The Alienist

to judge by the laughs and groans floating out of it, was the entrance to the dive we’d been told Beecham frequented. I turned to Lucius, and found him anxiously scanning the dark streets around us.

“Lucius—you and Sara stay here,” I said. “We’ll need you to keep watch.”

He nodded once, producing a handkerchief and wiping his forehead. “Good,” he said. “Fine, I mean.”

“And if there’s any trouble do not show your badge,” I added. “It’s just an invitation to murder, down here.” As Marcus and I made for the steps, I eyed Lucius once more and then murmured into Sara’s ear, “Look after him, will you?” She smiled once at that, and though I could tell that she, too, was apprehensive, I knew that her aim would remain steady through whatever followed. Marcus and I went inside.

I don’t know precisely what the caves looked like that prehistoric men are said to have inhabited, but the average Five Points dive cannot have represented any great advancement—and the one we entered that night was nothing if not average. The ceiling was only eight feet or so from the dirt floor, since the space had originally been designed as a cellar for the storefront above. There were no windows: light was provided by four filthy kerosene lamps that hung above a like number of long, low tables arranged in two rows. At these tables sat and slept the customers, their differences of age, sex, and dress more than outweighed by their common air of drunken dementia. There were about twenty people in the place that night, though only three—a pair of men and a woman, the last groaning and cackling at the incomprehensible statements of the other two—showed any real signs of life. They examined us with looks of glassy hatred when we came in, and Marcus inclined his head toward me.

“I suppose,” he whispered, “that the key in here is to move slowly.”

I nodded, and then we wandered back to the “bar”—a plank resting on two ash barrels at the far end of the room. Immediately, two glasses of the substance from which such places took their name were placed in front of us. Stale beer was a flat, repellant mixture of the dregs that were collected from dozens of kegs in slightly more reputable houses—I paid for the drinks but made no move to touch mine, and Marcus pushed his glass aside.

The bartender who stood before us was about five and a half feet tall, with tawny hair, a matching mustache, and a typical look of slightly crazed resentment on his face.

“Don’ wan’ the drinks?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Information. About a customer.”

“Fuck,” the man snorted. “Ge’ out.”

I produced more money. “Just one or two questions.”

The man looked around anxiously and, seeing that the trio of relatively compos mentis customers were no longer watching us, slipped the money into his pocket. “Well?”

I shot the name Beecham over the bartender’s bow, producing no reaction; but when I went on to describe a tall man with a facial twitch, I could see by the heightened glimmer in the fellow’s sickly bright eyes that our friend Mitchell Harper had played straight with us.

“A block up,” the bartender mumbled. “Number 155. Top floor, inna back.”

Marcus looked at me dubiously, and the bartender caught it. “Seen it myself!” he insisted. “You frumma girl’s fam’ly?”

“Girl?” I said.

The bartender nodded. “Too’ a girl up there. Mother thought she’d been ’napped. Didn’ hurt her, though—but did near kill a man that mentioned it in here.”

I weighed that. “He drinks a lot?”

“Didn’ used to. Never unnerstood what he was doin’ here when he first showed up. Lately more, though.”

I looked to Marcus, who gave me a quick nod. After dumping some more money on the bar we turned to go, but the bartender grabbed my arm. “You heard nuthin’ from me,” he said urgently. “Tha’s no man to cross.” He bared several yellow and gray teeth. “Iss quite a pick he carries.”

Marcus and I started away again, leaving the bartender to drain the two glasses of stale beer he’d poured for us. Once more we exercised great care in walking by the near-dead bodies at the tables, and though one man by the door did turn and begin to urinate unconsciously on the floor as we passed, there didn’t seem anything personal in the act.

As Marcus stepped over the puddle of urine he murmured to me, “So Beecham’s drinking.”

“Yes,” I answered, opening the front door. “I remember Kreizler saying once that our man might be entering a final, self-destructive phase. Anybody who drinks in a joint like this has certainly done that.”

We got back outside to find Sara and Lucius looking just as anxious as we’d left them. “Come on,” I said quickly, leading the way north. “We’ve got an address.”

Number 155 Baxter Street was an unremarkable New York tenement, though in any other neighborhood the women and children who were hanging out its windows on that seasonable night would have been laughing or singing or at least screaming at one another. Here they simply sat with their heads in their hands, the youngest of them looking as worldly and tired as the oldest, and none of them exhibiting any interest in what occurred on the street. A man who I placed at about thirty was seated on the stoop, swinging a nightstick that looked to be authentic police issue. It wasn’t difficult to judge, after getting a glimpse of the man’s blow-twisted features and surly grin, just how he’d laid hands on the trophy. I mounted the stoop, and the end of the nightstick poked my chest just hard enough to stop me from going further.

“Business?” the crooked-faced man said, his breath reeking of camphor-laced liquor.

“We’re here to see a resident,” I answered.

The man laughed. “Don’t git gay wit me, swell. Business?”

I paused before answering. “Who are you supposed to be?”

The laugh died. “I’m supposed to be da mug what watches dis building—for da landlord. So don’t git gay wit me, boy, less youse wanna taste dis sap.” He was speaking in the Bowery slang long since immortalized by the city’s toughs, a language that was always a little difficult to take seriously; still, I didn’t like the look of the nightstick, and went for my billfold once again.

“Top floor,” I said, holding some money out. “In the back. Anybody home?”

The man’s grin returned. “Oh!” he said, taking the cash. “Youse mean old—” He suddenly began to blink, and then to comically contort his right jaw, cheek, and eye. Apparently unsatisfied with the results of this performance, he heightened its effect by tugging at his head with his hands. Pleased with this additional effort, he began to laugh loud. “Nah, he ain’t dere,” he finally said. “Never dere, not nights. During da day, sometimes, but not nights. You can check da roof, mebbe he’s up dere. Likes it up dere, does dat boid.”

“What about his flat?” I said. “Maybe we’d like to wait for him there.”

“Mebbe it’s locked,” the fellow answered with another grin. I held out still more money. “Den agin, mebbe it ain’t.” The man started into the building. “Ain’t cops, is youse?”

“I’m not paying you to ask questions,” I answered.

The man gave my words something that approached consideration, then nodded. “Okay. Come on wit me— but keep it quiet, right?”

We all nodded and followed the man inside. The building’s long, darkened staircase was redolent with the usual stenches of rotting refuse and human waste, and at its foot I paused to let Sara get in front of me.

“A world away from Mrs. Piedmont’s,” she whispered as she passed.

We got up the six flights of stairs without incident, and then our guide knocked on one of four doors that branched off a small landing. After getting no reply, he held up a finger. “Wait here a minute,” he said, and then he loped up the final flight of stairs to the roof. In seconds he was back, looking more relaxed. “All clear,” he announced, taking a large ring of keys from his hip pocket and unlocking the door he’d knocked on. “Hadda make sure he weren’t around. He’s a touchy one, old—” Instead of saying a name, the man began to contort his face again, which gave him another laugh. Finally, we entered the flat.

A kerosene lamp sat on a shelf by the door, and I lit it. The space that slowly became visible was essentially one narrow hallway, perhaps thirty feet in overall length, in the middle of which had been built a small partition and a doorway with a transom over it. Two recently cut chinks in the side walls were the flat’s only connections to the outside world, offering limited, bleak views across narrow airshafts into similar gaps in the walls of neighboring flats. A small stove was set up against the partition, though there were apparently no sanitary facilities, other than a rusted bucket. Only a few pieces of furniture could be seen from the front door: a plain old desk and chair on the near side of the partition, and beyond it the foot of a bed. Coats of thick, cheap paint had chipped and peeled away from the walls, revealing one another and creating the overall impression of a brown stain such as one might find at