Aces & Eights

by Dale Lucas

  “No sir,” the kid said, shaking his head. “Just wanna do right by you, is all. My brother, Collie, he used to make bombs, sir. Planted ‘em in Klan houses whenever we could find ‘em. They was good bombs. Blew up big and bright.”

  “You your brother?”

  The kid seemed to think about that for a moment. “No, sir.”

  “You make bombs as good as he did?”

  Again, a long consideration. “No, sir.” His answer came with a screwed-up face, as if the boy were insulted House would even suggest it.

  “Then stop beatin’ your gums,” House growled. “You do as you’re told, you hoof it. Savvy?”

  “Yes, sir. Clear as a bell.”

  “You play this right, Calvin, you’s and your mama’s rent is set. Six months, square.”

  Calvin nodded again and House decided he’d done all he could. It was a simple errand and Calvin was a regular delivery driver for the Queen; he should be able to carry off his role in the night’s proceedings and get out without trouble.

  Still, he was dim. House looked to Wash and Timmons as the three of them marched away to thread a path back through the warehouse, followed by others—gunmen, hired and regulars, all gearing up for a turkey shoot.

  “Best you could find?” House asked, meaning Calvin.

  Wash shrugged. “He’s a safe face around the club. Likewise, figured if we lose him in the blast, no great loss.”

  House nodded, puffing on his cigar. “Fair enough.”

  XX

  Evening was nearly gone and night on the precipice, ready to fall. Dr. Dub Corveaux knelt in his fourth floor peristyle, surrounded by the lwa, receiving instructions. His guns were loaded, and he had belted up nine govi grenades

  So his weapons were ready; all that remained was to be blessed by the lwa.

  And to get horsed.

  Ain’t no easy thing, Legba was saying, drawin’ out bad wanga of this sort. You gotta work some serious maji; all alone; without us.

  Dub was impatient. “Just give me what I need,” he insisted. “And tell me how to use it.”

  First, Erzulie purred, whatever you’re gonna draw’s gotta be bound; like a tourniquet to keep venom in the bit limb and away from the heart. For that you make a circle with the Petro Packet.

  Dub saw the packet she referred to; a long-necked gourd bedecked with beads and a rainbow of colored threads, stopped with a cork. He lifted the packet, found it heavy and full, then slipped it into one of the deeper pouches within his coat.

  “So I make a circle—”

  Then set it aflame, Erzulie reminded.

  “—then set it aflame. Protective proscriptions. Basic magic one-oh-one.”

  Make the circle big enough to contain the quarry, Erzulie said.

  “Of course,” Dub said.

  And yourself, she added.

  “I’ll be inside the circle? The flaming circle? With the beast?”

  Ain’t no other way, Erzulie answered.

  Dub sighed. “Fair enough. Then?”

  You got it bound, Legba said, you gotta flush it out. Make it manifest. That’s what the mummified dog’s for.

  Dub studied the cluttered altar, saw the shriveled, dead black pup that Legba suggested, and lifted it. The little corpse felt like a wad of crumpled paper in his hands, and just as hollow. He carefully stowed it in another side pocket of his long black coat.

  You place the pup on the hex engine, Legba instructed, then annoint it with some of your blood. That should wake the beast up and draw it out. hungry. Full-on.

  “Okay,” Dub said, nodding.

  Be ready, Erzulie interjected. What springs forth when you bloody it won’t be pretty.

  “I can handle it,” Dub said, eager to be on his way. “Once the circle’s lit and the thing’s drawn out, then what?”

  Then you kill it, Ogou said, and Dub could almost hear the bemused chuckle in the war lwa’s voice.

  “Understood,” Dub said, trying not to let his frustration sound through. “Will standard lead-loads do, or do I need something else? Iron? Silver?”

  Silence. He waited. None of them replied.

  “Well?”

  Still no answer.

  “Give me something,” he said testily.

  It ain’t our maji, Legba huffed, as if insulted.

  “I’m your maji,” Dub snarled. “I’m doin’ your dirty work, and you ain’t givin’ me the tools to do it. You want your people protected, you gotta give me more than just a shield to hide behind and a horn to call my quarry with.

  “You gotta give me a sword.”

  A long silence followed.

  He’s ready, Ogou finally muttered.

  Put that in his hands, there’ll be hell to pay, Erzulie purred. Ain’t there another way, Ogou?

  Thing ain’t gonna flee for Florida water and incense, ‘Zulie, Ogou countered.

  He’s got guns, Legba whined.

  Lead’s like flies to the Furies, Ogou argued. He’ll do little more than piss it off.

  “I’ve got work to do,” Dub snarled.

  And then, as if in answer, the air seemed to open before him. He smelled brimstone and coal-smoke, and something heavy and metallic thumped on the dirt floor before him. Dub, having closed his eyes to palaver with the lwa, opened them. Before him lay what looked like a long, broad knife in a beaten leather scabbard.

  A machete.

  He laid one hand on the grip, the other on the scabbard, prepared to loose the blade. He heard Ogou in his ear, as if the god of war stood just over his shoulder.

  That’s my saber, the war lwa said. The Machette d’Ogou. She’s thirsty, doc. You loose her in the night, she’s gonna want guilty blood before dawn.

  Guilty human blood.

  “So you’re tellin’ me this’ll do against the Furies,” Dub said, “but I still gotta give it some human blood before the night’s done?”

  Just so, Legba said gravely.

  “And if she doesn’t get it?” Dub asked, still waiting to draw the machete.

  If she don’t get blood from the guilty, said Ogou, she’ll take it from the innocent. If you sheathe her before she’s tasted it, she’ll put the hunger in you, and you’ll never be rid of it, long as you live.

  “Can I see her safe hereabouts?” Dub asked, sure he could hear the machete cooing at him, purring inside its scabbard like a woman awaiting his touch; eager to be undressed and caressed.

  Just this once, said Ogou.

  Dub drew the machete from the scabbard.

  When it touched the air, the blade caught fire.

  Chapter 13

  Sooner or later, for everyone, the time comes to jump or walk. That time came for Aces & Eights, and the joint jumped. By seven ‘o clock, the dining room was filling, the first courses were served, and the band took the stage to start the night’s entertainment. They opened with a piece called “Minor Swing,” and it swung like a juke joint Jezebel with dislocated hips. Waiters careened among the tables and chairs, bearing their trays of seemingly-innocuous soft drinks (usually spiked with something from the secret bar in the larder), cigarette girls with long legs clad in complimentary fishnet hose and big bright smiles made rounds, and anyone standing lower stage right, staring out on the crowd, would note a curious fact about the ever-denser sea of faces filling the club.

  They were all sorts: black, white, yellow, and everything in between. In one breathless, deft fell swoop, Harlem had integrated, and almost no one had noticed.

  The Queen Bee had that view of the proceedings when she emerged from the stage right corridor into the dining room. It did her heart a small measure of good, and she allowed herself a smile and a moment of warmth.

  But there were some patrons she wasn’t so happy to see.

  Harry Flood, for instance, had a table beside Teddy Michansky. High-rollers, sure, but they were predators with their eye on the place, and their beer baron bulldog, Dolph Storms, sat nearby looking just as greasy and unwashed as the day he’d tried to st
rong-arm Madame Marie into buying his suds.

  There were none of the old greaser Dago families represented—they didn’t go in for jungle bunny swing or jungle bunny company—but some of the young turks were on hand. The Queen Bee recognized Carmine Dicicco, a young slick she’d heard word of, marked by an olive face, blue eyes, and red hair. Just to judge on the eyes and hair, he looked more Mick than wop, but the skin tone was right, and so was the air: Old World cool; a certain nonchalance and stillness. She could see instantly that the kid had quality and she made a mental note that she’d have to track him more carefully.

  Butch Vena—who was Guinea by birth but hung with the Irish—and Ralph Mandolare, from the Bronx Italians, were also on hand. They were small-timers looking for angles to play—the sort of men who’d never rise above captain rank, though they probably sported hard-ons when they dreamed at night of bigger and better things. Little matter. Their presence here, like the presence of all the others, made one thing clear: there were parties interested in acquiring an interest in the club. They’d try to charm and finesse her if they thought it was a success; they’d try to strong-arm and terrify her if they thought it was a slam-dunk. She told herself to remember that: the harder they pushed to partner, the more attractive the club was to them. If they came at her hard in the weeks to come, she knew she was doing something right.

  And she’d hold her own. No matter how hard they pushed, she wouldn’t sell even the smallest interest. This place was gonna stay in her hands—black hands—and it was gonna put money in black pockets and feed black families. That was that.

  So she put on her best cathouse moll’s grin, shook hands, accepted kisses, laughed, welcomed and generally spread warmth and love and gaiety. All the while, the band blew hot, swaying the guests about in their seats, and the smells of hot victuals, spiked drinks, and new cigars filled the room. The Queen Bee rode a wave of frolic and good will, and for a little while, she almost forgot about the pall on the place; the furtive, benighted malignancy that seemed to drip from the rafters and seep from the walls and came oozing up out of the foundations like Texas Tea.

  She almost forgot... until Dolph Storms slapped the waiter who delivered his tenderloin.

  XX

  At more or less the same moment that Dolph Storms slapped a waiter on the floor, Gideon Mann heard a terrible racket near the side stairwell just outside the cavernous kitchen and followed the commotion. Within moments, he’d come upon the deliveryman, Calvin, tangled up with a number of busboys and waiters amid a mess of fallen, shattered plates and glasses, dirty old dishwater and half-finished cocktails. The busboys were trying to clean the mess and get back on their feet. Calvin floundered wildly, trying to loose himself from the tangle, a wild look in his wide, dim eyes that suggested haste; hurry; fear.

  Something was up. Gideon got a fistful of Calvin’s collar and hauled him to his feet. The dummy blinked at him and shook his head.

  “Ain’t done nothin’, sir!” he stammered. “Ain’t done nothin’. I’s just deliverin’ the goods, like told. Full case! Good champagne! I did what I’s s’posed to do, sir! If I could just go—”

  “What’re you on about, Calvin?” Gideon demanded. “Who sent champagne?”

  “Son of a bitch,” one of the busboys muttered, cleaning up the mess.

  “Blind, deaf, and dumb,” another one spat.

  “Run right into us, Mr. Mann!” the third grated. “Boy, why don’t you watch where you’s goin’?”

  “Ain’t done nothin’!” Calvin kept saying. “Just deliverin’ the goods, like I’s told.” He was yanking against Gideon’s grip, eager to hit the door.

  “Who signed him in?” Gideon asked the busboys.

  “How the hell should we know?” one of them asked.

  Gideon heard a new voice—Lyle, one of the line cooks.

  “He just brought a crate in, Mr. Mann,” Lyle said. “Bubbly. Had him put it back in the second larder—”

  “Show me,” Gideon said, and Calvin went crazy in his grip, wiggly as a feral cat.

  “Aw, please, hell, sir!” he bawled. “I’s just doin’ as I’s told! Just makin’ a delivery!”

  Gideon understood. He shoved Calvin into the waiting grip of the three busboys. “Hold him! Knock him out, if you got to!” he said, and marched away. “Lyle!” he roared, “Show me the crate!”

  Lyle led Gideon into the second larder, adjacent to the north stairs, pulled open the huge sliding door, and pointed at the case of champagne in question. Gideon lunged for the crate, tore off its loosely-nailed lid, and drew out four bottles at once, two in one fist, two in another.

  Beneath, he saw the clunky mess of loose wiring that he hoped he wasn’t going to see. He yanked out two more bottles; two more; two more—the gizmo underneath took up the whole floor of the case!

  “Mr. Mann?” Lyle asked.

  “Go help the busboys hold Calvin!” Gideon shouted, and finally tore the bomb loose from the floor of the crate. It was a jury-rigged raft of stick dynamite, electrician’s tape, loose wiring, and the clacking guts of an old alarm clock. Gideon held it out before him like a hot plate, ripe for delivery on the floor, and made a bee line back through the kitchen toward the loading dock and the alleyway.

  “Out of the way!” he roared as he raced. “Everybody out of my way!”

  He saw terrified faces; confusion; consternation; puzzlement. He heard screams, sighs, mutters, the clack and clatter common to kitchens the world over. He moved faster, bearing the construction out before him and knowing it would do no good whatsoever. If it went here, in his hands, in the kitchen, he’d be blown to bits and Aces & Eights would lose its ass-end. He had to get it out; out into the alley way; out where it could do as little internal damage as possible.

  He caromed past Calvin. The bumpkin still fought and flailed against the four pairs of hands now holding him. He screamed girlishly when Gideon came tottering forward, the bomb held out before him, as though the Queen Bee’s main enforcer might make him eat the thing.

  “Aw Christ! Nosir, nosir, nosir!!!” he sang.

  Gideon cut left, toward the loading doors; toward the dock and the wide alley out back. Spare hands on their cigarette breaks at the doors saw him coming; saw the bomb; spat all sorts of curses and scattered every which way.

  Gideon rushed into the open air and heaved the bomb into the alley. Just as it left his hands, he heard the old, rusty bells of the gutted alarm clock start clattering.

  XX

  But before all that came to pass, there remained the matter of Dolph Storms manhandling of one of the Queen Bee’s servers. When she’d heard the commotion, she made for Storms’s table. Storms leveled one pale, bratwursty finger at the waiter and growled in his sick, fucked up accent something about jig, spit, steak, son of a bitch. Madame Marie arrived and tried to keep her best hostess’s smile on her face. The beer baron smelled, per usual, like a brauhaus, and his tuxedo hung ill on him like something untailored mounted on the wrong dress form.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Storms?” she asked. The waiter who’d gotten clipped stood at attention like a soldier, staring straight ahead. She could see he was wrestling with shame and fury. He wanted to hit Storms right back—but that wouldn’t fly. Not tonight.

  “This son of a bitch spit in my food,” Storms said.

  Madame Marie looked to the kid. “Wally?”

  “No, ma’am,” he responded. “I told the gentleman I did no such thing.”

  “You lyin’ little jig fagot! I can see it on your face! I saw you as you came out the back hall—”

  His voice rose, carrying over the hoot and holler of the band on stage. Madame Marie bent nearer. “Mr. Storms, would you like another plate?”

  “I wanna see this little shit whipped like he oughta be! Make it part of the evening’s entertainment! Liven this place up!” He smiled crookedly, saw a pale-faced downtowner staring sideways at him, and shot to his feet, lunging. “What’re you lookin’ at, fucko!?!”

&nbs
p; Somewhere nearby, a lightbulb in a wall sconce exploded with a corkish pop.

  Things would spiral out of control—she felt it coming—unless she could get them nailed down fast.

  Harry Flood approached then—a broad little fireplug of a man, well-groomed and neatly put together. This was Storms’s boss; the de facto head of the Irish racketeers out of Chelsea. Marie knew he’d be cordial—he was a good businessman—but he was also not to be crossed. He took a place beside Madame Marie and crossed his hands before him. “Is there a problem here, Madame?”

  “Mr. Flood, good to see you.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” the Irishman said, not a trace of brogue in his measured voice. The Queen Bee knew the Flood Brothers came off a boat when they were kids. How long did Harry have to practice to lose his Belfast clip? “Nice place, madame. You know how to pick ‘em.”

  “My thanks,” she said.

  “Christ a’mighty, Harry,” Storms howled, rolling his watery eyes. “Where do you get off, talking sweet to a yellow dame like this?”

  “Dolph,” Flood said, maintaining his permanent cool. He had a cigarette clamped between his fingers, and he poked it toward his bulldog to punctuate his statements. “We’re guests this evening. Try to show a little grace, eh?”

  “Grace, hell!” Storms howled. “This black bastard spit in my—”

  “You can have a new plate, or you can have a refund and be on your way,” Madame Marie offered. “What’ll it be, sir?”

  Storms was on his feet now, towering over her, blowing his beer, brat, and sen-sen breath in her face. “And who the fuck are you, Granny Bluegums? Talkin’ to me that way?”

  Marie shivered. Had the temperature dropped? She took a quick look around; noted a number of the lady guests in their off-the-shoulder numbers drawing up their purely-for-show mink and fox fur stoles as they shivered.

  They felt it too. The chill.

  Despite her relief at having Harry Flood to help her wrangle a gorilla like Storms, Marie felt a new fear. Something else was happening. Something wrong. She saw the eyes of all the patrons on her; felt their fear; their nerves; their growing restlessness. Then she heard Harry Flood, speaking beside her, still berating his cohort.