The Night Market

by Jonathan Moore

  Outside, a lone dog began to bark. Within the space of three seconds, the night erupted with their cries. There was a crash, and one of the dogs began to howl and yip in pain.

  Carver pushed past Henry and went to the drawing room. He stood to the side of the bay windows, put his fingers at the edge of the curtains, and pulled them back far enough to see.

  An old woman stood on the opposite side of the street. She wore a grime-slicked raincoat over a housedress. A knocked-over trash can lay at her feet, its contents scattered in the street and the gutter. She was surrounded by a dozen stray dogs, but they kept their distance. They were afraid of her stick. One of them was turning circles on the asphalt, its hind leg broken.

  The scavenger woman began to drag a trash bag toward an ancient station wagon parked in the street. After loading it, she went quickly to the driver’s seat. As soon as she closed the door, the pack went for the spilled garbage. The injured dog began a low keen as three of its littermates closed in around it.

  Carver looked up and saw Henry and Mia at the other window. Henry let the curtain fall back.

  “Thirty-nine years,” Henry said. “Decades, they’ve been in our heads. And what happened to us, to our invention and drive? Shouldn’t we be farther along? This company, Ønske, it progressed. But the rest of us? We lived in the dark, and stared at pictures, and bought every shining thing we saw.”

  On the street, the entire pack had turned on the wounded one. It was shrieking from beneath a pile of writhing, mud-caked hackles. By sunrise, if that ever came, there would be nothing left.

  “What do we do?” Mia asked.

  “We’ll start with what we know,” Carver said. “With the people we can reach.”

  “Your boss,” Mia said. “Hernandez.”

  “Right now, she’s at Bryant Street—the headquarters. When she gets home, it’ll be light. Better to catch her on her way back out.”

  “You shouldn’t wait here,” Henry said. “It’s not safe, all of us together.”

  “I’ll think of a place,” Carver said.

  “I have one. And you can take my car.”

  “The safe house?” Mia asked. “We can’t ​—”

  “Hadley knew about that,” Henry said. “None of us should go there. I’ve got something else.”

  “Then come with us,” Carver said. “If we’re not safe here, neither are you.”

  “I’ve got a lady who looks after me,” he said. “A nurse. She’ll be here at seven. I’ll leave with her.”

  “We can take you.”

  “I can take care of myself. But you—Johnny Wong’s men took your gun, and they didn’t give it back. That’s a problem.”

  “You’ve got one?”

  “A friend’s. His name was Kennon. I think you’ve got his old desk,” Henry said. “It’s got ammunition, but it’s fifty years old.”

  “How many bullets?”

  “Whatever was left,” Henry said. “Kennon didn’t get off many shots the last time he used it. It’s in my bedroom. Wait, and I’ll get it.”

  29

  HENRY’S CAR WAS black and boxy, and looked as heavy as a city bus. But he’d kept it maintained, and the batteries were full. They could drive all the way to Los Angeles on the charge, if they had to. Carver let Mia in, and then looked back up the garage steps to Henry.

  “When your lady comes, don’t have her take you to the Tenderloin hotels. They’d roll a guy like you in a second.”

  “An old guy like me.”

  “I’m serious,” he said. Then he raised the paper bag of food Henry had given him. “And thank you for this. For all of this.”

  “How do we get in touch?”

  “We don’t,” Carver said.

  He looked at the car, wondering if Mia could hear their conversation. He turned away when he caught her eyes in the side-view mirror.

  “In twenty-four hours, we’ll know where this is heading.”

  “You won’t be careful, is what you’re saying,” Henry said. “Don’t mince words, Ross. I haven’t got the time for it.”

  “Then hope for the best,” Carver said. “Vicki would be proud of you.”

  Henry double-tapped his fist over his heart, and Carver repeated the gesture. Then he walked around the back of the car and got in. He hit the remote to open the garage door, waited for it to roll up, and drove out.

  He parked in the public garage on Beach Street, across from Pier 39. Even now, the boutiques on the wharf were crowded. Inside a jeweler’s showroom, a reception was under way. Waiters roamed the store, carrying trays of champagne and plates of canapés. A string quartet played in the center, surrounded by glittering display cases. They stopped on the pedestrian bridge and watched it.

  “I’ve seen it for years,” Carver said.

  “But did you really? Did you really see it?”

  “I never wondered what was wrong—why we let ourselves get to this.”

  “You’ve been in that crowd. Or one just like it.”

  “A hundred like it.”

  He started to lead her toward the water’s edge, where there was a locked gate and a gangplank that went down to the docks. But she stopped him and turned him back to the crowd lined up outside the jeweler’s reception.

  “Look at them,” she said. “See that girl? Maybe she’ll buy a diamond ring. A necklace. She’ll bring it home in a black silk bag and never wear it. When she wakes up, she won’t even remember what she bought.”

  “Until she sees the label.”

  “She’ll hold it until she falls asleep tonight, and she’ll be so warm—you know what I’m talking about. It might sustain her a while. To hold it, to look at it. But then someday the switch will flip and it won’t do anything for her.”

  “There’ll be something else,” Carver said. “Whatever’s next in line.”

  She nodded and pulled his arm around her. When she was up against him, he could feel the tension in her. She was caught at a balance point between desire and revulsion. She wanted to break away from him and go toward the lighted store. Toward the soft music and the sparkling gemstones, and the promise that drifted from the open doors like a low whisper. Inside, you could find everything you had ever lost. Things would be all right again. You just had to come inside. Instead she put her other arm around him.

  “Let’s go.”

  “It’s this way,” Carver said.

  They went to the gate and Carver punched in the code that Henry had given him. They walked down the gangplank and along the docks. In a moment, they were far enough into the marina that it drowned out the city’s noise. There was just the wind. It stirred up ripples that lapped against hulls, and set a halyard beating against a sailboat’s mast. The air was wet and heavy with fog. When Carver turned to look back, Telegraph Hill was just a blurry glow.

  Jenner might be in any of those shadows. Until tonight, that had always been a comforting thought.

  He tried to push it away, but it was useless. He saw Calvin Tran’s face. The sunken bandages over his eyes, the black stitches where his tongue had been cut out. If they’d done that to Jenner, if they’d done anything at all to him—

  He stopped in front of a wooden trawler.

  “I think this is it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “It’s been a while.”

  Some of the bronze hardware had disappeared from the gunwales, and Henry had replaced it with cheaper aluminum. But otherwise, for a century-old boat, she looked good. Even in the dark, Carver could see his outline reflected in the teak. He stepped to the deck, then slid Henry’s key into the cabin door’s lock. He must have the right boat. He opened the door and Mia followed him into the salon.

  There was a brass sconce above the dinette. Carver turned the switch, but nothing happened. It could be the bulb, or a dead house battery, or something with the shore power. Maybe there was an electrical panel somewhere.

  “Do you mind the dark?” he asked.

  He set Jenner’s briefcase on
the floor and Henry’s bag on the table. There were windows all around the cabin, and they let in a bit of light from the pier.

  “It’s fine,” Mia said. “I bet there’s a candle somewhere. Sit down. I’ll find it.”

  He sat at the dinette, put his elbows on the table, and rested his head against the heels of his palms. He closed his eyes, listening as Mia went through the galley drawers. Then she was coming across the salon, sliding onto the seat across from him. He heard the sandy scratch when she tried to light a paper match. A bite of sulfur followed.

  “They might’ve gotten damp,” she said.

  She tried three more, and when the last one came alight, he could feel its heat against the backs of his hands. He raised his head and watched her light the votive candles. She’d also found a bottle of Laphroaig and a pair of tumblers.

  “What do you think—would Henry mind very much?”

  “I doubt it.”

  She pulled the bottle’s stopper and poured for them. Then she opened Henry’s paper bag, and brought out the bread and the rest of food he’d given them.

  “We’ll feel better if we eat a little,” she said. “A glass of scotch, and dinner—and then we’ll sleep.”

  She handed a tumbler to him, and he brought it to his lips.

  After they’d eaten, Mia took one of the candles and found her way down the steps to the forward stateroom. He poured a second glass of the scotch and took out the gun Henry had given him. He’d heard of the make and model, but had never seen one. It was a compact automatic. Its magazine was designed for eight rounds, but it held only five. There was one in the chamber.

  Henry’s old friend, Inspector Kennon, had managed two shots before he died.

  Carver hoped he would get as many, but he wasn’t sure about the ammunition. The brass casings were pitted with corrosion. He lined the bullets on the table, then took the gun and racked its slide. It was stiff, and the action was rough. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed by stripping it and cleaning it. He had a sip of the scotch and then picked up the candle. On a boat like this, he was sure to find a set of tools and an oily rag.

  It was her hand on his shoulder that woke him.

  He’d fallen asleep at the table, his head resting against his folded arms. Kennon’s gun, reassembled and reloaded, was in his right hand. He raised his head and looked around. The candle had gone out, and the sun hadn’t yet risen. Rain lashed against the windows, and the dock lines groaned against their cleats each time they went taut.

  “What is it?” he asked her.

  “You should come to bed,” Mia said. “Come on—stand up. I’ll help you.”

  “I’m all right.”

  He pushed up from the dinette, tucked the gun into his waistband, and looked at her in the dark. Though he was shivering from the cold, she wore nothing more than a half-buttoned shirt and a pair of black panties. She put her hand on the side of his neck.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  She began leading him toward the stateroom, but he stopped before he reached the steps. He leaned against the captain’s chair at the steering station. He looked at the wooden wheel, at the ancient electronic navigation instruments.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Henry put you across the hall from me,” he said. “I know how Hadley got things from Johnny Wong, how she ​—”

  Mia put her other hand on his collarbone, then came in close enough that she had to look up at him.

  “If George had told me to, I wouldn’t have done it just for him. Do you understand?”

  “No,” Carver said. “Say what you really mean.”

  “I did what I wanted. And that’s all. It doesn’t matter what George told me, or what Hadley did. I did what I wanted. And right now . . . this—this is what I want.”

  “All right.”

  She led him down the steps and closed a door behind him. After that, it was too dark to see her. There were hatches over the bed, but there was no light at all in the sky. She came behind him, and then her hands were at the lapels of his suit jacket. She pulled it from his shoulders, helped him out of it. In a moment she was close to him again. The length of her body pressed against his back.

  She reached around him and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Is it safe, do you think?” she asked.

  “If it wasn’t, they’d have taken us already.”

  “Then can we?” she whispered. “Will you?”

  It wasn’t a question he could answer aloud. He’d never learned to talk that way. But he could show her. He turned around. The gun was still in his waistband, but he tossed it on the bed before they came together.

  She was trembling, but she wasn’t cold.

  In the dark, he found the last two buttons on her shirt. When he undid them, she let it slide down her arms to the floor. He’d never been with a woman he knew so little about. He didn’t know her age or where she was born, or what her family was like. He didn’t even know her real name. But now she was undressing him, leading him in increments toward the bed.

  He thought he knew why this was happening. Why Mia was stretching across the duvet and pulling him down to her, why her hand on the back of his neck was leading him into this kiss. They’d lost everything. This was the most they could give each other. It might not carry them through tomorrow, but they had to try.

  30

  SOMETIME IN THE afternoon he opened his eyes and looked at the smoke-gray sky through the glass hatch above his head. Rain pounded the deck, heavy and cold. He stretched to touch Mia, but only found the gun. He took it and rose from the bed, following the three steps to the pilot house.

  She wasn’t at the dinette, but she must have used it at some point. She’d found a pen and a pad of hotel stationery in one of the drawers, and those were sitting on the table next to a packet of red envelopes from a Chinatown shop. He thought there would be a note on the pad, but it was blank. She wasn’t aboard the boat, and must have taken her purse with her. He knelt next to the table and opened Jenner’s briefcase. The laptop was still there, and Johnny Wong’s photograph was inside its envelope.

  He dressed in the stateroom, then returned to the salon to sit at the table. He checked his watch and told himself he’d give her half an hour. After that, he would look for her. But in five minutes he saw her coming along the dock, and then the boat rocked gently as she stepped to the side deck. She opened the door and came inside with a gust of wind. She was soaking wet from the rain. She crossed to the galley and set down two bags from one of the grocery stores on Bay Street.

  “I thought I’d get back before you woke up,” she said.

  “How long were you out?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “Did anyone follow you?” he asked. “Did you check?”

  “I was careful,” she said.

  She took off the hat she’d found. Her hair spilled around her shoulders again. He got up and she came and put her arms around him. He held her tightly against his chest.

  “I wake up, and you aren’t here.”

  “I’m sorry, Ross.”

  “What were you writing?” he asked. “You got out a pen, that stationery.”

  “Nothing—I was going to write you a note, but I decided not to.”

  He held her by her shoulders and looked at her. The pen and the stationery made sense if she planned to write him a note. The envelopes didn’t fit. There should have been ten of them in the cellophane-wrapped packet. He’d counted nine.

  “Did you mail a letter?”

  “No,” she said. “Please, Ross.”

  He couldn’t afford to doubt her now. If she was holding something from him, then he could only hope she had a good reason. Every time he held her, it felt inevitable. As if he’d been ordained to do it now because he’d done it ten times before in lives he couldn’t remember. He didn’t understand it at all. He knew they were drawing near to something. He wanted to rush in and find it; he wanted to take Mia and run as far as they could go.
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  “All right,” he said.

  He let go of her and nodded to the rain-soaked bags she’d set on the counter.

  “What’s so important you had to go out in this?”

  It was raining even harder when they got to Noe Valley. Carver parked on Diamond Street, three blocks from Hernandez’s apartment. They walked down the hill, sticking to the shadows cast by the condemned houses on the left. Hernandez’s apartment building was on the right. Someday soon, it would be across from another new mall. To the east, every house for a half a mile was slated for destruction. Already, the thieves had taken whatever they could pry loose. You could walk through the missing front doors, but every step past the threshold was perilous, because the floorboards were all gone. If you wanted, you could balance on a joist in a space that for a hundred and fifty years had been a bedroom. You could look up through the rafters and see the sky. Feel the rain on your face.

  When Carver saw Hernandez’s car, he led Mia up the steps of the nearest empty house. They stood in the crossed shadows of its naked beams, where they could watch the street. He drew the gun and racked the slide to chamber a round. He’d reloaded the magazine so that the best-looking bullet was first. He didn’t want to pull the trigger, but if he had to, he wanted something to happen.

  He checked his watch, and then they waited. There was a pile of garbage balanced on the floor beams above them, and it blocked some of the rain. Mia stood close to him. Her hair, wet again, still smelled of cedar. He put his arm around her waist, and remembered being a boy. He’d gone with Henry and his son, a half day’s drive to the redwood groves along the north coast. He remembered standing in a rough circle of trees so tall that their crowns had touched the clouds and brought down rain. People always said that losing the trees had been the price of progress, but there hadn’t been any progress. The world hadn’t moved anywhere.