Trash (4 page)

I saw the boxer policeman was back – the big guy who’d made the speech yesterday – and he was talking it all over with the site managers and two men in suits by one of the big black cars. There was a lot of arguing going on, a lot of calls being made, and I could see the managers weren’t happy – I think because the line of loaded trucks was getting longer and longer, and the drivers were finally getting itchy, drinking tea all day and not knowing when they were going home. And you could see what the problem was: if the police allowed these trucks to unload new, fresh trash, the precious bag was going to be buried even further down, if it was there. But on the other hand, this
was the city dumpsite, and how long can you close down a dump when all these millions of people are sending stuff to it? How long before the city stops?

But what must have been burning them up was that no one could be sure the bag had ever got here. After all, kids go through the trash straight out of the bins, in McKinley same as everywhere. Sometimes you see them in the street, sorting on the pavements. Also, like I said, kids get up inside the carts before they’ve even reached the dump – so they could not know the bag had even got to the dumpsite. It was strange to think there were just three boys in the world who knew exactly where it was.

We all sat around.

Money got paid out at last, and everyone was one hundred pesos richer. It was getting dark, the sky red all over, and the police finally gave up and started leaving, me and Raphael smiling. Then all the belts started with a sound that splits your ears, and the trucks started crawling through again, and they brought out more lights and worked on and on, right through until the morning.

In our little neighbourhood there were more cooking fires than usual, and a few cases of beer. There was music and singing, and everyone was happy – most of all Raphael, who thinks the job is done and he’s been so smart.

But inside Raphael’s house, right by me – because I was staying close now – after the food, his auntie says to both of us: ‘Are we safe?’

I knew she wasn’t, and I also knew she’d brought it on herself. Opening her mouth had not been smart – in fact, I hate to say it, but we talked about it since: if she had kept her mouth shut, things would have been so much easier. ‘Are we safe?’ she said again.

I said, ‘We are completely safe. Don’t worry,’ which was a lie.

‘I was spoken to,’ she said to me. ‘They wanted to know why I said he found something. A policeman asked me about it again, and I shouldn’t have spoken, but I did. Now they’re wondering about both of you. They got both your names.’

‘Yes, but we told them,’ said Raphael, doing his smile and pushing back his hair, ‘it was just a shoe, and they know nothing.’

She was quiet, but only for a moment.

‘I saw you go out last night,’ she said, very soft like you could hardly hear, so we were huddling close. ‘I don’t want to know where, I don’t want to know why, but I just want to know we’re safe. There’s nothing in the house, is there?’

We both said: ‘No.’

‘You promise me that? Because they will take these houses apart—’

‘I promise,’ said Raphael, so light and bright. All I could think about was the lies, stacking up now, and how I hoped it was worth it. The bag was safe, down with Rat – I wanted to get away and check it.

Raphael’s auntie kept at him, though: ‘They’re talking
about searching here,’ she said. ‘That’s what people say. Ours will be the first, you can bet on that. If they take it apart again—’

Raphael took her hand then: ‘There’s nothing in the house,’ he said.

‘Ten thousand is a lot of money!’ she said, and her voice rose up. ‘Have you thought what we could do with that?’

I interrupted then. ‘You think they’d give it?’ I said. ‘You really think they’d give it?’

‘I think they would!’ she said.

Raphael shook her hand gently. ‘Ma,’ he said. ‘Ma. If someone here – one of us – if one of us got all that money, you think we’d be allowed to keep it for long?’

She reached out to me then, and took hold of my arm, so we were all three linked together. ‘You’re smart,’ she said to me. ‘Gardo, you’re smarter than this boy, and I know you can run fast and get clear – and maybe I shouldn’t have spoken, and I’m sorry I did. But I’m too old to move again, and the two little ones …’

Her eyes were all full of tears, glittering wet – and I got scared because she was scared, and I know Raphael was most scared of all, though he won’t ever say so. ‘I don’t want us getting caught up with the police,’ she said, gripping us hard. ‘Everyone knows what things they do.’

I couldn’t meet her eye.

For one thing, I was mad she’d spoken up – it was still the dumbest thing she could have done. For another, I had a feeling things were going to get bad. Sure, I wanted to be
smart, like she said I was, and I knew I had to lead this, because Raphael needs to be led. I needed to keep a hold of him.

I was planning it fast, and that’s why I said nothing.

We just had to get to the railway station – that’s what I thought. We had to find out what was in the locker, and do it fast. Then, maybe, in a few days’ time, we could give up the wallet with the key inside it and get everyone off our backs.

If that was too suspicious, I could get Rat to give it up – nobody would suspect him, because he worked alone, he didn’t talk to people. So I thought,
Let Rat be the little hero and bring them what they wanted in a few days’ time
.

But if even that was too dangerous, I was thinking – then we could just throw the wallet and key up into the trash, and wait till somebody – anybody – found it, if they ever did.

There was nothing in the house, that was true – and nobody could prove anything, and we were
not
in danger, and we could still make money – that is what I told myself, and Raphael was thinking just the same kind of thing, and we talked it through all night, thinking we were being smart and so not knowing what we were getting into. Not dealing with the fact that if the police think you’ve got something, they won’t stop till they’ve got it from you.

Raphael again.

The next day Gardo let us go to the station. I told him me and Rat would go alone if he didn’t.

He said, what if we were being watched? I couldn’t see how they could watch us with us not seeing them, and I said we’d be moving so fast they’d never know.

He said, what if they come back to the dumpsite, looking for us? I said, what if they don’t?

He said, what if they’ve got the station staked out? And I said, what if we just do nothing for ever and forget the whole thing? Is that what he wanted? He kind of snarled at me then, but I’d got my way.

So, early morning we went down to the tracks. The trains cut through the south side of Behala, very close to the docks. If you want to get to Central, you can pick one up ten minutes from my house.

People have built their homes right up to the line, because the ground is flat and clear. Every now and again the homes get torn down and the people get shipped out. Over time, they come back, and the game starts again. It’s not as dangerous as you might think, because the trains are only four a day just there, and they go slow. They’re long and heavy, and you can hear them coming a mile away. The only person I ever heard of getting run over by a train was a woman about two years ago, and she did it on purpose, walking up as the train came and laying her head right on the rail.

Gardo, me and Rat waited for the six o’clock. It came by pretty much on time, and we ran alongside the last coach. It’s a passenger train, and it goes for nine hours, way down to a town called Diamond Harbour. It starts at the docks, but not many people get on there. Then it goes to Central, where it gets so full you can’t breathe. We swung up and in through the windows – there’s no glass and no bars – and the only people were an old couple at one end, so we spread ourselves over the benches, and looked out and waved like we were on holiday.

‘What if they’re watching?’ said Gardo again. When he gets something on his mind, you can’t ever get it off again.

‘How can they be?’ said Rat.

‘They’d be looking for people doing anything suspicious. How many times have we been on a train, Raphael?’

‘I don’t know, not often—’

‘They’re police, yes? They’re gonna be looking out to
see what we’re doing. What if they know there was a locker key – they just don’t know the number?’

‘No, listen,’ I said. ‘That’s crazy. If they know the bag had a locker key, they’d have broken into every locker in the station. They cannot know what’s in the bag.’

‘Maybe they’re at the station now, opening every locker. Waiting for us.’

‘If they are, we just walk away. We’re just three boys out roaming.’

Rat said nothing. He just looked from me to Gardo and back again, and when I caught his eye, he smiled and we both laughed.

Gardo told us to shut up. ‘Twenty thousand now,’ he said. ‘That’s the prize money they’re offering, I heard – they just doubled it.’

‘You know they won’t pay it.’

‘What I’m saying is, whatever they’re looking for is getting more important. If this José Angelico killed someone – what if he killed an important man – a politician, maybe: someone rich – and we’ve got the clues to catch the guy? What are we going to do then? We end up stopping the police catching a killer—’

I said, ‘Gardo, why don’t we just see what’s in the locker?’ And I smiled right at him and lay back on the bench. ‘We decide what to do then, OK?’ I told him to rest his brain.

‘I do the locker,’ said Rat.

We both looked at him, and Gardo asked him what he meant.

‘I best do the locker,’ he said. ‘OK? I best square it with the station boys too – say we’re just doing an errand for someone, give them something. Also, in case anyone’s looking … I know where it is. I’ll go in fast, grab what’s there – meet you back by the tracks. Anyone sees me, I just run. Three of us run, they’ll get one of us. If it’s me, I’ll lose them. OK?’

‘How much to the station boys?’ I said. ‘They going to want how much?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll try twenty and make it look like a small thing. Give me a hundred, though.’

I gave Rat the notes, and he was twitching a little, getting scared. Gardo was shaking his head, thinking deep. He said: ‘It’s a good idea, Rat. I can see where you’re coming from. But I say stick together. We ought to stay together in this.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You better stay close to me!’

Minutes later, the train was slowing for the station, and we stood out on the sides. I could see the platform coming up, so I jumped and ended up rolling on the grass. Gardo nearly fell on me, but Rat stayed on his feet. I hadn’t seen before just how quick Rat could be, and he was so thin it was like he was just straws and paper, like he could blow off in the wind like a little kite. He didn’t even look round, he just skipped along, and we hurried after him.
We ran up onto the platforms, and a couple of kids looked at us with a kind of mean-eyed suspicion, like this was their territory – which it was.

They followed us up, at a distance.

We jumped early because you don’t ever want to be seen getting off the train. If guards or even porters see you, you can get a real thrashing. The station boys are different. As long as they don’t steal or get in the way, nobody cares too much. They keep the station clean, and go through a train in about two minutes. If they beg or sell, they know to do it off at the sides – that’s why people let them alone.

So now we were all making our way up the platform, just a straggling bunch of three barefoot boys; we might have been invisible. I knew the dangerous bit was going to be the locker, because that was something you did not usually see. Boys like us opening luggage lockers? It wouldn’t have to be police. It would be anyone who noticed. They’d assume right away that we were thieving, and thieving boys get no mercy from anyone.

Just off the platform we were met by more station boys and these ones were bigger. We got kind of herded over to the side and I could feel Gardo getting ready, feeling for his hook, which he always carries somewhere. Rat did the talking, though, since he used to live there and knew some of them, and I saw him pass over the twenty – then another fifty, then a twenty. Everyone shook hands, and they
let us go. I guess Rat had paid for them not to follow us, because we went on alone to the main station square.

‘They give us five minutes,’ he said.

It’s a giant station, and that time in the morning it’s just getting crazy – a good time for us, but scary as hell. You got porters, you got travelling families, you got trucks delivering stuff, horns blasting, train whistles, loud speakers. Everyone’s cutting in and out of everyone else, and the noise is so loud you have to shout. Rat kept moving fast, and I was beginning to get frightened again. I hadn’t liked the look of the station boys, but now – everywhere I looked I could see mean-looking railway guards – and we were getting stared at. I had to keep saying to myself, ‘We’re not breaking the law’ – but it felt like we were, and everyone knows stories about what happens to kids if they get caught breaking the law. I don’t mean what I said about just riding in a train and being thrashed. We’ve got prisons in this city, and the prisons take kids quicker than they take men. You also hear stories of boys not even making it to prison, but I don’t know how much truth there is in any of it – everyone’s out to scare you with a story. I was told once about runaways, and it made me sick. How if a new kid shows up with nowhere to go, and the police get him – they wait till night, break his legs and put him on the tracks. They’re stories, and they may not be true, but I couldn’t stop thinking of them as I walked across that
station, feeling small – nearly losing Rat, but Gardo by my side, up close. Both of us just waiting to be caught.

Rat kept going. Somehow he’d shaken off that twitch he gets, and was walking fast, looking happy as a kid. He stayed a little bit ahead of us. He had something in his hand, and I saw it was the key, so I guessed we must be near. We went under a bridge into some kind of hall with a low ceiling and lines of tube-lights. We kept walking, like we knew where we were going, and there they were: two long aisles of grey metal lockers – lines and lines of doors.