The Alienist - Caleb Carr [189]
“We’ll stay parallel to the road,” I said quietly, “until we catch sight of some traffic. We’re not far from Brookline, and we can get a lift to the station from there.”
I got Laszlo up and helped him start through the thick woods, keeping one eye on the road so that we never lost track of it. When we came within sight of the buildings of Brookline I figured it was safe to come out of the woods and move at a faster clip. Soon after we had, an ice van came by and drew to a halt, its driver jumping down to ask what had befallen us. I made up a story about a carriage accident, prompting the man to offer us a ride as far as the Back Bay Station. This proved a doubly fortunate stroke, for several large pieces of ice from the van driver’s stock eased the pain in Kreizler’s arm.
By the time the Back Bay Station came into view it was almost five-thirty, and the afternoon sunlight had begun to take on an amber, hazy quality. I asked our driver to let us off near a small stand of scraggly pines some two hundred yards from the station itself, and after we’d gotten off the van and thanked the man for his help and his ice, which had almost completely checked the flow of blood from Kreizler’s arm, I hustled Laszlo into the shadowy darkness beneath the deep green boughs.
“I’m as enamored of nature as the next man, Moore,” Kreizler said in confusion. “But this hardly seems the time. Why didn’t we drive to the station?”
“If that was one of Comstock and Byrnes’s men back there,” I answered, picking a spot among the pine needles that offered a good view of the station house, “he’ll probably guess that this is our next move. He may be waiting for us.”
“Ah,” Laszlo noised. “I see your point.” He crouched down on the pine needles, then began rearranging his bandage. “So we wait here, and then board the train unseen when it arrives.”
“Right,” I answered.
Kreizler drew out his silver watch. “Almost half an hour.”
I glanced over at him pointedly and smiled a bit. “Just enough time for you to explain that schoolboy gesture with your watch back there.”
Kreizler looked away quickly, and I was surprised by the extent to which the comment seemed to embarrass him. “There is,” he said, returning my smile despite himself, “no chance that you’ll forget that incident, I suppose?”
“None.”
He nodded. “I thought not.”
I sat down near him. “Well?” I said. “Are you going to marry the girl or not?”
Laszlo shrugged a bit. “I have—considered it.”
I let my head fall with a quiet laugh. “My God…marriage. Have you—well, you know—asked her?” Laszlo shook his head. “You might want to wait until the investigation’s over,” I said. “She’ll be more likely to agree.”
Kreizler looked puzzled at that. “Why?”
“Well,” I answered simply, “she’ll have proved her point, if you know what I mean. And be more amenable to tying herself down.”
“Point?” Kreizler said. “What point?”
“Laszlo,” I answered, lecturing him a bit, “in case you haven’t noticed, this whole affair means rather a lot to Sara.”
“Sara?” he repeated in bewilderment—and by the way he said the name I realized just exactly how wrong I’d been since the very beginning.
“Oh, no,” I sighed. “It’s not Sara…”
Kreizler stared at me for a few more seconds, then leaned back, opened his mouth, and let out a deeper laugh than any I’d ever heard from him; deep, and irritatingly long.
“Kreizler,” I said contritely, after a full minute of this treatment. “Please, I hope you’ll—” He didn’t stop, however, at which annoyance began to come through in my voice. “Kreizler. Kreizler! All right, I’ve made a jackass out of myself. Now will you have the decency to shut up?”
But he didn’t. After another half-minute the laugh finally did begin to calm, but only because it was now causing some pain in his right arm. Holding that wounded limb, Laszlo continued to chuckle, tears appearing in his eyes. “I am sorry, Moore,” he finally said. “But what you must have been thinking—” And then another round of painful laughter.
“Well, what in hell was I supposed to think?” I demanded. “You’ve had enough time