by Clea Simon
The foot traffic in the street is picking up with the light, and I retreat to the far side of the alley. In shadow, I am less likely to be spotted, and from here I can make out movement within the room. An arm as she stretches. Her face, pale in the sun, as she turns around. I feel a pang of what might be regret as I realize she is looking for me. That she might experience concern at my absence. Already, she mourns one companion and fears for another. I cannot add to that burden.
I mew.
It is an undignified sound, both high and without distinction in terms of meaning or intent, and I hear it fade to no effect. Still, I realize as I see her head turning, as I see her seeking my sleek form, it may be my best chance. And so I call again – not a simple mew but a caterwaul. Putting my body in it, I let out a resonant yowl that would have passers-by turning were the day a little later, the street more trafficked.
‘Blackie?’ My ears, more acute than hers, hear her perfectly as she wheels around, searching for the source. I cry again and she comes to the window, opening it to reveal her matted hair and sleep-swollen eyes. ‘How did you … Hold on.’
I retreat to the shadows, aware of how I have exposed myself. That man Bushwick is a coward but he has too close an affinity with death for my comfort.
‘There you are.’ Care is at the mouth of the alley, wearing a man’s broadcloth shirt over her jeans. She has run a hand through her hair. The pink stands up like a flag while the rest of her slouches, relaxed and – dare I say? – happy. The rest has done her good, the safety of a known environment an antidote to the horrors of the day.
I emerge to greet her, my tail high, when the sudden rush of footsteps causes me to freeze. She spins – either the sound or the sight of my sudden change alerting her – and I hear a quick intake of breath.
‘Tick!’ She sobs with relief as she wraps her arms around the boy who this time has run to embrace her.
Tail down now, I circle. I would not be caught in this alley, and I do not trust this boy who has buried his face in that borrowed shirt. He reeks of dirt and sweat and the musty smell of Fat Peter’s storefront, where perhaps that body yet lies. He is scented, too, by that pungent smoke.
‘Tick, look at me.’ Her nose buried in his hair, the girl has smelled it too. But the face that looks up at hers is stained with tears and dirt. A mark the size of a man’s ring is purpling beneath his eye, and she loses her resolve. ‘Come with me,’ she says. Keeping one arm around the boy to guide him, she looks back at me.
I meet her eye and take a step forward. She will know I am with her, that I will not leave her alone with this boy or whoever he has brought with him. If she has the sense to realize I do not trust him, then she will know, as well, that she should not either.
Against my better judgment, she leads him around to the front of the building, holding the door for him to enter. I follow as they go upstairs, but when she opens the office door I dart past with a hiss. The boy recoils, as I intend, and this gives me the moment I need to reconnoiter. Nothing has changed that I can smell or see, and I experience a moment of gratitude. The boy was not a decoy, at least not for this kind of trap.
As they rumble in, I take a seat on the windowsill. From here, I can observe. I also, if need be, have an exit at my back. The boy settles on the sofa where Care has slept. She has gone to the cabinet where she keeps her small store of food. It is hers to share, and so I do not protest. While she busies herself with openers and bread, he eyes me as suspiciously as I do him.
‘That cat doesn’t like me,’ he says.
She doesn’t comment. My hiss spoke for itself.
‘He’s mean. Why do you keep him?’
‘I don’t “keep” him.’ She answers without turning. ‘He just showed up.’
The boy squints and I wonder about his eyesight. Then I realize I am sitting with the sun to my back. He is trying to read me as he would the girl – or any of the other humans around whom he circulates. As if my cool glare would reveal my thoughts.
‘But you let him in.’ The boy seems hurt by this, as if we were competing for a limited resource.
‘He’s company.’ Care returns, the canned meats we have feasted on now spread between layers of bread. She has kept some aside for me, I see, and brings it – in a shallow bowl – over to the windowsill.
‘The old man said you could learn a lot about people from the way they treat animals.’ She puts it down but does not attempt to touch me. She is learning. ‘Especially if they thought no one was watching. Besides, he liked cats.’
The boy makes room for her on the couch and reaches for his plate. Even as he eats, however, he keeps glancing over at me. ‘There’s something spooky about this one, Care. I swear, he’s watching me.’
The girl looks over at me but she denies it. ‘He’s just skittish. You must smell funny to him.’
He shrugs, and as they eat I settle in, tucking my paws beneath my body. The boy is at ease. The time is right.
‘So, what happened, Tick?’ Care keeps her voice level, although I can hear the tightness of stress in its upper register. The tears, that bruise. ‘I thought we’d lost you there.’
She says it as if it were a joke, a counter to that note of tension, but the boy shudders. ‘You know what AD says.’ He looks at his sandwich, as if the meat has suddenly gone bad. ‘We’ve all got to earn our keep.’
Now it’s her turn to put the food down. ‘Tick?’
‘It’s not what you think,’ he says, his voice petulant. ‘It’s my job to run errands. To do the small things. You know.’ He picks up his sandwich again, but I cannot avoid the suspicion that he is dissembling, avoiding the meat of her unspoken question by offering a lesser or partial answer. ‘Brian and those guys, they needed me.’
I wait for her to pounce. He has left himself open, both in terms of the nature of his tasks and their seeming cessation. The girl is no fool. She can see as well as I what he has implied. His presence here is not of his own volition, or not entirely.
She does not question him, though. Instead, she goes to the larder. When she returns, she is holding a box of biscuits. In the moments it has taken her to do this, he has wolfed down the rest of his sandwich. He eats like an animal, afraid to make himself vulnerable, unsure of when he will have such bounty again. As she offers him the cookies, he looks up at her. For a moment, his face is open, and I understand her reasoning.
‘They don’t want you messing around with this, Care.’ There is fear in his voice. Fear for her, I believe. For the moment, he has forgotten the sandwich. The cookies. Everything but her. ‘Fat Peter? The stuff the old man was looking into? They got someone else to take care of it. Someone, you know, big.’
He pauses. Swallows. He puts down the cookie before he speaks again. ‘They knew I’d told you what the old man said. That I’d sent you to Fat Peter. I mean, I didn’t mean to, but—’
‘It’s OK, Tick,’ she interrupts, and I feel my fur start to bristle. ‘I’m not working for Diamond Jim. Not AD either.’
He shakes his head and I can see he is near tears. ‘That doesn’t matter, Care. It’s not the job that they care about. They don’t want you asking questions. “Keep that girl of yours from poking her nose everywhere.” That’s what Brian – the big guy – said to AD. They’re … I don’t like them, Care. I think they’re dangerous. I think they’d hurt you. I think maybe they hurt the old man.’
Care nods, acknowledging a truth. ‘I think they did, Tick, but it doesn’t matter.’ She looks up and, for a moment, our eyes meet. I get a flash of light – the sun, reflected in her unshed tears. ‘I’m going to keep looking into it. I’m going to find out what happened to the old man, and I’m going to make them pay.’
SIXTEEN
Tick doesn’t like that, and neither do I. He protests loudly, however, while I wait and watch, considering my options. Care is a smart girl, and this is not a smart move. We who are smaller must be careful how we hunt. Whom we hunt. At the very least, she must realize that her
declarative outburst – stating her purpose to one who has admitted being a pawn – is foolish. There is nothing to be gained by revealing your next move. There are many things I will never understand about humanity, and this kind of self-destructive gesture is certainly among them.
‘Care, you can’t.’ Tick is on his feet. He has taken her hand and is shaking it, as if he could wake her sense of self-preservation. ‘These guys, they mean business. They don’t want you nosing around.’
‘Like they didn’t want the old man nosing around?’ Care’s voice has gone cold. She holds her hand still. Holds his. ‘I think you’ve just told me what happened, Tick. That creep, Brian, he wanted the old man out of the way. The old man must have realized he was the one behind the jewelry theft. I knew he was onto something.’
‘No. It’s not like that.’ Tick shakes his head now, unable to keep still. ‘Brian and his guys – they didn’t rip off anything. They don’t need to. In fact, Diamond Jim is working with them now. Like he was working with the old man. And he’s doing good. Business is better than ever, he says, and I believe it. His shop is full up with everything you can imagine and—’
He stops and stares at his feet.
‘What?’ She leans over him, concern replacing the anger of moments before.
‘He even paid me, Care.’ He looks up sheepishly. ‘In coin and everything.’
‘To come find me?’ She’s catching on. I even see her sniffing the air around him. Searching for that strange and acrid scent.
He shrugs. ‘He didn’t want you bothering Brian and those guys. He says everything is all right. Just … quit poking around. Please, Care.’ His voice is pleading. ‘He’ll have jobs for both of us. Paying jobs. For coin. But you got to stop asking questions about everything.’
‘And Fat Peter?’ She’s looking at him as if from a distance, her eyes hooded and cool.
Another shrug. ‘They’re handling that. You know he was mixed up with a lot of things. He just—’ Tick looks up. ‘Nobody thinks you did it, Care. Not really.’
‘But everybody thinks they need to tell me to back off.’ She’s talking to herself rather than him. This makes me purr. ‘Everybody says that everything is fine.’
She sends the boy down the hall to wash and as soon as he’s out the door she starts shoving papers and other items into her bag. ‘I don’t know, Blackie.’ She talks as she works. ‘First, Fat Peter is killed. Then Bushwick comes by, and now Tick.’ She hesitates over the food but shoves that in, too. ‘Seems to me that whatever the old man was onto is still going on – and I’d be a fool not to see it.’
‘Care, what are you doing?’ Tick walks into the room as she rolls another of the old man’s shirts into a ball.
‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back here,’ she says, shoving it into her bag. ‘No matter what I told Bushwick.’
‘Who’s Bushwick?’ His confusion appears genuine.
‘Another visitor. Only he came by to get something, not deliver a message. And I bet he’ll be back.’ She folds the top over her carryall and pauses. Our eyes meet, and I can see that hers are clear and hold no tears. ‘So it’s time to move out.’
Tick accepts this without comment, only looking at the uneaten wrapper of cookies. ‘Take them,’ says the girl.
They’re in his pocket in a moment. ‘Thanks,’ he says, his voice soft. ‘Where are we going?’
‘We?’ She smiles. ‘Tick, I don’t want to get you more involved in this.’
‘You’re not going to send me back, are you?’ He looks sick at the prospect. ‘Not to AD or … or …’
‘I’m not calling protective services. You know that.’ She reaches for him and turns him toward me. ‘Why don’t you go back to that basement of yours? Maybe you can take Blackie. That way you can keep him safe for me.’
‘No!’ The boy pulls away. I can’t say I’m unhappy, though I would have gone. I would have used the opportunity to understand the forces acting upon this child. ‘I’m not leaving you again. Whatever you do, Care, I can help.’
A moment’s appraisal, and then she speaks. ‘OK, but if things go bad, will you promise to run – run and don’t look back?’
He nods.
‘We can meet in that basement if we have to. I don’t know if this place will be safe.’ She turns toward the windowsill but I’ve already jumped off. I wait by the door until she opens it. She pauses then looks back in the room, as if remembering its former occupant, and for a moment I see it through her eyes. This was his lair once, the man she misses so.
‘So where are we going?’ Whether it’s the cookies or the company, the boy has regained his pep.
‘I want to check out Fat Peter’s place again.’ She has put her melancholy behind her as she leads us away from the business district. Although the day’s traffic has picked up, the roads we are on are quiet and pitted, with only the occasional truck rumbling past. ‘There’s got to be something there and I didn’t get to examine it.’
‘Care …’ There is fear in the boy’s face. Something else as well. ‘There won’t be – you know Brian’s guys cleaned it out.’
‘I’m not looking for money, Tick. Or any of AD’s crap, either.’ She bites the word off, an edge in her voice. ‘I’m just hoping that whatever the old man wanted me to see is still there.’
The boy doesn’t look convinced but he keeps up with her, half running to match her pace as she strides back toward the tracks, toward the shadier side of town. She walks quickly, determined, and I dash to keep up, moving from shadow to shadow, watching the street before and behind for unwanted companions or the curious.
By the time we reach the pawn shop the morning sun shines full and bright, reflecting like a beacon off the dead blank window, its frayed curtain faded to dust. The light can’t make this street look clean, but it does illuminate the alley that runs behind the stained brick building. The guard of the other day has gone, and Care’s picks make quick work of the door.
Although she stands right inside it, her arm out to keep the boy from moving in, I slip easily by. She is right to show caution, but I sense no life in this empty room – nothing larger than a rat, at any rate, and those make themselves scarce at the sound of human feet, accustomed as they are to those both larger and more bloodthirsty than my two companions.
‘Blackie, careful!’ Startled out of her own watchful appraisal, she steps forward as I jump. The table that held the weights has been righted and set against the wall, although its surface is now empty of all but dust. It is the shelving behind that I wish to examine. The scent there is both more complex than the mix of filth and blood on the floor, and older.
‘What is it?’ The girl has the sense to follow my lead and leans over the table. I have pressed myself flat to reach under a shelf. There is little in my way. The boy was right: the thugs have cleared the shop of most of its contents. The ancient guitar, missing its strings, and the tarnished hookah are gone, as are the balance and its brass cylinders, the companions of the one the boy had pocketed. What does remain is trash: a china figurine; a dancer, her extended leg broken at the foot; an inkwell, chipped and dry. And a trace of the fragrance of a hand, pressed under here quickly and in duress. It held none of the bitterness I smelled on the boy, but rather something more. Not the blood and terror of the warehouse. No, this is something different but related. Another element of sweat. Of human turmoil. Could it be … fear?
‘Is something hidden under there?’ I am shoved aside as Care’s hand reaches beside me, feeling blindly in this cramped space. Her aroma – warm with feeding and with soap – obscures the trail and I back out, annoyed to have been displaced. ‘Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’
‘Probably a mouse.’ The boy is watching me intently, his gaze straying from my twitching ears to my restless tail. He is learning to gauge my displeasure. ‘I think you bothered him, Care.’
‘Nonsense.’ She leans in, groping heedlessly. ‘Wait, what’s that?’
I am on
my feet in a flash, ready to take on the scent. She pulls out a scrap of paper, orange, with printing on one side. The boy crowds close, pushing me aside and preventing me from putting my nose up to its surface.
‘It’s a ticket,’ says the boy, reaching for it. I growl, ever so slightly, but he is too distracted to heed my warning and does not put it down. ‘One of Fat Peter’s tickets. It must have fallen back there.’
‘Unless he hid it.’ The boy looks up as Care says this, his eyes wide with doubt – or fear. ‘The old man always said to question what I find,’ the girl goes on to say. ‘To not take anything for granted, or assume that something was an accident.’ She reaches for the scrap and turns it over in her hand. ‘It’s blank – just the number and M on the line for Mister or Miss. Maybe it is just a scrap.’
She tucks it into her pocket before I can get to it, but her purpose too is thwarted. ‘They took the books.’ Her voice is flat with disappointment. ‘Of course.’
Beside her, the boy fidgets, shifting from one foot to another. I eye him with distaste. He is old enough to have mastered the basics of toiletry and self-care. But no, instead of excusing himself he appears intent on getting the girl’s attention. I close my eyes, the better to concentrate on the faint whiffs of scent still in the air. Beyond the grime of the dilapidated shop, beyond the blood and fetor of Fat Peter’s last struggle, there is something heavier – a deep funk. I close my eyes to concentrate and see before me three silhouettes, the tallest one in black.
‘Care.’ Tick draws two syllables out of the word, the whine in his voice as bothersome as a fly. I do not wish to remember this dream, but if I must, I would prefer to do so quickly. ‘Care, I don’t like this …’