Authors: Andy Mulligan
I suppose machinery must have been down there at one time, because there were steps down, and they were slimy. Trash is often wet, and the juices are always running. Maybe the ground here was a bit lower, I don’t know – but it was always muddy.
We stopped at the top of the steps, and I called out: ‘Rat!’
I called quite soft – I didn’t want anyone to know what we were doing, or where we were. The problem was, the kid couldn’t hear me if he was down there, and I was pretty sure he would be. Where else would he be?
‘Hey, Rat!’ I called again. I could hear the little cheeps and squeaks. Gardo was following me now, because even though he’s braver than me and stronger, he’s not easy with rats. I’ll kill one with my foot, but Gardo got bitten badly a while ago, and his whole hand went bad. He’ll kill them, but he’d rather stay away from them. I was halfway down the steps, and a little one streaked up past me, then another.
‘Rat!’ I called, and my voice echoed in the machine-chamber. I got down low with the candle, trying not to breathe too deep because of the stink – and I heard him turn in his bed.
‘What?’ he said. He’s got a high little voice. ‘Who is that?’
‘Raphael and Gardo. We got a favour to ask you. Can we come in?’
‘Yes.’
It might seem crazy asking a kid if you can come into his hole, but this hole was about the only thing Rat had, apart from what he wore. I would not have lived there – anywhere would have been better. For a start it was damp and dark. For another thing, I would have been scared that the trash above would fall and pile up down the stairs, trapping me, like it did on Smoky Mountain. These mountains do move. It’s not us climbing about on them that makes them fall, it’s usually just their own weight as the belts pile more and more stuff on. You can get caught in a fall, and it’s heavy stuff. I’ve never known anyone killed, but one kid broke bones, falling badly. When Smoky went down, there were nearly a hundred killed, and everyone knows some of those poor souls are still down there, down with the trash, turned into trash, rotting with the trash.
Anyway, I got to the last step, trying not to think of all that, and put my candle low. There was a sudden flicker of black, and another rat – this one big as they come – shot past me, right over my shoulder.
The kid was sitting up, just in his shorts, gazing at me with frightened eyes and his big broken teeth sticking out of his mouth.
‘Raphael?’ he said. ‘What do you want?’
I thought, I should have brought him a bit of food. He goes hungrier than most, and his face is pinched. Kids used to call him Monkey Boy before Rat, because his face
does have that wide-eyed, staring look that little monkeys have. He was sitting on some layers of cardboard, and around him there were piles of rubbish that he must have been sorting. The walls and ceiling were damp brick, and there were cracks everywhere. That was where the rats came in and out, and I guessed there were nests just the other side. He had arms skinny as pencils, and Gardo’s crack about breaking them had made me smile. You could break Jun’s arms with your finger and thumb. He was a spider, not a rat.
‘We need your help,’ I said.
‘That’s OK.’
‘You don’t know what we want,’ said Gardo. ‘How’s it OK already?’
‘It’s OK.’ The boy smiled, and his teeth gleamed out crookedly. He blinked. He has a twitch, and when he’s scared, his whole head starts to shake. He wasn’t scared right now, though – he was more interested. Also, I know he liked me. I wouldn’t say he and I were friends, not at all. But I didn’t mind working next to him, which meant we’d talk a bit, and I’d listen to his chit-chat-singing. A lot of kids would just throw things at him and laugh.
I sat down, but Gardo stayed on the step, squatting. ‘You gotta hide something,’ I said. I put the bag on the cardboard, and put my candle next to it. He found another and lit it, and all three of us sat in silence.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘What’s in it? Who’s it belong to?’ He had a thin, breathy little voice like he was six years old.
I opened the flap and unzipped it. I took out the items and laid them down. The wallet. The key. The map.
‘You happy to hide it? You didn’t hear the police come, did you?’
‘I didn’t see any police,’ said Rat. ‘But I can hide it if you want. See that brick? That comes right out, and the next one too. Won’t last long, though – it’s gonna get eaten, OK?’
‘Wait,’ said Gardo. ‘I’m thinking about this. It’s not the bag they want, is it? It’s what’s in the bag.’
‘We’ve still got to hide it,’ I said.
‘Why don’t we just sling it?’
‘If we sling it,’ I said, ‘and they find it … then they’ll know someone’s got what’s inside, maybe. If they know what they’re looking for.’
‘Who’s looking?’ said Rat. ‘What did the police want?’
I told him quickly, and his eyes widened. ‘Ten thousand, Raphael!’ he said. ‘You’re crazy! Give it in and get the cash.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Gardo, sneering. ‘You really think they’ll give it? You taken in by that? And if they do, boy – you think he’ll hold onto ten thousand?’
Rat looked from me to Gardo and back again.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to hide it. They come back tomorrow – they say they’re going to pay everyone to work. We all get a few days’ work, maybe – give it up next week.’
‘Everyone’s happy,’ said Rat. ‘That’s a good idea, maybe.
But you got to ask, why do they want it so bad, OK? How much was in this?’ His thin fingers opened the wallet and pulled out the ID card.
‘Eleven hundred,’ I said.
He smiled right at me. ‘Anything for using my house?’
‘I’ll give you fifty,’ I said, and he grinned even wider and touched my arm.
‘You promise, OK? That’s a promise?’
‘Promise.’
His hands went to the map. ‘We ought to find out what they want,’ he said. ‘What is this – buried treasure?’
‘There’s nothing on it,’ I said. ‘It’s just a city map.’
He looked harder at the ID then, staring at the photograph. ‘Who is this?’
‘José Angelico,’ I said.
I knew Rat couldn’t read. He turned the paper over and over, looking at the face.
‘José Angelico,’ he said slowly. ‘You think the police want him? You think he’s a wanted man? He looks nice enough. This his little girl?’
He was looking at the child, putting the faces next to each other.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’
‘He’s rich enough to send her to school,’ said Rat. ‘That’s a school dress.’
‘What if he’s been murdered?’ said Gardo. ‘Maybe they’re looking for his body – looking for the murderers too. This could be part of something bad.’
‘Who lost the bag, though?’ I said. ‘How do you lose a bag in the trash?’
‘Not by accident,’ said Rat. He was staring at the photos again. ‘We ought to find out who he is, OK? He might give more than the police.’
‘And what’s the key?’ said Gardo, pointing to it. ‘That’s his house key, maybe. Maybe he’s locked out of his house? Find out where he lives—’
‘Oh no, that’s not a house key,’ said Rat, staring. He hadn’t noticed the key in the darkness. Now he picked it up and put it next to my candle. He looked up at me again. ‘Oh my. You don’t know what that is, do you?’
‘Could be to a safe,’ I said. ‘What is it, a padlock key? What’s the one-oh-one?’
‘You don’t know what that is!’ said Rat slowly. He was teasing us. ‘I do. I’ll raise you to a hundred.’
‘What?’
He was smiling wider than I’d ever seen him smile, and his broken teeth stuck out like straws. ‘I’ve seen these so many times, OK – I can tell you exactly what it is and where it is. You give me that fifty? Now? Make it a hundred, or you get no further.’
‘You know what it is? Really?’
Rat nodded.
I pulled out some notes, and counted them out on the cardboard. There was a skittering of feet behind the wall, and I heard something running right round the little room, surrounding us. There were squeakings again: the
place was alive. Gardo and I sat on, looking at Rat, waiting for his great piece of information.
‘Central Station,’ he said softly. ‘I lived there nearly a year, when I came in first of all. I can tell you for sure: this is a locker key for the left luggage. Just outside platform four, last block on the right. One-oh-one’s small, up at the top – the cheapest they do. This man’s left something there.’
He smiled again and we sat there, just looking at each other. Gardo whistled, and I felt my heart beat faster and faster.
‘You wanna go there?’ said Rat. ‘We go there now if you want.’
Gardo here, and I take the story on from Raphael.
We agreed to split the story because some things he forgets – like he wanted to go to the station that night, right then, and then the next day, like a little kid. He got so excited thinking about what he might find, I had to say no about ten times, because one thing I knew was that we had to be there, in Behala, for the big search – especially if the policemen who talked to us were there.
I had to get a hold of his hair and I said, ‘How is it going to look when everyone is there to earn money, and the boy they know found something – maybe a shoe, or maybe something else – doesn’t show?’
Raphael is my best friend but he’s like a kid, always laughing, playing, thinking everything’s fun, thinking it’s a game – so I said they have to see us working and looking, and that way maybe they leave us alone: and so we waited.
Next morning, like I said, the whole of Behala turns out, early and ready, before dawn. Like Raphael said, we get money for what we can sell, hand to mouth, so getting paid for the day is like a dream, and there were way too many pickers – I guess people had told people, and there were crowds of us, all piling in. Then the police arrived early also, and even as the sun came up, everyone was way up on the trash – men, women and every damn kid, even the tiny ones – earning their precious hundred, some without even hooks, just using hands – in fact, there were so many of us, it was dangerous, and you could feel the trash sliding about, and there was no room to throw the stuff you’d sorted.
I was hooking stuff up, scratching other people almost, and it was more and more dangerous, so after one hour all us kids were ordered off, and just the men stayed on, and the trash was being gone through again – right by where we’d been the previous day. The managers were there, talking to the police, shouting up to the men – and it was all being picked over and over, again and again. But nothing was coming up.
All the while, more cars – police car, then another police car, then a police truck, motorbikes, more police cars, and then big cars like government cars – and men in suits as well as police, getting out and their nice shoes getting wet and filthy. And it’s still not seven o’clock and you can’t move for the cars and people, like it’s a festival.
No belts were working, as they turned them all off.
Things get worse.
Soon we can see the line of trucks coming in is stretching right back through the gates and down the road, waiting to unload: after just one hour I’d counted twenty-six. The drivers didn’t even care at first – they squatted in the shade, and some boys went off to get them tea and cigarettes. There were kids jumping into the trucks then, and picking there, on the roadside, but me and Raphael stayed down, listening around for more ‘information’, me wondering all the time where this was going to end – knowing, because I knew, that people were going to be angry soon, and it would be these police losing patience first. When the police get mean, you don’t want to be around. On the other hand, I did not want Raphael hiding and drawing attention that way, so that was why I kept him right in the middle of it.
One man had a box with a great wad of notes in it, and he’d shown it around to prove we’d all be paid. I overheard another one talking, and I worked out what was happening – they were using their brains. Somehow they knew the bag had been lost in this place called McKinley – which is a rich area – so it wasn’t hard to trace the trucks that look after that neighbourhood. Now, the McKinley trucks had made one visit yesterday, which is how we found what we found – and more were coming in again today. So, for today’s trucks, all the police had to do was get them to drop the loads on a clear patch of ground, and we could pick over it easy, in an hour.
Sure enough, just before noon they brought up the three special McKinley trucks and they dropped their loads, and they kept us all back, so we were all just looking at it. I said to Raphael then, turning him round so no one saw: ‘Are you still sure, friend?’
He was looking scared because I think he was just beginning to realize how big this must be.
He said, very soft, ‘I’m more sure than ever, Gardo,’ so I stayed close.
We tried to look just happy and excited then, because the last thing I wanted was for anyone to think we were suspicious or scared or worried or hiding something – but I was frightened too, and I grabbed Raphael and made sure we joined in the pushing and shoving, like we hadn’t a care in the world. When we saw Rat, we waved: he was squatting close by, smoking, and he would look over at me sometimes, but nobody looked at him, because Rat is grey as trash, and he has only the clothes he wears, which are so filthy he can move around and no one sees him.
After a while the police gathered all us kids together and got us working – they’d got extra hooks from somewhere, and as we were on level ground it wasn’t a hard job: we just ripped and ripped, and spread it all out.
There were about a hundred of us.
The people in McKinley have toilets, so there wasn’t any stupp – McKinley trash is good-quality trash: food, newspaper, a lot of plastic and glass, but the police
wouldn’t let us take anything, because as far as they were concerned, we were looking for just one thing.
Then someone found a handbag, and there was real excitement, lots of shouting: it was blue, and old, with one stringy little handle, so it was thrown back, everyone very disappointed, and the police just watched us work, looking grim and their patience running out.
By mid-afternoon, I guess, we’d finished, and I don’t think a pile of rubbish had ever got a better looking at: the men on the trash piles had finished as well, and everyone was ordered down. Of course, we all would have worked for the rest of the day, and the rest of the week – we were hoping to string it out and get five hundred out of it – but the police were smart, and could see that even in a mountain of rubbish, you can pick through what’s up top pretty fast, and you can see what’s new and what isn’t.