The Alienist - Caleb Carr [91]
It was Parkhurst’s revelations about how very degenerate life in much of New York had become, and how very much many members of the city government profited from that degeneracy, that led to a New York State Senate committee’s investigation of official corruption in the city. Headed by Clarence Lexow, the committee ended up calling for “an indictment against the Police Department of New York City as a whole,” and many members of the old police guard felt the sting of reform. As I’ve said before, however, degeneracy and corruption are not passing aspects but permanent features of life in New York; and while it has always been pleasant to think, when listening to such righteously outraged speakers as Parkhurst, Lexow, Mayor Strong, and even Theodore, that one is hearing the voice of the solid base of the city’s population, walking into a place like the Golden Rule never fails to bring one hard up against the fact that the drives and desires that spawn such joints—drives that would bring ostracism and even prosecution in any other part of the United States—have at least as many disciples and defenders as does “decent society.”
Of course, the defenders of decent society and the disciples of degeneracy are often the same people, as became clear to Marcus when we entered the nondescript front door of the Golden Rule on that Saturday evening. Almost immediately, we came face-to-face with a round-bellied, middle-aged man in expensive evening clothes, who shielded his face as he exited the place and then hurried into a very expensive carriage that was waiting for him at the curb. Behind him came a boy of fifteen or sixteen, typically dolled up for a night’s work and counting money with great satisfaction. The boy called something after the man in the usual grating falsetto register that was, for the uninitiated, so strange and disturbing; and then he walked by us very playfully, promising a full evening’s entertainment should we choose him from among his mates. Marcus turned immediately away and stared at the ceiling, but I answered the boy, telling him we were not customers and that we wanted to see Scotch Ann.
“Oh,” the boy droned languorously in his natural voice. “More cops, I guess. Ann!” He moved toward a large room farther inside the basement, from which emanated raucous laughter. “There’s more gentle-men about the murder!”
We followed the boy for a few steps, stopping at the entrance to the large room. Inside it were a few pieces of once ostentatious but now-decrepit furniture, and over the cold, moldy floor was thrown a well-worn Persian carpet. On the carpet was a squatting, half-naked man in his thirties, who crawled about and laughed as several even more scantily dressed boys vaulted over him.
“Leapfrog,” Marcus mumbled, taking it in with a nervous glance. “Didn’t they lure Parkhurst into something like that when he came here?”
“That was at Hattie Adams’s, up in the Tenderloin,” I answered. “Parkhurst didn’t last long in the Golden Rule—when he found out what actually went on here he bolted.”
Sauntering out from the area of the back rooms came Scotch Ann, heavily painted, obviously drunk, and well past her prime, if indeed she had ever had one. A flimsy pink dress clung to her powdered body (rising so high on her chest that one could not say if she was, in fact, a woman at all), and her face bore the harassed, weary scowl common to disorderly house owners when presented with an unexpected visit from the law.
“I don’t know what you want, boys,” she said, in a gruff voice that’d been destroyed by alcohol and smoking, “but I already pay two precinct captains five hundred bucks a month each to let me stay open. Which means there’s nothing left over for fly cops. And everything I know about the murder I already told one detective—”
“That’s lucky,” Marcus said, showing his badge and taking Ann by the arm toward the front door. “Then it’s all fresh in your mind. But don’t worry, information is all we want.”
Somewhat