Trader

by Charles de Lint

  He gave the front of the café a frown, then started walking back to Trader’s apartment.

  Some people, he thought, remembering the way Jilly had treated him, were just so full of themselves.

  26 NIA

  Nia stood there with her fetish pebbles fisted tightly in her hand, all the joy she’d found in making them now drained away. Holding Buddy’s leash in her other hand, she stared at Max’s receding back. She managed to not cry and that was about it. Her legs trembled and her throat felt thick, too thick to breathe properly. Behind her eyes, the pressure of tears threatened to blur her vision. There was a sudden hollow place deep in her chest because she realized that she was completely alone now. There was no one left to turn to. First her mother had been stolen from her, now some kind of new craziness had rooted itself in the man she’d come to accept as Max and she couldn’t trust him anymore either.

  She watched him have an argument with one of the fortune-tellers, and then he was stalking off through the thinning park crowd, out onto the sidewalk paralleling Palm Street, and gone. Still fighting tears, she turned away. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but she knew where he was going: to kill the guy who’d stolen his body. She couldn’t suppress a shiver.

  Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe he hadn’t really been Max—or only part of Max, the rest a stranger. The rest, a piece of darkness with a silver tongue to make you trust him. To let him draw you in before he hurt you, too. Maybe he’d been there all along, sitting in his own head pretending to be Max, but he was in Max’s and her mother’s as well, riding them like they were puppets, taking what he needed out of their memories to get people like her to accept him.

  She shivered again.

  Only why? What was the point of it all?

  Because things just happened, she realized. She remembered asking her mother once—her real mother—about why bad things happened to people. How did it get decided, who died in a fire or who got hit by a car?

  “I guess that’s the difference between believing in God or not,” her mother had replied. “If you believe in God, you have to say it’s His will, even if you don’t understand why. If you don’t believe in god, then it’s all random, no more than the luck of the draw.” She’d regarded Nia unhappily, as though disappointed in herself for not being able to do more than answer one question with others. “I don’t know which is worse,” she’d added after a few moments.

  Nia didn’t either. Because you couldn’t feel safe no matter which you believed in. You didn’t feel safe, thinking about it, and you especially didn’t feel safe when whoever it was, God or chance, had turned its attention on you.

  She swallowed thickly. Stuffing her fetish pebbles into her pocket, she bent down to give Buddy a pat, needing the comfort as much as giving it, but the dog cringed away from her.

  “Don’t be like that,” she whispered to him. “I’m not a bad person. I’d never hurt you.”

  But Buddy crouched, backing away from her, belly to the ground, ears twitching. He had an unhappy look in his eyes. He knew Max had abandoned him, she thought. Just as Max had abandoned her.

  “He looks scared,” someone said. A woman’s voice.

  Nia looked up to see that one of the park’s buskers had stopped beside her, a red-haired woman carrying a guitar case. It took her a moment to remember that she’d seen Max talking to her, just before he’d left Buddy with her and stalked off. She felt a little nervous—anything to do with Max made her feel nervous now—but the woman gave off such a sense of warmth and caring that it was hard to maintain her jumpiness.

  “I guess someone wasn’t very nice to him at some point in his life,” Nia said.

  The woman crouched down and put out her hand, but Buddy backed away from her as well, belly still low to the ground, tail between his legs now. The only thing that was keeping him from bolting, Nia thought, was the leash. She held her end a bit tighter. The woman raised her gaze to Nia and shrugged.

  “He doesn’t seem to want to make friends with me, either,” she said. “I sort of just got him.”

  “I know,” the woman said. “My name’s Zeffy. Do you feel like talking to me for a couple of minutes?”

  “What about?”

  “Johnny Devlin.”

  “I don’t know any—” Nia broke off. “Oh, you mean Max.”

  Zeffy moved off the path and sat down on the grass. After hesitating a moment, Nia joined her. She had to give Buddy’s leash a tug before he reluctantly followed.

  “So he’s laid this Max business on you as well,” Zeffy said.

  “Well, he is Max,” Nia said. “I mean, I know Max and...” She sighed. “This is so confusing.”

  “You’re telling me. I take it you believe this business about them switching brains or whatever?”

  Nia sighed. “I guess it sounds pretty stupid when you say it like that. But...”

  “He’s convincing.”

  Nia nodded. She looked down at her jeans and picked at a loose thread. “Do you want to talk about it?” Zeffy asked.

  “What for?”

  When Zeffy didn’t answer, Nia looked up, searched her face. Zeffy regarded her sympathetically, but Nia wasn’t sure she bought the sympathy. It felt too much like she was setting herself up to be hurt again. She wished Buddy trusted her, wished he would press up against her leg the way he did with Max. She’d feel braver then.

  “I bought it, too,” Zeffy said finally. “Not once, but twice. I know it’s all bullshit, but even now I find myself more willing to believe him than not and it’s making me crazy.”

  “I know that feeling,” Nia said.

  “So how do you know him?” Zeffy asked.

  Nia hesitated, then said, “Depends which him you’re talking about. Max moved into the apartment downstairs about six months ago. I’ve never met this Johnny Devlin.”

  Unless he really was sitting there in behind those stranger’s eyes, assuming what he needed of Max’s personality to convince her.

  “And you’re convinced it’s your friend Max in Johnny’s body?” Zeffy asked.

  “I was—until he just blew me off.”

  Zeffy’s eyebrows rose questioningly.

  “But it’s not just Max,” Nia said. “It’s my mom, too.”

  She found herself describing what she’d heard that morning outside of Max’s apartment, then seeing her mother kissing the other woman, running away, meeting up with Max again.

  “But he’s acting different now,” she said. “I think he’s going after the other guy. I think he’s going to kill him and that’s something Max’d never do—not the Max I know.”

  “You know him that well?”

  Nia nodded. She’d spent too much time downstairs in his workshop to not feel that she knew him.

  “I don’t know,” Zeffy said. “It’s all so improbable. Why Johnny? Why Max?”

  “But it’s not just them.”

  Zeffy gave her another of those sympathetic looks. “I know you feel weird about your mother,” she began, “but—”

  “You’re just as bad as Max,” Nia said. “Why’s it so impossible when it comes to my mom? Why’s it possible for Max and Johnny, but not her? Even he didn’t believe me and he knows how it can really and truly happen firsthand.”

  “But if Johnny’s running some scam,” Zeffy said, “then where does that leave you?”

  Nia shook her head. “It’s not like that.”

  “Look. Your mom must know you’re homophobic, so it’s not like she’s going to come out and tell you that she’s gay.”

  “I’m not homophobic!”

  “Then why are you taking it the way you are?”

  “You don’t get it. You don’t know her. This is my mom we’re talking about.”

  Zeffy sighed. She looked away across the park for a long moment, before turning back to Nia.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know her. But what if it’s a new thing for her, too? The media might be romanticizing gays at the moment, b
ut most people grew up thinking there was a stigma attached to it. That kind of thinking doesn’t change easily—not even in the present social climate.” She paused a moment, then added, “How old is your mother?”

  “Thirty-eight. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “It just puts her in the right generation to still feel ashamed and embarrassed of her feelings. She’s probably as confused about it as you are.”

  Nia thought about that, about how strained their relationship had been lately, how everything had seemed off-kilter and weird.

  “Why wouldn’t she just tell me?” she said.

  She wasn’t really asking a question, thinking aloud really, but Zeffy reached out and covered her hand, giving her fingers a squeeze.

  “Maybe she was trying to find a way to get around to it,” she said. “It wouldn’t be the easiest thing to bring up with your daughter.”

  Nia nodded glumly. Especially not with the way things had been between them lately.

  “You should try talking to her about it,” Zeffy said. “Have someone else there with you when you do, so you’ll feel safe—you know, in case she’s really not herself—but...” She shrugged.

  “But you don’t believe it.”

  Zeffy shook her head. “Not about your mom and not about Johnny and Max. I don’t know what’s going on with them, but switching brains can’t be part of the answer. It’s just not possible.”

  “But what if it is?” Nia said, remembering the look in Max’s face when he’d left her with Buddy. Max, Johnny, whoever it was. “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

  “People have already been hurt,” Zeffy said. “My roommate Tanya for one. This whole business has really messed her up. She used to go out with this guy and now he acts like they’ve never met.”

  “I don’t mean that kind of hurt.”

  Zeffy nodded. “I know what you mean.” She sat up a little straighter, looking over to where the fortune-tellers were working the crowd. “Maybe that guy he was talking to after he left you knows something.”

  Nia remembered. “The Indian,” she said, turning to look herself.

  But the man was gone.

  “Well, there’s one other person we can talk to,” Zeffy said. “It’s this friend of mine named Jilly. If anybody’s going to be able to make sense of this, she will. Are you up to seeing her?”

  Nia’s nervousness returned. She didn’t know anything about this woman or her friend.

  “Is it...far?” she asked.

  “No, she’s working at the café today—Kathryn’s, over on Battersfield Road. We could walk.” Her gaze traveled to Buddy. “Actually, with him in tow, we’ll have to walk.”

  Nia knew the restaurant, though she’d never been inside. At least it was a public place.

  “You’ll like her,” Zeffy said when she saw Nia hesitating. “She’s really sweet.”

  Yeah, but who’s she got living in her head? Nia wanted to ask. Who’ve you got living in yours? Instead, she rose to her feet. They both had to coax Buddy into coming with them. Nia felt awful the way he slunk along beside them, flinching at every person passing by.

  This was really mean of you, Max, she thought, just deserting Buddy like this. Really mean.

  And it made her all the more uncertain as to who it had been wearing that stranger’s body in her company last night and this morning, because the Max she’d known hadn’t had a mean bone in his body.

  27 MAX

  Climbing the stairs to the hallway outside my apartment, I realize I’m not nervous this time. I’ve got too much of a bum on, an unfamiliar smoldering anger that’s sitting deep in my chest and fuels my courage. I ring the buzzer, give the door a couple of bangs with the heel of my hand. No answer. Either Devlin’s not in, or he’s not answering. I don’t really much care which it’s going to turn out to be. I want a showdown, but there are things I need here as well.

  I go back downstairs and circle around to the rear of the building. It’s quiet in the lane, no one paying any attention to me except for a couple of sparrows sitting on the edge of the garbage bin that I startle as I come around the corner. I make my way up the metal stairs of the fire escape to my kitchen window and pause there on the landing to study it for a moment. The screen pops off easily and with the window open a crack, I have no problem fitting my fingers under the bottom rail and lifting it up. I listen for any sound from inside. Nothing. I poke my head in to look around. Everything’s still quiet.

  Maybe he did the world a favor, I think as I climb in, and died in his sleep or something.

  It feels different inside. Nothing looks right. Then I realize what it is. Not Devlin’s presence—he hasn’t been here long enough to put a mark on the place. It’s more like wearing a pair of high-heeled boots in a room where you’ve never worn them before. The perspective’s off. Not by a lot, just enough to make things seem a little askew. That’s the way it feels standing here in Devlin’s body. It brings home my situation all over again and stokes the bum in my chest. I’m wishing now he were here so that we could have it out, here and now, winner take all.

  I move from the window into the center of the kitchen and look at the mess. Maybe I’m wrong about Devlin not having had time to make his mark. Dirty dishes everywhere. Empty soup cans on the counter. A couple of cupboard doors ajar. Box of cereal on the table, a half-finished package of soda crackers beside it. A sour smell comes from the garbage—chicken gone bad. Lovely.

  Most of the reason I’m here is to confront Devlin and I feel let down. But at least I can grab a few things to make my life a little easier. I start with my old canvas knapsack, pulling it off the top shelf in the hall closet. Haven’t used it in years and it smells a bit musty, but it beats the plastic job I bought last night. The spare key for the shop catches my eye, hanging there just inside the closet door. I fish it off its hook and head downstairs, leaving the door of the apartment open behind me.

  There’s less of Devlin’s presence in the shop. He’s been through all my papers and the desk’s awash with them, but otherwise things are pretty much the way I left them. I go to the cash register, turn it on and hit No Sale. The cash drawer slides open. He’s taken all the large bills, but there’s still almost forty dollars in ones and twos. I stuff the money in my pocket, then look around.

  What else do I want?

  I settle on some carving tools—the palm-handled set that Janossy left me and the long-handled detail carving tools that had been my father’s, the tips protected with pieces of wine cork. I wrap them in cloth and put them in the bottom of my knapsack, adding a handful of antique chisels and gouging tools that I’ve collected over the years, a sharpening stone and a pair of opinel knives, the high-carbon blades folded into their hardwood handles. Neither of the latter are as good as the one Bones lent me, but they’ll do.

  I look around a little more, hesitating beside Frankie’s mandolin. I feel bad, leaving it unfinished, knowing how much she’s been counting on it, but I can’t overburden myself.

  Back upstairs, I add a few more things to the knapsack—a photo of my father and mother, taken on their honeymoon. Janossy’s leather-bound journal, filled with his spidery handwriting and sketches. A pair of flannel shirts, some socks, underwear, my traveling toilet kit. I wish I could take my hiking boots, but they wouldn’t fit Devlin’s feet. My feet. Whatever.

  On the way back to the kitchen, I spy my wallet lying on the sideboard. Devlin’s taken all the cash, but my credit cards are still in it. And my bank card. I smile for the first time since I got here and pocket the lot of them and leave his wallet and address book in exchange. I didn’t want to use Devlin’s ID when the police asked me because that felt too much like buying into the lie. I feel better with my own wallet, even if the photo on my driver’s license doesn’t match the face I’m wearing. Funny how a few pieces of paper can make you feel better.

  What else?

  The momentary good humor fades as I realize how little I really need to take with me.
There are books, instruments, recorded music, a chair my father and I built, but nothing I can’t live without. When I study my belongings, I realize that, yes, they make a statement. They say who I am. But beyond my obvious profession, that person is a cipher. And the people he knows? How do they see him?

  I remember that first morning I woke in Devlin’s body. It seems like a hundred years ago now. But what I’m thinking about is how I needed to contact someone, needed a connection to who I knew I really was, and there was no one. There is no one. The closest thing I’ve got to a friend is Nia and she’s just a kid. A good kid, but it’s not like having a common history with someone. I’ve only know her for six months, since I first moved here.

  How do you get to a point in your life like this. I find myself wondering. How can you get to my age and have nobody important in your life? Lots of acquaintances, but no friends. I might as well really be a street person—no one to turn to, nowhere to go.

  I’m veering into the maudlin and get depressed just thinking about it. Depressed and angry, though my anger’s not really directed at Devlin anymore. If I could aim it at something and let it loose, I would. But I can’t. I’m not even sure I know why I’m so angry. All I know is that Bones was right. There was so little to hold me to this life that it’s no wonder Devlin was able to take it away and claim it for his own. I certainly wasn’t doing very much with it.

  I lived in a routine, my only real outlet the instruments I built, and what the hell does that say about me as a person?

  I can’t get out of there quick enough. Shouldering my knapsack, I step out into the hall, close the door behind me. I hesitate for a moment, thinking of Nia again. Maybe I left myself open to a future that puts me on the street, but there’s no reason for her to be there. I should never have let her hang around in the shop as much as I did. I should have encouraged her to get out more, meet people her own age, live.

  The smile I feel twitching on my lip has no humor in it. Right. Get out and meet people. Live a little. Advice I could have used for myself, when you come right down to it. But just because my life’s a mess doesn’t mean hers has to be, too.