by Clea Simon
Another shrug. The boy stares at the floor as if he can see something in the dim light. Care watches him as if she can do the same.
‘Well, you’ve got your marker now.’ She’s speaking carefully, her voice modulated to be even and calm. ‘Though why you still need it …’
A humorless laugh. ‘Wants her little friend to keep his toy, does she?’ AD turns to his colleague. ‘But the boss almost got caught out when he didn’t get the heads-up and he doesn’t like leaving loose ends.’ The red-faced man beside him tries for his own laugh and barks instead, rough and hollow.
‘It’s a token, too, darling. His token.’ AD leans in. ‘The token, you might say. For the best deal old Jim ever made.’
‘He’s getting something in return – from Bushwick?’ The girl is thinking aloud, piecing together the few fragments she’s uncovered. AD squints at her. He doesn’t like it.
‘We’re all getting something, darling. You, too, if you want to come back. I’m going to need every one of you street rats in a few days.’ He leans back and picks his teeth. ‘I’m going to get fat as old Fat Peter. Get myself a proper place, like he had. Wear some fine clothes. Dress you up, too, my girl. If you want.’
‘No.’ Care takes a step back, then another. This far from the lantern, her face is in shadow, but I can see the sudden tightness around her eyes and mouth. The worry as she processes what she is hearing. ‘No. Thanks anyway, AD. Tick?’
She reaches out her hand. In the dark room it catches the light, casting a shadow that dances over the brick wall. Another shadow stretches to meet it, dark and clawlike. Closer to the lantern, it looms much larger as it settles on the boy’s thin shoulder. The faint light picks out the dirt outlining the broken nails.
‘Tick’s staying with me,’ AD says, his voice full of certainty. ‘He’s done pretty good, keeping me up with goings-on around this town, and I’m willing to forgive him a certain lightness in his fingers. Besides, he’s got a taste for the life, now. Don’t you, Tick?’
The boy doesn’t respond. His head hangs in shadow, his dark hair obscuring his features.
‘Tick.’ Care’s voice breaks. She swallows and licks her lips. ‘Tick, you don’t have to stay with him. I don’t care if you – that you …’ She stops. He hasn’t looked up. ‘He’s a boy, AD. He’s just a child. He and I – he’s like my brother. I’m going to take care of him.’
‘How you going to do that, darling?’ AD’s voice has relaxed into a drawl. He’s enjoying this – playing with her as I might a resilient rodent. ‘You still intent on setting up shop like your old man?’
‘Why not?’ She steels herself. ‘He taught me things. I have skills.’
‘Taught you how to get yourself offed, most likely.’ He’s drawn the boy back. He’s bored and ready to move on. ‘Poking about in other’s affairs. But Tick stays with me.’
‘Tick—’ A last appeal to the child. He looks up, but he is so far in the shadows now, I do not think she can see this.
‘He doesn’t want your mothering, girl,’ AD growls again and steps in front of the lantern so his shadow falls before him. ‘He wants what I can give him. What I’ll have for him in plenty, now that he’s given his little plaything back. You’ll pay for that, won’t you, Tick?’ He turns, his shadow a grotesque giant looming large. ‘But I’ll still have a place for him once we’re through.’
The boy yelps as AD’s companion grabs his arm and Care starts forward. I will leap, if I have to. Will attack, with tooth and claw, although I already know I have met my match. The confrontation does not happen.
‘Leave it, girl.’ AD steps toward us. Behind him I can see the brute as he ushers the boy into a farther room. ‘Go while you can.’ His voice has grown softer again and Care looks up at his face. To me, the deep grooves appear the same as before. The ingrained dirt, the stubble. She blinks, though, as if someone else has appeared. She opens her mouth and reaches out.
‘Go.’ AD shakes his head, his voice sad now. ‘Just … go.’
I look up in alarm as Care makes a strangled sound and see the light reflecting off the tears on her cheek. Without another word, she turns and runs out to the street, and I am close behind.
THIRTY-FOUR
‘It’s not fair.’ The girl has recovered by the time we return to the office. Although I am exhausted by the night’s adventures, spent and sore, she paces around the small room. Heedless now of danger, she has switched on the bright electric light and casts shadows as she walks. ‘AD has plenty of runners. Tick was never a regular. And he’s not – he doesn’t need the scat, Blackie. Not yet. Though if AD keeps giving it to him, giving it to him when he’s hungry or cold …’
She leaves the thought unfinished. I am watching her from the windowsill, washing my haunch, pressing my tongue against the bruised and swollen flesh. I find no blood. My hide is too thick to be easily broken and my fur seems to have insulated me from any worse injury. But I will feel this night and the accumulation of insults to my body.
‘The weight.’ She stops, shaking her head, then starts pacing again. ‘As a marker, but why? Marker for what?’
I pause, leg askew, and look at her. Of course, she does not know the details of the deal pending in a day’s time. I blink, unsure how to tell her. But she has heard enough.
‘He’s not cooking anymore, that’s clear. So he must be getting it – bringing some in. But why …’ She sighs and collapses on the couch. I leave my perch on the windowsill to lie beside her. She is tired, overwrought. If I can relax her and get her to rest, she will – we both will – be the better for it. I stretch out and, without thinking, she strokes me, the rhythmic pressure warm and comforting. The pain in my side dulls. Under her touch I feel my body stretch, the muscles relax and lengthen. With my eyes closed, I feel I could extend to fill this sofa, my feet up on the arm rest, my arms behind my head. It’s an odd illusion, but lying here, the girl by my side, I find it strangely comforting as I drift off to sleep.
It is that smell. That pungent, bitter smell that hits me first. The drug – the one AD manufactures. The one Tick, apparently, has developed a fondness for, although he is not yet as addicted as that poor woman in the alley. I am in the dark, the cold dark, but I would recognize that stink anywhere.
The laughter, however, is less familiar.
‘Relax,’ says a voice, male and heavy with authority. ‘You’re not giving anything away. You’re building your base. Everyone here will be clamoring for the re-up, and you’ll be the one with the source.’
‘I guess.’
I turn and see I am not in complete darkness. Rather, I am hidden. Crouched behind a stack of flimsy platforms – pallets, the word comes to me. In the spaces between their wooden slats I can see two figures. No, three, and the flickering glow of a fire. I see no faces, only bodies. Men, standing, dressed for the weather – the cold that has me shivering in my hiding space. But just from those two words, I identify one of the speakers. AD, only less sure of himself than I’ve ever seen him. Now that I have identified his voice, I can make out his scrawny form standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets. Like Tick, only bigger. I cannot remember the gang leader looking so vulnerable or unsure. ‘Only …’
He doesn’t finish. He actually scuffs his feet, and I see that they are standing in a wide, open room. A warehouse space. Despite his height, he looks small to me. Insignificant in this setting.
‘It’s not a waste, it’s an investment.’ The speaker accents the last word in a way that’s familiar to me, and I strain to see. Only, I am not as flexible as usual, for some reason. I feel ungainly. Stiff. In my dream state, I am more aware of my age, of the wear I have subjected this old body to. ‘Come on, don’t hold out.’
A hand extends toward AD. It reaches out of a coat sleeve trimmed with fur. I start and almost waken. I recall that fur. The stench of death, of fear, although the reek of the drug masks it. I shiver in my sleep. I need to readjust, to see more. But as I do, I knock against the pallet, my
old limbs too clumsy with the cold. And suddenly the voices change to shouts. Commands. I am surrounded. Grabbed and dragged from my hiding place, thrown at the feet of the men standing there. I know this warehouse. I know these men. This deal. They see this knowledge in my face, and reach for me—
‘Ow.’ I open my eyes to find the girl looking down at me. Her hand is in her mouth but even so I can see the line of red where I have scratched her. I look up in mute apology, unable to express my dismay.
‘Just as well.’ She pulls herself off the sofa and makes for the desk. ‘I really need to figure this out.’
Forlorn, but also preoccupied by my strange dream, I follow, brushing against her ankles as a gesture of peace. She sits at the desk and when I jump up to join her she doesn’t protest. One advantage of being a dumb animal: we are not held unduly responsible for our actions.
‘What gets me is that AD wasn’t cooking.’ She’s talking to herself, but I listen. She is an observant one, and I am interested in her process. ‘He’s always cooking, at least small batches for the crew and all.’ She’s staring at a piece of paper – the original contract – but I do not think she sees it. ‘And the crew was scattered, as if he didn’t need them.’
I want to tell her about what I have witnessed. About AD giving out the drugs he made. About my dream. I simply sit and lash my tail. I am listening. Aware.
‘But he wanted Tick – that much was clear. I don’t think …’ She bites her lip, looks at me. ‘Tick’s in trouble because of me, Blackie. Because I’ve asked too many questions. Because—’
She stops. I too have heard the echo in her words. ‘Damn it. This is what poor old Jonah was talking about, only I was too set on finding the necklace to hear him. It’s not about the necklace – it’s about this deal, whatever this deal is. It’s big. Bigger than the usual, and it was true about Fat Peter, he was just small potatoes – not on the same level. I should have listened when Tick tried to get it right. That’s what the old man was trying to tell me. That’s what got him killed. And now AD’s got Tick.’
She stops, staring into space. I watch her and wait. She is putting together what she has learned. She sees that there is a deal going down, something that involves that awful drug. Something that she has inserted herself into.
Only she has given up the marker. She has been warned off. She will be safe now, if she lets this go. The old man is dead. Tick may be a hostage, but the boy has been complicit in these dealings. Has made some choices that she may consider unwise but were his to make. I think of the fur. Of the stench of death and fear. I think of that awful moment of discovery. Of being trapped. I will her to be smart. To make the right choice. To live.
‘I don’t believe it, Blackie.’ The sun is barely up. It rakes through the room, highlighting the shadows beneath her eyes as she pushes back from the desk and reaches for her coat. ‘I know Tick hasn’t made the best choices, but he’s a kid and I …’ She pauses and I can see the tears glittering in her eyes. ‘This is my fault, Blackie. He may hate me for it, but it’s what I’ve got to do.’
I stretch, the stiffness of my nightmare not entirely im-agined. She is talking to herself more than to me, but I know if I wait she will explain herself. It is a failing of sorts. A weakness that could make her vulnerable to another with less charitable motives. I have come to find it pleasant, as if we were conversing. Not that she is capable of understanding the subtleties of my mind or my various modes of communication.
As I listen she rattles on, gathering the last of her foodstuffs in her bag as she talks. She seems uncertain about what to take, and I see that she is thinking she may not return.
‘The old man always used to tell me to think for myself, Blackie.’ She picks up the short knife she has used for the cheese. Wipes it off and puts it in her pocket. ‘That those in authority are as likely to be hindered by their position as empowered by them. And Tick and I, well, we were lucky to get out of the system when we did.’
She has taken the contract and the other papers. The ledger and, after a moment’s consideration, a piece of the door frame that has lain splintered on the floor since we returned. ‘But I don’t have the leverage to stand up to AD and his new buddies. Not yet.’ Now she stands by the door, giving the room a last once-over. ‘And I need something heavy to use if I’m going to spring a trap.’
THIRTY-FIVE
I’m not a fan of cages of any sort, and I know too well how traps can backfire. And so it is with deep unease that I accompany her to a section of the city as yet unknown to me, to an area of bare sidewalks and buildings that smell of rot.
Part of it is that the aftermath of the nightmare has stayed with me. The feeling of vulnerability as I watch something horrible take place. The sense memory of being grabbed, of being taken, is too close to my own experience, and while I cannot recall the actual moment of immersion – whether I was caught unawares by the flood while sleeping in a low place or captured and thrown in with malicious intent – I value my freedom too much to like these cold stone walls, so high they would shut out the weak morning sun.
Even Care seems to have second thoughts now that we’re down here. She pauses in front of one building’s grimy steps. A puddle has formed in the worn spot and I sniff it, hoping for a clue as to the occupants who trudge past here, but I get little. Sweat and worn leather, the threadbare ends of clothing worn for too long. This is a place of drudgery rather than cruelty, though, and that perks me up. And the foul smell of the drug – that, at least, is absent.
‘Carrie? Is that you?’ The girl jumps and I slink back, squeezing myself into the shadow of the stairs. A dull lump of a woman approaches. Not much taller than the girl, she appears several times as wide, a hillock rather than a human, an illusion aided by her mushroom-colored wool coat. An oversized purse of the same nondescript beige hangs over one arm, while in the other she holds a paper bag already stained with grease and a paper mug. ‘Carrie Wright,’ says the hillock, small brown eyes blinking under a frazzle of rusty curls. Her voice is warmer than I had expected. ‘As I live and breathe.’
The girl straightens and stands her ground. We are out in the open here, as open as this claustrophobic street can be, and so I sit up to watch. If the girl does not deem this creature a threat, perhaps she is the reason we came here.
‘Miss Adele.’ The girl’s voice trembles, though with fear or something else, I cannot tell. ‘I was hoping to see you here.’
‘Of course, of course. You always could come by.’ She shifts the mug and bag to her left hand, hiking the purse up her shoulder as she does so – a movement both cumbersome and familiar, the daily burden no longer noticed. I am mistaken, she is not a hillock. She is a bear, emerging clumsy from its winter rest. This done, she reaches out as if to touch Care – or to grab her. ‘Let’s go inside.’
‘No.’ Care steps back, just out of range. The bear blinks then lets her arm drop. ‘I’m sorry.’ Care’s voice softens. ‘I just came because I need your help.’
‘Of course, anything.’ The bear nods, making her rusty curls bounce. ‘I’m afraid the investigation into your parents’ accident has been suspended, but—’
‘It’s about Tick.’ Care doesn’t let her finish. ‘Thomas. I’ve done what I can. Tried to keep him with me, take care of him, but he’s gotten … he may have gotten involved in something too big, and I might need help.’
‘You could bring him in.’ She stops. Care is shaking her head. ‘You want protective services? An emergency intervention?’
‘If I have to.’ Care’s voice breaks a bit. ‘I’m not sure, but I may— Is there a number? Somebody I can call?’
‘I have a card.’ With her free hand the bearish woman starts to rifle through her purse, which begins to slide off her shoulder. She grabs it and kneels, depositing the paper bag on the steps. I step forward. It smells interesting, and it is warm.
‘What?’ She jerks the bag back and hands it, with the mug, to Care before returning to her purse. After a m
oment’s furious digging, she pulls out a card. ‘Here. This is the hotline. If a child is in danger, we will come. In force.’
Care appears thoughtful as she looks at the card.
The woman, in turn, is reading her face. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t give you that before, Carrie. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe you or Thomas. It was the system. We thought it was a good placement for him. For you. This city …’ She stops. Care keeps staring at the card. ‘I’m sorry.’
Care tucks the card in her jeans with a nod. ‘Thanks,’ she says as she hands back the bag and the mug.
‘Keep it,’ says the woman. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
We share the donut in an alley about a quarter mile away. Despite the relative quiet of the street and the departure of the woman into the building, Care is eager to get away and doesn’t even stop to examine her bounty at first. She walks quickly, her head bowed, but we are not interrupted, and when she finally slows we are back in familiar territory, the buildings more rundown but the streets less populous, even now as the morning sun begins to dry the puddles.
The pastry is cold by then; its creamy topping thick. I lick it for the richness of that greasy coating but leave the doughy part untouched. Care looks longingly at the wet bit I have discarded but contents herself with the remainder, dipping it in the even milkier contents of the paper mug.
‘You want some coffee?’ She sees my nose twitch as I take in the scent of warm and sweet, then holds the mug down for me to taste and laughs as I recoil at the bitterness beneath the cream. Her response warms me, more than that foul beverage could, and I find myself purring. We are on the sunny side of the alley and I have begun to feel better about this day. Better about everything, except the idea of a trap.
‘I can’t really do it,’ she says and I look up. She has the same concerns as I do, I see. It is these concerns she addresses, rather than any query of mine. ‘I mean, I won’t call protective services. They’re just for leverage with AD. They know him. He’s done some time for using kids and I’ve got to get Tick out of there.’