“Daddy, make it stop.”
Hammersmith felt sick. The barkeep had put his own daughter to work hustling the customers.
The barkeep looked up from the girl and snarled, “Don’t you move, mister. You give me one minute here and I’m ’a kill you good.”
Hammersmith felt a hand on his arm and jumped. He turned, his club raised. The only other people in the pub were the card players, and they had him outnumbered. He was ready to do his worst, but the man behind him was familiar, now that his features weren’t hidden in shadows.
“Best we get out of here now,” Blackleg said, “afore Big Pete gets his hands on you.”
Hammersmith nodded. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said.
25
Fennimore Hubbard sat on the curb and examined the soles of his feet. They hurt badly, and his pace had slowed in the last hour. Blisters had already formed and burst, and blood mixed with rainwater beneath him to create pale pink tributaries that crossed the divides of his toes and trickled away into the gutter. He wished now that he had taken the time to put on a pair of shoes before dropping from the bald man’s window, but what was done was done.
He shucked his sopping pajama shirt and twisted it in his tiny fists, trying to rip it in half. The fabric was too strong, so he used his teeth. It was a well-made shirt, probably fashioned by the bald man himself. Once he got it started, it ripped easily enough up the back, but he had trouble with the collar and had to remove it completely, tossing it into the street.
He wrapped the shirt halves around each of his feet and knotted them at the top. He stood. The fabric bunched under the balls of his feet and threw off his balance, but his feet felt a little better.
Now, of course, he was bare-chested and cold. He was seven years old and not large for his age. His ribs sat on his flesh like umbrella tines. The best way to keep warm, he thought, was to keep running.
Fenn had a good sense of direction, and he was certain he was headed toward home, his real home, the house he’d been born in and the house where his parents, he hoped, still lived and waited for him. The bald man had told him that his parents and three sisters had moved away, that they had sold Fenn to the bald man, and that there was no birth home to return to. But Fenn didn’t believe anything the bald man said. The bald man had also claimed to love Fenn as his own son, but Fenn’s father, his real father, had never tied him to a bed or shut him up in a dark closet or screamed at him. Fenn wasn’t a baby, he could figure things out for himself, and it hadn’t been hard to figure out that the bald man was dangerous. The bald man was something that Fenn had heard his father refer to as “touched in the head.” Which meant that he did things that made no sense.
Fenn was also certain that the bald man had killed other children. He had heard the man say several times that Fenn was “another chance” for him, that Fenn would be better than “the others.” And so Fenn had tried to be better than he imagined the others had been. He was smart-his real mother always said so-and he had understood that fighting the bald man, or disobeying him, was futile. He had known to bide his time.
His one big mistake had been in not talking to the policeman who had come round the bald man’s shop. The policeman, who had not worn a blue uniform like the other policemen Fenn had seen, said his name was Little, but he was big and fat, which was funny. The bald man told Fenn to be quiet when the policeman came, but Mr Little had looked right at Fenn and said that his parents were looking for him.
And right then Fenn should have told Mr Little that the bald man was touched in the head. He should have shouted it as soon as he saw the scissors in the bald man’s hand. But he didn’t. The nice fat policeman was dead now, and Fenn believed it was his fault.
He came to a wide intersection and stopped. The sky was growing brighter and the fog was burning off. It would be harder to run and hide in the daylight. People would see him, shirtless and dripping, tattered fabric wrapped around his feet, and they would stop him. And if they didn’t listen to him, they might take him back to the bald man. They might think that the bald man was really Fenn’s father like he said he was.
But he recognized a building across the street. It was a warehouse department store, specializing in tartan weaves. A big restaurant jutted from the side of the store, the street-facing wall a single huge piece of bowed glass. Fenn’s mother had taken him and his sisters there for tea one day more than a year ago. It had been a treat, a rare day out, and Fenn remembered the window, remembered the wonder of it: a single pane of glass so big and yet somehow curved. Food had been served on fine china, the platters pearly and nearly translucent, nothing like the dishes used at home. The tiny cakes they ate were fresh and moist and sweeter than anything Fenn had tasted in his life. That day they had walked to the store and walked home after tea, burdened with heavy shopping bags filled with sundries for the house.
Fenn was in his own neighborhood. Close to his real house.
The store was closed this early in the morning, but Fenn could see a shopkeeper moving around behind that magical window, readying the place for today’s business. A donkey carrying sacks of brick dust trotted past Fenn. The dust would sell for a penny a quart and be used to clean knives and ironwork. A peddler trudged beside the donkey, leading it to the first stop on his daily rounds, and he didn’t even glance in Fenn’s direction.
Down at the other end of the street, a newsie was shouting out the morning’s scandal while waving the latest tabloid over his head. “Cop killer at large!” the boy said, his voice much deeper and louder than seemed possible for his size. He couldn’t be very much older than Fenn. “Is the Ripper back?” the boy shouted at nobody in particular.
Fenn took a moment to orient himself and then crossed the street, away from the other boy and his frightening speculation. Fenn picked up his pace as he passed more little shops and houses that he recognized. Ahead, he knew, was his own house, maybe three or four blocks away.
“Here now, what’s this, then?”
Fenn stopped, his heart in his throat. He turned just as a meaty hand grasped his shoulder. A constable with a bushy orange mustache glared down at him from under his high blue hat.
“This’s a respectable neighborhood, little man.”
“Sir.”
Fenn could barely breathe.
“Where’s yer master?”
“I don’t have a master. My parents are waiting for me.”
“Ye look like a sweep’s boy to me.”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t talk back, boy.”
“No, sir. Sir, I need help. Somebody’s after me. He’s gonna hurt me.”
The policeman drew back and released Fenn’s shoulder.
“Don’t be playin’ games with me now, son.”
“No games, sir.”
“What’re you sayin’?”
“There’s a man and he took me to his house and he tied me up and I think he’s gonna hurt me if he finds me again.”
The policeman stared down at Fenn for a long moment. Then he reared back his head and laughed. It was a deep booming roar of a laugh that made Fenn’s chest bone vibrate. Finally, the policeman wiped his eyes and settled his hat low on his forehead.
“Aw, get along home with ye, then,” he said.
“But, sir, I need help. Please.”
“I’m bein’ patient with ye, boy, but don’t test me. Ye’ll be gettin’ somewhere fast, either yer home or the workhouse, ye make up your mind right quick about it.”
The policeman raised his hand as if to hit Fenn, and the boy backed away a step. He ducked, but the blow didn’t come.
“If I see ye about when I come round this way next, it’s the workhouse fer ye, and that’s a promise, boy,” the constable said. He turned and ambled away, returning to his neighborhood patrol.
Fenn blinked back tears and sighed. Behind him was a high wooden fence, painted green long ago, faded and peeling and nearly grey in the half-light. He clambered up it and dropped to the other side, out of sight of the street, and of the policeman, should he turn back around. Fenn hunched his shoulders and trotted alongside the fence, headed again in the direction of his parents’ home. It didn’t matter whether the policeman believed him, Fenn’s father would believe and would protect him from the bald man. And when the bald man was caught and put in prison, the unhelpful policeman would be sorry and maybe even apologize to Fenn.