before us, the men crowd closer again, silent now. From their midst the fading cries – whimpers, really – of the dying man.
‘Please.’ His voice has lost its command. ‘Help me.’
‘Help you?’ It’s the smaller of his henchmen. The one with the knife. ‘Like you helped Dingo?’
‘Care.’ An urgent whisper, close behind us, causes the girl to turn. It is the boy, peering around the edge of the building. He waves for her to join him. To exit the alley. Despite its source, it is good counsel, and I follow closely, hugging the wall.
‘In here,’ I hear him say. They have turned the corner, while I have chanced a last glance back. The men have converged, waiting. The death cry, when it comes, is faint but unmistakable. Before it can fade away, the boy’s words sink in, and I race after them.
The car, beneath the streetlight, is running now. The driver has stepped out. But the boy crouches by the bay door, where the crumpled metal has pulled free. He motions toward the opening. Toward the dark within. He reaches for her hand, as I jump between them. Place myself in front of the girl, before her feet.
‘What?’ She blinks, still in shock from the violence she has witnessed. From that which she has escaped.
Don’t trust him! I stare into her eyes, willing her to understand. Willing her to remember what Gravitch implied, only minutes before. You cannot trust this boy.
‘Care, come on!’ He grabs her hand. Pulls it. ‘We can hide.’ And in that moment, she nods ever so slightly, and begins to draw away. She has heard me. She understands. She will turn away. Only she doesn’t.
‘I have to.’ Her whisper a mere breath, meant only for my ears. ‘Please,’ she says. And she disappears inside.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The noise is deafening. Even with my ears flat, I can barely stand it. Can barely make myself follow, for follow I do – slipping through the breach after the girl – into the place of madness and despair. As before, the space is dim. Poorly lit, but not dark. Close, as well, and thick with steam and oil and the fug of unwashed bodies. But it is the noise that oppresses me, more than any lack of illumination. A din loud enough to banish reason, to blind my senses and turn my acuity against me. The horrible roar besets me, compels me to run, as I did once before, through this hellish room. To escape the clamor, the nightmare of sound.
Only I cannot. Even as I battle against the onslaught, I remain aware of the girl and the boy by her side. They cower against the wall, where I join them, panting. As panicked as any beast, but bound by love.
‘Blackie.’ A hand reaches out, and I glance up. Even in this near dark, she must see the whites around my eyes, the terror that makes me tremble so. Her voice, as much as the gentle hand she lays upon my back, calms me, somewhat, although my ears stay flat against my head. I would gather reason back. Would be alert, unsure as I am about this boy’s next move. About the workings of the trap, for trap it must be.
And then the light diminishes further, and I understand. The triangular breach is blocked, as by a shadow or – no – a large creature. Something is pushing through. I hear panting that is not my own, the low sounds of distress ad
ding to the maddening clatter around me. And then it is through. I blink up as it rises, towering above us, a silhouette against the dark, as terrifying as any nightmare.
I am frozen. But I must not— I cannot be. For surely, this creature – this hunter – will not stay still for long. One step, another, and arms reach out. I stare up willing myself to see, and to my amazement, I perceive that it is unbalanced. Indeed, it flails, arms outstretched in this close space. And in that moment, I catch my breath.
It is blind in this room, I realize, the lack of light even more pronounced to one newly arrived from the alley outside, from the streetlight’s yellow glare. Here, then, is my moment, before the predator adjusts. Before it – he – can see. I will my quaking limbs to serve me. I cannot spring. I can barely lift my belly off the floor, but I approach the creature. Slowly, slowly, and then reach out – my claws extended – and bat.
‘Ah!’ A high-pitched voice, more squeak than shout. I bat again, slapping at the intruder with lightning speed. And bat once more.
It works. The monster retreats, thrashing at the air. It hits the wall with a dull thud, and suddenly the noises all converge.
‘Care!’ It is the boy, shouting, as a booming, grinding sound adds to the clamor.
‘Tick!’ Through my panic, I see the girl as she reaches for the boy. The light is growing, the noise becoming louder and yet less intense as the horrible echoes fade as – yes! – the metal gate is rising, triggered by the intruder’s frightened thrashing. By Gina, for it is she, who has pushed her way in, the blood still wet on her hands – and on the control switch her flailing arm has hit.
Able once again to breathe – to see – I survey the scene. The space we are in is a workroom. A factory of sorts, lined by huffing metal giants. Their breath reeks of oily steam, as their giant jaws clamp down with a hiss. Before us, smaller beasts, whose furious metal teeth clatter endlessly, pulling spools of garish thread through row upon row of cheap woven stuff. Only, one by one, they begin to slow, to fail. To fall silent as the children – for it is children who stand by each mechanical beast – pause in their labors. They blink in the dirty yellow light of that streetlight, as the machines – not beasts, I realize as my own pulse calms – grumble to a halt. As Gina staggers forward, mouth open, to take in the hellish scene.
From somewhere in the back, a small voice calls, ‘Ma?’
THIRTY-EIGHT
‘Gravitch should’ve dumped Dingo’s body in the harbor. Kept to his story that he’d gone missing, and he’d have been fine.’ The girl worries over the problem like a kitten with a mouse as she sews, her bag before her on the desk. ‘Why didn’t he? Was it only ’cause people were asking for him? Or was there something else going on?’
We are sitting in the office. Our office, once again. With one of Gravitch’s bills, she has purchased food and eaten. She has slept, at length, on the sofa, while I kept watch by her side. Now she works to patch the old carryall with a piece of bartered denim. Her stitches are fine, the patch will hold. She should be at peace. Rested, but she cannot let go of the dead. Her eyes are hot, and I cannot help but wonder at her innocence.
As a girl, as a newcomer in a dangerous field, she must have seemed an obvious patsy. Expendable and easy to play, a pawn that would help Gravitch lay to rest the issue of the missing Dingo, of the missing papers, which his own greed and carelessness had put at risk. For these reasons alone, Gravitch would have set her up. Would have used her.
But she will not let her questions lie, and frets at them as her needle works its way through the cloth. Does she wonder, then, at the accusations Gravitch made? Does she realize that there would be other reasons for the man to set her up? As she has repaired her bag, she has also pieced together that he served another. Does she not realize that she had thwarted the big boss once before – that her father had set all of this in motion?
‘He tried to frame me,’ she says. It is a conclusion she has reached before, but it gives her no peace. ‘Tried to draw me in, using Tick. If he could only get me into the system or under his control – and he almost did.’
Gina is gone. Disappeared that night with one small, pale boy in tow. The others scattered into the night. After some deliberation, the girl turned the papers over to Miss Adele, but not the children themselves. No word of them, or where they may be hiding. She’d learned. Besides, she had promised the boy, Tick. He still works at the factory, for it operates still, commerce being the one constant in this city. Spends his days sewing shoddy goods for the export market. But he comes out to the office each night. He sleeps until first light. He’s paid little enough, but it is something. The new overseer, an older man past his fighting days, keeps the machines running, but he’s less greedy, Tick says.
‘More important,’ says the boy, ‘he’s obedient. He knows his place.’
Our place, for now, is here. The lease had been renegotiated. I watched with some concern when the girl visited Quirty. When he talked about setting up a shell company of his own and reapplying for the space. Strangely, there was no fuss about the application, which Gravitch’s remaining bill enabled. Nor any about the anonymous tenant at will. It was almost as if someone believed the girl was owed. As if she had done a favor for those in power, for a certain faceless corporation. Or perhaps, that someday she will.
This bothers me in ways I cannot explain. Much like my inability to read, or the memory of another paper – a document of higher quality – that a small man pondered and then hid away again. There is so much that I, a cat, cannot express. It does not get easier, but at times like this, as the girl talks through her thoughts, I find I can bear it. That I want to comfort her. To share the great wisdom of beasts, which is to live in the moment. To appreciate the calm that is now. We are warm. We have fed. And so I sit and watch the girl.
The knock wakes me, as tentative as it is.
‘Yes?’ Care looks up from her bag. The patch is almost secure, and it is with a sigh of regret that she puts the needle down. It’s the apple seller, from the market. She stands in the doorway and blinks, unaccustomed, I believe, to being indoors.
‘Aisha sent me,’ she says. Stepping forward, she unwraps a rag and shakes out three small coins. ‘One of my boys ran off. I’m hoping you can find him?’
‘I can try.’ Care stands and goes to greet her. ‘Please, have a seat.’