Ripper

by Stefan Petrucha

Sssp! Crackle.

  Carver gasped. The baton had been sliced as neatly as if it’d been made of paper. The copper tip fell. Smoke curled from the severed end.

  “See that? You made me break your little toy. What a shame.”

  Carver looked from the knife up to his father’s eyes. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No, but I can’t have you follow me. So, one last game. Your appearance here forced me to improvise it, but I think I’ve done well.” He pointed his knife toward the locomotive behind them. “The engineer’s unconscious. Aside from being handy at uncoupling cars, my device is now keeping the throttle down. It’s a nice metaphor for life. No one’s driving the train. It will stop when it hits Grand Central, but then our poor engineer will be crushed by tons of exploding steel and burning coal, not to mention what will happen to anyone in front of the train.”

  Nonchalantly, he tossed the blade from one hand to the other. “So here’s what you can do: pass by, save the engineer and the train or keep trying to fight me, in which case, we’ll all die.”

  “You just said you wouldn’t kill me.”

  “I never said I’d keep you from killing yourself. Some things are nearly impossible to stop. A little like…” He briefly twisted his face back into the berserk visage of the Ripper. “A runaway train?”

  Carver gritted his teeth. The cuffs Roosevelt gave him jangled in his pocket. He clapped his hand over them to stop the sound.

  “Here, I’ll stand aside to let you through.” He lowered his blade and shifted, making room. “If you are different from me, as you like to think, there’s only one choice.”

  Carver stood motionless, his thoughts a jumbled blur.

  “Come on, boy, there isn’t all that much time left! Decide… decide… decide!”

  Carver put his eyes on the door and, trying not to look at the dark figure, walked. He passed Hawking, put his left hand on the door and opened it, letting winter air and hot steam rush in. His father looked relieved.

  “You will make a great detective,” he said. “Second best, next to me.”

  Carver opened his mouth as if to answer. Instead, he pulled the cuffs out and slammed one end around Hawking’s wrist. Even off guard, his father’s reflexes were phenomenal. He pulled away rapidly, but a sudden rattle from the train forced him to shift his weight to his bad leg. As he winced, the blade fell from his hand. With his father slightly off balance, Carver clamped the other end of the cuffs to the seat’s metal arm.

  The only thing left was to get out of his reach. Carver threw himself backward through the open door, trying to stay on his feet as he reached the small space between the car and the locomotive. Furious, Hawking lurched forward. Steam billowed around them, fanning the dark man’s cape.

  Carver kept backing up, slamming into the rear of the coal bay. Hawking’s long strong fingers nearly grabbed him but were stopped dead by the steel cuffs. Caught, the killer yanked as if he were willing to rip the hand off. He snapped his arm, gnashed his teeth and let loose a feral scream that seemed louder than the thrumming engine, louder than the wheels screeching against the steel tracks.

  But then, he started cackling. “Excellent, boy! You’ve chained the devil! Now what are you going to do with him?”

  83

  HIS FATHER’S laughter loud behind him, Carver climbed atop the coal bay. Sooty smoke covered his eyes, filling his mouth like a vile liquid. Having made its last turn, the train barreled along 42nd Street. He could see the rounded tops of the three Grand Central towers visible in the distance, marking the end of the track.

  He lowered himself to the open cabin door. The coal smoke let up, and he tried to spit the grit and foul taste from his mouth. Once inside, blasted by the heat, he was amazed how quickly his father managed to wreak such havoc.

  The engineer, a compact, older man whose auburn hair and sideburns mixed with the blackish smears on his face, lay in a heap, lolling dangerously as the train swayed. A bright swelling rose on the side of his forehead, but his fitful breathing told Carver he was still alive.

  He turned to the controls, a series of unfamiliar levers and a panel of gauges, the dials all pointing into the red zone. Carver didn’t need to know much to realize the boiler could explode before the train even crashed. He searched the cabin, at first not even recognizing Hawking’s curious brass instrument because it fit so seamlessly with the design.

  He wrapped his hands around it and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. Finding a crowbar, he swung at the device. Still nothing. He wedged the flat end of the crowbar into it and yanked with all his might. His grip snapped. The brass pole didn’t move.

  On a straightway now, the train stopped rocking and picked up speed. Below the elevated track, pedestrians gaped up in wonder. Calling to them would be useless, but he did need help.

  He turned to the prone engineer and shook him. “Wake up! Wake up!”

  The man’s head rolled as if it was barely connected to his neck. There was a lunch pail on the floor, a drinking bottle jutting from the top. Carver grabbed it, opened it and poured the contents on the man’s head, realizing too late that it was whiskey.

  As it splashed against the man’s ruddy nose and mouth, the sparks flying from the boiler threatened to set him aflame. Frantic, Carve tried to mop the liquid with his shirt. As he did, the man sputtered. Seeing Carver, he screamed and withdrew a pistol from the thick pocket of his overalls.

  Carver winced. “It wasn’t me! I didn’t attack you! You’ve got to help me stop the train!”

  The man looked highly dubious until Carver pointed to the brass pole wedged against the throttle. Together, they grabbed and pulled. The engineer was short, but his arms were thick and powerful. As he strained, his eyes grew so wide it seemed they’d pop out of his head.

  With a gasp they both let go. The brass pole still hadn’t budged.

  “Forget it!” the engineer said. He looked out the door at the blur of tracks and then ahead. The great terminal building grew larger every second. “We’ll have to jump!”

  Carver nodded and then remembered his trapped father. He was a vile, crazed killer, but he’d also been his mentor and, in some sick, twisted way, tried to care for him. Leaving him to die, handcuffed to a speeding train, sounded more like something the Ripper might do.

  “I left someone behind!” Carver shouted.

  “Get ’em fast!” the engineer said, aiming himself at the door.

  Carver pulled him back. “Can I have your gun?”

  The engineer shrugged and then handed him the pistol. An instant later, his small, thick body was rolling and bouncing along the tracks. Carver had no idea if the man even survived. He didn’t have time to wonder now. Grand Central was less than four blocks away.

  He climbed out of the heated cabin, back into the chill and smoky air. Pistol in hand, cocked and ready to fire, he made his way back to the passenger car.

  He formed a plan. He’d toss his father the keys. He could unlock himself, and they’d make the leap together. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all he had.

  But the doorway was empty. So was the rest of the car. His father was gone, the door at the far end of the car still open. Only the handcuffs remained, one end connected to the seat arm, the other jangling free, a thick ring of dark blood marring the steel.

  Had he broken his own hand to escape?

  Ahead, the track tunnel that would bring the train into Grand Central swelled like a monster’s gaping maw. Small blurs of motion that Carver took for people were scurrying and leaping out of the way. He made his way to the door his father had left open. The moment the train careened into darkness, he leapt out, having no idea where he would land.

  84

  CARVER didn’t hit the tracks so much as skimmed them, skipping back into the air like a stone on a pond. He rose once, twice, and then a third time before settling into a sideways roll. He heard a crash as the locomotive hit the end of the track, tore the concrete stop from its foundations and kept going.


  It was the first of several ear-shattering sounds he would hear.

  Carver raised his head in time to see the locomotive dive off the end of the track, pulling the passenger car behind it. Then came the second, louder crash, a sound like thunder, as the locomotive’s prow slammed into the marble floor of the terminal below.

  By the time the passenger car rolled over the track edge, people were screaming. The car didn’t completely disappear from view. Instead, after a third, lesser crash, it halted, remaining tilted at the track’s end. Carver could only imagine it had somehow hit the rear of the fallen locomotive.

  The fourth and final sound was the most terrible. The locomotive’s boiler, weakened first by the pressure, then by the crash and lastly by the passenger car, exploded. It was a huge rolling boom, a single beat on a vast drum, followed by a rush of hot air and billowing smoke and flame.

  To Carver it looked as if his father, in a final act of spite, had opened up the mouth of hell.

  85

  THERE WERE forty-seven wounded but, miraculously, no deaths. Carver earned several gashes and colorful bruises, but nothing that required bed rest. Timothy Walsh, the hapless train engineer, suffered only a broken wrist. When Carver visited him to return his pistol, he cheerily said he’d gained more than he lost. Now he had a grand adventure story he could tell again and again.

  A week later Carver sat with Delia, Finn and Commissioner Roosevelt on the plaza of the vacant New Pinkertons headquarters. The smell from the analytical engine’s smoke had long cleared, the air relatively fresh. It was Roosevelt and Finn’s first visit, and even now, an hour after arriving, they both kept glancing back at the pneumatic subway car that sat quietly at the platform.

  Carver had pulled Tudd’s plush, comfortable chair onto the plaza for Roosevelt, but the commissioner preferred to strut around, jacket open, thumbs hooked in his pants. “It is a good place, Mr. Young, quite fine and very quiet,” Roosevelt said. “Even now, though, I still hear the rumble of Mulberry Street, much the way one hears the ocean roar when putting a shell to the ear. Duty calls, and we should get to it.”

  He tapped a file on the table and pushed it toward Carver. “As I told you, I got in touch with the Pinkerton Agency to see what they could tell us about Mr. Hawking. I did not, as you requested, mention the money Allan Pinkerton bequeathed to found this place.”

  Carver grabbed the file and flipped eagerly through the pages. Delia wanted to peer over his shoulder but instead asked the commissioner, “What did you find out?”

  Roosevelt shrugged. “Hints, Miss Stephens, echoes. Hawking was no stranger to the double life. The Pinkertons used undercover agents in the Civil War, against outlaw gangs and, as the agency spread, against criminal gangs in New York. In the late 1870s Hawking was asked to infiltrate one such group responsible for kidnappings and violence to women. He was in deep for years, living among them, acting like one of them, tipping off the agency to the worst of their crimes. As time passed, against the advice of Pinkerton himself, he married. In 1881, the leader of the gang discovered Hawking’s identity.”

  Carver tensed. “The year I was born.”

  Roosevelt softened his tone. “According to the file it was also the same year Hawking’s wife was brutally murdered. She was pregnant at the time.”

  “My mother,” Carver said. “Hawking said they somehow convinced him he’d done it.”

  “If he believed himself the murderer, he did not confess. The record does show that he became erratic, eccentric, but still remained a brilliant detective. Other than what you’ve told me about his founding the New Pinkertons and the final gunfight that left him wounded, that is all we know.” Roosevelt paused to think a moment. “Were I a betting man, I’d guess the death of his wife nearly destroyed him, but that final battle pushed him over the edge and turned him into a callous killer.” He looked at Carver purposefully. “But when dealing with something so important as the identity of the world’s most hated murderer, it is not appropriate to bet.”

  “No, it’s not,” Carver agreed. “There has to be more to it.”

  Hoping he’d see something new, Carver quickly scrawled a time line:

  1881 I’m born. Hawking, undercover, thinks my mother and I dead.

  1885 Tudd and Hawking establish New Pinkertons in NYC

  1888 Hawking wounded in battle, travels to Europe/London to heal

  1888 Aug/Nov Ripper Whitechapel murders

  1889 July Hawking finds out I’m alive, writes letter I found. Starts plan

  1895 May First NYC murder

  He stared at what he’d written, but unlike the clues his father had left for him, nothing sprang immediately to mind.

  “We’ll have to content ourselves with this for now. His purpose accomplished, perhaps Hawking will vanish as promised. But my people tell me that this sort of savagery cannot contain itself for long. He will eventually find reason to kill again. But should he do so within this city, we will be here to stop him, armed with courage, allies and information.”

  “I have to track him down,” Carver said.

  “I understand the desire, but I don’t see how to manage it. Seeing as we have no inkling to his whereabouts, the next move, I’m afraid, is his. Until he makes it, I advise you stay put, learn and grow,” Roosevelt said. He looked admiringly at Carver. “You may be young, but there is much of a man in you already.”

  He pulled out his pocket watch. “I must be getting back. Once I’ve left, you may begin contacting any of the people who worked here that you deem trustworthy. Though their identities can and should remain secret from me, you will keep me apprised of their activities.”

  “Yes, sir.” Carver nodded.

  “Bully!” Roosevelt said. He shook Carver’s hand firmly. “It will be good to be able to call upon such a force. Mr. Hawking aside, the corruption in this city remains vast, varied and as determined to destroy us as we are to destroy it. Now I say with greater confidence than ever, it is fighting the losing battle!”

  With that, the thick-shouldered commissioner strutted over to the subway. “Remember, Mr. Young. Do not dwell on the darkness within. Act!”

  With a wave, he stepped inside the car and closed the door.

  A few moments later, the door opened again. Roosevelt stuck his square head back out. “I just press that lever under the seat and it takes me back?”

  “Yes, sir,” Carver said with a smile.

  “Excellent! Alice sends her regards,” Roosevelt said. Delia winced at the sound of the name.

  Moments later the car moved off into the round tunnel, silent as the gentle air that propelled it.

  “He should run for president,” Finn said. He turned back to Carver. “Sorry about your mother.”

  Carver shrugged. “I don’t even know how to feel about that. I never knew her.”

  When Carver fell into a silent brood, Delia nodded for Finn to do something.

  Obliging, the larger youth punched him on the arm.

  “Ow!” Carver said. “What was that for?”

  “Nothing. How’s it feel being in charge?”

  Carver looked around. “I won’t really be in charge. I’ll be more of a liaison between the new Pinkertons and Roosevelt. I’d have no idea how to run this place.”

  “Yet,” Delia added. Sitting next to him, she began idly running her hands over the worn coat Carver had left hanging on the back of his chair.

  Carver shook himself back into the moment. “Let’s start with Emeril. He’s the one who should be in charge. Then Mr. Beckley. Someone has to clean the athenaeum.”

  He shuddered to think of the mess he and Delia had left it in.

  Delia ran her fingers along the tears in the old coat. “I’m still not sure how I feel about lying to the Ribes about all this. But it is important.” Her index finger found a large hole. “Carver, why are you still wearing this old thing?”

  “It was his,” Carver said. “It’s a reminder.”

  She rolled the fabric through h
er hands. “It’s falling apart. It stinks of coal. Do you want me to mend some of the…” She stopped and looked up at Carver.

  “What?” he said.

  “There’s something in the lining.”

  He grabbed it and spread it out on the table. As he pressed against the cloth, a rectangular outline became visible. Unwilling to wait for a knife or scissors, Carver ripped at the seam and withdrew a wrapped package.

  “I don’t believe it,” Carver said.

  “Should we check it for fingerprints?” Delia asked, but by then Carver had torn it open. Inside was The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle.

  “The newest collection,” Carver said, puzzled. “He left me a present?”

  As he flipped idly through the pages, three sheets fell out. One was the letter Carver had found at Ellis. Another was a facsimile of the Dear Boss letter from London, but this copy seemed to have been ripped from a book. The third was new, but written in the same scrawl.

  Finn and Delia crowded near as he read.

  Carver took a long look. “My father.”

  “…is totally crazy,” Finn said.

  Delia nodded toward the file Roosevelt left. “At least now you know he was a good man once.”

  “I think that’s what worries me most of all,” Carver said. “If he can change so much, what’s to say I can’t?”

  “Because you won’t,” Delia said. “No matter what else happens, you’ll still be Carver Young.”

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  The following article was in fact printed by

  The New York Times

  on January 20, 1889:

  “JACK THE RIPPER”

  KINDLY WRITES THAT HE IS READY

  FOR BUSINESS IN GOTHAM

  The following communication, written in a poor hand, was received by Capt. Ryan of the East Thirty-fifth Street station yesterday afternoon:

  Capt. Ryan:

  You think that “Jack the Ripper” is in England, but he is not. I am right here, and I expect to kill somebody by Thursday next, and so get ready for me with your pistols, but I have a knife that has done more than your pistols. Next thing you will hear of some woman dead. Yours truly,