For several long minutes, though, Bethune Street in front of us remained quiet and empty, a fact what struck me as odd; and my nervousness began to let up a bit, as I allowed myself the thought that maybe I was just being what you might call an alarmist.
But, of course, I wasn’t.
Just before we reached the intersection of Washington Street, they began to fan out in a thick line in front of us: more Dusters-maybe sixty or seventy in all-than I’d ever seen gathered in any one spot in my life. Ding Dong’d brought out most of the kid auxiliaries, and these young hell-raisers were all making the same kinds of moves what we’d seen them get up to when we’d first come to Libby Hatch’s place: slapping big slabs of wood into their palms, polishing up brass knuckles, and looking like it was all they could do to keep from rushing straight at us. To top it all off, every member of the gang’s eyes were lit up like the windows at McCreery’s department store on a Thursday night, showing that I hadn’t been wrong in supposing they’d gotten themselves good and wound up before they moved out to meet us.
Leading this very dangerous-looking mob were Goo Goo Knox and Ding Dong, who had, it seemed, patched up their squabble of earlier in the day-or, more likely, they’d just put off one good scrape in favor of a better one. As usual, Ding Dong was grinning like an idiot, in that way what, to my everlasting confusion, Kat’d found so charming. Knox, on the other hand, though the look on his face and the axe handle in his hand said that he was ready to go at it, was wearing an expression what also made it clear that he had a much better idea of who he was up against. This was understandable: for, as leader of the Hudson Dusters, he’d crossed paths with Mr. Roosevelt during our friend’s term as police commissioner many times, and he knew that if the burly swell with the spectacles showed up looking like he was ready for trouble, you could count on the fact that such wasn’t a bluff.
Knox was a scary-looking little package, wild-eyed and strong-armed, to be sure, but with skin so pale as to make him seem like a ghost. This was due partly to his heritage, but mostly to the fact that he almost never saw daylight: before becoming one of the founders of the Dusters, he’d been a member of the Gophers, another frightening, unpredictable group of violent Irishmen who ruled in Hell’s Kitchen and got their name from the fact that they spent their days in the cellars of that neighborhood, drinking, carousing, and doing whatever else passed for “living” in their book. Only at night did they come outside, to raid the train yards on the West Side, lock horns with other gangs, or engage in their other favorite outdoor sport: beating cops unconscious and stealing their uniforms to give to their girlfriends as trophies. It was partly because so many Dusters were former Gophers that the newer gang was feared by the Police Department: along with the practice of raiding the train yards on the West Side, the Dusters’d maintained the Gophers’ taste for going after men in uniform. I didn’t know whether that taste included the uniform of the U.S. Navy; but from the look on Knox’s face that night, I figured we could be pretty sure that it did.
“Mr. Roosy-velt,” Goo Goo called, as our party drew up close to the gang. “I heard you was in Washington, playin’ wit’ boats. What brings you ta Duster territory?”
“When last I checked, Knox,” Mr. Roosevelt answered, “the West Side of New York City was still part of the United States. These are men of the United States Navy, and they are here to assist the detective sergeants”-he pointed a thick finger at the Isaacsons-“in the performance of their duty.”
“And what duty might that be?” Knox asked, though it was easy to see that he knew the answer.
“What it might be is none of your business,” Mr. Roosevelt answered. “You and your-followers had better step aside.”
“I don’t think you get it,” Knox answered, looking to his boys with a smile, then sniffling and running his tongue around his upper gums. This was a sure sign that he’d been blowing a lot of burny: the drug, taken that way, had the effect of making the upper part of people’s mouths go numb, so that they seemed to have to check and see that their parts were all there every few seconds. “Like I said,” he went on, “this is Duster territory-other gangs don’t come in here, city cops don’t come in here, don’t nobody come in here, if they don’t wanna take a beating.”
“Really?” Mr. Roosevelt said.
“Yeah,” Knox answered, with a confident nod. “Really.”
“Well,” Mr. Roosevelt declared, glaring at Knox, “I’m afraid there’s one exception to that rule which you may have overlooked.”
“Oh? And what might that be, you piece of-”
As he said these last words, Knox made a sudden sweeping move and tried to swing the axe handle on Mr. Roosevelt: a bad mistake. With a speed what was always surprising, given his size and thickness, Mr. Roosevelt snatched the stick of wood out of Knox’s hands, making all of the Dusters’ eyes go wide. Then, in another quick motion, Mr. Roosevelt gave Goo Goo a wicked smack across the side of the head with the weapon. “That might be the United States federal government!” Mr. Roosevelt bellowed, as Knox fell to his knees, moaning like the injured animal he was.
The other Dusters took a couple of steps forward, like they might charge; but they were still too confused to take definite action. I could tell, though, that said situation wasn’t going to last very long: I pulled on the Doctor’s sleeve, nodding my head in the direction of the river and trying to tell him I knew a full-scale battle was about to break out and that while it was raging we’d do best to get back down to West Street and come at Libby Hatch’s house from another direction. He got the message, and as the sailors closed ranks and got ready to receive the coming attack, all of our group started to walk slowly backward-all, that is, excepting Cyrus, who’d locked eyes with Ding Dong and wasn’t going anywhere.
Second by second the air got more and more charged; then Knox, his forehead bleeding, gathered his wits, looked up at his boys, and shouted, “Well? What the hell’re you waiting for?”
At that the storm finally broke. In a solid, screaming wall the Dusters rushed forward, and the sailors did likewise. Both sides mixed it up so fast that the use of pistols by either group became pretty near an impossibility from the start. It’d be a contest of fists and sticks, that much was obvious, and it’d likely take up the whole block we were standing on: we had to get away fast.
“Run!” I told Mr. Moore, who nodded and, together with the detective sergeants, started to dash west. Miss Howard and the Doctor, though, hung back, waiting for Cyrus.
“Cyrus!” the Doctor commanded, as Miss Howard covered our big friend with her Colt. “Come with us, now!”
But Cyrus was way beyond taking any orders: as soon as the brawl’d erupted he’d reached out to grab Ding Dong by the shirt, then literally lifted him off the ground and thrown him about six feet behind the line of our sailors, where he wouldn’t be able to get any help from his pals. Hitting the ground hard, Ding Dong’d dropped the stick he was carrying, and Cyrus quickly kicked it away. Then he pulled Ding Dong to his feet and said:
“No sticks, no knives, no guns-and I’m no fourteen-year-old girl, either. Now let’s see how you do.” With that he started to pummel the Duster, who had to work hard to cover himself and get in a few shots of his own.
Sighing once, the Doctor turned to Miss Howard. “We’ll have to leave him, Sara-there is the matter of accounts to be settled. He’ll be all right, but we must go!”