He shakes his head.
‘Business. Import, export – a little of everything. He wanted us to do a job for him a little more than a year ago – last July, maybe August. It was pretty much open and shut. He was bringing in whiskey – some high-test stuff that was below the radar of the inspectors. Only he wasn’t getting what he’d paid for. I gather he’d figured out that the seller wasn’t ripping him off – and, no, I don’t want to know how he did that – and he wanted the old man to find out who was messing with his product at this end.’
The boy looks up, waiting. Care has started to chuckle and the boy gasps. In their world, I gather, justice delivered is usually not a laughing matter.
‘It was his own fault, Tick. His own fault all along.’ She shakes her head before explaining. ‘He was bringing in whiskey and then rebottling it. Selling it to pubs that didn’t want to pay the tariff to be legit, you know? But he was doing it in a storage facility made for dry goods. In summer. The hooch he was bottling ended up being lower proof than he wanted and tasted funny to boot because it was evaporating. He’d gotten too big for his business and he’d gotten careless. Boy, was he angry when the old man explained it. He didn’t even have to go down to the warehouse to check it out.’
We’ve reached an intersection and she hangs back, motioning for the boy to do the same. ‘The old man said there was a lesson in that.’
‘People are stupid?’ He’s playing up to her. Smiling.
She smiles back, even as she shakes her head. ‘“Look beyond the obvious,” he told me. Look for what isn’t there – like a proper procedure – as well as what is.’
She leans out into the street. A truck is unloading wooden crates, each as wide as a man’s arms can reach. At least, as wide as those of the scrawny workers who wrestle with them, taking turns climbing onto the truck bed. A beefy grunt calls out orders, his voice obscured by the train rumbling just beyond.
‘Come on, Tick.’ She puts a hand on his shoulder and leads him out onto the sidewalk. She’s straightened up now, assuming what I think of as her downtown walk. Tick scurries to keep up, but even as he does he turns toward her.
‘Care?’ he asks.
She looks over.
‘What’s evaporating?’
‘Well, see that puddle?’ She points across the street where the workers are finishing up. Or would be – one of the two, a hunched, scrawny man, has dropped a crate, splashing the dirty water over the cobblestones.
‘You!’ The crew chief points, yelling. His voice is clear now. ‘That’s it. That’s the last straw.’
‘But I—’ A raised fist cuts the protest short. The scrawny worker backs away, into the street.
Blat! The honk of an air horn as the next truck pulls up makes the man jump. He stumbles on the broken stones, falling, just out of the tires’ path. ‘Watch it!’ The driver yells out the window, adding an obscenity for good measure.
‘Are you OK?’ Care runs into the street, reaching for the fallen man’s arm. He pulls back as if from a blow and turns. His face is a mass of bruises; his eyes large and sunken. ‘Mr Silver?’
He blinks at her then takes her hand as she helps him to his feet. ‘You again,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. What’s your name? Care?’
She nods. Tick has hung back and so have I, watching from the early morning shadows.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, then stops. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘Why?’ Care sees something in his thin and battered face. ‘What happened? Why are you working here?’
He brushes himself off front and then back, working almost as carefully as I would. Only from the state of his clothes and the thinning hair that hangs over his collar, I do not think he is by nature as fastidious as I. He is wiping his hands off. Looking everywhere but in her face. There’s a story here.
Risking traffic, I leap to the cobblestones. Scent may tell more of his tale than this man is willing to share.
‘I lost the business,’ he says at last. He is looking down at me, and I approach gingerly. This man does not appear cruel, but those who have been kicked are prone to pass that violence along. ‘It’s gone.’
‘But—’ Care shakes her head. ‘I just saw you. At the shop.’
‘Then you know.’ Chin up, he seems determined to sustain his pride. I pass behind him, sniffing at his cuffs. ‘You saw that we were in trouble.’
‘Well, yeah.’ Care’s brows bunch together, as if tangled by the questions waiting to form. ‘But – to be here? Loading the trucks?’