The Alienist

employed a much larger and more professional band than the usual three-piece noise gang found in concert halls). Soon raucous laughter, a few drunken screams, and finally the resonant rattle of glasses and bottles joined the din. Not relishing the prospect of actually going inside, I was much relieved to see Kelly emerge from the joint’s frosted glass doors just as I arrived. With him was a police sergeant—in uniform—who was laughing and counting a wad of money. Kelly glanced over, caught sight of me, and then elbowed the cop, telling him with a nod of his head to get lost. The sergeant obliged, scurrying obediently away in the general direction of Mulberry Street.

“Well, Moore!” Kelly said, pulling a small snuffbox out of his silk vest and grinning in his handsome way. “You can forget you saw that,” he said, inclining his head toward the vanishing cop.

“Don’t worry, Kelly,” I answered, drawing up to him. “I figure I may owe you one.”

“Me?” Kelly chuckled. “Not likely, newshound. I see that you’re in one piece, though. From the rumors that’re floating around town, I’d say you’re damned lucky.”

“Come on, Kelly,” I said. “I saw your rig tonight—and your man McManus saved our necks.”

“Jack?” Kelly opened the snuffbox, revealing a mound of finely ground cocaine. “Why, he didn’t tell me. Doesn’t sound like Jack, though, to go around doing good deeds.” Kelly put a little cocaine on one knuckle and snorted it hard, then held the box out to me. “Care for some? I wouldn’t myself, but these late nights—”

“No,” I said. “Thanks. Listen, the best I can figure is that you made some kind of a deal with Kreizler.”

“Deal?” Kelly echoed again, his affected ignorance starting to make me testy. He took a little more cocaine, then stepped aside when a large, well-dressed man came stumbling out of the New Brighton with two homely, garishly dressed women in tow. Kelly called good night to the man amiably, then turned back to me. “Why in the world would I cut a deal with the good doctor?”

“That’s what I don’t know!” I replied, exasperated. “The only explanation I can think of is that you once said you had a lot of respect for him. That day in your carriage—you said you’d even read a monograph of his.”

Kelly chuckled again. “That’s not likely to make me go against my own interests, Moore. I’m a practical man, after all. Just like your friend Mr. Morgan.” I looked at him blankly, and his smile widened. “Oh, sure. I know all about your meeting with the Nose.”

I thought to ask him how in hell he knew, but it really was useless—he obviously wasn’t in a cooperative mood, and I was just giving him sport. “All right,” I announced, taking a few steps away. “I’ve been through entirely too much tonight to stand out here playing who-knows-what with you, Kelly. Tell Jack he’s got a favor coming.”

At that I stormed off, or tried my best to, anyway; but I’d only gotten half the distance to the corner when I heard Kelly’s voice again:

“Say. Moore.” I turned around, and saw him still grinning. “It sounds like you people had a hell of a time.” Putting his snuffbox back in his vest, he cocked his head playfully. “I’m not saying I know anything about it, of course. But ask yourself this when you get a free minute—of all the people who were up there tonight, who do you think is really the most dangerous to the boys uptown?”

I stood there, staring dumbly at Kelly and then at the ground, trying to make sense out of his question. After half a minute, an answer started to form in my overworked brain, and my jaw dropped open a little bit. I glanced back up with a grin and was about to state my reply—but Kelly was nowhere to be seen. I had an idea to go inside after him, but quickly abandoned it: there was no point. I knew what he meant, and understood what he’d done. Paul Kelly, gangland chief, inveterate gambler, and amateur philosopher and social critic, was playing a hunch; and though none of us would likely live long enough to see the ultimate outcome of the game, I suspected that his hunch was correct.

Strangely encouraged, I turned back around and jumped into a hansom that was sitting outside Kelly’s place, fairly well screaming at the driver to take me down to East Broadway in a hurry. As my driver whipped his horse down Lafayette Place and then east on Worth Street I began to chuckle and even hum a bit. “The final riddle,” I sang, echoing Marcus’s words from earlier in the evening: I wanted to be there when they solved it.

My cab pulled up at the Kreizler Institute at just past four-thirty and parked behind Laszlo’s calash. The only sound on the street was that of a baby crying, coming from an open window in one of the tenements opposite Kreizler’s two buildings. As I paid off my cabbie and stepped to the street, I caught sight of Marcus, who was sitting on the iron steps of the Institute, smoking a cigarette and running a hand through his hair. He acknowledged me with a nervous wave, and then I went over to peer inside the calash. Stevie was lying on the seat smoking, and when he looked over and saw me he saluted with his cigarette.

“Mr. Moore,” he said amiably. “Not bad, these what the detective sergeant smokes. You oughta try one.”

“Thanks,” I said, turning around. “I think I will. Where’s Cyrus?”

“Inside,” the boy replied, lying back down. “Making ’em some coffee. They been at it for hours.” He took a deep pull on the cigarette and then held it to the sky. “You know, Mr. Moore, you wouldn’t figure a stinkhole like this city to have so many stars over it. Seems like the smell’d be enough to drive ’em away…”

I smiled and walked away from the calash. “True enough, Stevie,” I said, looking beyond Marcus to the ground-floor windows of the Institute: They were brightly lit.

I sat down next to the taller Isaacson. “You’re not inside?”

He shook his head quickly, blowing smoke out of his long, handsome nose. “I was. Thought I’d be able to stand it, but—”

“You don’t have to tell me,” I said, accepting a cigarette from him and lighting it. “I’m not going in.”

The front door of the Institute opened a crack, and I turned around to see Cyrus poking his head out. “Mr. Moore, sir?” he said. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?”

“If it’s your coffee, Cyrus,” I answered, “most certainly.”

He tilted his head and shrugged slightly. “I’m not guaranteeing anything,” he said. “I haven’t tried my hand since I got knocked on the head.”

“I’ll take a chance,” I answered. “How are they doing in there?”

“Getting on toward the end, I believe,” Cyrus answered. “Getting on toward the end…”

But it was another three quarters of an hour before there was any sign of things being wrapped up in Kreizler’s operating theater. During that time Marcus and I smoked, drank coffee, and tried, in some roundabout way, to accustom ourselves to the conclusion of our quest and the coming disbandment of our team. Whatever answers Kreizler and Lucius were uncovering in the operating theater wouldn’t change the fact that Beecham was dead. As the night wore on into morning, I realized just how much this one circumstance was becoming the conditioning force of all our lives.

Finally, at almost five-thirty, the ground-floor door opened and Lucius appeared. He was wearing a leather apron that was stained with many odorous fluids, bodily and other, and he looked utterly exhausted.

“Well,” he said, wiping his hands on a bloodstained towel, “that’s that, I suppose.” Collapsing onto the steps beside us, he produced a handkerchief and mopped at his forehead, as Cyrus came down from the front door behind him.

“That’s that?” Marcus asked, a little annoyed. “What do you mean, that’s that? What’s what, what did you find?”

“Nothing,” Lucius said, shaking his head and closing his eyes. “To all appearances, everything was perfectly normal. Dr. Kreizler’s checking a few last details, but…”

I stood up, tossing the stub of my cigarette into the street. “Then he was right,” I said quietly, as a chill ran up my back.

Lucius hunched his shoulders. “He was right so far as medicine can determine that he was right.”

Marcus continued to study his brother. “Are you trying to spoil this?” he said. “If he was right, he was right, don’t bring medicine into it.”

Lucius was about to point out the less than stellar reasoning underlying that statement, but elected instead to sigh and nod. “Yes,” he breathed, “he was right.” Lucius stood up, removed his apron, and handed it to Cyrus. “And I,” he continued, “am going home. He wants us all at Delmonico’s tonight. Eleven-thirty. Maybe by then I’ll be able to eat.” He started to wander off.

“Wait a minute,” Marcus said, as his brother stumbled away. “You’re not leaving