The Alienist - Caleb Carr [227]
I nodded, and then we wandered back to the “bar”—a plank resting on two ash barrels at the far end of the room. Immediately, two glasses of the substance from which such places took their name were placed in front of us. Stale beer was a flat, repellant mixture of the dregs that were collected from dozens of kegs in slightly more reputable houses—I paid for the drinks but made no move to touch mine, and Marcus pushed his glass aside.
The bartender who stood before us was about five and a half feet tall, with tawny hair, a matching mustache, and a typical look of slightly crazed resentment on his face.
“Don’ wan’ the drinks?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Information. About a customer.”
“Fuck,” the man snorted. “Ge’ out.”
I produced more money. “Just one or two questions.”
The man looked around anxiously and, seeing that the trio of relatively compos mentis customers were no longer watching us, slipped the money into his pocket. “Well?”
I shot the name Beecham over the bartender’s bow, producing no reaction; but when I went on to describe a tall man with a facial twitch, I could see by the heightened glimmer in the fellow’s sickly bright eyes that our friend Mitchell Harper had played straight with us.
“A block up,” the bartender mumbled. “Number 155. Top floor, inna back.”
Marcus looked at me dubiously, and the bartender caught it. “Seen it myself!” he insisted. “You frumma girl’s fam’ly?”
“Girl?” I said.
The bartender nodded. “Too’ a girl up there. Mother thought she’d been ’napped. Didn’ hurt her, though—but did near kill a man that mentioned it in here.”
I weighed that. “He drinks a lot?”
“Didn’ used to. Never unnerstood what he was doin’ here when he first showed up. Lately more, though.”
I looked to Marcus, who gave me a quick nod. After dumping some more money on the bar we turned to go, but the bartender grabbed my arm. “You heard nuthin’ from me,” he said urgently. “Tha’s no man to cross.” He bared several yellow and gray teeth. “Iss quite a pick he carries.”
Marcus and I started away again, leaving the bartender to drain the two glasses of stale beer he’d poured for us. Once more we exercised great care in walking by the near-dead bodies at the tables, and though one man by the door did turn and begin to urinate unconsciously on the floor as we passed, there didn’t seem anything personal in the act.
As Marcus stepped over the puddle of urine he murmured to me, “So Beecham’s drinking.”
“Yes,” I answered, opening the front door. “I remember Kreizler saying once that our man might be entering a final, self-destructive phase. Anybody who drinks in a joint like this has certainly done that.”
We got back outside to find Sara and Lucius looking just as anxious as we’d left them. “Come on,” I said quickly, leading the way north. “We’ve got an address.”
Number 155 Baxter Street was an unremarkable New York tenement, though in any other neighborhood the women and children who were hanging out its windows on that seasonable night would have been laughing or singing or at least screaming at one another. Here they simply sat with their heads in their hands, the youngest of them looking as worldly and tired as the oldest, and none of them exhibiting any interest in what occurred on the street. A man who I placed at about thirty was seated on the stoop, swinging a nightstick that looked to be authentic police issue. It wasn’t difficult to judge, after getting a glimpse of the man’s blow-twisted features and surly grin, just how he’d laid hands on the trophy. I mounted the stoop, and the end of the nightstick poked my chest just hard enough to stop me from going further.
“Business?” the crooked-faced man said, his breath reeking of camphor-laced liquor.
“We’re here to see a resident,” I answered.
The man laughed. “Don’t git gay wit me, swell. Business?”
I paused before answering. “Who are you supposed to be?”
The laugh died. “I’m supposed to be da mug what watches dis building—for da landlord. So don’t git gay wit me, boy, less youse wanna taste dis