The Alienist - Caleb Carr [6]
I felt increased apprehension as I turned and headed for the doorway, where I was stopped by the arm of the police sergeant. “And who might you be, with the young Stevepipe driving you around past all respectable hours? This is a crime scene, y’know.” I gave the man my name and occupation, at which he grinned and showed me an impressive gold tooth. “Ah, a gentleman of the press—and the Times, no less! Well, Mr. Moore, I’ve just arrived myself. Urgent call, apparently no other man they could trust. Spell it F-l-y-n-n, sir, if you will, and don’t go labeling me no roundsman. Full sergeant. Come on, we’ll head up together. Mind you behave, young Stevie, or I’ll have you back on Randalls Island faster’n spit!”
Stevie turned back to the horse. “Why don’t you go chase yourself,” the boy mumbled, just loud enough for the sergeant to hear. Flynn spun with a look of lethal anger, but, remembering my presence, checked himself. “Incorrigible, that one, Mr. Moore. Can’t imagine what a man like you’s doing in his presence. Need him as a contact with the underworld, no doubt. Up we go, sir, and mind, it’s dark as the pit in here!”
So it was. I stumbled and tripped my way up a rough flight of stairs, at the top of which I could make out the form of another leatherhead. The cop—a roundsman from the Thirteenth Precinct—turned on our approach and then called to someone else:
“It’s Flynn, sir. He’s here.”
We came out of the stairs into a small room littered with sawhorses, planks of wood, buckets of rivets, and bits of metal and wiring. Wide windows gave a full view of the horizon in every direction—the city behind us, the river and the partially completed towers of the bridge before us. A doorway led out onto the walkway that ran around the tower. Near the doorway stood a slit-eyed, bearded sergeant of detectives named Patrick Connor, whom I recognized from my visits to Police Headquarters on Mulberry Street. Next to him, looking out over the river with his hands clasped behind his back, rocking on the balls of his feet, was a much more familiar figure: Theodore.
“Sergeant Flynn,” Roosevelt said without turning. “It’s ghastly work that has prompted our call, I’m afraid. Ghastly.”
My discomfort suddenly heightened when Theodore spun to face us. There was nothing unusual in his appearance: an expensive, slightly dandy checked suit of the kind that he fancied in those days; the spectacles that were, like the eyes behind them, too small for his tough, square head; the broad mustache bristling below the wide nose. Yet his visage was excessively odd, nonetheless. Then it occurred to me: his teeth. His numerous, usually snapping teeth—they were nowhere in sight. His jaws were clamped shut in what seemed passionate anger, or remorse. Something had shaken Roosevelt badly.
His dismay seemed to grow when he saw me. “What—Moore! What in thunder are you doing here?”
“I’m glad to see you, too, Roosevelt,” I managed through my nervousness, extending a hand.
He accepted it, though for once he didn’t loosen my arm from its socket. “What—oh, I am sorry, Moore. I—delighted to see you, of course, delighted. But who told you—?”
“Told me what? I was abducted and brought here by Kreizler’s boy. On his orders, without so much as a word of explanation.”
“Kreizler!” Theodore murmured in soft urgency, glancing out the window with a confounded and even fearful look that was not at all typical of him. “Yes, Kreizler’s been here.”
“Been? Do you mean he’s gone?”
“Before I arrived. He left a note. And a report.” Theodore revealed a piece of paper clutched in his left hand. “A preliminary one, at any rate. He was the first doctor they could find. Although it was quite hopeless…”
I took the man by the shoulder. “Roosevelt. What is it?”
“To be sure, Commissioner, I wouldn’t mind knowing meself,” Sergeant Flynn added, with quaint obsequiousness that was repellant. “We get little enough sleep at the Fifteenth, and I’d just as soon—”
“Very well,” Theodore said, steeling himself. “How are your