The Angel of Darkness

  There wasn’t any way, of course, that the Doctor was ever going to be happy about me either putting myself in danger or going back to my old thieving ways; but he knew, to judge from the look on his face, that we didn’t have any choice. The fact that Miss Howard and Detective Sergeant Lucius were all for the idea only put the icing on the thing. And so by two o’clock I found myself once again heading down into my old neighborhood, to try to locate Hickie the Hun and his ferret, Mike.

  CHAPTER 21

  I figured to find Hickie swimming somewhere down by the East River waterfront, even on what was, for New York, a cool summer’s afternoon: the kid was as fond of water as a fish. On top of that, where there were ships there was cargo, and the best way to case the docks was to take an innocent swim and see what they had to offer. Not that shipping freight was Hickie’s usual target; like I’ve said, he was a second-story man, a housebreaker, good enough at his trade to operate independent of any single gang, but respected enough to be able to join forces with whichever group suited him for a given job. All in all, he was a bit of a loner, was Hickie—except when it came to animals. He lived in an abandoned basement on Monroe Street, north of the Brooklyn Bridge, with a whole collection of dogs, cats, squirrels, snakes, raccoons, and nobody-ever-knew what else. The only animal he wouldn’t keep was a rat, and he trained his other pets to keep his house clear of them, too. You see, when he was just two or three years old, Hickie’s mother and father, who’d been immigrant cigar makers in a tenement on Eldridge Street, had been robbed and shot to death, and it had been more than twenty-four hours before anyone had discovered the crime and the young boy who’d survived it: plenty of time for the rats to set to work on the bodies. Seeing his own folks get halfway eaten by the things was enough to set Hickie on a lifelong campaign to kill every rat he saw—which, in a city like New York, meant that he was never at a loss for something to do.

  Sure enough, that afternoon Hickie was down behind the Fulton Fish Market—a big, clapboarded building with three little towers what they called “cupolas”—swimming naked with a few other boys. A couple of cargo schooners and a paddle steamer were docked in the river near the swimmers, along with the Fulton Ferry, the station of which stood next to the fish market. A couple of the littler kids were taking dives off the bowsprits of the schooners, and coming within an ace of breaking their necks on the docks, too. But nobody seemed to care, least of all Hickie, who oftentimes told me that so far as he was concerned, any kid left to swim unattended in a river with currents as dangerous as them in the East was qualified to decide when and where he’d bust his own head open.

  I made my way through all the smelly, noisy huckstering that was going on outside the fish market, then crawled down around the bottom of the building to where the kids were splashing in and out of the eternally shadowy, roiling waters below.

  “Hey, Hickie!” I called, seeing his head bobbing up from under the surface. “You wanna die of pneumonia, you found the right way to do it!”

  He gave me a grin, showing a big gap in his front teeth what had been left by two cops. “What’re ya thayin’, Thtevie?” he answered, his s’s getting lost in the gap. “Ith a perfeck day for a thwim!”

  “Come on out,” I answered. “I got a business proposition for you!”

  Whipping his black hair back on his head, he began to swim, quickly and expertly, over to where I was sitting. “Well, there’th thwimmin’, and then there’th buthineth,” he said, shooting up out of the water in a pale white flash and running over to his little pile of clothes. He dried himself off with a rag that might’ve been a towel once, then got dressed in a hurry. “How’ve you been, Thtevie? I ain’t theed you round for a bit.”

  “Ain’t been around,” I said, noticing that Hickie’s voice had gotten lower. He was probably a year or two older than me, but small for his age. “Workin’. The legitimate life, you know, it tends to keep you busy.”

  “And becauth of that, I thtay away from it,” Hickie said, now covered up in an old shirt, wool trousers, and suspenders. He pulled on a beat-up pair of shoes and shook hands with me, then slipped a miner’s cap onto his head so that it slouched over one eye. “If I couldn’t walk away for a thwim whenever I felt the urge, I wouldn’t thee the thenth in life. Whath on your mind, old thon?”

  I picked up a few rocks and started tossing them into the river. “You still got Mike?”

  “Mike?” Hickie said, like I just mentioned a member of his family. “Thure, I got Mike! Couldn’t get rid o’ Mike, Thtevie, he’s my boy—born rat-killer, ith that Mike.”

  “You ever hire him out?”

  “Hire him out?” Hickie folded his arms, put his hand to his chin, and touched a finger to his nose as he considered it. “No … no, I don’t believe I ever have conthidered it. Don’t know ath I’d feel right about it, thomehow. Mike’th hith own man, you know.”

  He was dead serious; and there was no sense in anybody trying to tell Hickie that animals were just animals. “Well, I could use his services, I said. “For a week, maybe. And the pay’d be top dollar.”

  Hickie’s finger kept tapping at his nose. “A week? Well…” He suddenly brightened up. “What thay we go an’ athk him? If Mike taketh to you, Thtevie, that’ll be a thign that he wanth the work—and thuch bein’ the cathe, far be it from me to thtand in hith way!”

  I watched Hickie start to march off in the direction of the hovel he called home, like the pint-sized captain of criminal industry he was; and as I fell in alongside him, I allowed as the kid would enjoy a brilliant future, so long as he could stay one step ahead of the long arm.

  We caught up on each other’s doings during the walk to Hickie’s home on Monroe Street, which was in one of the oldest and worst sections of shantytown in the city. Hickie’s building, like most around it, was a decrepit wooden deal, a leftover from the last century or thereabouts; and what he called a “basement” was really more like a cave. We reached it by going round to a back alley—which was thick with ash heaps and laundry that’d been hung out to dry—and then heading down an old set of stone steps into a dirt-floored space below. The joint was dark, save for the barely detectable light of a high, filthy window at the front—but that didn’t stop a collection of dogs from starting to bark as soon as they heard us coming. Once we were inside, Hickie lit a kerosene lamp, and as soon as he did, the place jumped to life: not only dogs yapping and leaping around, but cats scurrying away from the dogs and hissing at them, and dozens of other, smaller animals moving around in ways what made it seem like the walls themselves were alive. Hickie greeted them all with great enthusiasm, a process that took some time, while I just waited cautiously, not sure which of the beasts were dangerous to outsiders and which were okay.

  Past the few pieces of furniture that Hickie owned there was an old sink with a bucket of garbage underneath it, the contents of which had been strewn around the room—and out of which soon appeared a medium-sized raccoon, what gave Hickey a very guilty look.

  “Willy!” Hickie shouted, moving for the garbage pail at a speed that made it tough (but not impossible) for the raccoon to escape up the sink’s single water pipe. “How many timeth doth I got to tell you, no more garbage!” He looked up the pipe to the blinking, clinging animal. “You act like you don’t ever get fed, you ungrateful little—”

  I had to laugh. “Hickie, he’s a raccoon, for Pete’s sake, what do you expect?”

  Hickie’s hands went to his hips, and he continued to stare the animal down. “I exthpect him to act with a little common courtethy and gratitude, or he’ll find himthelf thleeping in the alleyway—that’th what I exthpect!” He went farther toward the front of the room and lit another lamp, carrying it with him. “I named him after the Kaither Wilhelm, that one, but he don’t wathte any time bein’ imperial, he don’t…” Hickie signaled for me to join him; and as I noticed that a sizable snake was making for my feet, I decided to brave the other animals and enter the deeper reaches of the room. “Now, then,”
Hickie said, climbing up onto a huge pile of old trunks, “come and thay hello to Mike.”

  In the darkness I could make out a large, framed structure on top of the trunks, and when Hickie held the lamp up I could see that it was a cage, made out of some old two-by-twos and chicken wire. Inside the cage a long, lean shadow was whipping around in agitated motions, with an equally long, fluffy tail following behind. “Mike!” Hickie finally got high enough to set the lamp down and then sit on one of the trunks next to the cage. “Mike, I’ve brought an old friend to pay hith rethepecth and offer you a propothithun—why, Mike!” Hickie’s face suddenly cracked into a big grin, the gap in his teeth standing out all the more. “Thtevie! Willya look at thith!”

  Off of the top of the cage, Hickie lifted a dead rat by its tail. There were bite and claw marks all over the thing, and a big tear in its throat. “What’d I tell you?” Hickie shouted, overjoyed. “Got the bathtard clear through the wire, he did! There’th none to compare to old Mike, when it cometh to rat-killin’!” Overjoyed past words, Hickie threw the rat to the floor, opened the cage, and reached inside, bringing out the two-foot-long, grey-and-white ferret. The animal’s little black eyes locked on Hickie’s face with what seemed like recognition: he rolled onto his back in Hickie’s lap, and then shot up and around his master’s shoulders in one long, streaking movement, like he’d been poured out of a bottle. Hickie laughed out loud, and then the ferret jumped back into his lap, scratching behind his rounded ears and at his pointed nose with his short front paws. The animal looked my way, the little daggers of his sharp upper teeth showing over the fur of his lower jaw. “Tickle me, willya, Mike, my boy?” Hickie shouted, rubbing the ferret’s stomach with real affection and enthusiasm. “Then I’ll return the favor!” But the ferret only seemed to enjoy the rubbing, and after a few seconds he grew calm enough for Hickie to pick him up. “Come on, Thtevie, come on up and get to know Mike proper!” He looked into the ferret’s eyes. “Now, Mike, thith ith Thtevie Taggert, who you’ve theen before, though you’ve never been properly introduthed. Thtevie—Mike.” And before I knew it, he’d placed the animal against my chest, causing me to clutch him close. “What do you think, Mike?”

  The ferret stared up at me for just a second, then suddenly flipped over and scurried up my arm, his sharp claws piercing my shirt and pricking lightly into my skin. It was a disturbing feeling, at first—not really painful, but strange; and in just a few seconds, the ferret’s quick movements around my neck and shoulders lightened up to the point where they did, in fact, tickle.

  “What—what’s he doing, Hickie?” I asked, starting to laugh.

  “Why, he’th gettin’ to know you, Thtevie. He’th a thtrict judge of character, ith Mike, and he’ll thoon dethide how he feelth about you!”

  Mike ran down my other arm, jumped off onto one of the trunks for a second, then scurried back into my lap. Sniffing at my shirt with his ever-twitching nose, he stuck his head between two of my buttons—and then suddenly vanished inside. I took a deep breath of shock as I felt warm fur and cold claws against my bare skin. “Hickie!” I said, half amused and half afraid.

  “Oh, thith ith rare, ith what thith ith,” Hickie said. “That’th hith mark of deepetht affeckthun. I’d thay you’ve found yourthelf a partner, Thtevie, old thon!” Hickie clapped his hands and then rubbed them on his legs, obviously pleased as could be that Mike should’ve taken such a quick liking to me. When the ferret reappeared from inside my shirt, I began to stroke his back with my hand and felt how quickly his heart was beating: like a little steam engine, so fast it seemed it’d explode. Then Mike turned onto his back, allowing me to rub his stomach the way Hickie’d done.

  “Mike, Mike, Mike,” Hickie said, pretending to disapprove. “I’ll not have you playin’ cheap, now—remember your dignity, young man!” Laughing at himself, Hickie looked up at me. “You work around hortheth, do you, Thtevie?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “We have two, a mare and a gelding. Why, can you smell ’em?”

  “No,” Hickie said, shaking his head. Then he nodded at Mike. “But he can. Loveth the thmell of hortheth, doth that one. And he’th thure taken to you. Well, then, Thtevie—what’th thith job you mentioned?”

  I didn’t know just how much of the story to tell Hickie, but I had to let him have the basic details, as I’d need his instructions on how to train Mike for the specific task ahead. So I just mentioned that my employer and I were trying to track down somebody what we had reason to believe was being held in a certain house against their will, inside a locked room. Would Mike be able to detect if the person was in fact in the house, and find the right room? Indeed he would, Hickie said; in fact, it would be a breeze, compared to some of the jobs Mike’d handled in the past. Then I asked about the training, and was surprised to learn how simple it would be: all I’d need would be a piece of clothing from the person I was looking for, the more intimate the better, as it would be that much more steeped in the person’s scent. Mike was already so well trained that when he began to connect a particular object or smell with his feeding, he quickly got the idea that he was supposed to find something that looked or smelled the same; only a couple of days would be needed to get him ready. It’d be best if I took him to my place for that time, Hickie said, so’s he could get fully used to me. I said that I couldn’t imagine where that would be any problem, and then asked exactly what I should feed the active little fellow.

  “He’th a car-nee-vore, ith Mike,” Hickie said, with the attitude of an expert, “but don’t you go thpoilin’ him on me. No porterhouth nor lamb chopth—just catch him a few mithe if you can, or, if not, thome jackrabbit’ll do. Three or four timeth a day, during trainin’, to let him know what you’re drivin’ at.”

  “Do I take him in the cage?”

  “Thure, thure,” Hickie said, pulling the contraption off the trunks and climbing down with it. “We’ll jutht find a bit of cloth to cover it with, for he don’t much like the thight of thity traffic.” Hickie began to root around in the many piles of junk in his room.

  “And what about the money, Hickie? Top dollar, like I said.”

  Finding himself a piece of an old tarpaulin, Hickie had to battle one of his dogs, a midsized mastiff, for possession of it. “The money? Hmm … lemme think—go on, Beauregard, let go a that damned thing!” He finally pulled the tarpaulin away from the dog, and as he came back over to the cage I climbed down with Mike. “Thith ith a firtht, thith ith.” Hickie carefully took Mike out of my arms and held him up to look into his eyes. “You do a good job and keep yerthelf thafe, now, do you hear that?” He kissed the top of Mike’s head and slipped him into the cage, then covered it. “Lemme thee … he meanth an awful lot to me, doth Mike …”

  It was pretty obvious Hickie was waiting for me to make him an offer, and I pulled what seemed like a big number out of the air. “How about fifty bucks? For the week?”

  Hickie got that glow bargainers sometimes do, when they’ve been offered more than they expected and figure that because they have, maybe they can do even better. “Make it theventy, Thtevie—thimply to keep my thoul at retht, mind you—and I’ll know you to truly be the gentleman what I’d alwayth taken you for.”

  I nodded once, and we shook on it. “You’ll have to come with me, though, to pick up the money,” I said. “I ain’t got that kind of cash on me.”

  “And I wouldn’t let Mike go without theein’ where you’re takin’ him,” Hickie answered. He picked up the cage and indicated the door. “Lead the way, old thon!”

  We got back outside and made our way out of the shantytown and over to Park Row, where it was an easy job to catch a hansom uptown. It was a jolly ride, with Hickie full of stories about old friends of ours, Mike the ferret going wild inside the covered cage as he smelled the horse in front of us, and the cabbie wondering what in the world two characters like ourselves could be up to—not to mention what we might be carrying in the strange crate that sat on Hickie’s lap.

  When
we reached the Seventeenth Street house, we found that the Doctor, Cyrus, and Miss Howard had returned—though there was still no sign of Mrs. Leshko, a fact what was beginning to make the Doctor wonder if he shouldn’t call the police. (He didn’t; and at about 5:30 the woman finally did stumble in, ranting something about Cossacks, the Russian tsar, and her husband. The Doctor just told her to go home and come back in the morning.) Hickie was more than a little impressed at where I’d ended up after all my years of thieving and conning, and I think for a few seconds the sight of the Doctor’s house made him wonder if there wasn’t some sense to the legitimate life, after all. He made quite an impression on the others, particularly the Doctor, who took an extreme interest in Hickie’s homegrown methods of animal training.

  “It’s really rather remarkable,” the Doctor said, after Hickie’d made his good-byes to Mike in my room and then headed back downtown. “Do you know, Stevie, there is a brilliant Russian physiologist and psychologist—Pavlov is his name—whom I met during my trip to St. Petersburg. He is working along similar lines as this ‘Hickie’—the causes of animal behavior. I believe he would benefit greatly from a conversation with your friend.”

  “Not likely,” I answered. “Hickie don’t much like leaving the old neighborhood, even on jobs—and I don’t think he can read or write.”

  Chuckling a bit, the Doctor put an arm on my shoulder. “I was,” he said, “speaking rather hypothetically, Stevie…”

  Mike the ferret’s taking up residence in my room presented me with a situation the likes of which I’d never before experienced. Suddenly I had a pet, a roommate, and for the next few days my own activities were pretty well dictated by the need to train and feed the animal. He was a living responsibility, an idea what had never before appealed to me; and yet I found that I didn’t half mind it, once I was actually in the situation. In fact, Mike became the center of my attention and—given his lively, affectionate manner—my joy and amusement, too. It ended up taking Miss Howard better than a day to get in touch with Señora Linares, and another day to lay hands on a piece of little Ana’s bedclothing; and I spent most of that time either romping around my room with Mike, trying to locate mice in our basement for him, or chatting away to the animal as if I expected answers. I’d seen people behave that way with pets before, but never having had one I’d never understood such conduct; suddenly the appeal was very clear, and as the time went by I found myself deliberately putting thoughts of Mike’s departure out of my head.