Ripper (37 page)

“I thought
my
parents were strange,” Finn said.

In his rush to dress, Carver brought the stun baton and his lock pick, but forgot his new overcoat. It wasn’t terribly cold in the cab, but as the wind whipped off the East River onto the bobbing ferry, he thought he’d freeze. He huddled with Delia, but it didn’t help as much as he’d hoped.

At the Octagon, a guard warned them to slow down, but when Carver ignored him, the man didn’t seem interested in making any effort to stop them. Carver rushed for the circular
stairs, pulling himself along with the railing. Strangely, the door at the top was locked. Carver had never been given a key; there was no need. His pick made quick work of it.

The large octagonal room was a mess, almost a photograph of what it looked like before Hawking forced Carver to clean it. Carver’s bed was barely visible beneath the fallen boxes and books. The desk was littered with refuse. He knew in a flash that Hawking
had
been here, working all along.

Delia and Finn came up from behind, panting, as Carver scanned the room. He tried to sense what had gone on here. How could he find the man’s trail? He had to put himself in Hawking’s place. What was important to his mentor?

The typewriter was gone. The brass railway gadget also came to mind. Carver rushed over to the table and spotted a few small screws on the floor. It was gone, too. So were Hawking’s clothes.

“He’s moved out,” Carver said. “Delia, head downstairs and see if you can find a woman named Thomasine Bond. She’s English, probably one of the nurses.”

Still panting, she said, “You want me to run
down
the stairs now?”

“Please. Remind her we spoke on the phone. Tell her I know he was up here these last few weeks. Ask what his tone was like when he talked to her, if he went out often. It’s important. Hurry.”

Delia nodded, then headed back down the stairs.

“What can I do?” Finn asked.

Carver paced. “Make piles. Get the furniture back in place. Put the papers together. If you find a book open to a page, don’t close it. Stack it with the binding open.”

“Okay. What am I looking for?”

Carver shrugged. “I don’t know. Notes about Jack the Ripper. Notes about… traveling.”

Finn set to work, moving the heaviest boxes into place with ease. Carver kept pacing, glancing at an open book or two. He saw the old overcoat Hawking had loaned him, hanging lonely on the coatrack, watched his bed slowly uncovered as Finn worked.

“Carver,” Finn said, holding up a long piece of paper. “You said travel.”

It was a map of Manhattan’s elevated railway lines, including the suburban trains that led out of the city from Grand Central. There was a schedule attached. He’d seen it once before but didn’t remember where.

“Any good?” Finn asked.

“I don’t know,” Carver said. “Maybe the Ripper fled the city and Hawking figured out where he was going. Where’d you find this?”

Finn nodded toward a pile of papers half-covering a broken machine. Carver was wrong; the typewriter was still here, unrecognizable because it was in shambles. It looked as if Hawking had smashed it in a rage. Carver plopped himself on the floor and stared at the mangled keys.

Delia appeared at the door, gasping so hard she looked ready to collapse. “Carver, there
is
no Thomasine Bond, and no one else remembers giving you any messages. They did say Hawking left early this morning, on the ferry before ours.”

“Then who did I talk to?” He flashed on the moment he’d broken into the telephone switchboard, his mentor telling him to use a higher voice to sound more feminine. “How did I miss that? Thomasine Bond
was
Hawking. The ferry before ours? That gives him a head start, but if he’s planning to take a train out of the city, we could still catch up, if we knew where he was going. Keep looking!”

Finn, still clearing the refuse, grabbed the typewriter by the
chassis. When he lifted, the carriage came loose and clattered to the ground. “He’s going to need another typewriter.”

“Another… Finn!” Carver yelled.

“What? I’m sorry… I…”

“No, you’re a
genius,
” Carver said. He handed Delia the schedule, then raced downstairs to the narrow door that led to the observation room. He’d remembered
where
he’d seen that schedule before. There, in the small, cluttered office space, the second typewriter remained intact. The notes, however, all seemed to be about the patients. The roller.

He swept a space free on the table and was hunting for paper and pencil as his friends arrived.

“Please, please, no more stairs,” Delia said. “And what are you doing, anyway?”

“Hawking read my notes at the athenaeum by rubbing a pencil against the next blank sheet of paper on the pad. He
pounded
these typewriter keys. The most recent impressions would be deepest, so maybe the same thing would work with the roller here.”

His first few efforts yielded some stray words, like
idiots,
but when he rotated the roller and tried again, some numbers appeared. “10:10 and 870. Delia, anything match that on the train schedule?”

Her eyes darted along. “Yes! 870 is a locomotive number on the New York Central Line. And there’s a 10:10 out of the city.”

“An elevated train at the 34th Street Ferry pier goes to Grand Central,” Carver said. “We can make it by ten easily.”

“That el’s mostly for tourists getting to and from Brooklyn and Long Island. It only runs every hour,” Delia said. “He might even still be waiting on the platform.”

As Carver ran for the door, he saw that Delia was already holding his mentor’s old coat. “You’ll want this,” she said. “It’s cold out there.”

As he glanced at his friends, for the first time, Carver didn’t feel like much of an orphan.

THE FERRY
made good time. Thanks to Hawking’s old coat, Carver was able to stand on the upper deck with Delia and Finn and watch as the landing came into view.

Even if they did catch his mentor, what would he do, short of handcuffing him to a pole? But he couldn’t let him face the Ripper alone. Even wounded and cornered, his father had survived a head-on crash. And his mentor was looking weaker by the day.

“That must be the train,” Finn said, pointing at a rising plume. It wasn’t moving yet, but it would be soon. The captain screamed at them as they jumped the last three feet to the dock and ran for the stairs. As they reached the platform, the engine gave off a sharp whistle. The doors were sealed, locked for safety’s sake. With a pant of steam, the train pulled out.

“Too late,” Finn said, slowing. “But if I tip a cabdriver enough, we could beat it to Grand Central.”

Carver scanned the passengers through the moving windows. “Okay, let’s…” In mid-sentence, he spied a familiar slouched figure. Before Carver could think to duck, Hawking looked up and saw him. His mentor grimaced unhappily and shook his head.

“No!” Carver said. “He saw me! He’ll get off at the next stop and find some other way out of the city. We’ll never find him. We’ve
got
to get on that train.”

“How?” Delia said. “You can’t just jump on it.”

He looked up at the sheet metal roof overhanging the platform and said, “Why not?”

Climbing up on a railing, he managed to pull himself to the roof. As he got his bearings, he heard Delia call his name in exasperation, then the heavy thuds of Finn following him.

The train was still slowly gathering momentum as it strove to leave the station. He could make it. Feet pounding, Carver raced faster than he ever had in his life. At the edge of the roof, he took a wild leap and landed flat atop the second of the five passenger cars. His ribs ached, but after a brief roll he was able to stop himself and get to his feet. Behind him, Finn jumped as well, the crash of his heavier body leaving a dent in the top of the train.

Before either could focus on what to do next, they saw Delia on the station roof. She was racing along, one hand holding her wool cap tightly on her head. The train was picking up speed. She wouldn’t make it.

“Don’t!” Carver shouted. “Stop!”

But by then she’d jumped. Carver held his breath as she flew into the air, exhaling only when she landed dead center on the fifth and last car. She rose, still holding her cap, wobbled slightly, then came resolutely forward. Carver and Finn eyed each other, impressed and relieved.

The relief was short-lived. An abrupt bump in the tracks
nearly shook them off the train. Carver knew it wouldn’t be the last bump. The tracks would take the train sharply right onto Third Avenue and then again onto 42nd before the final stop at Grand Central Station.

“We have to get inside!” He waved to Delia and pointed down.

Ignoring him, she trotted up to the edge of her car and jumped to the next.

“I don’t think she likes to be left out,” Finn said.

Carver shook his head. Getting down on all fours for better balance, he made his way to the front of the car he’d landed on, thinking it should be an easy matter to climb down and enter.

Below, he saw a stream of frenetic businessmen and workers pushing and shoving their way out of the first car and back into the second. Finn squatted beside Carver and frowned.

“What’s going on?” he wondered aloud.

“Wait for me!” Delia called from behind. She was on the third car now. Sensing something wrong was going on, he tried to wave her back, but she just scowled.

He looked ahead. “We’re coming to the Second Avenue stop. When the train slows, we can climb down and try to cut off Hawking,” Carver said to Finn.

But the train sped up, making the people waiting at the station a confused and annoyed blur. Something was definitely wrong.

As the last few riders dashed from the first to the second car, Carver tensed, readying for the climb down. Before he could, a tall figure in black cape and top hat appeared at the first car’s rear door, hurrying the passengers along.

His father. The Ripper.

He must have realized Hawking was after him and decided to
return the favor. Carver gritted his teeth. Instead of fear, he felt rage. He had to end this, once and for all. He had to.

A rattle shook the train. The killer winced as his right leg nearly buckled. He was still wounded, at least. With Finn here and Hawking below, the three of them might be able to capture him.

The moment the last passenger fled into the second car, the Ripper withdrew something long and gleaming from the folds of his cloak. Carver furrowed his brow. It wasn’t his blade; it was the brass gadget Hawking had worked so hard to assemble. He choked. How did he get it? Was Hawking already dead?

Despite the huffing of the train and the rattle of the wheels, it was as though the Ripper heard Carver’s gasp. He looked up and, with a feral grin, thrust the pole into the space between cars and twisted. With a wink and a tip of his hat, he vanished back into the car.

Carver felt a lurch as his car slowed. The first car, along with the locomotive, did not. The Ripper had uncoupled the cars. The gap between them was increasing. His father was getting away.

Carver stood shakily. The space widened by one foot, then two…

“My father’s on that car! I have to jump!” Carver said.

“Are you crazy?” Finn said, rising beside him.

“You’ll never make it!” Delia shouted as she caught up. “And if you do, you’ll be alone with him!”

Three feet. Four.

Carver turned to Finn. “Throw me!”

“What?”

“Like you did in the attorney’s office! On three, I jump, you throw!”

“Finn, don’t do it!” Delia shouted.

“Whether you do or not, I’m jumping!” Carver said. “One… two…”

“No!” Delia called.

Finn grabbed Carver’s coat at the neck and his belt at the waist.

“Three!”

Carver leapt. Finn’s powerful arms lifted. The pants dug deeply into his crotch. The back of the old coat tore, but the moment his legs were fully stretched, Finn let go, and Carver was air bound.

CARVER
landed flat on his belly. For a second he thought he’d made it, but the train was traveling much faster than it had been as it left the station. Unable to stop himself, he rolled backward off the roof. Snagging a metal pole, he held on for dear life, then swung onto the small space at the back of the car.

His father was inside. Hawking, too, unless he was already…

The speeding car jangled violently. Panting, steadying himself, Carver tried to find even a small drop of calm in the ocean of rage and fear inside him. There was none. There was nothing left to think or do but push the door open.

At the opposite end of the car sat Albert Hawking, his hunched form blurred by the staccato movement of light and dark as the train hurtled past buildings and sky. An old blanket covered his chest and shoulders.

He was as motionless as a corpse.

Slowing his breath, Carver scanned the space between them. On the seats he saw coats, briefcases and lunch pails, all left by the fleeing passengers. Snacks and drinks were set out on some of the tables that sat between the seats, many spilled or spilling from the jarring car. Otherwise the car seemed vacant.

Carver ached to reach Hawking but knew any mistake he made now could be his last. He took a tentative step, then halted. The floor space under the tables seemed too small to hide anything bigger than a small child, but the Ripper had to be hiding somewhere.

“Don’t stop now, boy. You’ve come this far.”

Hawking, suddenly animate, raised his clawed hand and motioned him forward.

Carver walked up, glancing nervously between the seats. “Is he here? Are you all right?”

Hawking muttered to himself. “Serves me right. The papers said you were fine, but I had to see for myself. Found the second typewriter, did you? Well, don’t expect a pat on the back for it.”

A covered teapot sat on the table before his mentor, wobbling before an empty cup. Hawking unfurled the fingers of his clawed hand, straightened them completely. Despite the train’s bouncing, he lifted the pot with perfect poise and held it steady.