He gestured for his companion to take the thread, but Eddie recoiled.
“I figured this would happen,” Beck grumbled. “You’re scared by a thread.”
Eddie’s expression was dark; there was only so much insult he could take. “Thread doesn’t scare me. I used to be a tailor.”
“Well, I used to be a baby,” the hermit responded. “Doesn’t make me one now.”
Eddie reached out, and Beck deposited the thread in his outstretched hand.
“The carriage men were there to steal the body,” the hermit said with a sober expression. “The one in charge seemed happy to do so. Not your mermaid, though. She was crying.”
“My mermaid?”
“You almost crashed right into her one night. She and I were both watching you and your rabbit.” He patted Mitts, who panted happily at the attention, tongue lolling. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t burn down my land, so I stayed up on the ridge. She was hidden in the trees. She’s a good swimmer, and she’s got good eyes. But you weren’t much good at seeing what was right in front of you. That’s why I’m leading you out now.”
Eddie felt a burst of heat run through him. He must have glimpsed the girl. That was why he couldn’t rid her from his dreams.
“Who is she?”
Beck shrugged. “A girl that thinks she’s a fish. Maybe your trout brought her round. I told you that fish would lead you someplace.”
“I don’t suppose you recognized the men.” An impossible, hopeless question Eddie didn’t so much ask as think aloud.
“The first fella who almost drowned in the mud?”
“No,” Eddie said. “The two with the body.”
“Oh, I knew one of them, all right.”
This was the way it happened, a single question that could crack open the world, letting in a shaft of light that might allow him to glimpse the truth.
“I saw his picture in the paper years ago. He was a criminal.”
It was dark where they’d stopped, but through the trees the water shone a silvered, glittering gray.
“Do you remember his name?”
“Can’t read. I just use the paper to wrap my fish to soak in cold water. But I read his face just fine, and I remembered it. It was the same man I saw with your mermaid. He put the body under the seat. Then he stood behind the carriage and fed the blackbirds crumbs from his hand. Never seen anything like it.”
Eddie felt a chill along his neck and back. Beck was describing a scene Eddie knew well. The first thing he heard every morning was the sound of the horses breathing in the stalls below him and the liveryman crooning to his pigeons as he sang their praises. Birds are smarter than you think. They never forget a kind word or a face. He’d often witnessed the liveryman feeding the blackbirds out in the alleyway as they perched along his arms, each one waiting its turn, as if entranced.
“Now I’ve told you everything,” the hermit said, “and all that I have belongs to you when I’m gone.” They had reached the riverbank, the end of Beck’s territory and his world. “Don’t forget my wolf.”
The city was quiet, but Eddie’s mind was racing. On his way downtown, he found a grassy place and lay down to rest, his dog beside him. A mouth was sewn shut when there were secrets that might escape or when a punishment was delivered to an individual who talked too much. The thread was nothing special, not silk or mohair, just machine grade. Eddie closed his eyes, and sleep overtook him. When he dreamed he saw his father at his sewing machine. The thread he used was made of glass. It splintered in his hands and drew blood, but his father went on working as if this was an everyday occurrence. This is what happens, his father said in his dream. This is what every man faces in his life.
Dawn was approaching when Eddie woke. He stretched his legs, cramped from sleeping on the grass. He whistled for Mitts, and they headed back to Chelsea, trotting part of the way. Eddie’s breath was hot and he could feel sweat stinging his body. The dog was joyous to have his master run along with him, and they ran until Eddie was doubled over, a stitch in his side. The last moments of night were drifting in between the wooden piers in bursts of blackened clouds. At the mouth of the harbor, the first rays of light broke through in glints of gold and red, and the dark night turned a wild, shivering blue.
The horses in the stable were just waking, ready for their breakfast, restless in their stalls. Their keeper was there and had already piled up hay with a pitchfork. Several of his prized pigeons perched along the old wooden beams. The liveryman sang to them as he brought out their breakfast of seed. With great trust and familiarity, his pigeons came to eat from his wide, callused hands. He turned, wary when he heard the door slide open, suspicious of who might arrive at such an ungodly hour, but broke into a grin when he spied Eddie and the dog. They’d been good neighbors over the years.