The Ninth Life

by Clea Simon

  ‘He didn’t like the old man.’

  The girl shakes her head, her confusion apparent.

  ‘He wouldn’t recommend him, he said.’

  ‘But that—’ She pauses, pained. ‘No, we did good work for him. He thanked me.’

  Another shrug. ‘That’s not what Diamond Jim said. I heard him talking to his boys.’

  She ponders this as she drinks, but says no more as she takes the mugs down the hall. While she’s gone, I watch the boy, who has more in common with a magpie than he does with the girl who has taken him in. The brass weight, for example: it is useless out of context. A shiny, small thing, but it means something to him. He takes it out of his pants and looks at it, rolling it around in his hands, even as his eyes dart around, seeking other small items to pocket. He watches me, too. Sees how my eyes narrow as he rifles through the papers Care has piled so neatly. He picks up a pen and I stand, stretching. My arched back makes him pause, and in that moment, she returns, mugs in hand.

  ‘Let’s get moving,’ she says, stacking the mugs on a shelf.

  ‘What about him?’ The boy nods toward me. I am sitting, my front paws together, as demure as a debutante now that he has put the pen down.

  ‘You’re right,’ she responds. For a moment, I am concerned. I turn, ready to jump off the windowsill. Ready to make a dash for the door. But she only reaches past me to open the window. The air outside is damp and cool, rich with infor-mation. She shivers and draws back but I stick my nose outside, reading the air. ‘You see? He can come and go now.’

  The boy mutters. I do not believe this is what he intended, but I have other concerns to occupy me now. I have heard their plans, and so I do not wait, and as Care ushers the boy toward the front door I make my own descent – window to ledge to the alley below. The night’s shelter has done me good. I leap and land with a grace I’d not remembered, and my satisfaction is deeper than vanity. I am on a hunt, and I cannot afford to fail.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  My goal is simple: I seek to understand what happened to me. How I came to be in that culvert as the rainwater rushed into flood. This is not an idle question, nor one I can easily answer with carelessness or age. I have observed myself, as I do others. I prefer high places to low, dry to damp. And I do not trust easily, when I trust at all. How, then, I came to near drowning in a roadside ditch, I do not understand. Nor what those two goons – the thugs who haunt the girl’s life – and their sinister colleague have to do with my near demise.

  I am not given to introspection. We beasts live in a con-tinuous present – we eat and mate, fight when we must and rest as we can. However, that image – that dream – haunts me. And although I acknowledge that its latest iteration, with the boy Tick as the central figure, makes no obvious sense, I cannot escape its implications. If I could remember, I would not spend time on such useless research. But I cannot. I am missing some part – some crucial element – of my past, and I fear that with it I have mislaid a clue that could serve me – could serve the girl – in our present straits.

  Those brutes, they are key. They and that culvert with its overwhelming flood. I have no desire to revisit that scene – even the thought makes my skin prickle and crawl like a case of mites. But I have picked up a scent, faint as a new leaf, which gives me hope. It is different from the others I have come across recently and yet somehow familiar. More to the point, it is mixed, ever so slightly, with other scents I recognize. The bite of chemicals. The mud of the river and the sour sweat of those two ruffians. The only factor missing is that of fear – human fear – so notable in its absence on this damp spring morning. It is the scent of an alpha male, a hunter like myself. Only one I do not recall, at least not outside my dreams. No matter, I am on the trail.

  This isn’t a simple task, a case of tracking a scent to its source. This figure is not only potent, he is accompanied by his crew. Three times those villains have surprised me. By the culvert, by the tracks, and then again as Care and the boy waited across the street from Diamond Jim’s. I will not let them do so again.

  It is with extra caution, then, that I take to the fog-slick streets, stretching my body to run low and sleek along the gutter and then up along a fence top. It should not surprise me, perhaps, when I see the girl turning into a passage before me. She has taken her own, more open path, but I could have predicted that our trails would cross if they be not one and the same. I pause, hanging back atop a marquee, as she turns down one particularly familiar street. Of course, she is approaching the jewelry shop, only this time she is coming via a back way, careful and alert. Crossing the roof, I see her as she makes her approach. Diamond Jim’s. I remember it well, the smug proprietor handling a female not much older than Care.

  Although I cannot make myself invisible, I slink down a drainpipe to where a ventilation shaft has been left uncared for and rotting. The vermin who have discovered this make themselves scarce at my approach; their sense of smell is finer even than mine. But I am not concerned today with fat grey rats or their nesting young. I creep inside the tight and fetid space, making my way into the building unnoticed by any human. I am not hunting now. I want only to listen and to watch.

  ‘It’s some girl!’ A female voice, young but harsh with wear. The same female, I see a moment later, Diamond Jim had been fondling in the alley. Unsure, perhaps, how well her voice carries, she has come into the back room and stands, blinking, her eyes heavy with mascara. I am looking down on her through the vent. I am in the inner sanctum of the greasy entrepreneur known as Diamond Jim.

  ‘Says she wants to see you.’ Her voice lacks affect despite its volume. Her face is likewise impassive, the movement of her irritated eyes the only sign of life.

  ‘Well, send her in.’ A deep voice, full of itself. Male.

  As the click-click-click of heels retreat, I realize the second speaker is not alone. Ribald comments remark on the departing woman’s skirt, her hair, her body, and I begin to understand the deadpan delivery. The armor-like cosmetics. Cats may be equally direct about their appetites, but we never belittle the ones we desire.

  Another entry, and although I cannot see her from my grate, I can tell by her footsteps, by the way she breathes as well as her scent, that the newcomer is Care. I can sense, as well, the male reaction – an intake of breath. Of appraisal, and I bristle in anticipation. These men are a type foreign to me, but I see in them the behavior of predators, the kind who hunt in packs. My antipathy is total, and I feel the fur along my spine spiking in disgust.

  ‘I have what you’ve been looking for.’ The girl begins to talk as soon as she enters. She has pitched her voice low and she has chosen her words carefully. It’s smart, giving the appearance of strength. Although I am still alert, I begin to relax. ‘I’ve finished the old man’s job.’

  ‘You have, have you?’ The boss – Diamond Jim. Only there’s an uncertainty beneath his casual query. She has started this conversation. She is in control of this, and he is feeling around for a way to take it back. To reclaim his standing before his colleagues. ‘You’re on the job now?’

  Chuckles, the coarse double entendre a cue for their support. The girl, wisely, does not react. ‘You contracted him to do a job for you. To retrieve the stolen necklace or to provide information that would result in its retrieval.’ She speaks coolly, her voice direct. ‘I have done that.’

  ‘Open your collar, sweetheart.’ The voice has become teasing, a slight lisp softening the final word. ‘Let’s see how it looks on you.’

  More laughs. Two men, situated to either side.

  ‘I don’t have the necklace.’ A slight wobble; she is feeling the strain. ‘What I do have is information that you can use, either for the retrieval of the missing jewels or …’ She leaves the sentence unfinished, although I suspect she concludes with a flourish of her hands. It’s a dramatic gesture, designed to turn her lack into a positive. Better than the stolen goods, her phrasing says, she has given him options.

  ‘Or what, babe?
’ He sounds short-tempered now. The tactic hasn’t worked. ‘You got something for me? Some kind of trinket? A keepsake you want to trade?’

  ‘I have information for you.’ She is repeating herself. I can hear the strain as she tries to regroup. ‘I have followed up on all the leads and I know who stole the necklace.’

  ‘What do you think, guys?’ He’s playing to his henchmen, enlisting them in some game I do not understand. ‘Do we believe her?’

  ‘I don’t know, boss.’ A low rumble, part growl, part laugh. ‘What’s she got to show for it?’

  ‘I said—’ Care again, a little louder.

  He cuts her off. ‘Exactly. Now, if you had something to give us … A little token of your esteem?’

  Footsteps. The men have advanced. It takes all of my will not to snarl and leap, assuming I could force my way past the metal grid of the vent. I suspect the girl is expending a similar effort, willing herself not to run.

  ‘Wait.’ A command, firm and clear. The men stop. ‘You hired the old man, my mentor, to uncover who had stolen your necklace. I have completed the job. George Bushwick has your necklace. I suspect he employed others to do the actual theft, but that shouldn’t matter to you. He is the one behind the theft.’

  A moment of silence. I can hear her breathe, a little shaky, and I hope that none of the men below share my aural sensitivity. This is not what she expected. Nor Diamond Jim, either, I believe. The silence is one of reckoning and recalculation. I examine the grill and consider my options.

  And then it happens. A bark like thunder, breaking loud. A laugh. Diamond Jim is laughing, and then his two henchmen are laughing with him, big, meaty laughs forced from the belly to support their leader’s mood. I strain my ears to hear what else is going on as the humorless thunder fills the room. I do not hear any major movements. The girl has not run, nor has she been attacked.

  ‘Oh, that’s rich,’ the big man says at last. He sniffs back tears and I picture him wiping his eyes with a be-ringed hand. ‘That’s good, sweetheart. Real good.’

  ‘Mr Jim?’ She sounds like a child again, her voice high-pitched with confusion.

  ‘Go on. Run along.’ Those big hands, those rings. Light footsteps as she stumbles back toward the door. ‘Don’t waste any more of my time. Unless—’ I hear her stop and turn. ‘Unless you do find something for me. You hear me, sweetheart? Come back with something real.’

  A second wave of laughter accompanies her footsteps as she turns and leaves, walking as quickly as her injured dignity will allow. I long to follow, to find her on the street. To press my own small body against her in solidarity and comfort. Instead, I make myself wait. As quickly as it rose, the laughter dies down, the two taking their cue from their boss.

  ‘She’s been checking up on Bushwick, boss,’ one of the men offers. ‘Watching him, maybe.’

  ‘So she has,’ says their leader. ‘Hey, maybe she will come up with something. She’s a sharp one, that girl. Almost makes me sad.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Care is fuming when I find her on the street. She’s too preoccupied to question my appearance here, downtown. Her fear – the shredded remnants of her courage – has turned to anger. ‘I don’t get it,’ she spits the words out, as much to the pavement as to me. ‘I don’t get that jerk at all. He paid for information. That was the deal. The old man never said he’d get the necklace back. Right from the start, he was clear – odds were the piece was already broken up. That’s what the pros do, and whoever took that necklace was clearly a professional.’

  She’s walking fast, shoulders hunched, working off the scare as nervous energy. ‘I know I’m right. The old man knew, too. “Fat Peter’s not on the level,” he said. Diamond Jim just wants to cheat me. And he did. I gave him the info. For free. I told him.’

  I have been trotting to keep up. She’s moving quickly, hurt and angry, but one word stops me. I freeze as she pounds ahead. She has been venting, the useless, necessary spewing of the young, and I have not focused on her rant until now, convinced that as she calms she will regain mastery of her emotions. Of her mind. But in her mood, she’s missed a beat – a crucial fact – and I have too. She feels cheated and devalued. Granted, their comments would do that. But their forced humor – that bark of relief – was telling. After she left, the men discussed what she had done. They praised her work. They understood its value, their admiration in inverse proportion to their insults, and it hits me: they knew. Before she told them, they were aware of Bushwick and his perfidy. They were seeking something else.

  In her anger, she is unlikely to realize this. I struggle for a way to tell her.

  ‘I told him,’ she says, her muttered words reach back to me. I bound ahead to reach her and then stop before her, staring up at her.

  ‘What?’ A hint of a smile plays around her mouth. The energetic walk has relieved some of the tension, and, as loath as I am to admit it, I have amused her, confronting her like this. ‘I swear you’re trying to tell me something. You think I’m wrong?’

  If only I could talk, could communicate with simpler language than my staring eyes, my lashing tale. This semaphore is inadequate when I would have her re-examine her own words. Rethink her overhasty conclusion.

  I stare at her with all the intensity that I can muster. I know what my eyes appear like to her. Green and cold. Unearthly and unreal, kind of like the emeralds in that missing necklace. And in that moment, I find myself remembering my dream. Those men who stared at me – they saw something in me. Something of value. An awareness – a consciousness. They knew that I understood their role, grasped their culpability and intent. For all that I am a furred beast, those three men, nameless and cruel, perceived me as a sentient being. I saw them, and they knew it.

  This does not help me now. To the girl before me, I am a distraction, if a welcome one, and I must scurry as she reaches out her arms. No, I do not wish to be held or carried. And it is with growing confusion that I trot alongside her as we return to the office with its broken door. How did those men see the awareness in me that this girl cannot? We pass through the lobby, skirting with unspoken agreement the ripe squatter who now snores beneath the stairs. The door she has propped behind her little more than an hour before has remained closed but she is hesitant, leaning on it as if to hear what may wait inside.

  It’s the smart move, utilizing the survival skills that someone – her mentor, the old man – has had her hone. I am bothered, however. I need peace. Time to think. I rub against the door frame, the beetle-rich scent of broken wood still fresh. I hear no other human inside; smell nothing beyond the girl, the boy and the unfortunate downstairs. And so I lean against the broken portal, the meager pressure enough to start its swing.

  ‘Blackie!’ She ducks as she whispers as if to stop a heedless act. But unlike her, I do not have to augment imperfect senses. I do not hesitate and, small and sleek, I find it easy to elude her hands. As our interaction has made me once again aware, I am a cat.

  Emboldened by my move, she pushes the door further. Even her dull senses let her know the room is undisturbed. Closing the door behind her, she looks about, then makes a beeline for the desk.

  I leap to the window. The alley below is quiet; its smaller inhabitants seek the dwindling shadows. I track a sparrow as it flutters, awkward with the debris it carries for its nest. I note its single-minded focus. This small creature would make easy prey, distracted as it is by thoughts of family and home. Yet its very vulnerability brings me back to my own thoughts, the questions I settled here to mull. The idea of home and family disturbs me and is easy to dismiss. No, I do not believe I was ever a domestic beast, nor would I want to be. But to be recognized – as those three killers did – that is something odd. Something I do not understand.

  ‘Here it is.’ The girl’s voice breaks into my reverie and I blink over at her, aware that time has passed. She is sitting in the desk chair, the papers she had sorted now spread before her. Leaning forward, she resembles a small bird hers
elf, her crest of hair falling in her eyes. ‘I knew it.’ She brushes the hair back with one hand while the other flattens out the page before her. It must have been one that was discarded, left crumpled on the floor by Bushwick’s men. I jump down, curious to examine such a document – something of importance to this girl and yet so easily overlooked by the crew who came to search.

  She is lost in thought, biting at her lip as I gain the desktop. She strokes my back, an automatic move, as I step forward to sniff the page. The girl, yes, she is everywhere. The old man, too. I have come to recognize the scent of ash and woolens, a dry and woody scent. Other males – those thugs, the big ones. They were here. They may have handled this paper, even, though in truth their scent is strong enough that I cannot distinguish hand from boot in this context, nor do I know if they can read. And something else, as well – fainter and yet – yes, the slightly rank perfume of the warehouse. What I thought was the stench of droppings, of dampness and of rot, is something different. Sweeter, artificial and not quite capable of masking the decay underneath.

  I close my eyes and open my mouth, the better to take in the scent. But the gentle pressure of her hand has increased. She is moving me. Sliding me over to focus her own face on the paper.

  ‘Sorry, Blackie.’ I cannot help my disgruntled mew. ‘I’ve got to read this. It’s the contract. Clear as day – recovery or information, which he knew. In fact, he said …’

  Her mouth goes slack, as if she’s been struck. She looks at me. ‘I was wrong. I didn’t give him anything he didn’t know, Blackie. I didn’t give him information. He knew. Diamond Jim knew – he knew about Bushwick before I told him. That’s why he didn’t react. But he didn’t care.’

  There is little I can add to this, although the involuntary purr that rushes through me must seem a poor response to the confusion on her face. ‘What?’ She shakes her head but I hang back. She is asking the right questions now. Better ones than I have, and more likely to be answered. But before she can go further, I hear a noise outside and my response – I stand on guard, my whiskers alert and bristling – causes her to gasp.