The Alienist - Caleb Carr [133]
Conclusions weren’t hard to draw; given my lifelong acquaintance with Laszlo, however, as well as the image I’d always had of his family, my mind resisted them. “But,” I said, refolding the document absentmindedly, “but we were told that he fell…”
Sara let out a deep breath. “Apparently not.”
During a long pause I looked around at the park, somewhat stunned. Familiar conceptions die hard, and their passage can be damned disorienting; for a few moments the trees and buildings of Madison Square looked strangely different. Then an image of Laszlo as a boy suddenly flashed through my head, followed by another of his big, outwardly gregarious father and his vivacious mother. As I saw these faces and forms I simultaneously remembered the comment that Jesse Pomeroy had made during our visit to Sing Sing about chopping off people’s arms; and from there my mind leapt to a seemingly meaningless remark that Laszlo himself had made on the train ride home:
“‘The fallacy, damn it all,’” I whispered.
“What did you say, John?” Sara asked quietly.
I shook my head hard, trying to clear it. “Something Kreizler mentioned tonight. About how much time he’s wasted in the last few days. He spoke of ‘the fallacy,’ but I didn’t get the reference. Now, though…”
Sara gasped a little as she, too, realized the answer. “The psychologist’s fallacy,” she said. “In James’s Principles.”
I nodded. “The business about a psychologist getting his own point of view mixed up with his subject’s. That’s what’s had him in its grip.” A few more silent moments passed, and then I looked down at the report, feeling a sudden sense of practical urgency that made me put off the nearly impossible task of absorbing the full implications of the document. “Sara,” I said. “Have you discussed this with anyone else?” She shook her head slowly. “And do they know at headquarters that you took the report?” Another shake of the head. “But you’ve realized what it suggests?” She nodded this time and I reciprocated; then, slowly and deliberately, I tore the report into pieces, and set them on a patch of grass.
Pulling a box of matches from my pocket and striking one, I started to light the bits of paper, saying firmly, “No one is to know anything about this. Your own curiosity’s been satisfied, and if his behavior becomes erratic again, we’ll know why. But beyond that, no good can ever come of its getting out. Do you agree?”
Sara crouched by me and nodded once more. “I’d already decided the same thing.”
We watched the burning pieces of paper turn into flakes of smoking ash, both of us silently hoping that this would be the last we’d ever need to speak of the matter, that Laszlo’s behavior would never again warrant investigation into his past. But as it turned out, the unhappy tale so sketchily referred to in the now-incinerated report did surface again at a later point in our investigation, to cause a very real—indeed an almost fatal—crisis.
CHAPTER 25
* * *
The idea of placing New York’s chief boy-pandering venues under careful scrutiny on those days when we thought our killer might strike originated with Lucius Isaacson. There was no denying that it would be a delicate piece of work. Every one of those bars and brothels could expect to lose a significant number of patrons if it became known that they were being watched. Cooperation from the proprietors was therefore highly unlikely: we’d have to position ourselves so as to elude both their notice and our killer’s. Lucius readily admitted that he didn’t have enough experience with such operations to chart a prudent course, so we summoned the one member of our band who we thought could provide expert advice: Stevie Taggert. Stevie had spent a good part of his criminal career robbing houses and flats, and the ways of surreptitious surveillance were known to him. I think the young man suspected he was in some kind of trouble when he walked