The Genius

by Jesse Kellerman

  “Then why am I here?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You implied that you had something to offer me,” I said.

  “I did?”

  “You asked if I remembered how to get here.”

  “So I did,” he said.

  I waited. “And?”

  “And, well. Now that you’re here, I’m just as confused as you are.”

  We both looked at the page.

  STOP STOP STOP

  The same tendency toward repetition that had previously fascinated me now seemed repellent; where before I saw passion I now read malice. Art or threat? Victor Cracke’s letter could very well go up on my gallery wall. Were I so inclined, I could probably turn it around to Kevin Hollister for a nice profit.

  “I’d hold on to it,” said McGrath. “In case anything gets more serious, you want to have it on file, to show the cops.”

  I said, “Plus you never know what it might be worth one day.”

  McGrath smiled. “Now, what about that drawing.”

  I handed the photocopy of the Cherubs to McGrath. While he studied it I noticed that the number of pill bottles on the dining room table seemed to have grown in the space of a week. McGrath, as well, had changed: he’d lost weight, and his skin had acquired an unhealthy sheen. I could make out the prescriptions on some of the bottles, but not knowing anything about medicine, I couldn’t draw any conclusions except that he seemed to be in a lot of pain.

  “That’s Henry Strong.” He lightly touched the Cherubs. “That’s Elton LaRae.”

  “I know,” I said. I took out the photocopies of the microfiche and showed him the pictures. “This is where he got them from.” I didn’t mention my misgivings about this theory, but McGrath leapt on me right away.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted when he asked how Cracke would be able to connect Henry Strong with the others.

  “We also have to ask ourselves why he chose to draw these particular people, out of everyone in the paper.”

  “I thought about that,” I said. “You have to bear in mind that he drew literally thousands and thousands of faces. There could be all sorts of real people in his works. The presence of these people only proves that he was thorough.”

  “But this is panel number one,” said McGrath. “They were important.”

  “That’s subjective,” I said.

  “Who said I was objective?”

  It felt bizarre arguing with him: me, the art dealer, pressing for a clearer standard of truth; him, the policeman, claiming his critical faculties were sharp enough to draw inferences about the intent of the artist. Strange, too, that he had anticipated my asking certain questions. I felt a weird sort of mental synergy, and I think he did, too, because we stopped talking then and sat looking at the page.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “he could really draw.”

  I nodded.

  He put his finger on another of the Cherubs. “Alex Jendrzejewski. Ten years old. His mother sends him down to the store before dinnertime to buy some groceries. We find a bottle of milk cracked open on the corner of Forty-fourth and Newtown. It’d snowed that afternoon, so we picked up some tire tracks, as well as a footprint. No witnesses.” He rubbed his head. “That was end of January 1967, and this time the papers picked up the story and ran with it. ‘Are Your Children Safe?’ and that sort of jazz. He must’ve got spooked, because he didn’t do anything for a long time. Or maybe he wasn’t a cold-weather sort of guy.”

  “There are fewer children out on the street in the winter.”

  “You’re right. That could be it, too.” He pointed to another Cherub. “Abie Kahn, I told you about him, he was the fifth.”

  “No witnesses.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought. I was rereading the case file, and I saw that there was someone we talked to, a neighborhood type, one of these women who sit out on their porch all day long. She remembered seeing a strange car go past.”

  “That’s it?”

  He nodded. “She told us she knew what everyone drove. Like she made a point of knowing. And this car didn’t fit in the neighborhood.”

  Had Victor owned a car? I didn’t think so, and told McGrath.

  “That in itself doesn’t mean anything. He could have stolen one.”

  “I can’t see him being capable of breaking into a car.”

  “You can’t see him at all. You don’t know anything about him. Can you see him being capable of this?” He gestured to the Cherubs.

  I said nothing. I knew some of what McGrath was telling me about the victims; I had read the articles in the paper. The critical difference between seeing a story in print and getting it from him directly was the fatherly devotion that came through as he talked.

  “That kid, LaRae—him I felt bad for. I felt bad for all of them, but this kid… He’s a solitary type, likes to take long walks by himself. I don’t think he had too many friends. You can tell from the way he’s smiling that he doesn’t like to have his picture taken. He was the oldest of the bunch, twelve, but small for his age. He had a rough time at school because of his size, and because he’s got a single mother, black. You can imagine the kind of ribbing the poor kid took. And the mother, God, it broke my goddamned heart. White husband runs off, leaving her with the kid. And then he ends up dead. Oh, brother. She looked like I tore her heart out with my bare hands.”

  Silence.

  “You want a joint?” he asked.

  I looked at him.

  “Cause I’m having one.” With difficulty, he rose and shuffled into the kitchen. I heard him open a drawer, and I craned over the table to look. I’ve seen thousands of joints rolled in my day, but never by a policeman, and never with such diligence. He finished, resealed the bag, and returned to the dining room.

  “This works better than anything they give me,” he said, lighting up.

  I then asked a supremely silly question. “Do you have a prescription?”

  His laughter sent out little billows of smoke. “This ain’t California, buddy.”

  Based on the poster in the front window and bin Laden wanted sign, I had assumed that McGrath wasn’t especially liberal. I asked his political affiliation.

  “Libertarian,” he said. “Drives my daughter crazy.”

  “She’s… ?”

  “Bloodiest heart you’ll ever find.” He inhaled, and said in a choked voice, “Doesn’t stop her from putting people away. Her boyfriend used to bust her ass about that.”

  I should have been less disappointed than I was to hear that Samantha was already attached. I had spoken to her for a grand total of—what? Perhaps twenty minutes. Nevertheless I couldn’t resist reaching over to take the joint from McGrath.

  He watched me take a big hit. “That’s an offense punishable by law,” he said.

  I made as if to throw the joint away, but he snatched it back.

  “I’m dying,” he said. “What’s your excuse?”

  NEXT WE CHECKED THE JOURNALS. As I opened them up, I said that unless the weather or Cracke’s dietary habits had some bearing on the case, I didn’t see the point. McGrath agreed, but all the same he wanted to look at the dates of the murders.

  Henry Strong had gone missing on the Fourth of July 1966. The weather journal entry for that day read

  “Sounds about right,” said McGrath. “Queens in July.”

  The next few days proved equally uninteresting.

  “Are these numbers accurate?” I asked.

  “How the hell would I know?” He paged through the journal. “I’m not getting very much out of this, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “What about the one with the food?”

  “This is a waste of time,” I said.

  “Probably,” he said. “Let’s look at Eddie Cardinale.”

  “You know what I’d like to know,” he said. “How the guy could eat the same damn thing day in and day out. That’s the real mystery.”

  “Happy now?” I asked.
/>   “Hold the fucking phone.”

  McGrath looked at me. “That’s the day after Alex Jendrzejewski disappeared.”

  I reread the journal entry.

  “I know,” I said. “So what.”

  “So, it’s a difference.”

  “Oatmeal? Who gives a shit?” Some part of my brain noted that we’d gotten a lot looser-tongued since our smoking break. “Who cares about fucking oatmeal?”

  “It’s a difference, and that’s significant.”

  “Not the same thing.”

  McGrath told me to lift the Jendrzejewski file out of the box. Inside, I found the familiar snapshot: blunt-cut hair, square teeth, beachball face, pug nose. Little Alex, had he grown up, probably would have turned out plug-ugly, had fate not frozen him cute.

  “We talked to the mother,” he said, turning over pages of transcript. “I remember that. She sent the kid to the market. That milk bottle, I remember that.”

  “You said you got a footprint.”

  “No telling if it was the right guy, though. Lotta people around that area.”

  “Then how did he snatch the boy without being seen?”

  “Maybe he lured him into a car. He might have offered him a ride home. It was freezing that night. Check the weather book, you’ll see.”

  I did. The forecast had called for snow throughout the evening.

  “Where are you,” he said to the file box.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I’m loo—ah. Here. Listen to this, this is the mother talking. ‘I sent Alex to the store.’ Detective Gordan: ‘What time?’ Pamela Jendrzejewski: ‘About five o’clock. I needed some things.’”

  “Who’s Detective Gordan.”

  “My old partner,” he said without looking up. His lips moved as he skimmed the transcript. “Mm, mm, mm, come on. I swear to God I remember her saying something about…” He didn’t finish.

  “About what.”

  “It’s not here,” he said. He found another transcript and let out a triumphant grunt. “This is it.”

  I scooted my chair over to have a closer look. The transcript was of an interview conducted by Detectives L. McGrath and J. Gordan, New York Police Department, 114th precinct, January 25, 1967. The interviewee was Charles Petronakis, owner and proprietor of the corner market where Alex’s mother sent him to fetch groceries.

  Det McGrath: You remember seeing the boy?

  Charles Petronakis: I saw him, yes.

  M: When did you see him?

  P: He came in about five fifteen.

  M: Was there anybody with him?

  P: No.

  Det Gordan: Was there anyone in the store at the time aside from you?

  P: No.

  G: Did you notice anything unusual, either with the boy or anyone outside the store?

  P: I don’t think so. It was very cold that night, I didn’t see too many people. The boy was the first one I seen all afternoon. I was getting ready to close up when he came in. He wanted some milk, some oatmeal, and sugar. I said I could help him carry it home if he waited a few minutes for me to close up. He told me he couldn’t wait, he had to go or his mother would get mad at him. So he went

  I stopped reading and looked at McGrath, who picked up a pencil and drew a circle around the word oatmeal.

  • 9 •

  I have no early memories of my father. This is because he was most often out of the house. He worked (still does, as far as I know) incredibly hard, sometimes eighteen hours a day, and although I wasn’t around to witness the demise of his first three marriages, I can guess that his habit of sleeping at the office didn’t help. How I even came to be conceived is something of a mystery to me. The age gap between me and my siblings has often led me to believe that I was an accident, and for him, at least, not a happy one.

  In his defense—a phrase that rarely crosses my lips, so you can be certain that what I’m about to say is true—it must be said that he singlehandedly restored the Muller name to glory after inheriting a corporate structure swollen with inefficiencies. He downsized before downsizing was downsizing; and he spun off or closed antiquated branches of the company that he had no real business running: a commercial bakery in New Haven, a textile mill in Secaucus. What he understood was real estate, so he focused on that, thereby turning an already healthy sum of old money into a new, towering heap.

  It is solely to my mother’s credit that I am not spoiled worse than I am. Despite the lavishness of our surroundings, and the dozens of people who waited on me from the moment I entered the world, she did her best to ensure that I never considered wealth a substitute for decency. It’s hard to be rich and a true humanist. She was. She believed in the inherent value of every human being, taking that as the premise for her actions. Children have exquisitely sensitive bullshit detectors, and that’s why her lessons made an impression on me. If my father had lectured me similarly, I would have seen right through him; he seldom acknowledged the staff, and then only curtly. My mother, on the other hand, did not condescend to the people she employed; at the same time, she didn’t pretend that she was their friend, which is in its own way equally insulting. She always said hello and good-bye and please and thank you; if a door was held open for her, she hurried to step inside. She held a few doors of her own. I once saw her stop and help push a stuck taxi out of a snowbank.

  I’ve never fully understood how she tolerated—let alone loved—my father, who could be so indifferent to the distress of others. I can only hope and assume that he was a better man before she died. Either that or she saw in him something invisible to the rest of us. Or maybe she liked a challenge.

  My awareness of him thus begins with her death, and the most pungent memory is also the earliest. It was the morning of the funeral and I was getting dressed—or, rather, resisting attempts by the nanny to get me dressed. It’s my fault for throwing a tantrum. I probably should have felt the numbness in the air, known that I had a burden to shoulder. Looking back I realize that I was probably more confused than anything else: for days people had been acting skittish around me, making me feel like I was the source of everyone’s misery. I was in no mood to confront the public; I didn’t want anything to do with anybody, and I certainly didn’t want to be forced into a suit and tie.

  The service was scheduled for nine A.M., and by eight thirty I was still half-dressed. If the nanny managed to tuck in my shirt, I would untuck it while she reached for the necktie. Then when she began again to tuck it back in I would start unbuttoning it from the top. She was on the verge of tears by the time Tony Wexler arrived to escort me downstairs. He found me pulling off my pants and stepped in to take over, and as he reached for my arm I slugged him in the eye.

  Normally Tony was a model of patience. (In later years, he would endure much worse.) But that morning he wasn’t up to the task. He might have yelled or smacked me across the face; he had that kind of authority over me. He might have told the nanny to hold me down. Instead, he took more decisive action: he went for my father.

  It was a Friday. My mother had died on the Tuesday prior, after three days in a coma. During those three days I had not been allowed in to see her—something I’ve never forgiven my father for. I think in some idiotic way he intended to protect me, but even thinking about it now makes me tense. Since I had been barred from the room, and he had barred himself inside to watch her slip away, we hadn’t seen much of each other for a week, my father and I; I had been with the nanny or else Tony. So this would be our first moment together as a family, a downsized unit of two. Though too young for symbolism, I had some idea that the conversation about to take place would be a neat preview of life without a mother.

  He came into the room silently. That’s his way. My father is tall, like me; like his own father, he has a very slight stoop. He was at the time over fifty, but his hair was still dark and thick, like his mother’s. That morning he wore a black suit, white shirt, and gray tie; what I saw first, however, were the caps of his shoes. I was ly
ing on the ground, refusing to get up, and these two shiny torpedo heads were coming toward me.

  I rolled over and buried my face in the carpet. There was a long silence. For a moment I thought he had left. Then I opened my eyes and saw that he was right there, still looking down at me, although now he was holding the pre-knotted tie, as though it were a leash and I a stubborn puppy.

  “If you don’t get dressed,” he said, “then you’ll go exactly as you are.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  The next thing I knew I was being dragged, kicking and screaming, down the hall to the elevator. The nanny had me by one arm, a maid by the other; my father was two steps ahead, never looking back as I howled. You can imagine that the house was especially quiet that morning, so this tantrum sounded even more horrific and piercing than my usual ones. As the four of us stepped into the elevator I saw my father wince. This only encouraged me. Maybe if I shouted loud enough they would let me go. We glided down to the first floor, where the doors parted on a scene that startled me into silence: twenty-some-odd faces—women tearstained, men flushed and grimacing—all staring at me as I thrashed against my captors. The entire house staff had gathered in mourning to see my father and me off.

  At that moment I realized what I was doing—what was happening— how I looked—what humiliation I stood to suffer if I didn’t get properly dressed. I began to beg my father to allow me to go back upstairs. He said nothing, just stepped out of the elevator and walked stiffly through the parted ranks of the grieving, again two steps ahead of me and the nanny and the maid, who obeyed my father’s orders by carrying me, half-naked, through that gauntlet of horrified stares and down the front steps to the idling limousine. Tony had my pants waiting in the car.