3xT Read online

  The directness of her approach, though, did more to put him off than to arouse him; he was used to the game being played another way. "Easy there," he said, disengaging.

  "It was pure intellectual curiosity, then, that brought you back here tonight?" she said with stinging sarcasm. "Tell me that was all, but wipe the lipstick off first."

  He could still taste it on his lips. "I can't tell you that," he admitted, knowing miserably that he was going to regret whatever happened next, either way.

  An army buddy had once told him, "The hardest thing in the world is turning it down when it's there for the taking." "How do you know?" he'd asked—"Ever done it?" "Me? Hell, no—and don't that prove my point?" His buddy would not have had a second thought here.

  His buddy, though, had not spent his entire adulthood building a life with one woman. Though it took all Pete's will, he turned toward the door of Michelle's study.

  Her voice pursued him. "You run, and you don't even know what you're missing."

  The promise in that almost stopped him again. From everything he had seen, her era was much looser than his. There were things he had never dared ask of Katherine. . . . But then, why had Michelle Gordian chosen to live in 1953 if not for its virtues, such as they were?

  "I know what I have," he said quietly, and walked into the night.

  GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE

  Gardner Dozois and Susan Casper asked me for a Jack the Ripper story for an anthology they were putting together. It was, I think, only the second time I'd ever been asked, so I said yes right away. Then I had to come up with a story idea. I wasn't sure I could; up to that time, I'd just taken ideas as they came rather than aiming toward a specific subject. But I began to think about Jack, about how and why he might have done the insanely vicious things he did. Once I found an answer to that, the story almost wrote itself.

  The gas flame flickered ever so slightly within its mantle of pearly glass as Hignett opened the door to fetch us in our port and cheeses. All five of us were in the lounge that Friday evening, an uncommon occasion in the annals of the Sanguine Club and one calling therefore for a measure of celebration.

  As always, the cheeses went untouched, yet Hignett will insist on setting them out; as well reverse the phases of the moon as expect an English butler to change his habits. But some of us quite favor port, I among them. I have great relish for the fashion in which it makes the sweet blood sing through my veins.

  Bowing, Hignett took his leave of us. I poured the tawny port with my own hand. For the toast to the Queen, all of us raised glasses to our lips, as is but fitting. Then, following our custom, we toasted the Club as well, after which those of us who care not for such drink may in honor decline further potations.

  Yet whether or not we imbibe, the company of our own kind is precious to us, for we are so few even in London, the greatest city the world has known. Thus it was that we all paid close heed when young Martin said, "I saw in the streets last evening one I reckon will make a sixth for us."

  "By Jove!" said Titus. He is the eldest of us, and swears that oath from force of habit. "How long has it been since you joined us, Martin, dear chap?"

  "Myself?" Martin rubbed the mustache he has lately taken to wearing. "I don't recollect, exactly. It has been some goodish while, hasn't it?"

  "Six!" I exclaimed, suddenly finding new significance in the number. "Then two of us can be away and still leave enough for the whist table!"

  Amidst general laughter, Titus said, "Ah, Jerome, this unwholesome passion of yours for the pasteboards does truly make me believe you to have Hoyle's blood in you."

  "Surely not, after so long," I replied, which occasioned fresh mirth. I sighed in mock heaviness. "Ah, well, I fear me even so we may go without a game as often as not. But tell us more of the new one, Martin, so as to permit me to indulge my idle fancy."

  "You will understand I was upon my own occasions, and so not able to make proper enquiry of him," Martin said, "but there can be little doubt of the matter. Like calls to like, as we all know."

  "He noted you, then?" Arnold asked, rising to refill his goblet.

  "Oh, I should certainly think so. He stared at me for some moments before proceeding down Buck's Row."

  "Buck's Row, is it?" said Titus with an indulgent chuckle. "Out chasing the Whitechapel tarts again like a proper young buck, were you?"

  "No denying they're easy to come by there," Martin returned. In that he was, of course, not in error. Every one of us in the Club, I am certain, has resorted to the unfortunate "widows" of Whitechapel to slake his lusts when no finer opportunity presented itself.

  "A pity you did not think to have him join you, so you could hunt together," remarked Arnold.

  The shadow of a frown passed across Martin's countenance. "I had intended to do so, my friend, yet something, I know not what, stayed my hand. I felt somehow the invitation would be unwelcome to him."

  "Indeed!" Titus rumbled indignantly. "If this individual spurns the friendship of an honored member"—"You honor me, sir," Martin broke in. "Not at all, sir," our Senior replied, before resuming—"an honored member, as I say, of what is, if I may speak with pardonable pride, perhaps the most exclusive club in London, why then, this individual appears to me to be no gentleman, and hence not an appropriate aspirant for membership under any circumstances."

  Norton had not taken part in the discussion up to this time, contenting himself with sitting close to the fire and observing the play of the flames. As always when he did choose to speak, his words were to the point. "Nonsense, Titus," he said. "Martin put it well: like calls to like."

  "You think we shall encounter him again, then, under circumstances more apt to let us judge his suitability?"

  "I am certain of it," Norton replied, nor in the end did he prove mistaken. I often think him the wisest of us all.

  The evening passed most pleasantly, as do all our weekly gatherings. Our practice is to meet until midnight, and then to adjourn to seek the less cerebral pleasures the night affords. By the end of August, the sun does not rise until near on five of the clock, granting us no small opportunity to do as we would under the comforting blanket of night.

  For myself, I chose to wander the Whitechapel streets. Past midnight, many London districts lay quiet as the crypt. Not so Whitechapel, which like so much of the dissolute East End of the city knows night from day no more than good from evil. The narrow winding streets that change their names from block to block have always their share of traffic. I sought them for that, as I have many times before, but also, I will not deny, in the hope that I might encounter the personage whom Martin had previously met.

  That I did not. I supposed him to have sated himself the night before, and so to be in no need of such peregrinations now—here again, as events transpired, I was not in error. Yet this produced in me only the mildest of disappointments for, as I have said, I had other reasons for frequenting Whitechapel.

  The clocks were just striking two when I saw coming toward me down Flower and Dean Street a likely-seeming wench. Most of the few lamps that such a small, dingy lane merits were long since out, so she was nearly upon me before realizing I was there. She drew back in startlement, fearing, I suppose, me to be some footpad, but then decided from my topper, clawhammer, and brocaded waistcoat that such was not the case.

  "Begging your pardon, guv'nor," she said, smiling now, "but you did give me 'arf a turn, springing from the shadows like that." She smelled of sweat and beer and sausage.

  I bowed myself nearly double, saying, "It is I who must apologize to you, my dear, for frightening so lovely a creature." This is the way the game is played, as it has been from time immemorial.

  "Don't you talk posh, now!" she exclaimed. She put her hands on her hips, looking saucily up at me. She was a fine strong trollop, with rounded haunches and a shelflike bosom that she thrust my way; plainly she profited better from her whoring than so many of the skinny lasses who peddle their wares in Whitechapel. Her voice turned cr
ooning, coaxing. "Only sixpence, sir, for a night to remember always."

  Her price was more than that of the usual Whitechapel tart, but had I been other than I, I daresay I should have found her worth the difference. As it was, I hesitated only long enough to find the proper coin and press it into her hand. She peered down through the gloom to ensure I had not cheated her, then pressed her warm, firm body against me. "What's your pleasure, love?" she murmured in my ear, her tongue teasing at it between words.

  When I led her to a wall in deeper darkness, she gave forth a tiny sigh, having I suppose hoped to ply her trade at leisure in a bed. She hiked up her skirts willingly enough, though, and her mouth sought mine with practiced art. Her hands fumbled at my trouser buttons while my teeth nibbled her lower lip.

  " 'Ave a care," she protested, twisting in my embrace. "I'd not like for you to make me bleed." Then she sighed again, a sound different from that which had gone before, and stood stock-still and silent as one made into a statue. Her skirts rustled to the ground once more. I bent my head to her white neck and began to feed.

  Were it not for the amnesic and anaesthetic agent contained within our spittle, I do not doubt that humans should have hounded us vampires to extinction a long age ago. Even as is, they remain uneasily aware of our existence, though less so, I own to my relief, in this teeming faceless metropolis of London where no one knows his neighbor, or cares to, than in the hidden faraway mountains and valleys whence our kind sprang and where folk memory and fear run back forever.

  When I had drunk my fill, I passed my tongue over the twin wounds I had inflicted, whereupon they healed with the same rapidity as does my own flesh. The whore stirred then. What her dreams were I cannot say, but they must have been sweet, for she declared roundly, "Ah, sir, you can do me any time, and for free if you're hard up." Greater praise can no courtesan give. She seemed not a whit perplexed at the absence of any spunk of mine dribbling down her fat thighs; doubtless she had coupled with another recently enough beforehand so as not to miss it.

  She entreated me for another round, but I begged off, claiming adequate satisfaction, as was indeed the case. We went our separate ways, each well pleased with the other.

  She had just turned down Osborn Street toward Christ Church and I was about to enter on Commercial Street when I spied one who had to be he whom Martin had previously encountered. His jaunty stride and erect carriage proclaimed him recently to have fed, and fed well, yet somehow I found myself also aware of Titus's stricture, delivered sight unseen, that here was no gentleman. I could find no concrete reason for this feeling, and was about to dismiss it as a vagary of my own when he also became aware of my presence.

  His grin was mirthless; while his cold eyes still held me, he slowly ran his tongue over his lips, as if to say he was fain to drink from my veins. My shock and revulsion must have appeared on my features, for his smile grew wider yet. He bowed so perfectly as to make perfection itself a mockery, then disappeared.

  I know not how else to put it. We have of course sometimes the ability briefly to cloud a mere man's mind, but I had never thought, never imagined the occasion could arise, to turn this power upon my own kind. Only the trick's surprise, I think, lent it success, but success, at least a moment's worth, it undeniably had. By the time I recovered full use of my faculties, the crass japester was gone.

  I felt angry enough, nearly, to go in pursuit of him. Yet the sun would rise at five, and my flat lay in Knightsbridge, no small distance away. Reluctantly I turned my step toward the Aldgate Station. As well I did; the train was late, and morning twilight already painting the eastern horizon with bright colors when I neared home.

  The streets by then were filling with the legions of wagons London requires for her daily revictualing. Newsboys stood on every corner hawking their papers. I spent a penny and tucked one away for later reading, time having grown too short for me to linger.

  My landlady is of a blessedly incurious nature; so long as the rent is promptly paid and an appearance of quiet and order maintained, she does not wonder at one of her tenants not being seen abroad by day. All of us of the Sanguine Club have digs of this sort: another advantage of the metropolis over lesser towns, where folk of such mercenary nature are in shorter supply. Did they not exist, we should be reduced to squalid, hole-and-corner ways of sheltering ourselves from the sun, ways in ill-accord with the style we find pleasing once night has fallen.

  * * *

  The setting of the sun having restored my vitality, I glanced through the paper I had purchased before. The headlines screamed of a particularly grisly murder done in Whitechapel in the small hours of the previous day. Being who and what I am, such does not easily oppress me, but the details of the killing—for the paper proved to be of the lurid sort—did give me more than momentary pause.

  I soon dismissed them from my mind, however, being engaged in going up and down in the city in search of profit. Men with whom I deal often enough for them to note my nocturnal habit ask no more questions on it than my landlady, seeing therein the chance to mulct me by virtue of my ignorance of the day's events. At times they even find their efforts crowned with success, but, if I may be excused for boasting, infrequently. I have matched myself against their kind too long now to be easily fooled. Most of the losses I suffer are self-inflicted.

  I could be, I suppose, a Croesus or a Crassus, but to what end? The truly rich become conspicuous by virtue of their wealth, and such prominence is a luxury, perhaps the one luxury, I cannot afford. My road to safety lies in drawing no attention to myself.

  At the next gathering of the club, that being Friday the seventh, only four of us were in attendance, Martin having either business similar to mine or the need to replenish himself at one of the multitudinous springs of life abounding in the city. By then the Whitechapel slaying was old news, and occasioned no conversation; none of us, full of the wisdom long years bring though we are, yet saw the danger from that direction.

  We spoke instead of the new one. I added the tale of my brief encounter to what Martin had related at the previous meeting, and found I was not the only one to have seen the subject of our discussion. So also had Titus and Norton, both in the East End.

  Neither appeared to have formed a favorable impression of the newcomer, though as was true with Martin and myself, neither had passed words with him. Said our Senior, "He may eventually make a sixth for us, but no denying he has a rougher manner than do those whose good company now serves to warm these rooms."

  Norton being Norton was more plainspoken: "Like calls to like, as I said last week, and I wish it didn't."

  Of those present, only Arnold had not yet set eyes on the stranger. He now enquired, "What in him engenders such aversion?"

  To that none of the rest of us could easily reply, the more so as nothing substantial backed our hesitancy. At last Norton said, "He strikes me as the sort who, were he hungry, would feed on Hignett."

  "On our own servant? I should sooner starve!"

  "So should we all, Arnold, so should we all," Titus said soothingly, for the shock in our fellow's voice was quite apparent. Norton and I gave our vigorous agreement. Some things are not done.

  We decided it more prudent for a time not to seek out the newcomer. If he showed any greater desire than heretofore for intercourse with us, he could without undue difficulty contrive to make his path cross one of ours. If not, loss of his society seemed a hardship under which we could bear up with equanimity.

  Having settled that, as we thought, to our satisfaction, we adjourned at my urging to cards, over which we passed the balance of the meeting, Arnold and I losing three guineas each to Norton and Titus. There are mortals, and not a few of them too, with better card sense than Arnold's. Once we broke up, I hunted in Mayfair with good enough luck and went home.

  Upon arising on the evening of the eighth, my first concern was a paper, as I had not purchased one before retiring and as the newsboys were crying them with a fervor warning that something of whic
h I should not be ignorant had passed during the hours of my undead sleep. And so it proved: at some time near 5:30 that morning, about when I was going up to bed, the Whitechapel killer had slain again, as hideously as before, the very least of his atrocities being the cutting of his victim's throat so savagely as almost to sever her head from her body.

  Every one of the entrepreneurs with whom I had dealings that evening mentioned of his own accord the murders. An awful fascination lay beneath their ejaculations of horror. I had no trouble understanding it. A madman who kills once is frightening, but one who kills twice is far more than doubly so, the second slaying portending who could say how many more to come.

  This fear, not surprisingly, was all the worse among those whom the killer had marked for his own. Few tarts walked the streets the next several evenings, and such as did often went in pairs to afford themselves at least what pitiful protection numbers gave. I had a lean time of it, in which misfortune, as I learned at the next meeting of the Club, I was not alone. For the first time in some years we had not even a quorum, three of our five being absent, presumably in search of sustenance. The gathering, if by that name I may dignify an occasion on which only Arnold and I were present, was the worst I remember, and ended early, something hitherto unknown among us. Nor did my business affairs prosper in the nights that followed. I have seldom known a less pleasant period.

  At length, despite our resolutions to the contrary, I felt compelled to visit the new one's haunts in the East End. I suspect I was not the first of us driven to this step. Twelve hundred drabs walk the brown-fogged streets of Whitechapel, and hunger works in them no less than in me. Fear of the knife that may come fades to insignificance when set against the rumbling of the belly that never leaves.

  I did then eventually manage to gain nourishment, but only after a search long and inconvenient enough to leave me rather out of temper despite my success. Not to put too fine a point on it, I should have chosen another time to make the acquaintance of our new associate. The choice proved not to be mine to make: he hailed me as I was walking toward St. Mary's Station on Whitechapel Road.