It took him a few minutes fumbling with his flint and striker to light his cigarette, during which he cast furtive glances all around – up and down the empty street, into the shadows underneath the eaves of the houses opposite, into all the nooks and crannies and alleyways and all their drifting dust and scuttling, nameless things. This was the evening ritual: he lit a cigarette before the long walk back to his apartment. He watched the cold streets of the Soot District, listened for clattering footfalls out of sight. Listened for voices.
This was the evening ritual, and this was what life was like now.
He got it lit and heaved a sigh of relief, bringing it clumsily to his lips with trembling fingers. A starving, patchy black cat fled across the street in front of him, hopping through the broken first-floor window of a derelict building. Somewhere – a few streets over – some yelling clattered out; it sounded like somebody broke a bottle; shutters slammed shut, muffling the commotion. Somebody wasn’t having a good night, and for once, Tom thanked the gods he wasn’t involved.
It was only a few streets back to the tenements, but being on his feet all day had given him pins and needles all down his legs, and his fingers (despite his threadbare gloves) were just about numb with the chill. He was moving slow, he reckoned, slower than usual, and he had a real funny feeling about tonight. The floor manager had given him and a couple of nattles an earful today about how Dentis hadn’t been such a good month for production – work faster was the gist, although in his fumbling hurry Tom had nearly gotten a hand caught twice – so his nerves were already jangly. It’d been –
That was it, he thought, stopping dead for a moment. That was it. That was why he was all on edge. It’d been two months exactly since he’d left the Vauquelin estate, since he’d set foot in Uptown. Two months avoiding the Seventen, avoiding anything that looked like it might be a golly’s third cousin. And he’d done pretty well by himself, putting away spare change here and there – it’d been without incident. Two months without incident. A couple more, maybe, and he’d be able to buy his way out of Vienda, though he didn’t know where he planned to go. Old Rose, maybe, and then – Bastia? Maybe. Maybe he’d even be able to –
He caught his reflection in a nearby window, a black mirror nearly opaque with filth; he jumped, feeling for a heart-stopping moment that somebody was looking through the window at him.
Great Lady, I look bad. And, you know, like a completely different fucking person. He screwed his face up, watching the gaunt little man in the reflection do the same – watching white smoke curl out into the black night, feeling his nerves steady a little. One foot in front of the other, Tom, for now. Just focus on getting home in one piece. Worry about your clockin’ identity crisis later.
He’d just about got his nerves calmed down when he heard it. Another commotion, much closer than your usual nighttime Soot District ramblings. He turned, glancing around, freezing his lungs with ice-cold, shuddering breaths; his eyes lingered in the shadows of alleyways, around the smog-wreathed shapes of distant streetlamps. His vision swam with his pounding headache. It sounded like – scuffling footsteps? Somebody – a man – yelping with fear, threatening with a trembling voice? And somebody else, too, somebody who wasn’t afraid at all –
“Shit,” he muttered, tossing his cigarette and grinding it into the cobblestones with the heel of his boot. “Clock it.” He should’ve been going, should’ve been going fast, but all the hairs on the back of his neck were prickling, and he couldn’t seem to get his limbs to move. He swallowed cold spittle and kept looking around, paralyzed with anticipation.