The Alienist

meanwhile, were wrapping up a long afternoon at the Ward’s Island Lunatic Asylum, where they had been studying the phenomena of secondary personalities and brain hemisphere dysfunction, in order to determine if either pathology might characterize our killer.

Kreizler considered such possibilities remote, to say the very least, essentially because patients afflicted with dual consciousnesses (arising from either psychic or physical trauma) did not generally exhibit the capacity for extensive planning that our killer had shown. But Laszlo was determined to chase down even the most improbable theories. Then, too, he genuinely liked such outings with Lucius, which allowed him to trade bits of his unique medical knowledge for invaluable lessons in criminal science. Thus when Kreizler telephoned at about six o’clock to say that he and the detective sergeant had finished their research, I was not entirely surprised to hear more vigor in Laszlo’s voice than had been the case in recent days; and I replied with equal energy when he suggested that we meet for a drink at Brubacher’s Wine Garden on Union Square, where we could compare notes on the day’s activities.

I spent another half an hour on the evening papers, then wrote a note for Sara and Marcus, telling them to come along to Brubacher’s and join us. After pinning the note to the front door, I snatched a walking stick out of the Marchese Carcano’s elegant ceramic stand and headed out into the warm evening, as merrily, I’ll wager, as any man who’s spent the day immersed in blood, mutilation, and murder has ever done.

The mood on Broadway was a festive one, the stores being open late for Thursday evening shopping. It was not yet dusk, but McCreery’s was apparently still on its winter lighting schedule: the windows were bright beacons, offering what seemed certain customer satisfaction to the passing throngs. Evening services had concluded at Grace Church, but there were still a few worshipers gathered outside, their light dress a testament to spring’s long-awaited but irreversible arrival. With a rap of my stick against the pavement I turned north, ready to spend at least a few minutes back among the world of the living, and on my way to one of the best places to do so.

“Papa” Brubacher, a truly gemutlich restaurateur who was always glad to see a regular customer, had assembled one of the best wine and beer cellars in New York, and the terrace of his establishment, across the street from the east side of Union Square, was an ideal place from which to watch people stroll in the park as the sun descended beyond the western terminus of Fourteenth Street. Such, however, were not the principal reasons why sporting gentlemen like myself frequented the place. When streetcars had first made their appearance on Broadway, some unknown conductor had gotten it into his head that if the snakelike bends that the tracks made around Union Square weren’t taken at full speed the car would lose its cable. The other conductors on the line had bought into this never-proven theory, and before long the stretch of Broadway along the park had been dubbed “Dead Man’s Curve,” because of the frequency with which unsuspecting pedestrians and carriage riders lost life or limb to the hurtling streetcars. Brubacher’s terrace provided a commanding view of all this action; and throughout warm afternoons and evenings it was customary, when one of the engines of injury was heard or seen approaching, for bets to be laid among the wine garden’s customers as to the likelihood of an accident occurring. These bets could, on occasion, be sizable, and the guilt that the winners felt when a collision did take place never managed to drive the game out of existence. Indeed, the frequency of accidents, and thus the volume of gaming, had risen to such proportions that Brubacher’s had earned the sobriquet “Monument House,” and was now a required stop for any visitor to New York who aspired to the title of gamesman.

As I crossed Fourteenth Street to the small curbed island east of Union Square that was home to Henry K. Brown’s splendid equestrian statue of General Washington, I began to hear the usual shouts—“Twenty bucks the old lady doesn’t make it!”; “The guy’s only got one leg, he doesn’t have a prayer!”—emanating from Papa Brubacher’s. The call of the game sped my steps, and when I arrived I jumped the ivy-laden iron railing that ringed the terrace and nestled in with a couple of old pals of mine. After ordering a liter of smooth, dark Wurzburger that had a head as thick as whipped cream, I rose just long enough to embrace old Brubacher, then finally began to lay bets with a fury.

By the time Kreizler and Lucius Isaacson showed up, at just past seven, my friends and I had witnessed two near-misses on nannies with perambulators and one brush of a streetcar against a very expensive landau. An intense debate as to whether this latter contact constituted a collision ensued, one that I was just as glad to get away from by retreating to a relatively remote corner of the terrace with Lucius and Kreizler, who ordered a bottle of Didesheimer. The debate that I found them engaged in, however, steeped as it was in references to brain parts and functions, proved no more entertaining. The distant sound of an approaching streetcar at last signaled a new round of betting, and I had just wagered the full contents of my billfold on the agility of a fruit peddler when I looked up to find myself face-to-face with Marcus and Sara.

I was going to suggest that they get in on the action, as the fruit peddler’s pushcart was particularly heavy- laden and the encounter looked to be an exciting even-money affair; but when I paused long enough to study their respective faces and attitudes—Marcus’s wild-eyed and agitated, Sara’s pallid and stunned—I realized that something extraordinary had occurred, and put my money away.

“What in hell’s happened to you two?” I said, setting my beer stein on a table. “Sara, are you all right?”

She nodded rather weakly, and Marcus began to scan the terrace fervently, while fidgeting with his hands uncontrollably. “A telephone,” he said. “John, where’s a telephone?”

“Just inside the door, there. Tell Brubacher you’re a friend of mine, he’ll let you—”

But Marcus was already shooting away from me into the restaurant, while Kreizler and Lucius, who had broken off their conversation, stood and watched in confusion.

“Detective Sergeant,” Kreizler said, as Marcus passed. “Has there been some—”

“Excuse me, Doctor,” Marcus said. “I’ve got to—Sara has something you ought to see.” Marcus took two steps inside the open terrace doorway and grabbed the telephone, putting the little conical receiver to his ear and clicking the armrest rapidly. Brubacher looked on in surprise, but at a nod from me he let Marcus continue. “Operator? Hello, operator?” Marcus began to stamp his right foot hard. “Operator! I need to get a line through to Toronto. Yes, that’s right, Canada.”

“Canada?” Lucius echoed, his own eyes going wide. “Oh, God—Alexander Macleod! Then that means—” Lucius glanced at Sara, looking as if he suddenly understood what she’d been through, and then joined his brother at the ’phone. I guided Sara over to Kreizler’s table, and then she very slowly drew an envelope out of her bag.

“This arrived at the Santorellis’ flat yesterday,” she said, in a dry, pained voice. “Mrs. Santorelli brought it to Police Headquarters this morning. She couldn’t read it and was asking for help. No one would give her any, but she refused to go home. Eventually I found her sitting out by the front steps. I translated it. At least, I translated most of it.” She shoved the note into Laszlo’s hand and her head dropped lower. “She didn’t want to keep it, and since there’s nothing anyone at headquarters can do with it, Theodore asked me to bring it along and see what you make of it, Doctor.”

Lucius came back over to join us, and he and I watched anxiously as Kreizler opened the envelope. When Laszlo had glanced over its contents he drew in breath quickly though quietly, and nodded his head. “So,” he noised, in a voice that seemed to say he’d been expecting something like this. Then we all sat down, and without any introduction Kreizler read the following in a very quiet voice (I have preserved the author’s original spelling in this transcription):

My dear Mrs. Santorelli,

I don’t know as it is you what is the source of the vile LIES I read in the newspapers, or if the police are behind it and the reporters are part of their scheme, but as I figger it might be you I take this occashun to straten you out:

In some parts of this world such as where dirty immigrants like yourself come from it is often found that human flesh is eaten regular, as other food is so scarce and people would starve without it. I have personally read this and know it to be true. Of course it is usuly children what is eaten as they are tenderest and best tasting, especially the ass of a small child.

Then these people that eat it come here to America and shit their little children shit all around, which is dirty, dirtier than a Red Injun.

On February 18 I seen your boy parading himself, with ashes and paint on his face. I decided to wait, and saw him several times before one night I took him away from THAT PLACE. Saucy boy, I already knew I must eat him. So we went straight to the bridge and I trussed him and did him quick. I collected his eyes and took his ass and it fed me for a week, roasted with onions and carrots.

But I never fucked him, though I could have and he would have liked me to. He died unsoiled by me, and the papers ought to say so.