The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [327]
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 hissed 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