Charles De Lint - The Ivory and the Horn

But first he owed Debra a call: Yeah, I went and saw the elder, she was a wonderful woman, I understand what you were saying, but I haven't changed my mind. He knew he'd be closing the door on the possibility of a relationship with her, but then he didn't feel he had even that much of himself to give someone anyway.

He dug a quarter out of his pocket and went to the pay phone on the corner. But when he dialed the number she'd given him, he got a recorded message: "I'm sorry, but the number you have dialed is no longer in service."

"Shit," he said, stepping back from the phone.

An older woman, laden down with shopping bags, gave him a disapproving glare.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Flagging down a cab, he gave the driver the address that Debra had written down to accompany her bogus number, then settled back in his seat.

***

The building was a worn, brownstone tenement, indistinguishable from every other one on the block. They all had the same tired face to turn to the world. Refuse collected against their steps, graffiti on the walls, cheap curtains in the windows when there were any at all. Walking up the steps, the smell of urine and body odor was strong in the air. A drunk lay sleeping just inside the small foyer.

Dennison stepped over him and went up to the second floor. He knocked on the door that had a number matching the one Debra had written down for him. After a moment or two, the door opened to the length of its chain and a woman as worn down as the building itself was looking at him.

"What do you want?"

Dennison had been expecting an utter stranger, but the woman had enough of a family resemblance to Debra that he thought maybe his rescuing angel really did live here. Looking past the lines that worry and despair had left on the woman's face, he realized that she was about his own age. Too young to be Debra's mother. Maybe her sister?

"Are you... uh, Mrs. Eisenstadt?" he asked, trying the only name he had.

"Who wants to know?"

"My name's Chris Dennison. I'm here to see Debra."

The woman's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What'd she do now?"

"Nothing. That is, she gave me some help yesterday and I just wanted to thank her."

The suspicion didn't leave the woman's features. "Debra! she shouted over her shoulder. Turning back to Dennison, she added, "I've got lots of neighbors. You try anything funny, I'll give a scream that'll have them down here so fast you won't know if you're coming or going.

Dennison doubted that. In a place like this, people would just mind their own business. It wouldn't matter if somebody was getting murdered next door.

"I'm not here to cause trouble," he said.

"Deb- ra!" the woman hollered again.

She shut the door and Dennison could hear her unfastening the chain. When she opened the door once more, it swung open to its full width. Dennison looked down the hall behind the woman and saw a little girl of perhaps nine coming slowly down the hallway, head lowered, gaze on the floor.

"I thought you told me you were in school yesterday," the woman said to her.

The girl's gaze never lifted. "I was."

She spoke barely above a whisper.

"Man here says you were helping him— doing what, I'd like to know." She turned from her daughter back to Dennison. "Maybe you want to tell me, mister?"

The girl looked at him then. He saw the grey-green eyes first, the features that might one day grow into ones similar to those of the woman he'd met yesterday, though couldn't be her. The discrepancy of years was too vast. Then he saw the bruises. One eye blackened. The right side of her jaw swollen. She seemed to favor one leg as well.

His training kept him silent. If he said something too soon, he wouldn't learn a thing. First he had to give the woman enough room to hang herself.

"This is Debra Eisenstadt?" he asked.

"What, you need to see her birth certificate?"

Dennison turned to the woman and saw then what he hadn't noticed before. The day was warm, but she was wearing slacks, long sleeves, her blouse buttoned all the way up to the top. But he could see a discoloration in the hollow of her throat that the collar couldn't quite hide, Abrasive or not, she was a victim, too, he realized.

"Where is your husband, Mrs. Eisenstadt?" he asked gently.

"So now you're a cop?"

Dennison pulled out his ID. "No. I'm with Social Services. I can help you, Mrs. Eisenstadt. Has your husband been beating you?"

She crossed her arms protectively. "Look it's not like what you're thinking. We had an argument, that's all."

"And your daughter— was he having an argument with her as well?"

"No. She... she just fell. Isn't that right, honey?"

Dennison glanced at the girl. She was staring at the floor again. Slowly she nodded in agreement. Dennison went down on one knee until his head was level with the girl's.

"You can tell me the truth," he said. "I can help you, but you've got to help me. Tell me how you got hurt and I promise you I won't let it happen to you again."

What the hell are you doing? he asked himself. You're supposed to be quitting this job.

But he hadn't turned in his resignation yet.

And then he remembered an odd thing that the other Debra had said to him last night.

I just wanted to see what you were like when you were my age.

He remembered puzzling over that before he finally passed out. And then there was the way she'd looked at him the next morning, admiring, then sad, then disappointed. As though she already knew him. As though he wasn't matching up to her expectations.

Though of course she couldn't have any expectations because they'd never met before. But what if this girl grew up to be the woman who'd helped him last night? What if her being here, in need of help, was his prophetic sign, his burning bush?

Yeah, right. And it was space aliens who brought her back from the future to see him.

"Look," the girl's mother said. "You've got no right, barging in here—"

"No right?" Dennison said, standing up to face her. "Look at your daughter, for Christ's sake, and then tell me that I've got no right to intervene."

"It's not like what you think. It's just that times are hard, you know, and what with Sam's losing his job, well he gets a little crazy sometimes. He doesn't mean any real harm..."

Dennison tuned her out. He looked back at the little girl. It didn't matter if she was a sign or not, if she'd grow up to be the woman who'd somehow come back in time to help him when his faith was flagging the most. What was important right now that he get the girl some help.

"Which of your neighbors has a working phone?" he asked.

"Why? What're you going to do? Sam's going to—"

"Not do a damned thing," Dennison said. "It's my professional opinion that this child will be in danger so long as she remains in this environment. You can either come with us, or I'll see that she's made a ward of the court, but I'm not leaving her here."

"You can't—"

"I think we'll leave that for a judge to decide."

He ignored her then. Crouching down beside the little girl, he said, "I'm here to help you— do you understand? No one's going to hurt you anymore."

"If I... he said if I tell—"

"Debra!"

Dennison shot the mother an angry look. "I'm losing my patience with you, lady. Look at your daughter. Look at those bruises. Is that the kind of childhood you meant for your child?"

Her defiance crumbled under his glare and she slowly shook her head.

"Go pack a bag," he told the woman. "For both of you."

As she slowly walked down the hall, Dennison returned his attention to the little girl. This could all go to hell in a hand basket if the wasn't careful. There were certain standard procedures to deal with this kind of a situation and badgering the girl's mother the way he had been wasn't one of them. But he was damned if he wasn't going to give it his best shot.