Page 123 of If Looks Could Kill
He feels a new vigor in his limbs. It’s as though the coming cure has already arrived, already taken effect. He has a donor, and he has a way out. All he needs now is a safe place to leave the body. And a few short minutes with the blade.
He feels once more the puff, the current of air in the basement.
Wemust take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.
He turns once more and sees the picks and shovels, resting on the cellar’s dirt floor.
Tonight is the night. God has provided. God has shown Jack all he needs.
Tabitha—Evening Edition(Monday, December 3, 1888)
Mike made an excellent searching companion. He suggested places I would never have thought to look. I knew Pearl had no money, but Mike pointed out that she could have gotten money somehow. Might she leave town? We went to train platforms and carriage stops, and quizzed workers there. Nobody could say they had seen her, but neither could they say for certain they hadn’t. New York was just too big for that. We tried diners and cafés, libraries and museums. I even took Mike back to the Curiosity Musée, but the ballyman dropped his usual patter upon seeing me and told me coldly that Salvationites were no longer permitted, dime or no dime. And don’t think I could fool him by coming here without my uniform.
Nice to know that even my face was occasionally memorable.
And that was that. I was out of ideas and out of time. My feet were sore, my hands were cold, and my heart was in the gutter. It was over, Pearl was lost, and tomorrow morning I’d leave.
We were almost to his aunt and uncle’s home, and when we got there, it would be bed, sleep, and in the early morning, a train to catch.
At the corner of Bowery and Spring, a familiar voice shattered my reverie.
“Extra, extra! Late-night edition!”
I hurried forward with Mike at my heels. Sure enough, it was a face I knew.
“Oscar!” I cried. “For shame! At this hour of the night? Why aren’t you in bed?”
That very young man of the press turned and looked at me. “Oh. Hey. Miss Theresa.”
“Tabitha,” I told him.
“?’Swat I said. Miss Hallelujah. You’re not getting your forty winks neither.” He turned to Mike. “Take your bundle somewhere, bub, ’stead of leaving her here to jaw at me.”
It took me a moment to realize thatIwas the “bundle” in question.
Mike worked hard not to laugh. “Move it along, shorty.”
“Oscar,” I said, “have you started night classes at the Mission School yet?”
Oscar scowled. “I already toldja. I ain’t doing it.”
“You need to,” I told him. “What will you do when you outgrow selling papers?”
“Retire to a palace.” His eyes lit up. “Tonight I’ll make a million bucks. Know why?”
I admitted I did not know why.
“Jack the Ripper!”
My stomach sank. “Oh no,” I said. “Has he killed anyone else?”
“Have they caught him?” asked Mike.
“Better than that,” Oscar told us. “He’shere. In the city. Holed up somewhere on Tenth Street. Me and my mates are gonna go find out where tonight. After I sells my papers.”
Mike and I gaped at each other. Tenth Street buzzed at the edge of my memory.
I pulled a penny from my pocket. “Let me see that paper, Oscar.”
