Dust City (7 page)

“Almost there,” says Fiona. We come to a ringing halt and the doors slap open. Outside, the Willow Street Bridge takes me by surprise. It rises up right beside us, blotting out the sky. More than half the streetcar empties and Fiona, granted a little more room, backs away from me. “One or two more stops,” she says.

“Uh huh . . .” We’re moving under the bridge, right where the accident happened.

“This is you.” She points to the bright green arch that marks the border of Elvenburg. As the streetcar slows, she says, “It was nice to see you again.”

“Listen,” I say. “I haven’t been out in the open for a while, so um—well, obviously I don’t know too many folks, so . . .” I trail off, hoping she’ll pick up the thread.

“You do realize you’re about to miss your stop.”

I hadn’t even noticed the driver putting on the brakes. “Maybe we could hang out sometime. Like before the police catch up with me.”

Fiona sighs. “They always do, you know.” She opens her bag and finds a pen and a crumpled napkin. Propping one foot on the wall, she uses her knee for a writing surface. She passes me the napkin just as the doors fold open. “That’s where you can reach me.”

I step backward and stumble onto the pavement. The doors clap shut and the streetcar whines away, the wires above crackling with electricity. I watch until it rounds the corner, then turn to face the enormous green arches of Elvenburg.

Every inch of the sidewalk is so well trodden that the whole neighborhood feels worn down like the carpets of an old hotel. There are folks
everywhere
—elves for the most part, but every other species of citizen is well represented. All of them jostle to out step their neighbors, elbowing for bargains in the market, or merely shoving folks out of the way just for kicks. The address on Jack’s note says:
1020
P
INE
S
TREET,
A
PT
. 7B.

I try asking for directions from a pig and her son, but she tugs the little guy away so fiercely she nearly tears his arm off. The two of them duck into a shop just to avoid me. Old habits die hard, I guess. Next, I try a wearied old mule, clopping up from the opposite direction. With a shaky forehoof, he points me across the street.

“Pine Street” is barely more than an alcove, a narrow recess that widens (somewhat) into a wretched alleyway. I poke my
head out of the shadows again to check the sign. Pine Street it is. I’m in the right place, only there certainly aren’t any pine trees.

Moving farther in, I’m forced to duck my head to avoid the fire escapes, clawing down with rusty fingers. High above, strings of laundry hang like a million wistful grins.

“Psst!”

I look to the left, but there’s only an overflowing Dumpster. I’d be surprised if it’d ever been emptied. No garbage truck could squeeze into a clotted alleyway like this one.

“Hey, c’mere.”

A thin gray fox steps out of the shadows. He’s wearing a ratty anorak with a woolly hat pulled down over his brow, but it doesn’t hide his distinctive face. Two streaks of black run up either side, from his snout to the tips of his ears. His eyes are sodium-yellow in the lamplight, sparkling with flecks of violet. In the dimness of the alley, they flash like jewels.

“You wanna buy some dust?”

“What?” I shake my head, trying to stifle my surprise.

“Dust,” he says. “Good stuff.” His breath hits me, smelling of bile, as if he hasn’t eaten in days. “Old Jerry’s got the finest of the fine.”

I look down the alleyway. Not much farther to the end. Number 1020 must be down there somewhere, so I wave him off. “No, thanks,” I say, turning to go.

The fox pushes off the wall and shuffles after me. “I’m talking about the
real deal
. My stuff comes direct from Dockside, direct from them nixies.”

“I’m meeting somebody.” I keep going but it’s pointless—Pine Street is a dead end, and Old Jerry is with me now, matching my lope. “This is
old-time
dust. Just like them fairies could getcha. I’m talkin’ about the real deal—
real magic.
None of that watered down Nimbus junk. This is the stuff that can fulfill destinies . . . if you know what I mean.”

I keep my eyes glued straight ahead.

“Who you meeting down here anyway? Ain’t nobody nice lives down here. Maybe a big, young guy like you—maybe you think you’re fine, but take it from Old Jerry, nobody nice lives down thataway. You’s gonna need something to—y’know, lift the spirits. A set of horns, maybe. Jerry can do that. How’d you like to breathe some fire? That’d be nice, huh? Come in handy. Jerry can do that too.”

I keep on loping, scanning the sooty walls for signs, numbers, anything.

“C’mon!” His voice raises a pitch, sharpened by a whine. “Give Old Jerry a break.”

“I said no. Thank you.”

“Don’t be like that.” He shakes his head woefully. “Old Jerry ain’t got no place to go. Holes in m’clothes and in m’shoes.” He kicks up a foot to show me. Indeed, the sole’s coming loose, flapping like a tongue on a hot summer’s day. “All I got is a little dust here, that’s all. Nothing wrong with tryin’ to make a living. Times’er rough, y’know? Maybe a strong, young guy like you—maybe you can’t tell they’re rough, but take it from Old Jerry,
they are.
They most definitely are.”

We’re getting to the end of the alleyway now. Still no signs, nothing to tell me where I am. “Sorry,” I say, “never touch the stuff.”

A vulpine grin slides up the side of his face, showing off a row of surprisingly white teeth. “Don’t lie to Old Jerry. We all need a little dust now and then. Just natural. And this is nixiedust we’re talking about.
Old-
time dust. Fulfills your destiny.” He taps his chest. “Whatever you want in here.”

“There’s none of that left anymore.”

“Aw, now don’t be like that.” He reaches out and places a cloying paw on my elbow. It makes me itch all over.

I spin to face him, baring my teeth and pushing him off. “I said
no!
”

He stumbles backward and I can see I’ve scared him. He backs away, sheepish. “Sorry, guy. Didn’t know you’d take it so hard.”

“Leave me alone, okay?”

He nods. “Sure, but who knows? Maybe I’ll see you again. Maybe we can do business some other time.” He smiles again with his improbably perfect teeth. “Don’t forget Old Jerry.” He turns his back and moves off toward the lamplight of the main street. The sole of his broken shoe claps against the ground. Strangled applause from an audience of one.

I turn to the dark end of the alley and after only a few steps I find it. A plain wooden door with a number scratched into the frame:
1020.

11

ELVEN INCENSE

THE DOOR ISN’T LOCKED. OR RATHER, THE LOCK’S BEEN SMASHED AWAY,
leaving only a splintered wound in the door frame. Inside is a stairway paved in brown carpet that’s more like fungal residue than floor covering. Luckily, the smell isn’t as bad as I might’ve expected. The scents in a place like this are too stale to properly offend the sniffer. I start up, step by step. Every one of them sighs, moist with rot.

After seven short flights, I’ve arrived. 7B. This must be where Siobhan lives. I wonder if she’ll remember me. I hope so (as a general rule, folks don’t take kindly to a wolf at the door).

I knock. There’s a series of clicks as the bolts are unlatched, unhasped, unhinged. There are a lot of them. But they still have one left, because the door opens barely an inch, anchored by a thick chain.

“Yeeees?”

All I can see is one narrow strip of an elf. I look her in what I can see of her face—a bloodshot eyeball, a wrinkled forehead, and a thatch of white hair.

“I’m looking for Jack?”

The eye regards me from behind the lens of a pair of fussy, gold-rimmed spectacles. My snout detects the scent of mothballs emanating from the figure. In fact, the eye is so clouded with cataracts that it might actually
be
a mothball. Talk about cheap prosthetics.

The mothball eye blinks, carefully moistening itself.

“Nobody here called Jack,” croaks the elf. The voice rattles like old bones. This is definitely not Siobhan. “You got the wrong place.”

“Oh,” I say. I hold up the slip of paper. “He told me he’d be staying here.”

The ancient elf doesn’t bother reading the address. “I can’t help you, sonny. But maybe you want my granddaughter.” The door shuts with a forceful certainty that doesn’t at all jive with the bloodshot eye and the rickety voice.

I wait.

A moment later, the door opens again, but with the chain still on. This time a pair of clear, brilliant-blue, almond-shaped eyes appear, and I hear a voice I remember. “It’s Henry, right?”

“Siobhan?”

“He’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”

“Could I wait for him? He has something of mine.”

Siobhan doesn’t move. She doesn’t blink. She looks straight through me. “You don’t know where he is?”

I hold up the slip of paper again. “He told me to come here.”

Siobhan stares at the paper, and her glare softens. “Okay.” She loosens the chain. “You can come in.” Siobhan stands aside as I duck under the miniature elven door frame. Inside, the ceilings are low. I’ll have to stick to all fours.

“Get outta the way. I gotta lock up.” With a sudden jab, Siobhan shoves me farther inside. She kicks a wooden stool against the door to reach the top.

“Here,” I say, “let me do that.”

Together—me up top and her below—we seal the tiny apartment away from the musty stairwell of Pine Street.

“So,” she says, when we’re finished. “Henry—?”

“Whelp.”

“Henry Whelp.” If she’s nervous to have a wolf hogging most of the space in her narrow home, she doesn’t show it. She sticks out her hand.

“Siobhan Thymus.”

My hairy, grizzled, coal-black paw shakes her long, pale, elven fingers. It’s like shoving a dirty baseball mitt on a baby.

“Henry Whelp,” she says, “meet Pearl Thymus, my great-grandmother.” With the flat of her hand, she points toward a darkened corner of the room. I see the mothball eye that greeted me at the door—a pair of them, in fact—shining out of a scarf and a knitted shawl. A pair of old-style elven slippers, coiled into spirals at the toes, peek out from beneath a paisley dress.

“Jiminy,” says the old woman. The mothballs gleam with excitement and she claps her hands. “A wolf!”

“Gram!”
Siobhan glares across the room. She turns to me. “You’ll have to excuse her. She’s real old. Wasn’t a lot of integrating between the species back in her day.”

I pad over and put out a paw. “Pleased to meet you, madam.”

She blushes, the varicose veins on her cheeks swelling with blood. Instead of taking my paw to shake, however, she turns it over as if it’s a piece of bruised fruit in a market. “Hmm . . .” She pores over my palm, nodding like a fortuneteller. Her spectacles slide comically down the bridge of her nose, and when she looks up at me, her face is full of mock astonishment. “Oh, my! What big teeth you have!” She giggles and kicks her slippered feet.

“Gram!”

The old elf claps her tiny hands. “I always wanted to say that!”

Siobhan sighs. “Let’s talk in the kitchen.” She tugs me across the room, ignoring her grandmother’s spastic feet. As I’m pulled away, I glance back at the old lady. She pretends to sour her face and pokes her tongue out. It’s hard not to like her.

Siobhan’s kitchen consists of one large cupboard, one tiny fridge, and a stove with a single burner. It’s a sad-looking room, the bare walls stained with generations of steam and grease. Siobhan fills a tiny teapot with water, sets it on the burner, then turns to face me with a worried look. “So you really don’t know where he is?”

“I thought I’d find him here. He has something of mine.”

“Well, you know Jack,” she says with a touch of bitterness. “He comes and goes.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“Three days. It’s a long time, even for him.” She carefully pours the hot water into three porcelain mugs. “It was so nice having him around. He’s really good with Gram. She loves him.”

“Almost as much as she loves wolves?”

Siobhan laughs. “Almost.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“At school, Rowan High. It was one of the first schools to be truly integrated, at least among the hominids—elves, dwarves, humans. Even a few nixies and maybe a brownnosing glob or two, if you can really call either of them hominids. At Rowan there was never the stigma there used to be, like back when Gram was a girl. We elves live a long time, remember. Jack and I had a few classes together. But he only made it as far as the tenth grade, which you probably already know. That’s when he started getting into trouble, stealing stuff. It came out that he’d sort of been a kleptomaniac for a long time. But for whatever reason,” she shakes her head, “I stuck with him. Now I’ve just been accepted to Mid-City U, and he’s on the run from the cops. Hell, I even helped him escape.” She rolls her eyes. “What a pair.”

“Siobhan?” Gram’s voice crackles from the next room. “Where’s my tea? Don’t forget the honey. The liquid kind, please! None of that hard stuff! Rots your teeth!”

Siobhan rolls her eyes again. “They
both
rot your teeth, Gram!”

“Then it’s a good thing I don’t have any left!” The old elf giggles and Siobhan gives me an exasperated look.

A moment later the three of us are sitting around the front room, candles glowing in every corner and elven incense smoldering on the table. It smells sweetly of summer rain and eucalyptus. The three of us sip from mugs of chamomile and milk. I’m hunched on the floor since there’s no chair brave enough to contend with me.

Siobhan looks at me. “I’m sorry, I forgot to ask. You said Jack has something of yours. What is it?”

“A file.”

“Oh,” she says. “Hold on a minute.” She puts down her tea, gets up, and paces into the bedroom. When she comes back, she’s got it in her hands. “He left it here. I thought it was just another random thing he stole.”

“Well, it wasn’t. It was something important. And it belongs to me.”

She shakes her head, silently admonishing her boyfriend for his thievery. “He never stops. Not even with his friends.” Sighing, she hands me the file.