Stephen Hunter - I, Ripper

I mention this because it also somewhat changed the nature of the crowds one encountered, again a part of the element. One no longer saw the predominance of the top hat or the derby but, instead, the strange plumage of all the many jack-tars, the endless types of sailor caps the crew jerries wore. They came from all nations under these vagabond coverings, and one saw rounder eyes, bluer eyes, squintier eyes, darker skin, lighter skin, bigger skulls, smaller skulls, hair of blond and black and red and even shaved – the Russkies, I’m guessing, who like to show their skull in contrast to flowing mustachios, meant to frighten, as they were all huskies to boot. Conversely, one saw fewer and fewer of the square, dull symmetrical faces of typical Englishmen. I fancied I could smell foreign spicings in the air, and even the costers offered fruit from different parts of the globe, some strangenesses that I could not identify as being from our very planet. I was quite convinced that I was no longer in England, for the babel of foreign voices.

One was aware that it was different down here and that the customary precautions might not be enough to provide security, and so made a pledge to self to make certain, then doubly certain, then certain a third time, before committing to action. The chaps about here would be burlier and more prone to violence of their own, so it was incumbent upon me not to incite a mob of mariners, as they might turn immediately to rough justice of the sort the Peelers and a stickler like Warren would abjure. I could end my days decorating a yardarm as it steered south by Java Head.

I chose at last and after much consideration a block that might have been in Wapping, in the way that Mitre Square turned out to be beyond Whitechapel, which would bring in a set of detectives from a division other than Whitechapel’s H. That would be fine and good, for the new boys would get all mixed in with the old, the communications would be worse, the cabals of influence more diffuse, Inspector Abberline’s control might be challenged and in all it would be a merry festival of more mucking up, Sir Charles Warren–style.

I chose a street one could exit either by heading in one of two directions or cutting through to a street just behind and parallel. My plan was to unite with a gal, nudge her down William for the necessary dark, finish her there, and make it the most famous thoroughfare in the Western world for a day or so, while making my usual coolly nonchalant exit back to civilization by morning. I realized the street names meant nothing, nor should they; all were alike, tiny streets of humble brick abodes linked in long ungainly strands, sporting a castellation of chimneys, poorly lit, of course, peopled with the invisible of London living and mostly dying without notice in the great city’s most obscure precincts. Wapping? Who had ever heard of such a place? No one on the Times or the Star or the Atheneum or at the British Museum. Ridiculous name, no, Wapping? Is that not what you do to an unruly child, give it a wapping until it shuts its mouth?

Everything was swell, that is, until it wasn’t.

I had thought finding a dolly would be the least of my problems, but right off, it became the most of them. It was late, it was dark, it was empty. I think in daytime, when I had scouted, the area was more frequented, but now there was nothing to be found. My first plan perished before it was even tested.

I knew bad things were more likely to happen when I had to improvise, as my lucky escape at Mitre Square proved, and every sensible part of my being argued for a retreat and another foray tomorrow, when the conditions would be more or less as good. But I’m like a rat aroused by the smell of blood sometimes, and against my own better judgment, I kept coursing ahead, thinking one more block closer to the docks, that’ll be the ticket, that’ll get me what I want.

At last I reached St. George, with hardly any of London left between me and the basin, wherein was moored a fleet of pirate vessels otherwise known as British shipping. I swore I could hear the stretched rope squealing and the stressed wood squeaking. Possibly it was pure imagination. I wandered up St. George, a wide street of extreme maritime atmosphere, and found it crowded in its way with the colorful specimens of the oceangoing brethren, hats and all, and I was aware that my more civilized garb made me stand out a bit, always a mistake in the mad-killer trade.

She was neither older nor younger than the other birds. She was neither prettier nor uglier. She was simply there, a figure out of a socialist painting that might be called The Eternal Streetwalker, puffing on a cigarette, resting against a gaslight, one hip provocatively cocked. I could see a bit more of neck and shoulder, as that seemed to be allowed down here. I also thought it was illegal for the girls to stand still, but this brazen Bessie betrayed no fear of the blue bottles. She was eyeing the trade and the trade was eyeing her, particularly her bosom, which men, perhaps out of collective maternal nostalgia, seemed to yearn to bury themselves within. Hers was vast and deep. Fortunately I am not so mentally constructed, so the bosom, present or vanished, is of little interest to me. She looked tough, and as I drew near, her eyes fixed on me and mine on hers, and in a few steps I was at her but not with her. That is, I stood close but conspicuously oriented away from her as crowds of drunks wobbled by, rocking as uncertainly as the big ships at berth a few dozen feet down the black alleys.

“Now, dearie, would you be looking for a spell of fun?” she eventually said.

“I might be, madame,” I said. “The mood is presently upon me.”

“Come on over so Evelyn can get a look, then.”

“That I will,” I said, and broke my pose, and made an elaborate charade of orbiting her station so she could inspect my goods.

“You don’t look like Saucy Jacky,” she said. “These days a gal has to be careful.”

“I thought Jack worked up the street a bit,” I said.

“Maybe he’s come slumming, like you. We don’t get many gentleman. This is mostly sailortown.”

“I would never characterize my efforts as ‘slumming,’ my dear. To me, all women are equally beautiful and equally desirable but, alas, not equally available.”

“I’m thinking this is a night for availability, then, not beauty nor desire,” she said. She was a game one!

“Well said, my dear. A mile that way, the tariff is thruppence. What would it be closer to Mother Thames?”

“Can’t give you no discount for your long walk,” she said. “Ain’t my bother the coppers is all over that street up there. We’ve got our pride in Wapping, too.”

“So a thruppence, then, and both are happy.”

“I daresay.”

“Proceed. I’ll follow upon.”

She launched herself from the lamppost, tossed the cigarette, and I saw why she had elected to go permanently at mooring: She had a limp, some mangled business at the hip that probably was something tragic out of a Russian novel that I didn’t care to hear of. She made her progress at less than spiffy pace, up one block, up another, and at long last, she turned between two brick buildings a short distance away, whereupon we came to another street, small and darkish, and continued. Just a few more feet and I could see the gently rocking hulls of two great vessels at mooring on the quay.

It fell to darkness, and except for the heaving and cracking of the ships at rest, I could hear nothing and see nothing. We were in a passageway between the walls of two great warehouses, on cobblestones far from the interest of the street traffic. It was perfect.

She turned, exactly as Polly had turned, exactly as Annie had, exactly as Liz had, exactly as Kate had, and in turning offered me her long bare throat, and as my right hand slid inside my coat and I felt the grip of my Sheffield, I could see the tendons, the muscles, the softness of the skin, and knew exactly where I would drive the edge for maximum carnage.