The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [91]
“They told me it was true,” Ding Dong laughed, his eyes just getting crazier all the time. “They told me it was true, but I never believed it—the Stevepipe, workin’ as an errand boy! How do you like shovelin’ this nag’s shit, stevie?”
I glanced from Ding Dong to his boys. “Better’n I’d like shovelin’ yours,” I said, at which a couple of the fellows with sticks made a move my way.
But Ding Dong held his arms out and laughed. “You ways did talk like a top-class rabbit, Stevie,” he said. And when you had yourself a piece of pipe, you could even fight like one. I—uh—don’t suppose you got one right now?”
Before I could answer, Cyrus stepped around from the other side of Frederick’s head. “He doesn’t need one,” my friend said, his right hand still in his jacket pocket. Suppose you tell us what you want?”
Ding Dong’s smile only seemed to grow as he studied Cyrus for a second. “That’s one big nigger, Stevie,” he said. “What monkey house didja get him outta?” He and is boys laughed a little, looking like they figured Cyrus would try a move at the insult, and then seeming disappointed when he didn’t.
“What do you want, Ding Dong?” I said. The Dusters’ smiles all started to vanish, and they took few steps closer. “Question is, Stevepipe,” Ding Dong said, “whatta you want? Who gave you leave to snoop around this house?”
“You care?” I asked. “Why?”
Ding Dong shrugged. “Duster territory—that oughtta be enough.”
I eyed him close. “Yeah—but it ain’t. What’s your real reason?”
Ding Dong’s grin came back. “Always was smart, you little bastard. Mebbe I wanna pay you back for almost bustin’ my arm last time we met.”
I ignored that, still trying to figure how they’d come to be where we were at just that moment. “You didn’t know it was me in the carriage when you came down the street,” I said, thinking out loud. “The lady inside, she signaled to you—how come?”
As the boys tightened their bodies and started slapping their sticks into their open hands, Ding Dong moved on me slowly. “You don’t wanna have nothin’ to do with that lady, Stevepipe, you hear? I’m givin’ you real good advice: stay away from her and stay away from her house.”
There’s times when those of us born with what you might call wise mouths just can’t control them. For a second I thought of Kat; then I gave Ding Dong a vicious little grin of my own. “Don’t try to tell me she’s one of your girls, Ding Dong,” I said. “Only way you’d touch a woman over fourteen’s if she was your mother.”
At that Ding Dong lost his grin and swung hard for my head. I ducked under Frederick and went for the whip that stood by the seat of the calash. Ding Dong pursued, and then Cyrus got in front of the other boys, waving the brass knuckles. Before any actual blows could be exchanged, though, Miss Howard jumped down from the carriage, grabbed Ding Dong by the hair, and stuck the stubby barrel of her derringer hard against his head.
“Hold on, now!” she called to the other Dusters. “All of you! Just move away, we’re here on police business!”
Ding Dong had more sense than to try for the gun, but he did let out a laugh. “‘Police business’? A moll, a nigger, and a kid? I was born in the mornin’, sister, but it weren’t yesterday mornin’—”
Ding Dong grunted as Miss Howard slapped the gun across his head hard and then crammed the barrel back by his ear.
“One more word out of you, and there’ll be a forty-one-caliber bullet rattling around your empty skull! Now, tell your