Page 71 of If Looks Could Kill
I’d heard my dad say it many times: “The bigger the rush to press, the more mistakes you make.”
Newspapers, in other words, get things wrong.
We sprinted up the Bowery, heading for Tenth Street, ignoring the grease and cinders dripping from the Third Avenue El. Between breaths, I explained my vague and ill-formed theory to Mike.
“I would like to point out,” he panted, “that few young ladies of my acquaintance would run toward a street if they knew that’s where Jack the Ripper might reside.”
I felt a stab of annoyance toward any other young ladies of Mike’s acquaintance.
We reached the intersection of Bowery and Tenth, and I was about to turn left to go west when Mike stopped me. “Look,” he whispered. “What’s going on here?”
A cluster of men, looking official, stood near the corner of the block to our right, on East Tenth, seeming to hover near the door of a McKenna’s pub, in the glow of a gaslight.
Detectives, I’d wager. A few more men, with baggy trousers and notepads in their hands, stood together.
Reporters. And a uniformed police officer, pacing a short segment of the block.
All of them, however they might pretend otherwise, watching the door to an ordinary house.
We crossed over toward the Irish pub. “Let me make some inquiries in here,” Mike suggested in a low voice. “I know you’re not in your Army getup, and it’s a saloon, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather you came in with me than having you wait outside alone.”
“What do you think?” I teased. “The Ripper’s going to come right out and nab me? Here on the street corner?”
Mike flinched. “Humor me, all right?”
So I went in with him and hung back by the door while Mike strode up to the bartender. The music of their Irish accents, but not the words themselves, were all I could make out. Soon Mike returned, and we went back outside.
“This is the place,” he whispered. “The papers got it wrong. The bartender thinks they printed it wrong on purpose, to deflect curiosity-seekers. The British detective sent over by Scotland Yard’s been passing the time indoors here, drinking and confiding in him.”
“The secret power,” I said, “of an Irish barkeep. People will tell you anything.”
“I’m part of the brotherhood,” he joked.
I gazed up at the house the detectives and reporters watched. All its windows were dark.
“If you try to tell me, again,” Mike said, “that I need to wait outside while you go in, you’ve got another thing coming.”
I prodded him with my elbow. “Very funny.”
“So now what?” he asked. “You don’t plan to try to rent a room, do you?”
I gave him a look. “I need to find out if Pearl’s inside. And if she is, try to talk to her.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” asked Mike. “I’ll bet anything that copper is there to stop people from knocking on the door and disturbing the household at all hours.”
Of course, I hadn’t thought that far. “I suppose I’ll… stand outside the house and stare at the windows,” I said helplessly, “and wait for Pearl to look out.”
“And if she’s gone to bed?”
I shivered. “If she’s in there, it’s for a reason, and I doubt she’s feeling sleepy tonight.”
We stood under the gas lamp so our faces could be seen, gazed up at the building, and waited.
The detectives frowned at us. Reporters tried to engage us in conversation.
“I wouldn’t talk to them, if I were you,” whispered Mike.
“Reporters don’t scare me,” I said. “But you’re right. The last thing I need is my dad seeing my name in the paper in conjunction with Jack the Ripper.”
“I have a great deal of sympathy for your dad,” was his reply.
“Do you think she’s in there?” Mike asked me after a while.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “How would she have gotten in?”
“Booked a room?”
I shook my head. “Pearl hasn’t got much money,” I said, “but if she’s determined enough, very little can stop her.”
Mike folded his arms across his chest. “Is that so.”
I glared at him. “No more comments from you, if you please.”
He turned away, unable to hide how proud he was of himself for that one.
Of course, we weren’t the only ones to read the paper and wander over to Tenth Street in search of a Ripper sighting.
People began coming by in twos and threes, swelling the assembled watchers into a small throng.
This was bad, for if the group grew difficult, the police would no doubt order us to disperse.
The cold was my friend, as was the utter boredom of staring up at the curtained and blackened windows of a house like any other in the neighborhood, where absolutely nothing seemed to be happening.
People drifted away as readily as they came, and in time, the late hour sent most of them home.
A fair-haired girl appeared at the stoop and knocked on the door repeatedly. At first I thought this was my miracle, but when the cop chased her away, I saw that it wasn’t Pearl, and my heart sank once more.
It’s a strange sensation, hoping against hope that your erstwhile roommate will pull back the curtain and look out the window of a boardinghouse lodging a man who may be—and perhaps is not—the dreaded butcher of Whitechapel, Jack the Ripper.
If she’s there, then, hallelujah, she is found and alive—and standing at the very brink of hell.
If she doesn’t open the curtain, is she there?
Is she avoiding you? Asleep and unaware of your vigil?
Or is she far away—elsewhere, safe—or, worse yet, unsafe and unfindable?
Is she dead?
Was this new life, thrust upon her, more than she could bear?
Or is her new power turning her into someone else?
And so you stand in the cold and pray, pray she’ll open the curtain, feeling like the traitorous friend you are for not praying instead that she’s simply somewhere else, safely living a life that excludes you, leaving you in the grips of a worry you’ll never resolve, and a wounded rejection, of which time will not easily let go.