In the darkness I could make out a large, framed structure on top of the trunks, and when Hickie held the lamp up I could see that it was a cage, made out of some old two-by-twos and chicken wire. Inside the cage a long, lean shadow was whipping around in agitated motions, with an equally long, fluffy tail following behind. “Mike!” Hickie finally got high enough to set the lamp down and then sit on one of the trunks next to the cage. “Mike, I’ve brought an old friend to pay hith rethepecth and offer you a propothithun-why, Mike!,” Hickie’s face suddenly cracked into a big grin, the gap in his teeth standing out all the more. “Thtevie! Willya look at thith!”
Off of the top of the cage, Hickie lifted a dead rat by its tail. There were bite and claw marks all over the thing, and a big tear in its throat. “What’d I tell you?” Hickie shouted, overjoyed. “Got the bathtard clear through the wire, he did! There’th none to compare to old Mike, when it cometh to rat-killin’!” Overjoyed past words, Hickie threw the rat to the floor, opened the cage, and reached inside, bringing out the two-foot-long, gray-and-white ferret. The animal’s little black eyes locked on Hickie’s face with what seemed like recognition: he rolled onto his back in Hickie’s lap, and then shot up and around his master’s shoulders in one long, streaking movement, like he’d been poured out of a bottle. Hickie laughed out loud, and then the ferret jumped back into his lap, scratching behind his rounded ears and at his pointed nose with his short front paws. The animal looked my way, the little daggers of his sharp upper teeth showing over the fur of his lower jaw. “Tickle me, willya, Mike, my boy?” Hickie shouted, rubbing the ferret’s stomach with real affection and enthusiasm. “Then I’ll return the favor!” But the ferret only seemed to enjoy the rubbing, and after a few seconds he grew calm enough for Hickie to pick him up. “Come on, Thtevie, come on up and get to know Mike proper!” He looked into the ferret’s eyes. “Now, Mike, thith ith Thtevie Taggert, who you’ve theen before, though you’ve never been properly introduthed. Thtevie-Mike.” And before I knew it, he’d placed the animal against my chest, causing me to clutch him close. “What do you think, Mike?”
The ferret stared up at me for just a second, then suddenly flipped over and scurried up my arm, his sharp claws piercing my shirt and pricking lightly into my skin. It was a disturbing feeling, at first-not really painful, but strange; and in just a few seconds, the ferret’s quick movements around my neck and shoulders lightened up to the point where they did, in fact, tickle.
“What-what’s he doing, Hickie?” I asked, starting to laugh.
“Why, he’th gettin’ to know you, Thtevie. He’th a thtrict judge of character, ith Mike, and he’ll thoon dethide how he feelth about you!”
Mike ran down my other arm, jumped off onto one of the trunks for a second, then scurried back into my lap. Sniffing at my shirt with his ever-twitching nose, he stuck his head between two of my buttons-and then suddenly vanished inside. I took a deep breath of shock as I felt warm fur and cold claws against my bare skin. “Hickie!” I said, half amused and half afraid.
“Oh, thith ith rare, ith what thith ith,” Hickie said. “That’th hith mark of deepetht affeckthun. I’d thay you’ve found yourthelf a partner, Thtevie, old thon!” Hickie clapped his hands and then rubbed them on his legs, obviously pleased as could be that Mike should’ve taken such a quick liking to me. When the ferret reappeared from inside my shirt, I began to stroke his back with my hand and felt how quickly his heart was beating: like a little steam engine, so fast it seemed it’d explode. Then Mike turned onto his back, allowing me to rub his stomach the way Hickie’d done.
“Mike, Mike, Mike,” Hickie said, pretending to disapprove. “I’ll not have you playin’ cheap, now-remember your dignity, young man!” Laughing at himself, Hickie looked up at me. “You work around hortheth, do you, Thtevie?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “We have two, a mare and a gelding. Why, can you smell ’em?”
“No,” Hickie said, shaking his head. Then he nodded at Mike. “But he can. Loveth the thmell of hortheth, doth that one. And he’th thure taken to you. Well, then, Thtevie-what’th thith job you mentioned?”
I didn’t know just how much of the story to tell Hickie, but I had to let him have the basic details, as I’d need his instructions on how to train Mike for the specific task ahead. So I just mentioned that my employer and I were trying to track down somebody what we had reason to believe was being held in a certain house against their will, inside a locked room. Would Mike be able to detect if the person was in fact in the house, and find the right room? Indeed he would, Hickie said; in fact, it would be a breeze, compared to some of the jobs Mike’d handled in the past. Then I asked about the training, and was surprised to learn how simple it would be: all I’d need would be a piece of clothing from the person I was looking for, the more intimate the better, as it would be that much more steeped in the person’s scent. Mike was already so well trained that when he began to connect a particular object or smell with his feeding, he quickly got the idea that he was supposed to find something that looked or smelled the same; only a couple of days would be needed to get him ready. It’d be best if I took him to my place for that time, Hickie said, so’s he could get fully used to me. I said that I couldn’t imagine where that would be any problem, and then asked exactly what I should feed the active little fellow.
“He’th a car-nee-vore, ith Mike,” Hickie said, with the attitude of an expert, “but don’t you go thpoilin’ him on me. No porterhouth nor lamb chopth-just catch him a few mithe if you can, or, if not, thome jackrabbit’ll do. Three or four timeth a day, during trainin’, to let him know what you’re drivin’ at.”
“Do I take him in the cage?”
“Thure, thure,” Hickie said, pulling the contraption off the trunks and climbing down with it. “We’ll jutht find a bit of cloth to cover it with, for he don’t much like the thight of thity traffic.” Hickie began to root around in the many piles of junk in his room.
“And what about the money, Hickie? Top dollar, like I said.”
Finding himself a piece of an old tarpaulin, Hickie had to battle one of his dogs, a midsized mastiff, for possession of it. “The money? Hmm… lemme think-go on, Beauregard, let go a that damned thing!” He finally pulled the tarpaulin away from the dog, and as he came back over to the cage I climbed down with Mike. “Thith ith a firtht, thith ith.” Hickie carefully took Mike out of my arms and held him up to look into his eyes. “You do a good job and keep yerthelf thafe, now, do you hear that?” He kissed the top of Mike’s head and slipped him into the cage, then covered it. “Lemme thee… he meanth an awful lot to me, doth Mike…”
It was pretty obvious Hickie was waiting for me to make him an offer, and I pulled what seemed like a big number out of the air. “How about fifty bucks? For the week?”
Hickie got that glow bargainers sometimes do, when they’ve been offered more than they expected and figure that because they have, maybe they can do even better. “Make it theventy, Thtevie-thimply to keep my thoul at retht, mind you-and I’ll know you to truly be the gentleman what I’d alwayth taken you for.”
I nodded once, and we shook on it. “You’ll have to come with me, though, to pick up the money,” I said. “I ain’t got that kind of cash on me.”
“And I wouldn’t let Mike go without theein’ where you’re takin’ him,” Hickie answered. He picked up the cage and indicated the door. “Lead the way, old thon!”
We got back outside and made our way out of the shantytown and over to Park Row, where it was an easy job to catch a hansom uptown. It was a jolly ride, with Hickie full of stories about old friends of ours, Mike the ferret going wild inside the covered cage as he smelled the horse in front of us, and the cabbie wondering what in the world two characters like ourselves could be up to-not to mention what we might be carrying in the strange crate that sat on Hickie’s lap.