The Alienist Part 16

As Lasky's head cleared, his eyes focused on Kreizler. "You son of a b.i.t.c.h!" He tried to get to his feet, but it was a struggle. "Help," he gasped, spitting a little blood onto the floor. "Help! Guard in trouble!" His voice echoed out into the hall. "The old shower room! Help me, d.a.m.n it!"

I could hear running feet coming toward us from what sounded like the far end of the building. "Laszlo, we've got to move," I said quickly, knowing that we were now in very deep trouble: Lasky did not look like a man who would forgo revenge, especially if he had the aid of compatriots. Kreizler was still looking at Pomeroy, and I had to pull him out of the room. "Laszlo, d.a.m.n you!" I said. "You'll get us killed yet-pick up your feet and run!"

As we darted out the door Lasky made a dizzy lunge at us, but only succeeded in throwing himself back onto the floor. We pa.s.sed four more guards in the cell block hallway, and I quickly told them that there'd been trouble between Lasky and Pomeroy and that the guard had been hurt. Seeing that Kreizler and I were uninjured, the guards sped on their way, while I forced Laszlo to make a dash past another group of uniformed men who stood in a confused huddle at the front gate. It didn't take long for the guards inside to learn the truth of the situation, and soon they were howling threats as they chased after us. Fortunately, the old man we'd hired was still outside the prison gate with his rig, and by the time the pursuing guards appeared we were several hundred yards away from the place, making for the train station and-in my case, at least-praying that we wouldn't have to wait long once we got there.

The first train to appear belonged to a small local line and was scheduled to make a dozen stops before it reached Grand Central; our predicament being what it was, however, we accepted the lengthy protraction of our trip and hopped on board. The cars were full of small-town travelers who evidently found our appearance shocking; and I must admit, if we looked half as much like fleeing outlaws as I felt, those good people were justified in their interpretation. In order to ease their anxiety, Kreizler and I went to the last of the train's cars and stood outside its rear door on the observation platform. Watching the walls and chimneys of Sing Sing disappear into the black woods of the Hudson Valley as we sped away, I produced a small flask of whiskey, from which we both took deep pulls. When at last we could no longer see any part of the prison, we began to breathe easily again.

"You've got one h.e.l.l of a lot of explaining to do," I said to Laszlo, as we stood in the warm rush of air that blew back from the engine of the train. My feeling of relief was so p.r.o.nounced that I could not suppress a smile, though I was quite serious about wanting answers. "You can start with why we came here."

Kreizler took another pull from my flask, then studied it. "This is a particularly barbaric blend, Moore," he said, avoiding my demand for information. "I'm a bit shocked."

I drew myself up. "Kreizler..." "Kreizler..."

"Yes, yes, I know, John," he replied, waving me to silence. "You're ent.i.tled to some answers. But just where to begin?" Sighing once, Laszlo took another drink. "As I told you before, I spoke to Meyer earlier today. I gave him a complete outline of our work to date. I then told him about my-my exchange of words with Sara." Grunting once shamefacedly, Laszlo kicked at the railing of the deck. "I really must apologize to her for that."

"Yes," I replied, "you must. What did Meyer say?"

"That he found Sara's points concerning the role of a woman in the formation quite sound," Kreizler answered, still a bit contrite. "I suddenly found myself arguing with him as I'd argued with Sara." Taking another pull from the flask, Kreizler grunted again and murmured, "The fallacy, d.a.m.n it all..."

"The what?" I asked, bewildered.

"Nothing," Kreizler answered, with a shake of his head. "An aberration in my own thinking that has caused me to waste precious days. But it's of no importance now. What is is important is that as I thought the whole issue over this afternoon I found that both Meyer and Sara were right-there was powerful evidence that a woman had played an ominous role in the formation of our killer. His obsessive furtiveness, the particular breed of sadism, all such factors pointed toward the sort of conclusions that Sara had outlined. As I say, I tried to argue with Meyer, just as I'd argued with Sara, but then he brought up Jesse Pomeroy, and used my own twenty-year-old words to contradict what I was now saying. Pomeroy, after all, never even knew his own father, nor did he ever, so far as I have been able to tell, suffer excessive physical punishment as a child. Yet his was-and is-a personality in many ways similar to that of the man we seek. As you know, Pomeroy was steadfast in his unwillingness to discuss his mutilative activities at the time of his capture. I could only hope that time and solitary confinement had loosened his resolve. We were lucky there." important is that as I thought the whole issue over this afternoon I found that both Meyer and Sara were right-there was powerful evidence that a woman had played an ominous role in the formation of our killer. His obsessive furtiveness, the particular breed of sadism, all such factors pointed toward the sort of conclusions that Sara had outlined. As I say, I tried to argue with Meyer, just as I'd argued with Sara, but then he brought up Jesse Pomeroy, and used my own twenty-year-old words to contradict what I was now saying. Pomeroy, after all, never even knew his own father, nor did he ever, so far as I have been able to tell, suffer excessive physical punishment as a child. Yet his was-and is-a personality in many ways similar to that of the man we seek. As you know, Pomeroy was steadfast in his unwillingness to discuss his mutilative activities at the time of his capture. I could only hope that time and solitary confinement had loosened his resolve. We were lucky there."

I nodded, thinking back to Pomeroy's statement. "What he said about his mother, and other children, and the scrutiny he was always under-do you think that's really crucial?"

"I do, indeed," Laszlo answered, his words starting to move at a characteristically quicker clip. "And so is his p.r.o.nounced emphasis on the unwillingness of the people who inhabited his world to touch him. You remember what he said, about his own mother being unwilling to kiss his face? Quite probably the only physical contact with others that he ever knew as a boy was taunting or tormenting in nature. And from there we can draw a direct line to his violence."

"How so?"

"Well, Moore, I'll offer you yet another statement from Professor James. It's a concept that he often brought up in cla.s.s in the old days, and one which struck me like a thunderbolt the first time I read it in the Principles. Principles." Laszlo turned to the sky and tried hard to remember the exact wording. "'If all cold things were wet and all wet things cold, if all hard things p.r.i.c.ked our skin, and no other things did so; is it likely that we should discriminate between coldness and wetness, and hardness and pungency respectively?' As always, James wouldn't see this idea through to its logical conclusion, in the dynamic realm of behavior. He discussed only functions, such as taste and touch-but everything I have ever seen indicates that it works dynamically, as well. Imagine it, Moore. Imagine that you had-because of disfigurement, cruelty, or some other misfortune-never known any human touch that was not stern or even harsh. How should you feel about it?"

I shrugged and lit a cigarette. "Rotten, I guess."

"Perhaps. But in all likelihood you would not not feel that it was extraordinary. Put it this way-if I say the word 'mother' to you, your mind will immediately run through a set of unconscious but entirely familiar a.s.sociations based on experience. So will mine. And both of our sets of a.s.sociations will doubtless be a mixture of the good and the bad, as will almost any person's. But how many people will have a set of a.s.sociations as uniformly negative as we know Jesse Pomeroy's to be? Indeed, in Jesse's case we can go beyond the limited concept of mother to the notion of humanity generally. Say the word 'people' to him and his mind leaps only to images of humiliation and pain, as routinely as if I were to say 'train' to you and you were to answer 'movement.'" feel that it was extraordinary. Put it this way-if I say the word 'mother' to you, your mind will immediately run through a set of unconscious but entirely familiar a.s.sociations based on experience. So will mine. And both of our sets of a.s.sociations will doubtless be a mixture of the good and the bad, as will almost any person's. But how many people will have a set of a.s.sociations as uniformly negative as we know Jesse Pomeroy's to be? Indeed, in Jesse's case we can go beyond the limited concept of mother to the notion of humanity generally. Say the word 'people' to him and his mind leaps only to images of humiliation and pain, as routinely as if I were to say 'train' to you and you were to answer 'movement.'"

"Is that what you meant when you told Lasky that Pomeroy was enjoying the beating he was getting?"

"It was. You may have noticed that Jesse deliberately constructed that entire event. It's not hard to see why. Throughout his childhood he was surrounded by tormentors, and for the last twenty years virtually the only people he's come into contact with have been men like Lasky. His experiences, both in prison and out, cause him to believe that interaction with his own species can only be adversarial and violent-he even compares himself empathetically to an animal in a menagerie. Such is his reality. That he will be beaten and berated, given his current circ.u.mstances, he knows; all he can do is attempt to set the terms of that abuse, to manipulate the partic.i.p.ants into their actions as he once manipulated the children he tortured and killed. It's the only kind of power or satisfaction-the only method of ensuring his psychic survival-he's ever known, and he therefore employs it."

As I smoked and struggled with this idea, I began to pace the deck. "But isn't there something-well, something inside of him, inside of any person that would object to that kind of a situation? I mean, wouldn't there be sadness or despair, even about his own mother mother? The desire desire to be loved, at least? Isn't every child born with-" to be loved, at least? Isn't every child born with-"

"Be careful, Moore," Kreizler warned as he lit a cigarette of his own. "You're about to suggest that we're born with specific a priori a priori concepts of need and desire-an understandable thought, perhaps, were there any evidence to support it. The organism knows one drive from the beginning-survival. And yes, for most of us, that drive is somehow intimately bound up with the notion of a mother. But were our experiences terribly different-if the concept of mother suggested frustration and finally danger, rather than sustenance and nurturing-the instinct for survival would cause us to structure our outlook differently. Jesse Pomeroy experienced this. I now believe concepts of need and desire-an understandable thought, perhaps, were there any evidence to support it. The organism knows one drive from the beginning-survival. And yes, for most of us, that drive is somehow intimately bound up with the notion of a mother. But were our experiences terribly different-if the concept of mother suggested frustration and finally danger, rather than sustenance and nurturing-the instinct for survival would cause us to structure our outlook differently. Jesse Pomeroy experienced this. I now believe our our killer did, too." Laszlo drew heavily on his cigarette. "I can thank Pomeroy, for that. Meyer, as well. But most of all, I must thank Sara. And I intend to do so." killer did, too." Laszlo drew heavily on his cigarette. "I can thank Pomeroy, for that. Meyer, as well. But most of all, I must thank Sara. And I intend to do so."

Kreizler was true to that declaration. At one of the small towns we pa.s.sed through on our way back to Grand Central he asked the station attendant if it would be possible to send what he a.s.sured the man was an urgent wire ahead to New York. The attendant agreed and Kreizler wrote out the message, which ordered Sara to meet us at Delmonico's at eleven o'clock. Laszlo and I had no time to change for dinner once we reached the city, but Charlie Delmonico had seen us in far worse shape in our time, and when we arrived at Madison Square he made us feel as welcome as ever.

Sara was waiting at a table in the main dining room, one that looked out onto the park across Fifth Avenue and was as far from the other parties in the restaurant as possible. She expressed both concern for our safety-the wire had made her anxious-and then, once she saw that we were unharmed, great curiosity about our trip. Her manner with Kreizler, even before he offered her the promised set of apologies, was quite pleasant, and therefore odd: I wouldn't say that Sara was the sort of person to hold a grudge, exactly, but once stung she was usually very wary of the guilty party. I tried hard, however, to ignore the strange chemistry between them, and kept my attention on the business before us.

Sara said that given what we'd learned from the Pomeroy visit we could now safely a.s.sume that our man was, like Jesse, extremely sensitive about his physical appearance. Such sensitivity, she said, more than explained the profundity of the anger toward children: being perpetually mocked and cast out during one's early years would, obviously, produce a fury that time alone would not necessarily extinguish. Kreizler also tended toward the theory that our man was in some way physically deformed. I, however, having several weeks earlier been the first to advance such a theory, now warned both of them to be very careful about accepting it. We already knew that the man we were pursuing stood over six feet tall and could get up and down the sides of buildings by way of a simple rope while carrying an adolescent boy: if he was deformed, it could not be in his arms or his legs, or anywhere, really, save his face-and that would narrow our search down quite a bit. Kreizler said that, given this consideration, he was prepared to narrow things down still further by declaring that it was the killer's eyes that were the location of his deformity. The man was concentrating on his victims' ocular organs more carefully and consistently than even Pomeroy had done, a fact that Kreizler considered more than significant: it was, he said, decisive.

Throughout our meal Kreizler encouraged Sara to at last fully explain what sort of a woman she thought might have played the kind of sinister role in our killer's life that she'd postulated a week earlier. Jumping right in, Sara said she believed that only a mother could have had the kind of profound impact that was evident in this case. An abusive governess or female relative might be harrowing for a child, but if that child had recourse to his natural mother for protection and consolation the effect would have been dramatically reduced. It was apparent to Sara that the man we were after had never known such recourse, a circ.u.mstance that could be explained in a number of ways; but Sara's preferred theory was that the woman had not wished to bear children in the first place. She'd only done so, Sara speculated, because she'd either become pregnant or had been offered no other socially acceptable role to play by the particular world in which she lived. The end result of all this was that the woman had deeply resented the children she did bear, and for this reason Sara thought there was an excellent chance that the killer was either an only child or had very few siblings: childbearing was not an experience that the mother would have wanted to repeat many times. Any physical deformity in one of the children she did have would, of course, have heightened the mother's already negative feelings toward that child, but Sara did not believe that deformity alone was enough to explain such a relations.h.i.+p. Kreizler agreed with her on this point, saying that while Jesse Pomeroy attributed all his difficulties with his mother to his appearance, there were certainly additional and deeper factors involved as well.

One conclusion was becoming increasingly clear from all this: it was unlikely that we were dealing with people who enjoyed the advantages of wealth. In the first place, wealthy parents are seldom obliged to cope with their children if they find them troublesome or undesirable. Then, too, a young woman of means in the 1860s (the period during which, we suspected, our killer had been born) could have devoted her life to pursuits other than motherhood, though such a choice would admittedly have prompted more criticism and comment at that time than it would have some thirty years later. Of course, an accidental pregnancy could happen to anyone, rich or poor; but the extreme s.e.xual and scatological fixations displayed by our killer had suggested to Sara close scrutiny and frequent humiliation, and these in turn spoke of a life lived at very close quarters-the kind of life that poverty breeds. Sara was delighted to hear that Dr. Meyer had voiced the same thoughts during his conversation with Kreizler earlier that day; and she was even more delighted when Kreizler offered a very decent salute to her efforts as we drank some final gla.s.ses of port.

This moment of relaxed satisfaction pa.s.sed quickly, however. Kreizler produced his small notebook and reminded us that there were just five short days till the Feast of the Ascension, the next significant date on the Christian calendar. It was now time, he said, for our investigation to dispense with an att.i.tude of pure research and a.n.a.lysis and move toward a posture of engagement. We had gained a good general idea of what our killer looked like, as well as how, where, and when he would strike. We were ready at last to try to antic.i.p.ate and prevent that next move. I felt a sudden flood of anxiety in the pit of my very full stomach at that statement, and Sara looked to be experiencing much the same sort of reaction. But we both knew that this development was inevitable; was, indeed, what we'd been actively working toward since the beginning. And so we stiffened our resolve as we left the restaurant and gave no voice to any sort of apprehension.

Once outside I felt a very meaningful tug on my arm from Sara. I turned to find her looking away from me, but in a way that clearly indicated that she wanted to talk. When Kreizler offered to share a hansom with her as far as Gramercy Park she declined, and as soon as he was gone she ushered me into Madison Square Park and under a gas lamp.

"Well?" I said, noticing that her aspect had become somewhat agitated. "This had better be important, Sara. It's been a h.e.l.l of an evening, and I'm-"

"It is is important," Sara answered quickly, producing a folded sheet of paper from her bag. "That is, I important," Sara answered quickly, producing a folded sheet of paper from her bag. "That is, I think think it is." Her brows came together and she seemed to be weighing something carefully before showing me the paper. "John, how much do you actually know about Dr. Kreizler's past? His family, I mean." it is." Her brows came together and she seemed to be weighing something carefully before showing me the paper. "John, how much do you actually know about Dr. Kreizler's past? His family, I mean."

I was surprised by the topic. "His family? As much as anyone, I suppose. I visited them quite a bit when I was a boy."

"Were they-were they, well, happy?"

I shrugged. "Always seemed to be. With good reason, too. His parents were about the most socially sought-after couple in town. You wouldn't know it to see them now, of course. Laszlo's father had a stroke a couple of years ago, and they stay pretty shut up. They have a house on Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue."

"Yes," Sara said quickly, surprising me again. "I know."

"Well," I went on, "back then they were always throwing big parties and introducing luminaries from all over Europe into New York society. It was quite a scene-we all loved going there. But why do you ask, Sara? What's this all about?"

She paused, sighed, and then held the piece of paper out to me. "I've been trying all week to understand why he was sticking so stubbornly to the idea that a violent father and a pa.s.sive mother raised our killer. I developed a theory, and went through the records of the Fifteenth Precinct to test it. This is what I found."

The doc.u.ment was a report filed by one Roundsman O'Bannion, who, on a September night in 1862-when Laszlo was a boy of only six-had investigated a domestic disturbance at the Kreizler home. The yellowing report contained just a few details: it spoke of Laszlo's father, apparently drunk, spending the night in the precinct house under a charge of a.s.sault (the charge was later dropped), and then of a local surgeon being brought to the Kreizler home to treat a young boy whose left arm had been badly shattered.

Conclusions weren't hard to draw; given my lifelong acquaintance with Laszlo, however, as well as the image I'd always had of his family, my mind resisted them. "But," I said, refolding the doc.u.ment absentmindedly, "but we were told that he fell..."

Sara let out a deep breath. "Apparently not."

During a long pause I looked around at the park, somewhat stunned. Familiar conceptions die hard, and their pa.s.sage can be d.a.m.ned disorienting; for a few moments the trees and buildings of Madison Square looked strangely different. Then an image of Laszlo as a boy suddenly flashed through my head, followed by another of his big, outwardly gregarious father and his vivacious mother. As I saw these faces and forms I simultaneously remembered the comment that Jesse Pomeroy had made during our visit to Sing Sing about chopping off people's arms; and from there my mind leapt to a seemingly meaningless remark that Laszlo himself had made on the train ride home: "'The fallacy, d.a.m.n it all,'" I whispered.

"What did you say, John?" Sara asked quietly.

I shook my head hard, trying to clear it. "Something Kreizler mentioned tonight. About how much time he's wasted in the last few days. He spoke of 'the fallacy,' but I didn't get the reference. Now, though..."

Sara gasped a little as she, too, realized the answer. "The psychologist's fallacy," she said. "In James's Principles. Principles."

I nodded. "The business about a psychologist getting his own point of view mixed up with his subject's. That's what's had him in its grip." A few more silent moments pa.s.sed, and then I looked down at the report, feeling a sudden sense of practical urgency that made me put off the nearly impossible task of absorbing the full implications of the doc.u.ment. "Sara," I said. "Have you discussed this with anyone else?" She shook her head slowly. "And do they know at headquarters that you took the report?" Another shake of the head. "But you've realized what it suggests?" She nodded this time and I reciprocated; then, slowly and deliberately, I tore the report into pieces, and set them on a patch of gra.s.s.

Pulling a box of matches from my pocket and striking one, I started to light the bits of paper, saying firmly, "No one is to know anything about this. Your own curiosity's been satisfied, and if his behavior becomes erratic again, we'll know why. But beyond that, no good can ever come of its getting out. Do you agree?"

Sara crouched by me and nodded once more. "I'd already decided the same thing."

We watched the burning pieces of paper turn into flakes of smoking ash, both of us silently hoping that this would be the last we'd ever need to speak of the matter, that Laszlo's behavior would never again warrant investigation into his past. But as it turned out, the unhappy tale so sketchily referred to in the now-incinerated report did surface again at a later point in our investigation, to cause a very real-indeed an almost fatal-crisis.

CHAPTER 25.

The idea of placing New York's chief boy-pandering venues under careful scrutiny on those days when we thought our killer might strike originated with Lucius Isaacson. There was no denying that it would be a delicate piece of work. Every one of those bars and brothels could expect to lose a significant number of patrons if it became known that they were being watched. Cooperation from the proprietors was therefore highly unlikely: we'd have to position ourselves so as to elude both their notice and our killer's. Lucius readily admitted that he didn't have enough experience with such operations to chart a prudent course, so we summoned the one member of our band who we thought could provide expert advice: Stevie Taggert. Stevie had spent a good part of his criminal career robbing houses and flats, and the ways of surrept.i.tious surveillance were known to him. I think the young man suspected he was in some kind of trouble when he walked into our headquarters that Sat.u.r.day afternoon and found the rest of us seated in a semicircle and staring at him eagerly. And since Kreizler had often told Stevie that he should try to forget his criminal ways, it was doubly difficult to convince the suspicious boy to talk about such things. Once satisfied that we really did need his help, however, Stevie pursued the conversation with what seemed real enjoyment.

We had originally thought to place one member of our team outside each of the houses most likely to be visited: Paresis Hall, the Golden Rule, Shang Draper's in the Tenderloin, the Slide on Bleecker Street, and Frank Stephenson's Black and Tan, also on Bleecker, a dive that offered white women and children to black and Oriental men. But this plan, Stevie a.s.sured us as he chewed noisily on a thick piece of licorice, was badly flawed. First of all, we knew that the killer was traveling via rooftops: we would be more a.s.sured of success, and less likely to raise suspicions, if we attempted to intercept him on one of those high arenas. Furthermore, even discounting the quite physical opposition that we might run into from the house managers in the course of our efforts, there was the fact that the man we were hoping to catch was large and powerful: he could easily turn the tables and get the drop on us, us, given his familiarity with rooftop navigation. Stevie recommended placing two operatives at each site, which meant that we would not only have to enlist three more partic.i.p.ants (Cyrus, Roosevelt, and Stevie himself eventually filled out the list) but also eliminate one location. According to Stevie, this last problem was easily solved; he found it extremely unlikely that our killer would venture into the Tenderloin, a noisy, crowded, brightly lit area that offered too many chances of being seen or apprehended. Nonchalantly taking a cigarette from a box on my desk and lighting it, Stevie said that we could therefore dispense with Shang Draper's; and as he blew little rings of smoke, he went on to recommend that we gain access to the various rooftops involved by entering adjacent buildings under false pretenses. This would help to ensure that things seemed thoroughly natural to the killer when and if he showed up. Kreizler nodded in agreement, then plucked Stevie's cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it on the floor. Disappointed, the boy went back to his licorice. given his familiarity with rooftop navigation. Stevie recommended placing two operatives at each site, which meant that we would not only have to enlist three more partic.i.p.ants (Cyrus, Roosevelt, and Stevie himself eventually filled out the list) but also eliminate one location. According to Stevie, this last problem was easily solved; he found it extremely unlikely that our killer would venture into the Tenderloin, a noisy, crowded, brightly lit area that offered too many chances of being seen or apprehended. Nonchalantly taking a cigarette from a box on my desk and lighting it, Stevie said that we could therefore dispense with Shang Draper's; and as he blew little rings of smoke, he went on to recommend that we gain access to the various rooftops involved by entering adjacent buildings under false pretenses. This would help to ensure that things seemed thoroughly natural to the killer when and if he showed up. Kreizler nodded in agreement, then plucked Stevie's cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it on the floor. Disappointed, the boy went back to his licorice.

When to begin and end our surveillance was the next issue addressed. Would the murderer visit the chosen disorderly house on the eve of Ascension Day, and actually kill his victim during the small hours of the feast itself, or would he wait until the next night? His pattern suggested the latter, probably because, Kreizler explained, the anger which he felt (for whatever range of reasons) mounted throughout the daytime hours on the holidays selected, perhaps as he observed people going to and coming from holiday church services. Whatever the specific trigger, nightfall brought an unstoppable explosion. None of us could argue this reasoning; and so it was decided that we would position ourselves on Thursday night.

With the plan complete I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. Marcus inquired as to my destination and I told him I was going down to the Golden Rule to see the boy Joseph and provide him with details of the killer's appearance and method.

"Is that wise?" Lucius asked in a worried tone, as he stacked some papers on his desk. "We're only five days away from putting this plan in motion, John. We don't want to do anything that would complicate matters by changing the normal routines of those places."

Sara looked puzzled. "Surely there's nothing wrong with giving the boys every chance to avoid danger."

"Of course," Lucius answered quickly, "I'm not suggesting we put anybody in any more danger than we can avoid. It's just that-well, we've got to set this trap carefully."

"As always, the detective sergeant has a point," Kreizler said, taking my arm and walking to the door with me. "Be careful how much you tell your young friend, Moore."

"All I'm asking," Lucius went on, "is that we not reveal the probable date of the next attack. We're not even sure that that's when it's going to happen-but if it does, and if the boys have been alerted, the killer will almost certainly sense something. You can tell him anything else you feel is necessary."

"A reasonable arrangement," Kreizler decided, with a wave toward Lucius. Then, as I entered the elevator, Laszlo lowered his voice: "And remember, John, there's a very good chance that, while you may be helping the boy by warning him, you may also put him at great risk if you're seen in his company. Avoid it if you can."

After walking to the Golden Rule I arranged to meet Joseph in a small billiard parlor around the corner. When he arrived I noticed that his face was quite rosy after being scrubbed free of the usual paint, a fact that touched me. I remembered that our first interaction had involved a similar cleaning of Joseph's face; and I was struck by the thought that he hadn't wanted me to see him all made up this time, either. Indeed, his entire manner did not seem that of a boy-wh.o.r.e, when he was dealing with me, but rather that of a young man who desperately needed an older male friend; or was I I now suffering from Professor James's famous fallacy, and allowing the way in which Joseph reminded me of my brother to influence my reading of the boy's behavior? now suffering from Professor James's famous fallacy, and allowing the way in which Joseph reminded me of my brother to influence my reading of the boy's behavior?

Joseph ordered himself a short beer in a manner that suggested he'd done so many times before (and which ruled out my presuming to lecture him about the perils of alcohol). As we started to knock some ivory b.a.l.l.s around a table casually, I told Joseph I had some new information about the man who'd killed Ali ibn-Ghazi, and I asked him to pay very close attention, so that he'd be able to pa.s.s the news on to his friends. Then I launched into a physical description: The man was tall, I said, about six-foot-two, and very strong. He was capable of lifting a boy like Joseph, or someone even larger, without difficulty. Yet despite his size and strength, there was something wrong with him, something that he was very sensitive about. It was probably some part of his face; maybe his eyes. They might be injured, scarred, deformed in some way. Whatever the problem, he didn't like it when people mentioned it or looked at it. Joseph said that he'd never noticed such a man, but that a lot of the Golden Rule's customers hid their faces when they came in. I told him to watch for it in future, and went on to the subject of what the man might wear. Nothing fancy, I said, because he didn't want to attract attention to himself. Also, he probably didn't have much money, which meant that he couldn't afford expensive clothes. It was likely, as Marcus had told Joseph during our last visit, that he would be carrying a large bag; inside that bag were tools he used to climb up and down walls, in order to reach the rooms of the boys he was after without being detected.

Then came the hard part: I told Joseph that the man was especially careful about not being seen because he'd been in all the houses like the Golden Rule before and might be very easy for some (maybe most) of the boys to identify. He might even be someone they knew and trusted, someone who'd helped them out, who'd tried to show them how to make new lives for themselves. A settlement or charity worker, perhaps-maybe even a priest. The main thing was that he didn't look or sound like someone who could do the things he'd been doing.

Joseph kept track of all these details by ticking them off on his fingers, and when I'd finished he nodded and said, "Okay, okay, I've got it. But do you mind if I ask you something, Mr. Moore?"

"Fire away," I answered.

"Well, then-how is it you know all these things about the guy, anyway?"

"Sometimes," I said with a small laugh, "I'm a little confused about that, myself. Why?"

Joseph smiled, but also began to kick his legs nervously. "It's only because-well, a lot of my friends, they didn't believe me when I told them what you said last time. They didn't see how anybody could know. Thought maybe I was making it up. And then, a lot of people are going around saying it isn't even a person that's doing it. Some kind of-ghost, or something. That's what some people say."

"Yes. I've heard. But you'll be doing yourself a favor if you ignore that kind of talk. There's a man behind it, all right. I can guarantee that, Joseph." I rubbed my hands together. "Now, then-how about a game?"

Over the years I've heard people say that the game of billiards (three-cus.h.i.+on, pocket, or what have you) is nothing more or less than a fast way for a young man to go to the devil. But the way I saw it, a career as a professional gambler-that nightmare of so many mothers and fathers in this city-would've been nothing but a step up for this boy; and so for the next hour or so I taught him most of the tricks of the table that I knew: it was a pleasant time, jarred only by the occasional recollection of where Joseph would be heading when we parted company. There was nothing, however, for me to do about that: such boys were their own men.

It was nearly dark by the time I got back to our headquarters, which was still alive with activity. Sara was on the telephone with Roosevelt, attempting to explain that there was no one else we could trust to fill the eighth surveillance spot on Thursday night and that he would therefore have to come along. Normally, Theodore would have required no urging; but recently his troubles at Mulberry Street had multiplied. Two of the men who sat on the Board of Commissioners with him, along with the chief of police, had decided to side with Boss Platt and the antireform forces. Roosevelt was being scrutinized more closely than ever by his enemies, in the hope that he would commit some indiscretion that would justify his dismissal. He did agree to be part of the surveillance effort, ultimately; but he had real misgivings.

Kreizler and the Isaacsons, meanwhile, were engaged in another spirited discussion of our killer's timing. Lucius had postulated that the one inconsistency in the man's schedule-the killing of Giorgio Santorelli on March 3rd-could be accounted for by the deceptively mundane phrase "I decided to wait" in the note to Mrs. Santorelli. It was distinctly possible, the younger Isaacson elaborated, that the sighting and selection of a victim were as crucial in their own way to the murderer's psychic satisfaction as the act of killing itself. Kreizler quite approved of this theory, and added that so long as the man experienced no interference with his intended goal-to murder the boy-he might even derive s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure from the delay. This meant that the Santorelli killing could be made to fit the overall timing pattern, because the critical mental event had occurred on Ash Wednesday.

Laszlo and the Isaacsons parted company, however, over the question of whether the man struck on some holidays but not others because he was only angered by certain religious stories and events. Kreizler didn't like this idea, because it got back to the notion of a religious maniac, a man obsessively, dementedly absorbed in the arcana of the Christian faith. Laszlo was still willing to consider the possibility that the man was (or at some point in his life had been) a priest; but he could not see any reason why, say, the tale of the Three Wise Men should not offer sufficient cause to kill, whereas the purification of the Virgin Mary apparently did. Marcus and Lucius protested that there had to be some some reason why only certain holidays were selected, and Kreizler did agree; but he said that we simply hadn't found the contextual key to that particular part of the puzzle yet. reason why only certain holidays were selected, and Kreizler did agree; but he said that we simply hadn't found the contextual key to that particular part of the puzzle yet.

There being no guarantee that our Ascension Day surveillance plan would produce any results, we all pursued alternate lines of inquiry during the days leading up to it. Marcus and I kept diligently after our priest theory, while Kreizler, Lucius, and Sara engaged in a new and promising activity: canva.s.sing asylums throughout our own and various other parts of the country, by cable and in person, to see if any of them had treated a patient who matched our emerging portrait within the last fifteen years. Despite his firm conviction that our killer was sane, Kreizler hoped that the man's idiosyncrasies had caused his commitment at some earlier point in his life. Perhaps when his secret taste for blood had first emerged he had committed some indiscretion that the average person (not to mention the average asylum superintendent) would have a.s.sumed was a symptom of some form of insanity. Whatever the exact circ.u.mstances, asylums kept fairly extensive records as a rule, and checking them seemed a prudent investment of time and energy.

On Ascension Eve we apportioned our responsibilities for the next night: Marcus and Sara, the latter carrying both her firearms, would take up watch on the roof of the Golden Rule; Kreizler and Roosevelt would man Paresis Hall, where Theodore's authority would be sufficient to keep Biff Ellison in line if there was trouble; Lucius and Cyrus would cover the Black and Tan, Cyrus's color offering a convenient explanation for their presence should such prove necessary; and Stevie and I would be just down Bleecker Street, atop the Slide. Positioned outside each of these houses would be several street arabs of Stevie's acquaintance, who, without being told any details of the operation, could be dispatched to bring a.s.sistance from the other locations in the event something did happen at any one of them. Roosevelt thought that this task might be better served by policemen, but Kreizler vehemently opposed such an idea. Privately, Laszlo told me he suspected that any contact between officers of the law and the killer would result in the latter's quick death, Theodore's prohibitive orders notwithstanding. We had now experienced enough mysterious interference to know that there were forces far more powerful than Roosevelt at work, and those forces unquestionably had as their goal the complete suppression of the case. It was obvious that such a result could best be achieved through a quick dispatch of the apprehended suspect, which would circ.u.mvent the need for a trial with all its attendant publicity. Kreizler was determined to prevent this outcome, not only because it would be grievously criminal, but because it would eliminate any possibility of the killer's being examined to learn his motives as well.

As it turned out, all our anxious antic.i.p.ation of what might happen on Ascension Day was in vain, for the night pa.s.sed without incident. We took up our various surveillance positions and spent the long, slow hours until six A.M A.M. battling no greater enemy than boredom. As a result, the days that followed were full of more useless arguments over why the killer should have elected to strike on Good Friday but not on Ascension Day. There was a growing feeling, voiced first by Sara, that the coincidence of the holidays and the murders might be nothing more than that; but Marcus and I remained firmly committed to the idea that our killer's calendar and that of the Christian faith were somehow connected, since this theory only helped our hypothesis about a rogue or defrocked priest being the killer. We urged that our interceptive sights be set on the next significant holiday-Pentecost, just eleven days after the Feast of the Ascension-and that we try to use the intervening time as productively as possible. Sad to say, though, Marcus and I ran into a brick wall with our priest research; and it began to seem that our entire theory might not be very much more than a well-reasoned waste of time.

Our teammates, on the other hand, did achieve some progress during the week before Pentecost: answers to the cables and letters that Sara, Lucius, and Kreizler had sent out to almost every reputable asylum in the country began to trickle in. Most of them were firmly negative, but a few offered hope, reporting that a man or men of the general physical stature that Kreizler had described, and characterized by at least some of the mental symptoms he'd noted, had been committed within their walls at some point during the past fifteen years. A few inst.i.tutions even sent copies of case files along; and while none of these ultimately proved of any value, a brief note postmarked Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., did create quite a stir one afternoon.

On that day I happened to be watching as Lucius strolled through the room, carrying a batch of the asylum letters and case files. He caught sight of something, then suddenly spun on his heels, dropped the pile of papers, and stared at Kreizler's desk. His eyes went quite wide for a moment, and his forehead almost instantly began to perspire; but as he took out a handkerchief and began to mop the sweat away, his voice remained steady.

"Doctor-" he said to Laszlo, who was standing by the door talking with Sara. "This note from the superintendent of St. Elizabeth's-have you looked at it?"

"Only once," Kreizler answered, crossing over to where Lucius stood. "It didn't seem to offer very much."

"Yes, that was what I thought." Lucius picked up the letter. "The description's awfully vague-the reference to 'some sort of facial tic,' for instance, might cover a lot of ground."

Kreizler studied Lucius. "But, Detective Sergeant...?" Detective Sergeant...?"

"But-" Lucius grappled with his thought. "Well, it's the postmark, Doctor: Was.h.i.+ngton. St. Elizabeth's is the federal government's princ.i.p.al asylum for the insane, isn't it?"

Kreizler paused for a moment; and then his black eyes jumped in their quick, electric way. "That's right," he said, quietly yet urgently. "But since they never mentioned the man's background, I didn't-" He knocked a fist against his forehead. "Fool!"

Laszlo made a dash for the telephone, and Lucius followed. "Given the legal situation in the capital," Lucius said, "it would hardly represent an unusual case."

"You've a mastery of understatement, Detective Sergeant," Kreizler said. "There are several such cases every year, year, in the capital!" in the capital!"

Sara was walking toward them, drawn by the excitement. "Lucius? What is it, what's struck you?"

"The postmark," Lucius said again, slapping at the letter. "There's a very troublesome little codicil to the Was.h.i.+ngton laws that deal with insanity and the involuntary commitment of patients to asylums. If the patient hasn't actually been adjudicated insane in the District of Columbia but is confined to a Was.h.i.+ngton inst.i.tution, he can apply for a writ of habeas corpus habeas corpus-and he stands an almost one hundred percent chance of being released."

"Why's that so troublesome?" I asked.

"Because," Lucius said, as Kreizler attempted to get a telephone line through to Was.h.i.+ngton, "so many mental patients in that city, especially at St. Elizabeth's, have been sent there from other parts of the country."

"Oh?" Now it was Marcus's turn to draw near. "Why's that?"

Lucius took a deep breath, his own excitement mounting. "Because St. Elizabeth's is the receiving hospital for soldiers and sailors who've been judged unfit for military duty. Unfit-because of mental illness."

The slow, drifting way in which Sara, Marcus, and I had been approaching Lucius and Kreizler now became something of a stampede. "It didn't occur to us at first," Lucius explained, shying away from our advance, "because there's no mention of the man's background in the letter. Only descriptions of his appearance and his symptoms-delusions of persecution and persistent cruelty. But if he did, in fact, see military service and was sent to St. Elizabeth's-well, there's a chance, a slim but real chance that it's-" Lucius paused, seemingly afraid to say the word: "him."

The idea seemed a sound one; but our mood of hopefulness was fairly well dashed by Kreizler's 'phone call. After being kept waiting for quite a while, he did finally manage to get the superintendent of St. Elizabeth's on the line, but the man treated Laszlo's request for further information with the utmost contempt. Apparently, he knew all about the notorious Dr. Kreizler and felt the way many asylum superintendents did about my friend. Kreizler asked if there wasn't some other member of the hospital staff who could look into the matter, to which the superintendent replied that his staff was severely overworked and had already lent "extraordinary" a.s.sistance in this matter. If Kreizler wanted to rummage through the hospital's records, he could d.a.m.ned well come down to Was.h.i.+ngton and do so himself.

The difficulty was that Kreizler couldn't just drop everything and shoot off to the capital-none of us could, for we were just a couple of days away from Pentecost. There was nothing to do but put the trip to Was.h.i.+ngton at the top of the list of things to be attended to after our next all-night vigil, then swallow our excitement and patiently focus on the immediate job to be done. Given the poor results that had attended our Ascension Day efforts, however, I couldn't help feeling that such focus was going to prove somewhat difficult to achieve.

Nonetheless, when Pentecost Sunday (the feast celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles) arrived we all returned to our various nocturnal aeries and waited again for the appearance of our killer. I cannot say what the mood on the other three rooftops was; but for Stevie and myself, up above the Slide, boredom struck early. It being Sunday night fairly little noise echoed up from Bleecker Street, while the occasional grunt and hiss of the Sixth Avenue Elevated nearby evolved in quality from monotonous to somewhat lulling. Before long it was all I could do to stay awake.

At about twelve-thirty I glanced over to see Stevie quietly laying out a deck of cards in thirteen piles on the tar in front of him. "Solitaire?" I whispered.