The Alienist

CHAPTER 44

As soon as we reached the top of the reservoir’s walls I realized the potentially disastrous error I’d made in allowing Kreizler to talk me into coming to this place alone with him. The eight-foot-wide promenade atop the walls, ringed on either side by four-foot iron fences, was some six stories from the ground, and when I looked down I saw the streets from an angle that instantly recalled all the rooftop work we’d done in recent months. That reminder was forbidding enough on its own. But when I looked straight out and around me I saw the tar surfaces and multitudinous chimneys of the buildings that surrounded the reservoir, all of which made it even more plain that while we might not be standing on a rooftop per se, we had nonetheless reentered the lofty realm over which John Beecham was acknowledged master. We were in his world once again, only this time we’d arrived by way of a perverse invitation; and as we strode silently down toward the Fortieth Street side of the walls, the waters of the reservoir stretching out to our right and reflecting a bright moon that had suddenly appeared and was still ascendant in the clear night sky, it became apparent that our status as hunters was in very serious jeopardy: we were on the verge of becoming prey.

Familiar yet still troubling images began to flicker in my head like the projected films I’d seen at Koster and Bial’s theater with Mary Palmer: each of the dead boys, trussed and cut to pieces; the long, terrible knife that had done that cutting; the remains of the butchered cat at Mrs. Piedmont’s; Beecham’s bleak flat in Five Points, and the oven in which he claimed to have cooked the “tender ass” of Giorgio Santorelli; Joseph’s lifeless body; and finally a picture of the killer himself, formed out of all the clues and theories we’d collected during our investigation, yet still, for all our work, no more than a vague silhouette. The infinite black sky and innumerable stars above the reservoir offered no comfort or refuge from these horrific visions, and civilization, as I once again glanced down toward the streets of the city, seemed terribly far away. Each of our careful footsteps tapped home the message that we had come to a lawless place of death, a place where the hopeful invention of fearful man that I clutched in my hand would likely prove a feeble defense, and where the answers to greater mysteries than those we’d spent the last dozen weeks trying to unravel would be made plain with brutal finality. Despite all these anxious thoughts, however, I never once considered turning back. Perhaps Laszlo’s conviction that we were going to end this business on those walls that night was infectious; whatever the reason, I didn’t leave his side, even though I knew, as certainly as I’ve ever known anything, that we stood an excellent chance of never returning to the streets below.

We heard the sobbing before we saw the boy. There were no lights on the promenade, only the moon to guide us, and as we turned onto the Fortieth Street side of the pathway a one-story stone structure that had been built atop the walls to house the reservoir’s control mechanisms loomed up spectrally in the distance. The sobs—high-pitched, desperate, and yet somehow muffled—seemed to be coming from somewhere near it. When we’d gotten to a point some forty-five feet from the structure, I caught a vague glimpse of human flesh glowing in the moonlight. We took a few steps closer, and then I made out plainly the figure of a naked young boy on his knees. His hands had been bound behind his back, causing his head to rest on the stone surface of the promenade, and his feet were similarly tied. A gag had been wrapped around his head, holding his painted mouth open at a painful angle. His face was glistening with tears; but he was alive, and, just as surprisingly, he was alone.

Reflexively, I took a quick step forward, intending to help the unfortunate youth. Kreizler grabbed my arm and held me back, whispering urgently, “No, John! That is exactly what he intends for you to do.”

“What?” I whispered back. “But how do you know he’s—”

Kreizler nodded, his eyes directing me toward the top of the control house.

Rising just above the roof of the thing and reflecting the soft light of the moon was the same balding head that I’d seen above Stephenson’s Black and Tan the night that Cyrus was attacked. I felt my heart jump, but quickly sucked in air and tried to stay calm.

“Does he see us?” I whispered to Kreizler.

Laszlo’s eyes had gone thin, but he betrayed no other reaction to the scene. “Undoubtedly. The question is, does he know we’ve seen him?”

An answer came immediately: the head disappeared, the way an animal in the wild will do—completely and with astonishing speed. By now the bound boy had caught sight of us, and his stifled sobbing had changed to more emphatic sounds that, though incomprehensible as words, were plainly appeals for help. Another picture of Joseph appeared in my head, doubling my already driving desire to go and help this next intended victim. But Kreizler kept his grip on my arm.

“Wait, John,” he whispered. “Wait.” There was a small doorway leading from the promenade into the control house, and Kreizler pointed at it. “I was here this morning. There are only two ways out of that structure—back onto the promenade or down a flight of stairs to the street. If he doesn’t appear…”

Another full minute went by with no sign of life either in the doorway or on the roof of the control house. Kreizler looked very puzzled. “Is it possible he’s run?”

“Maybe the risk of actually getting caught was too much for him,” I answered.

Kreizler weighed that, then studied the still-pleading boy. “All right,” he finally decided. “We’ll approach, but very slowly. And keep that revolver handy.”

The first few steps we took down that stretch of the promenade were stiff and difficult, as if our bodies knew and were rejecting the danger that our minds had decided to accept. But after we’d covered ten feet or so without catching a glimpse of our antagonist we began to move more freely, and I became more convinced that Beecham had, in fact, been more intimidated by the prospect of capture than he had expected to be and fled to the street. I felt a sudden, powerful feeling of joy at the thought that we were actually going to prevent a killing, and allowed myself a small smile—

Hubris, as they say. Just as self-congratulation allowed my grip on the revolver to weaken ever so slightly, a dark form vaulted over the iron fence on the outer (or street) side of the promenade and laid a stunning blow across my jaw. I heard a thunderous crunching sound, which I now realize was made by the bones in my neck as my head snapped around, and then all was darkness.

I couldn’t have been unconscious for very long, since the shadows thrown by the moon had not advanced significantly when I woke up; nonetheless, my head felt groggier than if I’d been asleep for days. As my vision cleared I became aware of several pains, some sharp and some dull, but all acute. There was my jaw, of course, and my neck. My wrists were burning, and my shoulders ached mightily; but the single most piercing discomfort came from under my tongue. I groaned as I tried to dislodge something from that area, then spat at the ground, producing one of my canine teeth, along with what seemed a quart of blood and saliva. My head felt like a solid block of Pittsburgh steel, and I couldn’t lift it more than a few inches. Eventually I realized that this was due to more than the blow I’d received: my wrists were tied behind me to the top of the iron fence on the inner side of the promenade, and my ankles were similarly bound to the bottom of the iron divider, causing my head and upper body to hang out painfully over the stone pathway. Lying beneath my face on that surface was the Colt revolver I’d been holding.

I groaned again and kept trying to lift my head, finally succeeding just enough to be able to turn and catch sight of Kreizler. He was similarly bound, though he seemed quite conscious and unharmed. He gave me a smile.

“Are you back, John?” he said.

“Uhhh,” was all I was able to say in response. “Where’s…”

With effort Kreizler nodded toward the control house.

The bound boy lay where we’d first seen him, though by now his urgent cries had reverted to fearful whimpers. Before him stood an enormous figure clad in unremarkable black clothing, whose back was to Kreizler and me. The man was slowly removing his garments and placing them neatly to one side of the promenade. In a few minutes he was entirely naked, revealing more than six feet of powerful muscles. He stepped forward to the boy—who, judging by the adult lines that were just beginning to show in the face and body, must’ve been about twelve—and picked his painted head up by the hair.

“Crying?” the man said, in a low, emotionless voice. “A boy like you ought to cry…”

The man released the boy’s head and then turned to face Kreizler and me. His anterior musculature was as fully developed as his posterior—from the shoulders down he was a remarkable physical specimen. I strained my neck to look up at his face, furrowing my brow as I did. I don’t know precisely what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for the banality of those features. There was something of Adam Dury in the way the skin was pulled tightly over the man’s skull, as well as in the thinness of his hair. The eyes, too, were like his brother’s, too small for the big, bony head in which they sat. The right side of the face drooped a bit, though it wasn’t at that moment spasming, and the big jaw was set firmly; but all in all it was a common sort of face, one that exhibited no hint of the terrible turmoil that boiled without respite deep within the large head. He looked rather as though the construction of this horrendous scene was not altogether different from counting heads for the census.

That fact, I suddenly realized, was the most frightening thing I’d yet learned about John Beecham. In a very businesslike manner he bent down and took his enormous knife from out of his clothes, then walked over to where Kreizler and I were hanging. His chiseled body bore very little hair, allowing it to reflect the light of the moon brightly. He stood in a wide stance and leaned down to look first Kreizler and then me in the face.

“Only two,” he said, shaking his head. “That was stupid—stupid.” He lifted the knife, which closely resembled the one that Lucius had shown us at Delmonico’s, and pressed the flat of its blade against Laszlo’s right cheek, letting it play languorously around the lines of my friend’s face.

Laszlo watched Beecham’s hand move, and then said cautiously, “Japheth—”

Beecham growled viciously and then brought the back of his left hand hard across Laszlo’s head. “Don’t you say that name!” He seethed violently. The knife went back under one of Laszlo’s eyes, and Beecham pressed it firmly enough to bring a bead of blood from Laszlo’s cheek. “Don’t you say that name…” Beecham drew himself up and took a deep breath, as if he felt his outburst had been somewhat undignified.

“You’ve been looking for me,” he said—and then, for the first time, he smiled, showing huge, yellowing teeth. “You’ve been trying to watch me, but I’ve been watching you.” The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “You want to watch?” He indicated the boy with his knife. “Then watch. He dies first. Cleanly. Not you, though. You’re stupid and worthless—you couldn’t even stop me. Stupid, worthless animals—you I’ll dress alive.”

As he strode back to the boy I whispered to Kreizler, “What’s he going to do?”

Laszlo was still shaking off the effects of the blow he’d taken. “I believe,” he answered, “that he intends to kill that boy. And I believe he intends for us to observe it. After which…”

I saw that a small stream of blood was running down Kreizler’s cheek and jaw. “You all right?” I asked.

“Ah,” Laszlo noised in reply, showing remarkably little concern over our prospective fates, “it’s the stupidity that hurts the most. We chase a man who’s an expert mountaineer, and then we’re surprised when he negotiates a simple masonry wall to get behind us…”

Beecham was by now crouching over the bound boy. “Why did he take off his clothes?” I asked.

Laszlo studied our attacker for a moment. “The blood,” he said at length. “He wants to keep it off his clothes.”

Having put his knife aside for a moment, Beecham began to run his hands over the young, writhing body before him.

“But is that, in fact, the only reason?” Laszlo went on, some surprise showing in his voice.

Beecham’s face continued to betray no sign of anger or lust or any other feeling. He probed the boy’s torso and limbs as an anatomy instructor might have done, pausing only when he laid hands on the young genitals. After fondling them for a few minutes he stood and stepped behind the boy, stroking the upturned buttocks with one hand and his own member with the other.

I grew sickened at the thought of what I believed must come next, and turned away. “But I thought—” My quiet mumble was almost a protest. “I thought he didn’t rape them.”

Laszlo continued to observe. “That may not mean that he hasn’t tried to,” he judged. “This is a complex moment, John. He claimed in his note that he didn’t ‘soil’ the boys. But did he try?”

I picked my head back up to see Beecham still stroking the boy and himself, failing to produce an erection in his own organ. “Well,” I said in disgust, “if he wants to do it why—”

“Because he doesn’t, in fact, want to,” Kreizler replied, his already strained neck straining further to nod his head as he began to fully comprehend what was happening. “He feels an obsessive force pushing him toward it, as toward the killing—but it isn’t desire. And while he can force himself to kill, he can’t force himself to rape.”

As if in response to Laszlo’s analysis of the scene, Beecham suddenly howled in deep-seated frustration, raising his thick arms to the heavens and shaking throughout his body. Then he looked down again, stepped quickly around to the boy’s front end once more, and slipped his long-fingered hands around the young throat.

“No!” Kreizler suddenly called. “No, Japheth, for God’s sake, it isn’t what you want to—”

“Don’t say that name!” Beecham shouted again, as the boy squealed and twisted madly in his grip. “I’ll kill you, you filthy—”

Suddenly, from my left, a somehow familiar voice came out of the darkness:

“You ain’t killing anybody, you miserable bastard.”

Sore as my neck was, it turned quickly to catch sight of Connor, walking down the promenade and holding an impressive Webley .445 revolver. Behind him came two figures who had by now taken on the status of old acquaintances: the same thugs who’d come after Sara and me in the Santorellis’ tenement, who’d dogged Laszlo’s and my steps during our trip to visit Adam Dury, and whom I’d unceremoniously ejected from the Boston–New York train.

Connor’s shifty eyes went thin as he stepped toward Beecham. “You hear me? Get the hell away from that kid.”

Very slowly, Beecham released his grip on the boy. His face became an absolute blank, and then it changed dramatically: for the first time an emotion—terrible fear—became apparent in the widening of the eyes. Just when it seemed that those organs could open no further, they began to blink, rapidly and uncontrollably.

“Connor!” I said, finally overcoming my astonishment. Turning to Laszlo for an explanation, I saw him eyeing our apparent rescuer with a look of both hatred and satisfaction.

“Yes,” Laszlo said evenly. “Connor…”

“Get those two down,” Connor said to one of his men, as he leaned over to pick up Kreizler’s Colt. He kept the Webley trained on Beecham as the man to his right moved somewhat grudgingly to free first Laszlo and then me. “And you,” Connor said to the cowering murderer. “Get your fucking clothes on, you blasted sodomite.”

But Beecham made no move to comply. His expression became more fearful, he huddled closer to the wall—and then the spasming began. Initially it was slow, involving only the blinking of the eyes and a tug at the right corner of the mouth; but soon the entire right side of the face was contracting violently and at a quick clip, producing a pathetic effect that I must admit would have seemed, under other circumstances, cruelly laughable.

As he watched this transformation take place, a look of blatant disgust came into Connor’s bearded face. “My God,” he said. “You sick, miserable bastard…” He turned to the man on his left. “Mike—cover him up, for God’s sake.” The man went over, picked up Beecham’s clothes, and threw them at him. Beecham grabbed the garments and held them close, but didn’t try to dress himself.

Once Laszlo and I were back standing on the promenade we both spent a few seconds trying to loosen up our painfully cramped arms and shoulders, while Connor’s thugs went over to stand behind their chief again.

“Aren’t you going to untie the boy?” Laszlo said, his voice still marked by harsh bitterness.

Connor shook his head. “Let’s get a few things straight, first, Doctor,” he said, as if, despite the Webley, he was afraid of what Kreizler might do. “Our business is with this one here”—he indicated Beecham—“and only with him. You get on out of here and there’ll be nothing more to it. The whole business ends tonight.”

“Indeed it does,” Laszlo replied. “But not in the way that you anticipate, I’m afraid.”

“Meaning?” Connor asked.

“Meaning that our leaving is out of the question,” Kreizler answered. “You made it so when you fouled my home with your murderous presence.”

Connor shook his head quickly. “Now, just you wait, Doctor—I wanted none of that! I was doing my job, following the orders I’d been given, and that little bitch—” Kreizler’s face betrayed open rage and he took half a step forward. Connor gripped the Webley tighter. “Don’t do it, Doctor—don’t give me a reason. Like I say, we’re only here to do this one, but you know full well I’d be happy to make it the three of you. That might not please my bosses—but if you give me cause, so help me, I’ll shoot you down.”

For the first time, Beecham seemed to fix his attention on what was happening around him. His face still spasming, he turned to look at Connor and his thugs; then, in a sudden flurry, he scurried over near Laszlo’s legs.

“They—” he said tremulously. “They’re going—going to kill me.”

Connor chuckled once gruffly. “Yes, it’s dead you’ll be when they take you off this wall, you damned fool butcher. All of this trouble over you, and what are you? A poor excuse for a man, with your whining and crawling.” Connor began to swagger a bit in front of his cohorts. “Hard to believe, ain’t it, fellas? That—thing there is what this has all been about. Just because his idea of fun is to fuck little boys and then cut them up.”

“Liar!” Beecham suddenly bellowed, balling his fists but staying in a crouching stance. “You filthy liar!”

At that, Connor and his men began to laugh, exacerbating Beecham’s emotional turmoil. As the mocking howls went on, I walked over to stand by Beecham without knowing why, then gave the three laughing fools in front of me a disapproving scowl that produced no effect. Turning to Kreizler in hope of getting some guidance, I saw that he was staring down the promenade past Connor and his men, his face a picture of anticipation. His mouth fell open, and for no reason that I could divine he suddenly shouted:

“Now!”

And then all hell broke loose. With the speed and precision that only years of professional training can breed, an ape of a man leapt up and over the inner promenade fence and crushed Connor’s gun-wielding hand with a stout section of lead pipe. Before the other two thugs could react several lightning combinations of blows from two enormous fists laid them both out on the promenade. The howling Connor soon shared the same fate. Then, just for good measure, the newcomer—his face hidden under a miner’s cap—leaned over each man’s head in succession and delivered a series of resounding blows with the lead pipe. It was a clinic in violence that was awesome to behold—but my joy at the attack faded considerably when the performer stood up and finally revealed himself.

It was Eat-’Em-Up Jack McManus, former prizefighter and current enforcer of decorum at Paul Kelly’s New Brighton Dance Hall. Tucking his piece of pipe into his pants, McManus picked up both the Colt and the Webley and then stepped toward me. I braced myself, reasonably calculating that Laszlo and I would be the next victims of his pugilistic artistry; instead, McManus straightened his shabby jacket, spat hard into the waters of the reservoir, and handed me the guns. I trained the Colt on Beecham as Jack slowly walked up to Kreizler, raised a hand, and touched the brim of his cap respectfully.

“Well done, Jack,” Laszlo said, at which I almost hit the pathway beneath me in a dead faint. “Bind them, if you would, and gag the two bigger men. The one in the middle I’ll want to talk to when he comes around.” Laszlo studied Connor’s body, evidently impressed by McManus’s work. “Or perhaps I should say, if he comes around…”

McManus touched his cap again, crossed back in front of me, then produced several lengths of rope and two handkerchiefs and carried out Laszlo’s instructions like a patient, laboring ox. Kreizler, in the meantime, went quickly to the bound boy, and began to free his mouth, hands, and feet.

“It’s all right,” Laszlo said soothingly, as the youth continued to sob and whimper uncontrollably. “It’s all right, you’re quite safe now.”

The boy looked up at Laszlo, eyes wide with terror. “He was going to…”

“What he was going to do is no longer important,” Laszlo answered with a small smile, producing a handkerchief and wiping the boy’s face. “What is important is that you’re safe. Here—” Laszlo retrieved his somewhat mangled opera cloak from the promenade and wrapped it around the shaking young man.

With everything under control, at least for the moment, I satisfied my curiosity by approaching the fence on the street side of the promenade and taking a quick look over it. A few feet below, strung before our arrival and held in place by climbing pitons much like the one that Marcus had found at Castle Garden, was a length of stout rope. As Kreizler had suspected, getting around and behind us had been no great job for an experienced climber like Beecham. I turned back around and looked at our now beaten foe, shaking my head at the sudden, baffling way in which the tide had turned.

Jack McManus had finished the job of binding Connor’s men, and he looked to Kreizler expectantly. “Well, Jack,” Laszlo said. “All secure? Good. We won’t be needing you further. But again—my thanks.”

McManus touched his cap one last time, then turned and strode back down the dark promenade without saying a word.

Kreizler turned to the boy again. “Let’s get you inside, shall we? Moore, I’m just going to put our young friend here in the control house.”

I nodded, keeping the Colt leveled at Beecham’s head as Laszlo and the boy disappeared inside. Still huddling and spasming, Beecham had begun to let out a quick, guttural little whimper of his own. It didn’t appear that he’d give me any trouble, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Quickly scanning the area, I saw his knife lying on the pathway, and moved to pick it up and tuck it into the back of my own pants. Glancing at the unconscious Connor, I noticed that he had a pair of manacles clipped to his belt. I retrieved them and tossed them to Beecham.

“Here,” I said. “Get these on.”

Slowly and absentmindedly, Beecham fit the manacles around his wrists, closing first one and then the other with some difficulty. I searched Connor’s pockets and found the key to the restraints, after which I noticed that there was a small bloodstain on Connor’s shirt. Unbuttoning the dirty garment and then pulling it aside, all the while keeping my gun on Beecham, I saw that Connor had a long, half-healed wound in his side, which had apparently been torn back open by Jack McManus. It was the injury, I realized, that Mary Palmer had inflicted before Connor had flung her down Kreizler’s stairs.

“Good for you, Mary,” I said softly, standing away from Connor.

Kreizler came back out of the control house, running a hand through his hair and surveying the scene before him with evident, if rather amazed, satisfaction. Then he looked my way self-consciously, as if he knew what was coming.

“You,” I said, evenly but very firmly, “are going to tell me what in hell is going on around here!”