Free The Informer by Craig Nova Page B

of apartments stood by the river, which made a silver path. Then she walked back and forth, wanting the train to come and dreading its arrival. What was she going to do if she got back and they were still fighting?
    The train arrived and she got on. Men rustled newspapers as they shook them out and folded them, and the scent of the women’s perfume hung in the air. There wasn’t so much of that as there had been before the slump, but it was nice to smell. She felt the lurch of the car and wondered what would happen if the police went to her parents’ apartment. At least she didn’t live there anymore.
    The train pulled into the station where the young men had been. She got out of the car and looked across to the other platform, but it was empty. The train pulled away with a highly geared whine, which sounded to her like a toy being wound so tightly it would finally break. She was sweating.
    Finally she crossed over to the other side of the station, went downstairs and under the track and then climbed the steps, and on the platform she felt the presence of the fight, which seemed to linger like smoke. The airwas warm, but she hugged herself and walked back and forth, although she stopped at some red drops about the size of a coin. The brightness of them, like new red paint, reminded her that she wasn’t finished with Mani. The contest hadn’t been decided, not yet.
    Two uniformed officers, the Schutzpolice, stood in the street under the track. Mani had told her that in a street fight, which the police had tried to break up with men on horses, Mani had used a knife to stab a horse. He said it had been a black horse and that the blood seemed all the redder, all the more glistening, as it had run down the horse’s black leg.
    “So, you’ve come back.”
    The man with the blue eyes stood on the platform.
    “You,” he said. “I’m talking to you. Girl, come.”
    “Girl?” she said.
    “All right. Woman. Is that better? Come,” he said.
    He was tall, heavy in the shoulders, tanned, with bright yellow hair. He held out his hand and beckoned to her. An approaching train made a whine, and overhead some pigeons flew into the air, their wings fluttering with an anxious sound.
    “I won’t hurt you,” he said.
    “What makes you think you could hurt me?” she said.
    He smiled. Then he stepped closer, and as he did, she saw that one of his hands was swollen. He put it in his pocket and tried to look nonchalant.
    “Why do you want to hang around with those people?” he said.
    She stood there, thinking that she should slap him. She’d had enough. A hard, loud smack. Then she took an inventory of his features, his combed hair, which shone in the light, his rough, definite good looks, his broad shoulders, his smile.
    The man glanced at her scar and watched as she turned her head a little to let him see it. He blushed.
    “Come,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs.”
    “Why should I go anywhere with you?” she said.
    “Because you want to,” he said.
    “And what are we going to do?” she said.
    “We’ll have a glass of beer,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”
    “And why do you want to do that?” she said.
    He looked around.
    “You know what kind of trouble I could get into, just being seen with you?”
    “Yes,” she said. “I know.”
    “Have you ever taken a chance? Done something you shouldn’t?”
    He looked at the scar.
    “Can I touch it?” he said.
    She stared at him.
    He looked around, too, and he wasn’t smiling either. “If I’m willing to take that chance, it means I really want to talk. Doesn’t that count?”
    She took a step down the stairs, but he reached out and took her arm.
    “No,” he said. “Not that way. Can’t you see the cops?”
    They turned and went back to the other end of the platform, the two of them walking side by side. Then they went down the stairs and stood under the elevated tracks next to a support, which was a sort of steel pylon, four corners that were