‘What if he wanted to tell me something but didn’t have the time?’ She looks at me as if I can answer. I blink. It encourages her. ‘He must have found something. He was the best, Blackie. He really was. He could look at a scrap of cloth and tell you about the person whose coat it came from. He could tell you how it got torn off and by whom, too. And, I mean, it took me long enough, but even I figured out that the theft wasn’t real – that it was a front for something.
‘Diamond Jim might have hired the old man to make the set-up look good, but I bet he got more than he planned. The old man found out what was going on – found out about this deal, about the scat coming in or whatever – only he didn’t get a chance to stop it. But he left word for me, Blackie. He left that message with Tick and he left me the blank pawn ticket, too, knowing that I’d figure out it meant that there was no product. No necklace to redeem. But I don’t know if he figured out what that meant for the job. For him. If he knew what was coming.’ She pauses and I wait for the return of the tears, of the trembling. She shakes them off. ‘He always left signs for me, Blackie. Tracks that I could follow – that he trained me to follow. He always left clues.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
This girl has potential. I have long thought that. But she does not understand the hunt. ‘Search for clues,’ she has said, and I envision an act both careful and quiet, like the long wait for a small head to emerge. Not this hurried march back to the office, back to a place her foes have discovered.
She clearly has other thoughts about the process as she bustles about the old man’s office. ‘That must be what Bushwick’s men were looking for,’ she says as she pushes the desk away from the wall. It moves with a rumble and growl that’s a bit loud for my taste, and I retreat to the windowsill to watch as she runs her hands along its back. ‘Clues. I mean, I know about the marker. But a weight? Really?’
She has flopped on her back to peer under the desk, and her next words are muffled. In part, I confess, because I am bathing. Such activity makes me nervous. But when she emerges she is shaking her head. Her hands are empty. Whatever she has hoped to find is not there.
‘I don’t get it, Blackie.’ She leans back on the desk and looks at me. If I could advise her, I would. Calm down. Be quiet. Let the prey reveal itself. Since I have failed thus far at transmitting any of my knowledge to her or her kind, I fold my front paws beneath me and sit in my most tranquil pose. At the very least, she is being quiet now, and I appreciate the cessation of noise.
‘The old man knew about the weight – about the marker.’ She’s talking to herself more than to me, but I blink again to urge her on. ‘That’s why he told Tick to tell me about Fat Peter, about the measure being off. About it being bigger than Fat Peter. Much bigger. He knew something else was going on, something besides that necklace. He had to.’
She slumps down on the floor with a sigh. ‘Or maybe he was killed before he could find out more. Or before he could find a way to get a message to me.’
We sit there in silence and I start to drift. I think of waters, rising, and open my eyes with a start.
‘Of course.’ Care is pulling herself to her feet. I do not know if my movement has wakened her or hers me. I stretch and watch as she once again pulls the papers from her bag. ‘Rivers. This contract. That’s why he let Diamond Jim fill it out, why he left it here for me. It’s all here. Everything. The old man would have known that was a fake business, a fake reference. He must have suspected something was wrong with the case. But why …’
She stands there staring at the paper. I do not think she is reading it again. Her eyes are focused on the middle distance, and the light off the alley has begun to fade, the shadows of the building across the way already creeping through the room.
‘He knew something was up, I’m sure of it. He took the case so he could find out what. He took their bait but he left the contract, like he left word about the weight. Just in case. He must have suspected a trap, but he couldn’t have known …’
She wipes her eyes and reaches for the light. Now she is reading again, examining the contract as if she had never read it before. ‘Rivers Imports on Dock Street, of course.’ She looks up and there’s a light in her eye. A reflection of tears. Or a spark. ‘The old man was killed down by the river, Blackie. Not far from where I found you. And that deal Freddie told us about? The one Diamond Jim was so eager to buy into? That’s happening down by the docks too. We’re going down there and we’re going to find out what’s going on. I’m going to finish what the old man started, Blackie.’