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.