The Alienist

this once,” Jesse went on urgently. “I was crazy then, but I ain’t crazy anymore—which means that, when I think back to it now, I can see everything pretty clear. There wasn’t any sane reason for me to do what I did to them kids. I just—it was just more than I could stand, that’s all, and I had to stop it.”

Laszlo knew that he was close. As a further inducement he sat back down, and then spoke very softly. “Had to stop what, Jesse?”

Pomeroy looked up at the small chink in the top of the blank stone wall, through which a few stars were now visible. “The staring,” he mumbled, in an altogether new and detached tone of voice. “The watching. All the time, the watching. That had to stop.” He turned our way again, and it seemed to me there were tears in his good eye; his mouth, however, had curled into a smile again. “You know, I used to go to the menagerie—in town? This was when I was real small. And it used to occur to me that everything those animals did, people were watching them. Just staring at them, with those dumb, blank faces, bug-eyed and hang-jawed—especially the kids, because they were too stupid to know any better. And those goddamned animals would look back, and you could see they was mad, God damn me, ferocious was the word, all right. All they wanted was to rip those people apart, just to get them to knock it off. Pacing back and forth, back and forth, thinking that if they could get out for just one minute they’d show ’em what you get when you never leave a thing alone. Well, I might not’ve been in a cage, Doc, but those dumb damned eyes was everywhere around me, all the same, ever since I could remember. Staring, watching, all the time, everywhere. You tell me, Doc, you tell me if that ain’t enough to drive somebody crazy. And when I got big enough, and I’d see one of those dumb little bastards standing there, licking a piece of candy with his eyes popping out of his head—well, Doc, the fact is, I wasn’t in no cage back then, so there wasn’t nothing to stop me from doing what needed to be done.”

Pomeroy made no move after he’d stopped talking, but sat stone still and waited for a reaction from Kreizler.

“You say it was always that way, Jesse,” Laszlo said. “For as long as you can remember? With everyone you knew?”

“Everyone but my dad,” Pomeroy answered, with a humorless, almost pitiable laugh. “He must’ve got so tired of looking at me he ran off. Not that I know—I don’t remember him at all. But it’s what I figured, based on how my mama used to act.”

Again, Kreizler’s face danced with anticipation for the briefest of instants. “And how was that?”

“That was like—this!” In a flash Jesse was up and holding his caged head just a couple of feet away from Laszlo’s face. I got to my feet, but Jesse made no further move forward. “Tell your bodyguard he can set down, Doc,” he said, his good eye locked on Kreizler. “I’m just giving you a demonstration. Always like this, was how it seemed to me. Every minute, watching me, what for I couldn’t tell you. For my own good, she used to say, but she didn’t act like it.” The collar cap was weighing heavy on Jesse’s outstretched neck, and he finally turned away. “Yeah, she sure took an interest in this old face of mine.” The dead laugh came back. “Never wanted to kiss it, though, I can tell you!” Something seemed to strike him, and he paused quietly, again looking up at the chink in the wall. “That first boy I went after, I made him kiss it. He didn’t want to, but after I— well. He did it.”

Laszlo waited a few seconds before asking: “And the man whose face you burned today?”

Jesse spat at the floor through the bars of the collar cap. “That idiot—the same damned thing! Just couldn’t keep his eyes to himself, I musta told him twenty goddamned times to—” Catching himself, Pomeroy suddenly spun on Kreizler, with real fear in his face; then the fear quickly vanished, and that lethal smile came back. “Whup. Looks like I shot it to hell, didn’t I? Fine piece of work, Doc.”

Laszlo stood up. “It was none of my doing, Jesse.”

“Yeah,” Pomeroy laughed. “Maybe you’re right. As long as I live, I’ll never know how you get me to talking that way. If I had a hat, I’d tip it. But, since I don’t—”

In one fast move Pomeroy bent over, grabbed a gleaming object out of one of his boots, and held it out toward us menacingly. Tightening his body he stood on his toes, ready to spring forward. I backed up instinctively against the wall behind me, and Kreizler did likewise, though more slowly. As a series of wet chortles came out of Pomeroy’s mouth, I looked closer to see that his weapon was a long shard of thick glass, wrapped at one end with a bloodstained rag.

CHAPTER 24

More swiftly than most men could have managed it even without being shackled, Pomeroy kicked the stool he’d been sitting on across the room and jammed it under the knob of the door, preventing entry from the hall outside.

“Don’t worry,” he said, still grinning. “I got no desire to cut you two up—I just want to have a little fun with that big idiot outside!” He turned away from us, laughed again, and called out: “Hey, Lasky! You ready to lose your job? When the warden sees what I done to these boys, he won’t let you guard the shithouse!”

Lasky cursed in reply and began pounding on the door. Pomeroy kept the shard of glass leveled in the general direction of our throats but made no more threatening move, just laughed harder and harder as the guard’s rage mounted. It wasn’t long before the door began to loosen on its hinges, and soon after that the stool fell away from the knob. In a noisy burst Lasky hurtled into the room, the door crashing to the floor as he did. After struggling to his feet he saw first that Kreizler and I were all right and next that Pomeroy was armed. Grabbing the wooden stool from where it lay, Lasky went after Jesse, who made only a halfhearted attempt to resist.

Throughout this encounter Kreizler displayed no apparent fear for our safety, but kept shaking his head slowly as if he knew exactly what was happening. Lasky soon had the shard of glass out of Pomeroy’s hands, after which he began to pummel the prisoner mercilessly with his fat fists. The fact that he couldn’t get at Jesse’s face seemed only to outrage him further, and the shots that he landed to the prisoner’s body became all the more savage. Yet even as Pomeroy cried out in pain, he continued to laugh—a wild kind of laughter, full of abandon and even, in some awful way, delight. I was utterly mystified and paralyzed; but Kreizler, after several minutes of this display, stepped forward and began to pull at Lasky’s shoulders.

“Stop it!” he shouted to the guard. “Lasky, for God’s sake, stop, you fool!” He kept yanking and tugging, but the huge Lasky was oblivious to his efforts. “Lasky! Stop, man, don’t you see, you’re doing what he wants! He’s enjoying it!”

The guard continued to pound away, and finally Kreizler, himself consumed by what seemed a sort of desperation, used the full weight of his body to shove Lasky away from Pomeroy. Surprised and enraged, Lasky got to his feet and took a hefty swing at Kreizler’s head, which Laszlo easily eluded. Seeing that the guard intended to keep coming after him, Kreizler balled his right hand into a fist and gave Lasky several quick shots that were vividly reminiscent of his very creditable stand against Roosevelt almost twenty years earlier. As Lasky reeled and fell back, Kreizler caught his breath and stood over him.

“It’s got to stop, Lasky!” he declared, in a voice so passionate that it made me rush over and stand between him and the prostrate guard, in order to prevent my friend from continuing his attack. Pomeroy lay on the floor, writhing in agony, trying to clutch his ribs with his shackled hands and still laughing grotesquely. Kreizler turned to him, breathing hard, and softly repeated:

“It’s got to stop.”

As Lasky’s head cleared, his eyes focused on Kreizler. “You son of a bitch!” He tried to get to his feet, but it was a struggle. “Help,” he gasped, spitting a little blood onto the floor. “Help! Guard in trouble!” His voice echoed out into the hall. “The old shower room! Help me, damn it!”

I could hear running feet coming toward us from what sounded like the far end of the building. “Laszlo, we’ve got to move,” I said quickly, knowing that we were now in very deep trouble: Lasky did not look like a man who would forgo revenge, especially if he had the aid of compatriots. Kreizler was still looking at Pomeroy, and I had to pull him out of the room. “Laszlo, damn you!” I said. “You’ll get us killed yet—pick up your feet and run!”