by Sandy DeLuca
First Digital Edition
Manhattan Grimoire © 2012 by Sandy DeLuca
Cover Artwork © 2012 by Mike Bohatch
All Rights Reserved.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
OTHER KINDLE EBOOKS BY AUTHOR
Darkness Conjured
Death Moon (Short Story)
Descent
From Ashes
Reign of Blood
For Matty
1
It’s always the same, this dream of my sister. She’s in a church speaking to another woman in a low, otherworldly language. The woman with her has dark mystical eyes and skin the color of mahogany. Though I have no idea who this woman is, she is obviously connected somehow to my sister in a very meaningful way.
As she moves from my sister’s side, the woman screams, runs to a window and presses her hands against the glass. She leaves bloody prints there as her sadness penetrates me and darkness falls over the entire scene. She whispers my name, Gina, in a voice that is somehow sweet, inviting and terrifying all at once.
I had the dream again this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I never can once I’ve had it.
I get out of bed and bend down to kiss my boyfriend, not waiting to see if he opens his eyes. I put on a pair of jeans, an old sweatshirt and boots then grab my old fake fur from the closet. I slip a small digital camera into my pocket, walk down three flights of stairs with only a twenty-five watt bulb shedding dim light on the stairway. I should’ve packed a thirty-five millimeter, a powerful flash and some high-speed film. I should have waited until daylight, but pre-dawn is when things waver in cracked window frames and when dark shadows spiral up from gutters and dank cellars. It’s when the things I need to see and sense and feel are still awake.
I walk three blocks in freezing weather to the lot where I park my car. The streets are nearly empty, but for yellow cabs cruising by looking for early fares emerging from hotels. Police cars are parked randomly about, perhaps spying on deals going down in arched doorways, perhaps waiting for tired hookers to materialize from dark alleys. They pay no attention to my old Ford Escort. I feel innocuous and invisible, a subtle thread weaving through a concrete jungle where people dark and terrifying are hunted.
I drive as though I’m in a dream and before long find myself in Harlem. This one street in particular, empty, forsaken and vile, gives me the creeps every time I visit it. The brownstones here have been boarded up for years, the windows broken and the walls covered with graffiti, aging paint sprawled across cracked brick. The stink of lives gone bad hangs in the air. Random homeless sleep in these buildings, and dealers deal.
Despite the evil I sense so strongly here, I can’t stay away. I come here after the dreams, after the beautiful black woman calls my name.
The church is nestled between a rundown Laundromat and a gutted bodega. I’ve seen shadowy things perched on its roof, mocking me before fading into early morning fog. The moon, not quite gone yet, reflects along the church’s iron banisters, and sparkles amidst shadows twisting and slowly turning like surreal serpents trapped in brick and cement. Wild vines form intricate patterns as they slither over steps and windows, and I realize that every time I come here I see something new, something more. I’ve photographed nearly all the old neighborhoods and buildings in this city, but none leave me feeling the way this old church does. Although I’ve taken thousands of photographs of this place—inside and out—and even did a show in Chelsea last summer with some of the shots, you’d think I’d get my fill. But I haven’t. And until I find my kid sister’s body and figure out exactly what the hell happened here, I never will. For now, there’s much more for me to capture, so many compositions and designs I’ve yet to find through the lens of my cameras, so many clues and answers I’ve yet to come across.
I slow down in front of the crumbling building. A nearby sign tells me Jesus Saves.
He never saved me, never saved my sister.
They found her bloody clothing in this church. Her blood stained the marble floor, but they never found her body. There were two others dead, lying on the altar, their hearts cut out and their eyes gazing toward a wooden crucifix someone had turned upside down.
The city is coming awake all around me…slowly, gradually.
It’s Saturday. I don’t have to work. I can go back to my apartment, crawl between the covers and listen to the city, drift away as horns and sirens blare, as the neighbors argue and as my boyfriend Tony gets ready to bring his art down to Soho.
I watch the church a while longer but decide not to snap any photographs this time. It watches me too, and I wonder if it takes notice of me, records my visits somehow. Does it know I’m here?
Eventually the lure of warm bedcovers and Tony’s arms wrapped tightly around me wins out, and I head back to the alleged safety of my apartment.
2
The sun casts orange light above the buildings as deep black turns to gray and a streetlight on the corner dims. I can see archways and windows of shabby brownstones where lovers once loved and children once laughed. A small group of women wearing straw hats and carrying prayer books climb the church stairs. The Grim Reaper, time, claimed their passion long ago, watched as culture and belief died here. The sorrow is overwhelming, and I want to be consumed by the church standing vigil on this cracked and broken part of town. I want to die inside its musty walls and fall to Hell where demons celebrate the darkness inside me.
I ask the daylight to tear these thoughts from me, and as the sun rises higher, it does.
I consider photographing this sunrise in an attempt to show how its warm rays spread over the city, shedding light on even its most desolate corners. But I don’t. Instead, I watch quietly and decide to go walking later, when Canal and Broadway spring to life and vendors line the walks with their wares, when Asian merchants stand in wait as people pluck rhinestone pins, sequined slippers and knockoff bags from hooks and shelves. I love to walk the strip from Canal to the Strand Bookstore, where I usually sift through stacks of vintage books on art and exotic cooking.
Though my plans are now set, I need to sleep first. I can only hope the dreams won’t continue to haunt me.
I turn the ignition, listen to the aged engine spark to life then I glance in the rearview mirror. Blue and white lights flash as a black Crown Victoria pulls up behind me. Its door opens quickly and footsteps clack on gritty cement. Knuckles wrap hard on my window. I look up.
Detective Harris studies me, stoic and purposeful. His skin is smooth, light brown. His hair is longer than the last time I saw him, when he told me they’d found my sister’s blood on clothing, on the floor, in the old church, in the days he’d come by to say they hadn’t found her body yet. He’d asked so many questions. Did I remember anything? Who were her friends? Where did she go after work? He’d stopped coming around, stopped asking questions months ago, but still called now and then, assuring me the case was still open, and I know the questions haven’t stopped in his head, just like they haven’t stopped in mine.
His hair is soft and black, curling at his collar. He doesn’t smile, merely shakes his head and I think he’s beautiful as he motions for me to roll down the window. Once it’s down he crouches low so we’re face to face. His eyes darken and he begins to speak slowly, solem
nly, telling me this particular street in Harlem is no place for me to be, especially alone, especially at this hour. He shakes his finger like a reprimanding parent, and I notice a small ring on his index finger that holds a black stone within a silver serpent. “I’ve seen you here before,” he tells me. “You shouldn’t do this.”
My face flushes. His beauty embarrasses me. “I take pictures. That’s all. Harlem fascinates me—all the neighborhoods do, I—”
“If it’s pictures you want, Harlem’s got plenty of material in good safe neighborhoods.” He smiles slightly. “Take pictures of The Apollo. Go to Saint Nicolas Park. Snap some shots of the old Cotton Club. There’s good stuff in those places. Don’t come here.” He shakes his head again. “Besides, it’s not just pictures you’re looking for.”
I hold his stare but say nothing.
“She’s not in that church, Gina.” His gaze flickers toward the old building. “I searched it from top to bottom. She’s not there.”
My eyes fill with tears. “I know.”
He’s looking at me again. He narrows his eyes, stands. “Go back Downtown.” He backs away, turns in silence then glances toward the top of the church.
I wonder if he sees the phantoms I’ve seen.
I watch him get into his unmarked car, but I know he won’t drive away until I do. He’ll follow me for a while until he’s satisfied I’m far enough from this place, so I put the car in drive and move away slowly. I cut in and out of several streets until I’m on Fifth Avenue. Black couples walk the avenue, wheeling baby carriages, carrying Styrofoam cups. Young men are gathering at bodegas. Old men tap canes on stained sidewalks, glare at graffiti on brick. Harlem is alive with its beauty, its people proud, resilient and often tragic. It’s a place of diversity, history, jazz, art and energy. Its dark places go into hiding on a morning like this, slip into oblivion and life is lived to its fullest here in the open. Death is a silent watcher in shadow, in places like that church.
I look into my rearview mirror. The detective is still behind me, stays there until I reach the Guggenheim and then disappears into a cacophony of taxis and delivery trucks. I wonder if he has a wife or girlfriend, if it’s tough for him to love anybody because his hands are always bloody, because death is always one step away. And even if there is someone, does he remain lonely because the filth and decadence of the city possess him, because his soul belongs to it and his heart is buried in the dirt with the dead?
I can’t think about that now though. I’ve got things to do. I’ve demons of my own to wrestle.
3
I climb the stairs as shards of light guide me upward. I slip the camera from my pocket and photograph abstract patterns sunrays make on the old wooden steps, but soon realize I need to catch my breath, so I rest against the banister for a moment. The elevator broke last summer. The super promised he’d fix it, but just like everything else—the broken windows, the front door that doesn’t lock and the leaky faucets—it never gets done. There’s always liquor on the super’s breath. He lives in a damp room off the downstairs hallway and resembles the rats I’ve seen scurrying across the yard.
Detective Harris came here to see him a few times. I heard them talking outside my window and the super’s slurred words, “Nobody ever came around. I heard everything since the elevator broke, every footstep on those stairs. Ain’t nobody been around.”
I think about Detective Harris climbing rafters in the old church or descending into its bowels. I wonder what else he found, if horrible things peered at him from dark corners, if ancient and evil relics lay hidden there. Is he saving somebody from evil now? Is he an angel looking out for me?
Tony’s awake. I hear him singing something by Bob Dylan, asking how it feels to be all alone.
He greets me at the door. His eyes are sleepy, his hair tousled. There’s something on his mind. He looks right through me when he speaks, “I made coffee. It’s still hot.”
“Are you hungry? I could cook.” I walk past him really not caring if he’s hungry. I’m thinking about the detective, about the woman in my dreams. I’m wondering where my sister’s bones are buried.
It feels as though Tony’s a ghost, a wisp of someone I once loved, or never loved at all and thought was someone else. I don’t feel anything, not even when he fucks me. I wonder if he knows. I wonder if he believes I still want him. I always tell myself it’s the last time, but I don’t leave. I exist instead inside this shell of a life we’ve created.
He accepts my indifference, probably thinks it’s because of what happened to my sister. Maybe it is—maybe—
“See you tonight.” He plucks keys from the table and glides away like an apparition, like something I’ve imagined. But he can’t be a dream, can he? My dreams are more vivid than he is.
I listen to his footsteps on the stairs, thankful he’s left me alone.
In the beginning, I thought he was an enigma, a challenge. I was attracted to his arrogance, the way he ignored me when I strolled into GiGi’s in The Bowery. Everyone else looked at me, the girl with wild red-gold hair, lean and firm wearing Egyptian jewelry and leopard boots, the hip photographer who’d been published in countless independent rags, whose work adorns low rent offices downtown and galleries on the fringes of the elite. A girl who makes no money at it and still needs to work fulltime in a stiff office and everyday when she awakens tells herself it’s killing her, but goes on because she must serve her prison term, must slave for a check at week’s end, must poison her creativity and one day be buried in a plot no one will visit.
It’s a bitch holding onto artistic vision without giving in to temptation. I don’t want my work to match the theme of some rich yuppie’s game room; don’t want it to look cute or fashionable. I’d be selling out if I did. I’d lose my fucking soul. It makes you hungry, brings you to places most people don’t want to be, and makes people say you’re eccentric.
I used to tour lower Manhattan bars before Tony moved in—before my sister disappeared—seeking thrills, playing mind games with men, growing tired when they became too needy. I can be cold, uncaring. In the back of my mind, in a foggy fantasy, I’ve left someone dead in an alley, walked away with his blood on my boot. Maybe I blocked its memory because what I’ve done is so heinous, but deep down I know it’s just a guilt dream, not real, an evil thing in my soul.
Sometimes I think I’m a sociopath. My sister told me it’s my Venus in Scorpio. I think it’s a glitch in my brain, something my mother planted there when I was conceived, an uncontrollable imagination that brings me to places I wouldn’t dare go in the flesh, introducing me to lovers I’ll never love and to bloody scenes I invent in my mind’s eye. Tony was merely a dream man, someone aloof living in a bohemian subculture I’ve always been too timid to adopt, so I used to play out bed scenes with him in a special corner of my head. It was safe, a handy façade like my fake mink jackets, spider necklaces and platinum wigs.
I watched Tony for weeks. He never left GiGi’s alone, but he did his drinking in silence. Perhaps he created paintings in his mind, deciding whether to use oils or acrylics, whether to stretch the canvas or not. Before last call he’d choose his nightly lover, blonde, brunette or redhead, it didn’t matter. They all had need etched on their faces, but one night a woman that looked like my sister, Allie was her name, left hanging on his arm. I was angry for a moment, though I knew it wasn’t her. She was still nursing wounds from her recent breakup with a guy named Ronnie Bateman. And even if it was Allie she didn’t know I’d fallen in love with the painter who sold his wares in Soho on Saturdays and Sundays, who spent his weekdays in a crumbling studio loft making art, making love to women who found him incredible, women he disposed of like ruined paint brushes.
Each night at GiGi’s I imagined sending him notes on damp napkins and drinks in frosty glasses and perhaps a package of condoms.
He slid dark glasses to the tip of his nose and glanced at me once or twice, as if he sensed the attraction. On the night I took him home the air
in GiGi’s felt different, as though I’d walked over a threshold, maybe because I was dressed in black, a silver belt draped casually around my waist, my eyes lined with kohl. Maybe because I felt dark, dangerous and sexy. I drank whisky straight up as a drag queen giggled beside me and a man wearing a toupee and sucking on a toothpick asked me to dance. Tony merely stared into space, tapped his foot to the music. His hair was long then, cascading down his back in light brown waves. He wore dark glasses even at night. One evening when old disco music blasted through the club and drag queens filled the dance floor, I had a drink sent to him at the bar. My hands shook, my stomach felt sour. I’d crossed the boundary from fantasy to reality.
The waitress set the drink down in front of him then nodded in my direction when he said something soft and low in her ear. The drink was bourbon. He eyed it, ran his finger over the glass rim then took a deep swig. He wiped his lips and looked my way. I couldn’t see his eyes, and his dark lenses sparkled as strobe lights flickered above. He smiled knowingly, rose from his seat and made his way to the restroom.
On his way back he came up behind me and asked if I was waiting for someone. The whiskey had made me bold, uncaring, and I told him I’d been waiting for him. Out of the blue I asked, “Did you fuck Allie?”
A man with black hair like Detective Harris’s, wearing an old-fashioned waistcoat and pants slid into a nearby seat. His skin was dark and he wore a diamond earring. He plucked a beer bottle from the bar and took a long pull, his eyes locked on Tony and me. I noticed a strange tattoo on his hand, a red spider set on a pile of bones.
