Sleight (3 page)

BUS ROUTES IN Seattle are great. You can get almost anywhere pretty fast and there isn’t much need to change buses unless you’re covering a lot of geography. I love the downtown area and there’s so much to look at and experience that it never gets old for me. On days when the weather is decent it’s even more fun, but I had a hard time relaxing and enjoying myself as the bus trundled along its route.

The day couldn’t have started out any screwier and it had gone from upsetting to disturbing in a hurry. Justine. Mr. Goodturn. Breno. The only stabilizing factor had been Mr. Kenwoode and he’d been very little comfort.

When I’d been looking down at the singed couch something had been gnawing at the back of my mind. Some connection, and then it had hit me all at once. When I’d managed to prevent Rusty Witkowski and Coby Munger from blowing up the school and shooting up the gym I had quickly been engulfed in a sea of media speculation: who I was, people trying to locate me, interview me and get close to me. It had been intense and nonstop, until a massive fire on the waterfront had burned down most of a pier and a bunch of shops. That became the headline in the media and my brief rise to fame had faded quickly.

At the time I’d been so wrapped up in my grief over losing Mr. Goodturn and Maddy’s moving away that I hadn’t given it much thought. I had just been thankful that all of the unwanted attention had gone away. Now, with ashes and burned furniture in Breno’s apartment, and the food wrappers, I felt I had just connected several dots.

The bus pulled into a stop across the street from Pier 57 and I got off. The fire had been at Pier 56, so I decided to head there first. What I was hoping to find was hard to say, but most of the food wrappers in Breno’s apartment had been from the waterfront.

The whole area still smelled like a campfire, even though the fire had taken place many weeks ago. The closer I got to Pier 56 the stronger the smell got until it was overwhelming. The normal smells of wet wood, mold and rotting seaweed were hardly noticeable. Gulls swirled overhead, looking for scraps to fight over. The heavy cement supports for the freeway viaduct overhead cut off part of my view of the pier until I crossed the street. Bright orange barricade fencing had been erected all around the burned-out pier and work crews were repairing the sidewalk and street while dump trucks labored to carry away debris and burned timbers.

One of my knacks is the ability to camouflage myself so that to a casual observer I am hard to see because I blend in with my surroundings. It isn’t true invisibility and if I move quickly it’s less effective. This handy knack had helped me get in and out of several difficult situations, using it now to get around the construction barriers was like second nature.

The construction crew was so focused on their work that I had no trouble getting past them and into the main building of the pier. The exterior walls of the shopping area were heavily damaged and most of the roof had collapsed. Stepping carefully through the debris and past weakened spots in the floor I made my way through the large pedestrian hallway that had led to the end of the pier with shops flanking both sides.

Most of the businesses were completely burned out. When I got to the end of the retail hallway I arrived at what had been a landing designed for viewing the water. To the north it was so damaged that it looked unsafe. On my left to the south there was a metal staircase that led to the lower shops of the pier. It looked relatively intact. Cautiously walking down the stairs, I winced as strange groans and metallic ringing followed my descent. I gripped the handrail and white-knuckled it all the way to the lower landing.

The fire hadn’t reached this part of the pier and although the smell of smoke was pervasive, the lower level showed almost no damage from the fire. There was however, lots of water damage from firefighters using hoses while trying to contain the blaze up above. There had been fewer occupied businesses on this level, with leasing signs plastered on the windows of vacant shops. Several had their windows soaped over.

So far my mission had netted me zip. As I slowly limped by the abandoned shops I noticed that the door to one of them had several fast food boxes strewn around it. When I got closer I recognized several from the same place as the ones I’d seen in Breno’s apartment. I nudged the trash with my shoe and saw a receipt underneath a bag. As I reached down to pick it up I steadied myself by placing my hand against the shop’s door, and almost ended up on my ass because the door swung open.

Catching myself by grabbing the door frame, I got my balance and peeked into the shop. More food wrappers and bags cluttered the area around the door. I reached down again and snagged the receipt. It was dated three days earlier, so whoever was camping out on the lower level had been here recently. I considered that it might be the construction workers but there wasn’t anything else that indicated that they had spent much time downstairs. Besides, it seemed unlikely that they would leave trash around that they’d just have to clean up later.

Pulling the door shut I stared at the food packaging at my feet. Most of the stuff had come from a fish and chips place a couple of blocks away. It seemed like a good idea to follow my slim lead as far as I could since I was already on the waterfront.

It took me less than a half hour to get to Ivar’s Fish N Chips and order lunch. I’d polished off my battered halibut and most of my fries when I heard raised voices at the counter. Looking like he had been working in a coal mine, clothes in tatters, Breno was standing at the counter with a dirty hand clutching a wad of greasy bills. His tall and lanky frame looked a little heavier than the last time I’d seen him. A beard and long hair now covered most of his face. I was shocked at how much his appearance had changed in such a short time.

“I told you that you can’t come here anymore,” squeaked a tiny blond behind the counter. “The other customers say you...say you...you smell.” She stood about two feet back from the counter as though she was afraid Breno’s stink was contagious.

“I’m jus’ hungry. I’ll eat somewheres else. I jus’ want food,” he mumbled.

Shaking her head the girl refused to speak and wouldn’t approach the counter. I jumped up and limped over to the counter and stood next to Breno. His head swung slowly in my direction and he looked at me with a glassy-eyed stare. He gave no sign that he recognized me. Using my oldest knack, the ability to sense what someone was feeling, I reached out and was surprised by what I found. Breno had always had a simple and pure quality about him. No strong feelings and so little going on in his head that whatever he was focused on at the moment colored all of his thoughts. At the moment I was sensing confusion, and frustration. The confusion wasn’t necessarily new for Breno, but the frustration was something I had never picked up from him in the past. The only time I had ever sensed anything other than basic contentment from him was when I had asked him some questions that had opened doors to his past that would have been better left closed.

“Hey, look. I’ll buy his food and make sure he doesn’t come back. Here,” I said as I passed her a ten dollar bill. “Just get him a cod and chips and keep the change for a tip. Okay?”

Glaring at Breno, she looked down at the money and then at me. “You shouldn’t feed them. They count on intimidating people so that they don’t have to pay. It’s like a scam,” she said.

I could feel the blood rush to my face, but kept my anger in check. “Look, he’s family. We’ve...I’ve been looking for him. You won’t see him again. Please, let me just get him something to eat and we’ll go,” I said.

She grabbed the ten and rang up my order and stuffed the bill in the register. “Okay, but you and...him, you’ll need to wait on the sidewalk...downwind.” She wrinkled her nose and pointed at a spot about thirty feet away.

I turned and started walking to where she’d pointed and then looked back at Breno, who hadn’t moved.

“Breno? Hey, come over here with me. It’s Benny. Remember?” I pleaded.

His body leaned in my direction and his blank stare passed over me. “ ’Member.” he said.

I stepped closer to him but didn’t try to touch him for fear he’d freak, and he actually did smell
super
bad. “It’s me, Benny. We’re friends. I’ve been worried about you.”

His big heavy-jawed head swung in my direction again and I thought I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

“Friends.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Friends. You helped me move in. You brought me a birthday cupcake last year, and we’ve done magic in the parks together. Are you okay?”

He nodded slightly. “Trick cards. You do the trick cards good, Benny.”

It was like he was waking up. “Yeah, that’s right, the trick cards. You love the trick cards.”

He nodded again and slowly began to shuffle after me as I walked toward the sidewalk. His face was soot smudged and his clothes were so dirty that they were all the same grimy shade of grey. He must have been sleeping in the burned out pier. In addition to getting long, his hair had gotten shaggy. The scruffy beard he’d allowed to grow completed his homeless image.

We grabbed a seat on a metal bench while we waited for his meal. He sat with his chin on his chest, eyes focused on the sidewalk in front of him.

“Breno, what have you been doing? Why haven’t you been back to your apartment?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I been bad. Mr. Goodturn, he might be mad at me.”

“Mr. Goodturn’s still pretty sick, and I’m sure that whatever it is that you did he wouldn’t be mad at you. He cares about you.”

“Do you think that girl made my food yet?” he looked up and stared blearily at the food stand.

I reached out and put my hand gently on the dirty sleeve of his raggedy jacket. “It’ll be a few more minutes. Breno I want you to come back with me. Mr. Goodturn’s doing better and he asked for you today.”

He turned his head in my direction and I could see a little of the old Breno in his face. “He did? He wanted me?” he said hopefully. Then his shoulders drooped. “But he dint know what I did.”

“Breno, what did you do that you’re so worried about?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“I made a accident. It was a accident,” He said.

“If it was an accident Mr. G isn’t going to be mad at you. He loves you Breno. We all do.”

A brunette wearing a blue apron, bounced over to us carrying a paper sack. “I think this is for you.”

I took the bag from her. “Thanks, you didn’t have to bring it to us.”

She smirked, her eyes shining in the afternoon sunlight. “Yeah, well, Cassie would have a cow if you, and I mean your friend, came back to the counter.”

I shook my head. “Well, it was nice of you to bring it over.”

She spun on her heel and trotted back to the Fish N Chips stand, where her blond co-worker scowled at us.

Handing the bag to Breno I stood up and said, “Here. Eat up. Let’s go catch a bus.”

Breno got slowly to his feet as he opened the bag and shoved a big hand into it. He pulled out a large piece of battered fish.

“You’ll need to finish that before we get on the bus,” I said as we headed down the waterfront toward the bus stop.

The bus driver looked unhappy about Breno being on the bus and made a show of covering his nose as we walked by him. I found us two seats toward the back, away from any other passengers. I was getting used to the smell, but it was so strong that it made my eyes water.

Breno had wolfed down the food in a matter of minutes, with several pieces of deep fried batter sticking in his beard, grease dripping from his hands, which he had casually wiped off on his pants.

“When we get back to your apartment you need to get a shower and I’ll help you clean the place up,” I said.

Breno just turned his face away and looked out the window.

“Look Breno, you’re going to have to trust me. Haven’t I always been good to you?” I felt a guilty twinge because there
had
been that one time when I’d pressed him for information and upset him.

But he nodded. “Yeah, you treat me good, Benny. That fish was good. I like that fish and chips.”

The bus swayed and chugged back into the city and began the uphill trek back to the residential neighborhoods. Breno wasn’t in a chatty mood and I had run out of encouraging things to say so I let the silence lengthen between us. The last time I had been on a bus with him, Maddy had been with us and we had been returning from an afternoon in a park. Performing magic was my source of income and my favorite days had been when Maddy had partnered with me. She would charm the crowd and work them like a carnival barker while I entertained them. Then she’d tease them into tipping us. I always made more money when she came with me, sometimes a lot more. The brunette at the food stand had reminded a little of her. She hadn’t really looked much like Maddy, except for the hair, but her sassy attitude had been similar.

There were hours where I didn’t think about Maddy, but I missed her a lot. She hadn’t texted me for a few days and after getting over being depressed about it, I’d resigned myself to the fact that the time between texts was probably going to get longer.

“Benny, can I tell you sumpthin’?” Breno asked.