by Dale Lucas
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, scrambling, trying to get to his feet again. Papa Ogou, he thought, remind me again why I didn’t come downtown horsed?
He floundered backward, hands scraped and cut on shattered cement, old brick, and bits of broken glass. The little demons closed. Dub was trying to blink away his starry-eyed daze and get back on his feet to make a run for it. With one hand, he searched for a piece of litter large enough and solid enough to defend himself with.
Then something strange happened. The urchins stopped their advance. All their beady, dark eyes rose, focused no longer on Dub, but on something new coming up behind him. His vision was just clearing. He needed to be on his feet and fleeing this place, now; right now. He’d come back in the night; come back horsed, armed, ready. Then let these little bastards—maziks or whatever they were—try to harass him.
But just as he was getting his feet under him and lurching upright, a pair of strong hands fell upon him, wadded up the slack of his suit coat, and yanked him upward. Dub found himself staring into the broad face of the biggest, baddest Son of Abraham he’d ever seen. Standing beside him was a smaller fellow, no less menacing for his lesser stature, so bright were his hate-filled, flashing eyes and the sneer on his narrow, pursed lips.
“Who the fuck dropped you off below Canal Street, Sambo?” the little one snapped.
“Must’ve got off at the wrong subway stop,” Dub offered. The big Abe answered Dub’s smartassery with bare knuckles. Dub saw stars and tasted a mouthful of pennies.
“Teapots ain’t welcome down here,” the little one said, and to prove his point pulled out a switchblade and popped it. The shining point hovered in Dub’s view, splitting right through the new flock of seagulls and storm clouds that squealed in his ears and blackened his vision. “This is Spector’s territory. Fish territory. You, blue gums, keep your chocolate-brown ass uptown, got me?”
“My mistake,” Dub managed, though he was finding words hard to form at the moment. His tongue was in revolt, and his teeth felt decidedly loose in their roots. “You wanna unhand me, I’ll just be on my way.”
His big friend did just that, but not before laying another big kosher brisket-sized fist in Dub’s breadbasket, then tossing him a good ten feet to come crashing down on the pavement and skidding to a halt amid the detritus. Dub stirred, eager to make sure all his limbs were still working. They seemed to be. He wanted to stand up, but he wasn’t sure which way up was.
“You fuckin’ jungle bunnies... think just ‘cause some dumb white men put suits on you and taught you to speak you can have the run of the town. Well, we’re here to say it just ain’t so.”
Dub was up, though he still couldn’t quite stand straight. His head and knees kept wanting to hold close commerce with one another. He nodded, drawing breath deep and slow. “Lesson learned, sir. I’ll just be on my way—”
Then the little kike screamed. Dub, more shocked than curious, stood bolt upright and blinked. The urchins were on Chicken Big and Chicken Little now, sniping with old brick-chunks while the smaller ones dove into the fray under the covering fire to pick the gangster’s pockets. The little fellow swiped blindly and missed. The big one waded into the storm of little street rats, huge fists sweeping this way and that. But he never touched any of them. They were too small; too fast.
“Little bastards!” the diminutive Hebe gangster squealed.
Dub knew a good thing when he saw it. He left his good overcoat where it lay ten feet shy of him, dusted off his crumpled, dirtied fedora, and loped off on his merry way, eager to find the nearest taxi or train station.
Maybe he’d return in the night, with Ogou riding him, to pay Magda a visit.
Or maybe he’d just wash his hands of the Lower East side and figure out another answer to the mess at Aces & Eights...
XX
After finally making it home hours later than he intended, Dub showered, dressed in his dead man’s duds, then mounted the secret spiral steps to his peristyle on the fourth floor. He chanted the Afonga Alafia as he lit the hounfor’s battalion of slow-burn worship candles, and when that was done, he cranked up the Victrola. The familiar thump of the wango and the mambo croon filled the room. He gave offerings—dates for Erzulie, loose tobacco for Legba, rum for Ogou—and the doors between the worlds groaned as they opened wide.
“You were right,” Dub said, pacing the perimeters of his patrons’ veves on the earthen floor. “It’s somebody else’s magic. And now it’s spreading.”
So it ain’t somebody else’s problem anymore, Legba answered.
Dub held his tongue. This was typical: he was the protector; the avenger; but his patrons often would not approve his involvement until formal petitions by their worshippers had been made.
The Queen Bee called a mambo, Erzulie said softly, and the mambo failed with what we gave her. That means we’re still bound to try and wrest this thing.
“I’m bound to wrest this thing,” Dub corrected.
You do nothing without us, Ogou snarled around his cigar.
“Forgive me, Papa Ogou,” Dub said, anger flaring, “but sometimes it seems I do nothing with you, either. Why did it take you this long to make this my problem?”
We got to wait ‘til we’re called, Legba said.
“I called you,” Dub answered.
You ain’t a petitioner, Ogou countered. You’re a soldier. Soldiers don’t go to war ‘til their generals order them to.
“Order me,” Dub said.
Impatient, Ogou said, chuckling a little, the sound like a whetstone drawn along the length of an eager blade.
The parties aggrieved get parlay before you bust in, guns blazing, Legba reminded him.
That’s right, Erzulie said, you act first as our mouth before you act as our sword.
Dub was eager, the hunger for action pulsing through him like a junkie’s urge. He moved to the Ghede altar and started donning his gear: skull-face powder and bootblack, gravedigger boots, waistcoat, long coat, dreadlock wig and top hat. “It’s House, isn’t it?” he said as he prepared. “He’s the one that planted that thing. He’s the only one who’d stand to gain.” The coiled Serpent d’Ogou scarf went on last.
We can’t say one way or the other, Legba answered. You just pay him a visit. Let your eyes and ears tell you what they can.
Dub snorted. Typical. But it was a start. He drew breath and opened himself.
“Do it, then,” Dub said, checking his pistols and holstering them. “Horse me.”
This is a parlay, Legba said worriedly. That’s all it is! Why you gonna go out packin’ to a parlay?
Dub kept himself from snapping. Legba might have the form of an old man with a cane, but dangerous powers lurked behind the veil of that form. Best not rouse them. He spoke slowly. “Well, I can’t parlay with a killer like Solomon House in my suit and tie, Papa,” he said through gritted teeth. “This ain’t a job for Dr. Dub Corveaux—this is a job for a baron.”
Lay off, Ogou growled at Legba. I ride him... let me worry about it.
“Come on, then,” Dub said, loving the sure weight of his guns in their matching shoulder holsters.
Ogou mounted. The Dread Baron opened his black eyes.
Chapter 11
Papa Solomon House owned a six story walk-up off 5th and 126th Street. Most of the fifth floor was an ad hoc casino, with games going on in the various apartments, the adjoining doors between them open wide to allow heel-toe access from one end of the floor to the other without ever stepping out into the central hallway. He had craps in one room, spades in another, hold ‘em in a third. The rooms across the hall were linked the same way, and comprised a brothel. It was the short and sweet sort, full of curtained booths, not rooms, for blow jobs, dances, and quick pokes. House kept the sixth floor vacant, and there held court in a series of well-appointed suites. Behind those doors, he entertained guests, held sit-downs and negotiations, passed quiet hours with his favorite whores, or played cards with his lieutenants. The build
ing was fitted with an elevator, but the operator only stopped on the fifth and sixth floors, for House or his special guests. The tenants on one through four used the stairs. They had no reason to complain, though. He gave them all a break on rent.
And if they did complain, he just fed them to Napoleon.
So here he was, walking the floor to assure himself that the croupiers and dealers were doing their jobs properly and not working any flimflams; that the patrons stayed jingle-brained and loose with their change; that the house was winning, the suckers were losing, and the whores weren’t spending more than a fair tick on their dumb, drunk Johns. He got smiles and greetings and handshakes and well-wishes, but he knew that everyone who smiled at him wanted him dead. They were his best customers; slaves to his games; suckers for his tricks; gassed on his bathtub gin or syrupy on his rooftop-grown weed. He had them all by the balls, and they knew it. Given the chance, they’d all stick a knife in. If he was gonna prove he knew their game and wasn’t afraid, he’d better show his face. So he walked the floor; smiled, nodded; offered free hooch or a snort or a toke on the house. He gave them just enough, and kept their swinging nuts in the palm of his hand.
Exploit vice; exploit fear. Papa prided himself on keeping Harlem well in hand. He just needed to push north. If he could get that high-toned yaller dame the Queen Bee out of her uptown digs, he’d have the whole knot in his pocket, and he could stroke it at will. She was just too entrenched, that was all.
You had to work such problems at their roots. Kill them. Shorten them. Then, when the tree balked, you tore it right up out of the ground and down it went. Simple as that.
He’d have her out soon enough. The hoodoo he’d worked on the supper club was first blood. If that worked out, he’d follow with some body blows, and finally, the knock-out.
He didn’t come here from Trinidad and soil his soul and dare so much blood and violence and build the walls he’d built around his heart and mind to have some high yaller bitch in heels as his superior. No sir. He’d have her, and he’d fuck her good.
So Papa finished his walk, got quickie reports on the state of the union from his doormen and floor bosses, then took the stairs up to six to have a drink before he made the rounds to his other vice dens around lower Harlem. On his way upstairs, he turned and ordered Wash back down again. “Go get those two new twists from the cat rooms.”
“Which ones, boss?”
“Fucked if I know their names, Wash. The Dominican and the Rican. And if the girls get mousy, tell ‘em I just want to talk a bit. Get to know ‘em.”
Wash did as he was told and headed downstairs. Papa hadn’t tasted them yet. He needed to taste all the merch before it spent too long on the floor and ruined his rep. Timmons carried on at Papa’s elbow, and in two shakes they were up on six, marching down the carpeted hallway, ending in the big, broad chamber that Papa thought of as his home-away-from-home: the Roost.
It was a posh suite, furnished with red leather sofas and easy chairs, traced with stained cherry wood paneling and warmed by expensive wallpaper in a deep gold pattern that made House think of the pagan faces on ancient South American idols. There were palms and ferns in pots and all sorts of Old African hoodoo jigamawhats—masks and shields and crazy paintings by hop-headed Harlem artistes whose names he’d forgotten. It was just eclectic enough—by accident, not design—to be tasteful instead of tacky. But it was his, and he felt comfortable there. Six floors above the dirty streets, surrounded by his guns, locked behind his doors. He was the only one with access to a lately-installed elevator, and he kept a private stairwell at the back. There was even a cache of weapons stowed in a nearby closet. From the southeast windows, he had a great view of the rest of Harlem, stretching away from his lower enclave toward the north and east, and he stood there many a night, dreaming of the power and influence he’d one day wield.
Presently, three of House’s hired guns bent over a small table in a corner, playing Hearts and drinking watered-down Canadian whiskey. His bookkeeper, Cornelius Luddard, busied himself in a far corner, at a large cherry wood desk, laying down the law for his new apprentice, a kid House himself had picked from a policy bank because he had a supernatural memory for numbers and could work figures faster than your average fourth-generation Yorkville Shylock. Ames was the kid’s name, and from what Cornelius told House, he was working out just fine.
The card players all slammed down their hands and stood when their boss marched through the door. House gave them deferential waves and they nodded and went back to their games. He always acted like they didn’t need to stand for him when he entered, but truth be told if he ever had one of them refuse to do so, or not think to do so, he’d probably make said insubordinate’s life misery just as an object lesson. Fear kept them tight and frosty; fear must remain.
House nodded to Cornelius and the Ames kid, then strolled to the wet bar. He poured himself a Bacardi over ice, then added a twist of lime. He slammed it back fast, then poured himself another to sip slow. Satisfied, he drew a cigar from the case in his inner coat pocket, clipped the end with his teeth, and braced it between his lips. Timmons was there to light him and he drew a deep drag, savoring the tobacco.
“Everything copacetic this evening, sir?” Cornelius rumbled from his desk. His eyes never rose from the figures he was walking Ames through, line by line, explaining the coded annotations for graft payments and hand-outs.
“Cool as can be, Cornelius,” House said, stripping off his coat and taking a seat in his favorite chair. “Working late, I see.”
“The boy’s a fast study,” Cornelius said, suggesting young Ames as if he weren’t there. “Figured why stop when he’s still sharp?”
“I like that,” House said, smiling at the boy and thinking that he should watch him carefully. Eager beavers and quick studies could be boons, but they could also get ambitious fast. Yessir, he’d have to watch him real close.
The door to the suite opened and Wash entered, followed by the two new girls from the cat rooms, one a long-legged Latina with wide hips and firm, pomegranate tits; the other a small but curvy Dominican the color of a Brazil nut shell.
“Ladies,” House said, smiling. “Hope I wasn’t interrupting anything?”
Both smiled a little, shook their heads, and lowered their eyes. Did they not speak English? “Parlay vous? Habla Englés?”
He got non-committal yeses from each. House rose and strode to them. He towered over both, making him feel a little like a dirty old man but not caring. The Dominica would do fine on her knees. The Rica’s long legs were built to be shock-absorbers: she’d be on top.
Glory, glory. He smiled at the thought.
Then, just as he reached out to stroke the latina’s long, dark hair, there was a rending crash and the room was invaded by a walloping wall of cold night air. The cards stormed off the table. Cornelius cursed as his books fluttered and an inkwell tipped, staining the ledgers.
As House turned toward the commotion, he saw objects flying out of the cold night air, arcing left and right.
Grenades! he thought, then one of the objects hit the floor by his boys playing cards, two more smacked Wash and Timmons, and a fourth shattered on his right, near Cornelius and the Ames kid. House heard a sound like shattering, hard-baked clay, and the room was filled with a storm of crazy blue and red lights.
His boys at the card table fell in heaps, all now wrapped in diaphanous blue flames. Their breath plumed in what seemed a shroud of almost visible cold air, and they screamed and cried and shuddered with the bone-deep chill. Ditto Cornelius and Ames behind the desk: the blue flames had them, and they cried out like children for their mammies, curling in on themselves, screaming about the cold—the penetrating, crushing cold.
He looked to Wash and Timmons. Their fate was separate, but equal. Red flames engulfed them but did not seem to burn them—at least not outwardly. Still, they flopped and writhed and screamed. Their eyes squeezed out tears and their hands gnarled arthritically and the
y screamed to wake the dead. It burned, they said. It burned, Christ, how it burned!
House heard something amid the howl of the wind, then: the flames didn’t just burn or freeze—they spoke. They moaned and they wailed, as though they were full of unquiet spirits; shame and dread and raw, elemental fear.
What the fuck is this? House wondered.
The girls screamed behind him. House ignored them and turned toward the shattered windows again, looking for the intruder.
And he found him.
The cold night wind drove right into House’s face and he had to blink against it for a moment, but when he saw clearly, he saw a shadowy figure standing near the now-shattered picture windows; saw the glint of something hard, black, and oiled in his gloved hands, leveled right at him, at House. Heaters. Colt .45’s by the look. Their barrels yawned like twin tunnels in a mountainside.
It was the Hoodoo Man; the Witch Doctor; the one who’d taken out the gun car just a few nights previous. Top hat; skull face; natty tangle of dreads; long black coat; serpentine red scarf—the whole shebang, just as poor, dumb Wooley had described him.
The Cemetery Man smiled under his spook paint.
The wind died. House heard the girls behind him, still screaming, babbling prayers in their native tongues. “Shut your traps!” he barked, and they tried, but their fear was too great. They kept muttering their prayers, and he supposed that was the best they could do.
“Solomon House,” said the Cemetery Man.
House answered. “You owe me a window.”
“You owe Harlem a lot more than that,” the Cemetery Man growled.
“You couldn’t use the front door?” House asked.
“’Fraid you might’ve shrugged me off,” the stranger said. His voice sounded like a file drawn slowly over rusty iron in some deep, dark prison cell.
