The Alienist

Hunting, stalking, trapping, killing—they all calmed Beecham’s spirit, and that calm was reflected in his face. Whoever the boy, the street cruiser, that Joseph had referred to was, he might in fact have been accosted by our man. Joseph himself certainly had been. All because I had forgotten a detail…

Kreizler put a hand on my shoulder as the calash rolled on, and when I next looked up we’d come to a stop outside Delmonico’s. I knew that the restaurant wouldn’t be open for another hour or two, but I also knew that if any man could arrange an off-hours meal, it was Kreizler. Cyrus got down from the driver’s seat and helped me out of the carriage, saying softly, “There you go. Mr. Moore—get a little food in you.” I found my walking legs and followed Laszlo to the front door, which was opened by Charlie Delmonico. Something about the look in his enormous eyes told me that he knew all the details.

“Good morning, Doctor,” he said, in about the only tone of voice that I could’ve stood to have heard at just that instant. “Mr. Moore,” he went on, as we came inside. “I hope you will make yourselves entirely comfortable, gentlemen. If there is anything at all I can do…”

“Thank you, Charles,” Kreizler answered.

I touched the man’s elbow and managed to whisper, “Thanks, Charlie,” before we entered the dining room.

With unfailing psychological insight, Kreizler had selected for our breakfast the only place in New York where I might have been able to either collect myself or eat anything at all. Alone in the silent main dining room at Del’s, with the light that came through the windows soft enough to allow my shattered nerves to begin to heal, I actually managed to consume several bites of cucumber fillets, Creole eggs, and broiled squab. But even more important, I found that I was able to talk.

“Do you know,” I murmured, soon after we’d sat down, “that I was actually thinking—was it yesterday?—that I could still feel sympathy for the man, despite all he’d done. Because of the context of his life. I thought that I finally knew him.”

Kreizler shook his head. “You can’t, John. Not that well. You can come close, perhaps, close enough to anticipate him but in the end neither you nor I nor anyone else will be able to see just what he sees when he looks at those children, or feel precisely the emotion that makes him take up the knife. The only way to learn of such things would be…” Kreizler turned to the window with a faraway look. “Would be to ask him.”

I nodded weakly. “We found his flat.”

“Sara told me,” Laszlo said, shaking himself a bit. “You’ve done brilliantly, John. All of you.”

I scoffed at that. “Brilliantly…Marcus doesn’t think Beecham will come back to the place. And I’ve got to say that I agree now. The bloodthirsty bastard’s been a step ahead of us all the way.”

Kreizler shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Did Sara tell you about the map?”

“Yes,” Laszlo said, as a waiter brought us two glasses of fresh tomato juice. “And Marcus has identified it— it’s a chart of the city’s water supply system. Apparently the entire network’s been refurbished over the last ten years. Beecham probably stole the map from the Public Records Office.”

I had a sip of juice. “The water supply system? What the hell does that point to?”

“Sara and Marcus have ideas,” Kreizler answered, taking some sauteed potatoes with artichoke hearts and truffles from a small platter. “I’m sure they’ll tell you.”

I looked right into those black eyes. “Then you’re not coming back?”

Kreizler glanced away quickly, evasively. “It isn’t possible, John. Not yet.” He tried to brighten as the Creole eggs arrived. “You’ve set your plan for Sunday—the Feast of the Baptist.”

“Yes.”

“It will be an important night for him.”

“I suppose.”

“The fact that he’s left his—his trophies behind indicates a crisis of some sort. By the way, the heart in the box? His mother’s, I suspect.” I only shrugged. “You realize, of course,” Laszlo went on, “that Sunday is the night of the benefit for Abbey and Grau at the Metropolitan?”

My jaw fell open and my eyes strained in disbelief. “What?”

“The benefit,” Kreizler said, almost cheerfully. “The bankruptcy has destroyed Abbey’s health, poor fellow. For that if for no other reason we must attend.”

“We?” I squeaked. “Kreizler, we’re going to be hunting a murderer, for God’s sake!”

“Yes, yes,” Laszlo answered, “but later. Beecham hasn’t struck before midnight thus far. There’s no reason to think he will on Sunday. So why not make the wait as pleasant as possible, and help Abbey and Grau at the same time?”

I dropped my fork. “I know—I’m losing my mind. You’re not actually saying any of this, you can’t be—”

“Maurel will be singing Giovanni,” Kreizler said enticingly, shoving some squab and eggs into his face. “Edouard de Reszke will be Leporello, and I hardly dare tell you who’s scheduled for Zerlina…”

I huffed once indignantly, but then asked, “Frances Saville?”

“She of the legs,” Kreizler answered with a nod. “Anton Seidl conducts. Oh, and Nordica sings Donna Anna.”

There was no doubt about it—he’d just described a truly memorable night of opera, and I was momentarily distracted by the prospect. But then a stabbing sensation hit my gut as a picture of Joseph came into my head, wiping out all fantasies about pleasant evenings. “Kreizler,” I said coldly, “I don’t know what’s happened that lets you sit here and talk so casually about the opera, as if people we both know hadn’t been—”

“There’s nothing casual in what I’m saying, Moore.” The black eyes went dead, and a cool but ferocious sort of determination hardened the voice: “I’ll make a deal with you—come with me to Giovanni, and I’ll rejoin the investigation. And we will end this affair.”

“You’ll rejoin?” I said, surprised. “But when?”

“Not before the opera,” Laszlo answered. I was about to protest, but he held up a firm hand. “I can’t be any more specific than that, John, so don’t ask me to. Just tell me—do you accept?”

Well, of course I did accept—what else was I going to do? Despite everything the Isaacsons, Sara, and I had achieved in recent weeks, Joseph’s murder had left me feeling profoundly doubtful about our ability to see the investigation through. The thought of Kreizler coming back was an enormous incentive to keep going, one that allowed me to get through an entire squab before we finally left Del’s and headed downtown. He was being mysterious, all right—but Laszlo wasn’t capricious about such things, and my money said that he had a good reason for shrouding his intentions. And so I promised to get my opera clothes cleaned, and then shook hands on the deal; though when I said how much I was looking forward to telling the others about the arrangement on my return to Number 808 Broadway, Kreizler requested that I not do so. Above all, I was to say nothing to Roosevelt.

“I don’t ask that out of bitterness,” Laszlo explained, as I got out of the calash at the northern end of Union Square. “Theodore has been decent and kind in recent days, and diligent in his search for Connor.”

“There’s still no sign of the man, however,” I said, having heard as much from Roosevelt.

Laszlo stared off, seeming oddly detached. “He’ll turn up, I suspect. And in the meantime”—he closed the small carriage door—“there are other things to attend to. All right, Cyrus.”

The calash rolled away, and I walked downtown.

When I arrived at our headquarters I found a note from Sara and the Isaacsons on my desk, saying that they’d gone home to get a few hours’ sleep, after which they planned to join the team of detectives that Theodore had assigned to watch Beecham’s building. I took advantage of their absence to stretch out on the divan and try to get some much-needed rest of my own, though the state I subsequently fell into could hardly have been called a sound sleep. Still, by noon I was feeling improved enough to go back to Washington Square, bathe, and change my clothes. Then I telephoned Sara. She informed me that the rendezvous at 155 Baxter Street was set for sundown, and that Roosevelt himself intended to log a few hours on watch. She said she’d pick me up in a cab, and then we