Walking toward us, with the agitated gait what marks confirmed burny blowers, were several figures, one an adult, the rest boys just a couple of years older than me. The man was of medium build, with a sort of swaggering, rugged manner, while the boys-all dressed in ragged clothes-were swinging sticks and old axe handles in a way what clearly indicated they’d been looking for trouble and believed they’d just found it. As they got closer, I made out the details of the man’s face-his sick, crooked smile and deranged, gleaming eyes-and realized with a wave of dread that I knew him:
It was Ding Dong, as loaded with cocaine as I’d ever seen him. The boys who trailed behind him appeared to be in about the same shape. And, just as Nurse Hunter’d done, they were all staring right at us with expressions that promised nothing good.
I leaned back, wanting to sound an urgent alarm; but for some reason, “Aw, shit” was all I came out with.
CHAPTER 17
“Who are they?” Miss Howard said, my little spurt of vulgarity having caused her to turn away from Nurse Hunter’s house.
“Friends of yours, Stevie?” Cyrus asked, his voice very calm; but even as he said the words, he slipped a set of brass knuckles he generally carried out of his jacket pocket and onto his right hand. Then he casually slid the hand out of view again.
“Not exactly,” I answered. “I do know the grinning ape out front, though. He’s Ding Dong-keeps charge over the boys what run with the Hudson Dusters.”
“Ding Dong?”Miss Howard asked, smiling through her own nervousness. “That can’t really be his name.”
“It is, miss,” I said. “And he’s rung the chimes in enough people’s skulls to’ve earned it.”
“But what can they want with us?”she wondered, her hand making its way into a fold of her dress-to my great relief.
“I don’t know,” I replied, “but it looked to me like that Hunter woman signaled to them. Whatever’s going on, Miss Howard, you’ll want to keep that canister of yours handy.”
The group of Dusters was getting closer, and Ding Dong’s half-crazed smile-which so many ladies (Kat, it seemed, among them) found so unexplainably irresistible-only grew wider as he stared at the carriage and realized I was one of the people in it. I tried to keep my eyes off of him and on the others; and, not much liking the vicious looks the three of them were giving Frederick, I swallowed my fear just before they got to us, jumped out of the carriage, and rushed to hold the horse’s bridle.
Ding Dong drew up to a halt in front of me and put his hands on his hips, as Cyrus-who’d also gotten to the ground-carefully made his way around Frederick’s curbside flank.
“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 always 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 his 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 a 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 friends to move away!”
Hissing in pain, Ding Dong nodded. “Okay, boys-I think we made our point. No reason to go any farther with it.”
The other Dusters backtracked reluctantly, and Cyrus let his right hand drop just a bit. I kept the horsewhip held high, though, knowing these types better than my friends did and aware that we wouldn’t be really safe until they were out of sight. Miss Howard pushed Ding Dong toward his pals with a rough motion, one what made him stumble and then smile again.
“Rough little bitch, ain’t ya?” he said. “I’ll remember that. And you remember what I told you all: stay away from this house, and don’t ever-Jimmy!”
In a sudden movement what I’m sure they’d practiced many times in similar spots, one of the Dusters quickly tossed his axe handle to Ding Dong, who rushed past Cyrus and slapped the flat of the wood hard on Frederick ’s haunch. The gelding reared in pain and confusion, and then, in a group, the Dusters all rushed Cyrus, who was alone on Frederick ’s left side. Ding Dong got in one good shot with the axe handle to Cyrus’s ribs, while another of the boys managed to ram him hard in the chest with his thick piece of wood. The now-unarmed kid named Jimmy paid for all this by taking the brass knuckles in the face, and then Cyrus fended off another blow from the third mug.
By now Miss Howard had gotten around to them and was threatening to shoot, while I’d darted back under the still frantic Frederick and lifted the whip, letting fly at Ding Dong’s face. I cut him a nice little hole in his left cheek, causing him to go down on one knee. But before I could gloat too much, I turned to see that one of the Dusters had broken into a suicidal run at Miss Howard, making it impossible for her to take aim at the others, while another was poised to lay a vicious and maybe lethal blow to Cyrus’s head with his slab of wood.