The Cutthroat by Clive Cussler (popular books to read txt) 📗

If he asks which story, tell him the one I never believed.”

“Will his story tell me the Ripper’s age?”

“I was told that Wayne Barlowe interviewed a woman who saw Jack the Ripper up close. I asked, repeatedly, whether what I heard was true. Barlowe won’t tell me. In fact, he cut me off. You may have better luck, not being with the Yard.”

“Will he tell me the Ripper’s age?” Bell repeated harshly.

“With any luck, you can tell his age yourself.”

“How?”

“When you see the Ripper’s face.”

17

The Cutthroat walked on a railroad track with a girl in his arms.

“I love American rivers,” he told her.

The Ohio River was tearing alongside them in the dark. It made a sound that seemed to blend far-off thunder and the slither of an enormous snake.

“Your rivers are mighty compared to the Thames.”

He laughed softly. “Even in flood, the Thames can’t hold a candle to your rivers. Yours drain mountains—ours mere hills—and valleys as broad as all England.”

Swelled by melting snow and spring rains, they uprooted trees, smashed steamboats, scoured soil, and swept drowned cattle, men, and women to distant oceans. A floating body raced on the surface, pummeled by waves and driftwood. A body that sank was hurtled over the river bottom in a corrosive slurry of mud and water.

“The Mississippi is my favorite,” he said. “But we’ll make do with the Ohio tonight— Not to worry. It will take you to the Mississippi in a week or so.”

Scraped, battered, and unrecognizable where the rivers joined at Cairo. A month or so later, seagulls would feast in the Gulf of Mexico. “Show me no body,” he told her, “and I’ll show you the perfect crime . . . Let me count the ways.”

Fires—that’ll teach her to smoke in bed. Fresh-dug cellars before they cement the floor. Shallow graves where only coyotes sniff her out. Played-out quarries. Smelters. Oil refineries. Distilleries. An overgrown mine shaft in Pennsylvania once, where, judging by the stink, someone else had the same idea. “But this is true, my dear—for crisp, clean, ease of disposal, nothing beats a river.”

His night vision was superb, and he walked sure-footedly toward an abandoned coal wharf where riverboats took on fuel before the railroads put them out of business. Suddenly he stopped, cocked his ear, and listened hard.

“Do you hear that?”

Voices singing:

“Put your arms around me, honey, hold me tight.

Huddle up and cuddle up with all your might.

Oh, babe . . .”

The Cutthroat spotted them in the starlight, stumbling toward him on the train tracks. A pair of drunks harmonizing, or so they thought, Collins and Harlan’s hit Victor recording from Madame Sherry. Strapping men, he saw as they drew closer, work-hardened day laborers, young, quick, and barely slowed by the booze. Even though they were having trouble remembering the words:

“When they look at me, my heart begins to float,

Then it starts a-rockin’ like a motorboat.

Oooh-ooh, I never knew any gal like you.”

They finally noticed him ten feet in front of them, lurched to a halt, and looked him over.

“Whatcha got there, mister?”

“The young lady had a bit much to drink,” said the Cutthroat.

They snickered.

The bigger one said, “So now you’re gonna have a bit much of her.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, you’re carrying her down the tracks into the dark so you can have her before she comes to.” He turned to his friend. “You know somethin’, Vern? Seeing as how there’s two of us and only one a him, we’re going first.”

He turned back to the Cutthroat. “You can have seconds.”

“Thirds,” said Vern.

The Cutthroat opened his arms. The girl fell hard, audibly cracking her head on one of the rails. The cape he had wrapped around her flew open.

“What did you do that for?” the bigger drunk howled. “You want to kill her?”

“Ain’t gonna be no fun dead . . .” said Vern. His voice trailed off as he moved closer.

“Jimbo, you see what I see?”

“Oh, man, she fell on her head, busted her neck.”

“Look again, you idiot. She was already dead.”

Jimbo leaned over the body. He fumbled a match from his clothing and raked it across his belt buckle. The Cutthroat closed one eye and slitted the other. Sulfur flamed, half blinding them both.

“I’ll be damned. He cut her head almost off.”

“And look what he did to her—”

The Cutthroat’s cane hung from a strap looped around his wrist. When the match went out, he drew his sword from the cane and whipped the bloody blade to the bigger man’s throat. “Do exactly what I tell you, Jimbo.”

Jimbo’s hands shot up in the air. “Easy, mister. Easy. Take it easy. We’re not telling anyone, we’re just going to—”

“Do exactly what I tell you, Jimbo. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t—”

“Punch that man in the mouth as hard as you can.”

“What—”

“Don’t hold back. If you hold back, I will slash your throat wide open.” He could have said “like hers” but did not have to. Jimbo had seen plenty in the flare of the match. “Now!”

The smaller man didn’t move. He just gaped in disbelief. Jimbo’s fist struck him full in the mouth, knocking in teeth, and slamming him half conscious on his back.

Jimbo said, “I’m sorry, Vern. He made me—”

“Turn around, Jimbo.”

“You said you wouldn’t stick me.”

“I will not ‘stick’ you. Turn around!”

The Cutthroat swung his cane with all his strength. Reinforced with steel, heavier than it looked, it caved a shard of bone into Jimbo’s temple, dropping him on top of his groaning friend. The Cutthroat sheathed his sword in his cane and picked up a chunk of heavy track ballast in each hand and pounded at both men’s heads. When they were dead, he felt in their clothing for their rotgut bottle.

He raised it by the neck, high to the stars, and smashed it down on Jimbo’s shattered temple. Broken glass and whiskey sprayed the bodies. Then he stepped back and cast a shrewd eye on his handiwork. Whether or not a train ran them over in the dark, if