Chapter 2 - The Currency of Copper
The screen door didn't rattle; it gave way with the sound of dry pine splitting along the grain.
The first man through was big—not broad like a fighter, but tall and narrow-shouldered, with the long, slightly bent arms of a guy who had spent twenty years loading ice blocks into rail cars. His name was Vance, though around the docks they called him "The Hook" because of the eight-inch steel bale-hook he carried tucked into his belt, its point worn smooth and shiny from oak barrels and frozen beef.
"Marcus," Vance said. His voice was like two gravel bags being dragged across concrete. He didn't look at Carrie. He didn't look at the dog. He looked at the grease-stained wall above the stove where an old calendar from a lumber yard hung by a single tack. "Sean says you took the wrong leash."
"The leash was on the dog when he crossed the mark," Marcus said. He hadn't pulled his knife. He kept his hands flat against the edges of the zinc sink, his knuckles white under the dirt. "Five minutes. That was the wager. One million cash or the dog. Sean didn't have the million."
"Sean’s got three millions in the vault at the grain office," Vance said. He took one step into the kitchen, his heavy work boots leaving black moons of lard on the linoleum. "He just didn't think a nine-year-old blind girl was going to bring a wooden whistle into his pit. He thinks it looks sloppy on the ledger. Looks like he was running an act."
The second man stayed by the door. He was smaller, younger, wearing a grey driver's cap pulled so low his eyes were completely obscured by the shadow of the peak. He had his hands in his coat pockets, and the left coat pocket was stretched tight around something long and heavy with a wooden grip.
"The dog’s private property," Marcus said, his voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register he’d learned from their father before the old man went under the coal train in ninety-eight. "He surrendered title when he set the clock."
"The dog’s five hundred dollars worth of tallow if we kill him right here," Vance said evenly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, heavy pair of wire-cutters—not the kind you buy at a hardware store, but the ten-inch steel shears the linemen used on the telephone trunks. "Sean doesn't want the meat, Marcus. He wants the band."
Carrie didn't stand up. She stayed on the floor, her small fingers tucked under Raleigh’s jaw. The dog hadn't growled once since the door split. His breath had slowed even further, coming now at twenty-second intervals—a long, dry suction through his black nostrils that drew in every particle of cold grease, iron dust, and tallow that the two men had brought in from the street.
"The band’s attached to the hide," Carrie said into the dark.
Vance looked down at her for the first time. His face was flat, greyish-red around the cheekbones, with the broken veins of an outdoor drinker. "She doesn't speak unless she’s spoken to, kid."
"She’s telling you the truth," Marcus said, taking a half-step away from the sink. "The rivets are cold-hammered. You can't get 'em off without taking three inches of neck with 'em."
"I brought the shears," Vance said. He didn't look back at the smaller man by the door. He took another step toward Carrie. "Move her, Marcus. Or I’ll let Doyle hold her while I work the iron."
Doyle—the younger one by the door—shifted his weight. The long object in his pocket tilted forward, the impression of a eight-inch barrel showing clear against the thin wool of his coat.
"Raleigh," Carrie whispered.
She didn't use the whistle. She didn't raise her voice. She simply pronounced the two syllables with the clear, high tone of a child calling a cat off a fence.
The dog didn't lunge. A lunge was what men like Sean trained dogs to do—a grand, noisy display of red mouth and yellow teeth meant to make forty drunk dockworkers throw fifty-dollar bills onto a dirt floor. Raleigh simply shifted six inches to the left.
It was a movement so fast, so smooth, it looked less like an attack and more like a shadow sliding across a wall when a lantern moves.
His shoulder hit Vance’s knee before the man could bring the shears down. There was no bark. Just a wet, dull crack like a green ash branch snapping in a hard frost. Vance’s leg folded backward at an impossible angle, his boot heel coming up to touch his own thigh before he even hit the linoleum.
He didn't scream. Men who work the ice docks don't scream right away; their lungs are too full of cold air. He just let out a heavy whoof as his ribs hit the edge of the kitchen table, splitting the pine top straight down the middle.
Doyle pulled his hand from his coat. The gun was an old five-shot Harrington & Richardson with a nickel finish that caught the light from the streetlamp outside.
"Don't," Marcus said, but he wasn't looking at Doyle. He was looking at Carrie.
Carrie hadn't moved her hands from her lap. But she had raised the wooden whistle to her lips.
She didn't blow. She just held her breath behind the cedar block, letting the small seal of wet wood warm against her lower lip.
Raleigh was on Vance’s chest before the big man’s hat hit the floor. He didn't bite for the throat. He didn't bite for the face. His broad, square jaws closed over the steel handle of the bale-hook Vance still had tucked into his belt, and with one short, violent jerk of his thick neck, he snapped the three-quarter-inch leather strap that held it to the man’s trousers.
The steel hook flew across the room, embedding itself two inches deep into the soft pine of the doorframe, six inches above Doyle’s right ear.
Doyle froze. The nickel-plated revolver was halfway out of his pocket, but his eyes were fixed on the hook vibrating in the doorframe. The point was still dripping with three drops of blue lard from the freight yard.
"He doesn't like iron," Carrie said softly into her whistle. Her eyes—clouded, blue-grey like milk stirred into water—stared straight past Doyle’s shoulder toward the street. "He thinks it smells like the place where they keep the bucket."
Vance was making a strange, bubbling noise on the floor, his face the color of skimmed milk, his hand reaching blindly for his broken knee. "Doyle... shoot the... shoot the..."
"He won't shoot," Marcus said, stepping between Doyle and the door. "Because if he shoots, Sean’s going to have three police rigs from the fifth precinct here in six minutes, and Miller’s going to have to explain why there’s three dead men and a Neapolitan mastiff in a flat that pays twelve dollars a month rent."
Doyle’s hand stayed in his coat. He looked at Raleigh.
The dog was standing over Vance’s chest now, his broad front paws planted on the man’s shoulders. He wasn't growling. His mouth was closed, his black lips tucked tight over his teeth, his yellow eyes fixed on Doyle’s throat with the calm, total attention of a butcher holding an axe over a split block.
"What’s in the collar?" Doyle asked. His voice was much higher than Vance’s, thin and dry like paper being torn.
"You heard her," Marcus said, though he didn't know himself. "The key."
"Sean doesn't keep keys in leather," Doyle said, his eyes darting to the window. "He keeps 'em in the safe at the grain office."
"Not the key for the safe," Carrie said from the floor. She had lowered the whistle. Her small hand was reaching out through the dark until her knuckles touched Raleigh’s rear leg, feeling the muscle twitch under the thick hide. "The key for the box under the floor in the harness room. The one where he keeps the yellow papers."
Doyle’s mouth went small and round. "The tax papers?"
"The names," Carrie said. "The ones who didn't pay for the grain."
Silence fell over the kitchen again, broken only by Vance’s heavy, wet whistling through his teeth as he tried not to move his shattered leg.
"Give me the shears," Doyle said after three long seconds.
"No," Marcus said.
"I’m not gonna cut the leather," Doyle whispered, his eyes still locked on Raleigh’s yellow gaze. "I’m gonna cut the wire on the sedan. If Sean sees the car sitting here with Vance inside, he’ll send the whole crew from the brewery by midnight."
"They won't come," Carrie said.
May you like
Doyle looked at her. "Why?"
"Because Sean’s already gone to the station," she said softly. Her ears twitched again. "I heard his car three minutes ago. He didn't take the avenue. He took the river road. He’s going to North Chicago."
