Jaclyn the Ripper (10 page)

“You're quite certain?”

“Absolutely. No, I would never do that. Never.”

“Please understand, I do appreciate recognition, I do like my reading public, but I have no desire to be a sideshow.”

“Why would anyone want to put you on display?”

“You have no idea.”

“Well, if it were up to me, I'd protect you from that.”

“That's quite noble of you, Miss Reeves, but—”

“What's it like?” she asked suddenly. “Is it wonderful?”

He smiled at her naïveté. “It's actually quite dangerous. When you ride the fourth dimension—if that is in fact what it is—you entertain the risk of reformulation errors.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“One is vaporized to a mass without space, you see, and then catapulted across universes in the controlled environment of the machine which, I might add, doesn't move unless it is on one of its world tours, becoming a sideshow all its own.” He spread his hands. “And the traveler . . . ? I'm sorry to say that there is no guarantee he will arrive at his destination as he once was.”

“You seem fine.” She sipped her wine spritzer and added, “You seem more than fine.”

“I'm lucky,” he said somberly. “I'm sure that Amy is lucky. You might not be so lucky.”

She absently swirled her drink and frowned petulantly for reasons she didn't yet fully understand.

‘'Some of us cannot fathom being reduced to nothingness.”

“Hey, it's not something you think about all the time.”

He finished his beer, glanced at his pocket watch. “It's something we can discuss at a later time, perhaps, but right now I really must go to San Francisco and find Amy.”

“They'll never let you on an airplane with a passport from 1903.”

He looked off thoughtfully. “Can you fix that?”

“I can fix that.”

“Well, I suppose I do need an assistant. A secretary.”

“Am I hired?”

He nodded. They slid from the booth and started out.

“But whatever you do, you must not tell me about a life I've not yet lived.”

“Oookay.”

“Are we clear on that?”

She nodded, said innocently, “I promise.”

“Because if you do, you will change my life irrevocably, and no matter what universe we're in, I'd prefer that didn't happen.”

“I promise. . . . To be good,” she added inexplicably.

 

Amber knew a sergeant in Forgery who was more than anxious to date her. She called him from the rental-car place, exchanged innuendos, and he arranged for “express service” from a small-time felon in Venice. H.G., curious about 2010 social decorum—or the lack of it—wondered if her innuendos meant she would actually go to bed with this cop.

“Nope,” she replied with a laugh. “He's too young for me.”

If he got the subtext, he let it pass. He hadn't come 103 years risking reformulation errors for another passade. He could find trysts whenever he wanted in his own time. He had come here for Amy, the mother of his children and a renewed commitment; he had come here for his time-crossed lover-shadow, and hoped that she was indeed in this universe.

 

With H.G. preoccupied by the downright ugly architecture and the strange, animated people on the streets, Amber drove to Venice, found Dudley Court near the beach, and—miracle of modern miracles—a parking space.

As she pulled in, he suddenly grabbed the edges of the seat, a happy, distracted grin splitting his features. She followed his gaze. Angled in front of her car was a glistening lime-green Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle that to the unaccustomed eye could have been a metallic grasshopper designed for spaceflight. Before she could say anything, he jumped from the car and went to it reverently. He gingerly touched the controls, ran his hand over the seat, kneeled down and peered at the engine.

“Let's go,” said Amber, looking around nervously.

“I have one of these, you know. . . . The design is much more primitive, but the concept is identical.”

She rolled her eyes. “C'mon, okay? Somebody's gonna think you're trying to steal it.”

As if on cue, the owner came out of the corner house and walked toward them, suspicious. “Can I help you?”

Grinning, H.G. backed away and straightened up, a faraway look in his eyes. “This is a beautiful machine.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I have one at home. A Triumph Model 3HP.”

The owner gave him an incredulous look, but before H.G. could take it further, Amber grabbed his hand and pulled him away. She led him up the walk to a renovated bungalow freshly painted royal blue with red trim, the small fenced yard overflowing with flowers and exotic plants. On the porch, she could sense that he was curious to find out what sort of criminal lived in this well-kept, almost charming place.

Irving Bagley, aka “Xerox,” showed them into a living room with antique furniture, Tiffany lamps and reproductions on the walls all of which screamed period decor. He shook hands “correctly” with Amber—she worked for the man, after all—then looked at H.G. and was taken aback. He was used to people staring at
him
, but that wasn't the case here.
He
was staring at Wells. Xerox chuckled.

“Dress rehearsal or costume party?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your threads, dude.”

H.G. studied Xerox's silver and gold piercings, the paisley tattoos creeping up his neck, lavender boot-cut jeans all set off by a mauve silk shirt and dreadlocks that hung below his shoulders. He was trying to reconcile the difference between the Negroes he'd seen in Washington, D.C., in April, 1906, and this black man of 2010, not realizing that the difference went far beyond style and sociology.

Xerox added, “You look weird, you know what I'm saying?”

“No more than you, sir.”

Xerox cackled hysterically and held out the tail of his silk shirt as if it were at fault. “Ernesto got it for me. Ernesto's always confusing good taste with blind emotion.” He turned to the study behind French doors
that were slightly ajar. “We have visitors, Ernesto.” He turned back. “Ernesto's my associate. . . . He's a freelance locksmith.”

“One moment, Xerox,” called Ernesto.

“Xerox . . . ?” said H.G. “I say, is that a Greek name?”

Xerox and Amber exchanged looks, but then Ernesto, a small, lithe Salvadorian dressed in designer T-shirt and jeans, stuck his head in the living room, smiled and waved before disappearing into the kitchen.

Minutes later, they were in Xerox's office—a white-on-white room with matching computers, copiers, cameras and other duplication machines, the ambience so bright that Xerox put on shades, and H.G. had to shield his eyes from the recessed halogens. While Xerox photographed H.G., then made him a fake passport and driver's license, he offered up a running commentary on other services, including bogus Visa and American Express cards. When H.G. apologized that he had only pounds sterling and would have to change them and then come back, Xerox wouldn't hear of it. For a slightly higher fee, he, too, changed currencies.

“One-stop shopping, my man,” said Xerox. “We are into convenience.” He followed them out onto the porch. “We do keys, too,” he added proudly, waving good-bye. “Car keys, any make or model, anything high-tech, even the plastic ones. Price negotiable.”

“What exactly was he talking about?” said H.G. on their way back to the car.

“I think he was trying to sell us keys. You give him a key, he copies it. Or, if you don't have one, you give him, say, the VIN number of a car you want, he hacks into a protected site, downloads the specs, and voilà, you get the key and then the car.”

“Rather imaginative.”

“I'm sorry,” said Amber, apologizing for Xerox.

“Whatever for?” H.G. replied. “The world has always had clever, not to mention sartorially different criminals.”

“True, but they weren't always technological geniuses.”

H.G. glanced at her, impressed. “Good point, my dear, but that doesn't bode well for your world now, does it?”

On their way back to LAX, they detoured to a strip mall and a clothing store. In the mirror, H.G. was aghast at himself in T-shirt with logo, designer jeans and baseball cap.

“I'm sorry,” Amber said. “I mean, I love Harris tweed, but everybody was staring at you.”

“Is respectability so rare in this day and age?” he said defensively.

“It would definitely slow us down.”

Seeking a compromise, she picked out a more traditional pale-blue shirt, matching tie and a khaki summer suit.

While he was trying on his new clothes, she called Lieutenant Holland hoping to get his voice mail, but the man himself came on the line, and she apologized for missing his strategy meeting, then stuttered her way through a tale about “Aunt Harriet.” (She didn't have an aunt.) After “Triple A” got her car started, she was on her way to headquarters when she learned that her aunt was in the hospital. Holland took the news stoically, said he would have Parker Center send over a couple of criminalists from the pool, and hopefully they would cover her absence. When she apologized again, he added that families always came first with him, and she could take as much time as she needed. Relieved he was so accommodating, she said she'd call in when she could and hung up.

She grinned. She knew the lieutenant liked her and appreciated the quality of her work, but the news that he was having two technicians replace her was the ultimate compliment. It was almost enough to make her miss her job and the ghoulish buzz of crime scenes, but given H. G. Wells and his time machine, she might never set foot in a police lab again. She blushed.
I should be so lucky.

She insisted that the salesclerk bag the Harris tweeds; then she stowed them in her trunk, and they were back at the airport in three hours. In the Southwest terminal, Amber excused herself to buy a toothbrush and toiletries, then returned to the waiting area and gave her companion some Handi Wipes just in case his 1906 immune system wasn't ready for the
germs of the future. He read the box, recalled antibiotics from 1979 and grinned.

“How clever,” he said, “sort of like a wipe-on penicillin.”

An hour later, they had returned the rental car and were on a flight to San Francisco, H.G. glued to the window like a small child. The jet surged up through the overcast, climbed more gradually over the Pacific, then dropped in a succession of air pockets, making him giggle with surprise. He clutched the armrests and turned to Amber, his face shining with joy.

“How absolutely marvelous! We're not disintegrating!”

“I'm sorry, we have no listing for an Amy Catherine Robbins.”

“What about Amy Robbins? Or just A. Robbins, perhaps?”

“No, ma'am, nothing in the 415 area code. . . . I do have a Judith on Green Street or a Susan on Brazil. . . .”

Jaclyn had figured out how to turn on the cell phone. Now she closed it and slid it in her pocket, feeling modern and superior. She pushed back in the lounge chair, gazed out French doors at the porch, the lengthening shadows in the yard, the flowering bushes turning black in the dying light. What to do, what to do. She had to find the girl, for the girl was the road to Wells, and Wells had the special key that unlocked time and the universe beyond.

Her eyes came back to a wall of bookshelves sans books in Michael Trattner's family room. They were littered with chic pottery, family and wedding pictures that identified Michael's wife as Heather.
How perfectly sweet.
Jaclyn clicked on the gigantic flat television screen in the center. A trio of self-important whorish blond girls were singing the praises of a new cosmetic surgery technique as if it were the answer to the world's problems. Jaclyn shook her head, disgusted.
Jack would've commented, “If you ever meet me in a dark alley, I'll show
you some cosmetic surgery. Yours truly will put your anus where your mouth is.”

Earlier, she had taken a furtive yet hot shower, then gotten dressed. From Heather Trattner's walk-in closet she'd chosen a long-sleeved sweater and jeans so that if she found herself outside in the night, no one would see her toxic glow—herself included. Then she was curious and turned off the lights. She looked at her torso in the dark. The glow was gone, and she sagged with relief. She had no idea why, other than the fact that she was a long way from the wasteland of infinity.

In the kitchen she had found a knife block. Wüsthof knives. She'd selected an eight-inch serrated slicing knife—and a sheath for it—the whole time waxing nostalgic at the collection of fine German steel, for the same firm had made the surgical blades she'd used on the streets of Whitechapel lo those many years ago. Heather Trattner had good taste. Jaclyn chuckled ironically. In life and perhaps in death, too.