The Good Thieves

by Katherine Rundell

  Silk and Vita had just reached the end of the alley. Now they turned and waited for the boys.

  ‘I guess –’ Samuel gasped for breath, and his eyes were alight – ‘we gave them a reason to stare.’

  Across the road stretched the black expanse of Central Park.

  ‘That way!’ said Vita.

  ‘Can we have a pact, next time,’ said Samuel as they ran, ‘that when one of us says run, you have to run?’

  It had begun to rain, and the ground was slippery. They were halfway across the road when the door of the kitchen swung open again, and the men came out.

  ‘Hey! Slow down! We ain’t gonna hurt you!’ called one.

  Silk swerved, and Vita tripped over her own foot in the middle of the road and cursed. Cars rushed by, inches from her. She hauled herself up and darted over the road, weaving in and out of traffic. The others were waiting, and they threw themselves into the darkness of Central Park.

  It was very different from the autumn-bright place she and Grandpa had walked through. He would be furious if he saw her now – he would think she had broken her promise – but Vita shoved the thought away. It was pitch black and she led the way at a run, down the empty tree-lined avenue, past the spot where Dillinger had grabbed her arm. The footsteps behind them were closing in – Vita dodged behind a dripping wet bush and the others followed, panting.

  Footsteps neared them, then passed them, heading further into the Park.

  ‘Come out, kid! This isn’t a game.’

  Vita crouched, utterly still, rain dripping off her face. She was aware it was not a game.

  The voice came again; it was impossible to tell from exactly where. ‘Just give us that ring, and everyone gets to go home.’

  The four faced one another amid the leaves.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ breathed Silk. There was a crackle of panic in her voice. ‘We can’t outrun them.’

  ‘Yes you can,’ whispered Vita, for the men were unfit, built for muscle not speed. ‘Only I can’t. You should go! They’re only interested in me.’

  Arkady snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  Vita cast a desperate look into the Park. The path forked ahead, leading to one wide footpath and one narrow one. The autumn leaves had fallen so thickly they almost hid the manhole cover in the middle of the narrow path.

  The same manhole cover down which Dillinger had disappeared.

  ‘If you come out now,’ came a voice through the dark, beyond the trees, ‘we’ll be in a much better mood than if you come out later.’

  ‘Someone should scalp the little brat.’

  The footsteps began to return towards them.

  Vita looked again at the manhole cover. Then she crept, her left foot dragging through the wet puddles, water soaking into the red silk of her boot, and bent to grab the metal edge of it. She heaved. It lifted a quarter of an inch.

  ‘In here!’ she hissed.

  Arkady stared at her. ‘Vita!’ he whispered. ‘That’s the sewer!’

  ‘It’s not!’ She struggled with the disc of metal. It weighed as much as a grown man. ‘It’s OK. Come on!’ she said to the manhole cover, and heaved again.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw someone else do it. That man, Dillinger.’ Their faces were loose with astonishment. ‘Here, help me, one of you! – I can’t lift it.’

  All three scrambled to her side and together they lifted the cover clear.

  ‘Quick!’ said Vita, looking back over her shoulder. They were out in the open, vulnerable.

  Silk looked down, disgusted, at the cold blackness beneath their feet, but the burr of voices was coming closer. She set her foot on the ladder and disappeared into the dark. Arkady followed at a swift scrabble. Samuel gave Vita a push.

  ‘Go.’

  Vita went as fast as she could, which was not fast, her left foot twisting and slipping against the metal rungs of the ladder set into the brick wall. An agonising pain shot up towards her knee.

  She was only halfway down when above her Samuel gasped, and the cover clanged shut, encasing them all in darkness. He did not follow her down the ladder, but leaped outwards, dropping past her into the black and landing in a practised crouch on the floor. Then he came shinning back up the ladder beneath her.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ he asked, his voice low.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said, but his presence on the rung below – the knowledge that if she slipped she would be caught – helped, and she moved more swiftly, gritting her teeth.

  They stood, the four of them, at the foot of the ladder. Vita could not see the walls; could not see her own hand in front of her.

  ‘Does anyone have a torch?’ asked Silk.

  Samuel felt in his pockets. ‘I’ve got matches,’ he said.

  He lit one, and in its flickering light they could see they were standing at the opening of a tunnel – to the left, there was a black, wet wall.

  ‘Shh,’ said Silk. ‘Listen!’

  There was only the drip of water; and then voices came from above them.

  ‘This is ridiculous. Let’s get out of here.’

  There was a snort: cruel, and frightened. ‘I’m not going back to him without that ring: you can if you want. They can’t have gone far – she’s a cripple!’

  Vita’s eyes widened, and, voicelessly, she pointed down the dark tunnel. If the men thought to lift the manhole cover, they must see only darkness.

  ‘How do we get out?’ whispered Arkady as they walked.

  ‘There are hundreds of manholes all over New York,’ said Vita.

  Samuel nodded in the match-light. ‘We’ll keep going until we see a ladder.’

  ‘Some of them will be bolted down,’ said Silk.

  ‘But not all. We’ll just go on until we find one that isn’t.’

  Samuel led the way, holding his matches up high until they burned down to the very tips of his fingers.

  ‘I’ve only got five matches left,’ said Samuel after a few minutes. ‘I should probably save them.’

  So they went on, Samuel and Vita with their hands on the left wall, Silk and Arkady on the right, feeling for a ladder to the sky above.

  Absolute darkness does strange things to time. Every step Vita took was the same as the previous one; it became like a dream, a nightmare, edging in silence through the dark. Had she not heard Arkady’s breath beside her, the sound of Silk’s feet, the brushing of Samuel’s coat sleeve against the wall, she would have doubted she was moving forward at all. The only other sounds were the dripping of water, and an echoing scratching sound from the tunnel ahead of them. Vita clenched her fists and prayed it was not a rat; and then, on second thought, prayed that it was.

  They walked on, and the tunnel grew tighter, close enough to touch both walls at once. It may have been only minutes, or far longer, when Samuel, turning a bend in the underground space, stopped suddenly, and Vita walked into his back.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’ she spoke in a whisper; the dark impelled silence.

  ‘There’s something up ahead.’

  ‘What?’ said Arkady.

  ‘Light.’

  ‘Thank God,’ breathed Silk – but Vita’s already cold hands grew colder.

  ‘It’s can’t be sunlight,’ she said. ‘It’s dark outside, remember?’

  She could not see the faces of the others, but she could hear Arkady’s groan. Trying not to shake, she stepped around the corner, keeping her left side pressed against the wall.

  The passage continued for thirty paces, then twisted again, and from beyond the bend in the tunnel came a yellow glow.

  ‘What now?’ asked Arkady.

  ‘We could go back,’ said Vita. ‘And hope they’ve gone.’

  ‘This isn’t supposed to happen!’ said Silk. Her voice had tears in it, but she swallowed them. ‘I would never have come down here if I was working by myself! This is why you can’t trust people! You end up buried underground.’

  ‘Shh,’ said Arkady
. ‘They’ll hear you!’

  ‘I don’t care!’ But she lowered her voice.

  ‘I say we go on,’ said Vita. And although her whole body felt heavy enough to crack through the floor, she led the way.

  She went as silently as possible, lifting her left foot with agonising care, laying it down without a sound. Samuel, with the feather-light toe-heel walk of an acrobat, followed, and after him an animal tamer and a pickpocket: people accustomed to silence. So it was that the men did not hear their coming.

  Vita looked around the corner, and choked back her gasp of fear. The tunnel was wider, enough to allow six men to pass abreast. Hurricane lamps stood on the floor, and electric torches had been hung, swinging, from the ceiling.

  A row of tables stood pushed against one wall, and ten men stood over them, pouring clear liquid into glass bottles. Others pasted labels on the bottles: Muscovite Vodka. More men, dressed in dark colours, stacked the bottles into crates. Some smoked while they worked, cigarettes hanging limply from their mouths. The air was dank, and cold.

  But that was not what made Vita gasp. A briefcase had been slung on to a large wooden box in the corner, and next to it lay two rifles and a handgun, wet with the grit of the tunnel floor. And, leaning over the briefcase, counting stacks of bills into it, was Dillinger.

  Vita stared at the guns; at their cold, matter-of-fact presence, large as the room itself. Dillinger closed the case, straightened up, and lurched backwards to lean against the wall, his face contorting, the crown of his sandy hair pressed against the dripping wall.

  ‘He’s still drunk,’ breathed Silk behind her.

  Vita ducked back round the corner.

  ‘We’re trapped,’ she whispered.

  Samuel shook his head. ‘There’s a ladder out,’ he said. ‘Did you see?’

  Vita had seen; beyond the busy workspace, where the tunnel narrowed again, lit by torchlight, there was a ladder leading upwards.

  ‘We could just wait,’ said Samuel. ‘They have to leave sometime.’ But as he spoke, his voice caught, and he jerked backwards a few steps.

  ‘Someone’s coming down it,’ he breathed.

  Vita put one eye around the corner, trusting the dark to envelop them. A shining pair of leather shoes appeared on the ladder, followed by a calf-length black cashmere coat.

  Sorrotore landed with a thump on the floor of the tunnel. Vita’s heart twisted in her chest as he glanced around at the men loading bottles. They did not meet his eye, but the speed of their work suddenly increased.

  ‘Dillinger!’ said Sorrotore. ‘What’s the hold-up? You were due up four minutes ago. The lorries can’t wait. We can’t have any more mistakes!’ His eyes were wilder than they had been at the party; there was stress written in the pasty colour of his skin.

  Dillinger still leaned against the tunnel wall. Now he opened his eyes, his mouth turned down so the edges almost reached his neck.

  ‘I couldn’t make them work faster.’ His words came out thick and slow. ‘Why don’t you threaten to kill them? That usually works.’

  And he closed his eyes again.

  Sorrotore strode up to him. Vita thought he was going to attack him, but he only picked up the suitcase. He called out a name – ‘Kelly!’ – and a man, large as a doorway, came to his side.

  ‘What the hell’s going on with Dillinger?’ said Sorrotore.

  ‘He’s drunk,’ said Kelly.

  ‘I can see that, thank you. Why? Since when?’

  Kelly shrugged. ‘He was talking about that Hudson Castle – said he didn’t like being set on a kid, and especially not a cripple.’

  ‘He’s been whining to the men?’ Sorrotore’s voice was ugly.

  Kelly looked alarmed at the effect his words had had. ‘I didn’t say that! I just meant, he’s been drinking hard for months now, and it’s gotten worse in the last few days. He hasn’t been sober for maybe … seventy-two hours.’

  ‘He can be drunk on his own time, but not on mine. I spent fifteen years building all this up from nothing! I didn’t do it by employing losers. He screwed up the Louie Zwerback job, too. I’ve got people sniffing round. Get rid of him.’

  Kelly hesitated, his face lurid and uncertain.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Sorrotore shrugged. ‘You know exactly what I mean.’ He turned to the rest of the men. ‘All right,’ he called. ‘Move this stuff out. You’ve got two minutes.’

  The small space became chaotic and unbearably loud as the rattle of bottle racks being stacked quickened, and the men began to ferry the boxes up the ladder to the street.

  The four children waited, crouched in the darkness around the corner, barely daring to breathe.

  In an astonishingly short time, the room was clear; only the tables remained, a few puddles of spilt vodka, and the large wooden box under a single light.

  Sorrotore strode to the wooden box and lifted the lid. He reached inside, fished out a small tortoise, and dropped it on the floor. Then, with some grunting and scrabbling, he lifted out the larger one.

  ‘Kelly.’ Sorrotore clicked his fingers, and the man came. ‘I’m running low on cash – just a temporary thing.’ But Kelly’s eyes showed, just for a second, his scepticism before he masked it. ‘So I need the jewels off the tortoises. Chuck the bodies down the tunnel somewhere when you’re done.’

  ‘And what about Dillinger?’

  Dillinger was still slumped against the wall; Sorrotore turned to him while Kelly hovered uneasily, his vast arms uncertain by his sides. Sorrotore picked up the smallest of the guns and cocked it.

  Vita could not help it; she retched – a small, desperate sound that rang through the silent air.

  Sorrotore’s eyes narrowed. He took three steps towards the bend in the tunnel, his nostrils flaring, sniffing. Beside her, Arkady stiffened, and got ready to spring.

  A voice called from the open space above the ladder. ‘Trucks are leaving now, boss.’

  Sorrotore grunted, sighed, and strode back to the ladder. Kelly made to follow him, and Sorrotore turned to him with a look of disgust.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going? I said, do the tortoises – and take care of Dillinger.’

  ‘What, now?’ said Kelly.

  ‘Now,’ said Sorrotore, and disappeared up the ladder. The clang of the manhole cover closing rang through the tunnel.

  Kelly crossed to Dillinger, his face miserable. On the first punch, Dillinger crumpled to the ground. On the third, he ceased to moan. Kelly sighed. He lifted the gun, and checked that it was loaded.

  Vita, a planner to her very bones, acted without a plan. She reached into her coat pocket and clenched her penknife. She left it closed, and threw it through the dark. But fear made her stiff and off-balance, and instead of hitting Kelly on the temple, it struck him on the side of the nose. He staggered and dropped to his knees, a child’s wail coming from his mouth. He turned in their direction.

  Samuel stepped forward, but Silk had already gone. She made a noise somewhere between a moan and a roar and came out of the darkness like a bullet. Her mouth remained open in a noiseless gape as she dodged round Kelly’s kneeling form, snatched up the gun from where it lay, hesitated for a split second, and then swung it at the back of Kelly’s head. The man slumped, face forwards, on the ground.

  Silk looked down, chest heaving, eyes wide, at what she had done. ‘Is selfastonishment a word?’ she asked. ‘Because if not, I need it to be now.’

  Five minutes later, Dillinger opened an eye and saw four faces clustered over his.

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’ He muttered. ‘Who are you? Get lost.’ And then, looking up at Samuel, he spoke a single, unrepeatable word. Arkady’s head whipped backwards and Silk swore. Vita let out a hiss, and her eyes sought Samuel’s. Only Samuel remained motionless, staring, hot with anger. Dillinger groaned, and his eyes closed again.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Arkady, and he ran to pick up the largest tortoise, which had retreated entirely into its shell.


  Vita picked up the smaller tortoise; its head waved frantically, staring around the dark space. ‘What about him?’ she said, jerking her head at Dillinger.

  ‘Leave him,’ said Silk.

  ‘No!’ said Samuel. ‘That makes us as bad as them.’

  ‘It doesn’t!’ Silk’s voice was shrill, still jittery with adrenaline.

  ‘You heard what he said, Sam,’ said Arkady. His face was tight with fury. ‘We don’t have to help him.’

  ‘If we leave him, they’ll kill him when they come back,’ said Samuel.

  ‘Why do you care? He’d kill us!’ said Silk.

  Sweat beaded on Vita’s upper lip. ‘I agree with Samuel,’ she said. ‘We have to take him with us.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say!’ said Silk. Her hands were shaking. ‘It won’t be you carrying him up the bloody ladder.’

  Vita jerked as if stung. The space behind her eyes smarted, and she fought the feeling back. It would be terrible to cry.

  Silk winced. ‘I didn’t mean it like that …’

  ‘Fine. I know,’ said Vita, and turned away, so Silk would not see her face.

  ‘Ark and I will carry him,’ said Samuel. ‘Ark, come on.’

  Arkady sighed, and moved to his friend’s side. The two boys bent down; for a second they strained in the darkness, then they straightened, the man hanging between them.

  ‘How do we get him up the ladder?’ said Arkady.

  Vita went first. Her balance was not good, and it took all her focus to get herself up to the street. She crouched by the mouth of the hole, keeping watch.

  The other three children took Dillinger between them. Samuel led, climbing with one hand, his other arm clamped under Dillinger’s armpit. Arkady and Silk pushed his knees and feet. At one point they nearly dropped him, and Dillinger’s forehead scraped against the wall.

  They darted back down for the tortoises, the boys carrying the largest between them, Silk holding the smaller one under her arm. On the top rung she handed it to Vita, and scrambled up into the street. Its rubies, spelling out her name, glinted in the street lights.

  They half dragged, half carried Dillinger down two blocks, then dumped him in an alley.