The Alienist

  Marcus rushed over to the door. “Commissioner Roosevelt,” he said, “can you give us another forty-five minutes in here?”

  Roosevelt checked his watch. “It would be close. The new warden and his staff usually come in at eight. Why, Isaacson?”

  “I need some of my equipment—for an experiment.”

  “Experiment? Just what sort of an experiment?” For Theodore, distinguished naturalist that he was, the word “experiment” held almost as much power as “action.”

  “There are some experts,” Marcus explained, “who think that, at the moment of death, the human eye permanently records the last image it sees. It’s thought that the image can be photographed, using the eye itself as a sort of lens. I’d like to give it a try.”

  Theodore considered the proposition for a moment. “You think the boy may have died looking at his murderer?”

  “There’s a chance.”

  “And will the next examiner be able to tell you’ve made the attempt?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Mmm. Quite an idea. All right.” Theodore nodded once definitively. “Fetch your equipment. But I warn you, Detective Sergeant—we are going to be out of here by seven forty-five.”

  Marcus bolted off toward the rear door of the building. After his exit Lucius and Kreizler continued to prod and pick at the body, and I eventually sank to the floor, exhausted and disheartened past the point where my legs could support me. Looking up at Sara and hoping to find some sympathy in her face, I saw instead that she was staring at the end of the examination table.

  “Doctor,” she finally said quietly, “what’s the matter with his foot?”

  Laszlo turned, glanced at Sara, and then followed her gaze to the dead boy’s right foot, which was hanging out over the end of the table. It appeared swollen, and was set on the leg at an odd angle; but as this was nothing compared to the rest of the injuries to the body, it seemed scant wonder that Lucius had missed it.

  Kreizler took hold of the foot and examined it carefully. “Talipes varus,” he eventually announced. “The boy was clubfooted.”

  That caught my interest. “Clubfooted?”

  “Yes,” Kreizler answered, letting the extremity drop again.

  It was a measure, I suppose, of just how rigorously our minds had been trained in recent weeks that, exhausted as we might have been, we were still able to extrapolate an important set of implications from a fairly common physical deformity that had afflicted this latest victim. We began to discuss these implications at some length, continuing to do so as Marcus returned with his photographic equipment and got ready to take his experimental pictures. Subsequent questioning of those who had known the Lohmann boy at the Black and Tan bore our speculations out, and they are therefore worth mentioning.

  Sara suggested that the killer might originally have been drawn to Lohmann because of a kind of identification with the boy’s physical plight. But if Lohmann had been resentful of any mention of his deformity—a strong possibility in a boy of his age and occupation—he would have reacted adversely to such charitable expressions. This reaction would, in turn, have sparked the killer’s usual rage with difficult young men. Kreizler agreed with all this and further explained that the betrayal inherent in Lohmann’s refusal of the killer’s empathy would have stirred a new and even deeper anger in our man. This could well account for the fact that the boy’s heart was missing: the killer had apparently meant to take his mutilations to a new extreme but had been interrupted by the guard. We all knew that this spelled trouble—we were not dealing with a man who would react well to having his intimate moments, sickening as they might be, cut short.

  At this point in our discussion Marcus announced that he was ready to begin his experiment, at which Kreizler took a few steps back from the operating table to allow the several pieces of equipment Marcus had brought along to be moved next to the body. After requesting that the overhead electrical bulb be switched off, Marcus asked his brother to slowly lift Ernst Lohmann’s remaining eye out of its socket. When Lucius had complied, Marcus took a very small incandescent lamp and placed it behind the eye, onto which he focused his camera. After exposing two plates to this image, he then activated two small wires, whose ends were bared. He ran these wires into the nerves of the eye, activating the latter, and exposed several more plates. As a final step, he shut off the incandescent lamp and took two images of the unlit but still electrically activated eye. The whole thing seemed quite bizarre (indeed, I later learned that the French novelist Jules Verne had written of the procedure in one of his outlandish stories); but Marcus was quite hopeful, and as he turned the overhead lamp back on, he expressed his determination to return to his darkroom immediately.

  We had packed all of Marcus’s equipment up and were nearly ready to depart when I caught sight of Kreizler staring at the Lohmann boy’s face, with far less detachment than he’d displayed during his examination of the body. Without myself looking at the mangled corpse, I stood by Laszlo and silently put a hand on his shoulder.

  “A mirror image,” Kreizler mumbled. At first I thought he was referring to some part of Marcus’s procedure; but then I remembered the conversation we’d had weeks ago when we’d said that the condition of the victims’ bodies was in a real way a reflection of the psychic devastation that perpetually gnawed at our killer.

  Roosevelt moved up beside me, his eyes also fixed on the body. “It’s an even worse sight, in this place,” he said quietly. “Clinical. Utterly dehumanized…”

  “But why this?” Kreizler asked, of no one in particular. “Why just exactly this?” He held out a hand to the body, and I knew he was speaking of the mutilations.

  “The devil himself only knows,” Theodore answered. “I’ve never seen anything like it, short of a red Indian.”

  Laszlo and I both froze, and then spun silently on the man. Our stares must have been fairly intense, for Theodore looked momentarily unnerved. “And what’s gotten into you two?” he asked, a bit indignantly. “If I may make so bold?”

  “Roosevelt,” Laszlo said evenly, taking a step forward. “Would you mind repeating what you just said?”

  “I’ve been accused of many things when I speak,” Theodore answered, “but never mumbling. I believe I was clear.”

  “Yes. Yes, you were.” The Isaacsons and Sara had drawn close, reading something big in the fire that had swept into Laszlo’s previously downcast features. “But what exactly did you mean?”

  “I was simply thinking,” Roosevelt explained, still a little defensively, “of the only other violence like this that I’ve ever come across. It was when I was ranching, in the Dakota Badlands. I saw several bodies of white men who’d been killed by Indians, as a warning to other settlers. The corpses were cut up terribly, much like this one—in an effort, I suppose, to terrify the rest of us.”

  “Yes,” Laszlo said, as much to himself as to Theodore. “That’s what you naturally would suppose. But was that, in fact, the purpose of it?” Kreizler began to pace around the operating table, rubbing his left arm slowly and nodding. “A model, he needs a model…It’s too consistent, too considered, too—structured. He’s modeling it after something…” Checking his silver watch, Laszlo turned back to Theodore. “Would you happen to know offhand, Roosevelt, what time the Museum of Natural History opens its doors?”

  “I should hope I would,” Theodore answered proudly, “as my father was a founder and I myself am quite involved in—”

  “What time, Roosevelt?”

  “Nine o’clock.”

  Kreizler nodded. “Excellent. Moore, you’ll come with me. As for the rest of you—Marcus, get to your darkroom and let’s see if this experiment of yours has produced anything. Sara, you and Lucius go back to Number 808 and get in touch with the War Department in Washington. Find out if they keep any records of soldiers dismissed for mental illness. Tell them we are only interested in soldiers who have served in the Army of the West. If you can’t get a telephone line through, sen
d a cable.”

  “I know a few people at War,” Roosevelt added. “If it would be any help.”

  “It would indeed,” Laszlo answered. “Sara, take the names. Go, go, on your way, all of you!” As Sara and the Isaacsons left, taking with them Marcus’s equipment, Kreizler came back to Roosevelt and me. “You’ve realized what we’re looking for, Moore?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But why the museum, exactly?”

  “An old friend of mine. Franz Boas. If mutilations such as these do have some kind of cultural significance among Indian tribes, he’ll be able to tell us. And should such prove the case, Roosevelt, resounding congratulations will be due you.” Kreizler laid the dirty old sheet back over Ernst Lohmann’s body. “Unfortunately, I let Stevie take the calash home, which means we’ll have to get a cab. Can we drop you anywhere, Roosevelt?”

  “No,” Theodore answered, “I’d better stay and cover our tracks. There may be a lot of questions, considering that crowd. But I wish you good hunting, gentlemen!”

  The number of disgruntled people outside the morgue had only grown during the time we’d spent examining the Lohmann boy’s remains. Sara and the Isaacsons had apparently gotten through the throng without incident, for we saw no sign of them. Kreizler and I were not so lucky, however. We’d only made it halfway to the main gate of the hospital grounds, with the crowd suspiciously scrutinizing us every step of the way, when our path was blocked by a thickset, square-headed man who carried an old ax handle. The man fixed a cold stare of recognition on Kreizler, and when I turned I saw that Laszlo seemed to know him as well.

  “Ah!” the man exclaimed, from deep in the pit of his considerable belly. “So they’ve brought in the famous Herr Doctor Kreizler!” The accent indicated a lower-class German.

  “Herr Höpner,” Laszlo answered, in a firm but wary tone that indicated the man might know how to use the ax handle he was carrying. “I’m afraid my colleague and I have urgent business elsewhere. Kindly stand aside.”

  “And what, then, of the Lohmann boy, Herr Doctor?” The man Höpner did not move. “Have you something to do with this matter?” A few of the people standing near him muttered echoes to the demand.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Höpner,” Kreizler answered coolly. “Please move.”

  “No idea, eh?” Höpner began to slap the piece of wood against one palm. “I must doubt that. Do you know the good doctor, meine Freunden?” he said to the crowd. “He is the famous alienist who destroys families—who steals children from their homes!” Professions of shock sprang from all sides. “I demand to know what part you have in this matter, Herr Doctor! Did you snatch the Lohmann boy from his parents, just as you snatched my daughter from me?”

  “I’ve told you once,” Laszlo said, his teeth starting to grind. “I know nothing about any Lohmann boy. And as for your daughter, Herr Höpner, she asked to be removed from your home, because you could not refrain from beating her with a stick—a stick not unlike the one you now hold.”

  The crowd drew breath as one, and Höpner’s eyes went wide. “What a man does in his own home with his own family is his own business!” he protested.

  “Your daughter felt differently about that,” Kreizler said. “Now, for the last time—raus mit dir!”

  It was a command to move, such as one might give to a servant or some other underling. Höpner looked like he’d been spat on. Raising the ax handle he made a move toward Kreizler, but suddenly stopped when one hell of a commotion rose from somewhere behind Kreizler and me. Turning to look over the crowd, I could see a horse’s head and the roof of a carriage plowing our way. And along with them I spied a face that I knew: Eat-’Em-Up Jack McManus. He was hanging on to the side of the vehicle, swinging the gargantuan right arm that had made him a formidable force in the prize ring for nearly a decade before he’d quit the fight game to work as a bouncer—for Paul Kelly.

  Kelly’s elegant black brougham, brass lanterns shining on either side, made its way to where we were standing. The small, sinewy man in the driver’s seat cracked his whip in general warning, and the crowd, knowing who was inside the carriage, moved aside and said nothing. Jack McManus jumped down once the wheels had stopped rolling, then looked at the crowd threateningly and straightened his miner’s cap. Finally he opened the door of the brougham.

  “I suggest you get in, gentlemen!” said an amused voice from within the carriage. Kelly’s handsome face soon appeared at the door. “You know how mobs can be.”

  CHAPTER 28

  * * *

  Ha! Will you look at them!” Kelly was full of glee as he stared back at the crowd during our bumpy flight out of the Bellevue grounds. “The pigs have actually gotten off their knees for once! This ought to make for a few sleepless nights on Mansion Mile, eh, Moore?” I was sitting next to Kreizler across from Kelly in the front half of the brougham. As the gangster turned back around to face us, he pounded his gold-headed stick on the floor and laughed again. “It won’t last, of course—they’ll be back to packing their kids into sweatshops for a dollar a week before the Lohmann boy’s even been boxed. It’ll take more than just another dead boy-whore to keep them going. But for now, it does make a glorious picture!” Kelly extended his heavily ringed right hand to Kreizler. “How do you do, Doctor? It’s a genuine privilege.”

  Laszlo took the hand very tentatively. “Mr. Kelly. At least someone finds this situation amusing.”

  “Oh, I do, Doctor, I do—that’s why I arranged it!” Neither Kreizler nor I said anything in acknowledgment. “Well, come on, gentlemen, you don’t think people like that would stand up for themselves without some urging, do you? A little money in the right places doesn’t hurt, either. And I must say, I never expected to run into the eminent Dr. Kreizler in such a situation!” His surprise was transparently false. “Can I drop you gentlemen somewhere?”

  I turned to Kreizler. “Saves us the cab fare,” I said, to which Laszlo nodded. Then I spoke to Kelly: “The Museum of Natural History. Seventy-seventh and—”

  “I know where it is, Moore.” Kelly slammed his stick on the roof of the brougham and spoke with harsh authority: “Jack! Tell Harry to take us to Seventy-seventh and Central Park West. In a hurry!” The sinister charm then returned: “I’m a little surprised to see you here, too, Moore. I thought that after your run-in with Biff you’d lose interest in these murders.”

  “It’ll take more than Ellison to make me lose interest,” I declared, hoping to sound more defiant than I felt.

  “Oh, I can give you more,” Kelly volleyed, jerking his head in Jack McManus’s direction. The twinge of apprehension I felt in my gut must have shown in my face, because Kelly laughed out loud. “Relax. I said you wouldn’t get hurt as long as you kept my name out of it, and you’ve played straight. I wish your friend Steffens had your sense. Come to think of it, Moore, you haven’t been writing much of any- thing lately, have you?” Kelly grinned slyly.

  “I’m collecting all the facts before I publish,” I said.

  “Of course you are. And your friend the doctor’s just out stretching his legs, is that it?”

  Laszlo shifted in his seat uneasily, but spoke calmly. “Mr. Kelly, as long as you’ve offered us this remarkably timely ride, I wonder if I might ask you a question.”

  “Of course, Doctor. It may be hard for you to believe, but I’ve got a lot of respect for you—why, I even read a monograph you wrote once.” Kelly laughed. “Most of it, at any rate.”

  “I’m gratified,” Kreizler answered. “But tell me—knowing as little as I do about the murders you speak of, I am, nevertheless, curious as to what possible reason you can have for inflaming, and perhaps endangering, people who have nothing to do with the matter?”

  “Am I endangering them, Doctor?”

  “Surely you realize that such behavior as yours can only lead to wider civil unrest and violence. A great many innocent people are likely to be hurt, and still more jailed.”

  “That’s right, Kelly,?
?? I added. “In a town like this what you’re starting could get out of hand pretty damned quickly.”

  Kelly thought about that for a few moments, without ever losing his smile. “Let me ask you something, Moore—horse races go off every day, but the average guy only takes an interest in the ones he’s betting on. Why’s that?”

  “Why?” I said, a bit confused. “Well, because if you’ve got no stake in it…”

  “There you are, then,” Kelly interjected, chuckling thoughtfully. “You two gentlemen sit here talking about this city and civil unrest and all of that—but what stake do I have in it? What do I care if New York burns to the ground? Whoever’s still standing when it’s over is going to want a drink and someone to spend a lonely hour with—and I’ll be here to supply those items.”

  “In that case,” Kreizler said, “why concern yourself with the matter at all?”

  “Because it riles me.” For the first time, Kelly’s face went straight. “That’s right, Doctor—it riles me. Those pigs back there get fed all that slop about society by the boys on Fifth Avenue just as soon as they’re off the boat, and what do they do? They knock themselves out trying to eat every bit of it. It’s a sucker bet, a crooked game, whatever you want to call it, and there’s a part of me that just wouldn’t mind seeing it go the other way for a little while.” His amiable grin suddenly returned. “Or maybe there are deeper reasons for my attitude, Doctor. Maybe you could find something in the—the context of my life that would explain it, if you had access to that kind of information.” The remark surprised me considerably, and I could see that Kreizler, too, hadn’t expected it. There was something very intimidating about Kelly’s rough-hewn intellectual agility: a sense that here was a man who could pose a serious threat on any number of levels. “But whatever the reasons,” our host went on brightly, glancing out of the carriage, “I’m enjoying this entire affair immensely.”