“No, no, no. No. They aren’t doing my killing. I’m not interested in killing anyone at all! What I am is a student of killers. It’s true that I can’t study them if they don’t actually murder somebody, but they’re the ones choosing the victims and performing the act. You can put me to task for not stopping them—”
“I will. And you aren’t just observing them, you’re putting them in a position to commit the act.”
“I did in London, yes. Not my greatest showing; I think we’re in agreement on that point. All right, you have me there. But I promise, Henry is not at all like that other fellow.”
He gasped.
“You know, I’ve actually forgotten his name?” he said. “How curious. Here I am, the only man alive who can put a name to the Ripper of London, and I don’t even recall it. At any rate. On the matter of Dr. Holmes. The implication of lunacy is a lack of self-control, a sort of raving…well, the sort of fellow I dug up from the dungeon of Bedlam. That was a lunatic. Henry is entirely in control. That’s why he’s so fascinating. He has an extremely flexible morality.”
I thought back to the number of times I went a little insane, which I could count on happening every few centuries. It manifested as my no longer being able to discern the present from my old memories, and probably was the inevitable consequence of having a brain that wasn’t supposed to be around recording things for this long. Loss of control was absolutely a hallmark. So maybe I was closer to the term lunatic than anyone else we were talking about.
“What does it mean to you, to have a flexible morality?” I asked.
“Well. I guess from someone else’s perspective, it means he has no morality whatsoever, but that’s not the case. He just values different things than the average person. Although he does appear to dislike women quite strongly, but that’s surprisingly common, actually. Even in men who purport to feel the exact opposite. No, Henry’s moral sense doesn’t extend beyond what’s good for Henry.”
“That’s not that unusual.”
“Yes, but no, what you’re talking about is self-interest. We all have self-interest. To further his interests, my friend will do anything. He’ll kill. And think nothing of it.”
I took a sip of beer and tried to reconcile the man I spent five days following around with the one being described. Henry struck me as a gadabout, when he was with the women he supposedly hated. Potential killer, didn’t spring to mind easily. Maybe that was how he got away with it.
“And he’s done it already,” I said, for clarification. “Murdered someone.”
“More than once. Very economically, too. He owns that building, did you know that?”
“I didn’t go digging up any property records.”
“He flim-flammed the funding to get it built. He’s better at getting financiers to back him than he is at just about anything else, I’d wager. He has the means to make bodies disappear, in that building. I won’t say how; it would put you off your food. But it’s rather elegant. He’s even made a profit off the remains, at least once. Sold the skeleton to a medical school. I heard at that Wild West show that the plains Indians found a use for every part of the buffalo. Henry’s nearly as industrious.”
“Except these are people,” I said. “Not buffalo.”
“Yes, I appreciate the distinction.”
His expression implied this was, at worst, an inconvenient detail.
“And this is the sort of fellow you have no compunction about befriending,” I said. “More than that; you’re helping him. Not like you helped the London Ripper, but abetting anyway.”
“I told you, my interest is clinical, that’s all. Why do you think I became your friend?”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Come on now. You move effortlessly from country to country, from the lowest rung on the social ladder to the tea room in an exclusive Gentleman’s Club. You’ve done it here and I bet my hat you did the same in England, given how at ease you were in the East End. You know who accomplishes that kind of social climbing in a single lifetime? Nobody, that’s who, and you’ve pulled the trick twice. How many people did you kill to get those fine threads, Jack? Is that even the name you’re using now?”
It was actually an impressive bit of deduction, even if it was incorrect. It took multiple lifetimes to accomplish that in England, and I had the help of a secret society in the U.S. He was also wrong in thinking I’d killed people to get where I was at this moment, but not wrong in that I had taken lives in the past. I took them in self-defense, but I was capable of it. Granted, my definition of self-defense was probably not one a court of law would agree with. For instance, I considered killing Herman a self-defense exercise, even though he wasn’t currently posing a direct threat to my health and well-being.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “My finery is attributable to the funds I brought from London, and the shop was my father’s.”
He smiled.
“That’s a lie. You’re a killer. I knew it when we first met. You’re here to kill me tonight. I know that’s not bravado. You have it in you.”
I didn’t come to the restaurant with a weapon, but I didn’t have to. When they cleared off the table, they’d discover a steak knife missing.
“I feel as if we’re approaching the end of our conversation, Herman. I’ve given you a chance to explain yourself, and you have. It hasn’t changed my feelings regarding your continuing to breathe.”
“Thank you for your honesty. But before we reduce ourselves to that level, I’d like to make a proposal.”
“I decline.”
“You should listen to it first.”
“Fine. Go on.”
“The proposal is this: you’ll never see me again; Henry Holmes will vacate his property within a few months, and never return; nothing that happened there will be connected to any of us, you included.”
“You’ve decided to stop pinning murder sprees on me? Is that what I’m getting out of this arrangement?”
“I know you’ve had to restart once already. I have to think that if you killed me tonight and then—and I’m just guessing but I’ve no doubt it’s crossed your mind—went calling on Henry with the same murderous intent, you would have to flee once more. Only this is a much larger country and you are very much in the middle of it.”
“I’ve heard good things about Canada.”
“I’ve been. It’s cold.”
“Herman, you’re asking that I leave you alone so you two can button up whatever else you’ve got going on here that you haven’t told me about yet, and what I get in exchange is the freedom to pretend we never came across one another, plus the weight on my conscience of however many deaths happen at your hands between now and whenever someone puts a stop to it. Are the women still alive?”
“The women?”
“I saw Henry with two women, and then I didn’t. What did he do with them?”
“Oh, they’re fine. No, no, he likes them quite a lot. Told me so.”
“Now who’s lying?”
He smiled.
“In truth, I can’t speak to their health in either direction. If you’d like to make their survival a condition of our agreement, I can arrange it.”
“I don’t think you can. And I don’t feel like making any kind of deal with you. But I did enjoy the meal.”
I got up and walked away before he could try and entice me with a variant of the ignore all the killing scheme. I heard a loud sigh, but no other protestation.
So, there I was, standing in a pass-through next to the restaurant, wondering about murdering a man.
Adams was a decently busy street, much more definitively ‘downtown’ than anything associated with the fair, but it was also late at night in a world with no electric street lamps outside of the White City itself. If you wanted to kill a man and then walk away, I’m saying, it was still possible to do it, even in the middle of a large metropolis.
I already knew this, from my New York experience, although I wasn’t what a
nyone would call in the middle of that city then.
If you’re wondering, I’m entirely capable of straight-up killing a guy, both in terms of execution and general intestinal fortitude. In that regard, Herman was right. True, it isn’t often I’m put into a position quite like this, where I’m creating the act of violence rather than defending myself from it, but these were unique circumstances.
If Herman was without an accomplice, I could see letting him walk away in the expectation that our paths would never cross again during his lifetime. I might have to relocate again, but that was well within my capabilities. But there was Henry to consider. It was made very clear that Henry needed to be stopped, and unlike in London, it was within my power to do that. I’d have to go through Herman first, though.
I was ruminating on the subject of precisely how good my ex-friend might be in hand-to-hand combat, and what would be involved in dragging him from the street to the back of the building, when a large man came up from behind.
I heard him coming, and figured he was a restaurant staffer, leaving by way of the kitchen exit in the rear. I stepped aside so as to give him plenty of room to pass. But that wasn’t what he was interested in.
“Hey,” he said. “You can’t be here.”
“Here, in the alley?”
“That’s what I said.”
I looked around for a sign or a gate or something.
“It’s a public alley.”
“Nah.”
“I’m… nah? That’s what you’re arguing? Look…”
I didn’t get to finish what was going to be a positively devastating bit of sarcasm, because he decided to escalate the situation drastically. With one big, meatball of a hand, he grabbed my shirt collar, picked me up, and threw me a few feet further down the alley. I landed awkwardly on a metal trash can, and lost the steak knife I’d been keeping in my sleeve.
I was back on my feet before he had a chance to press his advantage.
“If you wanted me out of the alley,” I said, taking a defensive stance, “you threw me the wrong way.”
“Funny.”
“I know, I have a great sense of humor. Ask anyone.”
He swung at my head. I ducked, and jabbed two fingers in a spot below his ribcage. This took all the air out of his lungs, which he needed, both for his monosyllabic communications and to breathe.
“Leave it, friend,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He grunted, still on one knee. Then he was up again, only with a switchblade in one hand.
“C’mon, don’t be…look, so it’s your alley, fine. I’ll head out right now.”
“Man said you’d be tough,” he growled. “He wasn’t lyin’.”
“Wait, did someone put you up to this?” I asked.
He ignored the question, and came at me with the blade.
Large men should carry large knives. Or swords. It’s a truism I just made up, but I think it holds, especially if they’re using the knife as the vanguard of their attack. For instance, if you happen to be a nimble enough large person, you can grab someone with one hand and stab them with your small knife with the other. That’s a perfectly valid method of assault. But if you’re leading with the switchblade—as he was—you’re going to be off-balance most of the way. Because the thing about being very large is that you tend to put a lot of confidence in your strength. The idea, then, is that even if the blade in your hand is tiny, if you thrust it forward with tremendous strength, it will do more damage.
And, I mean, that’s true, but not really sensible if the person you’re going after is capable of independent movement. Also, if the thing is sharp enough, you don’t need a lot of force.
He was using it wrong, is my point. Yes, you can slip a switchblade into a pocket and walk around with nobody being the wiser. That’s the whole point of them. But you have to know how to use it or it’s not doing you any good.
His initial stab was wild to the right, and easy to evade. He tried to paw at me with his left arm—the knife was in his right—but that was also clumsy, and simple enough to duck under. I did, and kicked his legs out from under him. He went face-first into the trash can that cushioned my fall a few seconds earlier.
“Look,” I said, “this isn’t going to end well. Did he pay you already? You should probably just take the money and get out of here.”
I’d have had just as much success getting through if Herman hired a dancing bear instead of this oaf. He scampered to his feet and tried again.
“You’re squirmy,” he grunted.
“I’m going to have to really hurt you if you don’t stop.”
He roared, and performed what was actually an effective attack for a person his size. He wrapped me up in both arms and ran us backwards into the wall.
High grades all around: he used his size and the narrowness of the combat area to counter my quickness. I would have applauded if I thought it was going to be received well.
“Last chance,” I said.
He laughed, pressed me up against the wall with one hand, and tried to stab me with the knife.
Again: high marks. But he should have taken the offer.
The blade never landed true—obviously—because my hands were still free. I caught the wrist with a left-hand sweep and grabbed the arm that was holding me against the wall with my right hand. This provided enough leverage for a kick in his groin with a decent amount of force. Then I was no longer being pressed up against the wall. I drove the palm of my right hand up into his chin, pinched his right wrist in just the right spot, and a second later he was on one knee and I was holding his knife.
“Just go, friend” I said. “Run off, please.”
He didn’t. He got up and charged yet again. I ducked under the attack, and jabbed him three times with the switchblade, in and around the heart.
See, that’s how you’re supposed to use a small knife: quick, deep, targeted jabs. If you know where the arteries are, and you’re fast enough, it’s nearly impossible to defend against.
The big guy grabbed his chest, more surprised than in any real pain.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I gave you at least four chances to walk.”
His heart was busy exploding in his chest, so as much as it would have been cool to get a hey, no problem, my mistake from him, he mostly just fell over and died.
“I see you’ve proven my point,” Herman said. He was standing at the back end of the alley, where the exit from the kitchen was located.
“If you’ve been there all this time, you know I didn’t have a choice.”
“Oh, but you did. Once you took the knife from him, you had an opening. Clearly, you’re faster than he was. Why didn’t you simply run? The street’s right there.”
“Because…”
I didn’t know how the rest of that sentence went. He was right; I could have run.
Herman laughed at my perplexity.
“So, you hired this guy to kill me,” I said. “And you were sure of this outcome. Now we’re both standing in an alley, I’ve already killed one man, and I’m holding a knife. Are you sure this is how you wanted this to go?”
“Yes, I absolutely counted on it.”
“You think you’ve got a better chance than he did?”
“I definitely do, yes.”
He raised his arm to reveal a handgun.
We’d really just entered the era in which handguns became accurate enough weapons to be considered reliable in a circumstance such as this. Ten or fifteen years earlier, I’d have taken the knife over the gun.
We were also about ten paces away from one another. If I wanted to live, all I had to do was turn around and run, like he said I should have done once I’d disarmed his hired man. Regardless of what kind of rigged trick shots went on in Wild Bill’s Wild West Show down the street, a kill shot with a handgun on a guy running in the wrong direction, in the dark, at more than ten paces, was pretty tough.
“This is just to keep you from coming any closer,” he sa
id. “Laura, why don’t you step over here?”
A frightened-looking woman—I thought she might have been our serving-girl—emerged of the shadows next to Herman.
“Tell us what you saw.”
“I saw…I saw that man kill Benny,” she said.
“Very good. And who is that man?”
“His name’s Stanley.”
Then she recited my address in Chinatown.
“Thank you so much,” he said. “Now run back inside.”
She did.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Well, I felt terrible, about how we ended things in London. It was wrong of me to try and pin murders on you which you didn’t commit. To make amends, I’ve decided to run you up on a murder you did commit, in front of a witness.”
“I see. And how much money is Laura getting to pretend you weren’t here as well, confessing to have set up the whole thing?”
“That’s not important. Look, Jack—or, excuse me, Stanley now—the offer still stands. I’m just trying to broker an arrangement where we’re all getting what we want. You leave us alone. You’ll never see me again, and Henry will leave Chicago for good. I know you like it here. So stay.”
“And Laura?”
“Laura will hold her tongue as long as you mind your business.”
“Suppose I’m not okay with that.”
“I guess you could kill her. But I don’t think you have it in you.”
“I could take my chances. It’s her word to mine.”
“Yes. And who are you? Stanley isn’t your real name. Neither is Jack. Nor was the name you were using in…New York, wasn’t it? You know, I spotted you long before you spotted Henry. I’ve been following you around for half the summer.”
“Impossible. I’d have noticed.”
He laughed.
“I didn’t look like this. Nor was I born looking exactly like Herman Mudgett of New Hampshire. This is why, no matter how many times you work out the angles, you’re not going to come out ahead. You may be able to stop Henry, but when I say you’ll never see me again I mean it. Even if you see me again, you won’t know it. In the meantime, Laura will go to the police and you will be forced to flee and start over yet again.”
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