As Dark As My Fur Read online

  ‘He knew the old man. If I can help him …’ She shakes her head, the remainder of the thought unspoken as she begins to walk.

  Despite my silence, my thoughts teem as I keep pace by her side. I have no memory of the man, which troubles me. I should, if he knew her mentor. For although I do not yet understand how such a change occurred, that means he knew me, as I was in another life. A human life, before this feline incarnation. An existence I have only recently – and imperfectly – begun to recall. Perhaps this is merely another gap. Perhaps something more. Yet whether it be by feline instinct or some deep-buried recollection, I believe this man an honest sort, for one who survives as needs must, and I can tell that for her the reward may come in many forms.

  TWO

  Care pounces on the assignment as a kitten on prey, working it as if the effort alone will yield sustenance. She seeks distraction, that I know, but also hope. She cannot have caught, as I have, the foul male reek of the two who did this. Who waited by that curb to catch the little man and force him to reveal his secrets. And her client, through some remnant of decorum, did not reveal the intimate and insulting nature of the puddle in the corner, which he has worked so hard to clean. But she has taken their descriptions, unwilling as he was to give them despite her promise not to interfere – not to seek the offending thugs directly.

  ‘I only want my magnifier,’ he repeats, after describing two men: one large and thuggish, the other, smaller, with a blade. Still, she knows her trade, or well enough. Knows to inquire about even the smallest details. The factors that do not seem to matter – and to record as well the manner in which her queries are received. She had been learning when the old man, her mentor, was taken from her. When he – when I – was ambushed and summarily killed.

  ‘The question,’ she says, more to herself than to me, ‘is what those bully boys would do with a set of lenses, once they left. That they took them just to be awful to Quirty is obvious.’

  We are sitting side by side on a block of granite on the edge of that pockmarked square. The sun has penetrated both the morning clouds and the shadows that overhang the narrow lane behind us. It is warm, and I listen, content, as she counts off her reasons on fingers bitten to the quick. ‘They trashed his place, but I don’t think they found what they were looking for.’ The keeper was silent on this point, but the girl has picked up the signs – his calm, despite the attack. His continuing allegiance to his office, to his craft.

  ‘They probably can’t read and might resent him because he could.’ She stops at that, as if to question her own logic – another crucial skill. ‘But if they were here, they must have been looking for something on paper. Something written. I wonder if there was an insignia or letterhead they were made to memorize?’ she asks, her voice grown soft. ‘Why would someone send illiterate thugs to find a document?’

  The sun is glorious, and I stretch to take it in. There is something in her questions, a rattle and a scramble like small feet heard down a passage. But before I can follow them to the kill, she has already moved on.

  ‘Well, they weren’t sent for their learning,’ she says at last. ‘And since I doubt their boss would care for a magnifier …’

  She stands. ‘I’ve got it,’ she says, and sets off again, darting around the open square toward a small passageway opposite. Although she sticks to the side streets, down alleys and across deserted lots, darkened by shadows even at daylight’s peak, she is not headed back toward the little man’s lair, not this time. I smell her destination in the salt tang, in the particular fetor of rot and commerce. She is leaving behind the quiet of the printer’s district and heading toward the harbor.

  I follow, discreetly, making my own more circuitous way along the lower rooftops and behind the piles of trash. I do not like this area, a warren of abandoned and disused warehouses most of which have been repurposed for functions unsuitable to a young girl. I do not trust those who gather here. Down farther, by the water’s edge, the district assumes more of its original purpose. Goods for trade fill the featureless brick buildings, signs of commerce that continues despite the failure of laws and boundaries. The rutted streets rumble with the traffic of large vehicles, the shouts of the men who load and unload them for their daily pay.

  Struggles of a different sort occur here as well. The rotted piers and the creeping damp, which corrodes even the brick and mortar of those huge structures, swarms with life on a smaller scale, including those of my own kind. It is here that the girl and I met. Here where she saved me, pulling me as I hissed and spat from a storm drain that would have taken me. Would have swept my lifeless carcass to the harbor. Where my life began again.

  But the strange ill feeling that sets the fur of my ruff to rise is not mere memory. Nor, I hope, presentiment. This district, with its rough labor, is unsafe for a young female such as Care, and I do not like the way she strides along the main thoroughfare, toward the train tracks and the no man’s land beyond. If I were larger, my animosity would serve some purpose. As it is, I am a cat, and so I make my way at a distance, watching. I have skills I may be pressed to use, and I will be ready.

  She does not, I am glad to see, keep up her pace as she approaches the intersection where the trucks and men congregate. Instead, she pauses in an open area that I know best from nighttime traffic. After dark, it draws those men and others, workers in the uptown offices who seek companionship or entertainment of another sort. I have accompanied Care across this plaza before, witnessing the drunkenness and debauch, and observe with relief the composition of the daytime congregants. Older and more ragged, they are less aggressive than those nocturnal celebrants, their interest more geared toward what one young female may seek to spend than sell.

  ‘Just looking,’ says the girl, when one of the small crowd glances up. Of indeterminate age – only scent identifies her as female – the creature started as Care reached her patch: a block of stone, a pedestal once or stoop, spread with small and broken things: a dented metal cup, a basket, torn, and a nib-less pen. The creature eyes Care’s bag. ‘Nothing to barter,’ she says, hugging the faded sack of canvas slung over her shoulder. ‘Not today.’

  She steps back, but lingers as if reconsidering her words. As I follow her gaze, I see why. Here, in the shade by the plaza’s poorest vendor, she can surveil those at its center. A baker – or the baker’s man, more likely – has a table, where broken husks and misshapen loaves are displayed. A fruit vendor, her basket full of bruised and broken apples, beside him. Hard by them, a rag man has set up shop, the open sides of his cart hung with gaudy strips of green and yellow. He plucks one of these for a passerby, and I see it forms a shirt. The shopper – a thin man in grease-stained jeans – pulls the bright top over his head, ripping it in the process and provoking the laughter of several larger types who stand nearby. The rag man is less amused and begins to argue as the thin man pushes the ruined piece back. He would have payment for it, despite its shoddy quality, that much is clear, but the would-be customer stands firm.

  The little drama, meanwhile, has drawn attention away from the other vendors, at least in part. On the sidelines, something moves, small and fast. A child emerges from the shadows by the baker’s table to grab a hunk of bread. The cry is raised too late: the child is fast, and in the hubbub the grease-stained man makes his move as well. I watch the girl, attending her interest and reaction both. The child, it is clear, has support. The ragged creature by the stone steps sideways as he runs, putting herself in the way of the pursuit. She gets slammed – hard – into the block for her trouble, but the child is gone. The thin man, meanwhile, has made his own escape, for now, the ruined garment left behind.

  The girl notes their passing and how the crowd responds, but only after the ragged woman pulls herself up does she move on. She walks slowly, as if without a purpose, but I see her eyes. Another table, hard by, piled with better wares than those of the ragged woman at the edge has gained her interest. The sun is still high above and, even through the overcast
sky, reflects off the blades of knives and silver lying on the dealer’s cloth. A pair of boots, good leather, stands next to candlesticks, three different sets.

  ‘Nice wares,’ says Care. She saunters close, and I follow, concerned that her assumed nonchalance will be questioned. Will be exposed.

  The man behind the table sizes her up with one good eye. The patch over the other does little to hide the scar across his face. He nods, as if she’s worth the effort. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What else you got?’ she asks. She reaches for a serving spoon, its handle heavy and ornate. Glances up to see if he is watching, then lifts it anyway to turn it over before replacing it on the grimy cloth. ‘I think I’ve seen all this before.’

  His eyes narrow. ‘I get new wares daily,’ he says, a hint of defensiveness tightening his voice. ‘My boys comb the city for the best.’

  Care shrugs, her thin shoulders eloquent in their dismissal. That’s when he shuffles, pushing the silver spoons over toward the boots to clear a space. And from beneath the trestle that supports his table, he pulls a sack. From it, he withdraws a fist-sized lump of something solid and clear. Crystal. The word comes to me. Its heft is apparent from the vendor’s grasp. Then a book, its pages frayed and feathering. Last, an awkward fist-sized object. A box of some sort, it would seem, only with legs at either end.

  I am close enough, my hearing acute enough, to hear Care’s breathing catch, but to the vendor standing by she is silent. Indeed, when she reaches once again, it is for the book. With an indifference I know to be studied, she flips through its pages before replacing it once more. The crystal she cups with more interest, as if weighing it in her hand. And when she sees the flap on top – a small piece of metal that opens to reveal the reservoir within – she makes a cooing sound, reminiscent of a pigeon come to roost.

  ‘Make an offer,’ says the vendor, a little too fast.

  ‘For a toy like this?’ She holds it still. Turns it so it catches the light. ‘When the toff who lost it might come by at any moment?’

  ‘There’s no—’ The one-eyed man catches himself. ‘I bought it fair and square. I’ve got a regular distributor. He comes by once a week.’

  Care makes a face as if she’s considering. As if the inkwell might appeal. ‘I think your distributor ripped you off,’ she says. Her voice is quiet. ‘I hear the rozzers are looking for a toy like this, or someone bigger. And that—’ One finger, a gesture, nothing more, toward the box-like thing, which I now see has a clear panel between its edges. ‘That’s broken, too.’

  ‘Someone bigger …’ He reaches for the inkwell, but she holds firm. ‘You wouldn’t,’ he says, his voice growing softer still.

  ‘Two guys, one bruiser, one with a face like a hatchet?’ She repeats the mole man’s description of his assailants, the one he was so unwilling to give. ‘I hear they’ve been doing a little business on the side. Business the boss doesn’t know about.’

  ‘No, no way.’ The vendor looks around, as if expecting to see uniforms approaching. Or worse. ‘Not my old mates. Look.’ He steps back, hands in pockets, and gestures toward the inkwell with his chin. ‘You take that. You take that and go, all right? Just – go.’

  ‘This? No.’ She places the cut crystal back on the table, where its polished facets catch the light. ‘But a token. Just so we know we understand each other.’

  The magnifier, for that is what that last item must be, she picks up lightly, as if she might toss it back too. But with a smile that she keeps cool and guarded, she slips it into her bag and, with a nod, turns to go.

  ‘That bastard.’ Her voice is bitter, with an anger I do not understand. ‘He’s got stolen goods from all over the city. From people who can’t afford it, either.’ She stops and shakes her head. ‘But he’s as scared as anyone. I wonder if there really is something going on?’ We have walked away from the market square, slowly at first, and then with speed once the vendors are out of sight. Four blocks away, she stops to examine her prize, sitting in the shadow of a dumpster.

  I sniff the middle part. What I thought a box is filled instead with glass, which concentrates the sun onto the ground below. The side pieces, of some hard plastic, are of more interest, smelling as they do of that fruity ink and of the warmth of the mole-like man.

  THREE

  He had already told her he could not pay, an admission made in shame, his eyes upon the floor. Care didn’t ask, but I could hear the unstated question in the air – a question of what else the thieves had taken. What the little man had considered vital, and what only a further humiliation.

  He did find other ways of showing his gratitude, and the next morning, we share the hard cheese he pressed on Care, along with some soft words of advice. Don’t pursue those men, he had said. Don’t ask why they came to see me or what they came for.

  She must be thinking of these words as she eats, scraping thin curls off the small block with her knife. I lick at the slice she has offered me, enjoying its salt if not its waxy consistency. I have hunted, while she slept, and much prefer the fresh and juicy taste of prey. Still, it seems churlish to refuse her offer, made in generosity and in celebration of success.

  ‘Next gig, I’ll get us tuna,’ she says as she savors her own slice, nibbling at the edge like a mouse. ‘Quirty couldn’t – or, no, wouldn’t – tell me why he’d been targeted. I wonder …’ She pauses to chew over more than the cheese. ‘No.’ She shakes off her own conclusion without sharing it. ‘But he did tell me that the city’s cut back again. More jobbing out, he said. But that’s good for us, Blackie. People still need things found. Need things done.’

  She hums to herself after that, a sound I take to have the same function as a purr, both as an expression of contentment and a form of self-soothing. I wonder at the latter, if perhaps her optimism is less hearty than she would have it. The little man had sounded tentative to me, a quaver in his voice betraying a new anxiety when she returned with his magnifier and her tale. I find myself joining her, as I mull this over, the vibration facilitating thought. But both our inner serenades are interrupted as a loud rap shakes the door in its battered frame.

  ‘Yes?’ Care calls as she stows the cheese in the desk drawer. The knife, I am pleased to see, she tucks in her pocket as she stands.

  Another rap. The door will not withstand many such. ‘You open?’

  ‘Of course.’ The girl sets her shoulders back, breathes deep and goes to lift the bar. ‘Come in.’

  A man steps in, short and rounded, a balding head on a stout form. From slack, wet lips hangs a matchstick, which moves around as he chews. It buys him time, letting him stand and take in the room: a desk, a tattered sofa, bare bookshelves along the wall. Something here confuses him. He does not regard me, seated in the shadow behind that broken door. Perhaps it is the lack of light, or else he didn’t expect the girl. It may be her hair, pink but for a darker line at her scalp. He blinks again, but she’s waiting.

  ‘May I help you?’ She has pitched her voice low, using a courtesy not common in this part of town.

  ‘You the new girl? His helper?’ The matchstick moves to the corner of his mouth as the man steps forward. He keeps one hand on the door and tilts his head, as if other questions are pending.

  ‘This is my office,’ she says. It’s not exactly an answer but he nods. ‘Are you looking for some assistance?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, and rubs his chin, callus rasping on bristle. ‘Maybe.’

  She waits. She has learned that much from me, in one form or another. Silence elicits speech.

  ‘I heard someone was working here. Taking jobs like the old man did.’ He looks at her, waiting, and she urges him on with a nod. ‘I’ve got a job like that. Like he used to do.’

  ‘I do those jobs now,’ she says, pride swelling in her voice. ‘Find that which needs locating. Solve what puzzles you may have.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ As she finishes her patter, he tilts his head again, his small eyes dark and bright. ‘Maybe. Just �
� you work alone?’

  ‘What’s the case, Mr—’ She has turned away, as if to resume her paperwork. As if his question – his custom – were of no concern. I can hear the desperation in her tone. He sees only her back, as she intends.

  ‘Gravitch,’ he says, to fill the void. ‘Teddy Gravitch. Folks call me Gravy.’

  She rewards him with her face – and more waiting.

  ‘It’s not a big deal. It’s a guy. One of my crew. He’s got something going. Something outside, if you get my drift. And I don’t like it.’ He grunts like a pig, three quick snorts in rapid succession. No, it’s a laugh, humorless and cold. The fur on my back starts to rise.

  ‘And what is your line of work, Mr Gravitch?’ The girl keeps her voice level. I doubt he can detect the effort involved. He does, however, release the door and steps into the room to look at her, a different kind of appraisal in his stare.

  ‘All inquiries are confidential,’ she says, her tone cool. Emotions now controlled. ‘But different fields require different methods, and I believe you would like me to be both efficient and unobtrusive.’

  ‘Efficient, yeah,’ he says. He works his mouth around the word as if he does not understand it. ‘I’m in fashion.’ Maybe he sees her reaction, although she tries to hide it. Maybe he hears the absurdity himself. ‘Manufacturing,’ he explains. ‘And distribution.’

  ‘I see,’ says the girl. Something in her tone makes me believe she does, more than the visitor would want. ‘And I gather you’ve had some losses?’

  ‘Someone’s shorting me, I know that.’ His eyes move quickly, side to side, avoiding hers. ‘One of my crew, I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘And you would like me to find out who?’

  ‘No, no.’ His eyes again, those sideways glances, making him look more rat-like than before. He twitches like a prey animal. Could he be afraid? ‘I think I know who it is. Only I want to be sure, see? I need to be sure before I face him.’