While they awaited news from Booker's sources, life went on as normal, or as normal as life could be when employed in the Larkin household. Booker was restless, and he continued his daily search through the city center in hopes of finding a fresh corpse. But as this could not keep him distracted for long, he threw himself into his work, spending most of his days downstairs, fiddling with designs and prototypes, only coming up to occasionally eat breakfast or see to one of his patients, such as old Ms. Portch.
Trinket stood by the settee, watching with fascination as Booker adjusted the older woman's mechanical earpiece. It sat like a little horn inside her ear and amplified sound so that she could understand those around her despite her failing hearing. Trinket had seen older folks using hearing horns before, but this was something altogether different. From what Booker had explained to her, this device allowed a person to increase or decrease the volume, even giving them the option of turning it off. And it was so easily hidden. It could be expanded or collapsed, making it possible to sleep with it attached in case one was woken suddenly and needed the use of their ears without fumbling for the device.
"So how's the landlord business been treating you, Ms. Portch?" Booker asked loudly as he used a small tool to adjust a tiny gear.
"Oh, quite well," the old lady replied with just as much volume.
"Any of your tenants causing you trouble?"
"No, no, I mostly rent to night flowers, and they all keep to themselves. Occasionally get a bit loud if they bring their clients home, but nothing worse than a damaged headboard."
Trinket averted her eyes, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
Booker grinned. "I daresay things could be worse," he said.
"There is a new tenant I'm a tad suspicious of. Moved in only a few weeks ago. Strange fella, always coming and going at the oddest hours. I figured he must have a gal he visits, but I never see him with one. Saw him once out my window talking all secret like with a tall shadowy figure. Don't know what he's up to, but he'd best not be bringing it into my building."
Trinket's eyes widened. Secret meetings with shadowy figures? She exchanged a look with Booker, who seemed equally intrigued. "Well, I suppose it's impossible to keep all the riffraff out. This is Tinkerfall, after all," he said.
"True, true, too true."
With one final tweak, Booker finished his adjustments. Trinket watched as he carefully placed the device back in Ms. Portch's ear so that, if she wore her hair right, it would be nearly invisible. The old woman didn't seem too concerned with it being noticed, though. She fiddled with the tiny winder until the device expanded from her ear. Cocking her head, she tested it and wound it once more before smiling.
"Thank you, Doctor," she said as she turned to Booker, pulling out her money purse. "You're a godsend."
She pulled out several coins and handed them to him, but he only took half of them, returning the others to her. "I'm in a particularly good mood today," he told her, his voice returned to its normal volume. "Thank you for your business."
Ms. Portch pinched his cheek, and Trinket had to keep from snickering.
Booker saw the woman to the door with a polite smile. "Have a lovely day, Ms. Portch."
"You as well, Doctor."
Trinket was still trying to hold back her laughter when he returned to the parlour with a twisted grimace. "Don't," he said as he pointed at her.
"Don't what?" she asked innocently.
"Don't you start teasing me over that."
"Over what? The way that little old lady was treating you like her son? Or the way you only charged her half your standard price?"
"She paid me well enough in information," Booker said as he sat on the settee and crossed his legs. He picked up the tool he had been using to adjust the earpiece and examined it. "She just didn't know it."
"Hmm, you may have been right."
"About what?"
"Perhaps you are going soft."
He dropped his hands and shot her a look that said he was not amused. "Anyhow, all harassment aside, I'd say we could have a new lead."
"A live one this time. Do you think this tenant could be your friend?"
"Either that or an accomplice."
He said "accomplice" like he worried it was the truth. Was he unhappy with the idea of his rival having found another person to work with? The way he gazed down at the tool in his hands was so distant and almost sad. It pulled at Trinket's heartstrings.
"Well," Booker said, snapping out of his daze and rising to his feet, "I guess we have a midnight excursion to prepare for."
"Will we need sleeping guns for this one?"
He gave a crooked smile. "No, but it might be safe to have a few pistols on hand. Ah, and my latest invention for you."
She started as he left the room. "For me?" she said, following after him.
"Indeed," he said, leading her down the stairs and into the laboratory. "Since you are so against carrying a knife or a gun, I've created a new weapon for you."
He brought her over to one of his workbenches. Opening a drawer, he pulled out what looked like a perfume bottle. It was small and compact, just the right size to fit in her pocket without anyone being the wiser. It appeared to be made out of metal rather than glass and had a mesh bulb attached to the top. It was very pretty, with a floral relief wrapped around it.
She glanced up at Booker. "You bought me perfume?"
The smile on his face told her otherwise, but he jumped into an explanation anyhow. "No, you wouldn't want to douse yourself with this, trust me. I've combined various plants and chemicals to create a mixture that, when sprayed into the eyes of an attacker, will render them temporarily blind. And if you spray enough, it can clog up the airways, making them breathless as well."
Trinket stared down at the bottle with a new wariness. "How pleasant."
"Well, you're so worried that you'll injure me or an innocent bystander if you have a more traditional weapon. With this, even if you happen to use it against someone who is not an attacker, it won't potentially kill them. It will just hurt a lot."
He placed the bottle in her hands, and she examined it carefully. It was a genius idea. No one would suspect a lady of packing such a powerful weapon in an innocent-looking trinket. She looked at Booker and almost smiled at seeing his eager expression. He was watching out for her. And while she really didn't like carrying any kind of weapon, she was grateful for his concern.
"Thank you," she said, tucking the bottle away in the pocket of her smock. "I feel much safer knowing I have it on hand."
Pleased with himself, Booker made his way over to his desk where he proceeded to dig out one of his pistols. The sight of it made her think about the Wolf and how she had had no choice but to use such a weapon against the beast. The feel of the cold metal in her hands, the force with which it shot, the carnage that resulted afterwards. Suddenly, the perfume bottle seemed like a much better alternative.
"I say we stake out Ms. Portch's complex and see if we can't arrange a meeting with this strange tenant of hers," Booker said as he checked to be sure the pistol was loaded with bullets.
"And what will we do if we do meet him?"
Closing the gun, he held it up and smiled. "Oh, just a little friendly persuasion."
Eyes trained on the weapon, Trinket swallowed as a pit sank in her stomach.
~
Ms. Portch's building was on a dead-end street right across from the police station. As they passed by the station, Trinket's heart pounded against her ribcage, so loud she worried the officers inside would be able to hear it. They weren't doing anything illegal, per se, but the authorities had already arrested Booker once. Surely they would jump at the chance to take him in again.
Booker must have sensed her apprehension. He placed a hand over hers, which was gripping his arm tightly. "I'm not going back in there, trust me," he whispered.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because they hauled me in on my own trumped-up charges. They have nothing on me."
"Booker, you may think you're well-loved, but you have plenty of enemies. I'm sure if the police tried hard enough, they could find something to hold against you."
"Lucky for us, the Tinkerfall police don't try very hard."
They took a right and made their way down Primrose Street. Aside from apartment buildings, this was the location of an old matchstick factory. It was a large, unkempt building. Most of the windows had been smashed, likely by looters looking to find any valuables that had been left behind.
"Shut down a few years ago," Booker said, noticing her staring at the factory. "Funny thing is, it looked pretty much like this when it was still in business."
"Why did it shut down?"
"Business owners mysteriously disappeared. There are rumors it had to do with the Mice. Wouldn't surprise me. Scales hated that place."
"Why?"
"From what I've heard, he had a sister who was employed there. Matchstick factories are notoriously horrible places to work, so perhaps he hated the way they treated her?"
"Scales had a sister? What happened to her?"
Booker shrugged. "I believe she died when he was still a young boy. Maybe it had something to do with the time she spent working at the factory. Would explain his reasons for wanting to run it into the ground."
She glanced up at the abandoned building again. "I have a hard time imagining Scales having any sort of affection for a person. Even a sister."
"We all have our pasts. And even the cruelest of villains were once children filled with hopes and dreams and love."
Villains like you.
Murderer.
Trinket let out a long breath and forced her eyes forward.
They continued until they reached the very end of the road. Ms. Portch's building was on the side opposite the factory. Settling into the alley between another complex and an abandoned building across the street, they waited for their man to show up.
"Stop being so nervous," Booker whispered.
"I'm not nervous," she lied.
"I can feel you trembling."
"That's because we're standing in an alley in the middle of a winter night."
"We're not doing anything illegal."
"It's certainly not anything the authorities would look kindly on."
"There are many things the authorities do not look kindly on, and they all take place here in Tinkerfall. During the night and during the day, I might add. Just look at the Clocktower. Plenty of scandalous things happen there. In fact, it's where I started my surgical business."
This piqued her interest. "Really?"
He nodded, his eyes fixed on the building across the street. "I didn't want the doctor I was studying under to find out about it, as he had voiced his disapproval of the idea of replacing flesh with machine. So I did some research and found out about Tinkerfall, a little city notorious for its seedy underbelly. I'd come periodically to offer my assistance to those who could benefit from it, and I did my surgeries in a rented room at the Clocktower. I built up quite the subtle reputation. So when Mr. Patterson died and left me his fortune, I decided to take up here."
"And here I thought it was the stew that attracted you."
He briefly pulled his attention away from the building to smile at her. "An added benefit." He returned his gaze to the street. "Moving to Tinkerfall was a fresh start. I was grateful to Mr. Patterson for taking a chance on an orphan boy like myself, but I knew nothing would come of staying in Ravenwallow. Sure, I could have built up a stupendous medical practice, and likely I could have continued my experiments in secret. But there were too many distractions, too many memories. And in such a quaint place, there was always the risk of succumbing to normalcy."
He said the word like it was poison in his mouth, and it made Trinket laugh softly. "There's no risk of that here."
"Indeed. My whole life started on a new path when I moved here. I knew that this was the place where I could work on catching up with Benedict. This was where I would catch his attention and remind him why we had become friends in the first place. And then," he squeezed his fist in the air, "I'd show him how I've surpassed him."
Benedict. That was the name of his friend? He had never told her that before. She eyed him cautiously as he watched the apartment building. They hadn't known each other for very long, but he had come to confide in her more than she had expected him to. These moments alone when he would let slip little pieces of his past, pieces that he had clearly been keeping locked away in his heart, made her realize how much he trusted her. And it made her feel all the more guilty for withholding her own past from him. But if he knew what she had done, he would hate her. Even she hated herself for it. She often questioned whether she deserved to be living this relatively pleasant life after she had destroyed the lives of those she loved.
He'd hate you.
Like everyone else.
You should just die.
Die, die, die, die, die—
"Look, there."
Booker's voice drew her out of her dark thoughts, and her eyes followed to where he was pointing. There was a figure ahead of them approaching the apartments, the collar of his coat turned up and a raggedy hat pulled low to cover his face. He was of average height and build. Nothing really stood out about him.
"Is it Benedict?" Trinket asked.
Squinting his eyes, Booker shook his head. "No, too short. But this person could know where he is."
Pulling her out of the alley, he trotted across the street.
"Good evening, sir," he called out. "Might I have a word?"
The man bolted before they could even introduce themselves. Booker made a grab for him and managed to snag his wrist. However, the fellow fought back. As Booker tried to keep hold of him, Trinket caught a glimpse of the man's hand and noticed something familiar. Before it could fully register in her head, though, the man twisted away and took off down the street.
Booker muttered a curse. "Come on, we can't let him get away," he said as he tightened his grip on her hand and ran after him.
She tried to match his pace, but her mind was filled with the image of the man's hand.
And his dirt-encrusted fingernails.