The Angel of Darkness

by Caleb Carr

  “Yeah, Kat?”

  “How come? I mean, you looking out for me all this time?”

  I gripped her hand tighter. “That don’t sound like the girl with the big plans what I know,” I said. “How can I expect you to hire me as a servant if I ain’t nice to you now?”

  She picked up her right hand and weakly slapped at my arm. “I’m serious,” she said. “Why, Stevie?”

  “Ask Dr. Kreizler when he gets here. He’s full of explanations.”

  “I’m askin’ you. Why?”

  I just shook my head and shrugged a little bit, then turned my face down to look at her hand. “‘Cause. I care about you, that’s why.”

  “Maybe,” she breathed, “maybe you even love me some, hunh?”

  I shrugged again. “Yeah. Maybe I even do.”

  I looked up when she put a finger gently to my face. “Well,” she said, her mouth playing at a frown but then smiling gently, “it ain’t gonna kill you to say it, you know …” Then she turned toward the window, her blue eyes catching the grey light of the cloud-filled sky. “So Stevie Taggert loves me, maybe,” she whispered, in what you might call amazement. “What do you know about that…?”

  The windows shook a little as the storm’s first clap of thunder finally boomed over the city. Kat didn’t seem to hear it, though; with those last words she’d drifted off to sleep, a sign, I figured, that the paregoric had finally taken real hold. Keeping my two hands on her one, tight enough to feel the blood pulsing through her wrist, I lay my head down on the satin comforter and waited for Dr. Osborne to call…

  But what woke me wasn’t the telephone. It was the gentle but firm touch of Dr. Kreizler, prying my fingers off of Kat’s dead hand.

  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 realise 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 journies, 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 Nino’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 his
sed 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 a tempted 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.”