Streets of Shadows

by Tom Piccirilli

  Brit’s gaze swept around the room. The only other customers were a couple of old ladies in red and purple suits and bizarrely flowered hats. “Yeah. Spozed to be. Look like I’m early.”

  Mostly Brit talked the way she did to make Mom and Dad angry. Ebonics didn’t fit in with their image as “professionals.” Of course it pissed off her friend Iyata’s mother Sylvie, too, but that only meant they had to meet at school half the time. Not such a hardship. And maybe the use of Ebonics reminded the blonde it was National Brotherhood Week or something: she showed Brit to a nice table and gave her a menu without any more questions.

  She ordered a cup of tea to drink while she was “waiting.” She sipped it slowly, trying to figure out what story she’d tell to explain why the imaginary adults didn’t show up for their ostensible rendezvous with her. She’d need to fake a phone call….

  The outside door opened again and she glanced up exactly as if she really was expecting to meet someone here. In came a round-bellied white man in a navy blue coat, his long grey hair in a ponytail. Probably friends with the two old ladies. “There she is!” he said, brushing past the hostess and heading straight for Brit. Not the old ladies. Brit.

  “How’s my little half-pint of cider half drunk up?” The strange man smiled and plopped down in her table’s other chair. “Play along!” he whispered. “Pretend you know me till I get a chance to—”

  “Ready to order?” The waiter had appeared from nowhere to stand by the table at attention. He had a green notepad in his hands and a mildly worried expression on his face.

  Brit could get up and scream for him to call the cops. That’d be great—they’d take her right back home. Besides, this table-crasher guy suddenly looked familiar. She narrowed her eyes. An actor? It was coming back to her: the race-flipped production that The Conciliation Project had brought to her school—“Uncle Tom?”

  One of the man’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “Don’t look so surprised! Didn’t you get our message? Aunt Eliza came down with the flu and sent me by myself.” He turned to the waiter as if just noticing him. “I’d like a Jungle Bird, if the bar’s open.”

  “Yes, sir!” The waiter left, looking reassured.

  When they were alone again “Uncle Tom” hunched forward and laid his arms on the table. “Thanks,” he said. “That was pretty brave of you.”

  “Yeah, well, get any nearer and I’m leavin.”

  “Fair enough.” He leaned back. “I guess I ought to be grateful you recognized me—from that play version of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ I take it?”

  Brit nodded. “But that don’t mean I trust you no further than I can throw the chair you sittin in.”

  “Fair enough,” he said again. The waiter returned carrying a glass round as the man’s belly, full of ice and an orangey liquid. A section of a pineapple ring gripped its rim. He left again after taking their orders: lasagna for Brit, which was what she usually had at lunch, and quail for her supposed uncle.

  “All right, before we’re interrupted anymore, let me try to tell you what I’m doing talking to you. Did you ever read—or see—‘The Shining’?”

  Brit was tired of white people assuming she was stupid simply because she was dark-skinned. Another reason she’d started talking hood; before, they always said how she was so articulate. “I can read!”

  “Never said you couldn’t. Lots of kids don’t bother with books, though; young people nowadays seem to prefer movies. Anyway, the book and the movie are different: the Scatman Crothers character doesn’t die at the end of the novel. But what both versions of the story got right was how some of us, some of us who can do special things, have this glow to us, this ‘shining’ if you will…like you.”

  Like her. “You sayin I’m magic.”

  “For lack of a better word, yes. Yes I am.”

  “How bout ‘insane’? How bout ‘hallucinatin’?” She was standing—her legs shook. She hoped it didn’t show. She kept her voice low. “How bout ‘depressed an delusional’? All kinda things people be sayin I am, an ain’t none of em good—” On the edge of her field of vision she saw the waiter approaching with a basket of bread.

  “Ima go the bathroom. When I come out you be gone.” She picked up her backpack from where she’d dropped it and fled.

  “Wait, let me finish—”

  She slammed the restroom door behind her and turned on the water so she wouldn’t have to hear what he was saying. Peed, wiped, flushed, washed her hands. Eyes on the mirror, she pulled out her pick and went to work on her short little fro. Then a touch-up to her liner and mascara—Mom and Dad didn’t allow her to wear make-up, but Brit kept a supply for use away from home.

  She took a long time, but when she emerged the man—she didn’t even know his real name!—was sitting where she’d left him. Between her and the exit. He stood up as she walked by—he didn’t attempt to stop her, though. All he did was say, “Sorry. I don’t blame you for being scared.”

  That made her turn around. “I ain’t scared!”

  “No? Then maybe you’ll sit down and eat quietly with me?”

  Brit suddenly noticed that the hostess, the waiter, the old ladies—everyone in the whole restaurant was staring at her. She didn’t need that kind of attention. With an angry look at “Uncle Tom” she sat back in her abandoned chair.

  “Maybe put on a slightly less murderous expression?”

  Brit closed her eyes and took three deep breaths like her dad was always counseling his clients to do. When she opened them there was a white card on the table in front of her. “Elias Crofutt” read the first line, in a flowing, cursive-like script. Below it, in much plainer letters: “Theater, Language, Hierophance”—whatever that was. Below those words was a phone number. All printed in dark purple ink.

  “Ken Rodriguez—at the hostel—called my pager after you left so—precipitously.”

  Shaggy. “He had one a these?” she asked. “Why come?”

  “Often there’s trouble at home when a talent such as yours emerges. I keep an eye out for kids at risk, and I have my contacts in likely spots watching for—”

  “You got spies? You a nasty fuckin creeper!” Brit scraped her seat away from the table.

  “Wait! Don’t you want to know how I found you?”

  Yes she did. The Green Tortoise was eight blocks away, too far for mere coincidence. And she’d never heard of this sort of operation in Seattle. Both her parents worked with teens—Dad as a psychiatrist, Mom as a social worker. It was why they were so sure they knew what was wrong with her. They were always warning her about things she’d never be enough of an idiot to get mixed up in; surely they would have mentioned running across a scheme like this? What if she could tell them about something they’d missed? That would make her look on top of everything—completely sane. She nodded cautiously.

  “I was trying to tell you: you shine. I followed your light—” He stopped mid-sentence. The waiter brought salads and set them on the table in the abrupt, awkward silence.

  Brit smothered her lettuce and carrot chips in ranch and picked up her fork, determined to get some food in her stomach. She’d been too busy arguing with her mom to eat this afternoon at home. “You was sayin.” She crammed a loaded fork in her mouth.

  “I keep an office at the Y.”

  So cross off staying there. That put a big dent in Plan B.

  “When I called Kenny back he described you—not only what you were wearing but—well, it’s like invisible fireworks coming out of the top of your head—”

  “Riiight.” Let the man spew out his new age sewage. She would concentrate on getting some nourishment under her belt. One forkful at a time.

  “I know how this sounds. Believe me. Or maybe it’s more like sparklers than fireworks, because you leave a trail in the air for a minute or two….Well. Anyway. I can see it, though most can’t.”

  Grimly, Brit swallowed and began chewing a third mouthful of crunchy, oil-coated salad. Plan C was even hazier in her mind than B. An
d this dude was seriously woo-woo.

  Or maybe not. If she was sane, he could be, too. Maybe? Would he back her up? Would her parents believe him? Or would they call him nuts—politely—to his face?

  The waiter came back with their entrees before she could decide. Steam wafted off her lasagna when she cut apart the crusty cheesy top layer. Too hot to eat yet. “What my fireworks look like?” she asked.

  “White and gold with flecks of ruby-red,” Crofutt replied promptly. Not hesitating as if he was making stuff up. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  “That mean you don’t know what kinda magic I do?”

  “Correct. But I can help you figure it out. If you need me to.” He sliced meat off the quail’s breast and ate a couple of bites before he spoke again. “Anything else you need, just ask. Money, weapons, somewhere to stay the night—”

  There was being scared and then there was being smart. She flagged the waiter down. “Put this in a go box,” she said, gesturing at her food. She dug out the same bill she’d offered Shaggy. Kenny. It ought to cover her share. Plus tip.

  “Through already?”

  Brit stood up and the man didn’t try to stop her. “So through.” She kept her voice low so no one else would notice her anger. “Here some cash to pay for my food. You can see I don’t need your stinkin money. Don’t need you runnin crystals up an down my body, neither, or whatever freaky thing get you off before you stranglin me—”

  “No! You’re wrong!” Crofutt protested. “Sit down—please!”

  “I ain’t!” She tilted her head to one side and grinned ferociously for the benefit of the waiter coming back with her boxed up lasagna. “Tell Aunt Eliza I hope she be better for church Sunday,” she said, too sweetly. “Thanks for the offer, but I gotta go.” She swung her pack onto her left shoulder, took the box from the waiter, and headed for the door.

  Behind her Brit heard the white man getting up and following her. She made it almost to the door before she felt his touch on her coat sleeve. She whirled fast and he dropped the offending hand. But he held the other out to give her the card from the table. “You almost forgot this.”

  Rather than attract more attention she took it and shoved it in her coat pocket. “Good night.”

  “Be careful!” he shouted as she stepped outside. “It’s—”

  The door banged shut and cut the last words off. Full night had fallen and a freezing wind blew off the bay.

  There was one spot Brit knew would be probably a little warmer. And empty. Not somewhere safe, exactly, but she was out of other options. She walked downhill again and turned north on Third to avoid the Green Tortoise. She wasn’t paranoid; she didn’t really think Shaggy would even know she was going by the building. It was just better not to take any chances.

  She wasn’t paranoid. Something told her to look back up the street at Third, though, and here came Crofutt, striding after her as fast as his fat self could go. Which was surprisingly fast.

  The second door past the corner had an “Open” sign hanging behind its glass. Brit yanked it out of the way and hurried inside. She put a couple of rows of shelves between her and the window before she came to a halt.

  This was a cigar store. A pretty swanky one, too. Shelves and shelves of boxes full of brown cylinders: fat, thin, dark, light, short, long, banded in gold, wrapped in cellophane, as various as people.

  “May I help you?” The man asking that question this time sounded as if he might really want to. He looked nice, too. He had curly, medium-long hair, black mixed with silver; smooth skin the color of one of his cigars; a nose curved like a bird’s beak; a mustache lifted up at its ends by his smile.

  “My dad birthday comin up,” she improvised. Actually, that wouldn’t be till June. “I wanna get him somethin extra cool.”

  “Of course. He is already a smoker? A connoisseur? I may know him. What’s his name?”

  “He only started round Christmas.” What a tangled web. Would she have to make up a reason why he’d started then?

  With a few more lies Brit stretched the visit out to half an hour. She bought a gold-plated cigar trimmer, a bead-covered lighter shaped like a butterfly, and six of the hugest cigars she could find. That took two of her hundreds.

  It was worth it, though. When she left the shop there was no sign of Crofutt the Creeper. She continued north toward the Denny Triangle neighborhood, then walked east again on Stewart to Westlake, keeping out of the Belltown bar scene.

  The crowds dwindled and disappeared. Someday, Mom said, this part of town was going to get bought up and gentrified. Meanwhile it was home mostly to what the planning commissions her parents monitored called “light industry”: newspaper offices, award plaque engravers, embroidery factories, etc. Low brick buildings, their walls dull with old paint, all dark and empty now. Including the one where Brit was going to have to spend the night.

  Kind of ironic, she thought, keeping her eyes on the ground as she walked the final yards to the building’s back entrance. Her fight with Mom and Dad had been all about not coming anywhere near this place they bought for a teen center. No way. But here she was.

  She would probably be okay. As long as she didn’t look up.

  The realtor’s lockbox still dangled from the dead fluorescent lamp beside the door. Her parents didn’t know she knew the combination. The key was still inside it.

  The key undid the lock easily. The door creaked. Only a little, though. Could the giant wriggly things on the rooftop even hear anything?

  Brit peered inside. Grey-blue squares glowed dimly on the floor where the city’s faint light had funneled in via the high, dirty windows. The pale patches wavered like reflections. A real hallucination? No.

  The floor was under water.

  Brit stepped cautiously in. The linoleum beneath the rubber soles of her Converse shoes squelched as if it was wet, but at least she didn’t hear her feet full-on splashing. Not deep enough, maybe? She shut the door and felt in her pack for her flashlight.

  Crouching, she aimed the light low, hoping no one would see it. Nearby, the beige tiles she remembered from her first reluctant visit glittered only faintly, as if covered in sweat. But in the wide room’s middle, the row of poles supporting its ceiling rose from a shallow pool.

  As she walked around the room’s edge, Brit’s mood sank lower and lower. Tops, there was maybe half an inch of water anywhere, but it went almost from wall to wall. Not real comfortable to sleep in. Her bag would be soaked in no time, wherever she put it down.

  Four doors led off the main room on its far side. The first opened on a closet. She felt its floor to be sure. Dripping wet. The second and third doors were locked. The outside key didn’t work on them.

  The fourth door was locked, too—but with the deadbolt’s knob on this side. Behind it a stair climbed up to a dark landing.

  Brit frowned. From what she remembered, this place had just one story. Arriving on the landing she looked up from there and saw that the stairs stopped at a metal fire door with a push bar for its handle.

  A door onto the roof. Where an enormous tent full of worms waited.

  She couldn’t go there. Anyway, outside she’d be cold and, if the rain came back, just as wet as lying on the flooded floor below. With a sigh she scuffed back down to the landing. Tiny, but so was she. She unrolled her bag and fluffed it out, slipped inside. Her coat folded up into a big pillow. She tucked it under her head and waited.

  The landing was concrete. Dry. Hard. Dad said it took the average person fourteen minutes to fall asleep. She waited some more. And some more. And some more.

  She checked her watch and sure enough she’d stayed awake a lot longer than fourteen minutes. Maybe she needed more padding. She opened her coat up and put it under the bag. Now she didn’t have a pillow—her pack was too lumpy, filled with pretend birthday presents. She shouldn’t crush the cigars. That left—her lasagna! She must have dropped it somewhere—no use trying to figure out the exact spot now. But with n
othing else to do she backtracked mentally anyway and decided she’d left the box balanced on the rim of a trashcan when she re-tied her shoelaces. Maybe she was too hungry to sleep.

  Maybe it was too early: only 8, and she usually went to bed around 9 on a school night.

  She switched from cradling her head on her left arm to her right.

  No use going back over the fight with Mom, either, thinking of what she should have said. Like, “Why don’t you trust me? Why don’t you believe me?” Like, “Just because all the other teenagers you deal with are on drugs doesn’t mean I have the same problem.” Like, “I am not insane!”

  Instead, after a while, she’d given up saying anything. Talking wasn’t going to do any good. Brit decided she was simply going to have to disappear. Actions spoke louder than words. She would take off; that way she’d miss school, miss the “counseling” appointment scheduled right afterwards, miss her parents picking her up from there to drag her along to the infested building they’d bought.

  So how ridiculous was it that she’d wound up spending the night in the same building, practically right next to a worm nest after all, on her own? Alone? In the dark?

  Well, coming here hadn’t been her first idea. Or even her second.

  The problem was, everyone in Seattle who was supposed to help kids knew her mom and dad. Now she had a chance to think, a bus or a train ride seemed like her best option. To Yakima or Spokane, or somewhere no one would look. Soon as it got light she’d walk to the station. Before school started, so she’d be less suspicious.

  But if she was going to leave town early tomorrow morning she’d better get to sleep soon. She checked her watch again. 10:00. Past time. Her alarm would start beeping at 6. She put the watch back away in her pencil bag and zipped that in a pocket she never used so it would be harder to find and hit snooze. Shoved her pack a couple of stairs up so she’d have further to reach for it. But she could still hear it ticking.

  Except her watch was digital.