The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [100]
“Kat?” I said, keeping my own voice low. Then I rushed around the hedge to her. “What the hell’re you doing? How long you been here?”
“Since about four,” she said, glancing up and down the block, more so she wouldn’t have to look me in the eye than because she was trying to locate anything. “I think.” Her eyes turned watery, she began to sniffle hard and painfully; and when she wiped at her nose with a filthy old handkerchief, it came away bloody.
“But why?”
She shrugged miserably. “Had to get out of there—he was like a maniac last night. In fact, I ain’t so sure he ain’t a maniac, sometimes…”
“Ding Dong?” I said, to which she nodded. My eyes fell to the ground. “It’s my fault, ain’t it….”
She shook her head quickly, the tears thickening in those blue eyes that still refused to look into mine: “That wasn’t it. Wasn’t most of it, anyway …” She finally sobbed once. “Stevie, he’s got three other regular girls—three! And I’m the oldest! He never told me that!”
I had no idea what to say; the information didn’t surprise me, of course, but I wasn’t about to tell her so. “So,” I tried, “did—did you two have an argument or something?”
“We had a fight, is what we had!” she said. “I told him I don’t play second fiddle to no twelve-year-old piece of trash—” She slammed her fist against the side of her forehead. “But now all my things are down there …”
I smiled a little. “All your things? Kat, you got two dresses, one coat, and a shawl—”
“And my papa’s old wallet!” she protested. “The one with my mother’s picture in it—that’s there, too!”
I gave her a straight look. “But that ain’t what’s makin’ this hard, right?” I touched her elbow, trying to get her to look at me. “He won’t give you any burny, will he?”
“Bastard!” she grunted, sobbing again. “He knows how much I need it now, he swore he’d never cut me off!” She finally glanced once into my eyes, real pathetically, then threw herself against me hard. “Stevie, I’m just about going out of my skull, I’m hurtin’ for it so bad.”
I put my arms around her shivering shoulders. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get inside—a little strong coffee’ll take some of the edge off of it.”
I got her up and half carried her to the front door of the Doctor’s house, where she paused once fearfully.
“They’re—all gone, right?” she said, looking up at the parlor windows. “I waited for ’em to go, I don’t want you gettin’ into no trouble—”
“They’re gone,” I said as reassuringly as I knew how. “But there wouldn’t be any trouble, anyway. The Doctor ain’t that way.”
She let out a doubtful little noise as we went inside.
I guided her to the kitchen and a mug of Cyrus’s coffee. Her eyes got wider as she began drinking it and taking the house in; and I’ll confess that, seeing the look in those eyes, my notion of bringing her to work for the Doctor resurfaced in my thoughts. So I took her on up to the parlor, to let her get the full effect of the place. Strengthened by the strong coffee, she began to move around more bravely and even smiled, amazed at all the wondrous and beautiful things the Doctor owned—and even more amazed that I lived in such a place.
“He must work you to the bone,” she said, opening the silver cigarette case on the marble mantel.
“It ain’t the work that’s tough,” I said, sitting in the Doctor’s chair like I was lord of the house. “He makes me study.”
“Study?” Kat said, her face filling with near disgust. “What the hell for?”
I shrugged. “Says if I ever want to live in a house like this, that’s what’s gonna get me there.”
“Who’s he kiddin’?” she answered. “I bet it wasn’t studyin’ that got him here.”
I just shrugged again, not wanting to admit that the Doctor came from money.
“I can see why you like it so much, though,” Kat went on, looking around. “Beats hell out of Hudson Street, that’s for sure.”
At the sound of those words a thought suddenly occurred to me, a thought that maybe should’ve jumped into my head as soon as I saw Kat, if only worrying about her hadn’t,