The Alienist Part 8

"Because Gloria never left this room."

"Never-" It occurred to me that I'd been up too long and had too much to drink: I was having trouble following the kid. "What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you what I mean. That night, I was in the hallway, outside my room, with a customer. I saw Gloria come in here, alone. I was out there for a good hour, and her door never opened. I figured she was asleep. My customer left after buying me a couple of drinks-the guy didn't want to pay the price for Sally. That's me. Sally's expensive, and he didn't have what it takes. So I stood there another half an hour, waiting for somebody else to wander up. I didn't feel like working the floor. And then one of the girls comes screaming in, saying that a cop just told her they found Gloria dead downtown. I ran right in here, and sure enough, she was gone. But she never left."

"Well..." I tried hard to figure it. "The window, then." As I crossed to it, I stumbled a bit; I really did need some sleep. The window groaned as I opened it, and when I put my head out, the air wasn't as cold as it should have been.

"The window?" I heard Sally say. "How? Did she fly? It's a straight drop down, and Gloria didn't have a ladder, or rope, or anything. Besides, I asked one of the girls working the front of the alley if she saw Gloria come out that way. She said no."

The drop from the window to the alley was indeed a precipitous one; it seemed an unlikely escape route. As for the roof, it was another two stories up, along a brick wall that offered no apparent purchases, and was without a fire escape of any kind. I came back inside and closed the window. "Then-" I said. "Then..."

Suddenly I collapsed onto the bed. Sally let out one little shriek at that, and then another when she looked toward the door. Following her glance with difficulty, I saw Ellison, Razor Riley, and a couple of their favorites in the doorway. Riley had his trademark out, and was wiping it back and forth across the palm of one hand. Despite the condition of my mind, I knew instantly that they'd slipped chloral into my beer. A lot of chloral.

"I told you not to talk to anybody, Moore," Ellison said. And then to the youths: "Well, girls-he's a pretty one to look at, ain't he? Who wants to have some fun with the reporter?"

Two of the young painted men leapt onto the bed and began to tug at my clothes. I was able to get halfway up and onto my elbows before Riley raced over and laid a shot on my jaw. Going back down, I recall hearing the singer downstairs launch into "You Made Me What I Am Today-I Hope You're Satisfied"; then the two youths were fighting over my billfold and tearing at my pants as Riley began to bind my hands.

Unconsciousness was coming fast-but just before it arrived, I thought I caught a glimpse of Stevie Taggert jumping into the room like a wild wolf cub, brandis.h.i.+ng a long piece of wood studded with rusty nails...

CHAPTER 12.

The drug-induced dream that followed was peopled by bizarre creatures, half-human and half-animal, that flew, climbed, and slithered down the sides of a high stone wall while I watched in despair, unable to get to the ground. At one point, the primeval landscape around the wall was shaken by an earthquake that seemed to speak with Kreizler's voice, after which the creatures in my dream became more numerous and my need to get to the ground more desperate. Consciousness, when it finally came, brought little relief, for I had no idea where I was. My head felt remarkably clear, from which I took it that I'd been asleep for many hours; but the airy, expansive room around me was completely strange. Spottily furnished with a combination of clerical desks and elegant Italian appointments, it seemed a nonsensical chamber, well suited to another dream. Arched windows in the style of the Gothic Revival ringed the s.p.a.ce, and gave it the feel of a monastery; but the s.p.a.cious dimensions were more like those of a Broadway sweatshop. Anxious to inspect the place more closely, I tried to get up, but fell back in a slight swoon; and since there seemed to be no one about to call to for a.s.sistance, I was forced to content myself with studying my strange surroundings while flat on my back.

I was lying on some sort of a divan, which I would have dated as early nineteenth century. Its green and silver covering matched several chairs, as well as a sofa and love seat, that were nearby. On one long, inlaid mahogany dining table stood a silver candelabra, next to which was a Remington typewriter. This incongruity was echoed in the room's wall hangings: Across from my divan, an ostentatiously framed oil view of Florence hung next to an enormous map of Manhattan that was encrusted with several pins. The pins bore small red flags. On the opposite wall was a large chalkboard, notably blank, and beneath this black patch sat the most substantial of the five clerical desks, which together formed a ring at the outer perimeter of the room. Large fans hung from the ceiling, and two enormous Persian carpets, with elaborate designs against a deep green background, covered the center of the floor.

It wasn't any sane person's living quarters, and it certainly wasn't an office. Hallucination, I began to think-but then I looked out the window directly in front of me and saw two familiar sights: the top of McCreery's department store, with its elegant mansard roof and cast-iron arched windows, and, to the left, a similar top section of the St. Denis Hotel. The two inst.i.tutions, I knew, occupied opposite corners of Eleventh Street, on the west side of Broadway.

"Then I must be-across the street," I mumbled, just as sounds began to reach my ears from outside: the rhythmic clicking of horses' hooves, and the drag of metal trolley car wheels against track. Then, suddenly, a loud bell tolled. I spun to my left as fast as my condition would allow, and out another arched window I saw what I knew to be the spire of Grace Church, on Tenth Street. It seemed close enough to touch.

Finally, I heard human voices, and used all my strength to sit up on the divan. I had questions at the ready, but was struck silent by the image of half a dozen workmen, none of whom I recognized, rolling first a very ornate carved billiard table and then a baby grand piano into the room atop small, wheeled sleds. As they huffed and cursed at each other, one of them noticed that I was sitting up.

"Hey!" he said with a grin. "Will ya lookit that-Mr. Moore's awake! How are ya, Mr. Moore?" The other men all smiled and tipped their caps, not seeming to expect an answer.

Talking was more difficult than I'd antic.i.p.ated, and I could only manage "Where am I? Who are you?"

"Fools is what we are," the same man said. "Been riding on top of the lift with that d.a.m.ned billiard table-only way to get it up here. A d.a.m.ned crazy stunt, but the doc's paying, and he says it goes up."

"Kreizler?" I said.

"The same," the man answered.

I became distracted by a slight discomfort in my stomach. "I'm hungry," I said.

"And so you should be," said a female voice in reply, from somewhere in the back recesses of the enormous room. "Two nights and a day without food will have that effect, John." From out of the shadows came Sara, dressed in a simple navy dress that did not enc.u.mber her movements. She carried a tray, on which sat a steaming bowl. "Try some broth and bread, it'll give you strength."

"Sara!" I said with difficulty, as she sat on the divan and placed the tray on my lap. "Where am I?"

But her attention was distracted when the workmen, having seen her sit next to me, began to whisper among themselves and then laughed conspiratorially. Sara spoke quietly without looking at them: "Mr. Jonas and his men, being unaware of our undertaking and knowing that I'm not a servant, seem to think my status here is something on the order of group mistress." She began pouring the salty, delicious chicken broth into me. "The amazing thing is that they all have wives..."

I interrupted my happy slurping long enough to say, "But Sara-where are are we?" we?"

"We're at home, John. At least, it'll have to pa.s.s for home for as long as this investigation takes."

"Next to Grace Church and across the street from McCreery's-that's home?"

"Our headquarters," she answered, and I could see that she very much enjoyed the word. Then her aspect grew concerned. "Speaking of which, I've got to get back to Mulberry Street and report to Theodore. The telephone line has been installed, he's been anxious about that." She turned toward the back of the room. "Cyrus! Can you come out and help Mr. Moore?"

Cyrus soon joined us, the sleeves of his blue and white striped s.h.i.+rt rolled up and a pair of suspenders strapped over his broad chest. He looked at me with more concern than sympathy, clearly not wanting to a.s.sume the task of spoon-feeding.

"That's all right," I said, taking the utensil from Sara. "I'm feeling much better, I can manage. But, Sara, you haven't told me-"

"Cyrus knows everything," she answered, grabbing a simple coat from an elaborately detailed oak stand that stood by the door. "And I'm late. Finish the broth, John. Mr. Jonas!" She disappeared out the door. "I'll need the elevator!"

Seeing that I was, in fact, able to feed myself, Cyrus seemed to relax considerably, and pulled up one of the delicate, straight-backed chairs with the silver and green upholstery. "You're looking much better, sir," he said.

"I'm alive," I answered. "And even more remarkably, I'm in New York. I was sure I'd wake up in South America, or on a privateering s.h.i.+p. Tell me, Cyrus-my last memory is of Stevie. Did he...?"

"Yes, sir," Cyrus answered evenly. "Confidentially, he's had his share of trouble sleeping since he saw the body on the bridge. He was out roaming the neighborhood that night, when he saw you walking down Broadway. He said you looked-kind of unsteady on your feet, sir, so he followed you. Just to be sure you'd be all right. When he saw you go into Paresis Hall, he figured he'd wait outside. Understandably. But then a policeman caught sight of him, and accused him of the usual activity for that spot. Stevie denied it, and told the cop he was waiting for you. The officer didn't believe him, and so Stevie bolted into the Hall. He wasn't trying to rescue you, he was just trying to escape-but the way things worked out, the one was the other. The cop didn't arrest anybody, of course, but he made sure you got out with your skin."

"I see. And how did I get to-say, where in the h.e.l.l are are we, Cyrus?" we, Cyrus?"

"Number 808 Broadway, Mr. Moore. Top floor, which would be the sixth. The doctor engaged it as a base of operations for the investigation. Not so close to Mulberry Street as'll be noticed, but a carriage can have you there in just a few minutes. Or, if traffic's heavy, the trolley will do the same."

"And what about all these-furnis.h.i.+ngs, or whatever they are?"

"The doctor and Miss Howard went looking for furniture yesterday, over in Brooklyn. At an office supplier's. But the doctor said he couldn't live with that sort of stuff for a day, much less an extended period of time. So they bought just the desks, and then went to an auction on Fifth Avenue. The furniture of the Marchese Luigi Carcano of Italy was being sold off. They bought quite a bit of it."

"They certainly did," I said, as two of the workmen reappeared bearing a large clock, two Chinese vases, and some green draperies.

"As soon as we had most of it, the doctor figured he'd move you from his house to here."

"That would be the earthquake," I said.

"Sir?"

"A dream I had. Why here?"

"Said we couldn't waste any more time nursing you. He gave you a little more chloral, so you'd come out of it easy. Wanted you ready for work when you woke up."

Then there were more noises outside the door. I heard Kreizler say, "Ah, is he? Good!" and then he burst in, trailed by Stevie Taggert and Lucius Isaacson. "Moore!" he called. "You're awake at last, eh?" He strode over and grabbed my wrist, checking the pulse. "How do you feel?"

"Not as bad as I expected to." Stevie had taken a seat on one of the windowsills and was playing with a fairly sizable jackknife. "I understand I've got you to thank for that, Stevie," I called. He just smiled and looked out the window, his hair falling in front of his face. "That's a debt I won't forget." The boy laughed a bit; he never seemed to know what to make of being appreciated.

"It's a miracle that he happened to follow you, Moore," Kreizler said, pulling at my eyelids and examining the orbs underneath. "By all rights you should be dead."

"Thank you, Kreizler," I said. "In that case I don't suppose you'd like to know what I discovered."

"And what might that be?" he answered, probing my mouth with some kind of instrument. "That the Santorelli boy was never seen leaving Paresis Hall? That he was believed still in his chamber, from which there is no secondary exit?"

The thought that I'd endured my ordeal for nothing was truly depressing. "How do you know that?"

"We thought it was delirious rambling at first," Lucius Isaacson said, going to one of the desks and emptying the contents of a paper sack onto it. "But you kept repeating it, so Marcus and I went down to check the story out with your friend Sally. Very interesting-Marcus is out working on some possible explanations right now."

Cyrus crossed the room to hand Lucius an envelope. "Commissioner Roosevelt sent this by runner, Detective Sergeant."

Lucius quickly opened and perused the message. "Well, it's official," he said uncertainly. "My brother and I have been 'temporarily detached from the Division of Detectives, for personal reasons.' I only hope my mother doesn't hear about it."

"Excellent," Kreizler said to him. "You'll have access to the resources of headquarters without being required to appear there regularly-an admirable solution. Perhaps now you can spend a little time teaching John here some slightly more sophisticated methods of detection." Laszlo laughed once, then lowered his voice as he checked my heart. "I don't mean to belittle your effort, Moore. It was an important bit of work. But do try to remember that this affair is no joke, especially to many of the people we shall be interviewing. Traveling in pairs on such occasions will be more prudent."

"You're preaching to the converted," I answered.

Kreizler poked and prodded me a bit more, then stood away. "How's your jaw?"

I hadn't thought of it, but when I put my hand to my mouth there was some tenderness. "That dwarf," I said. "He hasn't got much without the razor."

"Good man!" Kreizler laughed, slapping my back lightly. "Now finish your broth and get dressed. We've got an a.s.sessment to do at Bellevue, and I want Jonas's men to finish this place. Our first staff meeting will be at five o'clock."

"a.s.sessment?" I said, getting to my feet and expecting to swoon again. But the broth really had restored me. "Who?" I asked, noticing that I was wearing a nights.h.i.+rt.

"Harris Markowitz, of 75 Forsyth Street," Lucius answered, walking (I'm reluctant to say waddling, though it had that aspect) over to me with a few sheets of typewritten paper. "A haberdasher. A couple of days ago his wife came in to the Tenth Precinct claiming her husband had poisoned their two grandchildren-Samuel and Sophie Rieter, ages twelve and sixteen-by putting what she called 'a powder' in their milk."

"Poison?" I said. "But our man's not a poisoner."

"Not that we know of," Kreizler answered. "But his activities may be more varied than we think-although I don't actually believe this man Markowitz is any more connected to our case than Henry Wolff was."

"The children do, however, fit the apparent pattern among the victims," Lucius said, tactfully but pointedly. And then to me: "The Rieter children were recent immigrants-their father and mother sent them over from Bohemia to stay with Mrs. Rieter's parents and try to find domestic work."

"Immigrants, true," Kreizler answered. "And if this were three years ago I might be impressed. But our quarry's recent taste for prost.i.tutes seems too significant, as do the current mutilations, to allow us to concentrate solely on the immigrant connection. However, even if this Markowitz isn't involved with our business, there are other reasons to investigate such cases. By eliminating them, we can gain a clearer picture of what the person we seek is not not-a negative image, if you will, that we can eventually print into a positive."

Cyrus had brought me some clothes, and I began to put them on. "But aren't we going to raise suspicions by doing so many a.s.sessments of child-murderers?"

"We must rely on the Police Department's lack of imagination," Laszlo answered. "It's not unusual for me to be seen doing such work. The explanation for your presence, Moore, will of course be reporting. By the time anyone at headquarters thinks to connect it all to the current string of murders, our work will, I hope, be done." He turned to Lucius. "Now, then, Detective Sergeant, you might just review the details of the case for our adventurous friend, here."

"Well, Markowitz was clever enough," Lucius answered, almost as if he admired the man. "He used a large amount of opium, all residual bodily traces of which, as you may know, vanish within hours of death. He put it in two gla.s.ses of milk, which were fed to the grandchildren at bedtime. When they'd slipped into a comatose state, Markowitz turned on the gas jet in their room. The police arrived the next morning, the place stank of gas, and the detective in charge drew the obvious conclusion. His hypothesis seemed confirmed when the coroner-actually a fairly capable man, in this case-had the contents of the stomachs checked and nothing out of the ordinary turned up. But when the wife kept insisting that the poisoning had in fact taken place, an idea occurred to me. I went down to the flat and located the bedclothes that the children had slept on. It was likely that at least one of the victims had vomited sometime during unconsciousness or the death throes. If the sheets and blankets hadn't been washed yet, there would be stains. Sure enough, I found them. We ran the standard Stas and reagent tests, and that was where we found the opium traces. In the vomit. Faced with that, Markowitz confessed."

"And he doesn't drink?" Kreizler asked. "No drug addictions?"

"Apparently not," Lucius answered with a shrug.

"Nor did he stand to gain materially from the children's deaths?"

"In no way."

"Good! Then we have several elements we need: extensive premeditation, a lack of intoxication, and no obvious motive. All would characterize our killer. But if we discover that Markowitz is not in fact our man-as I suspect we will-then our task becomes to determine why why he isn't." Laszlo picked up a piece of chalk and began to rap on the large blackboard, as if trying to coax information out of it. "What makes him different from Santorelli's murderer? Why he isn't." Laszlo picked up a piece of chalk and began to rap on the large blackboard, as if trying to coax information out of it. "What makes him different from Santorelli's murderer? Why didn't didn't he mutilate the bodies? When we know that, we can focus our imaginary picture just a bit more. Then, as we build our killer's list of attributes, more and more candidates can be eliminated at first glance. For the moment, however, we have a wide field." He pulled on his gloves. "Stevie! You'll be driving. I want Cyrus to oversee the installation of the piano. Don't let them butcher it, Cyrus. Detective Sergeant, you will be at the Inst.i.tute?" he mutilate the bodies? When we know that, we can focus our imaginary picture just a bit more. Then, as we build our killer's list of attributes, more and more candidates can be eliminated at first glance. For the moment, however, we have a wide field." He pulled on his gloves. "Stevie! You'll be driving. I want Cyrus to oversee the installation of the piano. Don't let them butcher it, Cyrus. Detective Sergeant, you will be at the Inst.i.tute?"

Lucius nodded. "The bodies should arrive by noon."

"Bodies?" I said.

"The two boys killed earlier this year," Laszlo answered, moving to the door. "Hurry, Moore, we'll be late!"

CHAPTER 13.

True to Kreizler's prediction, Harris Markowitz proved thoroughly unsuitable as a suspect in our case. Aside from being short, stout, and well into his sixties-and thus wholly unlike the physical specimen described by the Isaacsons at Delmonico's-he was obviously quite out of his mind. He'd killed his grandchildren, he claimed, in order to save them from what he perceived to be a monstrously evil world, whose salient aspects he described in a series of rambling, highly confused outbursts. Such poor systemization of unreasonably fearful thoughts and beliefs, as well as the apparently complete lack of concern for his own fate that Markowitz exhibited, often characterized cases of dementia praec.o.x, Kreizler told me as we left Bellevue. But while Markowitz clearly had nothing to do with our business, the visit was still valuable, as Laszlo had hoped it would be, in helping us determine aspects of our killer's personality by way of comparison. Obviously, our man was not murdering children out of any perverse desire to attend to their spiritual well-being. The furious mutilation of the bodies after death made that much plain. Nor, clearly, was he unconcerned with what would happen to him as a result of his acts. But most of all, it was apparent from his open display of his handiwork-a display that was, as Laszlo had explained, an implicit entreaty for apprehension-that the killings did disturb some part of him. In other words, there was evidence in the bodies not of the murderer's derangement but of his sanity. not of the murderer's derangement but of his sanity.

I puzzled with that concept all the way back to Number 808 Broadway, but on arrival my attention was distracted by my first really clearheaded perusal of the place that, as Sara had said, would be our home for the foreseeable future. It was a handsome yellow-brick building, which Kreizler told me had been designed by James Renwick, the architect responsible for the Gothic edifice of Grace Church next door, as well as for the more subdued St. Denis Hotel across the street. The southern windows of our headquarters looked directly out onto the churchyard, which lay in a dark shadow cast by Grace's enormous tapering spire. There was quite a parochial, serene feel about this little stretch of Broadway, despite the fact that we were smack in the center of one of the city's busiest shopping strips: besides McCreery's, there were stores selling everything from dry goods to boots to photographs within steps of Number 808. The single greatest monument to all this commerce was an enormous cast-iron building across Tenth Street from the church, formerly A. T. Stewart's department store, currently operated by Hilton, Hughes and Company, and eventually to gain its greatest fame as Wanamaker's.

The elevator at Number 808 was a large, caged affair, quite new, and it took us quietly back up to the sixth floor. Here we discovered that great progress had been made during our absence. Things were now so arranged that it actually looked like human affairs were being conducted out of the place, though one would still have been hard-pressed to say precisely what kind. At five o'clock sharp each of us sat at one of the five desks, from which vantage points we could clearly see and discuss matters with one another. There was nervous but pleasant chatter as we settled in, and real camaraderie when we began to discuss the events of our various days. As the evening sun dipped above the Hudson, sending rich golden light over the rooftops of western Manhattan and through our Gothic front windows, I realized that we had become, with remarkable speed, a working unit.

We had enemies, to be sure: Lucius Isaacson reported that at the conclusion of his examination of the other two murdered boys, a pair of men claiming to be representatives of the cemetery from which the bodies had been taken had appeared at the Inst.i.tute, demanding an end to the proceedings. Lucius had gathered all the information he needed, by then, and decided not to put up a fight-but the physical description of the two men that he gave, right down to the bruises on their faces, matched the two thugs that had chased Sara and me out of the Santorellis' flat. Fortunately, the two ex-cops had not recognized Lucius as a detective (they had probably been fired before his arrival on the force); but it was nonetheless apparent that, as we had no idea who was commanding these men or what their object was, the Inst.i.tute was no longer a safe place to conduct business.

As for Lucius's examination itself, the results were just what we'd hoped for: both bodies bore the same knife marks that had been found on Giorgio Santorelli and the Zweig children. With that confirmation, Marcus Isaacson took two more pins with red flags and stuck them into the large map of Manhattan, one at the Brooklyn Bridge, and one at the Ellis Island ferry station. Kreizler posted the dates of those killings-January 1st and February 2nd-on the right-hand side of the large chalkboard, along with March 3rd, the day Giorgio had died. Somewhere in those months and days, we all knew, was one of the many patterns we needed to identify. (That pattern would ultimately prove far more complex, Kreizler believed from the start, than the apparent similarity of the number of the month and the number of the day.) Marcus Isaacson told of his efforts, still unrewarded, to establish a method by which "Gloria" could have gotten out of his room at Paresis Hall without being seen. Sara informed us that she and Roosevelt had worked out a scheme whereby our group would be able to visit the sites of any future murders that were obviously the work of the same killer before they were disturbed by other detectives or by the heavy hands of coroners. The plan represented another risk for Theodore, but he was by now fully committed to Kreizler's agenda. For my part, I related the story of our trip to see Harris Markowitz. When all this business was concluded, Kreizler stood at his desk and indicated the large chalkboard, on which, he said, we would create our imaginary man: physical and psychological clues would be listed, cross-referenced, revised, and combined until the work was done. Accordingly, he next posted those facts and theories that we had so far discovered and hypothesized.

When he had finished, it seemed that there were precious few white marks on that enormous black s.p.a.ce-and at least some of the few, Kreizler warned, would not remain. The use of chalk, he said, was an indication of how many mistakes he expected himself and the rest of us to make along the way. We were in uncharted country and must not become discouraged by setbacks and difficulties, or by the amount of material we would have to master along the way. The rest of us were a little confused by that statement; Kreizler then produced four separate but identical piles of books and papers.

Articles by Laszlo's friend Adolf Meyer and other alienists; the works of philosophers and evolutionists from Hume and Locke to Spencer and Schopenhauer; monographs by the elder Forbes Winslow, whose theories had originally inspired Kreizler's theory of context; and finally, in all its weighty, two-volume splendor, our old professor William James's Principles of Psychology Principles of Psychology-these and more were dropped on our desks, producing loud, ponderous booms. The Isaacsons, Sara, and I all exchanged worried glances, looking and feeling like beleaguered students on the first day of cla.s.s-which, obviously, is just what we were. Kreizler spelled out the purpose of our going through such an ordeal: From that moment on, he said, we must make every possible effort to rid ourselves of preconceptions about human behavior. We must try not to see the world through our own eyes, nor to judge it by our own values, but through and by those of our killer. His His experience, the context of experience, the context of his his life, was all that mattered. Any aspect of his behavior that puzzled us, from the most trivial to the most horrendous, we must try to explain by postulating childhood events that could lead to such eventualities. This process of cause and effect-what we would soon learn was called "psychological determinism"-might not always seem entirely logical to us, but it would be consistent. life, was all that mattered. Any aspect of his behavior that puzzled us, from the most trivial to the most horrendous, we must try to explain by postulating childhood events that could lead to such eventualities. This process of cause and effect-what we would soon learn was called "psychological determinism"-might not always seem entirely logical to us, but it would be consistent.

Kreizler emphasized that no good would come of conceiving of this person as a monster, because he was most a.s.suredly a man (or a woman); and that man or woman had once been a child. First and foremost, we must get to know that child, and to know his parents, his siblings, his complete world. It was pointless to talk about evil and barbarity and madness; none of these concepts would lead us any closer to him. But if we could capture the human child in our imaginations-then we could capture the man in fact.

"And if that is not reward enough," Kreizler concluded, glancing from one of our gaping faces to another, "there is always food."

Food, we learned during the next few days, was quite a major reason why Laszlo had selected Number 808 Broadway: we were within easy walking distance of some of Manhattan's best restaurants. Ninth Street and University Place offered exceptional French dining at traditional Parisian banquettes banquettes in both the Cafe Lafayette and the small dining room of the proportionally small hotel run by Louis Martin. Should the mood run to German fare, we could trot up Broadway to Union Square and turn into that huge, darkly paneled Mecca of gourmands, Luchow's. Tenth Street and Second Avenue offered hearty Hungarian meals at the Cafe Boulevard, while there was no better Italian cooking to be had than that served in the dining room of the Hotel Gonfarone, on Eighth and MacDougal streets. And, of course, there was always Del's, a bit further away but a.s.suredly worth the trip. All these centers of culinary brilliance would become our informal conference rooms during legions of lunches and dinners, although there would be many occasions on which the grim work with which we were preoccupied made it difficult indeed to concentrate on gustatory satisfaction. in both the Cafe Lafayette and the small dining room of the proportionally small hotel run by Louis Martin. Should the mood run to German fare, we could trot up Broadway to Union Square and turn into that huge, darkly paneled Mecca of gourmands, Luchow's. Tenth Street and Second Avenue offered hearty Hungarian meals at the Cafe Boulevard, while there was no better Italian cooking to be had than that served in the dining room of the Hotel Gonfarone, on Eighth and MacDougal streets. And, of course, there was always Del's, a bit further away but a.s.suredly worth the trip. All these centers of culinary brilliance would become our informal conference rooms during legions of lunches and dinners, although there would be many occasions on which the grim work with which we were preoccupied made it difficult indeed to concentrate on gustatory satisfaction.

That was especially true during those first days, when it became increasingly hard to escape the knowledge that, although we were cutting a new path on this job and needed to take the time to study and understand all the psychological as well as criminological elements that would necessarily form the basis of a successful conclusion, we were also working against a clock. Out in the streets below our arched windows were dozens of children like Giorgio Santorelli, plying the ever-dangerous flesh trade without knowing that a new and especially violent danger was loose among them. It was an odd feeling, to go to an a.s.sessment with Kreizler or to study notes at Number 808 Broadway or to stay up until the small hours reading at my grandmother's, trying to force my mind to absorb information at a speed it was (to say the least) unaccustomed to, all the while a voice whispering in the back of my head: "Hurry up or a child will die!" The first few days of it almost drove me mad-studying and restudying the condition of the various bodies, as well as the sites at which they were discovered, trying to find patterns in both groups while simultaneously wrestling with pa.s.sages like this one from Herbert Spencer: "Can the oscillation of a molecule be represented in consciousness side by side with a nervous shock, and the two be recognized as one? No effort enables us to a.s.similate them. That a unit of feeling has nothing in common with a unit of motion, becomes more than ever manifest when we bring the two into juxtaposition."

"Give me your derringer, Sara," I remember calling out when I first ran across that statement. "I'm going to shoot myself." Why in the world should I have to understand such things, I wondered during that first week or so, when what I wanted to know was where, where where was our murderer? Yet in time I came to see the point of such efforts. Take that particular Spencer quote, for example-I eventually grasped that the attempts of people like Spencer to interpret the activities of the mind as the complex effects of material motion within the human organism had failed. This failure had reinforced the inclination of younger alienists and psychologists like Kreizler and Adolf Meyer to view the origins of consciousness primarily in terms of formative childhood experience, and only secondarily in terms of pure physical function. That had real relevance, in terms of understanding that our killer's path from birth to savagery had not been the random result of physical processes that we would have been powerless to chart but rather the product of conceivable events. was our murderer? Yet in time I came to see the point of such efforts. Take that particular Spencer quote, for example-I eventually grasped that the attempts of people like Spencer to interpret the activities of the mind as the complex effects of material motion within the human organism had failed. This failure had reinforced the inclination of younger alienists and psychologists like Kreizler and Adolf Meyer to view the origins of consciousness primarily in terms of formative childhood experience, and only secondarily in terms of pure physical function. That had real relevance, in terms of understanding that our killer's path from birth to savagery had not been the random result of physical processes that we would have been powerless to chart but rather the product of conceivable events.

Nor were our studies designed to debunk or defame: While Spencer's attempt to explain the origins and evolution of mental activity might have been wide of the mark, there was no arguing his belief that what most men consider their rationally selected actions are in fact idiosyncratic responses (again, established during the decisive experiences of childhood) that have grown strong enough, through repeated use, to overpower other urges and reactions-that have won, in other words, the mental battle for survival. Obviously, the person we sought had developed a profoundly violent set of such instincts; it was up to us to theorize what terrible series of experiences had confirmed such methods, in his mind, as the most reliable reaction to the challenges of life.

Yes, it soon became clear that we needed to know all this and more, much more, if we were going to have any hope of fully fles.h.i.+ng out our imaginary man. And as that truth sank in, we all began to study and read with greater determination and speed, trading thoughts and ideas at all hours of the day and night. Sara and I would often shout heady philosophy over crackling telephone lines at two in the morning, much to my grandmother's despair, as we first groped and then more competently reached for greater knowledge. The rather remarkable fact that we were getting an extremely rapid education (the bulk of it was chewed and swallowed, if not completely digested, in the first ten days) was obscured by the practical task at hand, and by the attention we had to pay to whatever physical clues and methodical theories Marcus and Lucius Isaacson detected and devised. Not that there were many of these, in the beginning; we hadn't had enough access to any of the crime scenes for that. (Take the Williamsburg Bridge tower, for example: by the time Marcus examined it, there was no hope of gaining any relevant fingerprints-the place was an outdoor construction site, tampered with every day by weather and workmen.) The knowledge that we needed more than what we had to build a detailed picture of the killer's method only increased the morbidly expectant air in our headquarters. Though buried in our work, we were all aware that we were waiting for something to happen.

As March turned to April, it did. At 1:45 A.M A.M. on a Sat.u.r.day, I was dozing in my room at my grandmother's house with my copy of the second volume of Professor James's Principles Principles resting rather uncomfortably across my face. That afternoon I'd begun a n.o.ble effort to tackle James's thoughts on "Necessary Truths and the Effects of Experience" at Number 808 Broadway but had been distracted by the entrance of Stevie Taggert, who'd torn a list of the following day's entries at the new Aqueduct racing park on Long Island from a late city edition of the resting rather uncomfortably across my face. That afternoon I'd begun a n.o.ble effort to tackle James's thoughts on "Necessary Truths and the Effects of Experience" at Number 808 Broadway but had been distracted by the entrance of Stevie Taggert, who'd torn a list of the following day's entries at the new Aqueduct racing park on Long Island from a late city edition of the Herald Herald and wanted some advice on handicapping from me. I'd lately been employing Stevie as a runner to my betting agent (unbeknownst to Kreizler, of course) and the boy had quite taken to the sport of kings. I'd encouraged him not to bet his own money unless and until he really knew what he was doing; but with his background that hadn't taken long. At any rate, when the telephone rang that night, I was in the midst of a deep sleep brought on by hours of thick reading. I bolted directly upright at the sound of the bell and sent the volume of James slamming against the opposite wall. The telephone clanged again as I got into my robe, and once more before I dashed through the hallway clumsily and picked the receiver up. and wanted some advice on handicapping from me. I'd lately been employing Stevie as a runner to my betting agent (unbeknownst to Kreizler, of course) and the boy had quite taken to the sport of kings. I'd encouraged him not to bet his own money unless and until he really knew what he was doing; but with his background that hadn't taken long. At any rate, when the telephone rang that night, I was in the midst of a deep sleep brought on by hours of thick reading. I bolted directly upright at the sound of the bell and sent the volume of James slamming against the opposite wall. The telephone clanged again as I got into my robe, and once more before I dashed through the hallway clumsily and picked the receiver up.