I remember how they hit the floor when Care backed into the table. How their heft had made a solid thud and yet how they had moved, following a circumscribed path from her feet across the boards. I had no time to examine them, to make more than the most cursory observation of that room or its too-still occupant. All I had was that motion. The movement and the sense of weight. This one isn’t moving now, though, and so I paw at it, making it roll on the uneven ground.
‘Look at you, Blackie. Just like a kitten.’ I pause, annoyed. This girl is missing something. Not seeing the importance of the heavy cylinder. Then I smack it, once again, rolling it into her leg.
‘You want to play?’ She picks it up and I lose hope. If she tosses it for me, I will simply leave. Go find some grubs or a day-blind vole to ease my hunger. But as she does, I see her focusing. Her brows go up and she turns the piece over in her hand, drawing it close to examine the engraving on its flat bottom.
‘M,’ she reads. ‘I think it’s an “M,” it’s in a circle with some kind of design.’ She squints and tilts it toward the light. ‘Yeah, M. Must be the manufacturer, or maybe it means “metric.” One milligram?’ she reads, hefting it in her open palm. ‘Funny, it feels heavier to me.’ She bites her lip while she’s thinking, so preoccupied that I can stare right at her. ‘Where did Tick …’ Her voice trails off and I lose hope. If all she can connect this to is that sad boy, I will take off. She has saved me, twice, but I have done all I can. Perhaps our paths will cross again.
‘This came from Fat Peter’s,’ she says at last, a strange energy invigorating her voice. ‘It’s one of Fat Peter’s weights, the ones he uses when he buys. You don’t think …’ She’s looking right at me now, but I don’t flinch. She’s on the right track, I am sure of it, and I blink slowly so she will know that I approve.
‘I was supposed to go there, you know. My teacher – the old man I worked for – wanted me to follow Fat Peter. That’s what Tick’s message meant. We were tracking some street artists – real pros, he thought – who had knocked over a store downtown. They’d taken a fancy necklace – a showpiece, the old man called it. It was probably broken into loose stones. Emeralds, he said. Those are easier to move, and Fat Peter, well …’
She pauses. I am beginning to lose interest. The piece in her hand means something. It is real. Solid. But she is talking about people who are gone, and I am hungry. I turn away. There are people out there I do not trust. Men who have hurt me and would hurt her too. Do I dare leave her?
‘Blackie, I had a thought.’ I think of fish. Of something squirming in the mud of the culvert. ‘That message … maybe it wasn’t shorting someone that got Fat Peter killed, after all. Maybe it was someone who came by looking for work, someone Fat Peter would have seen as easy. A mark.’ She bites her lip. Looks at the weight though I do not think she sees it. ‘Could Tick have done it?’ She isn’t asking me. ‘Could Tick have killed Fat Peter?’
SIX
Size does not equal lethality. I am not boastful, but I have no doubt that I am a better hunter and a neater killer than this girl who now sits beside me, her green eyes wide. Likewise, although I doubt that pale child we left at the abandoned building could have taken down the adult male we found at the pawn shop, I cannot completely discount the possibility. Not when I see how Care hefts the piece in her hand – how solid it is. How heavy and cold.
What I do know is that neither of us is thinking clearly right now, and that I have the means to remedy this.
I rise, stretching, and consider my options. Although I had previously noted the signs of prey in the vicinity, I also consider scavenging. This girl must eat as well, and I doubt she has taken anything since the scraps she shared with me. Unlike her, I have the freedom of moving relatively unseen. I could, for example, head back across the tracks. Human habitations offer the best chance of edible scraps, and I can move among them with barely a notice. The brute in the alley would be an exception. He is not someone I would choose to encounter, but he is not seeking me.
I picture Fat Peter’s shop, the jumble of objects that I had hoped to examine. Unless you consider the prematurely bloated corpse, I cannot picture anything edible there, nor do I remember any scents other than dust and sweat and a faint metallic tang. And yet, the memory intrigues me and I conjure it in my mind. There was the work surface – a table of some sort – that Care had bumped into. The walls had been lined with shelves. Even the display window had been obscured by shelves, and I had sensed no bolt holes in the old floorboards. Still, the man had clearly liked to eat. And why else would his workplace interest me?
‘What is it, Blackie?’
Care is looking at me, and I realize my ears have gone wide and flat, as they do when I am thinking. Perceptive girl; I can see why someone took her in.