by Rod Rees
He rounded a corner and found himself standing at the lip of a balcony that swept around the building in a huge semicircle. Looking down through the thick swirls of smoke, he saw, twenty feet or so below him, a girl fronting a jad trio, crooning a type of music Vanka had never heard before. This, he assumed, was Gelbfisz’s klezmerJad. Then, just for a moment, the smoke clouds parted to reveal JoJo, or, as Vanka knew her better, Josephine Baker.
Vanka had to do a double take, but it was Josie all right: even disguised beneath a scarlet-coloured wig and her face hidden behind a mask, there was no mistaking her. He’d know that body anywhere and there was a lot of that body on display: the diaphanous material of her loose top served only to colour her breasts rather than to hide them, and her black skirt, made from woven strips of rubber, was short, tight and presented her superb legs wonderfully well.
Pummelled and pounded by the music, entranced by how Josie sang and danced, dizzy from heat and smoke, Vanka descended the winding staircase that led to the dance floor. There, through the haze, he saw a waiter gesturing to him and he automatically steered towards the man.
‘Got a spare booth over by zhe wall. Best booth in zhe whole of zhe JAD. It’ll cost you five guineas.’
What alternative do I have?
Vanka pressed the coins into the waiter’s hand and followed him as he shimmied his way between the sardined tables to the booth.
‘Zafer here,’ said the waiter, gesturing to the shadowed alcove. ‘All zhe pimps sit on zhe side ov zhe room vhere you vere standing. It’s raised up a bit; zhey can keep an eye on zheir putani from zhere.’
Vanka sat down just in time to hear Josie make an announcement that the band was taking a fifteen-minute break, and to warm applause, she and her musicians trooped off stage. Vanka ordered a beer, and as the waiter served it the boy whispered into his ear. ‘You wanna meet JoJo?’
‘Nah, I’m waiting for somebody.’
The waiter leant closer so there was no chance of his being heard by any of the customers sitting nearby. ‘Yeah, I know, unt zhat somebody’s JoJo. You want zhat I bring her over?’
Vanka smiled. So Josie was Gelbfisz’s agent. ‘Yeah, that would be good.’
The waiter oozed over to Josie, who pantomimed giving Vanka the once-over, patted a hand against her bobbed wig and then, with a careless aside to one of her friends, sashayed across to his table. When she arrived at Vanka’s booth, the pair of them spent a few seconds silently assessing one another, Josie examining Vanka as though she’d never met him before and Vanka desperately trying to avoid his gaze drifting towards the girl’s breasts which were so obviously displayed under her transparent top.
With a casual elegance Josie held out a long slim hand and said in a loud voice, ‘Greetings, gate, I hear you’re looking to palpitate. Jakob sayeth you’re interested in pumping pelvises with yours truly.’ She gave Vanka a wink to encourage him to join in the play-acting.
Vanka took the hand and shook it … and then found the disturbing Josie holding on to it for a beat or two longer than was strictly necessary. The girl was an incorrigible flirt. ‘That’s right. My name’s Jim Tyler. Would you care to join me for a drink?’ Josie gave an indifferent shrug and then oiled down into the proffered seat.
Once settled, she edged closer to Vanka, pushing her mouth – and other parts of her body – closer to him. It was very distracting. ‘Good to see you, Vanka,’ she whispered. ‘How you doing?’
‘Not bad,’ Vanka lied. ‘What’s with the JoJo alias?’
‘It’s my reBop name. I use it when I’m beached between gigs: it helps keep creditors off my tail.’ She waved to the waiter, who seemed to know from experience what Josie’s preference was; the glass of gin and gore materialised almost immediately. She lifted her glass in salute. ‘Cheers, Vanka. I’m glad to see you’re still in one piece. I was beginning to worry. Gotta tell you, you’re one warm number these days, those cats from the HimPeril been really shaking the foliage trying to find out where you’re hanging. You better keep a low profile or for you it’s endsville. You dig?’
‘I dig,’ and he took a nervous look around at the Tzatske’s clientele. For someone who was advising him to stay undercover Josie had a peculiar idea about places to rendezvous.
She must have understood his concern. ‘Don’t worry, Vanka, the Tzatske’s a cool place. It’s under the protection of Schmuel Gelbfisz who’s got the biggest kahunas in the JAD.’
‘Yeah, I’ve met him. He seemed like a good guy.’
‘He is. Schmuel’s a hepcat who’s on the side of the angels. It might be that the nuJus don’t wanna get down and dirty when it comes to dealing with the Lady IMmanual, but Schmuel knows enough to come inside when it’s raining. He’s given the Code Noir sanctuary in the JAD.’
Vanka nodded his understanding.
‘Okay, the quicker we vip the vop the better; I don’t want the nogoodniks to think JoJo has turned Blank lover.’ She laughed and gave Vanka another salacious wink. He decided he didn’t mind Josie winking at him. ‘Vanka … you gotta dig that we brought you to the JAD for a reason.’
He eyed the girl suspiciously. He had wondered why she kept popping up in his life and how she’d managed to be so conveniently at hand when he had needed to escape from Venice. The Code Noir had gone to a lot of trouble to keep him out of the hands of Ella … of Doge IMmanual.
‘We wanna invite you to a séance.’
‘A séance?’
‘Yeah, a WhoDoo séance.’
‘Ah, c’mon, Josie, you don’t take all this séance crap seriously, do you? You’ll be telling me next that you’re a mambo?’
Josie laughed. ‘I am.’
This admission came as something of a straightener, but now he thought about it, it made sense. Josie was a Shade from the JAD, the home of WhoDoo, and the way she danced had more than a hint of the pagan about it.
‘This ain’t just any séance you’re being invited to, Vanka, it’s being held especially for your benefit.’ She must have seen the dubious look on his face. ‘Yeah, I know that you’re a stage psychic and all that shit, Vanka, but if you wanna help Ella get back onto the straight and narrow, you gotta make the WhoDoo scene.’
‘Look, Josie, I like you and I’m really grateful that you pulled me out of Venice when you did, but WhoDoo isn’t gonna square me with Ella. I know her.’
‘No you don’t, Vanka; you knew who she was. It’s time you started to dig who she is.’
‘And just who is she?’
Josie rocked forward to whisper in his ear. ‘Vanka, you ready for some hard spieling?’ A nod from Vanka. ‘Then dig this: we believe that Doge IMmanual is Lilith reborn.’
‘Bollocks!’
‘No, it ain’t. We’ve studied that dame real careful and she looks just like the pictures we’ve got of her.’
‘There are no images of Lilith.’
‘There are of when she last tried to reincarnate in the Demi-Monde, when she monikered herself as Marie Laveau.’
Vanka started so suddenly that he slopped his drink over the table. ‘Marie Laveau? That’s the name Ella used when she conducted the WhoDoo ritual in Dashwood Manor.’
A nod of understanding from Josie. ‘Yeah? Well that shows just how mischievous a piece of strange Lilith is. Vanka, baby, that dame is taunting us. And dig this, even the symbology she’s adopted for IMmanualism is borrowed from Lilithian lore: the snakes, the horned crown, the red-dyed skin and the shaven hair. Nah, we’re sure as sure can get that Doge IMmanual is Lilith come again.’
‘Oh, c’mon—’
‘But there’s mucho de worse: she’s reopened the Temple of Lilith.’
Now that came as a shock. ‘But that’s impossible!’
‘Not for Lilith it ain’t. You better fall in and dig the happenings, Vanka: that gal is one heavy hitter. Seems she’s gonna be erecting the Column of Loci next to the Temple’s altar and if she does that, man, it’s lights-out time in the Demi-Monde.’
‘Okay, let’s say, for
the sake of argument, that I accept what you’re telling me is fact, what’s holding a séance going to do to change the situation? Believe me, I’m not getting involved in anything which will harm Ella.’
‘We ain’t gonna harm her, Vanka, we just wanna subdue her, to divide her bad self from her good self. We wanna use our occult powers to make Lilith a back number. But, like I say, Lilith is one heavy-duty item and to do that we need your help, Vanka.’
‘My help? How can I help a bunch of WhoDooists? I’m just a stage psychic, not the real deal.’
‘That’s a difficult question to answer, Vanka.’ So difficult that Josie had to take a fortifying swig of her gin and gore before she made an attempt. ‘You’re one strange, strange cat, Vanka.’
‘What do you mean, strange? There’s nothing strange about me!’
Not that strange, anyway.
‘Oh yeah? Well let me level with you. Some of the senior mambos think that you might be an emissary of the Great Bondye … of ABBA, that you might be PaPa Legba, the keeper of the gate that divides the Demi-Monde from the Spirit World.’
‘Oh, c’mon, Josie, this is hokum.’
‘No it ain’t, Vanka, baby. You may not know it, but in the metaphysical you’re a humdumdinger from dingerville.’
‘Nuts! Surely if I was this PaPa Legba of yours, I’d know about it?’
‘Lemme give it to you from the top of the score, Vanka. The word is that maybe, just maybe, your psychic talents are latent … that they need to be resuscitated. That’s one of the reasons we want you to attend the séance.’
Vanka shook his head in disbelief, this was all too ridiculous for words. But the reality was that, batty though these Code Noir items might be, they were also the ones responsible for keeping him out of the clutches of the HimPeril. He gave a mental shrug: what harm would it do? He’d run hundreds of séances in his time and he knew they were all harmless nonsense. Perhaps it was time to be a little more cooperative. ‘Look, Josie, as it’s you asking and as I owe you big time, I’ll do it, but I’m not happy. So when are you holding this séance of yours?’
‘In three days. I’ll send a message to the hotel.’
There was a blast of an accordion from the band’s leader, obviously a signal for Josie to get back to work. As she stood up, she gave Vanka’s hand a squeeze. ‘We’ll be in touch but until then, Vanka, be real, real careful. Remember, the HimPeril are looking for you so stay cool, hang loose and admit nothing.’
‘Great.’
29
The JAD
The Demi-Monde: 45th Day of Summer, 1005
The Quartier-Chaudian polymath Pierre-Simon Laplace has speculated on the possibility that one day HumanKind will devise a machine – his ‘Demon’ – that will know everything, right down to the movement of every atom in the whole universe. When this happens, Laplace speculates, ‘for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future, just like the past, would be present before its eyes’. I find this a chilling prospect. Would not such a machine become an OverSoul, a Unity within which every man’s particular being is contained … would not such a machine become God … become ABBA?
Thoughts on the Future of the Demi-Monde: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Pandora Publishing
From far away a temple bell chimed eleven. Just one hour until midnight, just one hour before the séance was to take place. A bolt of lightning split the night sky. ABBA, Vanka mused, was obviously in something of a theatrical mood, a thought given even more credence when a crack of thunder shook the panes of the window he was standing at.
He moved to close the window but then stopped. He loved the clean smell in the air that came with the monsoon; it was the only time when the Demi-Monde could be described as being remotely fragrant. And closing the window would somehow have an air of finality about it … of Destiny closing in on him. It was a disturbing thought.
Giving a resigned shrug of his broad shoulders, he dug the piece of paper that had been pushed under his door during the afternoon out of the pocket of his jacket. For the umpteenth time he read the message written there.
Be ready at eleven o’clock tonight. A pedicab will be waiting outside the hotel. JoJo
The message might be sparse, but it told him that Josie was going ahead with her stupid WhoDoo séance.
Stupid séances might be but as Vanka knew from experience, the problem with séances was that they had the disconcerting habit of having people discover things about themselves, and Vanka wasn’t very sure that he wanted to discover things about himself. It wasn’t just a missing aura that distinguished him from other Demi-Mondians, he was also missing a memory. Every Demi-Mondian seemed to have memories of parents and friends and family and school and …
Every Demi-Mondian, that is, except Vanka Maykov.
Odd … and not a little scary.
Who am I?
What am I?
Such was the efficiency of the Code Noir that when Vanka stepped out of the hotel, the promised pedicab had been there, waiting for him. But, typical of the security surrounding the Code Noir, the driver was incredibly taciturn, answering Vanka’s enquiries about where he was being taken with nothing more informative than a series of grunts. In the end all Vanka could do was sit back, watch the rain-drenched side streets of the JAD trundle past and worry about what was in store for him. And something told him that what would be going down tonight was worth worrying about.
As he was en route to a séance intended to defeat the Lady IMmanual – Ella – he just hoped he wasn’t doing anything that would hurt her. Despite everything, he still loved the girl, and as ever with love, hope sprang eternal, the hope in Vanka’s case being that one day she’d come back to him.
By his estimate, as the crow flew, the rendezvous he was taken to was only fifteen minutes from his hotel, but the meandering route taken by the driver almost tripled the journey time. His driver doubled back on himself at least four times and twice spent a few minutes standing, parked in the shadows, to ensure they weren’t being followed. The Code Noir were obviously very anxious that Vanka got to the séance unencumbered by agents of the HimPeril.
When the pedicab finally came to a halt, Vanka found himself totally unimpressed by the WhoDoo temple. If this séance was as important as Josie Baker had intimated then he would have expected it to be taking place somewhere a little more upmarket than a clearing in a wood. Of course, there were compensations, notably the fifty or so scantily clad girls waiting for him to arrive, girls who had obviously been waiting in the rain, if the way their damp dresses clung so enticingly to their bodies was any indication. Looking at them, Vanka found himself hoping that the Summer’s monsoons had one last shower left in them.
Hitching the collar of his mackintosh higher, Vanka walked across the copse to where Josie Baker and a second woman were standing. Josie made the introductions. ‘Vanka, this is Dr Jezebel Ethobaal, Head of the metaPhysical Centre here in the JAD. She is also known as Mambo Jezebel and is one of the foremost practitioners of WhoDoo magic in the whole of the Demi-Monde.’
Vanka and Jezebel Ethobaal shook hands, then she motioned him towards a circular clearing that he assumed was the hounfo … the WhoDoo temple. Vanka felt the woman’s kohled eyes studying him as they walked. He didn’t mind: she was a beautiful woman who moved with the grace of a dancer, but, ever the gentleman, he reciprocated her interest and she certainly rewarded his attention. By her colouring Vanka decided that she was originally from Cairo; she had the wonderful dusty complexion only possessed by women from that part of the Demi-Monde.
‘I am delighted to meet you, Vanka Maykov,’ she said in a sultry voice that caused the hairs on the back of Vanka’s neck to bristle, ‘and please, call me Jezebel.’ Another smile. ‘Josephine has told me much about you, but she neglected to say just how handsome you are,’ and to his surprise, she gave his arm a squeeze. It seemed all WhoDooists were incorrigible flirts.
‘You are very kind.’
‘You know, you are very famous
in WhoDoo circles, Vanka.’
‘Me? Why?’
‘Because when we mambos attempt to peer into the future, it is often the lwa – the spirit – which identifies itself with your name that we find peering back. And it is a mischievous spirit – very mischievous – and one which delights in preventing us seeing the future clearly.’
Mad as a hatter, Vanka decided.
Jezebel brought him to a halt at the edge of the clearing that was the hounfo. It didn’t look much, just a primitive dance floor made out of beaten soil … or, as it was fast becoming, thanks to the rain, beaten mud.
He nodded towards the clearing. ‘I must say, Jezebel, I’m less than impressed by your hounfo.’
‘You gotta remember, Vanka,’ she explained, ‘in NoirVille WhoDoo is an outlawed religion. We WhoDooists might have found sanctuary here in the JAD, but Shaka is still in the habit of infiltrating his HimPeril cats to try to stymie our séances. So we hold them somewhere, anywhere, nowhere: tonight here, but tomorrow somewhere else. It’s difficult to stamp out something that has no physical presence, something which lives only in the hearts of women.’
Jezebel pointed to the circumference of the hounfo which was marked by a ring of white pebbles, a ring that had only a single break in it, the one just in front of Vanka. ‘If you would step through the opening, Vanka,’ she said quietly.
Immediately he’d done this, a young girl came and dribbled white pebbles on the ground, sealing the ring behind him. It was a simple, silly thing, but Vanka felt oddly unnerved: it was as though he was now trapped inside the hounfo, that there was no going back. Now Vanka watched as a dozen girls manoeuvred a totem pole into position at the centre of the dirt circle.
‘This is a poteau-mitan,’ explained Jezebel. ‘It’s a representation of the Sacred Tree, Yggdrasil, that links this world with the Spirit World and which allows the lwa – the WhoDoo spirits – to travel to and from the Demi-Monde. It’s dedicated to PaPa Legba, the lwa who guards the gate that separates the two worlds.’
Vanka’s psychic antennae bristled: there was something in the way Jezebel said this that made him glance at her. In response she gave him an enigmatic little smile and another squeeze of his arm.
