"Here!" One of the loitering men grabbed my arm. "D'you know there's a c.o.o.n driving your rig?"

"Is there?" I answered, guiding Sara through the almost visible stench that hovered around the men.

"Black as the ace of spades!" another of the men a.s.serted, seemingly astonished.

"Remarkable," I replied, as Sara got inside. Before I could follow, the first man grabbed me again.

"You're not another cop, are you?" he asked menacingly.

"Absolutely not," I answered. "I despise cops."

The man nodded once but said nothing, from which I divined that I was allowed to pa.s.s.

To get to the rear building it was necessary to navigate the pitch-black hallway of the front structure: always an unsettling experience. With Sara in the lead we felt our way along the filthy walls, trying but failing to adjust to the lack of light. I started when Sara stumbled on something; and I started even more violently when that something began to wail.

"Good lord, John," Sara said after a moment. "It's a baby."

I still couldn't see a thing, but as I got closer the smell gave it away-a baby, all right, and the poor creature must have been covered in its own excrement.

"We've got to get it help," Sara said, and I thought of the men on the stoop. When I looked back toward the front door, however, I saw them silhouetted against the snowfall outside, swinging sticks as they watched us, and occasionally laughing in a very unpleasant way. There would be no help from that quarter, so I began to try doors inside the hall. Finally finding one that would open, I pulled Sara toward and through it.

Inside were an old man and woman, ragpickers, who would only accept the baby after I offered them a half-dollar. They told us that the infant belonged to a couple across the hall who were out, as they were every day and night, jabbing morphine and drinking in a dive around the corner. The old man a.s.sured us that they would get the baby something to eat and clean it up, at which Sara gave them another dollar. Neither of us was under any illusions as to how much good a cleaning and feeding would do the child in the long run (I suppose you could argue that we were simply easing our own consciences), but it was one of those all-too-common moments in New York when one is faced with a d.a.m.nable set of options.

Finally, we reached the back door. The alleyway between the front and rear buildings was overflowing with more barrels and buckets full of garbage and sewage, and the smell was indescribable. Sara placed a handkerchief over her nose and mouth and told me to do the same. Then we ran across to the ground-floor hallway of the rear building. There were four apartments with what seemed like a thousand people living in them on the first floor. I tried to identify all the languages being spoken, but lost count at about eight. A smelly collection of Germans with growlers of beer were camped on the staircase, and they parted grudgingly as we went up. It was evident, even in the half-light, that the stairs were coated with almost an inch of something extremely sticky that I didn't want to investigate. It didn't seem to bother the Germans.

The Santorelli flat was on the second floor in the back: the darkest spot in the whole building. When we knocked, a small, horribly thin woman with sunken eyes answered the door, speaking the Sicilian dialect. I knew only enough Italian for the opera, but Sara was better off-again because of her nursing days-and communicated quite easily. Mrs. Santorelli was not at all alarmed to see Sara (in fact she seemed to have been expecting her); but she expressed much concern over my presence, fearfully demanding to know if I was either a policeman or a journalist. Sara had to think fast, and said I was her a.s.sistant. Mrs. Santorelli looked puzzled at that, but finally let us in.

"Sara," I said as we entered, "do you know this woman?"

"No," she answered, "but she seems to know me. Strange."

The flat was composed of two rooms without any real windows, just small slits that had recently been cut in the walls to comply with new tenement regulations concerning ventilation. The Santorellis had rented one of the rooms to another family of Sicilians, which meant that six of them-the parents and Giorgio's four brothers and sisters-lived in a s.p.a.ce about nine feet by sixteen. There was nothing hanging on the bare, soot-encrusted walls, and two big buckets in the corners took care of sanitation. The family also had a kerosene stove, of the inexpensive type that so often used to put an end to such buildings.

Lying on an old, stained mattress in one corner and wrapped in what blankets they had was the cause of Mrs. Santorelli's great agitation: her husband. His face was cut, bruised, and swollen, and his forehead was drenched in sweat. There was a b.l.o.o.d.y rag lying next to him, and, incongruously, a bound wad of money, which must have amounted to several hundred dollars. Mrs. Santorelli took up the wad, shoved it at Sara, and then urged her at the husband, tears starting to stream down her face.

We soon discovered that Mrs. Santorelli believed Sara to be a nurse. She had dispatched her four children to find one only an hour earlier. Again thinking quickly, Sara sat and began to examine Santorelli, quickly discovering that one of his arms was fractured. In addition, most of his torso was covered in bruises.

"John," Sara said firmly, "send Cyrus for bandages, disinfectant, and some morphine. Tell him we'll want a good clean piece of wood to use as a splint, as well."

In what seemed one movement I was out the door, through the Germans and the alleyway, and down the stoop to the curb. I shouted the order to Cyrus, who sped off in the calash, and as I went back through the men on the stoop one of them held a hand to my chest.

"Just a minute," he said. "What's all that for?"

"Mr. Santorelli," I answered. "He's badly hurt."

The man spat hard at the street. "d.a.m.ned cops. I hate those d.a.m.ned guineas, but I'll tell you, I hate cops more!"

This recurring theme seemed once again to be the signal for me to proceed. Back upstairs, Sara had gotten hold of some hot water and was was.h.i.+ng Santorelli's wounds. The wife was still chattering, waving her hands and occasionally bursting into tears.

"There were six men, John," Sara said to me, after listening for a few minutes.

"Six?" I echoed. "I thought you said two."

Sara indicated the bed with a jerk of her head. "Come over here and help me-she'll be suspicious, otherwise." Sitting down, I found that it was difficult to say which smelled worse, the mattress or Santorelli. But none of it seemed to bother Sara. "Connor and Casey were definitely here," she said. "Along with two other men and two priests."

"Priests?" I said, taking up a hot compress. "What in h.e.l.l-"

"One Catholic, apparently, and one not. She can't be more specific about the second. The priests had the money. They told the Santorellis to use some of it to pay for a decent burial for Giorgio. The rest was a-consideration, apparently for silence. They told her not to allow anyone to exhume Giorgio's body, even the police, and not to talk to anyone about the matter-especially any journalists."

"Priests?" I said again, wiping at one of Santorelli's welts with no great enthusiasm. "What did they look like?" I said again, wiping at one of Santorelli's welts with no great enthusiasm. "What did they look like?"

Sara put the question, then translated the answer. "One short, with large white sideburns-that was the Catholic-and one thin with spectacles."

"Why in the world would two priests have any interest in this?" I wondered. "And why would they want to keep the police out of it? You say Connor and Casey were here for that conversation?"

"Apparently."

"So whatever's going on, they're involved. Well, Theodore will be happy to hear that. Two more vacancies in the Division of Detectives, I'll wager. But who were the other two men?"

Again, Sara put the question to Mrs. Santorelli, who rattled off an answer that Sara didn't seem to comprehend. She asked again, but got the same reply.

"I may not understand this dialect as well as I thought," Sara said. "She says the other two weren't weren't policemen, but then she says that they policemen, but then she says that they were were policemen. I don't-" policemen. I don't-"

Sara stopped and we all turned when a loud knock came at the door. Mrs. Santorelli s.h.i.+ed away from it, and I was in no hurry to thrust myself into the breach; but Sara said, "Oh, go on, John, don't be foolish. It's probably Cyrus."

I stepped to the door and opened it. Outside in the hall was one of the men from the stoop. He held up a package.

"Your medicines," he said with a grin. "We don't allow no c.o.o.ns in this building."

"Ah," I said, accepting the package. "I see. Thank you."

Giving the goods to Sara, I sat back down on the bed. Santorelli was by this time semiconscious and Sara administered some of the morphine: she intended to set his arm, a trick she'd learned during her days with the visiting nurses. The break was not bad, she said, but it nonetheless made a somewhat nauseating cracking sound as she got it back into place. Between his grogginess and the drug, however, Santorelli didn't seem to feel a thing, though his wife let out a nice little howl and some kind of a prayer. I began wiping disinfectant on the other wounds while Sara continued her conversation with Mrs. Santorelli.

"It seems," Sara said at length, "that Santorelli got very indignant. Threw the money in the priests' faces, and said he demanded that the police find the murderer of his son. At that point the priests left, and..."

"Yes," I said. "And." "And." I was well aware of how Irish cops generally dealt with a lack of cooperation from the non-English-speaking population. A good example of the technique was lying next to me. I was well aware of how Irish cops generally dealt with a lack of cooperation from the non-English-speaking population. A good example of the technique was lying next to me.

Sara shook her head. "It's all so strange," she sighed, starting to apply gauze to some of the worst cuts and bruises. "Santorelli nearly got himself killed-yet he hasn't seen Giorgio for four years. The boy's been living on the streets."

Mrs. Santorelli's trust had been inspired by Sara's care for her husband, and once she began to tell us the story of her son Giorgio, it would have been difficult to stop her. Sara and I kept laboring over Santorelli's wounds as though they were the primary center of our attention, but our thoughts were very much fixed on the peculiar story we heard.

Giorgio was a shy boy in his early years, but smart and determined enough to attend the public school on Hester Street and get good marks. Starting at about age seven, however, there was a problem with some other boys at school. The older ones were apparently able to persuade Giorgio to perform s.e.xual acts, ones that Mrs. Santorelli didn't much want to define. Sara pressed her on the issue, however, sensing that such information would be important, and we found that it involved sodomy of both the a.n.a.l and oral varieties. The behavior was discovered and reported to the parents by a teacher. The Latin concept of masculinity being as broad and forgiving as it is, Giorgio's father nearly lost his mind, and took to beating the boy at regular intervals. Mrs. Santorelli demonstrated for us how her husband would bind Giorgio by his wrists to the front door, then whip him across the backside with a wide belt, which she also showed us. It was a cruel implement, and in Santorelli's hands it apparently inflicted such damage that Giorgio sometimes avoided school altogether, simply because he couldn't sit down.

The odd thing, however, was that instead of becoming more compliant, Giorgio only grew more willful every time he got a whipping. After months of such punishment, his behavior progressed to an extreme: he began to stay away from the family's flat for nights at a time, and gave up school altogether. Then one day the parents spotted him on a street west of Was.h.i.+ngton Square, wearing ladies' cosmetics and hawking himself like any street cruiser. Santorelli confronted the boy, and said that if he ever returned home he'd kill him. Giorgio screamed angry insults in return, and the father was getting ready to attack him right then and there when another man-probably Giorgio's panderer-stepped in and advised the Santorellis to disappear. That was the last they ever saw of their son, until they viewed his mangled body at the morgue.

The tale roused many questions in my mind, and I could see that Sara felt the same. We would never get to ask them. Just as we were wrapping Santorelli back up in the worn, dirty blankets in which we'd found him, a booming came at the door; and I, thinking it was the men from the stoop, opened it. In an instant, two large, mustachioed thugs in suits and bowlers had forced their way into the flat. The mere sight of them sent Mrs. Santorelli into hysterics.

"Who the h.e.l.l're you people?" one of the thugs demanded.

Sara made a brave show of saying that she was a nurse; but the explanation that I was her a.s.sistant, which had worked so admirably on a desperate woman who didn't speak English, went nowhere with these two.

"a.s.sistant, eh?" the thug said, as they both moved on me. Sara and I carefully edged our way to the door of the flat. "That's a h.e.l.l of a rig out there, for an a.s.sistant!"

"Well, I do value your opinion," I said with a smile; then I grabbed Sara and we flew down the stairs. Never have I been so grateful that the girl was of an athletic disposition, for even in her skirt she was faster than our pursuers. Such did not help, however, when we reached the hall of the front building and saw the men on the stoop blocking our exit. They began moving our way, slapping their sticks in the palms of their hands ominously.

"John," Sara said, "are they really trying to trap us?" Her voice was, I remember thinking, d.a.m.ned steady-which, given the circ.u.mstances, I found extremely irritating.

"Of course course they're trying to trap us, woman!" I said, breathing hard. "You and your detective games, we're going to get beaten to death! Cyrus!" I cupped my hands and bellowed at the front door as the men began to move our way. "Cyrus!" I let my hands fall, despondent. "Where in h.e.l.l they're trying to trap us, woman!" I said, breathing hard. "You and your detective games, we're going to get beaten to death! Cyrus!" I cupped my hands and bellowed at the front door as the men began to move our way. "Cyrus!" I let my hands fall, despondent. "Where in h.e.l.l is is the man?" the man?"

Sara only clutched her bag tightly without a word; and when the two thugs in the bowlers appeared at the rear end of the hall, apparently sealing our fates, she reached into it. "Don't worry, John," she said confidently. "I won't let anything happen to you." And with that she withdrew a .45-caliber Army Model Colt revolver, with a four-and-a-half-inch barrel and pearl grips. Sara was what you might call a firearms enthusiast; but I was not rea.s.sured.

"Oh, my G.o.d," I said, ever more alarmed. "Sara, you can't just blast away in a dark hallway, you don't know what you'll hit-"

"Can you suggest a better idea?" she said, looking around, realizing that I was right and feeling alarm for the first time.

"Well, I-"

But it was too late: the men from the stoop were upon us in a screaming rush. I grabbed Sara and covered her with my body, hoping she wouldn't shoot me in the gut during the ensuing attack.

You can imagine my shock when that attack failed to materialize. We were momentarily buffeted by the men with sticks, but that was only as they pa.s.sed. Still screaming, they fell on the two thugs behind us with rare ferocity. Given the odds, it wasn't much of a contest: we heard a few seconds of shouting, grunting, and wrestling, and then the hall was filled with heavy breathing and a few moans. Sara and I got out onto the stoop and then raced to the calash, where Cyrus stood waiting.

"Cyrus!" I said. "Are you aware that we could've been killed in there?"

"It didn't seem very likely, Mr. Moore," he answered calmly. "Not given what those men were saying before they went it."

"And what was that, pray tell?" I asked, still not satisfied with his att.i.tude.

Before he could answer the bodies of the two thugs came flying out the door of the tenement, hitting the snowy pavement hard. Their bowlers followed. The men were unconscious, and in a general condition that made Mr. Santorelli look a picture of health. Our friends with the sticks followed triumphantly, even though a few of them had taken some hard knocks, too. The one who'd spoken to me earlier looked over at us, producing huge frosty clouds as he breathed hard.

"I may hate c.o.o.ns," he said with a grin. "But, d.a.m.nation, I do hate cops more!"

"That," Cyrus murmured, "was what they were saying." Cyrus murmured, "was what they were saying."

I looked at the thugs on the ground. "Cops?" I said to the man by the stoop.

"Ex-cops," he answered, walking toward me. "Used to be roundsmen in this neighborhood. They've got a h.e.l.l of a nerve, coming back to a building like this." I nodded, looking at the unconscious bodies on the sidewalk before me, and then signaled thanks to the man. "Your honor," he said, indicating his mouth, "that was thirsty work." I pulled out some coins and threw them to him. He tried but failed to catch the money, at which his mates fell grabbing to the ground. They were soon at each other's throats. Sara and I got into the calash, and in a few minutes Cyrus had us on Broadway, heading uptown.

Sara was full of good cheer, now that we were safe, and she fairly leapt around the carriage, recalling each dangerous moment of our expedition rapturously. I smiled and nodded, glad that she'd been able to have a moment of positive action; but my mind was on something else. I was going over what Mrs. Santorelli had said, and trying to examine it as Kreizler would have. There was something in the tale of young Giorgio that reminded me of Laszlo's account of the children in the water tower; something very important, though I couldn't quite put my finger-and then I had it. The behavior. Kreizler had described two troublesome children, embarra.s.sments to their family-and I had just been told about another such youth. All three, in Kreizler's hypothesis, had met their ends at the hands of the same man. Was this apparent similarity of character a factor in their deaths, or simply a coincidence? It might have been the latter. But somehow I didn't think Kreizler would find it so...

Lost in these thoughts, I didn't quite hear Sara asking me a rather stunning question; but when she repeated it, the outlandishness of the notion became clear even to my distracted mind. We'd been through a great deal, however, that day, and I could not find it in me to disappoint her.

CHAPTER 9.

I got to Kreizler's house, at 283 East Seventeenth Street, a few minutes early, white-tied and caped and not at all sure of the conspiracy I'd entered into with Sara-a conspiracy that for better or worse would now play out. The snow had deepened to several inches, forming a quiet, pleasant layer over the bare shrubs and iron fences of Stuyvesant Park, across the street from Laszlo's house. Opening the small gate to his similarly small front yard, I walked to the door and gently rapped the bra.s.s knocker. The French windows of the parlor, one story up, were slightly ajar, and I could hear Cyrus at the piano, giving forth with "Pari siamo" from got to Kreizler's house, at 283 East Seventeenth Street, a few minutes early, white-tied and caped and not at all sure of the conspiracy I'd entered into with Sara-a conspiracy that for better or worse would now play out. The snow had deepened to several inches, forming a quiet, pleasant layer over the bare shrubs and iron fences of Stuyvesant Park, across the street from Laszlo's house. Opening the small gate to his similarly small front yard, I walked to the door and gently rapped the bra.s.s knocker. The French windows of the parlor, one story up, were slightly ajar, and I could hear Cyrus at the piano, giving forth with "Pari siamo" from Rigoletto Rigoletto-Kreizler was warming his ears up for the evening.

The door opened, bringing me face-to-face with the skittish, uniformed figure of Mary Palmer, Laszlo's maid and housekeeper. Mary rounded out the list of former patients who had entered Kreizler's service, and she was yet another who made the visitor who knew her full story a bit uneasy. Beautifully built, with a bewitching face and sky-blue eyes, Mary had been considered idiotic by her family since birth. She could not speak coherently, putting words and syllables together in unintelligible jumbles, and so was never taught to read or write. Her mother and father, the latter a respected schoolmaster in Brooklyn, had trained her to perform menial household functions, and seemed to care for her adequately; but one day in 1884, when she was seventeen, Mary chained her father to his bra.s.s bed while the rest of the family was out, and then set fire to the house. The father died a horrible death; and since there was no apparent reason for the attack, Mary was involuntarily committed to the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwells Island.

There she was discovered by Kreizler, who occasionally did consulting work on the island where he had found his first employment. Laszlo was struck by the fact that Mary lacked most, if not all, of the symptoms of dementia praec.o.x, the only condition that, in his opinion, const.i.tuted true insanity. (The term is currently being supplanted, Laszlo says quite rightly, by Dr. Eugene Bleuler's label "schizophrenia"; as I understand it, the word denotes a pathological inability to either recognize or interact with the reality around one.) Kreizler began to try to communicate with the girl, and soon discovered that in fact she suffered from cla.s.sic motor aphasia, complicated by agraphia: she could understand words and think in clear sentences, but those parts of her mind that controlled speech and writing were badly damaged. Like most such unfortunates, Mary was bitterly aware of her difficulty, but lacked the ability to explain it (or anything else) to others. Kreizler was able to communicate by asking questions that Mary could answer with the simplest of statements-often just "yes" or "no"-and he taught her as much of rudimentary writing as her condition would permit. Weeks of work brought him to a new and shocking understanding of her history: apparently, her own father had been s.e.xually violating her for years before the killing, but she, of course, had been unable to relate this fact to anyone.

Kreizler had demanded a legal review of the case, and Mary was eventually freed. Afterwards, she managed to convey to Laszlo the idea that she would make an ideal house servant. Knowing that the girl's chances of an independent life were otherwise slim, Kreizler had taken her on, and now she not only maintained but jealously guarded his home. The effect of her presence, combined with those of Cyrus Montrose and Stevie Taggert, was to temper my mood whenever I visited that elegant house on Seventeenth Street. Despite the place's collection of contemporary and cla.s.sic art and splendid French furniture, as well as the grand piano out of which Cyrus perpetually coaxed fine music, I had never been able when there to fully elude the awareness that I was surrounded by thieves and killers, each of whom had a very good explanation for his or her acts but none of whom gave the impression of being willing to put up with questionable behavior from anyone else ever again.

"h.e.l.lo, Mary," I said, handling her my cape. She gave me a small dip on one knee in reply, looking at the floor. "I'm early. Is Dr. Kreizler dressed?"

"No, sir," she said with deliberate effort. Her face filled with the simultaneous relief and frustration that were characteristic when her words came out correctly: relief at having succeeded, frustration at not being able to say more. She opened an arm sheathed in billowy blue linen toward the stairs, and then moved to hang my cape on a nearby rack.

"Well, then, I guess I'll have a drink and enjoy Cyrus's exceptional singing," I said.

I took the stairs two at a time, feeling a bit confined in my evening clothes, then entered the parlor. Cyrus nodded to me and kept singing, while I anxiously fetched a silver cigarette box off the marble mantel over the very warm fireplace. Removing one of the tasty blends of Virginia and Russian black tobacco, I drew a match from a smaller silver case on the mantel and lit it.

Kreizler came trotting down the stairs from above, in a set of white tie and tails that were impeccably cut. "No sign of Roosevelt's man?" he said, just as Mary appeared with a silver tray. On it were four ounces of sevruga caviar, some thin slices of toast, a bottle of ice-cold vodka, and several small, frosted gla.s.ses: a thoroughly admirable habit Kreizler had picked up during a trip to St. Petersburg.

"None," I answered, stubbing out my cigarette and eagerly attacking the tray.

"Well, I'll want punctuality from everyone involved," he p.r.o.nounced, checking the time. "And if he doesn't..."

At that the door knocker downstairs clicked several times, and the sounds of entrance filtered up the stairs. Kreizler nodded. "That, at least, is a good sign. Cyrus-something a little less grim, I think. 'Di provenza il mar.'"

Cyrus followed the instruction, launching softly into the gentle Verdi tune. I swallowed my caviar in an anxious gulp, and then Mary entered again. Her aspect was somewhat uncertain, even mildly agitated, and she tried but failed to announce our guest. As she hustled away to the back of the house with another small bend of her knee, a figure strode out of the dark stairway and into the parlor: Sara.

"Good evening, Dr. Kreizler," she said, the folds of her emerald-green and peac.o.c.k-blue evening dress making small whispering sounds as she came into the room.

Kreizler was somewhat taken aback. "Miss Howard," he said, his eyes clearly delighted but his voice perplexed. "This is a pleasant surprise. Have you brought our liaison?" There was a long pause. Kreizler looked from Sara to me and then back at Sara. His expression did not change as he began to nod. "Ah. You You are our liaison-correct?" are our liaison-correct?"

For a moment Sara looked unsure of herself. "I don't want you to think that I simply badgered the commissioner into this. We discussed it thoroughly."

"I was there, too," I said quickly, though a bit unsteadily. "And when you hear the story of our afternoon, Kreizler, you'll have no doubt that Sara's the right person for the job."

"It does make practical sense, Doctor," Sara added. "No one will notice my activities when I'm at Mulberry Street, and my absences will be even less of a cause for curiosity. There aren't many other people at headquarters who could say the same. I have a decent background in criminology, and I have access to places and people you and John might not-as we saw today."

"It seems I missed a great deal today," Kreizler said, in an ambiguous tone.

"Finally," Sara continued, hesitant in the face of Laszlo's coolness, "in the event of trouble..." She quickly pulled a small Colt Number One Derringer from a large m.u.f.f she wore on her left hand and pointed it at the fireplace. "You'll find that I'm a better shot than John."

I took a quick step away from the gun, prompting Kreizler to chuckle once abruptly; Sara apparently thought he was laughing at her, and bridled a bit.

"I a.s.sure you, I'm quite serious, Doctor. My father was an expert marksman. My mother, however, was an invalid, and I had no siblings. I therefore became my father's hunting and trapshooting partner." All of which was perfectly true. Stephen Hamilton Howard had lived the life of a true country squire on his estate near Rhinebeck, and had trained his only child to ride, shoot, gamble, and drink with any Hudson Valley gentleman-which meant that Sara could do all those things well, and in volume. She indicated the small, delicately engraved pistol in her hand. "Most people consider the derringer a weak weapon; but this one holds a forty-one-caliber bullet, and could knock your man at the piano through the window behind him."

Kreizler turned toward Cyrus, as if expecting the man to register some sort of alarm-but there was no break in his gentle rendition of "Di provenza il mar." Laszlo took note of that.

"Not that I prefer this kind of gun," Sara finished, putting it back in the m.u.f.f. "But..." She took a deep breath, swelling the pale, bare flesh above the low neckline of her dress. "We are are going to the opera." She touched the lovely emerald necklace she was wearing and smiled for the first time. Vintage Sara, I thought, and then I swallowed an entire gla.s.s of vodka. going to the opera." She touched the lovely emerald necklace she was wearing and smiled for the first time. Vintage Sara, I thought, and then I swallowed an entire gla.s.s of vodka.