The Alienist by Caleb Carr

you
can
do it quickly, Doctor?” Theodore asked. “An investigation like the one you’re describing could not be carried on indefinitely, after all. We must have
results
!”
    Kreizler shrugged, seemingly unaffected by Roosevelt’s urgent tone. “I have given you my honest opinion. We would have a fighting chance, nothing more—or less.” Kreizler put a hand on Theodore’s desk. “Well, Roosevelt?”
    If it seems odd that I offered no further protest, I can only say this: Kreizler’s explanation that his present course of action had been inspired by a document I had sent him years ago, coming as it did on the heels of our shared reminiscences about Harvard and Theodore’s mounting enthusiasm for this plan, had suddenly made it plain to me that what was happening in that office was only partly a result of Giorgio Santorelli’s death. Its full range of causes seemed to stretch much farther back, to our childhoods and subsequent lives, both individual and shared. Rarely have I felt so strongly the truth of Kreizler’s belief that the answers one gives to life’s crucial questions are never truly spontaneous; they are the embodiment of years of contextual experience, of the building of patterns in each of our lives that eventually grow to dominate our behavior. Was Theodore—whose credo of active response to all challenges had guided him through physical sickness in youth and political and personal trials in adulthood—truly free to refuse Kreizler’s offer? And if he accepted it, was I then free to say no to these two friends, with whom I had lived through many escapades and who were now telling me that my extracurricular activities and knowledge—so often dismissed as useless by almost everyone I knew—would prove vital in catching a brutal killer? Professor James would have said that, yes, any human being is free, at any time, to pursue or decline anything; and perhaps, objectively, that is true. But as Kreizler loved to say (and Professor James ultimately had a hard time refuting), you cannot objectify the subjective, you cannot generalize the specific. What
man,
or
a
man, might have chosen was arguable; Theodore and I were the men who were there.
    So—on that dismal March morning Kreizler and I became detectives, as all three of us knew we must. That certainty was based, as I say, on thorough awareness of each other’s characters and pasts; yet there was one person in New York at that threshold moment who had correctly guessed at our deliberations and their conclusion without ever having been so much as introduced to us. Only in retrospect can I see that that person had taken a careful interest in our activities that morning; and that he chose the moment of Kreizler’s and my departure from Police Headquarters to deliver an ambiguous yet unsettling message.
    Hustling through a new onslaught of heavy rain delivered by an increasingly forbidding sky, Laszlo and I got back into his calash, where I became immediately aware of a peculiar stench, one very unlike the usual odors of horse waste and garbage that predominated on the streets of the city.
    “Kreizler,” I said, wrinkling my nose as he sat beside me, “has someone been—”
    I stopped when I turned to see Laszlo’s black eyes fixed on a remote corner of the carriage floor. Following his gaze I caught sight of a balled-up, heavily stained white rag, which I poked at with my umbrella.
    “Quite a distinct blend of aromas,” Kreizler murmured. “Human blood and excrement, unless I’m mistaken.”
    I groaned and grabbed my nose with my left hand as I realized he was right. “Some local boy’s idea of funny,” I said, picking up the rag with the point of my umbrella. “Carriages, like top hats, make good targets.” As I flung the rag out the window it disgorged a ball of equally stained printed paper that fell to the carriage floor. I moaned again and tried unsuccessfully to spear the document with my umbrella. As I did the thing began to