The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [214]
“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