‘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.