Aces & Eights

by Dale Lucas

  He leapt, climbing up onto the crane and scrambling toward the fulcrum where the arm was anchored. Reaching out sent sharp pain through his shoulder. The weight on his leg made his thigh throb. He’d pushed himself too hard—his power was waning.

  House’s gunmen opened fire, following him right up the length of the steel arch, and the warehouse was awash in the ringing clatter of hot lead bouncing off cold steel.

  House couched the butt of his Tommy Gun, ready to throw a burst at the Queen Bee.

  The Baron, with a better angle on the bastard from high up, bounded out onto the narrow length of the crane arm, blasting away at House below. He caught two of House’s henchmen in their faces and down they went; splintered the railing of the catwalk; planted a hot barrage square into the Tommy Gun’s flank and through House’s left wrist.

  House screamed. He let loose, finger squeezing the trigger, but without his left arm to brace it, the Tommy swung with the recoil and all the shots went low and wide, stitching a line through the muck in the gator pen below.

  The gator leapt again toward the kicking, flailing Queen Bee. With a scream, she snapped up her legs and narrowly escaped losing a limb.

  As the gator fell back to the muck, the Baron whipped off the Serpent d’Ogou—the 20 foot long coil of red silk that was curiously alive in his grip, awaiting command. And though it seemed feather-light to the touch, it had heft when he whipped it downward and wrapped a length of it, taut as a bullwhip, round the thickness of the arm of the crane.

  He launched himself into space, fell, felt the Serpent go taut in his grasp—Goddamn, he felt that!—then he was whipped backward, swinging like Tarzan on a vine beneath the Queen Bee, dipping down toward the mud of the gator pit.

  The gator saw him, opened its maw, and sprang.

  The Baron drew one of his pistols from its holster and emptied the clip down the gator’s throat.

  The gator rattled under the weight of the gunshots and fell out of the air, mid-spring, dead as Judas.

  The Baron’s swing carried him upward. Momentum yanked the arm of the crane sideward and the whole structure swung toward the catwalk; toward Papa House; toward his last standing goons.

  The Baron opened fire on the goons and downed the lot—though his head shots favored one eye or the other, and his center-mass clusters hammered more lungs and livers than the hearts they were aimed at. His swing brought him up toward the catwalk. The crane arm followed him, pivoting under the force of his swing. He kicked and shattered himself a path right through the bullet-riddled railing, then loosed his grip on the Serpent d’Ogou and sailed right toward House. He slammed into him with terrific force, and down they went.

  The Queen Bee screamed as the crane arm swung and settled her dangling form down, pretty-as-you-please, on the wooden catwalk. With a place to plant her feet, she could pull herself loose of the hook easily, and then set to wriggling out of her bonds.

  The Dread Baron crouched atop House’s massive, fallen form. He struggled to catch his breath as he popped the empty clip from his .45 and went rooting for another.

  You’re tryin’ me, boy, Ogou said.

  “We’ll finish this soon enough,” the Baron said aloud.

  House seemed to take those words—intended for Ogou—as a personal challenge. The Baron thought he was out cold, but the crime boss suddenly bucked, roaring like his pet gator, and threw the Dread Baron off of him as though he were light as a child.

  Strong, that one. And desperate.

  The Baron was done playing. He threw down his pistol and drew the Machette d’Ogou. It’s black iron blade bled heat and flame.

  House dove for a nearby revolver.

  The Baron sprang, raising the machete high.

  Then a new form slammed into him broadside—one of House’s goons, not quite dead, still showing a little fight despite a couple of seeping wounds. The big Negro drove the Baron hard into the outer railing of the catwalk and the Baron felt the whole mess splinter and give a little beneath him.

  House raised the revolver.

  The Dread Baron planted one elbow in the goon’s flat face, and as the moose stumbled backward, the Baron brought the flaming machete round in a bright, flaming arc.

  The goon’s head whirled into the gator pit; his body collapsed on the catwalk.

  House pulled the trigger. The Baron felt a hammer-blow in his left shoulder.

  Ogou! he shouted inwardly. That came through loud and clear!

  Gettin’ tired, the lwa said. Sun’s comin’ up soon.

  Then there were shouting voices, heavy footfalls, and new arrivals. The Queen Bee’s soldiers had made it to the aft end of the warehouse. They fanned out on the catwalk, lowering all their weapons toward Papa House and telling him to drop his gun.

  But House didn’t listen. He shot one sidelong glance at the Dread Baron—his new mortal enemy—and smiled crookedly.

  The Baron raised his pistols and asked, “What?”

  “You’re bleeding,” House said and nodded toward the Baron’s shoulder.

  The Baron glanced, just for a second. There was no blood. House squeezed off three more shots—every one taking the Baron square in the chest—then dove off the catwalk into the mud and muck of the gator pen below. The Baron, still upright and breathing, reeled from the kill shots.

  Ogou... he whispered inwardly.

  I got you, boy, the lwa said.

  The Baron recovered as the Queen Bee’s soldiers, led by the unstoppable Gideon Mann, all crowded at the railing and lowered their weapons. Before they could open fire, House dove right into the river.

  Every weapon barked thunder, spat flame. The Baron lit up both barrels. The Queen Bee’s troops slung lead right beside him Their bullets tore the surface of the cold, gray Harlem River... but the Dread Baron knew they’d missed him. Papa House was a survivor. He’d turn up again.

  But that wasn’t the Baron’s problem anymore. Now, he just had to get the hell out of here and get the lead out of his chest and shoulder before the sun came up. Once the slugs were extracted, Erzulie could mend him.

  He moved to the crane, and with a flick of his wrist, urged his lively scarf to disengage. With another upward toss, the Serpent d’Ogou coiled itself mid-air and settled round his throat, a serpent at rest on its master’s shoulders.

  Gideon was at the Queen Bee’s side. Both turned to study the Baron. There was a long, strange silence, no one sure what precisely came next.

  The Baron launched himself nimbly upward, perching on the fulcrum of the crane.

  “Wait a minute!” Gideon said. “Where’re you off to, Cemetery Man?”

  The Dread Baron smiled. The answer, though hardly honest, came easily enough. “Back to the cemetery.”

  “What’s your name, then?” the Queen Bee asked. “You gotta have a name?”

  No one had ever asked him. And he’d never thought about it. Once more, the skull-face smiled. “Just call me Doc.”

  After that, there was no more to say. He sprinted the length of the crane arm, leapt up to the rafters twenty feet above the catwalks, threaded a nimble, feline path through the beamworks, and finally launched himself upward into the night through an open sky-light.

  The night air on the roof of the warehouse was cold and hard, just like a gun left long-unused. He marched forward to the warehouse edge and saw that there were new arrivals below: the cops, en masse. He watched them for a time, and thought for a moment that some of the milling boys in blue below might see him, wondering at the crazy figure he cut against the dark night sky: a figure in flowing black, with a skull face and a fiery red serpent round his throat and a top hat perched jauntily on his crow’s nest of natty dreads.

  Let them talk, he thought. And let them fear...

  With that final determination, the Dread Baron melted into the darkness of the Harlem night, and left the aftermath of all that evening’s travails to more earthly authorities.

  Chapter 16

  Dr. Dub Corveaux let Sunday slid
e by in blissful isolation. He ventured out for breakfast and for a stroll in the park, but he spoke to no one and was happy to do so. The day was sunny but cold, and everyone seemed to be talking about the upset at Aces & Eights the night before; of gunmen and crooked cops and nearly two dozen dead and scores more injured, both grievously and otherwise. The nightclub was a charred ruin. It was a minor miracle that it hadn’t taken the whole block with it. Strangely, when folks talked of these things in the good doctor’s hearing, they did so not with sorrow or shame or fear, but with a sort of bottled-up excitement: Imagine! All that unfolding, right here in Harlem! Things were really heating up! The Queen Bee was lucky to still be upright and breathing!

  And then there was the talk of the Cemetery Man. The folks were already amalgamating his many names—the Dread Baron, the Cemetery Man, Samedi, the Witch Doctor—and Dub heard at least two men separated by many blocks and many hours refer to him by the same name.

  Doc Voodoo—Harlem’s own dread baron.

  The good doctor supposed that would have to do.

  He did not look for Fralene, and on that Sunday, she did not seek him out. Legba, Ogou, and Erzulie made no demands of him come sundown, and Dr. Dub Corveaux ended the day as he began it: alone; rested; ready to meet the coming week and its challenges as they came. He slept hard and had no dreams.

  By Monday, lunchtime, Fralene had found him again, and she apologized for leaving him in such a huff on Friday. She acknowledged his right not to get involved in Harlem’s social troubles, but she made it clear she hoped to change his mind in time. For her part, she would not tire. She’d keep holding meetings; keep beating down the mayor’s door and making demands of their councilmen; keep fighting to make Harlem the Negro Mecca that she knew it could be.

  Dr. Dub Corveaux assured her that he would have expected no less—then asked her if he could take her to dinner once more before the week was done.

  She made him wait awhile for her answer, but her silent smile said yes before her voice did.

  XX

  It was late and the streets deserted when the Dread Baron piggy-backed a downtown train and disembarked on the Lower East Side. The very same tenements that he’d marched beneath a day or two before in broad daylight—still looming, still shadowy, still wafting blight and decay like yawning mouthfuls of carious teeth—were now not half so intimidating. After dark it may be, but he was armed, and he was horsed. There was nothing for him to fear in his present state of readiness.

  At least, he hoped so.

  He heard voices speaking a dozen languages on the night air, heard the squawl of tomcats on the prowl and smelled fires and stewpots and boiled cabbage; he even heard the sound of raucous singing in crowded basement taverns and winesinks; but no one was on the streets. Clearly, even those who dwelt on the Lower East Side knew better than to wander its paved boulevards and cobbled avenues alone after midnight.

  Thus, he found his way back to Magda’s building without encountering a single soul.

  That was good. He was on a mission. He would have hated to cause trouble in someone else’s neighborhood when all he intended was an exorcism, followed by a little much-needed demolition.

  The old witch’s tenement squatted on its foundations, twice as ugly and malevolent and malignant in the muddy early morning darkness as it had been in the light of day. Nonetheless, something was different. He sensed it immediately when he stood before the empty doors and broken windows of the place. When he drew out his Legba veve and let the pendant sway free in his outstretched fist, he knew his senses didn’t lie.

  Old Magda was gone. She’d taken her deadly little maziks and all the terrible, festering black magic resident in the tenement with her. The place still radiated a blunted and diffuse malign intent—the remnant of old entities, embittered desires and vicious impulses—but it was a dead husk now. A shell. A scar on the world attesting to evil’s presence, devoid of all vitality.

  He felt a twinge of regret. If he’d come here horsed from the start, he might have exorcised the evils that the old witch cultivated in that place—maybe even punched her ticket as well. But clearly, she’d sensed his presence, even though he’d been unhorsed, and she’d moved on, seeking a new place to plant her poisoned garden in.

  Well, he wasn’t going anywhere. He may be uptown, and she downtown, but he wagered that sooner or later, he’d get his shot at her again. And next time, he wouldn’t hesitate.

  Alone on that street, swaddled in its inky darkness and penetrated by the loneliness and despair that it bred in any human soul unlucky enough to traverse it, the Dread Baron knew there was only one thing left to do. He drew out the half-smoked stub of a cigar, lit a match with his thumbnail, and puffed away, cultivating the fire in the close-packed tobacco with deep, thoughtful draughts. When he knew he had the fire good and hot, he drew out a souvenir claimed from one of Papa Solomon House’s abandoned weapons caches, a souvenir ferried all the way down here to the Lower East Side, with Magda’s name inscribed on its round and slender length.

  It was a small stick of dynamite with a twenty-second fuse.

  Ambling into the deeper darkness of the tenement’s ground floor, he sought out a doorway to the basement. Locating it, he lit the fuse off the end of his cigar and tossed the explosive right down the open gullet of the empty building the old witch had, until recently, occupied. Then he strolled back out into the dark and breezy night.

  The explosion tore the rotted old tenement’s ground supports out from under it and pulverized its rotted foundations. With a roar and an enormous belch of smoke and ancient dust, the superstructure imploded and the whole, haunted mess came crashing down. The Dread Baron didn’t even look back. He was already marching up the street, eager to steal a windy ride on an uptown train.

  Down a sidestreet, he heard a woman scream. Her words were in some guttural Eastern European language that he didn’t know, but the gist was plain enough. When he heard male voices boom-ing predatory laughter in answer, and the woman’s words devolved once more to wordless screams, the situation became clear.

  The Dread Baron stood still in the street for a moment, considering. It wasn’t his neighborhood. It wasn’t his problem.

  But he was here, now. A cry for help was the same in any language.

  He made sure that his pistols were loaded. There were govi grenades in his coat pockets.

  Then he marched off in answer to the call.

  XX

  The Queen Bee was surprised to find Harry Flood in her parlor on a Monday morning. Still, she played the good host, offered the bullish little Irishman a drink and some of the late breakfast that had been prepared for her, and he accepted. He carried a briefcase and he was accompanied by two bodyguards. New faces. The Queen Bee figured his former draft animals had been lost in the mess on Saturday night.

  They drank, they ate, they chatted. Finally, Flood produced some papers and photographs and let the Queen Bee study them. He let her study them for a good, long while before he even spoke his offer aloud.

  “The Kit Kat Club,” he said, suggesting the paperwork and the photos. “New place I’ve been prepping, up on 7th Avenue. I’d like to make you a partner and have you run the place.”

  “A partner?” the Queen Bee asked.

  “Forty-nine percent,” Flood said, “with an option to buy me out once I’ve recouped my initial investments, plus profits. Say, a year at the soonest; three years at the most.”

  The Queen Bee studied the photographs. It was a nice place. And Seventh Avenue didn’t have a spate of supper clubs yet like Lenox did. But why? Why would the Irishman want to do business with her?

  He seemed to read her mind. “You’re wondering what my angle is?” he asked.

  The Queen Bee smiled and nodded. “Doesn’t everybody have one?”

  Flood smiled. “Of course. The angle is money, Miss Merriwether. There’s money to be made in Harlem on supper clubs. I don’t know what precisely went wrong with your previous venture—it seems you
were the unhappy recipient of some rather negative attention, possibly by competitors hereabouts. But the best way for you to bounce back from that mess is to go into business with me. We’ll both make out. And people will see that you’re not afraid to get thrown off the horse without getting back on again.”

  He had a point at that. Still, the Queen knew that Flood’s angle, however seemingly generous to her, had to benefit him in the long run to a greater extent. She was selling part of her own stake in Harlem and surrendering her name and her reputation, being hitched henceforth to Flood’s wagon; to the wagon of the Chelsea rackets.

  But in the state she was in—ruined on Aces & Eights, arguing with the insurance companies about the cause of the fire and the damages, trying to shrug off responsibility for those shootings in the street—could she really afford to turn Flood down?

  What would Gideon say? she wondered. He’s young and he’s proud, and he’s all about making no man—especially a white man—his master. He’d say that Flood was taking advantage of your bad fortune and trying to use you to burrow in deeper here in Harlem. He’d say that if you seriously considered this business and went in for it, you’d be selling yourself, and selling Harlem.

  And he’d be right.

  She sipped her mimosa.

  But Gideon’s not here. And I’m the Queen.

  “You mind if I have my lawyers look over this offer, Mr. Flood?”

  Flood smiled warmly. Part of the Queen actually felt safe with the Irishman. Another part felt a piece of her soul shrivel under his gaze and grin.

  “Take your time. Consider carefully. I’ll be eagerly awaiting your call.”

  The Queen smiled back and offered her hand.

  God damn Harry Flood: he already knew he had her.

  XX

  Clayton Carr craned his neck back and forth again, made sure that no one was watching, then strode quickly across the pavement to the waiting Cadillac and slipped in. Franco Nasario was waiting inside, along with a fat Irish cop that Carr vaguely remembered having met at some point, though the cop was dressed in plainclothes and his name escaped Carr at present.