The Ninth Life

by Clea Simon

  ‘What do you mean, send a message?’ He’s blinking, afraid.

  ‘You know, to keep everyone in line.’ I see her concern on her face. She was speaking without thought, though the idea that she would be able to shield this child from the harsh reality of their environment seems risible. I grumble a little louder, just enough to make the boy turn.

  ‘But that’s – that’s what I did,’ he says. This bothers him, although I cannot see why.

  She pulls herself upright, the book forgotten on her lap. ‘What do you mean, Tick? Tell me.’

  ‘I told you.’ In the fading light his eyes are dark and shadowed. ‘I carry messages. That’s what AD had me doing.’

  ‘I don’t mean that kind of message.’ Care leans in as if to comfort the boy and stops herself. ‘Wait – Tick, do you know something about this?’

  ‘I just … It’s a job, Care. You said so yourself – I needed to find a job. And AD said I could go anywhere. Get by anyone. And I’m fast, too.’

  ‘What kind of messages did you bring, Tick?’ She’s making an effort to keep her voice steady. ‘You need to tell me.’

  ‘Most of the time, it was something small,’ says the boy. ‘A thing – you know, a token. Like a book of matches to old Jonah.’

  ‘Jonah Silver?’ She’s been taken by surprise.

  The boy nods.

  ‘No wonder he’s so down in the mouth.’

  ‘But he didn’t have a fire, did he?’ The boy seems proud of his role, though the threat makes my ears flip back and down. ‘He got the message. He knew what it meant.’

  ‘He knew all right.’ The girl is thoughtful. ‘Was that what it was for Fat Peter, Tick? Was it a book of matches?’ Her own voice is nearly silent, all breath and tremor. ‘Was it the red brick – or the bloody knife?’

  He shakes his head and sniffs. Shoves his hands into his pockets as if to find the answer there, or perhaps something of comfort – some small, fine thing to call his own.

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Care. It wasn’t a – you know – a threat. It meant, “It’s time,” he said – Fat Peter said. He was all worked up about it. Excited, like. He tried to … you know.’

  ‘Oh, Tick.’ She folds him in her arms at last as he begins to cry, and holds him until he calms. Only then, when his breathing has grown regular once more, do I hear her murmur.

  ‘Time? Time for what?’ She pauses, hearing her own question. ‘And why no token?’ In the growing gloom she doesn’t see how the boy looks away. How he opens his mouth but doesn’t speak.

  Instead, she is lost in her own thoughts. When she speaks again her voice is breathy with memory. A voice so distinct I feel I can hear it as well, a growly kind of baritone, soft but sure of its impact. ‘“The measure is off,” he said.’ A ghost stands behind her, his breath in her words. ‘“Fat Peter isn’t on the level.” The old man told you to tell me that. He knew Fat Peter owed somebody, but by then it was too late. Someone else knew that he was getting that message. Someone got rid of Fat Peter. The question is, who? And why kill the old man as well?’

  The boy only shrugs, the darkening room quiet but for those ghosts.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Morning finds the girl roused and ready, shaking her younger companion at first light. I’ve been awake for hours, of course. Hunted, bathed. But although I find myself wondering about the boy’s duties and the role he may yet play in this girl’s life, I keep my thoughts to myself, content to sit on that ledge and sniff the air, all the while keeping these young humans within earshot.

  ‘Come on, Tick,’ she calls to him while rummaging in her sack. The boy is slow to wake. He’s been dreaming, I could tell her. Though whether the night phantoms that haunted his sleep, prompting the twitches and moans of a prey animal under attack, bear any relation to the scene I have relived, the water’s edge and the silhouettes, I do not know. ‘We’ve got to go.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ He takes the piece of cheese Care hands him along with the wrinkled apple. I perk up at the sight of the cheese, remembering its salt and grease, and Care slices off the rind, placing it on the sill before me. It is more wax than cheese, however, and I leave it. Perhaps it will draw something more toothsome still, especially once these two have moved on. My side still aches from yesterday. My hindquarters are stiff and sore, and I have no desire to trot around after this girl as if I were some kind of dog. This seems to be our base for now, dry enough and reasonably safe. I will wait here and hunt again, gathering my thoughts until these two return.

  ‘I have an idea.’ Care looks around before locating the loose bricks of the boy’s hiding place. That she then unpacks her bag and places her extra clothes, the few treasures she has taken from AD’s, in the space confirms my deduction: this is to be home for the foreseeable future. I fold my paws beneath me and prepare to nap.

  ‘I think …’ she says, turning back to the boy, to us, ‘… I want to call on George Bushwick.’

  ‘Who?’ The boy stands yawning, his question a delaying tactic. But I am no longer at rest. The memory of Bushwick’s warehouse, the stench of those pelts, has banished thoughts of sleep. There was something – is something – wrong with that man, reeking of fear and death. I cast my thoughts about for some way to communicate and find myself twining around the girl’s ankles, willing her to listen as I mewl out my complaint.

  ‘Hey, Blackie, it’s OK.’ She picks me up, burying her face in my fur. It’s an uncomfortable sensation, being lifted off one’s feet, and although the warmth of her embrace is pleasant – I am not immune to the affectionate gesture and the rubbing of her face against my side translates – I struggle to be let down, twisting in her grasp. ‘You didn’t eat your cheese.’ She has noticed the rind and reaches for it before I can bat it away. Strict economy delays her further as she retrieves her bag to stow the waxy morsel. I close my eyes in frustration. Not being able to communicate directly seems wrong, somehow.

  ‘I don’t think he wants you to go out.’ The boy surprises me, although I suspect he is speaking from selfish reasons. The grey dawn has grown no brighter and I smell rain as well as fog. ‘He likes that we’re warm and dry here.’

  ‘He didn’t know the old man.’ Her voice has acquired an edge; some combination of anger or fear makes her want to push this boy. ‘But it’s more than that, Tick. Bushwick came looking for something the other night, something he thought the old man had. I don’t know if it was that pawn ticket or something else. But until we get to the bottom of it, those jerks are going to keep coming after us. They’re going to start looking for you.’

  The boy shuts up at that, although he stares at me as if I am to blame. Because the mistrust runs both ways, I leap, once again, to the sill. Despite my earlier plans, when the girl takes off, I will tail her. If I can, I will stay out of sight. It is my deepest hope that she does not know about this Bushwick’s warehouse, that she never goes to that place of fear and blood. But there is an air about her – determination, fate – that I recognize. This girl is on the hunt, and I will not let her hunt alone.

  ‘Come on, Tick.’ She ushers the boy out the door as I watch from my perch. ‘First, I want to go back to the old man’s place. Bushwick’s probably been and gone by now, but maybe I can figure out something by what he’s taken. If there’s anything left.’

  So far, so good. I trot behind them. The boy is still sleepy and they proceed at an easy pace. She is speaking, as much to encourage him as to explain, I believe. Her voice is musical and soft.

  ‘I don’t know why he lied, but I’m pretty sure that he didn’t have any outstanding business with the old man,’ she is saying. ‘Still, that tells us something. The old man always said to look at the absences – what are people not telling you? What are they lying about? That’s where you find the truth, he said.’ They walk in silence for a block. The fog is lifting but the clouds are growing thicker, as if all the dampness of the day is gathering overhead. ‘Why would he even come to the—’

  Sh
e stops, her back stiffening in the cold morning. ‘Tick, why did you talk to Bushwick? Come on, I know you know him.’

  The boy has stopped walking, too, but he kicks his worn shoes at the cobblestone before him, the thin canvas sliding over the grey stone.

  ‘Tick?’ Something about the action alerts her. I, meanwhile, have found a ledge, also stone but elevated from the roadway. It offers a dry perch from which to watch this little drama. ‘I know you told him about the office. He told me. But why were you speaking to him at all?’

  ‘I carry messages.’ His voice is nearly buried, his words addressed to that unfeeling stone. ‘I told you that.’

  ‘Messages, Tick?’ The effort she expends at keeping her voice level makes it tremble. I hear this. The boy must as well. ‘Both ways?’

  He nods. ‘Intel, AD calls it. Things he wants to know.’

  ‘Like where the old man had his hiding places?’ Another nod. ‘But how does Bushwick figure into this? He’s not one of AD’s usual clients.’

  A shrug – more eloquent than any of the boy’s words. ‘Intel is like gold, AD says. It doesn’t lose its value and it goes to the highest bidder.’

  ‘I don’t get it. The old man didn’t mess with AD. Didn’t mess with his business.’ She pauses, a memory flitting across her thin, pale face. ‘He always said he was there to help people who wanted it, not the ones too foolish to know better. And George Bushwick, well, he wasn’t the kind of client we were likely to see again.’

  ‘Who is he? I mean, what’s he do?’ Tick’s questions break into her reverie. She’s been thinking aloud, and his question smacks of a diversion. Still, she answers.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Business. Import, export – a little of everything. He wanted us to do a job for him a little more than a year ago – last July, maybe August. It was pretty much open and shut. He was bringing in whiskey – some high-test stuff that was below the radar of the inspectors. Only he wasn’t getting what he’d paid for. I gather he’d figured out that the seller wasn’t ripping him off – and, no, I don’t want to know how he did that – and he wanted the old man to find out who was messing with his product at this end.’

  The boy looks up, waiting. Care has started to chuckle and the boy gasps. In their world, I gather, justice delivered is usually not a laughing matter.

  ‘It was his own fault, Tick. His own fault all along.’ She shakes her head before explaining. ‘He was bringing in whiskey and then rebottling it. Selling it to pubs that didn’t want to pay the tariff to be legit, you know? But he was doing it in a storage facility made for dry goods. In summer. The hooch he was bottling ended up being lower proof than he wanted and tasted funny to boot because it was evap-orating. He’d gotten too big for his business and he’d gotten careless. Boy, was he angry when the old man explained it. He didn’t even have to go down to the warehouse to check it out.’

  We’ve reached an intersection and she hangs back, motioning for the boy to do the same. ‘The old man said there was a lesson in that.’

  ‘People are stupid?’ He’s playing up to her. Smiling.

  She smiles back, even as she shakes her head. ‘“Look beyond the obvious,” he told me. Look for what isn’t there – like a proper procedure – as well as what is.’

  She leans out into the street. A truck is unloading wooden crates, each as wide as a man’s arms can reach. At least, as wide as those of the scrawny workers who wrestle with them, taking turns climbing onto the truck bed. A beefy grunt calls out orders, his voice obscured by the train rumbling just beyond.

  ‘Come on, Tick.’ She puts a hand on his shoulder and leads him out onto the sidewalk. She’s straightened up now, assuming what I think of as her downtown walk. Tick scurries to keep up, but even as he does he turns toward her.

  ‘Care?’ he asks.

  She looks over.

  ‘What’s evaporating?’

  ‘Well, see that puddle?’ She points across the street where the workers are finishing up. Or would be – one of the two, a hunched, scrawny man, has dropped a crate, splashing the dirty water over the cobblestones.

  ‘You!’ The crew chief points, yelling. His voice is clear now. ‘That’s it. That’s the last straw.’

  ‘But I—’ A raised fist cuts the protest short. The scrawny worker backs away, into the street.

  Blat! The honk of an air horn as the next truck pulls up makes the man jump. He stumbles on the broken stones, falling, just out of the tires’ path. ‘Watch it!’ The driver yells out the window, adding an obscenity for good measure.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Care runs into the street, reaching for the fallen man’s arm. He pulls back as if from a blow and turns. His face is a mass of bruises; his eyes large and sunken. ‘Mr Silver?’

  He blinks at her then takes her hand as she helps him to his feet. ‘You again,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. What’s your name? Care?’

  She nods. Tick has hung back and so have I, watching from the early morning shadows.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, then stops. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Why?’ Care sees something in his thin and battered face. ‘What happened? Why are you working here?’

  He brushes himself off front and then back, working almost as carefully as I would. Only from the state of his clothes and the thinning hair that hangs over his collar, I do not think he is by nature as fastidious as I. He is wiping his hands off. Looking everywhere but in her face. There’s a story here.

  Risking traffic, I leap to the cobblestones. Scent may tell more of his tale than this man is willing to share.

  ‘I lost the business,’ he says at last. He is looking down at me, and I approach gingerly. This man does not appear cruel, but those who have been kicked are prone to pass that violence along. ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘But—’ Care shakes her head. ‘I just saw you. At the shop.’

  ‘Then you know.’ Chin up, he seems determined to sustain his pride. I pass behind him, sniffing at his cuffs. ‘You saw that we were in trouble.’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ Care’s brows bunch together, as if tangled by the questions waiting to form. ‘But – to be here? Loading the trucks?’

  ‘I have debts to pay.’ His voice has settled, pride steeling the resignation. I smell the mud he has splashed through this morning. Sweat and, yes, blood. He has his shoulders back, his spine straight, but I notice the slight wince – the intake of breath. It is his own blood, dried on his body, that still marks him. ‘Obligations. And you shouldn’t be near me.’

  Care waits. Stands still as Tick stares off down the street. Such occurrences are not uncommon in this world, where the small and the weak are easy prey.

  ‘What will you do now?’ she asks.

  The first truck starts with a grind of gears. The second pulls up, but this skinny man doesn’t turn – not even when the bully calls to him.

  ‘Hey, you there!’

  Care pivots. Hands on hips, she takes a step past the muddied man and raises her voice. ‘What do you want? You fired him.’

  A laugh. ‘I ain’t gonna pay him for loafing, that’s for sure. There’s work to be done.’

  She turns back to the gaunt man. He wipes his hands again and nods to her. ‘No rest for the weary,’ he says, a ghost of a smile creasing his swollen lip. ‘Good to see you, Care, despite … Well, thank you – thank you for everything.’

  We watch as he goes back to the truck. The foreman laughs as if at some private joke as his new man clambers onto the truck bed and reaches for a crate.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The girl remains silent as we circle the block, her face as opaque as those cobblestones. The boy, by contrast, becomes noisier as we walk on, leaving the back streets for the bustle of the waterfront. He dances around Care, peppering her with questions which she ignores, and turns instead to commenting on the changing scene as the traffic grows busier. He seems particularly dismissive of the people whom we pass, in their mo
nochrome suits and leather shoes. The coats, especially, he remarks on, disparaging their daytime drab. But he is eyeing their good wool, I see, and I detect a note of envy, despite his insults.

  It has been a cold winter, I gather – recent events have erased my memory of anything but rain and a freezing flood. As he speculates about the passers-by – their proclivities and paychecks, their expenditures for fur or suede – it occurs to me that he is seeing a different side of this street. He is looking for the nightlife that must dominate here once these office drones have had their day. The idea that these workers may be the same preening peacocks who strut about after dark seems foreign to him, and I understand the concern Care has for his education, for his future.

  I am uneasy about our journey. In part, because as we left the back ways for the more commercial avenue, my path became more difficult. A cat on a quiet street appears natural, a necessary part of the fauna, with a job – no, a responsibility in this industrial area. A cat among the busy urbanites? A freak. A nuisance at best. A rogue attracting attention and, at worst, violence. I do not want a repeat of the scene downtown, especially here where the desire for order – in the guise of civility – is much less in evidence than on the cleaner streets we have left behind. I am timid here, darting from shadow to shadow. Although the pain in my side has subsided to a dull ache, I find myself falling behind. On such a busy thoroughfare, as the day grows bright, there are too few safe places.

  My dread grows as Care proceeds across a slate-paved plaza. A scent of alcohol and sick seems out of place and yet familiar. When I detect the perfume of an opossum, the leather of my nose twitches in response. I know this place, these broad walkways. This is where I followed Bushwick – Dock Street. The way to his warehouse. The night market looks different under the sun’s glare, although it sports the same tidal pull of commerce and greed. The boy catches up with Care. He knows this place, too; his comments on the toughs and their dolls express a certain yearning. This is the arena he aspires to, though not in its mundane dress.