“Let’s find some light in here,” Conquer said.
They fumbled around the room, going cautious now, pistol barrels leading the way. Lazzeroni put his back to the office door while Conquer parted the beaded curtain and found the kitchen light switch, chasing off a few surprised roaches. The light didn’t reach much into the fortune telling room.
“Back door?” Lazzeroni asked.
Conquer moved around. There was a miniscule bedroom with a creaky cot Genie Jones would never sleep in again, and a tiny bathroom with a small, clouded window visible in the dark.
He shrugged.
“No latch on the bathroom window. Maybe he got out that way.”
Lazzeroni lowered his gun and breathed.
“So you think King Solomon’s got a what-do-you-call-it, conjure man working for him?” Lazzeroni said.
“Lady over on 110th had a son running numbers for King Solomon. She hadn’t seen him in a week. Said some scary cat came around asking about him a while ago, then she didn’t see him any more.”
“You think it was the same guy?”
“I wasn’t sure,” Conquer admitted. “I figured Genie might know a dude in the operation, fit the old lady’s description.”
The same description the receptionist had given him downstairs. Not quite black but not a bit white, with mean eyes and a big mustache. The old woman had said he’d sported a big mustache and a big black hat with a shiny crow feather in a rattlesnake band, the head of the snake still on.
The kid’s tiny body would never be found. He had crossed King Solomon and this redbone trick layer had been put on him. He wondered if Genie had been alive when the killer had shrunk him, if he’d been alive when the dude had forced him into the lamp. Genie in a lamp. That must have made the killer giggle.
“Did you get scared? Did they scare you? Poor bel gatto. I know somebody who’d just love you.”
Conquer frowned and looked back at Lazzeroni.
He was sitting on his heels, holding his hand out. The cat had ventured out again, and was turning circles, arcing its lissome form beneath Lazzeroni’s fingers. He could hear the thrum of his purring from here.
Conquer clicked the bathroom light on.
He noticed a set of clothes folded on the toilet seat. Jeans, and a denim shirt. A pair of orange leather boots stood at attention next to the tub. There was a thin silver pipe on the edge of the sink; a piece of spare plumbing or something? Seemed too thin for that.
He pulled aside the shower curtain and clambered in. He stood on the edge, testing the window.
It didn’t budge. The seam was painted shut, probably by some lazy super. It hadn’t opened or closed in ages.
He got down, frowning, and when he turned, he saw the dark hat with the crow feather in the rattlesnake band on the hook on the bathroom door. The severed head of the snake bore its fangs, and a pair of glittering zircon eyes.
He was guessing the boots probably weren’t Genie’s size.
On instinct, he hitched up his trouser leg and looked at the mercury dime he kept tied there. It was wholly black, as if tossed in a fire. That indicated they’d been crossed at some point. The dime had sucked up the black magic intended to hex him. The killer had laid down some kind of trick. Either here or the outer office. Probably the outer office, once he’d found himself locked in and heard Carmody’s squad siren.
He was still in the apartment.
Conquer took out his pistol again and fiddled with it, then went out into the hall, through the kitchen, and into the living room.
Lazzeroni was in the outer office. He heard the doorknob rattle.
“Wait, Lou!” he called, and rushed to the doorway.
Lou stood with his hand on the outer office door. The black cat was under his arm.
“What’s up?” he called across the waiting room.
“Where you going, man?”
“I was gonna give this boy to Carmody to put in the car,” he said, rubbing the cat’s head. “Hey, you seen a litter box in there somewhere?”
As a matter of fact, he hadn’t.
“Ask Carmody to come in here,” Conquer said.
Lou looked querulous, but called through the door.
“Mike! C’mere!”
There was no answer.
Conquer put his gun on the table where the lamp had been beside the door, and went out into the outer office.
The cat hissed at his approach and wriggled free of Lazzeroni’s arm. It dropped down and darted past him, back into the dim apartment.
“Shit. Now I gotta catch him again,” Lou complained.
Lou stepped back from the door and Conquer crouched down to peer at the rug.
It was faint, but there was a line of dirt in the deep shag. Goofer dust, probably, scooped from some condemned man’s grave.
Conquer straightened, and put his elbow through the stenciled glass, shattering it.
Carmody lay gasping in the corner on the landing, beet red, rubbing his chest.
“Jesus!” Lazzeroni said. “Mike!” He started to open the door, but Conquer held him back.
“It’s the trick, man,” Conquer said. “Don’t cross it or you’ll get the same. I don’t think it’ll kill him, but you better call an ambulance.”
“Everything OK up there?” the receptionist down in the foyer called up at the sound of the breaking glass.
Lou turned and went toward the desk, but froze.
“Get away from that phone, pig,” came a deep voice from behind them.
Conquer turned slowly.
The trick layer was standing there, a lanky, red-hued dude with strange, light eyes, a big mustache and long, fried hair. He was totally naked, and he had Conquer’s gun pointed at them.
“Who the hell?”
“The cat, Lou,” Conquer explained. “You almost carried him right outta here. Ain’t no litter box ‘cause there ain’t no cat. He’s an ailuranthrope. Cat shifter. I guess that makes you King Solomon’s pet pussy,” Conquer said to the naked dude.
The trick layer sneered and cocked the gun.
“You ain’t even goin’ shrink us like you did Genie? Just a bullet?” Conquer said, sounding disappointed.
Lou shifted slightly, and the trick layer pointed the gun at him.
“Don’t try it, pig,” he growled.
“Nah, do try it, Lou,” Conquer said, folding his arms, and leaning against the door. “I unloaded mine in the bathroom.”
Conquer’s gun made a sound like a mouser’s teeth coming together and narrowly missing a rat’s tail as the hammer fell on the empty chamber.
The trick layer threw the big Colt at Lazzeroni and ran back into the apartment.
Lou got his gun out, but flinched as Conquer’s revolver struck him in the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“Damn, man! Shoot him!” Conquer yelled.
“Goddamn gun’s too big,” Lou whined, rubbing the joint where the 8-inch Colt had hit him.
Conquer ran past the flustered detective and into the apartment after the killer.
He caught the movement to his left and threw up his hand just as the incense burner came at him out of the dark and rang his bell, the ceramic smashing to pieces and sending bits of Buddha flying everywhere. He stumbled against the table, blinking the flashing lights from his eyes, and caught a glimpse of the trick layer running for the bathroom.
Lazzeroni came in right behind, and made for the bathroom as the door slammed.
“Watch it, man!” Conquer called, and went after him.
Lazzeroni kicked the door open and fired, but his shot was high.
The black cat streaked out into the shadows, the silver pipe from the sink between its teeth.
Lazzeroni twisted, and nearly capped Conquer, who was right behind.
The cat raced down the hall toward the dark bedroom and assumed the shape of a man again as it passed through the shadow of the doorway.
The man turned and opened his mouth, dropping the silver pipe into hi
s hand. He put it to his lips like a blow gun.
“Watch it!” Conquer yelped.
A shotgun blast of shimmering powder blew at them from the bedroom doorway.
Conquer clamped a hand over his nose and mouth and shut his eyes to it, but Lazzeroni gasped it in and fell back choking.
The trick layer sprang past, but Conquer latched onto his ankle and he fell to the floor. Conquer felt the bones move and the flesh sprout hair, but fought off the repulsive instinct to let go and found himself holding the back leg of the cat, which was hissing and scrabbling to get away.
He yanked it back and gripped it by the scruff of the neck. Its ears were flat and its yellow eyes bugged, fangs bared, eliciting a terrific yowling.
The face melted and expanded again, and the black hair slipped back into the skin. In the next instant the flailing little clawed forelegs were a man’s arms again, and they were squeezing Conquer’s throat with considerable strength. He was more powerful than he looked.
Conquer faltered, knees giving way. His hands went to his belt buckle. Most dismissed the eccentric design as a bit of Afrocentric decoration, but it was in fact a tyet, what some called the Isis Knot, a powerful, old school protective ward willed to him by his uncle, dressed for potency. As the killer made the blood pound in his ears, Conquer fought the onset of unconsciousness, undid the buckle and whisked off the belt, then looped it quickly around his left hand.
He brought his knee up then into the killer’s breadbasket, and blew the wind out of his lungs. When the grip on his throat slackened, he gasped and drove his buckle-wrapped fist upside the man’s head.
The killer staggered and Conquer flicked his wrist, unwinding the belt and lashing it around his opponent’s neck. He pivoted, threw a shoulder in as Baba Fred Hamilton had taught him down at the Harlem dojo, and bent sharply forward, forcing the weight of the killer over his back.
The man crashed through the fortune telling table to the floor, landing on his face. Not quite stunned, he yanked Conquer’s leg, throwing him off balance, and brought him down to one knee.
He still had the agility of a cat, and he got to his feet in one fluid motion and drove Conquer to the floor with an elbow, following up with a blur of rapid punches that left him sprawling.
Blinking through the beating, Conquer felt himself jerked aright by the lapels of his jacket, felt a hand busily rifle through his inner pocket.
When his vision cleared, the killer had one of his business cards. The side of his face, where Conquer had struck him with the Isis Knot, bore an angry red imprint of the design like a fresh brand.
“John Conquer,” he read. “Who put you on me, Richard?”
“Confidential,” Conquer muttered, spitting blood. He remembered the Bow-Down essence lining his coat and half-grinned. “Now sit your ass down.”
The killer frowned, eyebrows knitting together a moment in confusion. He seemed about to obey, then broke into a grin and laughed.
“Sorry, Conquer. That shit don’t work on me.”
The killer backhanded him and left him laying.
Well, that was a first. How had this bastard managed that?
The killer went to the window and smashed the pane with an ashtray, something he hadn’t had time to do when the police had shone up so quickly after he had dealt with Genie.
“I’ma tell King Solomon I seen you, nigga.”
The killer put one leg out the window into the rain, and black hair began to spring from his naked flesh again.
Conquer stretched his arm and found the pile of Genie’s clothes, Genie’s gun nesting in it like a lurking thing, ready to bite.
“I’ll tell him myself,” he said, and fired three times from the floor.
The killer yowled, high pitched, like a wounded cat, and crashed out into onto the fire escape, slipped, and flipped over the railing. The thunder masked the crunch of his bones down below.
Conquer got up and limped to the window. He hadn’t been a cat when he’d gone over the railing. He hadn’t landed on his feet.
Conquer went back to the hallway and found Lazzeroni retching, eyes streaming tears. He helped him into the bathroom and ran his face under the tap.
“You got lucky man,” he said. “He must’ve used all his good shit on Genie and the door trick. All you got was a face full of cayenne. Maybe some ground glass.”
“Yeah I feel real lucky,” Lazzeroni gasped into the sink.
The paramedics got Carmody on oxygen, but in the end found no evidence of cardiac arrest. The door trick would’ve killed a black man, but Conquer knew there were tradeoffs when you employed black magic on white people, or red on yellow, or tried white witchery on a Mexican, for instance. Ingrained cultural belief was part of the power, and even real magic was hampered when it was used outside its people of origin.
Carmody had been lucky he was such an ignoramus.
The report would say the crazed man dead in the alley had busted in to rob Genie for drug money and the fortune teller had shot him. Geniue would be wanted for questioning, but he’d never be found. As though Lazzeroni had foretold it, they’d found a Florsheim box in the closet to take his little body out in. Lazzeroni worried the receptionist, who had actually waited downstairs through all the commotion, would screw it all up, but Conquer assured him he’d handle it.
“How about your missing kid from 110th Street?” Lazzeroni asked.
“Probably flushed down a toilet somewhere,” Conquer said. He didn’t relish telling the boy’s mother.
“Well,” said Lazzeroni, as they followed Carmody’s stretcher and the two paramedics down the stair, “if anything else like this turns up, I’ll drop a dime.”
At the bottom of the stair, the receptionist stood in the rain under a yellow umbrella. She gave Conquer a brighter smile than when he’d first walked in.
“Yeah well,” he said to Lazzeroni, “don’t be surprised if you don’t get me.”
Conquer went to the receptionist, taking her by the arm.
“You waited. You must be thirsty. Ready for that drink?”
“Oh, I could do with somethin’,” she said, grinning. She slid a hand over his chest, feeling out his pectorals, not exactly surreptitiously. “I think the bars are closed.”
They weren’t, but he dug it.
“I might have a bottle of champagne at my place.”
Her face fell a bit at the sight of his own, battered and cut from the brawl with the killer.
“Baby, what happened to your face?”
He might have asked her the same. She had reapplied her makeup in the interim. She looked good.
“Feral cat.”
“Genie don’t have a cat,” she said.
“Forget it. Here’s my car.”
“We ought to go put some ice on that,” she said, touching the side of his face with one light finger as they walked to the Cordoba, splashing in the accumulated water on the pavement.
“I’ll get a piece from the champagne bucket,” Conquer said, and smiled at the little squeal she gave.
When he started the car, the mood was already set, but Leon Haywood affirmed from the it speakers on the rainy way back to his pad on St. Marks Place.
Conquer Gets Crowned
“You been watching the news, John?” Lt. Lou Lazzeroni said over the phone, breathing so heavily through his nose John Conquer could hear the wiry hairs springing from his nostrils sweep the mouthpiece like a front stoop.
Conquer leaned back in his creaking office chair, glad to spread his toes after a day tailing husbands-turned-johns in and out of Hunts Point.
“I stopped watchin’ TV when they took the Mickey Mouse Club off the air,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“They’re bringin’ it back,” Lazzeroni said.
“Won’t be the same without Annette.”
“So you haven’t seen Councilman Grierson on the news?”
He had managed to catch that as it ran on the flickering TV behind the counter at the M&G Diner where he�
��d grabbed a quick lunch; straight-laced Jack Grierson in his five hundred dollar suit between his tearful wife and blinky, mop haired, jockstrap son pleading for his daughter to come home. They’d put up a picture of her. She was the kind of girl the press made a fuss over even when the parents weren’t loaded; white, blonde hair, blue eyes, looking like a First Communion studio portrait even at seventeen.
Word was, she’d been knocked up by some black East Village bass player. Lazzeroni had picked the guy up, but he hadn’t seen her in so long he didn’t even know she was pregnant.
“What about a little pro bono work for the NYPD, John?” Lazzeroni said, and Conquer wondered if somebody had put him up to it, because he ought to have known better. “Come up to the Grierson’s, maybe get the scent for us?”
Conquer snorted. Lazzeroni sometimes overestimated his abilities.
“The scent? What you want me to do, man? You think I can just go through her closet and presto, like Carnac The Magnificent?”
“I thought you didn’t watch TV,” Lazzeroni said, whisking the phone with his nose hairs again.
“Find another bloodhound, massa,” he chuckled, and signed off on the conversation with two words that weren’t ‘pro bono.’
Somebody rapped on his office door.
He groaned, kicked his shoes under the desk, and pulled his chair in. He wanted to tell whoever was outside to fuck off, but he couldn’t afford to turn anybody away or he wouldn’t be able to look at his pretty new secretary for much longer. He’d already had to send her home for the day. The calls were just too few and far between.
“It’s open,” he muttered, hoping they didn’t hear him.
But they did.
He regretted answering at all at the first sight of the four ragged teenagers that shuffled in. Ripped jeans, hippy satchels, bomber jackets, black-smudged Converse. By the look of them, they had maybe a dime between them and they owed it to somebody. They smelled like they spent a lot of time in a garage, scooting under cars and inhaling car paint.
Two of them were young brothers, one big, black as a tire, hair in cornrows, the other tall and peanut butter colored, so skinny his prodigious afro made it look like there was an oddball topiary perched on his skull.
The third was a heroin-scrawny, ludicrously smooth faced little white kid with dirty blonde angel curls and oversized blue eyes ready to melt at any minute. He was hugging himself like he’d just found out a pimp’s Cadillac had rolled over his puppy out on Lenox Avenue. His clothes and hair shrieked North Bronx.
Conquer (The John Conquer Series Book 1) Page 12
