The Alienist

CHAPTER 46

It was all so much hot air, of course. Oh, Roosevelt dragged us down to Mulberry Street, all right, and locked us up for a few hours in his office, where we got one hell of a lecture about honor and trust and living up to one’s word; but eventually I told him the truth about what had happened that night, although not until I was fairly sure that Kreizler and the Isaacsons had had enough time to get where they were going. I explained to Theodore that I hadn’t really lied to him, since I myself hadn’t known what was going on before I showed up at the opera; indeed, I said, I still didn’t have explanations for many of the things that had happened up on the reservoir walls, although I intended to get them. And I promised that as soon as I did, I’d come straight to Mulberry Street and share the information. Roosevelt calmed down considerably as I was saying all this; and when Sara pointed out that the important thing, about which there could be no doubt, was that Beecham was dead, Theodore’s mood began to brighten considerably. As he’d told us several weeks earlier, the successful conclusion of the case meant a great deal to him personally (although, given the affair’s many complexities, he’d never be able to make much hay out of it professionally); and by the time Sara and I finally got up to leave his office, at about four o’clock, Theodore had traded criticism of some of that night’s developments for characteristically effusive praise of our team’s work as a whole.

“Unconventional, without doubt,” he clicked, putting a hand on each of our shoulders as he walked us out, “but, all in all, a magnificent effort. Magnificent. Think of it—a man with no connection to his victims, a man who could have been anyone in this city, identified and stopped.” He shook his head with an appreciative sigh. “No one would ever believe it. And to get Connor in the bargain!” I saw Sara wince just a bit at that; but she worked hard to conceal the reaction. “Yes, I will very much enjoy hearing just how our friend Kreizler cooked up that last part of his scheme.” Theodore rubbed his jowl and stared at the floor for a few seconds, then looked up at us again. “Well, then—what will you all do now?”

It was a simple question, yet one whose implications were, I suddenly discovered, thoroughly unpleasant. “What will we—?” I echoed. “Well, we—that is—I don’t really know. There are—details to tie up.”

“Of course,” Roosevelt answered. “But, I mean to say, the case is over—you’ve won!” He turned to Sara, as if expecting agreement.

She nodded slowly, looking as confused and uncomfortable as I felt. “Yes,” she finally managed to say, in the face of Theodore’s expectant expression.

There followed a long, peculiar pause, during which the vague but unsettling emotion that had been produced by the thought of the case being over took a stronger hold on each of us. In an attempt to banish it, Theodore changed the subject deliberately.

“At any rate,” he said, with a slap of his hands to his chest, “a fortunate and intriguing end. Timely, as well. I leave tomorrow for St. Louis.”

“Ah, yes,” I said, happy to talk about something else. “The convention. It’ll be McKinley, I take it?”

“On the first ballot,” Theodore replied with mounting gusto. “The convention is merely a formality.”

I gave him a needling smile. “Picked out a house in Washington yet?”

As always, Theodore grew stormy at any suggestion that he indulged in ambitious maneuvering; but then, remembering that I was an old friend who would never have questioned his basic motives, he let the storm pass. “Not quite. By thunder, though, what possibilities! Perhaps the Navy Department will—”

Sara let out a sudden, uncontrollable laugh, then covered her mouth quickly. “Oh,” she said. “I am sorry, Commissioner. It’s just that—well, I never would have thought of you as a Navy man.”

“Yes, Roosevelt,” I added, “when you come right down to it, what in the world do you know about naval matters?”

“Why,” he answered indignantly, “I wrote a book on the naval war of 1812—it was very well received!”

“Ah, well,” I answered, nodding, “that does make all the difference.”

Theodore’s smile returned. “Yes, Navy’s the place to be. From there we can start planning for a reckoning with those blasted Spaniards! Why—”

“Please,” I cut in, holding up a hand. “I don’t want to know.”

Sara and I moved to the staircase while Theodore stood in the doorway of his office with his hands on his hips. As always his energy seemed not in the least diminished by a long night of activity, and his beacon of a smile was still visible when we reached the end of the dark hall.

“Don’t want to know?” Theodore shouted after us merrily as we started down the stairs. “But you could come along! Why, with the work you people have done, the Spanish empire shouldn’t represent any great challenge! Come to think of it, there’s an idea in that—the psychology of the king of Spain! Yes, bring your chalkboard to Washington and we’ll decide just the right way to thrash him!”

His voice finally became inaudible as we left the building.

Sara and I walked the short block over to Lafayette Place, still in a kind of shock that prevented our going back over the conclusion of the case in any detail. Not that we didn’t want to clarify many of the things that had happened at the reservoir; but we both knew that we didn’t possess enough information to do so on our own. And the hard knowledge that we did possess was going to take time and wisdom to come to grips with. Of nothing was this more true than the fact that Sara had put an end to a man’s life that night.

“I suppose one of us was destined to do it,” she said wearily, after we’d turned onto Lafayette Place and begun to walk north. Her eyes stared blankly at the sidewalk. “Although I never would have thought that it would be me…”

“If anyone ever had it coming, Connor did,” I said, trying to be reassuring without committing the deadly sin (to Sara’s way of thinking) of mollycoddling.

“Oh, I know that, John,” she answered simply. “Honestly I do. Still…” Her voice trailed off, and then she stopped and took a deep breath, looking at the quiet street around her. Her eyes continued to wander from darkened building to darkened building, and finally came to rest on mine—then, in a quick motion that surprised me, she put her arms around me and laid her head on my chest. “It’s really over now, isn’t it, John?”

“You sound sorry,” I said, touching her hair.

“A little,” Sara answered. “Not for anything that’s happened—but I’ve never had an experience like this. And I wonder how many more I’ll be allowed.”

I lifted her head by the chin and looked deep into her green gaze. “Somehow, I get the feeling you’re done with people allowing you to do things. Not that you were ever very good at it, to start with.”

She smiled at that, then walked over to the curb. “Perhaps you’re right.” She turned when she heard a horse’s hooves. “Oh, there’s good luck—a hansom.”

Holding her right hand up to her face, Sara extended her index finger and thumb and, to my consternation, put them in her mouth. She then drew breath and blew hard, producing a whistle that almost split my head open. I clapped my hands to my ears and looked at her in shock, getting another big smile in return.

“I’ve been practicing that,” she said, as the cab clattered over and stopped next to her. “Stevie taught me. It’s fairly good, don’t you think?” She climbed up into the hansom, still smiling. “Good night, John. And thank you.” Rapping on the roof of the cab, she called out “Gramercy Park, driver!” and was gone.

Alone for the first time that night, I took a moment to try to decide just where I was going. I was bone-weary, to be sure, but sleep was somehow out of the question. Strolling through the still streets was definitely called for; not, as I say, to make sense of all that had happened, but simply to absorb the fact that it had. John Beecham was dead: the focus of my life, however gruesome, had been removed, and with a sudden ache of dread I realized that come Monday morning I’d have to decide whether or not I was going to report for duty back at the Times. The thought, brief and passing though it was, seemed nothing short of horrible—to spend more days and nights hanging around in front of Police Headquarters, waiting for a lead or a story to materialize, and then shooting off to get the facts on some bit of domestic violence or some housebreaking on Fifth Avenue…

Without intending to, I’d come to a stop at the corner of Great Jones Street. Looking down the block, I saw that the lights of the New Brighton Dance Hall were still burning bright. Perhaps explanations were not so far off after all, I thought; and then, before I’d consciously decided to go, my feet were carrying me toward the place.

I was still several doors away when I started to hear loud music echoing out of the New Brighton (Paul Kelly employed a much larger and more professional band than the usual three-piece noise gang found in concert halls). Soon raucous laughter, a few drunken screams, and finally the resonant rattle of glasses and bottles joined the din. Not relishing the prospect of actually going inside, I was much relieved to see Kelly emerge from the joint’s frosted glass doors just as I arrived. With him was a police sergeant—in uniform—who was laughing and counting a wad of money. Kelly glanced over, caught sight of me, and then elbowed the cop, telling him with a nod of his head to get lost. The sergeant obliged, scurrying obediently away in the general direction of Mulberry Street.

“Well, Moore!” Kelly said, pulling a small snuffbox out of his silk vest and grinning in his handsome way. “You can forget you saw that,” he said, inclining his head toward the vanishing cop.

“Don’t worry, Kelly,” I answered, drawing up to him. “I figure I may owe you one.”

“Me?” Kelly chuckled. “Not likely, newshound. I see that you’re in one piece, though. From the rumors that’re floating around town, I’d say you’re damned lucky.”

“Come on, Kelly,” I said. “I saw your rig tonight—and your man McManus saved our necks.”

“Jack?” Kelly opened the snuffbox, revealing a mound of finely ground cocaine. “Why, he didn’t tell me. Doesn’t sound like Jack, though, to go around doing good deeds.” Kelly put a little cocaine on one knuckle and snorted it hard, then held the box out to me. “Care for some? I wouldn’t myself, but these late nights—”

“No,” I said. “Thanks. Listen, the best I can figure is that you made some kind of a deal with Kreizler.”

“Deal?” Kelly echoed again, his affected ignorance starting to make me testy. He took a little more cocaine, then stepped aside when a large, well-dressed man came stumbling out of the New Brighton with two homely, garishly dressed women in tow. Kelly called good night to the man amiably, then turned back to me. “Why in the world would I cut a deal with the good doctor?”

“That’s what I don’t know!” I replied, exasperated. “The only explanation I can think of is that you once said you had a lot of respect for him. That day in your carriage—you said you’d even read a monograph of his.”

Kelly chuckled again. “That’s not likely to make me go against my own interests, Moore. I’m a practical man, after all. Just like your friend Mr. Morgan.” I looked at him blankly, and his smile widened. “Oh, sure. I know all about your meeting with the Nose.”

I thought to ask him how in hell he knew, but it really was useless—he obviously wasn’t in a cooperative mood, and I was just giving him sport. “All right,” I announced, taking a few steps away. “I’ve been through entirely too much tonight to stand out here playing who-knows-what with you, Kelly. Tell Jack he’s got a favor coming.”

At that I stormed off, or tried my best to, anyway; but I’d only gotten half the distance to the corner when I heard Kelly’s voice again:

“Say. Moore.” I turned around, and saw him still grinning. “It sounds like you people had a hell of a time.” Putting his snuffbox back in his vest, he cocked his head playfully. “I’m not saying I know anything about it, of course. But ask yourself this when you get a free minute—of all the people who were up there tonight, who do you think is really the most dangerous to the boys uptown?”

I stood there, staring dumbly at Kelly and then at the ground, trying to make sense out of his question. After half a minute, an answer started to form in my overworked brain, and my jaw dropped open a little bit. I glanced back up with a grin and was about to state my reply—but Kelly was nowhere to be seen. I had an idea to go inside after him, but quickly abandoned it: there was no point. I knew what he meant, and understood what he’d done. Paul Kelly, gangland chief, inveterate gambler, and amateur philosopher and social critic, was playing a hunch; and though none of us would likely live long enough to see the ultimate outcome of the game, I suspected that his hunch was correct.

Strangely encouraged, I turned back around and jumped into a hansom that was sitting outside Kelly’s place, fairly well screaming at the driver to take me down to East Broadway in a hurry. As my driver whipped his horse down Lafayette Place and then east on Worth Street I began to chuckle and even hum a bit. “The final riddle,” I sang, echoing Marcus’s words from earlier in the evening: I wanted to be there when they solved it.

My cab pulled up at the Kreizler Institute at just past four-thirty and parked behind Laszlo’s calash. The only sound on the street was that of a baby crying, coming from an open window in one of the tenements opposite Kreizler’s two buildings. As I paid off my cabbie and stepped to the street, I caught sight of Marcus, who was sitting on the iron steps of the Institute, smoking a cigarette and running a hand through his hair. He acknowledged me with a nervous wave, and then I went over to peer inside the calash. Stevie was lying on the seat smoking, and when he looked over and saw me he saluted with his cigarette.

“Mr. Moore,” he said amiably. “Not bad, these what the detective sergeant smokes. You oughta try one.”

“Thanks,” I said, turning around. “I think I will. Where’s Cyrus?”

“Inside,” the boy replied, lying back down. “Making ’em some coffee. They been at it for hours.” He took a deep pull on the cigarette and then held it to the sky. “You know, Mr. Moore, you wouldn’t figure a stinkhole like this city to have so many stars over it. Seems like the smell’d be enough to drive ’em away…”

I smiled and walked away from the calash. “True enough, Stevie,” I said, looking beyond Marcus to the ground-floor windows of the Institute: They were brightly lit.

I sat down next to the taller Isaacson. “You’re not inside?”

He shook his head quickly, blowing smoke out of his long, handsome nose. “I was. Thought I’d be able to stand it, but—”

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said, accepting a cigarette from him and lighting it. “I’m not going in.”

The front door of the Institute opened a crack, and I turned around to see Cyrus poking his head out. “Mr. Moore, sir?” he said. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?”

“If it’s your coffee, Cyrus,” I answered, “most certainly.”

He tilted his head and shrugged slightly. “I’m not guaranteeing anything,” he said. “I haven’t tried my hand since I got knocked on the head.”

“I’ll take a chance,” I answered. “How are they doing in there?”

“Getting on toward the end, I believe,” Cyrus answered. “Getting on toward the end…”

But it was another three quarters of an hour before there was any sign of things being wrapped up in Kreizler’s operating theater. During that time Marcus and I smoked, drank coffee, and tried, in some roundabout way, to accustom ourselves to the conclusion of our quest and the coming disbandment of our team. Whatever answers Kreizler and Lucius were uncovering in the operating theater wouldn’t change the fact that Beecham was dead. As the night wore on into morning, I realized just how much this one circumstance was becoming the conditioning force of all our lives.

Finally, at almost five-thirty, the ground-floor door opened and Lucius appeared. He was wearing a leather apron that was stained with many odorous fluids, bodily and other, and he looked utterly exhausted.

“Well,” he said, wiping his hands on a bloodstained towel, “that’s that, I suppose.” Collapsing onto the steps beside us, he produced a handkerchief and mopped at his forehead, as Cyrus came down from the front door behind him.

“That’s that?” Marcus asked, a little annoyed. “What do you mean, that’s that? What’s what, what did you find?”

“Nothing,” Lucius said, shaking his head and closing his eyes. “To all appearances, everything was perfectly normal. Dr. Kreizler’s checking a few last details, but…”

I stood up, tossing the stub of my cigarette into the street. “Then he was right,” I said quietly, as a chill ran up my back.

Lucius hunched his shoulders. “He was right so far as medicine can determine that he was right.”

Marcus continued to study his brother. “Are you trying to spoil this?” he said. “If he was right, he was right, don’t bring medicine into it.”

Lucius was about to point out the less than stellar reasoning underlying that statement, but elected instead to sigh and nod. “Yes,” he breathed, “he was right.” Lucius stood up, removed his apron, and handed it to Cyrus. “And I,” he continued, “am going home. He wants us all at Delmonico’s tonight. Eleven-thirty. Maybe by then I’ll be able to eat.” He started to wander off.

“Wait a minute,” Marcus said, as his brother stumbled away. “You’re not leaving me to walk home alone—you’ve got the gun, remember. Goodbye, John. See you tonight.”

“Tonight,” I said with a nod. “Good work, Lucius!”

The shorter Isaacson turned, rolling one hand perfunctorily. “Oh. Yes, thanks, John. You, too. And Sara, and—well, I’ll see you later.”

They strolled away down the street, chattering and arguing until they were out of sight.

The ground-floor door of the Institute opened again and Kreizler emerged, putting on his jacket. He looked even worse than Lucius: his face was pale and there were enormous circles under his eyes. It seemed to take him a moment to identify me.

“Ah, Moore,” he finally said. “I didn’t expect you. Though I am, of course, pleased.” Then, to Cyrus: “We’re finished, Cyrus. You know what to do?”

“Yes, sir. The driver with the van should be here in just a few minutes.”

“He’ll take care not to be seen?” Kreizler asked.

“He’s a very reliable man, Doctor,” Cyrus replied.

“Good. Then you can ride with him as far as Seventeenth Street. I’ll drop Moore off at Washington Square.”

Kreizler and I climbed into his rig and roused the slumbering Stevie, who turned the horse Frederick around and urged him gently forward. I didn’t press Laszlo for information, knowing that he would provide it when he’d had a few minutes to collect himself.

“Lucius told you that we found nothing?” he finally asked as we moved at an easy pace back up Broadway.

“Yes,” I answered.

“No evidence of either congenital abnormality or physical trauma,” Laszlo went on quietly. “Nor of any of the other physical peculiarities that might indicate mental disease or defect. In every way, a perfectly normal, healthy brain.” Kreizler leaned back, letting his head rest against the calash’s folded cover.

“You’re not disappointed, are you?” I asked, a bit confused by his tone. “After all, it proves that you were right—he wasn’t crazy.”

“It indicates that I was right,” Kreizler answered evenly. “We know so little about the brain, Moore…” He sighed, but then tried to rouse himself. “However, yes, to the best of our present psychological and medical knowledge, John Beecham was not insane.”

“Well,” I said, reluctantly recognizing that it was going to be difficult for Kreizler to take any satisfaction from the achievement. “Sane or not, he’s no longer a danger. And that matters more than anything.”

Laszlo turned to me as Stevie took a left turn onto Prince Street in order to avoid the intersection of Houston and Broadway. “You really didn’t feel much pity for him by the end, did you, Moore?” Laszlo asked.

“Ah,” I noised uncomfortably. “To be honest, I felt more than I wanted to. You certainly seemed shaken up by his death.”

“Not so very much by his death,” Kreizler answered, producing his silver cigarette case. “By his life. The evil stupidity that created him. And the fact that he died before we could truly study him. The entire thing seems so wretchedly futile…”

“If you wanted him alive,” I asked, as Laszlo lit a cigarette, “then why did you say that you were hoping Connor would follow us? You must have known he’d try to kill Beecham.”

“Connor,” Laszlo said, coughing a bit. “There, I must confess, is something I don’t regret about this night.”

“Well”—I tried to be judicious—“I mean, he’s dead, after all. And he did save our lives.”

“Nothing of the kind,” Kreizler replied. “McManus would have stepped in before Beecham could have done any real harm—he was watching the entire time.”

“What? Then why did he wait so long? I lost a tooth, for God’s sake!”

“Yes,” Kreizler answered uneasily, touching the small incision on his face, “he did make rather a close thing of it. But I’d told him not to interfere until he was certain the danger was mortal, because I wanted to observe as much of Beecham’s behavior as I could. As for Connor, all I was hoping for from his appearance was that we’d apprehend him. That, or…”

There was a terrible finality and loneliness in Laszlo’s voice as he said this, and I knew that I’d better change the subject if I wanted to keep him talking:

“I saw Kelly tonight. I take it you went to him because you had no other option.” Kreizler nodded, still staring off with bitterness in his black eyes. “He told me why he agreed to help you. Or rather, he hinted at it. He thinks you’re quite a danger to the status quo in this society.”

Laszlo grunted. “Perhaps he and Mr. Comstock should compare notes. Although if I’m a danger to society, such men as they will be the death of it. Particularly Comstock.”

We took a right turn on MacDougal Street, wending our way past small, dark restaurants and Italian cafés toward Washington Square. “Laszlo,” I said, after he’d grown silent again, “what did you mean when you told Beecham that you might be able to arrange a less severe fate for him? You wouldn’t have argued that he was mad, just to keep him alive for study?”

“No,” Kreizler answered. “But I intended to remove him from immediate danger, and then to plead for a life sentence rather than the electrical chair or the gallows. It had occurred to me some time ago that his observation of our efforts, his letter, even his murder of the boy Joseph, all indicated a desire to communicate with us. And when he began to answer my questions tonight, I knew that I’d found something I’d never really come across before—a man who murdered apparent strangers and was willing to talk about his crimes.” Kreizler sighed again and held up his hands weakly. “We’ve lost a tremendous opportunity. Such men will seldom do that, you see—discuss their behavior. They’re reluctant to admit their deeds after capture, and even if they do, they won’t discuss the intimate details. They don’t seem to know how. Look at Beecham’s last words—he’d never been able to say just what it was that made him kill. But I believe I could have helped him find words for it, in time.”

I studied my friend carefully. “You know that they wouldn’t have let you.” Kreizler shrugged obstinately, unwilling to concede the point. “With the political dimension this thing was assuming?” I went on. “He’d have had one of the fastest trials in recent memory, and been strung up in a matter of weeks.”

“Perhaps,” Kreizler said. “We’ll never know, now. Ah, Moore—there are so many things that we’ll never know, now…”

“Will you at least allow yourself credit for finding the man? That’s a fairly amazing feat on its own, damn it all.”

Laszlo shrugged again. “Is it? I wonder. How long would he have stayed hidden from us, John?”

“How long? Well, a good long time, I suppose—hell, he’d been at it for years.”

“Yes,” Kreizler answered, “but how much longer? The crisis was inevitable—he couldn’t go forever without society being aware of him. He wanted that, wanted it desperately. If the average person were to describe John Beecham in light of his murders, he’d say he was a social outcast, but nothing could be more superficial, or more untrue. Beecham could never have turned his back on human society, nor society on him, and why? Because he was—perversely, perhaps, but utterly—tied to that society. He was its offspring, its sick conscience—a living reminder of all the hidden crimes we commit when we close ranks to live among each other. He craved human society, craved the chance to show people what their ‘society’ had done to him. And the odd thing is, society craved him, too.”

“Craved him?” I said, as we passed along the quiet perimeter of Washington Square Park. “How do you mean? They’d have shot him through with electricity if they’d had the chance.”

“Yes, but not before holding him up to the world,” Kreizler answered. “We revel in men like Beecham, Moore—they are the easy repositories of all that is dark in our very social world. But the things that helped make Beecham what he was? Those, we tolerate. Those, we even enjoy…”

As Kreizler’s gaze drifted away again, the calash rolled to a slow stop outside my grandmother’s house. The sky was only beginning to glow in the east, but there was already a light on in the upper floors of Number 19 Washington Square. As Kreizler turned his head to take in the streets around him, he caught sight of that light, and it brought the first small smile of the morning to his face.

“How has your grandmother felt about your involvement in a murder case. Moore?” he asked. “She always took a lively interest in the macabre.”

“I haven’t told her,” I answered. “She simply thinks that my gambling habit has gotten worse. And, all things considered, I’m going to let her keep thinking that.” I got to the sidewalk with a stiff little jump. “So—we’re to be at Del’s tonight, I understand?”

Kreizler nodded once. “It seems appropriate, eh?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I’m going to call Charlie—have him tell Ranhofer to lay something really exceptional on. We deserve that much, anyway.”

Kreizler’s smile widened just a bit. “Indeed, Moore,” he said, closing the calash door and offering his hand. I shook it, and then Laszlo faced front with a small groan. “All right, Stevie.”

The boy turned and saluted to me, and then the carriage kept rolling on toward Fifth Avenue.