Ripper

by Michael Slade

  Clothes were piled on the chair at the foot of the bed. Other clothing, a skirt and bonnet, lay charred in the fireplace. A half-burned candle was on the table beside the bed. The slashing, stabbing, skinning, and gutting seemed ritualistic.

  With Kelly, the Ripper disappeared into the fog of myth.

  Who was the Whitechapel murderer, and why did he kill? The list of suspects grows each year. Jack was a future king of England … a back-street abortionist … a Jewish slaughterman … a royal surgeon … a mad coachman… actually Jill. Jack’s real name was Clarence, Druitt, Kosminski, Ostrog, Stanley, Klosowski, Sickert, Pizer, Westcott, Pedachenko, or Gull. Neill Cream, the poisoner, is said to have cried, “I am Jack the …” as the gallows sprung. Jack masked a conspiracy hatched by Freemasons … royalty … Catholics … the police … or the Establishment. Jack was a black magician seeking occult powers.

  A black magician.

  Crowley’s suspect.

  Tautriadelta.

  Cross-three-triangles.

  Symbols, thought DeClercq.

  SEX BABE

  Vancouver

  1:45 P.M.

  Sex is money.

  Because sex sells.

  Fantasy Escort Service was still going strong, despite Ray Hengler’s ignoble death in a prison shower tunnel during the Ghoul case. In 1985 there were no escort agencies in Vancouver, because the hookers were all trolling bars or out on the streets. Back then, the center of the flesh trade was the West End, starting at Bute and continuing through Jervis and Broughton, before giving way to the chickenhawk boys hanging around Nicola. Hundreds of women slinked in after dark to flaunt their sexual charms, every corner street lamp a spotlight on men’s dreams.

  Then came Bill C-49:

  (1) Every person who in a public place or in any place open to public view

  (a) stops or attempts to stop any motor vehicle,

  (b) impedes the free flow of pedestrian or vehicular traffic or ingress to or egress from premises adjacent to that place, or

  (c) stops or attempts to stop any person or in any manner communicates or attempts to communicate with any person for the purpose of engaging in prostitution or of obtaining the sexual services of a prostitute is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

  (2) In this section, “public place” includes any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, express or implied, and any motor vehicle located in a public place or in any place open to public view.

  That’s when the hookers moved out.

  That’s when Ray Hengler moved in.

  It all began in a basement suite in Vancouver’s East End. A seventeen-year-old student unable to make ends meet answered an ad in the paper: Escorts. Now Hiring. She arrived for the interview dressed in her Sunday best, descending cracked backdoor steps to a scummy underground home. Left of the door was a tiny office with a telephone, and a ripped couch baring some of its springs. Ahead was a pigsty bedroom with a dog that reeked of dog, and to the right a kitchen with dirty dishes everywhere. Two men sat at the table shooting Scotch chased with beer. One of them ogled, whistled, and said, “Toots, have you got jugs.”

  The breast man was Hengler, a fat oily slob with a skinhead’s haircut and the nose of a hawk. He held a copy of Hustler out at arm’s length, comparing the woman at the door to the centerfold. “Strip to your panties. Let’s see what you got.”

  The student hesitated.

  “Is there a problem?” asked the other man, Hans Stryker. “The job ain’t typing. The job requires fucking. How you gonna fuck if you’re afraid to show your ass?”

  The woman stripped to her panties and did a little pirouette.

  “Good,” said the ass man. “Now let’s see your muff.”

  Within a year, Hengler and Stryker were rich. Fantasy Escort Service was running fifty women and eight bisexual men. The agency sold time, not sex, so it was within the law, paying the city a license fee for each of its “companions.” The problem arose when Hengler got into drugs and the nightclub scene: coke, smack, and strippers, wrapped in rock ‘n’ roll. Stryker wanted to stay legit. Hengler wanted it all.

  The dispute was settled by Hengler buying his partner out. The money was still owing when Chandler tossed the promoter in jail, the deal dying when Hengler was gang-raped and stabbed in the shower tunnel. To recoup his investment, Stryker took over the stable.

  There are currently sixty escort agencies in Vancouver, serving 5 percent of the male population. In 1991 they spent $610,000 advertising in The Yellow Pages, The Province, and The Sun. Stryker, who was top of the heap, ran his empire from an office on East Hastings Street, controlled from his mansion crowning the heights of Point Grey.

  Six-foot-three with a heavy paunch and gelled-back hair, Stryker was a boxer gone to seed from too many good meals. His scarred face was boxed between cauliflower ears, his chipped teeth capped beneath a twice-broken nose. The sleeves of his billowy D’Artagnan shirt were rolled at the cuffs to flash his Rolex watch set in a band of marbled gold. The pinky ring on his jabbing hand was the size of a Loonie coin, distracting eyes from the “666” tattooed on the web between his thumb and index finger. Rain spattered the windows as he talked on the phone, graying his panoramic view of the harbor and the peaks.

  “Rudy, you gotta see it as beef on a hook,” he said. “A Go calls in, describes what he wants, and we fill the order. Steaks or cunt, the marketing’s the same.”

  “What’s my take, Hans? Run down those figures again.”

  “The basic unit of time sold is 300 bucks for an hour. Domination, doubles, or kinky is twice the price. The agency gets sixty-five percent of what each escort earns. You keep twenty-five and send the forty remaining to us. Here, we do an average of 1,131 Go’s a month. At 300 minimum a pop, that’s a gross of $339,300, which multiplied by twelve is 4,071,600 smackeroos. At sixty-five percent, we skim $2,646,540. Build a similar clientele, and you’ll pocket 1,017,900 skins.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Rudy scoffed. “Victoria isn’t Vancouver.”

  “And then there are incidentals.”

  “Incidentals like what?”

  “You gotta run a tight ship or the holes get greedy. I treat my girls fair—until they steal from me. Sooner or later they all steal. No one’s honest these days.

  “When a hole signs on, she pays a $300 security deposit. The money’s forfeited if she breaks the agency’s rules. A second offense dings her $600. Refusing to take a call is worth $300, too. She has to work four days a month without pay manning phones, which means you only hire skeleton staff. If she balks, clip her 240. If she gets charged with soliciting, the contract says she’s fired, and you get to keep all she’s earned.”

  “They go along with that?”

  “Sure. Why not? The alternative is they fall into the hands of pimps. Besides, some of ‘em earn 120,000 a year.”

  “The girls you supply? Where do you get ‘em?”

  “Remember the Gorby Girls ruckus last year? Brought to Canada as models and ended up stripping? Well, I got a scout in East Europe. A beauty wants into capitalism, he ships her out. We offer a six-month contract, so she gets a work visa. I charge her half a K for makeup and clothes, and no one sucks bone like a woman who that’s her only ticket out. When the visa’s up, I rent her to Japan, then dump her home and bring a fresh one out.”

  Rudy hemmed and hawed, making up his mind.

  “What’s to lose? It’s like McDonald’s,” Hans said. “We franchise the restaurants. We supply the meat.”

  The floor beneath Stryker housed his harem and water works. It wasn’t the Playboy Mansion, but Hans had aspirations. There was an indoor swimming pool, sauna, and Jacuzzi. Off the marble slab designed for shiatsu massage were cribs numerous enough to sleep a dozen “girls.” At the moment only two were in residence, bubbling naked in the steamy whirlpool. The Amazon black was Peaches: “Sweet as the Georgia fruit.” The hourglass white was Lyric, named for the London theater where her parents
met. Lyric and Peaches teamed up for salt-and-pepper dates, but not last night, so this afternoon they discussed tricks of the trade.

  “What I expected,” Peaches said, “was the usual businessman’s blues. John just in from England, with no friends in town. He wants some talk, and some head, while he adjusts to a new time zone.”

  “Lots of lonely people out there,” Lyric agreed.

  “So I go up to his hotel room and knock on the door. John who answers is sixty years old with a wife and five kids. He’s dressed up like a woman, padded bra and all. High-level exec, he makes decisions for thousands of people each day. What he wants is to give up control for a while. Can’t let anyone else know, so he shares it with me. Tears in his eyes, he pays me triple to make up his face. Just two girls, talking in front of the mirror.”

  “Lucky you,” Lyric said. “Mine was the other end.” chilling pool. Side by side, they dove into the turquoise water. When they surfaced, gooseflesh bumped their shoulders and breasts, puckering their nipples as they backstroked to the edge.

  “First I meet the woman in a bar,” Lyric said. “Picture her. Thirtysomething. Backcombed hair. Looks like your typical rock star slut. Unslung tits bulging the front of black silk pajamas, the clinging skin tucked into black knee-high boots. I’m the pro and the guys in the bar are humping her in their minds.”

  “Pussy-nibbler?” Peaches asked, waggling her tongue.

  “Not that simple,” Lyric said. “She takes me to the West End, up to this penthouse suite. Guy who lets us in calls her the Erotic Witch. He’s the type who’s always got a hard-on in his pants.” She flicked her eyes toward the ceiling, above which Stryker worked. “Chunky, hairy, and likes to grope his balls. The Witch calls him Lou.”

  “You did him?” Peaches said.

  “Not that simple. Lou’s some sort of authority freak. A cop groupie with police stuff everywhere. Guy’s a writer, judging from the book covers on the wall. A bird-watcher, too.”

  “Birds? You mean women?”

  “No, the deadly kind. Eagles, owls, and hawks. Hooked beaks and claws. Had this chart by the roof deck, with binoculars.”

  “Don’t tell me you did one of the birds?”

  “Not that simple. The Go that called requested blue underwear. Blue bra, blue stockings, blue garter belt. The moment we’re in the apartment, Lou tells me to “show the blue,” and while I strip he rips the clothes off the Witch. Black silk outfit falls to the floor. Then he starts fingering her in front of me. She’s primed by the time we enter the bedroom.”

  Arms along the edge of the pool, they scissors-kicked the water.

  “First thing I notice is the walls and ceiling are mirrored, then I see cords looped around the posts of the bed. Lou asks the Witch if she wants to be tied this time. The Witch says no. Lou gives me a cop’s hat, tunic, and shades to put on. I’m to keep the jacket open so he can see beneath.”

  “City,” Lyric said.

  “So Little Girl Blue had to blow the horn?”

  “Not that simple. The bedspread is patterned with a black pentagram. I get the feeling that’s the Witch’s idea. On hands and knees, the Witch spreads herself on the star, head covering one point, limbs the other four. Lou has me kneel on the pillow, and gives me a billy club. Moaning, the Witch dips her back and looks me straight in the eye, a stare that doesn’t waver till she growls when she comes. Lou crawls behind her upturned rump and does the dirty deed. All the time he’s doing her, he’s watching me.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Simple. I fucked the billy club.”

  The women were climbing from the pool when Stryker descended the stairs. He wore one of those jockstrap suits men wear on the Riviera, a minuscule wisp of red cloth slung like a G-string. In the animal world, it’s the male who does the strut.

  “You’re putting on weight,” Peaches said. “You should exercise.”

  “The only things worth sweating for are fucking and money. I want a massage,” Hans said. “Top and bottom.”

  They met at the shiatsu slab as he added, “Lyric, you got a date tonight. Just called in.”

  “I don’t know, Hans.” Treading lightly. “This killer has me spooked. Two more women. Can’t we cool it for a while?”

  Stryker snapped his fingers, and pointed at her nose. “I oughta ding you three bills for that. But you’re a good girl, Lyric, and I’m feelin’ kind. You think a serial killer walks around in a tuxedo?”

  He weighed Peaches’s left breast in one hand, hefting it like a melon at Lonsdale Quay. As the “girls” said, theirs was a Hans-on job.

  “The Go who called’s up from the States. Idaho, Utah, forget which. Says their Tuxedo Club’s torpedoed by the courts. Have to let women in.” Hans shook his head. “How do guys talk snatch when there’s snatch around? The club wants a blowout before the curtain falls, so he’s up here scoutin’ party locations. Heard about me, and wants to sample the wares. I’m countin’ on you, Lyric, to suck this rube dry.”

  “Tuxedo, huh? Where do we meet?”

  Stryker tossed her the name of a ritzy bar.

  “What if there’s several penguins?”

  “Said he’ll be the one in white dress tie.”

  2:03 P.M.

  The city was in a panic. The Headhunter case again. The UBC murders had surfaced too late to catch the morning papers, but news that volatile spreads by word of mouth. Through fingerprints and records, the cops ID’d the victims, but Chloe and Zoe’s identities had yet to be released. While Craven was at the mortuary sparring with Macbeth, several women from yesterday’s protest appeared on a local talk show. As soon as the lines were open to listeners’ calls, a man phoned in and giggled, “See what you made me do?” The call ended abruptly with unhinged howls. Meanwhile, Chan was beefing up the “Jolly Roger Squad,” commandeering Mounties from here and there. University Detachment was the rally point.

  Chloe and Zoe both had records for soliciting, and had been checked by vice detectives several times since. Police had recently adapted the computer program used in the Michael Dunahee case—America’s Most Wanted and Geraldo—to create a data bank listing local prostitutes, pimps, escorts, and johns. Feeding the names of the twins to his ghost car computer led Craven to their trolling spot on the Richards-Helmcken “stroll.”

  Twelve hundred prostitutes work the streets of Vancouver. They average $225 a day, $256 on weekends. Authorities estimate they earn $54,000,000 a year. It’s a very dangerous job. Over the past decade, twenty-six hookers—cases unsolved—were murdered in the Lower Mainland or on Vancouver Island. In 1991 alone, the VPD received sixty-nine attack complaints, ranging from gang rape to being forced at knifepoint to have sex without a condom. That’s the tip of the iceberg, for most go unreported. At every level of the trade, women are abused. Pimps put them on the street and take their money. Johns put them on their backs and knees and take their self-respect. Cops put them in jail and take their liberty. Lawyers put them on trial and take the rest of their cash.

  Craven parked on Richards and strolled up the stroll. Most of the others walking the street were walking it for money. He stopped and chatted, stopped to talk, until he reached Helmcken. There, under his and hers umbrellas dripping rain, Nick struck gold.

  “Want something, honey? Whisper in my ear. Don’t be bashful. Unless you’re a cop.”

  “Do I look like a cop?”

  “You have a coppish aura. To discuss the menu, nip into that alcove and pull it out. I’m not soliciting. You gotta show good faith.”

  Nick discreetly flashed his shield.

  “Horseman?” the hooker said. “You’re not with vice?”

  “Murder,” Nick said. “The Jolly Roger Squad.”

  “I knew it,” choked the hooker, looking away. “Those two bodies? Chloe and Zoe, right?”

  Craven nodded.

  Her blue miniskirt revealed a peek of lacy cheeks, her tight blue jacket open over a black lingerie top. Four-inch spikes and a gold ankle chain staked
her claim to this spot. Her blond hair was pulled back to advertise her face. Her red lips were pursed in a cocksucker’s kiss. Sudden tears trickled mascara down her chin.

  “Friends of yours?” he asked.

  “The street’s my family. We try to look out for one another. No one else does.”

  She led him to her office, the alcove in the wall, folding her umbrella to light a cigarette. “Want one?” she offered, an afterthought.

  “Thanks,” Nick said. “I don’t smoke.”

  The blue billow she blew out was shot through with rain. “Smoke after?” she asked flatly. “Don’t know. I’ve never looked.”

  The old hooker joke made him smile.

  “I’ve overdosed twice,” she said, “survived brutal attacks from tricks, and lost fifteen—no, seventeen—friends to murder, suicide, and drugs. You never know what’ll happen when you climb into a car. Sooner or later, you get a bad date. Too many very sick men out there. Some punch you, some knife you, some pretend you’re their daughter. The decent ones call you names when they blow.”

  Another drag, deeper this time.

  “I know it sounds hokey, but how’d you end up here?” Nick asked.

  “Honey, the last thing I need is confession. My parents didn’t want sex ed in school. Their God didn’t either. He, too’s, a wrathful pimp.”

  “Another dumb question. What gets you through?”