Falling Angel

by William Hjortsberg

  My car was parked in the same spot across Seventh, and I headed for it when the light changed. The loiterers on the corner had moved on, their place taken by a thin, dark woman wearing a bedraggled fox fur. She swayed back and forth on her spike-heeled shoes, sniffing air rapidly through her nostrils like a coke fiend on a three-day blow. “Spo’tin’, mister?” she asked as I passed. “Spo’tin’?”

  “Not tonight,” I said.

  I got in behind the wheel and lit another cigarette. The thin woman watched me for a while before weaving off down the avenue. It was not quite eleven.

  Around midnight, I ran out of smokes. I figured Toots wasn’t going to bolt until after work. There was all the time in the world. I walked a block and a half up Seventh to an allnight liquor store and bought two packs of Luckies and a pint of Early Times. On the way back, I crossed the avenue and lingered a moment by the entrance to the Red Rooster. Toots’ blend of barrelhouse and Beethoven boomed inside.

  It was a cold night, and every so often I ran the engine until the chill was off. I didn’t want it warm. Too easy to fall asleep. By the time the last set ended at quarter to four, the dashboard ashtray was full and the Early Times empty. I felt fine.

  Toots came out of the club about five minutes before closing time. He buttoned his heavy overcoat and joked with the guitar player. A passing cab squealed to a stop at his shrill, two-fingered whistle. I switched on the ignition and started the Chevy.

  Traffic was sparse, and I wanted to give them a couple blocks, so I left the lights off and watched in the rearview as the cab made a U-turn on 138th Street and started back up Seventh in my direction. I let them get as far as the allnight liquor store before I switched on my lights and pulled away from the curb.

  I tailed the cab to 152nd Street, where it turned left. Midway down the block it stopped in front of one of the Harlem River Houses. I continued on over to Macomb’s Place, swung uptown, and circled back to Seventh at the upper end of the housing development.

  Near the corner, I saw the cab waiting out front with the door open and the roof light off. No one was in the back seat. Toots was just running upstairs to get rid of his chicken foot. I turned my headlights off and double-parked where I could watch the cab. Toots was back down in minutes. He carried a red plaid canvas bowling-ball bag.

  The cab took a left at Macomb’s Place and continued downtown on Eighth Avenue. I stayed three blocks back and kept it in sight all the way to Frederick Douglass Circle where it swung east on 110th and followed the northern wall of Central Park to the point where St. Nicholas and Lenox Avenues have their bifurcated beginnings. As I drove past I saw Toots holding his wallet and waiting for change.

  I hung a sharp left and parked around the corner on St. Nicholas, sprinting back to 110th in time to see the cab driving off and the retreating form of Toots Sweet, a shadow sliding into the shadow world of the dark and silent park.

  SIXTEEN

  He kept to the path bordering the western rim of Harlem Meer, passing through the pooled light under a succession of lampposts like Jimmy Durante saying goodnight to Mrs. Calabash. I stayed off to one side in the shadows, but Toots never looked back. He hurried along the edge of the Meer and under the arch of Huddlestone Bridge. An occasional cab whizzed uptown on East Drive overhead.

  Beyond the Drive was the Loch, the most remote section of Central Park. The path wound into a deep ravine crowded with trees and shrubs and completely cut off from the city. It was dark here and very still. For a moment I thought I lost Toots. Then I heard the drums.

  Light glimmered like fireflies in the underbrush. I edged through the trees until I reached the cover of a large rock. Four white candles flickered on saucers set on the ground. I counted fifteen people standing in the dim light. There were three drummers, each playing an instrument of a different size. The largest looked like a conga. A lean, gray-haired man beat on it with one bare hand and a small wooden mallet.

  A girl wearing a white dress and turban inscribed convoluted designs on the ground between the candles. She used handfuls of flour like a Hopi sandpainter, tracing the swirling figures around a circular hole dug into the packed earth. She turned and her face was illuminated by candle flame. It was Epiphany Proudfoot.

  The onlookers swayed from side to side, chanting and dapping in time with the drumming. Several men shook gourd rattles, and one woman produced a frenzied staccato rhythm with a pair of iron clappers. I watched Toots Sweet wielding his maracas like Xavier Cugat fronting a rhumba band. The empty plaid bowling-ball bag sagged at his feet.

  Epiphany was barefoot in spite of the cold and danced to the pulsing rhythm, twirling handfuls of Pillsbury’s Best onto the ground. When the design was finished, she jumped back, reaching her ghost-white hands above her head like a cheerleader of doom. Her spastic shimmy soon had the whole crowd dancing.

  Shadows shifted grotesquely in the uneven candlelight. The demonic heartbeat of the drums caught the dancers in its throbbing spell. Their eyes rolled back in their heads; spittle frothed on the chanting lips. Men and women rubbed together and moaned, pelvises thrusting in an ecstatic approximation of sex. The whites of their eyes gleamed like opals in their sweating faces.

  I edged forward through the trees for a closer look. Someone played a pennywhistle. Shrill, piping notes stabbed into the night above the dissonant clangor of iron clappers. The drums growled and grumbled, the rhythm as insistent as a fever, delirious, entrancing. One woman fell to the ground and writhed like a snake, her tongue darting in and out with reptilian rapidity.

  Epiphany’s white dress clung to her wet, young body. She reached into a wicker basket, removing a leg-bound rooster. The bird held up his head proudly, his blood-red comb vivid in the candlelight. Epiphany rubbed the white plumage against her breasts as she danced. Weaving among the crowd, she caressed each of the others in turn. A piercing cockcrow silenced the drums.

  Gliding gracefully, Epiphany bent to the circular pit and cut the rooster’s jugular with a deft turn of a razor. Blood spouted into the dark hole. The rooster’s defiant crow became a gargling scream. Its wings thrashed wildly as it died. The dancers moaned.

  Epiphany placed the drained bird alongside the pit where it jerked and bucked, bound legs twitching in tandem, until the wings spread for a final shudder and slowly folded. One by one, the dancers swayed forward and dropped offerings into the pit. Scatterings of coins, handfuls of dried corn, assorted cookies, candies, and fruit. One woman poured a bottle of Coca-Cola over the dead chicken.

  Afterward, Epiphany took the limp bird and hung it, upside down, from the branches of a nearby tree. Things began to break up about then. Several of the congregation stood whispering to the dangling rooster, heads bowed and hands clasped. Others packed up their instruments and they all slipped off into the darkness after shaking hands, first the right then the left, arm over arm around the circle. Toots, Epiphany, and two or three others walked back along the path toward Harlem Meer. No one spoke.

  I tailed them through the shadows, skirting the path and keeping out of sight among the trees. By the Meer the path divided. Toots turned left. Epiphany and the others took the righthand path. I tossed a mental coin, and it came up Toots. He headed toward the Seventh Avenue exit. If he wasn’t going straight home, chances were good he’d be there before long. I planned on arriving first.

  Ducking through the shrubbery, I scaled the rough stone wall and sprinted across 110th Street. When I reached the corner of St. Nicholas, I looked back and saw Epiphany in her white dress at the entrance to the park. She was alone.

  I suppressed an urge to second-guess and ran for the Chevy. The streets were nearly empty, and I sped uptown on St. Nicholas, crossing Seventh and Eighth without missing a light. After turning onto Edgecomb, I followed Broadhurst along the edge of colonial Park up to 151st Street.

  I parked near the corner of Macomb’s Place and walked the rest of the way through the Harlem River Houses development. These were attractive four-story buildings arr
anged around open courts and malls. A Depression-era project, it was a far more civilized approach to public housing than the inhuman monoliths currently in municipal favor. I found the entrance to Toots’ building on 152nd and looked for his apartment number on the row of brass mailboxes set into the brick wall.

  The front door was no problem. I got it open with my penknife blade in less than a minute. Toots lived on the third floor. I climbed the stairs and checked out his lock. There was nothing I could do without my attaché case, so I sat on the steps leading up and waited.

  SEVENTEEN

  I didn’t have to wait long. I heard him puffing up the stairs and stubbed out my butt against the bottom of my shoe. He didn’t see me and set his bowling-ball bag down on the floor as he dug for his keys. When he had the door open, I made my move.

  He was reaching for the plaid bag as I caught him from behind, grabbing his coat collar with one hand and shoving him forward into the apartment with the other. He stumbled to his knees, the bag flung rattling into the darkness like a sackful of snakes. I switched on the ceiling light and closed the door behind me.

  Toots huffed to his feet, panting like an animal at bay. His right hand plunged into his coat pocket and came out holding a straight razor. I shifted my weight. “I don’t want to hurt you, old man.”

  He muttered something I didn’t make out and lumbered forward, waving the razor. I caught his arm with my left hand and stepped in close, bringing my knee up hard, where it did the most good. Toots sagged and sat down with a soft grunt. I twisted his wrist a little and he dropped the razor on the carpet. I kicked it against the wall.

  “Dumb, Toots.” I picked up the razor, folded it, and put it in my pocket.

  Toots sat, holding his belly with both hands as if something might come loose if he let go. “What you want with me?” he moaned. “You’re no writer.”

  “Getting smarter. So save the bullshit and tell me what you know about Johnny Favorite.”

  “I’m hurt. I feel all busted up inside.”

  “You’ll recover. Want something to sit on?”

  He nodded. I dragged a red and black Moroccan leather ottoman over behind him and helped ease his bulk up off the floor. He groaned and clutched his middle.

  “Listen, Toots,” I said. “I saw your little shindig in the park. Epiphany Proudfoot’s number with the chicken. What was going on?”

  “Obeah,” he groaned. “Voodoo. Not every black man is a Baptist.”

  “What about the Proudfoot girl? How does she fit in?”

  “She’s a mambo, like her mother was before her. Powerful spirits speak through that child. She been comin’ to humfo meetin’s since she was ten. Took over as priestess at thirteen.”

  “That when Evangeline Proudfoot got sick?”

  “Yeah. Somethin’ like that.”

  I offered Toots a smoke but he shook his head. I lit one myself and asked: “Was Johnny Favorite into voodoo?”

  “He was runnin’ ‘round with the mambo, wasn’t he?”

  “Did he go to meetings?”

  ” ‘Course he did. Lots of ‘em. He was a hunsi-bosal.”

  “A what?”

  “He’d been initiated, but not baptized.”

  “What do they call you when you’re baptized?”

  “Hunsi-kanzo.”

  “That what you are, a hunsi-kanzo?”

  Toots nodded. “I been baptized a long time.”

  “When was the last time you saw Johnny Favorite at one of your chicken-snuffings?”

  “I tol’ you, I ain’t seen him since fo’ the war.”

  “What about the chicken foot? The one in the piano wearing a bowtie.”

  “Means I talk too much.”

  “About Johnny Favorite?”

  ” ‘Bout things in general.”

  “Not good enough, Toots.” I blew a little smoke in his face. “Ever try to play piano with your hand in a cast?”

  Toots started to rise, but sagged grimacing back onto the ottoman. “You wouldn’t do that?”

  “I’ll do what I have to, Toots. I can break a finger easy as a breadstick.”

  There was considerable fear in the old piano player’s eyes. I cracked the knuckles in my right hand for emphasis. “Ask me anything you want,” he said. “I been telling you the truth right along.”

  “You haven’t seen Johnny Favorite in the last fifteen years?”

  “No.”

  “What about Evangeline Proudfoot? She ever mention seeing him?”

  “Not where I could hear it. Last time she spoke of him was eight, ten years ago. I recollect it ‘cause it was the time some college professor come around wantin’ to write somethin’ in a book about Obeah. Evangeline told him white people weren’t allowed in the humfo. I said, ‘ ‘cept if they can sing,’ you know, pullin’ her leg an’ all.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I’m comin’ to it. She didn’t laugh but she wasn’t mad. She said, ‘Toots, if Johnny was alive he’d be one plenty powerful hungan, but that don’t mean I have to open the door to ev’ry pink pencil pusher takes a notion to pay a call.’ See, far as she was concerned, Johnny Favorite was dead and buried.”

  “Toots, I’ll take a chance and believe you. How come you wear a star on your tooth like that?”

  Toots grimaced. The cutout star glinted in the overhead light. “That’s so folks be sure I’m a nigger. Wouldn’t want ‘em to make no mistakes.”

  “Why is it upside down?”

  “Look nicer that way.”

  I placed one of my Crossroads cards on top of the TV. “I’m leaving a card with my number on it. If you hear anything, give me a call.”

  “Yeah, I ain’t got enough troubles awready I got to start phonin’ up mo’.”

  “You never know. You might need some help next time you get a special-delivery chicken foot.”

  Outside, dawn smudged the night sky like rouge on a chorus girl’s cheek. Walking to the car, I dropped Toots’ pearl-handled razor into a garbage can.

  EIGHTEEN

  The sun was shining when I finally hit the sack, but I managed to sleep until almost noon in spite of the bad dreams. I was haunted by nightmares more vivid than any “Late Show” horror feature. Voodoo drums throbbed as Epiphany Proudfoot cut the rooster’s throat. The dancers swayed and moaned, only this time the bleeding didn’t stop. A crimson fountain gushed from the thrashing bird, soaking everything like a tropical rain, dancers all drowning in a lake of blood. I watched Epiphany go under and ran from my hiding place, gore splashing at my heels.

  Blind with panic, I ran through deserted nighttime streets. Garbage cans stacked in pyramids; rats the size of bulldogs watching from sewers. The air putrid with rot. I ran on, somehow becoming the pursuer instead of the quarry, chasing a distant figure down endless unknown avenues.

  No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t catch up. The runner eluded me. When the pavement ended, the chase continued along a flotsam-strewn beach. Dead fish littered the sand. An enormous seashell, tall as a skyscraper, loomed ahead. The man ran inside. I followed him.

  The interior of the shell was high and vaulted, like an opalescent cathedral. Our footsteps echoed within the twisting spiral. The passage narrowed, and I came around a final turn to find my adversary blocked by the enormous, quivering, fleshy wall of the mollusk itself. There was no way out.

  I seized the man by his coat collar and spun him around, pushing him back into the slime. He was my twin. It was like looking in the mirror. He gathered me in a brother’s embrace and kissed my cheek. Lips, eyes, chin; his every feature was interchangeable with mine. I relaxed, overwhelmed by a wave of affection. Then I felt his teeth. His fraternal kiss grew savage; strangler’s hands found their way to my throat.

  I struggled, and we went down together, my fingers groping for his eyes. We thrashed on the hard, nacreous floor. His grip relaxed as I gouged with my thumbs. He made no sound during the struggle. My hands sank deep into his flesh, familiar features oozing b
etween my fingers like wet dough. His face was a shapeless pulp lacking bone or cartilage and when I pulled away my hands were mired there, like a cook caught in a suet pudding. I woke up screaming.

  A hot shower settled my nerves. I was shaved, dressed, and driving uptown inside of twenty minutes. I dropped the Chevy off at my garage and walked to the out-of-town newsstand next to Times Tower. Dr. Albert Fowler’s picture was on the front page of Monday’s Poughkeepsie New Yorker. NOTED DOCTOR FOUND DEAD said the headline. I read all about it over breakfast at the Whelan’s drugstore in the corner of the Paramount Building.

  The cause of death was listed as suicide although there was no note found. The body was discovered Monday morning by two of Dr. Fowler’s colleagues who grew worried when he didn’t show up for work or answer his phone. The newspaper had most of the details right. The woman in the framed photograph clutched to the dead man’s chest was his wife. No mention was made of the morphine or the missing ring. The contents of the dead man’s pockets were not listed, so I had no way of knowing whether he had taken the ring off himself or not.

  I had a second cup of coffee and headed for my office to check the mail. There was the usual third-class junk and a letter from a man in Pennsylvania offering a ten-dollar mail-order course in cigarette ash analysis. I swept the whole batch into the wastebasket and considered my options. I had planned on driving out to Coney Island to try to locate Madame Zora, Johnny Favorite’s gypsy fortuneteller, but decided to play a long shot and go back up to Harlem first. There was a lot Epiphany Proudfoot hadn’t told me last night.

  I got my attaché case out of the office safe and was buttoning my overcoat when the phone rang. It was long-distance, person-to-person collect from Cornelius Simpson. I told the operator I would accept the charges.

  A man’s voice said: “The maid gave me your message. She seemed to think it was some kind of emergency.”

  “Are you Spider Simpson?”

  “Last time I looked I was.”

  “I’d like to ask you some questions about Johnny Favorite.”