The Angel Of Darkness

CHAPTER 53

If my mind hadn’t been clouded by all the things I felt for and about Kat, I might’ve been able to see what was really wrong in time to help her: that’s the thought that’s haunted me ever since, anyway. I’d been right in supposing that Libby’s letting Kat go from the Dusters’ had been just a little too easy, a little too merciful. When the Doctor and the others arrived at the house at about noon, Kat was already dead, and even before they woke me Lucius, tipped off by Kat’s awful appearance, had taken a sample of the little pool of vomit what she’d spat up at the foot of the stairs on the first floor and performed one of his chemical tests. The result had been definite: the burny what Kat had been blowing ever since leaving the Dusters’ early that morning had been laced with arsenic. There wasn’t any question who’d done the lacing, of course, nor much mystery as to when or how: while Goo Goo Knox and Ding Dong’d been knocking the stuffing out of each other and Kat’d been trying to bust it up, Libby’d got hold of Kat’s bag and slipped the poison into her burny tin, counting on Kat not being able to spot the very slight difference in color between the two powders.

Still dazed by a lack of sleep and the shocks of the last twenty-four hours, I just sat on the edge of the Doctor’s bed as I listened to all this, staring at Kat’s strangely peaceful face and waiting for a couple of men from the city morgue to come and take her body away. The others-excepting Marcus, who’d gone straight from Grand Central to Police Headquarters on Mulberry Street to explain to his bosses that a fugitive was loose in the city-quietly moved around the house, talking among themselves about what should be done next and knowing that it would be best not to say anything to me until I came out of the horrible fog I was in.

This didn’t even start to happen until I heard the sound of the van from the morgue arriving outside. When the two attendants who were driving it entered the house, I began to realize for the first time that they were going to take Kat away, and that the face what, dead or no, still lay in front of me would soon be gone from my sight forever. There wasn’t any way to stop it, I knew that; but in my continued state of confusion I found that what I needed most was some way to say the good-bye what Libby Hatch had robbed me of. Glancing feverishly around the room, my eyes settled on Kat’s worn old bag. I snatched the thing up, praying that it contained the few items in the world what she actually cared about-her dead father’s wallet, her dead mother’s picture, and her train ticket to California-and thanking God when I found that it did. I told the Doctor that we couldn’t let the city plant Kat in any potter’s field without those things, but he told me not to worry, that he’d arrange for her to have a decent burial out in Calvary Cemetery in Queens.

The sound of the word “burial” cut through the last of the strange haze I’d been drifting through ever since waking up, and a pronounced lump began to grow in my throat. Running out to the morgue van in the rain what’d finally started to fall, I stopped the two attendants as they were loading Kat’s body in, then pulled back the sheet what covered her. Touching her cold face one last time, I leaned down to whisper into her dead ear:

“Not maybe, Kat-I did. I do …”

Then I slowly pulled the sheet back up, and stepped back to let the two attendants go about their business. As I watched the van pull away from the house, cold, clear reality swept over me in a terrible wave, one so powerful that when I turned to see Miss Howard standing inside the front door, giving me a look what said she knew just how much Kat’d meant to me and how I was feeling, I couldn’t help but run over, bury my face in her dress, and let myself have at least a couple of minutes of tears.

“She did try, Stevie,” Miss Howard whispered, putting her arms around my shoulders. “In the end she tried very hard.”

“Couldn’t beat the odds, though,” I managed to mumble through my grief.

“There were no odds to beat,” Miss Howard answered. “The game was rigged against her. From the very start…”

I nodded, sniffling away as much sorrow as I could. “I know,” I said.

The Doctor, having seen the van out of sight, walked through the front yard to join us. “Life did not offer her many chances,” he said quietly, standing by us and looking out the open door. “But it was not life, finally, that took her last chance away. Left to her own devices, she might have escaped all that she’d known here, Stevie.” He put a hand to my head. “That knowledge must be foremost in your thoughts, in the days to come.”

Nodding again, I wiped at my face and tried to get myself pulled together; then a thought entered my head, one what’d been shoved aside by all the turmoil of Kat’s death. “What about Mr. Picton?” I asked. “Is he-?”

“Dead,” the Doctor answered, plainly but gently. “He died where we found him-the loss of blood was simply too great.”

I suddenly felt like the ground underneath me was just melting away. “Oh, God…” I moaned; then I slid down the wall to the floor, grabbing at my forehead with one hand and quietly crying again. “Why? What the hell is all this for …?”

The Doctor crouched down in front of me. “Stevie,” he said, his own eyes red around their black cores, “you grew up in a world where people robbed for money, killed for advantage or out of rage, assaulted to satisfy lust-a world where crime seemed to make some terrible sort of sense. And this woman’s actions seem very different to you. But they aren’t. It is all a result of perception. A man rapes because he sees no other way to satisfy an urgent, terrible need. Libby kills because she sees no other way to reach goals that are as vital to her as the very air she breathes, and were planted in her mind when she was too young to know what was taking place. She, like the rapist, is wrong, horrifically wrong, and it is our job-yours, mine, Sara’s, all of ours-to understand the perceptions that lead to such misbegotten actions, so that we may have some hope of keeping others from being enslaved by them.” Reaching out to touch my knee, the Doctor looked into my eyes with an expression what showed all the pain he’d felt when his beloved Mary Palmer had died just steps from where I was sitting. “You have lost someone you cared for deeply to those wretched perceptions, and to that enslavement. Can you now go on? We haven’t much time, and if you wish to stay out of what’s left to be done-”

He was cut off by a pair of sounds: a clap of thunder from the sky above, then the ringing of the telephone beyond the kitchen. I couldn’t and can’t say exactly why, but for some reason the pairing of those noises reminded me that El Niño was still out and at work, and that I still hadn’t heard anything from him. With that realization I stopped crying for the moment, and struggled to get to my feet.

“I’d better answer that,” I said, starting back toward the kitchen. “It might be El Niño-I left him to watch over the Dusters’ place.”

“Stevie.” I stopped and turned to see the Doctor still studying me, sympathetically, but with real purpose. “If you cannot go on, no one will blame you. But if you choose to go on, then remember what our work is.”

I just nodded, then headed into and past the kitchen, picking up the receiver of the phone and pulling the mouthpiece down. “Yeah?” I said.

“Señorito Stevie.” It was El Niño, all right, his voice still very businesslike and determined. “Do you have news of your friend?”

I sighed once, trying to hold back more tears. “The woman got to her,” I said. “She’s dead. Mr. Picton, too.”

El Niño muttered something softly in a language what I couldn’t place: neither English nor Spanish, I figured it for the native tongue of his people. “So,” he went on, after a moment’s pause. “The need for justice has grown. I am sorry for that, Señorito Stevie.”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“In the stables across from the house of the woman. She has returned there with baby Ana. I paid the man here for to use his telephone.”

“And the Dusters?”

“They are everywhere on the street.”

“Don’t make any play, then,” I told him. “If you can see some of them, that means there’s even more what you can’t see. Stay out of sight.”

“Yes. But if the chance comes-she dies, yes?”

Looking back into the kitchen, I saw that the Doctor and Miss Howard had come into it. They were watching me as I talked, probably knowing full well who was on the other end of the line.

“I don’t know about that,” I said, looking to the Doctor.

“But Señorito Stevie-your friend has died-”

“I know,” I answered. “But it might be more complicated than we thought. We need to know-to know why she’s doing this.”

The aborigine gave that a moment’s thought and a sigh before answering, “I tell you, Señorito Stevie-in jungles I have seen in my journeys, there are villagers who live near the lairs and hunting grounds of tigers. Some of these tigers kill men-some do not. No one knows why. But all know that the tigers who do kill must die-for once they drink the blood of man, they never lose the taste for it.” I couldn’t figure how to answer him: half of me knew that what he was saying, terrible as it was, made very real sense. “Señorito Stevie? You are there?”

“I’m here.”

“Will you hunt the tiger with me, or will you try to ‘understand’ it?”

I looked to the Doctor again, knowing, even in my sorrow, what I had to do. “I can’t,” I said, turning away so that the Doctor and Miss Howard wouldn’t hear me. “I can’t do it with you. But you go on. And don’t call here again-they’ll try to stop you.”

There was another pause; then El Niño said, “Yes. It is best, this. It is not for us to decide what is the way-only the gods and fate can determine who will reach her first. I understand you, my friend.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I understand you, too.”

“I hope I shall see you again. If I do not-remember that I still wear the clothes you gave me. And when I do, I see your face, and feel your friendship. I am proud of this.”

The words put me near to tears again. “I’ve got to go,” I said, replacing the receiver on its little hook before El Niño had a chance to say anything more.

“The aborigine?” the Doctor asked.

I nodded, moving into the kitchen. “He’s down on Bethune Street. She’s back there with Ana. But the neighborhood’s crawling with Dusters.”

“I see.” The Doctor started pacing around the kitchen table. “Has she returned to the house simply to collect her things? Or to rid herself of the burden of Ana Linares in the safety of her secret hideaway?” After pondering this for a few seconds, the Doctor rapped a fist on the table. “In either case, we have run out of time-the crisis will play out tonight. If Marcus is successful, we can use the full power of the Police Department to enter the house. If not-”

“But even if he is,” Miss Howard added, “can we be sure she won’t harm the child before we get there? Or while we’re trying to get in?”

“We can be sure of nothing,” the Doctor answered. “But we must try to attend to what we can. With that in mind, Sara, I suggest that you call Señora Linares. Advise her that we must now take action, and that its results may not please her husband. She may wish to seek safety in some place other than her own home.” Nodding in agreement, Miss Howard moved to the phone just as Cyrus entered the kitchen and put a strong, comforting hand to my shoulder. “Ah, Cyrus,” the Doctor went on. “Some of your excellent coffee is called for, I think-we won’t be catching up on our sleep anytime soon, and clear heads will be needed.”

“Yes, sir,” Cyrus answered. Then he looked down at me. “Might be enough time for you to get a little rest, Stevie. You could use it.”

I just shook my head. “I don’t want to sleep,” I said, remembering what’d happened the last time I’d drifted off. “Make that coffee strong, though.”

“Always do,” Cyrus said. “Oh, and Doctor-the detective sergeant asked me to tell you that he’s gone down to headquarters to give his brother a hand. Says he’s worried about how long it’s taking.”

“As am I,” the Doctor answered, checking his watch. “It would seem, on the surface, to be a fairly straightforward matter. Like so many things about this case…”

Not really feeling ready yet to talk about the particulars of what we were going to do next, I wandered on upstairs, where I found Mr. Moore in the parlor. He’d turned one of the Doctor’s easy chairs around to face a window what he’d opened, so’s he could get a good view of the storm what was continuing to batter the city. Collapsing onto the nearby settee, I joined him in quietly studying the wind-tossed trees in Stuyvesant Park.

“Hell of a storm,” I mumbled, looking over to see that Mr. Moore’s face was full of the same kind of sadness and confusion that was eating away at my own soul.

“Hell of a summer,”he answered. “But the weather’s always crazy in this goddamned town…” He managed to turn to me for just a few quick seconds. “I really am sorry, Stevie.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “Me, too. I mean, about Mr. Picton…”

Mr. Moore nodded and let out a big gush of air, shaking his head. “So now we’re supposed to catch this woman,” he mumbled. “Catch her and study her. It’s not exactly what I’m in the mood for.”

“No,” I agreed.

He held a finger up like he was lecturing the angry heavens. “Rupert,” he said, “never believed you could learn anything from killers after you’d caught them. He said it was like trying to study the hunting habits of wild animals by watching feeding time at a menagerie. He’d have been the first to say that we should kill this bitch if we get the chance.”

“It might happen,” I said with a shrug. “El Niño’s still out there somewhere. And he won’t stop to ask her why she does the things she does. All he’ll want is a clear shot when she’s not holding the baby.”

“Well, I hope he gets one,” Mr. Moore answered flatly. “Or, for that matter, that I do.”

I looked at him again. “You really think you could kill her?”

“Could you?” he answered, going for a cigarette.

I shrugged. “I been thinking about that. Might as well be me as some electrician at Sing Sing, if she’s gonna die. But… I don’t know. Won’t bring anybody back.”

Mr. Moore hissed out smoke as he lit his stick. “You know,” he said, his face still looking sad, but irritated, too, “I’ve always hated that expression.”

For a few more minutes we sat quietly, starting every now and then when a big clap of thunder boomed or a bolt of lightning shot down into what seemed like the heart of the city. Then the other three joined us, Cyrus carrying a coffee service and setting it down on the rolling cocktail cart. The Doctor could read Mr. Moore’s and my moods well enough not to start talking about any plans right away, so we all just drank the coffee and watched the storm for another half hour or so-until a hansom pulled up at the curb outside and produced the two detective sergeants. They’d pretty obviously been bickering inside the cab, and they kept right on going when they got into the house: things, it seemed, had not gone well downtown.

“It’s cowardice,” Marcus explained, after taking a careful moment to tell me how sorry he was about Kat. “Absolute cowardice! Oh, they’ll get the warrant authorized, all right, but if apprehending the woman means going up against the Dusters, they’re not interested.”

“I’ve been trying to remind my brother,” Lucius said, pouring himself a cup of coffee, “of what happened the last time the Police Department attempted a large-scale confrontation with the Hudson Dusters. An embarrassing number of officers ended up in the hospital. Kids on the West Side still taunt patrolmen by singing little ditties about it.”

“And let’s not forget who can generally be found hanging around the Dusters’ place,” Miss Howard added. “A lot of well-connected people in this town like to go down there to take cocaine and romanticize about the lives of gangsters. The fools.”

“That doesn’t excuse cowardice,” Marcus insisted, himself going for some of Cyrus’s brew. “Damn it, we’re talking about one woman who is a mass murderer, for God’s sake. And the department doesn’t want to get involved because they’re afraid they’ll lose face?”

“The department doesn’t want to get involved,” the Doctor said, “because no one that they view as being of any importance has yet been killed. You know as well as I do that such has always been the rule in this city, Marcus-we had a brief respite under Roosevelt, but none of the reforms really took hold.”

“Then what’s our answer?” Lucius asked, looking around the room.

I knew what I was thinking, and I knew that Mr. Moore and Marcus probably felt the same way. if nobody else was going to take care of the job, it was up to us to go down there, bust into that hell house on Bethune Street, and do what had to be done. But none of the three of us was going to give voice to this opinion while the Doctor was in the room, knowing, as we did, that he placed such a high value on our taking Libby Hatch alive.

Which was why his next line of thought came as kind of a surprise: “The navy,” he said quietly, his black eyes lighting up.

“The what?”Mr. Moore responded, looking dumbfounded.

“The navy,”the Doctor repeated, turning to Marcus. “Detective Sergeant-we know that the Hudson Dusters relish conflict with the New York City Police Department. How would they feel, do you suppose, about an encounter with the United States Navy?”

“Kreizler,” Mr. Moore said, “you have obviously gone around some bend-”

Ignoring Mr. Moore, Marcus began to nod. “Offhand, I’d say they’d back off-navy men are, as you know, pretty renowned brawlers. And they carry the authority of the federal government, not just the city-political connections and local rivalries wouldn’t get into the thing.”

The Doctor began to bounce the knuckles of his right hand against his mouth. “Yes,” he said quietly. Then another thought seemed to flash in his head. “The White Star Line’s pier is, I believe, just a few blocks around the corner from Libby Hatch’s house on Bethune Street, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, it is,” Miss Howard said, looking puzzled. “At Tenth Street. Why, Doctor?”

Seeing a copy of the morning edition of the Times tucked into Marcus’s jacket pocket, the Doctor stood up and snatched it away. Quickly ruffling its pages, he searched for what seemed like some small but important piece of information. “No White Star ships currently in port,” he eventually said with a nod. “Then he could have a vessel land there, and we could approach the house from the rear-taking the gang by relative surprise.”

“Who could?” Mr. Moore near shouted. “Laszlo, what in hell-” All of a sudden, his jaw dropped as he got it. “Oh, no. Oh, no, Kreizler, that is insane, you can’t-not Roosevelt!”

“Yes,” the Doctor answered, looking up from the paper with a smile. “Roosevelt.”

Mr. Moore scrambled to his feet. “Get Theodore involved in this case? Once he finds out what’s going on, he’ll start his damned war against Spain right here in this city!”

“Precisely why,” the Doctor replied, “he must not be told all the details. Ana Linares’s name and lineage need not concern him. The fact that we are attempting to solve a string of murders and a kidnapping and can get no satisfaction from the New York police will be more than enough to rouse Theodore’s interest.”

“But,” said Miss Howard, who, like Mr. Moore and the Doctor, had known Mr. Roosevelt for most of her life, “what can even Theodore possibly do? He’s assistant secretary of the navy, yes, but-”

“And just now he’s treating the entire fleet as if it were his own,” the Doctor replied, holding up an envelope. “A letter from him came during our absence. It seems that Secretary Long is on vacation for the month of August, and Theodore has been making bold moves. He’s becoming known as ‘the warm-weather secretary’ around Washington, a fact of which he is inordinately-and typically-proud. I’m certain there are one or two serviceable vessels and crews out at the Brooklyn Navy Yard-perhaps even closer. More than enough men to meet our purposes. An order from Roosevelt is all the thing would require.”

Mr. Moore was gently slapping his own face, trying to come to grips with the notion. “Let me get this straight: You’re proposing that Roosevelt order the United States Navy to invade Greenwich Village and engage the Hudson Dusters?”

The Doctor’s mouth curled up gently again. “Essentially, yes.”

Marcus stepped in quickly. “It may sound outlandish, John,” he said, looking encouraged by the idea. “But it won’t play that way in reports. If any violence should occur, it’ll just read like a typical brawl between sailors and gangsters. And while it goes on, we’ll be able to do what we need to.”

Tucking his letter from Mr. Roosevelt into his jacket, the Doctor dashed for the stairs. “I’m going to telephone him in Washington straightway,” he said, heading down toward the kitchen. “There’s no time to be lost-the woman must even now be planning her flight from the city!”

Suddenly there was a new feeling of life in the house, one brought on, I knew, by the bare possibility of even indirect involvement in the case on the part of Mr. Roosevelt. He had that effect on people, did the former police commissioner: of all the Doctor’s close friends there wasn’t one with a purer love of life, of action-and most especially of a good fight, whether boxing or politics or war. But he was a kind man, too, was Mr. Roosevelt, as kind as anyone what ever came to the Doctor’s house in all the years I lived there; and I found that even I, in my saddened state, took a lot of heart from the thought that he might give us a hand in bringing Libby Hatch to justice. Oh, the idea was a crazy one, Mr. Moore was right about that much; but practically every undertaking Mr. Roosevelt got involved with seemed crazy, at the start-yet most of them ended up being not only important but happy achievements. So as we waited for the Doctor to return from the pantry, we began to talk over the details of the plan with an interest what bordered on enthusiasm-enthusiasm what was very surprising, considering all we’d been through.

When the Doctor came back upstairs, he was, if not out-and-out excited, at least very satisfied. “He’ll do it. He wants us to wait here-he’ll have someone from the navy yard inform us of what vessel will be available and when. But he promises action tonight.”

Mr. Moore let out another moan of disbelief, but even he was smiling a bit by that point. “May God help us…”

So began more long hours of waiting. During the first couple of these our quiet anticipation grew, fed by more of Cyrus’s coffee, into a strange sort of hopeful fidgeting; but as the afternoon wore on this feeling started to ebb, mostly because the telephone and the doorbell remained notably silent. Mr. Roosevelt was not a man to waste time; and the fact that we weren’t getting word from any of his people, in Brooklyn or anywhere else, seemed what you might call mystifying. The rain didn’t let up, and eventually its steady rhythm helped exhaustion take hold of each of us: eager we might’ve been, but that didn’t change the fact that nobody’d really slept for more than an hour or so since Saturday night. One by one members of our group began to drift off to bedrooms for catnaps, and each, including me, woke from these fitful spells of slumber to the disappointing news that there’d still been no message from either Washington or Brooklyn.

Finally, as five o’clock drew near, the Doctor went back downstairs to call Mr. Roosevelt again; and when he returned this time his mood was very different from what it’d been earlier. He hadn’t gotten through to his friend, but he had come away from a conversation with Mr. Roosevelt’s secretary with the distinct impression that the man was in his office and avoiding the Doctor’s call specifically. No one could make any sense out of this at all: Mr. Roosevelt was not a man to avoid a straight, nose-to-nose jawing with anybody, especially someone he cared about and respected. If he’d found he couldn’t deliver on his earlier pledge to the Doctor, he would certainly have gotten on the telephone to say so. What, then, could be the explanation? Had he discovered the Spanish connection to the case of Libby Hatch somehow, and decided to pursue a separate course on his own?

Such questions were not exactly the kind what would’ve revived our weakened enthusiasm; and by seven o’clock the whole bunch of us were strewn around the Doctor’s parlor, dozing. The rain had finally lightened up, and I was lying in front of one of the open French windows on the carpeted floor, letting the cool air that the storm had brought into the city play over my face and lull me into the first really decent rest I’d had all day. Still, it was a light sleep, one easily interrupted by noises from outside; and the noise what I heard coming from that direction at about seven-thirty was one what was at once so familiar yet so out of place that I honestly couldn’t tell if I was asleep or awake:

It was the forceful, high-pitched sound of Mr. Roosevelt’s voice.

“Wait here!” it was saying; then I heard the sound of a carriage door closing. “I shall want you to take us to the yard as soon as we’ve had a chance to speak with the others!”

“Yes, sir!” came a crisp, efficient answer, one what caused me to roll over and look outside.

And there he was, all right, the assistant secretary of the navy, done up in his best black linen and walking side by side with an older man who wore a navy officer’s uniform.

“Holy Christ,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. “Holy Christ!” I repeated, loud enough for the others to start coming out of their slumbers. Unable to stop myself from breaking into a smile, I scrambled to my feet and began shaking whatever shoulders I could grab fastest. “He’s here! Doctor-Miss Howard-it’s Mr. Roosevelt! He’s here! Holy Christ!”

At this news the others got to their feet, looking just as confused and unsure of their senses as I’d felt-that is, until they heard the sound of the front door opening.

“Doctor?” came the bark from downstairs. “Moore! Where in thunder are you all?” Heavy footsteps pounded on the stairs as the shouting continued. “And where is the brilliant Sara Howard, that former secretary of mine?”

A few more heavy steps, and then those unmistakable features began to appear in the shadows at the top of the stairs: in a sort of reversed version of Mr. Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, Mr. Roosevelt generally became visible grin first, his big teeth standing out in even the deepest blackness. Next to be seen were the small, squinting eyes behind the little steel-rimmed spectacles, and finally the square head, the broad mustache, and the huge barrel chest, the last of which had been built up, after enduring a childhood of terrible asthma, to become one of the most powerful in the world.

“Well!” he cried out, as he moved down the hall followed by the much calmer-and very wise-looking-navy officer. “I like this! Crime and outrage running rampant, and you all lollygagging about as if there -were no action to be gotten!” He put his hands to his hips as he came into the parlor, still grinning from ear to ear; then he shot his right paw out to the Doctor. “Kreizler! Delighted to see you, Doctor, dee-lighted!”

“Hello, Roosevelt,” the Doctor answered with a smile. “I suppose I should’ve known you wouldn’t miss this chance.”

“Hell,” Mr. Moore said, “we all should’ve known.”

Making his way around the room, Mr. Roosevelt pressed the flesh hard with everybody, and accepted a warm hug from Miss Howard. He was especially glad, it seemed to me, to find that the Isaacson brothers were there, and still on the police force-for it was himself who’d brought them in, as part of his effort to loosen the grip what the Irish clan of Tammany hirelings had on Mulberry Street. When he finally got around to saying hello to me, I’d gotten so excited by his presence and the new hope it seemed to bring that I was shifting from foot to foot nervously. Still, there must have been much of the morning’s sadness left in my face, for Mr. Roosevelt’s smile shrank a little as he leaned down to shake my hand and look into my eyes.

“Well, young Stevie,” he said, with real sympathy. “You’ve had a hard time of all this, I understand. But don’t doubt this, my boy-” He put one of his tough hands on my shoulder. “We have come here to see that justice is done!”