I got the message, all right: Kat had gone back to him.
It hit me hard, forcing my eyes to the ground and my jaw to fall open. Then a voice sounded from somewhere inside my own head: Of course she went back to him, it said. She didn’t have anywhere else to go, thanks to you…
By the time I looked back up, Ding Dong had vanished into the crowd. Most likely he’d trailed us from the Doctor’s house and, satisfied to see us leaving town, just wanted to send me off with a personal message that’d make my heart as sore as I’d made his face. He’d succeeded, all right. I dropped the suitcase I had in my hand and just kind of collapsed onto it, so dazed that I barely heard a familiar voice-this one definitely outside me-calling.
“Stevie!” It was Mr. Moore, moving my way with a suitcase of his own in hand. A porter carrying a trunk was trailing behind him. “Stevie,” he said again as he reached me. Then he crouched down. “What is it, kid, what’s going on? Where’s the Doctor?”
“They-” I shook myself hard, trying to get rid of the shock. “They-went aboard already. I’m bringin’ our stuff-with the porters.”
Mr. Moore put a firm hand on my shoulder. “Stevie, has something happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost.” I couldn’t go into a full explanation, but a piece of one was called for. “Dusters. Must’ve followed us here.”
Spinning to search the wharf, Mr. Moore squinted. “They didn’t get on the boat, did they?”
“Nah,” I said. “They’re gone. Just letting me-us-know they’re still watching.”
“Unh-hunh,” Mr. Moore answered. “Well, come on. With any luck, we’ll be out of town long enough for the Dusters to forget all about us.” I got back up and moved with him toward the gangplank of the Mary Powell, our porters following close behind. “It’s not like you to let them rattle you this way, Stevie,” Mr. Moore said, punching my shoulder lightly. “Though after that brawl, I guess I can understand it.”
I didn’t answer, just nodded and tried to get my breathing back to some kind of regular pace. By the time we got on board, I’d almost managed that much, too; but the burning rock of guilt in the pit of my gut wasn’t going anywhere.
Once on the ship, Mr. Moore and I let our porters lead the way to our private parlors. Located amidships on the portside upper deck, they were handsome rooms indeed, with trimmed wood paneling, rich furnishings, and windows that would offer us views not only of the Palisades cliffs soon after our departure but the Catskills and other handsome mountains along the way. For the moment, though, all such pleasures and advantages were lost on me. Once I’d seen the bags safely into the rooms, where the Doctor, Cyrus, Miss Howard, and the detective sergeants were already lounging and exploring happily, I mumbled something about wanting to get a look around the ship and left quickly.
Down on the main deck, just forward of the large dining rooms, I found a public men’s room and entered it, getting a bit of a skeptical glance from the old attendant as I did. Locking myself into one of the toilet stalls, I leaned against the tiled wall on one side and lit up a smoke, trying to drive away the devilish thoughts and feelings what were tearing at my insides. I hadn’t made much progress before I heard the attendant outside the stall:
He cleared his voice with purpose and said, “This washroom is for gentlemen.”
Which was not the kind of attitude to take with somebody in my condition. “This toilet is for passengers, mug,” I snapped back. “So go chase yourself, unless you wanna finish this trip with a busted arm.” I heard the man take a deep, angry, and insulted breath, but he didn’t say anything; and as I took another deep drag off my smoke, I remembered that he was just doing his job. “Don’t worry, pal,” I said, quietly now. “I’ll be gone in a second.” I allowed myself another minute or two’s smoking, then dropped my butt into the toilet and headed out without looking at the attendant.
As I headed back up the wooden steps to the upper deck, a huge bellow came out of the ship’s main whistle: we were getting under way. Not yet ready to return to the others, I went on up to the promenade deck and got as far forward as I could, cramming myself into the narrow little corner of space between the outer railing and the steering house. I was on the starboard side of the ship, away from the pier so that I couldn’t see the crowd ashore. Then the Mary Powell started to slowly move out and away from the waterfront. Before long we’d eased out to the middle of the river, where the big side paddles engaged with a loud rumble and rush; not loud enough, though, to quiet that same voice in my head.
She ain’t like you, it said. She didn’t grow up in this town; she’s never understood it, really, no matter what she says; and you stood there and let her wander right back off into what you knew was trouble, just because she embarrassed you-
Lost in all this bitter thinking, I pretty near jumped clear of the deck when I heard the Doctor’s voice behind me:
“You won’t see very much from this side,” he said, joining me at the rail. “Or did you want to watch the city fade behind us?”
I turned back to look at the waterfront of Hell’s Kitchen as we moved steadily past it. “Something like that” was all I could say.
The Doctor nodded, and for a few more silent moments, we just stood there. “We’ll be coming up on the Palisades soon,” he finally said. “Shall we go to the other side?”
“Sure.” I peeled myself off the rail and followed him round the back of the wheelhouse.
On the ship’s port side the distant view before us changed as dramatically as if we’d stepped into another world. On our left were the small, quaint houses of Weehawken, New Jersey, while in front of us the sparse outskirts of other towns formed a picture what was similarly humble and peaceful. Soon greenery closed in completely on the river, not to be interrupted again until we reached those giant brown-and-gray slabs of rock that rise hundreds of feet into the air for miles on end and are known as the Palisades. The cliffs were the first of many remarkable natural wonders what the Hudson had to offer the day traveler, and their effect-like the river’s itself-was to reassuringly remove a person from the immediate cares of the human world.
As we stared at those rocks, the Doctor took in a deep breath, then let it out in what seemed to me a peculiar combination of relief and consternation. “This is a strange case, Stevie,” he murmured. “Strange and disorienting. The human mind does not readily accept such events and possibilities.” Continuing to look out at the Palisades, he held up a hand. “And do you know, I cannot help but think of my own mother, when considering it. Is that odd, do you think?”
“I-don’t really know,” I answered. “Depends on what brings her to mind, I guess.”
“A simple realization, really. I have always been unable to understand why, when things between my father and myself were at their worst, my mother never intervened. Even when I was only three or four years old, and utterly unable to defend myself, she never involved herself.” His eyes seemed to be questioning the water, forest, and rocks before us, as if they might offer him some clue to the matter he was contemplating. There wasn’t any sense of self-pity in the look, for the Doctor despised and avoided such tendencies. It was just a kind of honest, sad questioning-and he was entitled to wonder.
From the time Dr. Kreizler’d arrived on this earth, it seemed, the people closest to him had been either a vexation or a heartache, and sometimes both. His father, a rich German publisher who’d come to America after the European revolutions of 1848 went bust, had had it in for his son right from the start. Though in society circles the old man was a popular and admired character, at home he was a boozy tyrant, who treated his Hungarian wife and his two kids (for the Doctor had a sister who currently lived in England) to the backs as well as the fronts of his hands-fists, too. I didn’t know just what had made the Doctor bring the subject up that day, but I was grateful to think and talk about anything other than Kat.