The Good Thief: A Novel

A loud banging outside Ren's window awakens him just before dawn. Outside, Ren sees Mrs. Sands emptying a metal bin of ashes onto the street. She wears a clean dress and apron, along with the hat from the night before. Leaving Tom and Benjamin to sleep, Ren exits the room. In the hall outside, Ren finds the drowned boy's clothes, now mended and tailored to fit him. Putting on the shirt, jacket, and pants, Ren realizes that these are "the clothes of a man" (118), not an orphan boy.

Making his way downstairs, Ren hears the sound of voices from the kitchen. Mrs. Sands yells something and is met with "a highly pitched set of giggles" (119). Rounding the corner, Ren sees four "plain" (119) girls seated at the bench, each in the same coarse blue dress and heavy boots. One of the girls, Jenny, who has a harelip, says she "didn't touch anything" (119). Ren sees that behind her back she holds a piece of bacon, which makes a grease stain on her dress. Mrs. Sands hits the girl on the ear and the girl falls from the bench, dropping the bacon as she goes down. Mrs. Sands uses her apron to clean the bacon. The girl touches her head then smiles, telling Mrs. Sands that she must be "slipping" (119) because there's "no blood" (119). Mrs. Sands begins coughing and the girls burst into laughter again. Ren realizes that Mrs. Sands is laughing, too.

Mrs. Sands scolds the girls, saying that they'll wake everyone. Jenny says "honest people" (120) don't sleep in late. One of the girls on the bench notices Ren. Mrs. Sands pulls Ren by his collar and introduces him as their "new drowned boy" (120). Mrs. Sands asks Ren if he slept well. Ren says he did but tells Mrs. Sands there was "something in the chimney" (120) the night before. Mrs. Sands pauses then asks Ren if he's hungry and pushes a plate of eggs, butter, bacon, and bread in front of him. Ren eats heartily. Mrs. Sands continues to fill his plate. The girls watch in silence and Jenny blows Ren a kiss.

Benjamin enters the kitchen with bloodshot eyes and asks for water. Mrs. Sands goes to fill a basin for him but Benjamin plunges his head straight into a bucket then throws his head back, shaking it "like a dog" (121). Jenny asks Benjamin who he thinks he is and Benjamin replies that he's her neighbor. Mrs. Sands rolls dough on the counter, ignoring the commotion. Outside, a "loud clanging" (121) sounds, followed up by a "higher pitch" (121). The girls tie their shawls around their heads then head out of the kitchen. Jenny says she'll see them at supper.

Ren asks Mrs. Sands who the girls are, and she replies that they're "mousetrappers" (122). Mrs. Sands motions to a small wooden box on her floor. Ren crouches down to inspect it. It has a tin door with a one-way hinge, "like the door in the gate at Saint Anthony's" (122). Ren pushes the door inwards and the box shudders as Ren draws his fingers back quickly. Mrs. Sands says the girls work for McGinty, who bought the land after the mine closed and built a mousetrap factory. Mrs. Sands says the town was "glad at first" (122) but McGinty brought "ugly girls with no husbands and no homes" (122) with him. Mrs. Sands laments that "most everyone decent" (122) in North Umbrage left town, except her, because she has nowhere else to go.

Mrs. Sands stuffs the dough with meat and forms it into two pies. Ren thanks her for fixing the clothes for him. Mrs. Sands’s face looks "on the verge of breaking" (123) but she answers that she was "glad to do it" (123). She straightens Ren's jacket and says some people were meant to be drowned. Ren wonders if it's God's punishment but Mrs. Sands says God is "too busy" (123) to punish little boys.

At the table, Benjamin asks if McGinty has a family. Mrs. Sands says he used to have a sister. Ren sees "Benjamin's interest rise" (123) as it always does before they start a con job. Ren wonders if Benjamin will target McGinty's sister next. Benjamin asks what happened to McGinty's sister. Mrs. Sands says she "lost her mind" (124) and got sent away. At that moment, Tom emerges and Mrs. Sands directs him to the water bucket. Tom splashes his face, getting water all over the floor. Mrs. Sands hands him a mop, saying she's their "landlady, not a maid" (124). Tom curses as he wipes the floor.

Mrs. Sands puts Tom and Benjamin's breakfasts on the table and the men begin eating. She slides the meat pies onto a rack in the oven. Ren realizes that Mrs. Sands "already knew about the dwarf in the chimney" (124), though she pretended not to hear his question. Ren feels the wooden horse in his pocket and thinks the dwarf must have left it for Mrs. Sands. Ren thinks back to the only toy he's ever owned: "a broken tin soldier" (124). He used to share it with Ichy and Brom until Ichy "lost it down the well" (124). Ren feels "guilty" (125) for taking the horse from Mrs. Sands but he doesn't want to give it up.

Benjamin puts on his coat and asks Ren is he's ready. Ren isn't sure what he's ready for but he nods and gets up from the table. Mrs. Sands shouts that they owe her $6. Benjamin says they're "certainly" (125) going to pay her and puts his hand on her shoulder, then slides it to her waist. Mrs. Sands steps back and says it has to be today. She moves to the basin as though she's going to throw it at Benjamin, and Tom moves his hand to the pistol in his belt. Benjamin takes the bowl from Mrs. Sands and sets it on the table. "Today," (125) he says. Mrs. Sands asks if she'll see them for supper and Benjamin says she'll see all of them. 

Setting out in the morning, Ren and the men find North Umbrage livelier than they had when they arrived in the night. Shops, including a blacksmith, fruit stands, and bakeries, all run by women, have opened their doors. Benjamin drives the wagon through town, past the mousetrap factory. Seeing the factory makes Ren feel "strange, and a little queasy" (127). About a mile outside of North Umbrage, Ren spots the teaching hospital Mr. Bowers, the dentist in Granston, told them about. Benjamin hums and Tom chews tobacco, both at ease, though Ren has some reservations.

Ren asks Benjamin what he's supposed to do when they get to the hospital. Benjamin says he needs to ask for Dr. Milton; Ren is "supposed to be his patient" (127). Benjamin assures Ren that Dr. Milton thinks this plan will make things safer because he's had trouble before. Benjamin tells Ren not to disappoint him. Ren climbs down from the cart and Benjamin pulls the cart away, telling Ren they'll meet him down the road from the hospital.

Ren approaches the hospital. It has a granite foundation and three sets of consecutive gates. Finding the bell, he rings it then waits. Soon, a nun appears, carrying a bedpan. Ren calls out to her and she approaches the gate. The nun is a middle-aged woman with dark eyes. Ren pushes back his sleeve and shows her his scar. He tells he's here to see Dr. Milton. The nun seems alarmed for a moment then calms down and lets Ren into the yard. She tells Ren that Dr. Milton is still in surgery. Bringing him inside the building, Ren passes rooms overflowing with beds and mattresses on the ground. The place smells like "stale smoke and boiled meat" (128) and bedpans spill out onto the floor. The patients wear woolen nightgowns, like the one Mrs. Sands gave Ren to wear at her house. Most patients sleep, with an arm or leg "wrapped in layers of bandages" (129). One patient with a shaved head and scabs on his arms reaches out to Ren and says he needs water. The nun tells the man she'll see that he gets some water and orders him to let go of Ren.

As they move towards a set of stairs, Ren realizes the nun is a Sister of Mercy, or nuns committed to serving the poor and sick, particularly women and children. This nun, like Brother Joseph's cousin, Sister Sarah, wears the Sisters' signature gray dress. Sister Sarah had come to visit Saint Anthony's once and in her short stay, "rid the small boys' room of its fishy smell" (129). Many of the boys cried when she left them.

The nun asks Ren how he lost his hand and he says he can't remember. The nurse frowns and points Ren to a bench in a nearby corner then continues down the hall. Ren looks at the portraits of aristocrats hung on the walls. One, showing a man in "a well-made but slightly rumpled jacket" (129) at a desk, stands out as different from the others. Behind the man's desk, on a shelf, are a frog in a glass jar, a taxidermy bird, and a human skull. Ren wonders what the man in the portrait could be thinking but decides the man looks more hungry than intelligent.

Suddenly, Ren hears pleading screams coming from the end of the hall. The screaming voice begs, "Stop! Leave it on! Please!" (130), then shrieks repeatedly until finally moaning and ceasing. Ren holds his right hand and the stump on his left arm over his ears and hums until the screaming stops. Lowering his arms, Ren considers leaving the building but before he can decide what to do, four men carrying a "large basket" (130) containing a pale man emerge from the end of the hall. As they pass, Ren sees the man has freshly bloodied bandages covering his lower half. Behind the men, the nun walks with the man's leg, "cradling it in her two arms like a baby" (130). Without stopping, the nun says she told Dr. Milton that Ren was here.

Following the nun come a group of young doctors carrying books and papers. They glance down at Ren, making him self-conscious about his "drowned-boy clothes" (131). After they pass him, Ren hears a voice calling, "Boy!" (131). Ren stands, wanting to rush down the stairs away from the voice. Instead, he follows the bloody trail from the man's leg into a room with a glass-paneled roof. Benches surround a raised platform where the man from the portrait in the hallway stands, "wiping down a bone saw" (131). The man has bushy eyebrows, gray hair, and a "bulbous and oddly formed" (131) forehead. Ren thinks Dr. Milton's expression still holds “the same hunger for sausages" (131) as the man in the painting.

Dr. Milton tells Ren he needs to come once a week from now on, then calls Ren over to him. Ren passes the benches and climbs onto the platform, where Dr. Milton lifts Ren onto the operating table. Dr. Milton moves close to Ren and tells him his new job is "doing what you're told" (132). Dr. Milton then picks up a hooked knife for cutting "around the veins" (132), hands it to Ren, and tells him to put it back in its case. Ren finds a wooden case containing "a multitude of shining silver instruments" (132). He finds the spot where the knife should go—in a tray "beneath the bone saw" (132)—and puts it back.

Dr. Milton notices Ren's scar on his left arm and gives "a small grunt of surprise" (132). He studies the arm, telling Ren that the cut is crude but "whoever did this knew what they were doing" (132). Dr. Milton calls Ren a "lucky boy" (132) and makes him repeat the phrase. Pinching the skin on Ren's left arm, Dr. Milton says he got his training doing amputations and has a lasting curiosity about how "skin regenerates" (133) after amputations. Milton removes a small scalpel from his case and uses it to take a skin sample without waiting for Ren's permission. Ren claps his hand over the cut as Dr. Milton uses tweezers to put the skin onto a small glass dish. He carries that to a microscope and begins looking at it.

Studying Ren's skin sample, Dr. Milton tells Ren that the cells of scar tissue look different from those of "normal skin" (133). Looking into the microscope, Ren sees his skin: smooth on the surface with thin lines, "like frost on a windowpane" (133) on the other side. Dr. Milton explains that he's seen scar tissue on internal organs, too. He asks Ren if he's ever "seen inside a body" (133), and Ren says that he has not. Dr. Milton says it's "beautiful" (134), and begins pointing out muscles on Ren's arm.

Labeling and setting aside Ren's involuntary skin sample, Dr. Milton tells Ren that Mr. Bowers says Ren and his friends can be trusted. Dr. Milton asks Ren if he thinks he should believe Mr. Bowers and Ren, trying "his best to be convincing" (134), says that they can be trusted. Dr. Milton tells Ren that he needs four bodies, "fresh, no more than a day or two gone" (134), brought in at night. He tells Ren he'll need the bodies by next Thursday then points to a set of keys for Ren to take. The keys open the gates. Dr. Milton tells Ren to keep the keys safe and return them to him. Lastly, Dr. Milton tells Ren to tell Sister Agnes that Milton is treating his arm for an infection, so he won't have to lose the rest of it.

Ren leaves the operating room and finds Sister Agnes waiting for him on the bench outside. Ren keeps his arm cradled and decides that he'll wear a sling to the next visit. Sister Agnes walks Ren to the outside gate and asks where he lives. Ren says North Umbrage, and Sister Agnes tells him it's a long walk. Ren assures her that someone is coming to get him. Benjamin and Tom appear with the wagon. Sister Agnes frowns at the men as though they "were approaching with a mountain of bedpans" (135) and asks Ren if he's a Christian. Sister Agnes asks Ren if he'd like her to pray for him and Ren says he would. Benjamin raps his fingers on the cart's wooden side as he waits for Sister Agnes to finish praying. 

Benjamin wakes Ren in the middle of the night. They, along with Tom, ride in the wagon to the cemetery on the outskirts of town. Benjamin uses a needle to pick the "enormous padlock" (137) on the cemetery gates then leave Ren behind with the horse. Benjamin and Tom enter the cemetery, each carrying a shovel. Ren waits with growing anxiety until Benjamin and Tom return, "dragging a burlap sack between them" (139). The men heave the body into the wagon, complaining about its weight, then head back into the cemetery. Ren smells the "molted leaves and rotting bark and old pine needles" (139) on the body in the bag. Ren imagines he can hear insects "eating through the bag" (139) to get at the body.

Benjamin and Tom carry the other bodies to the wagon with relative ease. They tell Ren to show his toughness and leave him alone again as they go back for one final load. While he stands beside the horse, Ren hears "something shift behind him" (141). Not wanting to look behind him, Ren stands motionless for a while. Finally, he glances back to see the largest sack, which Benjamin and Tom had brought first, sitting up in the wagon. Ren tries to call for Benjamin but can't find his voice. He moves towards the cemetery gate and the "head of the bag" (141) turns to watch him.

Benjamin comes out of the graveyard "with a bounce in his step" (141) but stops short when he sees the bag. Benjamin motions to Ren to stay put then pulls a knife from his boot. Benjamin lunges at the bag and begins slashing at it. Tom stumbles out of the cemetery and puts his hand over Ren's mouth to silence his screams. In the wagon, "a dead man" (142) in a purple velvet suit sits up and tells Benjamin that he's hungry. The man has "large and brutish" (142) features and rings under his eyes. He slumps down and Tom asks if the man is dead now. Benjamin feels the man's neck for a pulse and says he's still alive. Benjamin says they can't leave the man here, nor can they bury him again. Benjamin then asks Ren for some rope. Ren brings the rope and Benjamin ties up the dead man.

On their way back to town, Ren rides in the back of the wagon, on top of the blanket-covered dead bodies. He sees that the dead man wears no shirt and has "dark bruises" (143) circling his flabby neck. As they ride, Benjamin slaps "the dead man hard in the face" (144) every so often, in order to keep him awake.

Tom and Benjamin carry the dead man up to their room. It's just before dawn and Mrs. Sands is still sleeping. They put the dead man on Ren's bed, then Benjamin hands his revolver to Ren. He tells Ren to watch the man then he and Tom head back to the wagon to take the remaining two bodies to the hospital. Ren listens to the man sleeping and considers pulling the trigger, though Ren hopes "it would not come to that" (146).

Ren sees bugs crawling from the dead man's body onto his bed. He wonders how the man was buried alive. Ren flicks a spider from the bed then stomps it with his boot. He sees the dead man is awake now and trains the gun on him. The man blinks and brushes another insect off his face. Ren crushes that one with his boot. The man says Ren looks like he's dancing. The man has a "deep and ragged" (147) voice, as though he hasn't "spoken in years" (147). This gives Ren a chill, as though "a think and evil fog" (147) has engulfed him. The man says he's cold so Ren spreads a blanket over him.

The man stops talking and Ren realizes the man is crying. With trepidation, Ren reaches out and touches the man's foot. He pats the foot until the man stops crying. The man tells Ren that he's thirsty and Ren brings him a bowl of water from the washstand. The man introduces himself as Dolly. Dolly asks if Ren's going to shoot him and Ren says he doesn't think he will. Ren sees tattoos spread across the man's chest: "an anchor, and a chain that wrapped around his thick waist twice" (149). Dolly explains that each link in the chain represents a town in which he's committed a murder. Dolly says he came to North Umbrage "to murder someone" (149) but never had the chance.

Ren asks Dolly if that's how he hurt his neck and Dolly says that he was strangled. Dolly says two "men with old hats" (150) came after him with some rope, surprising him in "the stairwell of a tavern" (150). Dolly fought and killed the men, though ended up temporarily paralyzed and unable to speak. In the morning, the landlady finds the three men's bodies. She calls for the undertakers and, thinking Dolly was defending the tavern from being robbed, orders a casket for Dolly. Dolly recalls the undertakers putting him into the casket, taking his shirt and shoes, then driving the nails into the casket. Finally, Dolly says, they lowered him into the ground and buried him.

Dolly begins to cry again and says he's sorry, though Ren isn't sure what he's sorry for. Dolly throws his arms around Ren and squeezes his left arm, "as if it were a hand" (152). Dolly tells Ren that they're friends now and Ren agrees.

Benjamin returns to the house after dawn. Dolly sleeps in a pile of blankets under Ren's bed, as the light hurts his eyes. Benjamin produces "mounds of bills and coins" (153), more money than Ren has ever seen, or than Benjamin has ever made. Ren counts the money correctly, impressing Benjamin. Benjamin gives Ren a few dollars then asks what Ren will buy with his share. Overwhelmed by possibility, Ren doesn't answer. Benjamin gives Ren his knife to hold onto until he thinks of something to buy. The knife brings a huge smile to Ren's face.

Outside, the mousetrap factory whistle sounds. The girls pass by the house, all of them dressed in blue. Ren asks Benjamin what they're going to do with Dolly and Benjamin says Tom is on "a bender for the next few weeks" (155), so they'll need another "set of hands" (155). Ren says Dolly is a killer and Benjamin says that could be useful, as long as Dolly doesn't kill them.

Ren awakens to find Benjamin still sleeping and Dolly gone from their room. Ren hurries downstairs to find Dolly sitting on a wooden chest in the kitchen, eating a bowl of porridge. Ren hears scraping and "a series of muffled knocks" (156) coming from inside the chest. Ren yells at Dolly to let Mrs. Sands out of the chest. Dolly opens the chest and Ren finds Mrs. Sands without her shoes on, with a sock stuffed in her mouth. Climbing out of the box, she shouts at Ren, asking who Dolly is. Mrs. Sands begins coughing then grabs the fireplace poker and hits Dolly's legs with it. Dolly says that's why he put her in the box then "easily" (157) pins Mrs. Sand’s arms and covers her mouth.

Benjamin rushes into the room, holding the King James Bible. He thrusts the book at Dolly, who drops Mrs. Sands in surprise. Benjamin tells Dolly not to touch their landlady, scolding him like a child. Benjamin tells Mrs. Sands that there's "a perfectly good reason" (157) Dolly put her in the box. He says Dolly is their cousin and "a traveling preacher" (157) who married a Native American woman who left him for "a witch doctor from another tribe" (158). Mrs. Sands must have reminded Dolly of his wife so he locked her in a chest "out of love" (158), fearing she'd run away from him again. Mrs. Sands, angry and impatient, begins hitting Dolly, Benjamin, and Ren with her broom. She pushes them out of the house.

Outside, Benjamin dusts off his collar and says it's time they get Tom from the bar. On the street, people stare at Dolly, holding their noses and pointing. Benjamin and Ren help Dolly get cleaned up behind an abandoned church. They trash his velvet suit, then Benjamin uses his knife to shave Dolly's face. Benjamin helps Ren break into the church, where he finds "a coarse brown shepherd's robe" (160). Ren says Dolly isn't a preacher, but a monk. Ren tries to explain the basics of Catholicism to Dolly but Dolly says he "won't remember" (161). Ren shows Dolly how to do the sign of the cross so he doesn't "have to say anything" (161). Dolly picks this up quickly.

Benjamin says it's good they found Dolly when they did. Dolly, becoming a bit angry, asks Benjamin if he wants "something for it" (162) but Benjamin, stepping out of Dolly's reach, says he's not "the kind of person who collects debts" (162). Though, Benjamin admits, it is time they "talked business" (162). Dolly asks if Benjamin wants someone murdered and Benjamin says they need another man to "lend a hand with the digging" (1620. Dolly considers the offer, and Benjamin, handing the knife back to Ren, says he'll buy Dolly a drink.

The three head to O'Sullivan's bar. Dolly recognizes two young men outside the tavern as "hat boys" (163). He tells Benjamin there will be trouble if they see him, so Benjamin pulls the robe's hood over Dolly's face and hides him behind a "giant oak tree "(162). He then pulls Ren along with him into O'Sullivan's bar. 

Benjamin and Ren find O'Sullivan's tavern full of "quiet men" (164) who have likely been drinking there for a day or two. They find Tom in the back of the bar, surrounded by empty glasses, looking "years older" (165). Benjamin and Ren join Tom in his booth and Benjamin tells Tom they're "got a new man" (165). Tom says they can't keep him because whoever murdered Dolly will "notice that he's up and about" (165). Ren chimes in that Dolly killed the "men who killed him" (165) but Tom says he doesn't want to get involved with a murderer. Benjamin says they would "clear twice as much" (165) with Dolly's help then sends Ren to get him a drink.

Ren finds the bartender seemingly asleep next to a bowl of soup. A girl of about 12 walks by, carrying a tray of empty glasses. Ren orders Benjamin's drinks from her. The bar door opens and three men in black walk over to the sleeping bartender. One of the men lifts the bartender's eyelid to reveal an iris "hard and shiny as a marble" (167). The man asks the girl for her boss and she points the man towards a back room. The other two men, undertakers, hoist the bartender's dead body up from the table and carry him out of the bar. The bartender's soup spoon, still grasped in one hand, knocks off a man's hat. The man, wearing a blood-red leather coat and gloves, rises, approaching the undertakers. He removes a large knife from his belt and saws off the bartender's hand. The man brings the hand to his table and tells the bar girl to bring him some stew.

The undertakers leave the bar with the body and the customers kick "sawdust over the blood" (168), then settle back into their seats. Ren, sick from seeing the man's hand sawed off, returns to Benjamin and Tom. Tom says they need to leave but Benjamin says they can't leave yet. Tom, drunk, explains that McGinty, the man who owns the mousetrap factory, runs "a market for smuggled things here" (169). When things don't go McGinty's way, he hires his men to "do some cutting of their own" (169). Benjamin doesn't respond, instead studying the man in red leather. Ren notices Benjamin looks angrier than ever before. Benjamin stands up to leave, saying they'll have to do “one more run” (170), and then they'll leave town. Benjamin hands Ren their room key and tells him to beg their way back with Mrs. Sands, and to make sure Dolly doesn't kill anyone.

Tom pours Ren a glass of beer then asks Ren his "fellows' names" (170). Ren replies Brom and Ichy and Tom, again, tells Ren it's a shame to lose your fellows. Ren asks Tom if Benjamin is his fellow. Tom pours another drink then says Benjamin was "on the run for deserting" (171) the army when he met him. Tom gave him food, shelter, taught him cards, and how to get along. Tom explains that Benjamin's uncle sold him into the army to "cover a gambling debt" (171). Benjamin saw "men shot to pieces, trying to put their stomachs back inside themselves" (171) when he served, so he ran away. He was a few years older than Ren when it happened. Ren sits for a while longer, listening to Tom's words become less and less clear. Ren gets up to leave and Tom tells him to "hold on to" (171) Brom and Ichy's names. 

Ren finds Dolly sleeping under a tree, looking "almost peaceful" (172). Ren counts seventeen links in the chain tattooed around Dolly's neck as the man sleeps. When Dolly awakens, Ren leads him back to Mrs. Sands's house. Inside the house, they find no one, not even Mrs. Sands. Ren goes up to the mousetrap girls' rooms and finds it empty. He mounts the stairs to the attic and finds Mrs. Sands, "still in her kitchen clothes" (173) from that afternoon, flung across her rope bed. Her face is flushed. Ren calls her name and Mrs. Sands begins to shake violently.

Ren approaches her bed with a blanket and wraps it over her. She yells that Ren is murdering her and, mistaking him for the ghost of the drowned boy, says she won't take his bowl away. Mrs. Sands gets out of bed and begins coughing so severely that she doubles over and begins to sob. Ren sees a "small trickle of blood" (174) fall from her mouth onto the rug. Ren yells for Dolly, who bounds up the stairs and into Mrs. Sands's room. Together, Ren and Dolly get Mrs. Sands back into her bed. Ren remembers boys at the orphanage coming down with this illness and having to be quarantined. If the brothers at Saint Anthony's waited too long to get the doctor, the boys died.

Ren takes Benjamin's share of the money from their graverobbing out of its hiding place. Dolly carries Mrs. Sands downstairs and they load her into the wagon. Ren hopes he will remember his way to the hospital in the dark. After some mistakes, Ren reaches the bridge leading to the hospital. Under a streetlight past the bridge, Ren sees two men, one with a "porkpie hat" (175), the other with a top hat. As the wagon approaches, the man with the top hat jumps in front of the wagon and grabs the horse's bridle. The man in the top hat, addressing Dolly, asks if it's a "bit late for catechism" (176). Dolly replies that he's a monk as the man in the porkpie hat removes a chain from his pocket and begins running it through his fingers. The man in the top hat says he doesn’t remember that; he remembers "a purple suit" (176).

Dolly steps down from the wagon and tells the man to let go of the horse. The man says all they want is a blessing. Dolly begins to make the sign of the cross as the man in the porkpie hat brings the chain down on the back of Dolly's neck. Dolly turns towards the man and crushes his throat with one hand, then bashes the man's skull against the streetlight "over and over, until the man's hat fell onto the sidewalk" (176). The man in the top hat yanks Ren from his seat on the wagon and presses a knife to his face. Dolly tackles the man and wrestles with him as Ren falls into "the leftovers from a day of fishing the river" (177). Dolly, having killed the man in the top hat, helps Ren to his feet. Ren has wet his pants from fear but remains calm as he tells Dolly to load the men's bodies into the wagon.

They load the bodies into the wagon as Mrs. Sands awakens. Ren covers the bodies with a blanket and continues driving. Dolly tells Ren it's the men's "own fault" (178) that he killed them but Ren says that doesn't make it right. He tells Dolly he needs to confess "for everything" (178). Dolly says he can't even remember half of what he's done. Ren tries "his best to explain the seven sins, the Second Coming, and the end of the world" (178) to convince Dolly to confess, but he won't. Dolly says he's already been to hell and come back. He tells Ren he was "made for killing" (179). 

Ren and Dolly arrive at the hospital and find Sister Agnes with her arms full of bedpans. Ren tells Sister Agnes that their landlady is sick and she opens the hospital gates for them. Sister Agnes tells Ren that they'll have to leave if it's contagious. She pulls back the blankets before Ren can stop her. Ren expects Sister Agnes to scream at the sight of the dead men but instead she begins inspecting Mrs. Sands and noting her symptoms. Sister Agnes concludes that Mrs. Sands has influenza, "brought on by damp weather" (181). Sister Agnes says they can't take her unless Ren has money for a private room. Ren produces the stash of money he took from Benjamin.

Sister Agnes asks Dolly if he's from Saint Anthony's. Ren says he is, though Sister Agnes asks Dolly where the dead men came from, "phrased as an accusation" (182). Ren says they found them in the road but Sister Agnes notices the blood on Dolly's robe. She tells Ren to "put the others through the depository" (182) and Dr. Milton will give them "proper compensation" (182). Dolly and Ren wrap the bodies and push them through the depository door, which is much like the swinging gate at Saint Anthony's.

Sister Agnes leads Dolly, Ren, and Mrs. Sands up to the wing of private rooms. A Sister of Mercy sits outside each room, doing needlepoint or dozing. Sister Agnes tells one of them, Sister Josephine, that they have a new patient and begins settling Mrs. Sands into her room. Mrs. Sands, startled, begins shouting. Sister Agnes tries to calm her but Mrs. Sands yells at Ren to "make his dinner" (183) and "bring him his socks" (183). Ren realizes that she's talking about the "chimney dwarf" (183) she must have known he saw. Ren tells Mrs. Sands that he'll be back soon to visit her.

Leaving the room, Ren asks Dolly if he's ever been sick. Dolly lifts his robe to reveal "a sealed hole, the size of a quarter, in his thigh" (184). Dolly explains that someone he was strangling had shot him. Dr. Milton, observing them from the landing below, says it just missed the bone. Coming to meet Dolly and Ren, Dr. Milton studies Dolly's scar and hands with fascination. Dr. Milton tells Ren to follow him into the observatory. Ren finds the room "scrubbed clean and covered with fresh sawdust" (185). Dr. Milton tells Ren that the bodies he delivered were murdered and he's supposed to report them.

Dolly admits that he killed the men and he's "not sorry" (186). Dr. Milton tells Dolly he'd like to examine him and Dolly lies down on the operating table. The doctor runs his fingers over Dolly's skull and tells him he once met a giant with the same skull shape. Milton asks Dolly if he could persuade him to sell his body to the doctor, "to further my study of phrenology" (187). Dolly realizes what the doctor is asking and grabs Dr. Milton's arm. He twists it until it breaks. Ren says Dr. Milton frightened Dolly. Dr. Milton asks Dolly to leave the room. Dolly cracks his knuckles, menacing the doctor, then leaves.

Dr. Milton tells Ren he doesn't know what he's "doing with a man like that" (189). Ren says Dolly is his friend. Dr. Milton says Ren should be in school, studying science, or getting a job. He tells Ren not to bring Dolly back to the hospital unless he brings him "as a delivery" (189), for which the doctor will "pay extra" (189). Ren imagines Dolly's bones hanging in the doctor's office and tells Milton he doesn't think Dolly would like that. Dr. Milton says Dolly doesn't have to like it, he only has to die. 

Ren and Dolly ransack Mrs. Sands's bedroom, looking for "the small man's socks" (190) so Ren can keep his word to Mrs. Sands. On the crossbeam above Mrs. Sands's dresser, they find a "mountain of toys" (191), hand-carved, and Ren confirms that the dwarf made them. In a chest at the foot of Mrs. Sands's bed, they find a knitting bag on top of "a pair of worn, clean socks" (191) in a bag. Dolly asks Ren for a "bed knob" (191) so he can fix the socks. Dolly then slips the sock over the bed knob and uses the knitting needles and yarn to repair the sock in the same "methodical way he'd killed the men beneath the streetlamp" (192). Dolly says his mother taught him how to do this.

Ren asks Dolly if he's still going to kill the man he came to North Umbrage to kill. Dolly says he is because he's already been paid and the man he came to kill knows Dolly is going to kill him. Ren asks how Dolly will kill the man and Dolly says, "Necks are easiest" (193). He tells Ren a gun would be too loud. Ren tells Dolly he shouldn't kill the man and should come with him, Benjamin, and Tom. Dolly says he'll think about it but won't promise.

Dolly rolls himself under Mrs. Sands's bed to sleep while Ren lies awake. Ren goes downstairs to put a meal together for the dwarf. He then hides in the potato basket to wait. After an hour, the dwarf comes down the chimney. He ignores the stale bread and old sausage Ren has left for him but takes the apple and carves the fruit to eat. The dwarf puts on the socks Dolly fixed for him then walks out of sight. He suddenly pulls Ren out of the potato basket by the hair.

The dwarf asks Ren where Mrs. Sands, or Mary, as he calls her, is. Ren says she's at the hospital with influenza and has asked him to take care of him. The dwarf asks when she's coming back and says she never gets sick. Ren realizes the dwarf is frightened. He tells the man to eat some of the food. The dwarf asks if the pantry is unlocked and it is. He then points out several jars of things he'd like to eat, which Ren gets down for the man. After finishing a jar of herring, the dwarf asks if Ren has the key to the pantry. Otherwise, the dwarf says, the "mousetrap girls will clean through this in an hour" (196).

Ren asks the dwarf why he lives in the chimney; the dwarf says he lives on the roof. He explains that Mrs. Sands is his sister; their mother left the house to both of them when she died. The dwarf says living on the roof keeps him safe from "the ones who hate people" (197). He gestures to Ren's missing hand. The dwarf says he has a house with a stove on the roof and asks Ren if he'd like to see it. Ren says that he would and the dwarf instructs Ren on how to climb the chimney. Ren gets stuck halfway up and the dwarf has to use the rope to pull him up.

Once on the roof, Ren finds the dwarf's house is an old "pigeon cage wrapped in rags" (199). It has walls "lined with animal hides" (199) and several more animal hides on the floor. The walls also hold several shelves, lined with books. The dwarf fires up his potbelly stove and begins making tea with "a small sachet of roots and leaves" (200). The dwarf says he's making "wormwood" (200) tea, something their mother made for them when they were sick as children. He tells Ren to take it to Mrs. Sands.

Ren begins browsing the dwarf's collection of books. The dwarf explains that the books belonged to a woman who used to live in North Umbrage who was "always a bit off" (200). One day she walked into the river and had to be pulled out by some local fishermen. Local people say her brother, Mr. McGinty of the mousetrap factory, "sent her away to an institution" (201), then sold her things "in the street, like she was some kind of criminal" (201).

Outside, the whistle for the mousetrap factory blows. The dwarf opens his house's door and they see smoke rising from the factory and the mousetrap girls on the streets in their blue uniforms. The dwarf reminds Ren to lock up the pantry so the mousetrap girls don't eat everything. Ren looks at the river circling the town and realizes that both he and the dwarf wear the drowned boy's clothes that Mrs. Sands tailored for both of them. The dwarf hands the jar of wormwood tea to Ren and tells him to remind Mrs. Sands she promised to always take care of him. Ren wishes for a moment in which he could trade places with the dwarf. 

Ren makes his way back down the chimney and finds Benjamin in the kitchen with Jenny on his lap. The girl feeds Benjamin preserves and Benjamin has a hand under her skirt. He whispers in her ear and the girl says she's already late. Seeing Ren in the fireplace, the girl sticks out her tongue at him and leaves.

Benjamin asks Ren "how the hell" (204) he ended up in the chimney. Ren tells Benjamin the whole story, including finding Mrs. Sands, Dolly's murders, and the hospital. When Ren mentions Benjamin's money, Benjamin begins going through Ren's coat pockets. Ren tells Benjamin he used most of the money to pay the doctor. Benjamin tells Ren he's "supposed to steal from other people" (205). He tells Ren that he shouldn't go around "taking care of people" (205), lest he get attached to them and has trouble leaving them when he has to. Ren says Dolly is his friend but Benjamin says he's a murderer, not Ren's friend. Dolly could turn on them at any second, Benjamin says. Ren says he's not getting attached to anyone.

Benjamin and Ren go out looking for Tom that afternoon, at O'Sullivan's and a few brothels. They return to the boarding house without finding Tom. Benjamin prepares a simple dinner for them with what's left in the pantry, after the mousetrap girls "made short work of the preserves" (207). Ren asks Benjamin if he chose him from Saint Anthony's because he knew Ren would be sold into the army. Benjamin says that's part of why he picked him. Ren thanks him. Benjamin seems "at a loss for words" (207) at being thanked.

From outside, Tom knocks at the window. Ren opens the front door to see Brom and Ichy, "shivering, and frightened nearly out of their minds" (208), standing in front of Tom. Tom, "reeling" (208) with drink, pushes the twins inside, telling Ren he's brought his "fellows" (208) so they can be "a family at last" (208). The twins fall to the floor and scurry to get away from Tom. Benjamin asks Tom, with anger, what they "need three boys for" (208). Tom says Ren "needs his fellows" (208) and pounds his fist on the table. Benjamin says they're sending Brom and Ichy back to Saint Anthony's but Tom says he's "their father" (209). Benjamin studies the twins then dismisses them as "bad luck" (209).

Ren takes Brom and Ichy, who have been crying, upstairs to his room. Ichy says Tom told them to call him Papa or he'd strangle them both. Ren decides to "do what Mrs. Sands would have done" (209) and brings the boys water to wash their hands and faces. He gives them clean nightgowns and quilts, then tucks them into bed together. The twins tell Ren that Tom said "Father John was a cheat" (210) and that "God didn't exist" (210). The mattress trembles as Dolly, sleeping beneath it, rolls over. Ren tells Brom and Ichy that they found Dolly "on the road" (210).

Brom and Ichy ask if Tom will bring them back to Saint Anthony's if they ask him to. They invite Ren to come back with them. Ren considers the invitation but doesn't respond. Instead, he shows the twins his new clothes, describes Mrs. Sands's generous breakfasts, and brings the twins an armful of the toys Mrs. Sands's brother made. The twins, "too old for playthings" (211), marvel at the toys and take turns playing with them.

That night, Benjamin and Tom drive the wagon, loaded with Ren, Brom, Ichy, and Dolly, out to a cemetery on the edge of town. Ren tells the twins that they're going "fishing" (212), just as Benjamin had told Ren when they first met. This cemetery, unlike the other one in North Umbrage, has no gate or lock to pick. Benjamin ties the horse to a tree and begins unloading the burlap bags and shovels from the wagon. He tells Ren to wake Dolly, who's been sleeping on their ride. Ren gives Dolly a shovel, which looks like a toy in Dolly's huge hands. Dolly joins Benjamin and Tom in the cemetery.

The twins angrily tell Ren that he lied to them but before they can start a fight with him, they hear a shout from the graveyard. The boys run towards the sound and find Dolly holding Benjamin against a tree. Dolly refuses to dig up bodies "for anybody" (215) and begins strangling Benjamin. Ren tries to get Dolly to stop but Tom hits Dolly in the back of the head with a shovel, felling the giant to the ground.

Benjamin, unphased, says they can "never finish without him" (215); however, he looks down at the twins and begins delegating the work. Ren realizes they've come to the freshly dug graves of the bartender and his family, all of whom recently died from illness. The twins hesitate but Ren pushes shovels into their hands and the three dig as Tom curses them. Once Ren and the twins get the bartender's wife's "pale pine coffin" (217) visible, Tom opens it with "a long-handled spade" (217) then uses meat hooks attached to chains to hoist the woman's body out of the coffin. Ren tries to focus on the woman's linen dress, "embroidered around the neck and shoulders" (217), rather than on her face, "which was terrifying—her skin stiff and cold as wax" (217).

Benjamin grabs the woman by her armpits and drags her away from her gravesite. He tells Ren to give him his knife then uses the blade to cut the pearl buttons from the dress's collar. Benjamin then tells Ren to get the woman's clothes off because the dress "is worth five dollars, at least" (218). Once again, Ren has to push his friends into following Benjamin's orders. The three boys roll the woman's body onto her stomach and cut the dress of her, along the back seams.

Hours later, the crew finishes their work. Dolly remains unconscious from Tom's shovel blow to his head. Tom covers the bodies in the wagon with blankets as the boys nurse their sore backs and blistered fingers. As the crew gets into the wagon, Ren asks about Dolly, but Benjamin says Dolly is "no help" (219) to them. Ren tries to run for Dolly but Benjamin catches him and holds him tight. Benjamin asks Ren if he wants to stay with Dolly. Ren decides that "being abandoned in the churchyard" (219) even with Dolly is worse than never seeing Dolly again. Ren gets into the wagon.

Tom, drinking again after sobering up from his bender, begins singing, and gets the twins to sing along with him. Ren sees that the song makes them feel better, though Ren still feels uneasy. In the road ahead, a group of figures that "looked like trees" (221) appears. Coming closer, Ren sees the group is "five men on horseback" (221), each in a different hat. One of the men's hats has "a blood-red band" (221). The man in the riding coat, Pilot, calls to Benjamin but Benjamin, looking the men over, says he doesn't know them. Ren realizes the man in the riding coat is the same one who had cut off the bartender's hand at O'Sullivan's then used the dead man's spoon for his soup. Benjamin says there must be a misunderstanding. The man in the straw hat uses his shotgun to push the blankets off the burlap bags then pushes the burlap aside to reveal the bartender's wife's face. Benjamin says these bodies are the only family he's got left and that they should be "buried with my family, not plopped into some beggar's corner in the country" (222).

Pilot says they're not moving any farther but Benjamin cracks the whip and the wagon rolls into motion. The horsemen give chase and Tom and Ren begin pushing the bodies out of the back to slow the group. Two horsemen break off from the group and reappear on the road ahead. Pulling up beside the wagon, the two men shoot the horse in the neck and leg, halting the wagon. After the wagon overturns, Ren finds himself feeling crushed, with only "the tiniest slip of air" (224) going down. Pilot picks Ren up and he sees the man with the watchman's cap pointing a pistol at Brom and Ichy, and Tom buried under the wagon.

The man in the riding coat shoots their horse, telling Benjamin it "should have been" (224) him getting the bullet. Benjamin, curled on the ground, rises and begins talking to Pilot. Ren sees Benjamin "using his hands" (225), trying to tell a "magnificent story to get them out of this" (225). Ren begins to pray the rosary. Pilot, unmoved by Benjamin's story, brings his shotgun down on Benjamin's face. Pilot orders the other men to beat Benjamin until he stops moving.