The Alienist - Caleb Carr [148]
“Herr Höpner,” Laszlo answered, in a firm but wary tone that indicated the man might know how to use the ax handle he was carrying. “I’m afraid my colleague and I have urgent business elsewhere. Kindly stand aside.”
“And what, then, of the Lohmann boy, Herr Doctor?” The man Höpner did not move. “Have you something to do with this matter?” A few of the people standing near him muttered echoes to the demand.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Höpner,” Kreizler answered coolly. “Please move.”
“No idea, eh?” Höpner began to slap the piece of wood against one palm. “I must doubt that. Do you know the good doctor, meine Freunden?” he said to the crowd. “He is the famous alienist who destroys families—who steals children from their homes!” Professions of shock sprang from all sides. “I demand to know what part you have in this matter, Herr Doctor! Did you snatch the Lohmann boy from his parents, just as you snatched my daughter from me?”
“I’ve told you once,” Laszlo said, his teeth starting to grind. “I know nothing about any Lohmann boy. And as for your daughter, Herr Höpner, she asked to be removed from your home, because you could not refrain from beating her with a stick—a stick not unlike the one you now hold.”
The crowd drew breath as one, and Höpner’s eyes went wide. “What a man does in his own home with his own family is his own business!” he protested.
“Your daughter felt differently about that,” Kreizler said. “Now, for the last time—raus mit dir!”
It was a command to move, such as one might give to a servant or some other underling. Höpner looked like he’d been spat on. Raising the ax handle he made a move toward Kreizler, but suddenly stopped when one hell of a commotion rose from somewhere behind Kreizler and me. Turning to look over the crowd, I could see a horse’s head and the roof of a carriage plowing our way. And along with them I spied a face that I knew: Eat-’Em-Up Jack McManus. He was hanging on to the side of the vehicle, swinging the gargantuan right arm that had made him a formidable force in the prize ring for nearly a decade before he’d quit the fight game to work as a bouncer—for Paul Kelly.
Kelly’s elegant black brougham, brass lanterns shining on either side, made its way to where we were standing. The small, sinewy man in the driver’s seat cracked his whip in general warning, and the crowd, knowing who was inside the carriage, moved aside and said nothing. Jack McManus jumped down once the wheels had stopped rolling, then looked at the crowd threateningly and straightened his miner’s cap. Finally he opened the door of the brougham.
“I suggest you get in, gentlemen!” said an amused voice from within the carriage. Kelly’s handsome face soon appeared at the door. “You know how mobs can be.”
CHAPTER 28
* * *
Ha! Will you look at them!” Kelly was full of glee as he stared back at the crowd during our bumpy flight out of the Bellevue grounds. “The pigs have actually gotten off their knees for once! This ought to make for a few sleepless nights on Mansion Mile, eh, Moore?” I was sitting next to Kreizler across from Kelly in the front half of the brougham. As the gangster turned back around to face us, he pounded his gold-headed stick on the floor and laughed again. “It won’t last, of course—they’ll be back to packing their kids into sweatshops for a dollar a week before the Lohmann boy’s even been boxed. It’ll take more than just another dead boy-whore to keep them going. But for now, it does make a glorious picture!” Kelly extended his heavily ringed right hand to Kreizler. “How do you do, Doctor? It’s a genuine privilege.”
Laszlo took the hand very tentatively. “Mr. Kelly. At least someone finds this situation amusing.”
“Oh, I do, Doctor, I do—that’s why I arranged it!” Neither Kreizler nor I said anything in acknowledgment. “Well, come on, gentlemen, you don’t think people like that would stand up for themselves without some urging, do you? A little money in the right places doesn’t hurt, either.