The Good Thief (24 page)

In the opposite corner was a miniature potbellied stove, and it was around this stove that the dwarf now busied himself—pulling bits of wood and paper from his pockets and stuffing them in the grate, pouring water from a small earthenware jar into a dented pan and setting it on top, digging a bit of flint from under a tile in the roof and striking it against the stone, sparking a flame which he then coaxed into a fire.

The dwarf dug around in a wooden box and pulled out a small sachet of roots and leaves, which he threw into the pot of water. Two mugs were taken down from a shelf. Carefully, he portioned out the brew he’d been stirring on the stove. Ren took a cup in his hand. It smelled bitter and burned his tongue.

“Wormwood,” said the small man. “Our mother always made us this when we were sick. I’ll put some in a jar for you to take to Mary.”

“Why don’t you bring it to her?”

“I don’t leave the roof,” the dwarf said.

“Why not?”

The dwarf set his mug of tea on the floor. “I go down to the kitchen. That’s the only time I go down.”

“Aren’t you ever lonely?”

“Never.” The dwarf coughed.

Ren did not believe him.

There were piles of books in the corner, and more on the shelves hanging from the wall. Ren moved closer to read the titles. There were several in Greek and Latin and other languages he could not understand. The Complete Works of Shakespeare balanced on the floor, along with books of poetry, some novels, a history of the Roman Empire, and a large, fat, illustrated volume of Don Quixote . Ren picked it up and opened to the first chapter, the paper soft and thick beneath his fingers.

The water was boiling again. The dwarf turned back to the stove and filled the jar he was preparing for his sister. “Some of those were my father’s. But most of them came from a woman who used to live in North Umbrage. She was always a bit off. I watched her walk past the market one day and right into the water. She let go of her basket, and it floated away on the current. She took another step, and another, until her dress changed color and sank. Some men who were fishing pulled her out. I saw them carrying her back home. Her skirt dragged behind them, and it left a long wet trail, all the way back from the river.”

“What happened to her?” Ren asked.

“She disappeared,” said the dwarf. “They say her brother sent her away to an institution. I saw her books being sold in the market afterward, and I asked Mary to buy them for me.” He leaned forward and flipped the pages to the frontispiece. There was a drawing of Don Quixote, riding his beaten-down horse, and in the opposite corner was a name, scribbled in the corner: Margaret McGinty. The dwarf drew his finger across the paper. “Her brother owns the mousetrap factory. He has plenty of money. But he sold all of her things in the street, like she was some kind of criminal.”

Ren closed Don Quixote and slid it back onto the shelf. He understood now why the dwarf had been afraid. Without Mrs. Sands, he had no food, no clothes, no family. He was completely helpless.

Outside, a whistle sounded. The dwarf pushed open the door. Smoke was rising from the factory. The mousetrap girls rushed into the streets in their blue uniforms, a few clutching bits of breakfast. They came from every corner of the town and flowed in the same direction.

“We’ve got to lock up the pantry,” said the small man. “They’ll eat everything if we don’t.”

“Don’t they pay for their food?”

“They get two meals a day. But with my sister gone they’ll take everything.”

Morning spread across the rooftops, the sun so pink that it made the gutters shine. The streets below were slowly coming to life, the shops opening and the brothels closing. All the mousetrap girls had disappeared into the factory, and the door closed behind them like a giant mouth.

Ren looked out at the river circling the town. He felt the hem of his coat. The stitches there were straight and evenly paced. They traveled along the seams, across the shoulders and down the sleeves. He thought of Mrs. Sands pushing the needle and thread, draining the water from the drowned boy’s clothes until they were a perfect fit.

The dwarf handed him the jar full of tea. “When you see Mary,” he said, “I want you to remind her that she said that she would always take care of me. She promised after our mother died. A promise is a promise.”

For a moment Ren wished that he could trade places with the dwarf. He would not mind staying on the roof, he thought, if Mrs. Sands was always at the other end of the chimney. He put his hand on the brick and peered down into the darkness. It was as steep as the well at Saint Anthony’s. Ren pulled the jar close. Mrs. Sands’s tea was heavy in his arms. He tied the rope around his waist, climbed onto the chimney, and hoped that it would not break.

I
t was easier going down. Ren simply pressed his feet against the inner bricks of the chimney and lowered himself, a bit at a time, holding on to the rope. Only once did he slip a bit, nearly dropping the jar, when he felt a wave of fatigue across his shoulders. Ren’s days and nights had been completely upended, their beginnings and endings blurred. He was now more than likely to be awake at four in the morning, to be curling in a dark corner for a brief nap at noon. Ren had always thought of days in a physical sense, like the clock face in Father John’s study—a sun and moon divided in two, morning and night. Now he understood that there was no precise moment when evening crossed over into morning—that there was never a brand-new day.

When he reached the end of the chimney, he heard low voices in the kitchen. He dropped quietly into the fireplace and saw Benjamin and the Harelip. She was sitting on his lap and spooning preserves from a jar into his mouth.

Benjamin had his hand under her skirt. Where the side was hitched up, Ren could see one of her black stockings. The seam was coming apart, revealing the delicate skin at the back of her knee. Benjamin was whispering something into the girl’s ear and she was smiling.

“I’m already late,” she said. The Harelip slid off Benjamin’s lap, her cheeks flushed. When she saw Ren standing in the fireplace, it was hard to say if she was embarrassed or angry. She snatched her shawl from the peg, then stuck her tongue out at him and left.

Ren waited until the door had closed, then crawled into the kitchen and set the jar of tea on the floor. He untied the rope from his waist and shook the dust from his clothes.

“Father Christmas!” said Benjamin. He was wearing a new coat, with a blue velvet collar that matched his eyes, and brand-new boots with rounded toes. The leather was hand-tooled and the laces barely creased.

“Where’ve you been?” Ren asked.

“Following the bartender. He lived out in the country, but it was worth it in the end. His whole family’s gone. Struck down with a fever.” Benjamin brushed soot from Ren’s jacket. “How the hell did you end up in the chimney?”

Ren didn’t have any excuses ready, and so decided to tell the truth. First he explained about finding Mrs. Sands, then meeting the hat boys on the road. Benjamin frowned over the murders, then touched the cut on Ren’s cheek. But as soon as the money was mentioned, Benjamin grabbed the boy’s coat and began going through his pockets. He pulled out the bills that were left. He threw them down on the table.

“Where’s the rest?”

“I used it to pay the doctor.”

Benjamin pushed Ren away from him. He went to the fireplace and began to throw logs onto the irons.

Ren stood still, his fingers gripping the chair. “They said she was going to die.”

“You’re supposed to steal from other people,” said Benjamin. “Not me.”

“I wasn’t stealing.”

“What would you call it, then?”

Ren remembered what Benjamin had said on the road, after they’d stolen the farmer’s horse. “Borrowing, with good intent.”

Benjamin looked up and shook his head, as if he were having his own private conversation with the ceiling. Then he threw another piece of wood onto the fire. “Look,” he said. “You just can’t go around taking care of people. They’ll grow to depend on you, and then you won’t be able to leave them when you have to.”

Ren watched him bend over to light the wood. The same scent of ashes had filled the farmer’s kitchen when his wife stirred the fire, trying to bring it to life enough so that she could serve them dinner.

“What if I don’t want to leave them,” said Ren.

“Who?” Benjamin asked. “The dead man?”

“He’s not dead. He’s my friend.”

“Now who’s kidding themselves.” Benjamin threw a pine branch into the flames, and the needles crackled and smoked. “I shouldn’t have left him with you.”

“But you did,” said Ren. He picked up the jar of wormwood tea from the floor and set it carefully on the kitchen table. “I told him that he could stay with us.”

The fireplace was now blazing, the cinders sparking in the ash. Benjamin ran his fingers across his chin and sighed. He pulled a seat forward and motioned for Ren to take it.

“That man’s not your friend. He’s a murderer. If he gets it in his mind, he could kill any one of us.” Ren started to protest, but Benjamin held up his hand. “I’ve seen his kind. Men that don’t feel anything anymore. One minute they buy you a drink, and the next they slit your throat, or cut open a woman beside you, or saw off a person’s hand for no reason at all.” Benjamin rubbed his nose, then looked at the boy to make sure he was following. Ren thought of the man with the red gloves, eating with the bartender’s spoon. “His only value is what he can do for us. I’ve tried to show you what I know,” Benjamin said. “Anytime you get attached, you’re putting yourself in danger.”

Ren felt the heat on his face. It was too warm for a fire. He knew that Mrs. Sands would not approve of wasting wood, and he worried that the chimney would not cool in time for the dwarf to collect his supper. Benjamin must have been hot in his new coat, but he stayed in place, his forehead growing damp, waiting for Ren to tell him what he wanted to hear.

“I’m not in danger of anything.”

“Good,” said Benjamin.

They went out searching for Tom that afternoon. Ren looked in O’Sullivan’s, and Benjamin visited three brothels on Darby Street, but no one had seen him. They bought a package of walnuts on the way back to the boardinghouse, and Benjamin proceeded to eat them all, cracking one after the other at the kitchen table and pulling out the meat.

“He’ll show up soon,” Benjamin said. But Ren could tell that he was worried.

Together they went upstairs to check on Dolly. They could hear his snores in the hall as they approached. Benjamin crouched on the bedroom floor, sizing up the man underneath the mattress, like a piece of property he was not sure of keeping.

“I don’t know why he sleeps so much.”

“It seems like he needs to,” said Ren.

Benjamin stood up and brushed the dust from his knees. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but if I had a second chance at life, I’d live it.”

There was not much to eat for supper. The mousetrap girls had made short work of the preserves, just as the dwarf had predicted, but there was still some salted pork and potatoes. Benjamin chopped the pork into pieces and fried it in lard. He sliced up a few of the potatoes and threw those on top. Then he added half a dozen eggs from the chickens in the yard, and threw the whole pan into the oven. When he took it out, the mixture had hardened, and he cut it into pieces, just like a pie.

“What is it?” Ren asked.

“Something I learned in Mexico,” said Benjamin.

Ren tasted a piece. The consistency was strange, and he rolled the food around in his mouth, trying to find a way to swallow it. “Was it very terrible there?”

Benjamin blew on his fork. “It wasn’t good. But some men took to it.”

Ren tried to imagine what those men were like. Then he realized they were probably like Dolly. He picked at a piece of potato. “Did you know that I was going to be sent into the army?”

“Father John may have mentioned that.”

“Is that the reason you picked me?”

“One of them.”

Ren lifted his head. He felt he should thank him. And so he did.

For once Benjamin seemed at a loss for words. He cleared his throat and gathered the plates. He brought them over to the counter, looked for a place to set them down, then balanced them carefully on top of all the other dirty dishes that had accumulated since Mrs. Sands had left.

There was a knock on the window. Benjamin seemed relieved. “That’ll be Tom.”

Ren went to the door, leaned his weight back on the handle, and swung it open into the morning light. He squinted, then blinked his eyes once. Twice. For there stood Brom and Ichy. Wet, shivering, and frightened nearly out of their minds.

“I’ve brought your fellows,” said Tom, reeling, pushing the twins roughly forward into the room. “Now we’re a family at last.”

The boys fell to the floor and immediately got to their feet again and scurried to the corner of the room, trying to put as much distance and furniture between themselves and Tom as possible. To Ren they looked like beggars, their shirts torn, their pants too small, their jackets threadbare and full of holes.

“Have you lost your senses?” Benjamin shouted. “What do we need three boys for?”