Ripper (30 page)

At 13 Miller's Court.

Thirteen? The Magick Number? Signing a Magick Place? Jesus doomed to crucifixion on a
tau
cross by thirteen at the Last Supper, his twelve disciples and him?

Thirteen Miller's Court? A Black Magick Place? Chosen for its power to project him into the Astral Plane? Like a rocket booster?

The more he thought about it, the tighter the pieces fit. Black Magick developed in blatantly sexist times, so the bodies of naked women are used as altars in Satanic rituals. A "female" zodiac circle closes the path to the Occult Realm, which the uprush of "male" erectness from the physical world forces open through symbolic rape. Mutilating the altar destroys its sexual polarity so astral doubles can enter and demons can conjure through.

Satanism is misogyny incarnate.

DeClercq had no trouble accepting the fact symbols produce results. Raise your middle finger to a gang of Hell's

Angels. Wear the swastika to a gathering of Holocaust survivors. Piss on the Stars & Stripes at a Memorial Day parade of Marines who raised the flag over Iwo Jima. You'll quickly learn how symbols conjure physical effects, for nothing will get you killed faster than the wrong symbol in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Every ritual requires symbols, for a symbol that captures the imagination elicits a more profound response than the actuality it represents. A dying Catholic fears death and the afterlife until he's given last rites and signed with the cross, supposedly opening the door to Heaven and everlasting peace. Certain rituals give us power over ourselves, for through them we tap the mysteries of our subconscious mind.

Our
occult
mind.

Occultists want to believe in the
objective
validity of what they're doing, so all Satanic rituals demand performative utterance. Like saying "I do" at the marriage altar, the symbols and words of a ritual are acts themselves when performed and broadcast—uttered—publicly. Consequently, the utterance must be
exact.

Jack the Ripper signed the cross and pentagram publicly, performing the ritual in the Hanged Man for all to see. "Leaving out the last murder, committed indoors . . . we find that the sites of the murders . . . form a perfect cross." Tautriadelta began his article in
Pall Mall Gazette
by drawing attention to the Goulston Street Graffito:
The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing.
Solomon, son of David, was a tenth-century B.C. king of Israel. The Seal of Solomon is the pentagram. Eliphas Levi connected the
Hebrew
Kabbala to the Tarot, also encompassed in what Tautriadelta wrote: "In one of the books by the great modern occultist . . . Eliphaz Levy [sic],
Le Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,
we find the most elaborate directions for working magic spells . . . He gives the clearest and fullest details of the necessary steps for evocation by these means." Not only did the Ripper's letters, newspaper articles, and graffito taunt police with the Hanged Man's ritual, but Tautriadelta went to Scotland Yard
himself
! Inspector Roots: "He says he wrote the article about Jews in the
Pall Mall Gazette . . ."

If that's not performative utterance, I don't know what is,
thought DeClercq.
No one put it better than Edgar Allan Poe. If you want to hide something from the authorities resort "to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all."

So what went wrong?

Was the ritual Pandora's box?

Did signing the symbols in the Hanged Man scare the Hell out of Tautriadelta?

Why else would he spend the rest of his life hiding in
The Bible,
obsessively writing
The Patristic Gospels
if not to save his soul?

Did he screw up?

And get the ritual wrong?

Which what? Conjured Hell's demons, but not under his control?

DeClercq studied the symbols he'd marked on the Hanged Man.

The Ripper didn't hang the bodies to sign the cross,
he thought,
while the Mirror of Venus hangs from the
tau
symbol in the Hanged Man. "All that's required is the proper Tarot deck. Interpreted correctly . . ."

Did Jack the Ripper have modern disciples intent on doing it right, so they
hanged
their victims to form a
tau
cross—Marsh, Chloe, and Zoe, with a fourth to come? If so, how did they know the Hanged Man hid the ritual? By piecing together the Ripper's clues from various sources? By analyzing every card in every Tarot deck? Or was it something more concrete . ..

Like Jack the Ripper's trunk?

"That's when Cremers entered D'Onston's first-floor rear bedroom adjoining the office, and, finding a suitable key, picked the lock on his large black enameled deed-trunk. Inside, she found the bloodstained ties and 'a
few books' "

So where did the Ripper's trunk end up?
wondered DeClercq.
In the hands of one of the Satanists who flocked to Thelema in the Twenties while Crowley was addled with drugs?

Again he studied the Tarot spread in
Jolly Roger,
but this time DeClercq concentrated on the middle card. The presence of one card next to another strengthens or lessens the meaning of the cards combined. And here, sandwiched between the Hanged Man and the Devil was Judgement:

Gabriel, the angel of water, blows his trumpet bannered with a cross. Below, the naked dead rise from their coffins surrounded by the sea. The coffins are rectangular to signify the three dimensions of the physical plane. The snowcapped mountains beyond represent the heights of abstract thought. Water symbolizes the subconscious mind. Pooled water represents vibrations from the Occult Realm, which can be affected by the proper act. In the Astral Plane, or fourth dimension, symbolized by this card, all things are the reverse of physical conditions. Rebirth is found in death and Judgement determines the matter.

"Hey, mister. Where do we land?"

DeClercq glanced at the boy by the window who sat with a map of Vancouver unfolded in his lap. "Be with you in a minute, son. Look for Sea Island in the mouth of the river."

A proper Tarot reading combines traditional interpretation with personal intuition. Did Jolly Roger see the cross on Gabriel's banner as the
tau
symbol hidden in the Hanged Man? Did Skull & Crossbones see the Hanged Man's "water" triangle as water pooled in the sea? If Judgement represents the Astral Plane, did he/they interpret the card as indicating the Magick Place where the fifth woman should be ripped to pieces by the pentagram?

Coffins surrounded by water. An island?
thought DeClercq.
With mountains in the background. Where in hell is that?

Skull & Crossbones

Deadman's Island 

7:00
P.M.

Zinc Chandler felt like a Horseman's ass. He stood in front of the antique mirror in the bedroom he shared with Wynn Yates and examined his reflection. The black-bordered invitation to tonight's "Seance with a Killer" in the downstairs Banquet Room was engraved with the postscript "Dress to Kill." He'd watched the old man get duded up in an out-of-style 1940s tuxedo with a red cummerbund— "How do I look?" Wynn had asked. "Like Humphrey Bogart," he'd answered—before the American hobbled out to help Franklen prepare the murder. Through the door he'd seen other tuxedos moving down the hall, and Luna Darke in a plunging evening gown, beside Katt, whose tip to formality was low-slung baggy jeans, a train engineer's shirt with the tail out, and the ever-present top hat with its Tarot card. The door had closed as Bolt walked past in one of those silly designer tuxedos peacocks sport at the Academy Awards. His was purple with a ruffled magenta bib, and a white silk scarf was draped over his steroid shoulders.

Buddy, you and I will clash in more ways than one,
Zinc thought.

For Franklen had cajoled him into wearing red serge, which currently made him feel like a poor-man's Sergeant Preston. "Canada," her argument went, "is the only country known first and foremost for its police. The Mystery Weekend pits you as a Mountie against the other sleuths for a lucrative prize. The murder takes place at a formal dress-up dinner. How can you deny me the uniform when it fits perfectly?"

"I'm an Inspector," he'd ducked and dodged, "so I wear lioring blue. In which case don't you think plainclothes are allied for?"

"Certainly not. Where's the flash in that? If President Clinton comes to Canada after inauguration, and you appear with Mulroney to greet him—"

"That'll be the day."

"You don't like President Clinton?"

"I hate Mulroney."

"We all hate Mulroney, Inspector. The point is what if? So (I you're asked to appear with that pork-barreling oaf, are you telling me you don't have red serge to wear?"

"Well . . ."

"Red serge
with black cuffs?"
she'd added, making sure lie knew she had him painted into a corner.

"Do I have to wear the Stetson?"

"Of course you do. If there's one thing you'll learn from mysteries it's don't underestimate little old ladies."

So here he stood in front of the mirror dressed in his regalia: the standard red tunic of The Mounted except for the black-bordered cuffs, harnessed by a stripped Sam Browne without the usual sidearm, his blue breeches yellow-striped und his riding boots fitted with spurs. At least the Stetson covered the indent in his forehead.

Half filling a glass with water from the decanter on the washstand, Zinc popped his third Dilantin of the day. He set the pill bottle down on the table beside his bed as a reminder to take the fourth cap before he went to sleep. Opening the door, he stepped from the room into the deserted hall . . . deserted that is until Alex Hunt opened her door.

She stopped on the threshold.

"My, my," he thought she said.

Then Alex put two fingers to her lips and wolf-whistled him.

"Likewise," he replied, nonplused.

Hunt wore a plain cream dress with simple gold jewelry. She might as well have been wearing Queen Elizabeth's crown. Watching her glide fluidly along the hall toward him transported Chandler to the Shanghai Ballet. The first thing he'd done on his release from the hospital in Hong Kong was hydroplane to Canton to visit Minister Qi. As head of the
Gong An Ju,
China's police, the octogenarian had helped solve the Cutthroat case, seeing Zinc through the death of his mother at the killer's hands, but now he lay on his deathbed, riddled with cancer. "My greatest sorrow," Qi said, "is not to see her dance." His tired eyes fell on a ticket by the bed. "Would you go in my place and return tomorrow so I can see her through you?" A rocker at heart, ballet was foreign to Zinc. He sat in the crowded theater, the only white in the place, and wondered how he'd recognize who Qi meant by "her." Then the lights went out and the stage was bathed in blue against a pale curtain that didn't rise. Soul-soothing music caressed his heart as, back to the audience and dressed in formal white, a willowy ballerina crossed the stage wing to wing on the tips of her toes, arms undulating jointlessly like kelp in a clear blue sea. So simple, her dance was the most angelic movement he'd ever seen . . . but now Alex rivaled her coming down the hall. In truth, Hunt was less ethereal, but Zinc was in love. In the eyes of the lover, pockmarks are dimples, his mother used to say.

"How much to hire you as a boyfriend for the weekend?" Alex asked, sliding her arm through Zinc's to guide him down the hall.

"You want a buffer between you and Bolt?"

"I don't want to make a scene and spoil Elvira's party, but I
definitely
want him to leave me alone. That man radiates danger."

"Thwarting Lou's a job I'll gladly take on for free."

"Good," Alex said, and before he knew it she had his hat in her hand, plunking the Stetson down on her head at a jaunty angle.

His hand rose automatically to his indented brow. "It doesn't bother me," Alex said, gently intercepting him. "Don't let it bother you."

So that was that.

He had a new girlfriend.

At least till Sunday, beggars would ride.

They were halfway down the zig of the Receiving Hall stairs, the zag below doubling back to the Banquet Room corridor, when Alex paused by a velvet noose hooked to the wall. The cord was secured to a ceiling beam high overhead and jangled a servants' bell as she gave it a tug. "Hard to believe Colonial
pioneers
lived like this," she said, putting on airs to add, "Jeeves, draw my bath. I can't even get served in a department store."

Plink . . . plink . . . plink plink plink
. . . the mullioned casements above rattled as the driving rain changed to hail.

"Burrrr," Alex said. "I hope the dining room's warm."

The Banquet Room next to the Ballroom and across from the Turkish bath was cozy enough to be Hell's antechamber. Not only was the fireplace that backed on the Ballroom ablaze, but a cooking hearth through to the Kitchen was stoked with glowing coals. An old-fashioned rotisserie cranked by weights and chains turned a spit of roast beef and side of lamb. A short, portly man who looked like Chef Boyardee—white hair and mustache, in a white mushroom hat, white scarf and tunic—basted the meat while the sleuths milled about drinking champagne. Set high in the wall next to the hearth and opposite the fireplace was a stained-glass triptych window depicting the Three Graces as naked Grecian women. The motto beneath read
Sapienti Omnis Gratissima Ars:
Every Art Is Most Pleasing to the Wise Man. The bowed window ended eight feet off the floor where flat dark paneling backed a display case the glass of which was murky from decades of dust. The banquet table ran the length of the room from this cabinet to the fireplace. The windows facing west along the far side of the table were lashed by the hailstorm assaulting the island, pellets pounding the glass so fast they sounded like Keith Moon's drums. Suspended from the vaulted ceiling twenty feet above, Tiffany chandeliers augmented the candlesticks on the table. The dim lights threw gloomy shadows into the loft where lion, tiger, panther, elk, caribou, zebra, and grizzly bear heads stared blankly down at the sleuths. Above the fireplace that backed the head of the table hung a painting titled "The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian." The patron saint of archers and crossbowmen, Sebastian was a pincushion shot through with arrows and bolts. High-backed chairs lined both sides of the table, but there was no chair at the cabinet end.