The Good Thief (22 page)

“New patient,” Sister Agnes said.

The nun’s eyes popped open. She was nearly seventy, with gray strands of hair peeking out of her habit; a solid woman, despite her age.

“Get the tub and some water,” said Sister Agnes. “She’ll have to be deloused.”

Sister Josephine shuffled off down the hallway, rolling up the sleeves on her sizable arms. Dolly set the landlady on the bed while Ren looked around the room. It was a pleasant space, with a clean floor and flowered wallpaper and eyelet curtains trimmed with lace.

“I’M
NOT
A
LOUSE
.”

“Quiet!” Sister Agnes said. “She’ll wake the other patients.”

“She can’t help it,” Ren tried to explain.

“BOY!”

“Shhhh.” He took Mrs. Sands’s hand and squeezed it.

“
YOU
MUST
MAKE
HIS
DINNER
.
YOU
MUST
BRING
HIM
HIS
SOCKS
.”

Ren tried to cover her mouth, but Mrs. Sands took hold of his fingers.

“
LEAVE
THEM
BY
THE
FIREPLACE
.”

And then the boy understood. It was the chimney dwarf. Mrs. Sands knew that Ren had seen him. She knew that Ren had taken the wooden horse.

Sister Agnes pulled a small brown bottle from her sleeve. She held it underneath Mrs. Sands’s nose, and the landlady immediately began to sneeze. “You’ve upset her.”

The door swung open, and Sister Josephine carried in a basin full of water. “Out of the way!” she said to Dolly, who backed against the wall, holding the place on his stomach where the nun had just elbowed him.

“She needs to sleep,” said Sister Agnes. “You should go. She’ll get good care here. God be praised.”

Ren leaned over the bed. Mrs. Sands’s eyes were unfocused. Her hands limp. Ren could see inside the landlady’s mouth. There was a molar on the right side, plugged with gold. Sister Josephine began to pull at the pins in Mrs. Sands’s hair.

“How long will it take for her to get better?”

“There’s no way to tell,” said Sister Agnes.

“I’ll come back soon,” Ren said to Mrs. Sands. The landlady slapped at the nuns as they tried to undress her, and Sister Agnes pushed Ren and Dolly out of the room.

“I hate this place,” Dolly said as they went through the hallway doors.

“Haven’t you ever been sick?” Ren asked.

Dolly sat down on the stairs and lifted his robe. He showed Ren a sealed hole, the size of a quarter, in his thigh.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Someone shot me,” said Dolly. He traced the hole with his finger.

“Why?”

“Because I was strangling him.” Dolly’s tongue pushed out the side of his cheek, and Ren saw that he was boasting again. He showed Ren where the bullet had come out, on the other side of his leg.

“Just missed the bone,” said Doctor Milton. He was on the landing below, watching them through the spokes of the railing, his suit spotlessly tailored, his beard trimmed, his fingernails picked clean. “This is an unexpected visit.”

“It’s our landlady,” said Ren. “She’s sick.”

“Is it a fever?” Doctor Milton asked. “We’ve had several interesting cases. Someone died of it last night.” He climbed the stairs, leaned over, and touched Dolly’s bullet hole. “This must have been exceedingly painful.”

Dolly looked away, as if he was embarrassed.

Doctor Milton studied Dolly’s giant hands, his chest, his square bald head. He took his finger off the bullet hole. “You must lead a fascinating life.”

Dolly stared back.

“Yes,” said Ren. “He does.”

The boy could sense the hospital slowly coming to life, the doctors and students and patients starting their day. A Sister of Mercy walked by with a tray of dressings. Two young students passed on the stairs and nodded at Doctor Milton. They seemed taken aback by Dolly, his bloodied robe pulled about his knees.

“I’d like to speak with you,” said Doctor Milton. “In the observatory, please.” He led Ren and Dolly down the hall, past the rows of paintings and his own hungry-looking portrait. The operating room was empty, the stage scrubbed clean and covered with fresh sawdust. The morning sun shone through the skylights and brightened the rows of benches. Doctor Milton closed the door.

“I received your delivery. I’m afraid there’s a problem.”

“What’s the matter?” Ren asked.

“They were murdered.” The doctor pointed to the corner of his eye. “Here,” he said. “And here.” He touched the back of his skull. “The blood’s barely dry. They’ve only been dead for a few hours. When a body comes in like this, I’m supposed to report it.”

Ren coughed. “It was an accident.”

“That makes no difference to me.”

The room went still. Ren looked at Dolly, who stood near the door, his hands opening and closing, his brow creased. If only Benjamin were with them, Ren thought. They needed a story to get out of this. The boy searched for a way to explain. But instead Dolly walked up to the doctor and tapped him on the shoulder.

“I killed them,” said Dolly.

“Excuse me?” said Doctor Milton.

“I killed them and I’m not sorry,” Dolly said, and then he turned to Ren, as though he’d just done something wonderful.

“Well,” said Doctor Milton, sucking in his breath. “That’s very interesting.”

The speech Ren had given on the road had brought the truth out. Dolly had confessed, but he confessed to the wrong man. Ren groaned. That’s it, he thought. We’re finished. He was surprised to find that he was more relieved than afraid. He sat down on the stairs, dropped his head, and waited for Doctor Milton to send for the police. But the doctor did not raise the alarm. He took a small notebook out of his pocket and began eagerly scribbling across the paper.

“I’d like to examine you,” the doctor said to Dolly. “If you would permit me?” He gestured to the operating table in the center of the stage. Dolly glanced at Ren, and when the boy shrugged his shoulders, he followed the doctor down the stairs. Doctor Milton brushed a bit of sawdust off the table, and Dolly settled on top, stretching out as if he were preparing to take a nap.

The doctor wrote a few more notes, then leaned over Dolly’s face. “I’m going to touch your head.”

“What for?”

“To take some measurements.” Doctor Milton rested his fingertips on either side of Dolly’s forehead. Then he slowly moved them across the scalp, pausing over each bump, running his thumb along the center, as if the seam there bound the man together. The morning sun shone through the skylight, and the doctor’s whole face was illuminated.

“I met a giant once,” Doctor Milton said, “with this same shape of skull. When I heard he was ill, I tried to make arrangements, but he refused to sell his body to me. He made his friends promise to seal him in a lead coffin and dump it in the ocean. But I paid off the undertaker, and they filled the coffin with stones. He’s made a wonderful addition to my collection.” Doctor Milton ran his fingers over Dolly’s jaw. “I haven’t acquired any murderers yet. Perhaps I could persuade you to take part, to further my study of phrenology?”

Dolly blinked at the doctor, not understanding. And then he did. The dark fog came back into his eyes, and he reached up, and in one movement seized the doctor’s arm and twisted it backward. Doctor Milton cried out and tried to get away, clawing with his free hand. Dolly sat up on the operating table and took the blows as if they were nothing.

The doctor started to scream and Dolly covered his mouth, just as he had done with Mrs. Sands, muffling the cries with his giant fingers. Ren watched Doctor Milton thrashing and was reminded of how terrified he’d been on his first visit, sitting on the edge of that same table. He waited a little while longer and then he said, “That’s enough.”

Dolly let go. Doctor Milton staggered off the stage, cradling his arm and cursing. “I think he’s broken it.”

“You frightened him.”

“ Ifrightened him ?”

“He’s sorry. Aren’t you, Dolly?”

“No.”

Doctor Milton slowly bent his arm, wincing in pain. He pushed up his sleeve and felt the bone. “Not broken. But sprained. It will keep me from operating for at least a week. Do you want to explain this to Mrs. Fitzpatrick and her goiter?”

“Not really,” said Ren.

“It helps to understand someone’s history,” said Doctor Milton. “That’s all I was trying to say. If I know a man’s profession or his temperament, I can see how it affected the growth of his body. If his liver is diseased or his heart too small. An anomaly opens the door.” Doctor Milton hovered over his box of medical instruments, as if they offered some kind of protection. With his fingertips he pulled out a bandage and began to wrap it around his injured arm, all the way to the wrist.

“I’m no different from anyone else,” said Dolly.

“Yes, you are,” said Doctor Milton, brandishing a pair of scissors. Ren could tell that he was still afraid. “You’re a murderer.”

The scissors flashed like a signal. “The men we brought were murderers too,” said Ren.

Doctor Milton seemed intrigued, if not completely pacified. “Do they have any family? Anyone who might come looking for them?”

Ren looked the doctor straight in the eye. “No.”

“I’m not going to pay the regular price,” said Doctor Milton. “And I want that man off the premises first.”

“I’m not leaving Ren,” said Dolly.

The boy put his hand on Dolly’s arm. “It’s only for a few minutes,” he said. “Wait for me outside.”

Dolly cracked his massive knuckles. He gave Doctor Milton a menacing look, then threw his body forward, off the examination table. Ren watched his friend leave, and when he turned around Doctor Milton had already fashioned a sling for his arm. With a bit of fumbling, the man took out his purse and pressed the money into Ren’s hand. It was less than a third of what they’d received before.

“You’re a smart boy,” said Doctor Milton. “I don’t know what you’re doing with a man like that.”

“He’s my friend,” said Ren.

“You should be going to school. You could study science. Or get a job of some kind. Something respectable.”

These possibilities fanned out before Ren like cards on a table, then closed back together, until there was only one option left. He was never going to study science; he was never going to be respectable. And he was tired of trying to be good. The best he could do was follow the path that Benjamin had showed him. He belonged to it now.

“I don’t want him coming back here,” said Doctor Milton. “Unless you bring him as a delivery. I’d pay extra for that.”

Ren imagined Dolly’s bones hanging next to the giant’s. “I don’t think he’d like it.”

“He doesn’t have to,” said the doctor. “He only has to die.”

R
en and Dolly were fumbling through Mrs. Sands’s drawers, encountering mountains of nightgowns as they searched for the small man’s socks. Ren wondered at the amount of underwear, for he’d only seen the landlady in two dresses: one purple, one brown. In her closet he’d found another, made of light gray silk, covered with paper and tied with string, that he suspected was her wedding dress.

All the time they were searching, Ren thought of what he would say to Tom and Benjamin. He wanted to tell them about the murders beneath the streetlight, but he was afraid they might turn Dolly out. And then there was the money missing from the bedpost. Benjamin would need some kind of excuse, and the more Ren tried to imagine one the more his mind was empty.

Dolly opened a small box full of ribbons, curled into circles and pinned. He pulled one out after the next, until they came undone in spirals across the bureau. He glanced into the mirror hanging over the dresser. “Ren,” he said. “Look!”

Piled on the crossbeam over their heads was a mountain of toys, waiting in the dust to be discovered: a marionette in the shape of a monkey; a fleet of Viking ships; letter blocks; tiny pigs; a mask in the shape of the moon; a castle with a dragon; a set of fish that came apart and fit inside each other, the shark swallowing down the minnow. Dolly lifted Ren onto his shoulders and together they pulled them all free, sweeping the toys out onto the bed.

Ren went to retrieve the wooden horse from where he’d hidden it in his room and set it beside the other toys. Without a doubt, it was created by the same hand. From the sharp angles of the ears to the bluntness of the face, the horse resembled the surrounding creatures. The dwarf could not be so bad, Ren thought, if he had made all of these things.

They found a bag of knitting in a chest at the foot of the bed. Underneath, wrapped in a piece of stiff canvas, was a pair of worn, clean socks. The heels and toes were ragged. Ren could see where the pattern had already been fixed dozens of times. He held them up and recognized the size and style. He was not the only one wearing the drowned boy’s clothes.

Dolly began to root through the knitting bag. He emerged with a ball of yarn, a set of darning needles, and a pair of tiny scissors. “I need a bed knob.”