The Alienist - Caleb Carr [12]
“Before lunch!” I said, raising my volume as if to overcome the faintness of his voice.
“Why the devil are you shouting?” Kreizler said. “Before lunch, eh? Excellent. Then we’ve time. You’ve seen the paper? The bit on this man Wolff?”
“No.”
“Read it while you’re dressing, then.”
I glanced at my robe. “How did you know that I—”
“They have him at Bellevue. I’m supposed to assess him, anyway, and we can ask a few additional questions, to determine if he’s connected to our business. Then on to Mulberry Street, a brief stop at the Institute, and lunch at Del’s—squab, I should think, or the pigeon crepinettes. Ranhofer’s poivrade sauce with truffles is superb.”
“But—”
“Cyrus and I will go directly from my house. You’ll have to take a hansom. The appointment’s for nine-thirty—try not to be late, will you, Moore? We mustn’t waste a minute in this affair.”
And then he was gone. I walked back to the nook, picked up the Times again, and leafed through it. The article was on page eight:
Henry Wolff had been drinking in the tenement apartment of his neighbor, Conrad Rudesheimer, the night before. The latter’s five-year-old daughter had entered the room, and Wolff proceeded to make some comments that Rudesheimer found unsuitable for the ears of a young girl. The father objected; Wolff pulled a gun and shot the girl in the head, killing her, then fled. He had been captured, several hours later, wandering aimlessly—near the East River. I dropped the paper again, momentarily struck by a premonitory feeling that the events of the previous night atop the bridge tower had been only an overture.
Back in the hallway I ran headlong into my grandmother, her silver hair perfectly coiffed, her gray and black dress unimpeachably neat, and her gray eyes, which I had inherited, glaring. “John!” she said in surprise, as if ten other men were staying in her house. “Who in the world was on the telephone?”
“Dr. Kreizler, Grandmother,” I said, bounding up the stairs.
“Dr. Kreizler!” she called after me. “Well, dear! I’ve had about enough of that Dr. Kreizler for one day!” As I closed the door of my bedroom and began to dress, I could still hear her: “If you ask me, he’s awfully peculiar! And I don’t put much stock in his being a doctor, either. That Holmes man was a doctor, too!” She stayed in that vein while I washed, shaved, and scrubbed my teeth with Sozodont. It was her way; and for all that it was annoying, to a man who, without recent memory, had lost what he was sure was his only chance at domestic happiness, it was still better than a lonely apartment in a building full of other men who had resigned themselves to solitary lives.
Snatching a gray cap and a black umbrella as I dashed out the front door, I made for Sixth Avenue at a brisk pace. The rain was coming down much harder now, and a particularly stiff wind had begun to blow. When I reached the avenue the force of air suddenly changed directions as it swept under the tracks of the New York Elevated Railroad line, which ran above either side of the street just inside the sidewalks. The shift blasted my umbrella inside out, along with those of several other members of the throng that was hustling under the tracks; and the combined effect of the heightening wind, the rain, and the cold was to make the usually bustling rush hour seem absolute pandemonium. Making for a cab as I struggled with my cumbersome, useless umbrella, I was cut off by a merry young couple who maneuvered me out of their way with no great finesse and clambered quickly into my hansom. I swore loudly against their progeny and shook the dead umbrella at them, prompting the woman to scream in fright and the man to fix an anxious eye on me and tell me I was mad—all of which, considering