The Cutthroat

“I do not believe you left America in the midst of a murder investigation to study the habits of famous killers. I ask you again, are you speculating that your man is actually Jack the Ripper?”

“Whether he is hinges largely on how old he was when he killed in London. Was he as young as Davy Collins suggests? Keeping in mind that no one knows for sure whether Davy Collins saw the actual Ripper or someone else.”

Roberts shook his head and marveled, “It doesn’t seem possible… But now I see why his age is so important to you.” Abruptly he smiled and looked satisfied. “You’re ready for Barlowe.”

“Who is Barlowe?” Bell was wary. It sounded like Roberts was back to his games.

“Wayne Barlowe was a newspaper artist who drew for the Illustrated News. You’ll have seen his drawings in your research. Try to get him to tell you a story. Tell him I told you to ask him to tell you a story. If he asks which story, tell him the one I never believed.”

“Will his story tell me the Ripper’s age?”

“I was told that Wayne Barlowe interviewed a woman who saw Jack the Ripper up close. I asked, repeatedly, whether what I heard was true. Barlowe won’t tell me. In fact, he cut me off. You may have better luck, not being with the Yard.”

“Will he tell me the Ripper’s age?” Bell repeated harshly.

“With any luck, you can tell his age yourself.”

“How?”

“When you see the Ripper’s face.”

17

The Cutthroat walked on a railroad track with a girl in his arms.

“I love American rivers,” he told her.

The Ohio River was tearing alongside them in the dark. It made a sound that seemed to blend far-off thunder and the slither of an enormous snake.

“Your rivers are mighty compared to the Thames.”

He laughed softly. “Even in flood, the Thames can’t hold a candle to your rivers. Yours drain mountains — ours mere hills — and valleys as broad as all England.”

Swelled by melting snow and spring rains, they uprooted trees, smashed steamboats, scoured soil, and swept drowned cattle, men, and women to distant oceans. A floating body raced on the surface, pummeled by waves and driftwood. A body that sank was hurtled over the river bottom in a corrosive slurry of mud and water.

“The Mississippi is my favorite,” he said. “But we’ll make do with the Ohio tonight— Not to worry. It will take you to the Mississippi in a week or so.”

Scraped, battered, and unrecognizable where the rivers joined at Cairo. A month or so later, seagulls would feast in the Gulf of Mexico. “Show me no body,” he told her, “and I’ll show you the perfect crime… Let me count the ways.”

Fires — that’ll teach her to smoke in bed. Fresh-dug cellars before they cement the floor. Shallow graves where only coyotes sniff her out. Played-out quarries. Smelters. Oil refineries. Distilleries. An overgrown mine shaft in Pennsylvania once, where, judging by the stink, someone else had the same idea. “But this is true, my dear — for crisp, clean, ease of disposal, nothing beats a river.”

His night vision was superb, and he walked sure-footedly toward an abandoned coal wharf where riverboats took on fuel before the railroads put them out of business. Suddenly he stopped, cocked his ear, and listened hard.

“Do you hear that?”

Voices singing:

“Put your arms around me, honey, hold me tight.
Huddle up and cuddle up with all your might.
Oh, babe…”

The Cutthroat spotted them in the starlight, stumbling toward him on the train tracks. A pair of drunks harmonizing, or so they thought, Collins and Harlan’s hit Victor recording from Madame Sherry. Strapping men, he saw as they drew closer, work-hardened day laborers, young, quick, and barely slowed by the booze. Even though they were having trouble remembering the words:

“When they look at me, my heart begins to float,
Then it starts a-rockin’ like a motorboat.
Oooh-ooh, I never knew any gal like you.”

They finally noticed him ten feet in front of them, lurched to a halt, and looked him over.

“Whatcha got there, mister?”

“The young lady had a bit much to drink,” said the Cutthroat.

They snickered.

The bigger one said, “So now you’re gonna have a bit much of her.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, you’re carrying her down the tracks into the dark so you can have her before she comes to.” He turned to his friend. “You know somethin’, Vern? Seeing as how there’s two of us and only one a him, we’re going first.”

He turned back to the Cutthroat. “You can have seconds.”

“Thirds,” said Vern.

The Cutthroat opened his arms. The girl fell hard, audibly cracking her head on one of the rails. The cape he had wrapped around her flew open.

“What did you do that for?” the bigger drunk howled. “You want to kill her?”

“Ain’t gonna be no fun dead…” said Vern. His voice trailed off as he moved closer.

“Jimbo, you see what I see?”

“Oh, man, she fell on her head, busted her neck.”