Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

“When last I checked, Knox,” Mr. Roosevelt answered, “the West Side of New York City was still part of the United States. These are men of the United States Navy, and they are here to assist the detective sergeants”-he pointed a thick finger at the Isaacsons-“in the performance of their duty.”

“And what duty might that be?” Knox asked, though it was easy to see that he knew the answer.

“What it might be is none of your business,” Mr. Roosevelt answered. “You and your- followers had better step aside.”

“I don’t think you get it,” Knox answered, looking to his boys with a smile, then sniffling and running his tongue around his upper gums. This was a sure sign that he’d been blowing a lot of burny: the drug, taken that way, had the effect of making the upper part of people’s mouths go numb, so that they seemed to have to check and see that their parts were all there every few seconds. “Like I said,” he went on, “this is Duster territory-other gangs don’t come in here, city cops don’t come in here, don’t nobody come in here, if they don’t wanna take a beating.”

“Really?” Mr. Roosevelt said.

“Yeah,” Knox answered, with a confident nod. “Really.”

“Well,” Mr. Roosevelt declared, glaring at Knox, “I’m afraid there’s one exception to that rule which you may have overlooked.”

“Oh? And what might that be, you piece of-”

As he said these last words, Knox made a sudden sweeping move and tried to swing the axe handle on Mr. Roosevelt: a bad mistake. With a speed what was always surprising, given his size and thickness, Mr. Roosevelt snatched the stick of wood out of Knox’s hands, making all of the Dusters’ eyes go wide. Then, in another quick motion, Mr. Roosevelt gave Goo Goo a wicked smack across the side of the head with the weapon. “ That might be the United States federal government !” Mr. Roosevelt bellowed, as Knox fell to his knees, moaning like the injured animal he was.

The other Dusters took a couple of steps forward, like they might charge; but they were still too confused to take definite action. I could tell, though, that said situation wasn’t going to last very long: I pulled on the Doctor’s sleeve, nodding my head in the direction of the river and trying to tell him I knew a full-scale battle was about to break out and that while it was raging we’d do best to get back down to West Street and come at Libby Hatch’s house from another direction. He got the message, and as the sailors closed ranks and got ready to receive the coming attack, all of our group started to walk slowly backward-all, that is, excepting Cyrus, who’d locked eyes with Ding Dong and wasn’t going anywhere.

Second by second the air got more and more charged; then Knox, his forehead bleeding, gathered his wits, looked up at his boys, and shouted, “Well? What the hell’re you waiting for?”

At that the storm finally broke. In a solid, screaming wall the Dusters rushed forward, and the sailors did likewise. Both sides mixed it up so fast that the use of pistols by either group became pretty near an impossibility from the start. It’d be a contest of fists and sticks, that much was obvious, and it’d likely take up the whole block we were standing on: we had to get away fast.

“Run!” I told Mr. Moore, who nodded and, together with the detective sergeants, started to dash west. Miss Howard and the Doctor, though, hung back, waiting for Cyrus.

“Cyrus!” the Doctor commanded, as Miss Howard covered our big friend with her Colt. “Come with us, now !”

But Cyrus was way beyond taking any orders: as soon as the brawl’d erupted he’d reached out to grab Ding Dong by the shirt, then literally lifted him off the ground and thrown him about six feet behind the line of our sailors, where he wouldn’t be able to get any help from his pals. Hitting the ground hard, Ding Dong’d dropped the stick he was carrying, and Cyrus quickly kicked it away. Then he pulled Ding Dong to his feet and said:

“No sticks, no knives, no guns-and I’m no fourteen-year-old girl, either. Now let’s see how you do.” With that he started to pummel the Duster, who had to work hard to cover himself and get in a few shots of his own.

Sighing once, the Doctor turned to Miss Howard. “We’ll have to leave him, Sara-there is the matter of accounts to be settled. He’ll be all right, but we must go!”

Nodding reluctantly, Miss Howard turned her body west but kept her eyes on Cyrus-and it was a good thing she did, being as just as we started to move away two Dusters managed to break out of the brawl further up the street and ran over to try to give Ding Dong a hand. They were both carrying metal bars wrapped in burlap, and Cyrus had his back to them: once again, it looked like he might get blindsided by the gang.

Miss Howard, though, smoothly spun back around toward the fight, then raised her Colt and, holding it steady with both hands, let off two rounds, their explosions echoing off the buildings and the cobblestones thunderously. When the smoke of the shots cleared, the two Dusters with the metal bars were lying on the ground, each one clutching at a shattered kneecap. Miss Howard smiled and, seeing that Cyrus was now pretty well having his way with Ding Dong, turned to follow the rest of us.

Catching me staring at her in amazement, she said only, “I told you, Stevie-there is nothing like a bullet in the leg to make men mind their manners.” Then she pushed me along toward West Street.

The howls of rage and pain from the brawl were now filling the whole neighborhood; and as the six of us ran around the corner to Bank Street, it began to sound like Hell itself had opened up on Bethune Street. Even the longshoremen on the waterfront were keeping clear of the action, and the residents of the neighborhood stayed locked up very tight in their homes: we could hear bolts being thrown on doors as we passed by on our way to Greenwich Street. But the overall effect of the battle turned out to be a helpful one, for as we turned north again and approached Bethune Street, we didn’t catch sight of a single Duster: they’d all gone to join in the “fun.” This left us an open road to Libby Hatch’s place from the east, and in just a few more seconds we’d reached it.

“I doubt,” the Doctor said breathlessly, “whether knocking will prove useful. Detective Sergeants?”

Marcus quickly produced his crowbar, and wedged it into the jamb of the door just to the right of the knob. He and Lucius both laid hold of the thing and got ready to put their full weight and strength into heaving away at it. “When we pull,” Marcus said, sweating as much as his brother by that point, “the rest of you try to push on the door itself. Sara, I think you’d better keep your Colt at the ready.” As Miss Howard stood back to obey this request, the Doctor, Mr. Moore, and I gathered around to fit into whatever spots we could reach on the door. “Ready?” Marcus asked, and we all grunted replies in the affirmative. “All right, then, one-two-”

As he called out “three!” he pulled hard on the crowbar with Lucius, and the rest of us shoved. The frame of the old door began to crack and splinter almost right away, and a few more good blows and yanks destroyed the right side of the structure completely. With a kick Marcus burst the door open, and then we all stepped to either side very fast, so that Miss Howard could train her gun immediately on-

Nothing. There was no sign of life in the little entry way to the house, and the steps against the right-hand wall led up into darkness what showed a similar lack of human activity. Miss Howard led the way in, still keeping her Colt trained on the darkness, and then the rest of us followed, frightened, yes, but also starting to feel tremendous disappointment.