I winced inside at that, but tried not to show it. “Things’ll be even tougher at the Dusters’.”

“Unh-unh,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m gonna have my pick of customers there. My new man says so.”

“New man? And who’d that be?”

“Ding Dong, that’s who.” She put her hands proudly on her hips. “How do you like that, Mr. Errand Boy?”

If her previous remark had brought a wince, this one hit like a sledgehammer. “Ding Dong,” I whispered. “Kat-you can’t-”

“And why not? If you’re thinkin’ he’s too old, the fact is he likes his ladies young-told me so. And since he’s one of them what started the gang, I’ll have protection all over the city. I don’t service nobody without he says it’s okay, neither.”

I didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I’d crossed paths with this Ding Dong many times during my days with Crazy Butch: he ran the kids’ auxiliary of the Hudson Dusters (whose turf was the West Side and the waterfront below Fourteenth Street), and he did it through the simple but brutal trick of turning kids into cocaine fiends and then controlling their access to the stuff. The Dusters were all what we called burny blowers, addicted to snorting powdered cocaine, and a few of them even jabbed the drug: it tended to make them wild, reckless, and violent, so much so that most other gangs just steered clear of them altogether, since none of their territory was what you’d call vital. They were darlings of the moneyed Bohemian crowd, who shared their craving for cocaine and liked to come down and slum it in their headquarters, an old dive on Hudson Street; and the sickening sight of the Dusters’ leader, Goo Goo Knox, having his praises sung in ditties and poems dashed off by educated but misled fools was, I’m sorry to say, not uncommon.

The blood I’d seen on Kat’s glove the night we’d run into her on Christopher Street had clued me in to how she’d been enlisted by the Dusters; and if that hadn’t been enough, she now sat on the bed and produced a sweets tin what was filled to the brim with the fine white powder.

“Want some?” she said, in that half-ashamed way that all drug fiends do when they can’t resist going to the well in front of another person. “I can get all I want.”

“I’m sure of that,” I said. Then urgency set my blood afire. “Listen, Kat,” I said, sitting on the bed next to her. “I’ve got an idea. It could get you out of all this. The Doctor needs a maid-a regular, live-in housekeeper. I think I could convince him, if you’d be willing to-”

I was interrupted by the loud sound of her snorting the burny off her wrist. Her face winced with the sting, then settled into relief. Finally she began to laugh. “A maid? Stevie-you ain’t serious!”

“Why not?” I said. “It’s a roof over your head, a good roof, and steady work-”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “and I can just imagine what I’d have to do for this Doctor to keep it.”

A sudden wave of anger flashed through me, and I grabbed her wrist hard, spilling the cocaine off of it. “Don’t say that,” I growled through clamped teeth. “Don’t ever talk about the Doctor like that. Just because you never met people like him-”

“Stevie, goddamn it!” Kat cried, trying to salvage the cocaine I’d spilt. “You never get it, do you? So I never met people like him? I got news for you, boy, I met people like him ever since I came to this town, and I’m sick of it! Old gents ready to give you something, yeah, I’ve met ’em-but they always want something back! And I’m sick of it! I want a man, Stevie, a man of my own, and Ding Dong’s gonna be it! He ain’t no boy, no silly little kid with foolish ideas-” She stopped herself there and tried to catch her breath. “Ah. I’m sorry, Stevie. I like you, you know that-always have. But I’m gonna be somebody-maybe, I don’t know, a revue girl or an actress-and a rich man’s wife, someday. But not a maid, for Pete’s sake-I’m gonna have maids, plenty of maids!”

I got up and wandered toward the door. “Yeah,” I mumbled. “It was just an idea…”

She followed me over, again putting her arms around me. “And it was a nice idea-but it ain’t me, Stevie. If it’s a good place for you, that’s fine. But it ain’t me.”

I nodded. “Unh-hunh…”

She turned me to her and put her hands on the sides of my face. “You can come see me sometimes-but you gotta behave. Remember-I’m Ding Dong’s girl, now. Okay?”

“Yeah… okay.” I started to open the door.

“Say.” When I looked back, she was smiling. “Don’t I get a kiss good-bye?”

With some reluctance but more desire, I leaned over to comply; but just as my face was nearing hers, a big drop of blood ran down out of her nostril to her lip. “Dammit!” she said, turning away quickly and wiping at the blood with her sleeve. “That always happens…”

I couldn’t take any more of it. “So long, Kat,” I said, and then I ran out the door. I kept on going, through the bar, past the baiting pit, and finally out onto the street. Kids whose faces I couldn’t make out called to me, but I just kept on moving, faster and faster, near to tears and not wanting anyone to see it.

By the time I stopped running, I was near the Hudson and quickly made for the waterfront, the comforting smell of the river keeping me from breaking down and crying. It was foolish, I told myself, to feel so strongly about Kat’s fate, for it wasn’t like anyone was holding a gun to her head and forcing her to follow the path she was taking. She’d chosen it; and sorry as I might be, it was just plain ridiculous to take it so hard. I must’ve repeated that statement to myself a thousand times as I watched the night boats, ferries, and ships move up, down, and across the waters of the Hudson. But it wasn’t any attempt at being rational that finally mended my spirits; no, it was the sight of the river itself, which always made me feel, somehow, like there was hope. She has that quality, does the Hudson, as I imagine all great rivers do: the deep, abiding sense that those activities what take place on shore among human beings are of the moment, passing, and aren’t the stories by way of which the greater tale of this planet will, in the end, be told…

I finally wandered back into Dr. Kreizler’s house at well past three o’clock and stumbled on up to bed. The Doctor’s study door was open and that of his bedroom was closed, indicating that he might finally be getting some sleep-but then I noted that a dim light was shining out from the crack underneath the bedroom door. As I passed on up the stairs, I saw the light go out; but the Doctor never came out to ask where I’d been or why I was coming in so late. Probably Cyrus had already figured it out and told him, or maybe he was simply respecting my privacy; either way, I was grateful to be able to just get to my room, close the door, and fall onto my bed without any further words.

It wasn’t many hours later that I was woken by fairly violent shaking. I was still in my clothes, and it took me several seconds to come out of a very deep sleep. Cyrus’s voice became identifiable even before his face:

“Stevie! Come on, wake up, we’ve got to go!”

I shot upright, at that, figuring I’d overslept and forgotten to do something, though I couldn’t for the life of me remember what that thing might’ve been. “S’okay,” I said sleepily, cramming my shoes on. “I’ll get the horses-”

“I already have,” Cyrus answered. “Get some fresh clothes on, we’ve got to meet the others.”

“Why?” I said, going for a new shirt in a chest of drawers. “What’s happened?”

“They’ve found out who she is.”

I dropped a handful of clothes on the floor. “You mean-the lady in the sketch?”

“That’s right,” Cyrus answered. “And Miss Howard says there’s plenty of interesting details. We’re meeting them at the museum.” I was still having some trouble with my movements, and Cyrus held a shirt out for me. “Come on, boy, wake up now-you’re driving!”