The Angel of Darkness

by Caleb Carr

  I turned to give Miss Howard an uncertain little smile. “You want to watch it—you’re starting to sound like you look up to her a little bit.”

  Miss Howard started to smile back, but stopped quickly. “Sometimes it seems that way, even to me,” she admitted. “And then I remember that picture of Ana Linares, and realize how desperately unaware of her own true motives—and therefore dangerous—Libby really is.”

  “Okay,” I answered, trying to get Miss Howard perked back up by continuing our discussion. “So what about somebody like Goo Goo Knox? He knows Libby’s married to Micah Hunter and is playing the good wife to him, nurturing him—but he still wants to carry on with her.”

  Miss Howard nodded vigorously. “It’s the same thing. Knox may be a gang boss, but he’s still a man—he still wants to slip women into convenient categories, to keep them from causing any problems. He doesn’t believe that Libby actually cares about Hunter. He assumes that in the deepest part of her soul she’s a libertine, a whore, and that when she performs for him, and with him, he’s seeing the real Libby. Yet what have we found out? That she’s persuaded Knox to place her home under his gang’s protection. His thugs are keeping watch over the very house where she’s constructed some sort of hiding place for the babies she’s still trying desperately to prove that she can care for. So for all we know, she loathes spending time at the Dusters’, but does it to facilitate her attempts to nurture.”

  My hand went to my forehead, as if rubbing it would make my mind work harder. “So—then—she’s not the whore that Knox thinks she is?”

  “She might be,” Miss Howard answered, confusing me again.

  “But you just said she was doing it to take care of the kids—”

  “She’s doing that, too.”

  “So which one is the actual her?” I almost yelled, starting to feel a little dim and not much liking it.

  “None of them, Stevie,” Miss Howard explained, slowing down a bit for me. “The actual her was broken to pieces a long time ago. And that’s what the different characters she assumes are—the broken pieces, separate from each other, no longer coherent. We don’t yet know the specific childhood context that made Libby into the killer she is. But we do know this much, especially given what we’ve seen and been through since we got up here: ever since she was just a girl, she was almost certainly told that there was only one way for her to be a full, complete woman.”

  “To be a mother,” I said with a nod. “Which she wasn’t any good at.”

  “Or which she may not, deep down, have even wanted to be,” Miss Howard said. “We don’t know. Again, all we do know is that the message girls get when they’re growing up—especially in corners of the world like this one—is that if you want to do something with your life other than raise children, not only will your road be difficult, but you’ll never really be a woman. You’ll just be a female, of some indefinite and not very appealing type. A harlot, maybe. Or perhaps a servant. Or, if you join a profession, a detached functionary. Whatever the case, underneath it all you’ll be a cold, unfeeling aberration.” With an angry flick of her finger, Miss Howard showered the road below us with sparks from the burning tip of her cigarette. “Unless you want to be a nun, of course—and even they don’t always get away with it…. A man can be a bachelor, and still be a man—because of his mind, his character, his work. But a woman without children? She’s a spinster, Stevie—and a spinster is always something less than a woman.”

  “Well,” I said, my brain working too hard at keeping up with her thoughts to worry about being tactful, “what about you, then?”

  Miss Howard’s green eyes slid slowly sideways to give me a glance what said I’d better make my meaning a bit clearer.

  “What I’m saying,” I added in a hurry, knowing how fast her temper could flare, “is that none of that business really goes for you. You’re not married, you don’t have any kids, but you’re—” I looked away, suddenly embarrassed. “Well—you’re as much of a woman as any mother I ever knew. If you see what I mean.”

  That brought her hand gently to my arm again, and allowed the green eyes to open wider. “That’s the most decent thing anyone’s said to me in a long time. Thank you, Stevie. But remember, too, you’re still young.”

  “Oh,” I said, grabbing at my own chance to get huffy, “so my opinions don’t count? Or they’ll change, just because I’ll get older?”

  It was Miss Howard’s turn to squirm a bit. “Well,” she noised, “it does happen sometimes …”

  “Okay,” I pressed. “What about the others, then? The Doctor and the detective sergeants and Cyrus—even Mr. Moore? They all feel the same way.”

  Miss Howard shot me a doubtful look. “Hardly an average selection of American men. I’m sorry, Stevie. Of course I value and respect how you and the others feel—you may never know how much. But to the rest of our world I’ll probably always be that strange Sara Howard, the spinster detective lady—unless and until I have a family. Not that part of me wouldn’t like to, someday. If I ever feel like I’ve really made a difference with my work, I might consider children—it’s just that I object to the notion that I won’t be whole until I do. It’s a cruel standard—especially to the women who can’t achieve it. Libby couldn’t, and the failure broke her. Yes … for all her cleverness, she’s terribly broken. A little like your friend Kat, in that way. Clever, yet lost. Lost, and somehow—somehow—”

  Suddenly Miss Howard’s face, so passionate while giving voice to ideas what I knew were as important to her as any in the world, went completely blank. Her words fell off with a quickness what let me know she’d caught sight of something—and there was only one “something” it could be.

  “Where?” I said, whipping my head from side to side. “Where is he?”

  Miss Howard put a steadying hand to my shoulder. “Just slow down, Stevie,” she whispered. “If I’m not mistaken, he’s right in front of us …”

  I searched the dark road ahead; and there, to be sure, was the silhouette of a small person, the bagginess of the clothes and the bushiness of the hair giving away his identity. El Niño wasn’t moving, either away from or toward us; he seemed to be waiting for our rig to reach him, and as we got closer I began to make out that damned smile again.

  “What the hell…” I mumbled. “Is he real, even? The mug gets around quicker than spit.”

  “Oh, he’s real, all right,” Miss Howard answered. “The question is, what does he want?”

  “Figure we should stop?”

  She shook her head. “No. Keep going at a walk.” She pulled out her revolver and placed it in her lap. “Let’s see what happens.”

  CHAPTER 38

  I followed the order. The aborigine didn’t move, just stood there smiling until we were about twenty feet from him. Then, very deliberately, he put his hands into the air. I drew the Morgan to a halt, and we waited. Lowering one arm, the aborigine pointed to the ground.

  ” I don’t hurt you,” he said, his smile getting wider. Following his finger, we could see that there was a small bow, a couple more of the plain little arrows, and another, wave-bladed kris on the road. “And you don’t shoot me,” he went on, putting his arm back up. “Yes?”

  Miss Howard nodded; but she kept the gun right where it was. “All right,” she said. “What is it you want?”

  “I to help you!” the aborigine answered. “Sure—can help you, yes! Sometimes, I help you already.”

  “But you’re Señor Linares’s man,” Miss Howard answered. “Why do you help us?”

  The aborigine moved to pick up his weapons, prompting Miss Howard to pull back the hammer of her Colt. The little man’s eyes went very wide, and then he threw up his hands again. “Is okay—I no hurt you, lady, and you no shoot me! I help you!”

  “Suppose you just tell me why you help us, before you pick those things up,” Miss Howard ordered.

  El Nino’s appealing smile returned and then his round features began to display what you mi
ght call theatrical disgust. “Oh, is not for me, to work for the señor—no more! He beat me—beat his wife—beat everybody, with fists like—like—” Looking around quickly, the aborigine grabbed a big stone from the side of the road, then held it up to Miss Howard.

  “Like rocks,” she said.

  “Yes, is true, like rocks!” El Niño answered. “Give me one suit of clothes—” He held his arms up, displaying the rolled-up cuffs of his jacket, and then pointed down at his trousers, what were cut off roughly at the ankles. “Too big! Is not for me. First, one time, I work for father—old señor—”

  “For Señor Linares’s father?” Miss Howard asked.

  “Yes, lady. He different man. Good man. This son—not the same. Beat everybody with fists, think he great man—because his mama love him too much!”

  I burst out laughing at that, and got myself a sharp elbow from Miss Howard for it; but she, too, was having trouble containing her amusement at the little fellow. “And so what do you want from us?” she asked, lowering the Colt.

  El Niño shrugged. “I to work for you, I think. Yes, I think so. I watch you—see you try to find baby Ana. Is good. The señor, he not want you to find her. But she a baby! I think you find her, because you good people. I work for you, I think—sure.”

  Miss Howard and I exchanged shocked looks. What were we supposed to say? The idea seemed so strange as to be out of the question, but neither of us particularly wanted to tell him that. Not with that arsenal lying in the road, and knowing that he’d been keeping track of every move we’d made for weeks now. There was also the fact that we’d both identified something likable in the little fellow—likable and decent. So maybe it wasn’t so peculiar a notion after all.

  “But,” Miss Howard said, “what do you mean, ‘work’ for us? What would you do?”

  The aborigine was about to answer, but first he eyed his possessions on the road. “I can pick up?” he said to Miss Howard carefully.

  She nodded, looking at him like he was a naughty kid. “Slowly,” she said.

  He followed the instruction, and tucked all the pieces of his arsenal into big pockets what’d been sewn special inside his jacket. Then he started to approach us, swaggering like a man twice his size. “Many things I do!” he declared. “Protect you from enemies—kill them, or make them sleep! Cook, too!” He pointed at the landscape around us. “Snake, dog—sometimes rat, if you very hungry!” Both Miss Howard and I let moans of disgust out through the smiles that had settled in on our faces. “See things—find things out! If you have El Niño to work for you, you have eyes everywhere!” He passed an arm out across the horizon again.

  “And what,” Miss Howard asked, “would be your salary for all this?”

  “My sa—?” the aborigine noised, puzzled.

  “What would we have to pay you?”

  “Oh, pay, yes!” he answered, filling his chest with air proudly. “El Niño Manilaman—Manilamen work only for pay! The señor pay me with nothing—with shit!” I let out another loud laugh, and Miss Howard didn’t even try to stop me; in fact, she joined in, and so did El Niño, who was pleased with our reaction. “With shit he pay me!” he went on. “Bad clothes—food after others have eaten it—and the señora make me to sleep outside, even in wintertime! You can give me good food—bed to sleep in, yes? House has many beds. And you—” He pointed at me and then he did the little dance around his neck with one hand again, causing my grin to shrink suddenly.

  “Whoa, now, don’t start that!” I said. “I don’t want any trouble with you—”

  “No, no!” he answered. “Not trouble! Clothes! Your clothes—three nights past from here—you do not like your clothes, yes?”

  Counting the nights on my fingers and trying to get some idea of what he was talking about, I remembered the trip to Saratoga; and then, in a rush, I recalled my encounter with what I’d taken for a kid in the gardens of the Casino. “So that was you!” I said. “You saw me in the monkey suit!”

  “Monkey suit?” El Niño asked, puzzled. “Not for monkeys—fine clothes for fine man—fit me! You do not like them,” he said, putting the finger to his neck again. Then I got it: he’d seen me straining at the white tie, and figured out that I hated wearing the thing.

  “Stevie,” Miss Howard said, “what does he mean?”

  “He saw me at the Casino—saw that I don’t like wearing them clothes. I think he wants them.” I spoke louder to our new friend: “You want those clothes, is that the deal?”

  “Fine clothes for fine man!” he answered, slapping his chest. “You give them to El Niño, he work for you!”

  I shook my head. “But you can’t wear them all the time—”

  “Why not?” Miss Howard asked, turning to me. “Frankly, Stevie, I think this fellow can do just about as he pleases.”

  I gave that a second’s thought, then nodded. “Yeah, you’ve got a point there, all right. But what the hell’s the Doctor going to say?”

  “When we tell him that we’ve brought one of our main opponents over to our side?” Miss Howard countered with a smile. “What do you think he’s going to say?”

  I kept nodding, and then thought about our host in Ballston Spa. “And Mr. Picton?” I didn’t even have to wait for the words; Miss Howard just gave me a look, and I smiled. “Yeah, you’re right. He’ll laugh himself sick—and this guy’ll give him a run for his money in the gab department, that’s a fact. Well, then …”

  Miss Howard turned to the aborigine. “All right,” she said, indicating the bed of the buckboard. “Climb aboard—and tell us what we should call you.”

  “Call me El Niño!” he said, slapping his chest again. Then his face grew more cautious. “I work for you?” he asked, as if he didn’t quite believe it.

  “You work for us,” Miss Howard answered. “Now get in.”

  “No, no! It is not right so—El Niño can walk, while the lady rides.”

  Miss Howard sighed. “No, El Niño, that is not right. If you work for us, you’re one of us. And that means you ride with us.”

  Looking about ready to bust, the aborigine did a little piece of a dance in the roadway, then sprang onto the bed of the buckboard with the speed of a jungle cat. He stood up on the bed behind us, grinning from ear to ear. “With El Niño to work for you,” he declared, “you find baby Ana! Sure!”

  Not quite believing or understanding what we’d gotten ourselves into, I gave the Morgan the reins and we headed for home.

  We got the full story of El Nino’s life on that trip, one what we relayed to the others once we’d reached Mr. Picton’s house. It seemed that as a boy in the jungles of the Philippines’ Luzon Island, the aborigine had been out hunting with the men of his tribe one day when they’d been set upon by a party of Spaniards. The older Aëtas had been killed for sport; the younger ones had been taken to Manila and sold into a lifetime of bondage. El Niño had escaped his first master after several years, then spent his early manhood haunting the waterfront and becoming a roving mercenary. He’d done time as a pirate, fought in small wars all over the South China Sea, and finally found his way back to Manila, where he’d been arrested for petty thievery. Brought before a Spanish magistrate, he’d been sentenced to life at hard labor—which was when the older Señor Linares, a diplomatic official, had stepped in and given him a chance to work off his “debt” to the Spanish Empire as a household servant. I couldn’t help, when I heard all this, but think of my own experiences with Dr. Kreizler; and this common background quickly formed a bond between me and our new partner.

  He was a character, there was no denying that much: everybody in Mr. Picton’s house found his strange mixture of manly posturing and gentle, almost childlike kindness to be both amusing and touching. When he met Cyrus in particular, he behaved in a way what was very affecting yet still kind of comical. He bowed in a deep, respectful manner, and was amazed when the bigger man—who he seemed to think was some kind of oracle—actually offered him his hand. The fact that “Mr. Mont-r
ose,” (as El Niño would always pronounce it) lived among whites as a trusted equal—wearing the same clothes they did, eating the same food, and sleeping in the same quality of accommodations—seemed to the aborigine to mean that he had attained a high level of secret knowledge; and El Niño set out to model his behavior on that of my big, quiet friend. Such, of course, was no easy task, for such a chatty, active little fellow.

  None of this, though, gave us any better idea of what we were going to do with with our new ally. We didn’t particularly need anybody followed or rendered unconscious, at the moment, and he was bound to cause comment wherever he went in Ballston Spa—especially after I gave him the evening clothes I’d promised, which he put on right away. Strutting around like a peacock (he’d been right in supposing that the clothes would fit him), he looked ready to take on the world; but we all wondered if the world would be similarly prepared for him. Thinking for the moment of practicalities, a confused Mrs. Hastings put EI Niño to work washing up the dinner dishes, a job what he took to with great good spirits.