The Ballad of Black Tom

by Victor Lavalle

  “Don’t you mind people grinning in your face,” Tommy sang. “Don’t mind people grinning in your face.”

  Few on the platform gave him their attention, another guitar man in Harlem being as unremarkable as the arc lights along the sidewalks.

  “I said bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find. Don’t you mind people grinning in your face.”

  Until the end of the work day, Tommy played on the platform. His fingers never tired, his voice never gave out. Early evening he boarded the train to Flatbush. Either he was humming to himself the whole way or the air itself hummed around him.

  9

  “SOME PEOPLE KNOW THINGS about the universe that nobody ought to know, and can do things that nobody ought to be able to do.”

  Robert Suydam said this at half past ten. The party had been going for hours, but Suydam had yet to gather the group’s attention. Instead he’d welcomed Tester early, and then, an hour later, the guests arrived, men and women and some in-between, as varied a group as Suydam had promised. The party was held in the library. All his books had been cleared from the floor. In their place were banquet tables, high-backed chairs, serving carts with cut crystal bottles of liquor—not bootleg swill—and glasses to match. The room babbled with languages. English and Spanish, French and Arabic, Chinese and Hindi, Egyptian and Greek, patois and pidgin. But the only music came from Tester’s guitar. Suydam set Tommy by the bank of tall windows. He played standing beside the great chair. He sang to himself and avoided the eyes of the other guests. Tester knew how to recognize a room full of roughnecks. This bunch qualified. Suydam had haunted waterfronts and back alleys to find this crew of cutthroats. The kind of place Tommy imagined the Victoria Society would be was what these criminals called home sweet home.

  Tester played and played. It was the same tune he’d been singing since morning. He warped and rearranged it, sang the words for a time, then hummed along for a while, and returned to the words again.

  “You know they’ll grin in your face,” Tester sang softly. “They’ll jump you up and down. Just as soon as your back is turned, they’ll be trying to crush you down.”

  His playing was interrupted only once. Robert Suydam came close and raised one hand to stop Tester’s strumming. He leaned in until his mouth was an inch from the guitarist’s ear.

  “You’re with me, then?” Suydam asked. “I want to ask you before I address them. If I am Caesar, you are Octavius.”

  Tester spoke, though his voice strained from all the singing, the words coming out a hoarse whisper. “To the end of this world,” Tester said. “I’m with you.”

  Robert Suydam stepped back and watched Tester’s face solemnly. Tester couldn’t be sure what expression his own face held. Had he said the right thing? He spoke the truth; it would have to do. Finally Robert Suydam turned away, grinning to the crowd, and he slapped the top of the great chair forcefully. The men and women in the room became silent. When he sat in the great chair, the guests found places at the banquet tables. Suydam flicked his hand to send Tester away. No one allowed in the spotlight but him. Tommy wasn’t sure where to go, so he walked to the far end of library and posted himself near the double doors. Then Robert Suydam leaned forward and spoke.

  “Some people know things about the universe that nobody ought to know, and can do things that nobody ought to be able to do,” he said. “I am one of those few. Let me show you.”

  Suydam turned to the tall windows. Night out now and the lights of the bright library turned the panes into a screen just as they had before. Tester watched the crowd of fifty gangsters. He wished to see their reactions as Suydam’s magic played.

  “Your people are forced to live in mazes of hybrid squalor,” Suydam began. “But what if that could change?”

  The image in the windows turned a deep green, the color of the sea as seen from the sky. So they were Outside now? Suydam could do it just that fast? Tester lifted his hands and played, hardly touching the strings, no singing. Suydam looked up and seemed pleased. He played the conjure music quietly. The crowd of rowdies never looked away from the windows, but the music and Suydam’s words worked together, an even stronger spell.

  All the old man said three nights ago was repeated. The Sleeping King. The end of this current order, its civilization of subjugation. The end of man and all his follies. Extermination by indifference.

  “When the Sleeping King awakes, he will reward us with dominion of this world. We will live in the shadow of his grace. And all your enemies will be crushed into dust. He will reward us!” the old man repeated, shouting now. “And your enemies will be crushed!”

  They shouted back. They clapped each other on the shoulders. Founding fathers of a new nation, or even better, a world now theirs to administer and control.

  “I will guide you in this new world!” Suydam called, standing and raising his hands. “And in me you will finally find a righteous ruler!”

  They stamped and knocked over their chairs. They toasted Robert Suydam’s reign.

  But Tommy Tester couldn’t celebrate such a thing. Maybe yesterday the promise of a reward in this new world could’ve tempted Tommy, but today such a thing seemed worthless. Destroy it all, then hand what was left over to Robert Suydam and these gathered goons? What would they do differently? Mankind didn’t make messes; mankind was the mess. Exhaustion washed over Tommy and threatened to drown him. Thinking this way caused Tester to play a series of sour keys.

  Suydam noticed even if others didn’t. He looked up at Tester sharply, but quickly his expression changed. His annoyance shifted to surprise as he saw Tester raise the expensive guitar and bring the body down against the floor. Shattered. Tester turned to the library’s closed double doors. Suydam shouted. First a command, then a plea. Not yet, he called. Not yet, you ape! The old man ran toward Tester, but the rowdy guests got in his way. Robert Suydam watched as Charles Thomas Tester grabbed the two handles and pulled the doors open. Then, to Robert Suydam’s horror, Tommy walked through them and shut the library doors behind him.

  PART 2

  Malone

  10

  MALONE LEFT HARLEM QUICK. He wasn’t returning to the Butler Street police station in Brooklyn, where he’d been detailed for the last six years, but out to Queens, with Mr. Howard, to return the stolen sheet of paper—was it actually paper?—the private detective had been hired to retrieve. The two men watched the Negro guitarist stumble off after being informed of his father’s death, then Malone made a point of thanking the Harlem detectives who called him in one more time.

  They’d reached out to Malone as soon as they took Mr. Howard’s statement. It was possible Mr. Howard dropped Malone’s name, and a handful of bills, to make this phone call happen, but Malone made sure not to ask. Malone arrived, and was shown all the courtesy of a fellow New York City detective. He vouched for Mr. Howard’s character, though, in fact, he thought very little of it, and soon enough the four men sat in the Testers’ kitchen sharing tales about Harlem crime versus Brooklyn crime. Mr. Howard relayed stories of his scrapes as a lawman down in Texas long ago. They had a good time. In the back room the body of the old Negro remained facedown on the floor where he’d died. The man had been shot eleven times, propelled off his mattress and into a wall, but his old guitar hadn’t been damaged at all. The only sign it even belonged at this crime scene was the blood that stained the neck of the instrument. As the four men sat in the kitchen, they agreed the guitar didn’t need to be taken as evidence. Everything was settled as casually as that.

  Now Malone and Mr. Howard made for the 143rd Street entrance. They found themselves on the same train platform where the Negro—son of the deceased—stood playing his guitar. Even Mr. Howard seemed troubled by the reappearance, so the two men waited at the southern end of the platform. The Negro guitarist never opened his eyes while he performed. Malone couldn’t guess the man was headed back to Suydam’s mansion for a party that night. If he’d known, he would’ve followed him, rather than take
the trip out to Ma Att’s home.

  Malone and Mr. Howard never spoke on the train ride out to Queens, and on the walk, their conversation remained clipped. Neither liked the other. They worked together because both had been called in on the Suydam affair. Not that they were making much progress. Malone secretly felt a certain sympathy for Robert Suydam, and disgust for a family working so hard to manufacture some pretense for separating the old man from his wealth. If Suydam wanted to spend his money and time seeking the more orphic knowledge of the world, what business was it to them? Perhaps Malone felt special sympathy because he, too, had a certain sensitivity. Ever since childhood, he’d felt sure there was more to this world than what we touch or taste or see. His time as a detective made him surer of this. Hidden motivations, spectral meanings, a certain subset of crime always offered such things. Most of the time his job allowed him to see petty desperation and conniving, but on occasion he bore witness to clues in a greater mystery.

  For instance, the enigma waiting behind the front door of a cottage in Flushing, Queens. As he and Mr. Howard approached the place, anxiety assaulted Detective Malone. He became rigid even as Mr. Howard seemed at ease. As they approached the front door of Ma Att’s home, the air became muggy and charged. While Malone pulled at his collar and cleared his throat, Mr. Howard remained roundly ignorant. He seemed to be in a good mood, like an enormous dog, gleeful and wild. Mr. Howard reached the door and instead of knocking, he kicked. The door shook and Malone trembled, too. Be careful there, he wanted to warn, but Mr. Howard wasn’t the sort to heed or heel.

  As the sound of footsteps approached, Malone swept a hand through his hair and touched at his collar. Mr. Howard simply kicked the door again. He turned back to Malone, shook his head when he saw Malone looking stricken. He pinched his lips as if he’d like to start kicking the sensitive detective. Then the door opened and an old woman stood at the threshold. Mr. Howard spoke quickly.

  “You’re not too fast on your feet,” he said. “I was about to leave.”

  Malone nearly gasped. Was it Mr. Howard’s tone, his words, or the glimpse of the woman who’d opened the doorway just enough? Since Malone stood farther back from the house than Mr. Howard, he saw her silhouette inside. At the doorway, a stooped, slim woman had appeared, her nose prominent, hair pulled back tightly. But behind that woman, Malone swore he saw—what? More of her. Some great bulk trailed behind her, off into the distance of the gloomy front hall. Nearly anyone else—ones not so sensitive, so attuned—would’ve dismissed this as a trick of the shadows, a bit of bent light. Insensitive minds always dispel true knowledge. But Malone couldn’t ignore the sense of her length, of largeness, behind the figure of this woman at the door. Not a second presence, but the rest of hers. Malone brushed his hair back again if only to disguise the quivering of his right hand.

  Meanwhile Mr. Howard talked to the woman in his standard aggravated tone. But as he spoke, the woman looked over Mr. Howard’s shoulder. When Malone met her gaze, she grinned.

  Mr. Howard reached into his coat and revealed the folded sheet of paper. Malone hadn’t asked to see the page this entire time. Not when they met up in Harlem, not when they waited on the platform, not on the train, nor on the walk here. The words of the Negro guitarist remained with him. Don’t you understand why I kept that page from her? Don’t you understand what she can do with that book? What did the Negro know? This question made him join Mr. Howard on his trip. Curiosity had cursed him since youth.

  The square of parchment paper came out of Mr. Howard’s pocket, and as soon as sunlight touched it, a faint trace of smoke appeared in the air. Malone smelled it before he saw it. A charcoal scent. Ma Att reached out into the light for it. She had an impossibly thin arm, skin the color of desert sand. She grabbed for the sheet, but Mr. Howard—to Malone’s shock—pulled it back.

  “The United States is a country of commerce,” Mr. Howard said. “Remember where you are.”

  In the darkness of the house, something enormous rose, then swayed like the tail of a venomous snake. But Ma Att—the face she showed them—only smiled. She gestured for Mr. Howard to check the mailbox, and there he found an envelope. The private detective looked back at Malone proudly. Malone suddenly expected Ma Att to grab the big man with her tail—could it be a tail?—and pull him inside. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Mr. Howard took the envelope from the mailbox and opened the flap to spy the cash. Ma Att leaned forward, her head and shoulders leaning past the threshold. Her lips parted, gray teeth bared, as if to tear into Mr. Howard’s neck.

  “Your name,” said Malone. “I know I’ve heard it before.”

  The woman, startled, looked at him and pulled back into the doorway. She reached out in a motion too quick for either man to track. She slipped the sheet of parchment paper from between Mr. Howard’s fingers quick.

  Mr. Howard turned to her, and in one motion, grabbed the handle of the revolver he wore on his shoulder. The envelope fell from his hand, and the money scattered across the front steps. A breeze carried some of the bills across the house’s lawn. Mr. Howard scurried after the cash. Malone and Ma Att were alone at the threshold.

  “It’s an Egyptian name, isn’t it?” Malone said. “From what I understood, the woman with that name lived in Karnak.”

  “Oh?” she said. “And how much do you think you truly understand?”

  “Not enough,” Malone admitted.

  The old woman nodded as if pleased by his answer, the deference in it.

  “What is that book?” he asked, so quietly he couldn’t be sure he spoke aloud.

  “The Supreme Alphabet,” Ma Att said.

  “Now you have every page,” Malone said.

  “Come inside my home,” Ma Att cooed. “I’ll show you all the things I can spell with a little spilled blood.”

  Malone shuffled backward to the sidewalk. He never turned away from Ma Att. He never blinked. She laughed once and slammed her door. He found Mr. Howard on his knees in the grass counting his money. Malone ran off—actually sprinted—back to Brooklyn, back to his precinct. Mr. Howard shouted something, but Malone didn’t listen, couldn’t hear over the sound of his own panicked breathing.

  Malone never expected he’d return to Ma Att’s home again, but he was wrong. He’d be back one more time, but by then it would be too late.

  11

  THE SUYDAM CASE came to a close, at least for those litigious relatives. A court date was set and Suydam appeared before the judge, acting as his own legal counsel. The lawyers of the extended family argued that Suydam had become erratic and senile, but Suydam explained he’d become engrossed in his education, the learning a man disdains in his twenties but yearns for in his sixties. There’s no better student than one who’s reached retirement age. The judge, a man in his sixties, found this suggestion flattering and true.

  As secondary proof of Suydam’s decline, the family’s lawyers brought affidavits from ten of his neighbors in Flatbush proclaiming the odd hours, and odder characters, coming in and out of Suydam’s mansion. One night, it was attested, he’d entertained a swarthy army in his home. But Suydam explained this away as well. His learning had been in the fields of religion and myth, and New York offered the rare bounty of citizens from fifty different nations—a hundred backward tribes—many recent arrivals to the United States. Who better to interview about the beliefs of their people? He wasn’t a madman, but an amateur anthropologist. If he was too old to travel the world anymore, well, New York brought the world to him.

  Malone attended the trial each day, and when Suydam explained his esoteric interests, he felt affection for the old man. In the entire courtroom, Malone felt sure, only Suydam contained a soul as sensitive as his own, as aware of the greater mysteries.

  In the end, the judge admitted Suydam’s actions, and his company, might give any member of discreet society pause, but that hardly constituted reason to have the man committed to a hospital or stripped of his means. Suydam won out the day, sent his family, and
their lawyers, slinking. Mr. Howard had been in the courtroom to offer testimony, but once the case was decided, the family no longer needed him. He made plans to return to Texas. He and Malone shared no tearful good-byes. A handshake was all, and good riddance. Malone’s superiors returned him to regular duties in Brooklyn, and it was this return to his usual routine that, oddly, brought Malone back into contact with Robert Suydam. It had to, with Malone’s work on the illegal-immigrant beat.

  The legal immigrants of Europe—German and English, Scottish and Italian, Jewish, French, Irish, Scandinavian—all were welcomed through the immigration center on Ellis Island. A number of Chinese were permitted through this channel as well. But what about the rest? Malone’s beat in Brooklyn brought him through neighborhoods thick with Syrians and Persians, Africans, too. How did they arrive in Brooklyn in such hordes? There were other, less famous ports for such immigrants, of course, but there was also a third channel, the illegal routes known only to human smugglers. Malone was concerned with this third path. It was his job, in fact. His superiors had him on the illegal-immigrant beat before Suydam’s case and returned him to it afterward. Of the police working at the Butler Street station—perhaps of all the cops in New York City—Malone might’ve been the sole one who didn’t loathe the role. The Negro, Charles Thomas Tester, had been right when he spied Malone’s notebook—all those symbols and sigils—and counted him as a seeker of secrets. What better place to unearth them than the foreigner-filled warrens of Red Hook?