by Harvey Click
The grandfather clock downstairs was tolling midnight. He looked at the piece of paper and yelled, “Joy spell har!”
“What’s that you said?” the voice asked.
“Nades Suradis Maniner!” he yelled. “Holly! Joy spell har!”
Now he heard the click-clack of shoes or cloven hooves or maybe something worse ascending the stairs, and he realized that the spell was going wrong in some dreadful way, summoning up someone—or something—other than Holly. Just one little blunder, Drew had said, and God alone knew what might happen.
He hoped he could fix things if he performed the rest of the ritual just right. “Nades Suradis Maniner!” he yelled as loudly as he could. “Holly! Joy spell har!”
“Are you sick in there?” the devilish voice asked just outside the bathroom door.
There was a ghostly tapping at the door, and he scrambled up in such a panic that his feet slid on a puddle of vinegar and honey at the bottom of the slippery tub. He fell backward and banged his head so hard on the rim that for a moment his ears rang like bells and he could see nothing but fiery red spots floating in satanic darkness.
When he opened his eyes, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen was leaning over the tub and stroking his vinegar-drenched forehead. Her eyes were dark as ripe olives, her full lips were painted pink as peaches, and her smooth skin was exactly the color of buckwheat honey!
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I heard you fall and thought maybe you needed some help in here.”
“I’m okay,” he said, and then he realized he was stark naked and his privates were dripping with honey. “I was taking a bath and I slipped.”
The woman smiled. “When I take a bath I always find it helps to pour some water first. Well, I’ll go downstairs and give you some privacy now. Hurry up and get dressed. There’s a suit and shirt for you hanging there.”
She pointed to the bathroom door, where some clothes were hanging on the door hook inside a plastic dry-cleaner’s bag. She left and shut the door behind her.
Bewildered and still dazed from the bump on his head, he hurriedly rinsed the vinegar out of his hair, washed off the honey, and slicked his wet hair back with his comb. Apparently the love spell had attracted the wrong woman, but already he was deciding Holly wasn’t so special after all, and after all the mean things she’d said it served her right if Drew’s magic provided him with a better alternative.
He pulled the clothes out of the plastic bag and was amazed to find a creamy white shirt with fancy ruffles all down the front and a raspberry-colored suit. The pants were a couple inches too short, showing off his white socks and dirty white tennis shoes, and when he slipped on the jacket he found it was tight in the shoulders and too small to button without exhaling all his breath, but then the only suit he owned back home was even smaller than this one and was a drab mud-brown instead of bright raspberry.
He figured raspberry was probably a popular color here in the city, and though it wasn’t a shade he would have picked for himself he thought it would make him look up to date and snazzy. After having made what must have been a pretty bad first impression on the woman, he wanted to look good and snazzy.
He put his wallet in his suit pocket, stuffed the empty vinegar and honey bottles into his bag, and then remembered the paper amulet and stuck it in a suit pocket so Rue wouldn’t find it.
The beautiful woman with buckwheat honey skin was waiting for him in the living room. “You ready?” she asked.
“Ready for what?”
“Ready to go someplace nice.”
“Just a minute.”
He put his bag in the corner beside the sofa, got the vial of love potion from the pocket of his leather jacket, and put a dab behind each ear.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Just some aftershave.”
She gave him such a beautiful smile that he splashed some more, a lot more, on his cheeks and the back of his neck. He stuck the vial into a pocket of his suit jacket just in case he wanted to use some more later and followed her out into the chilly night air.
***
A long black Cadillac was parked out front. As they approached it, a rear window slid down, and Jason’s spirits sank when Mingo’s face appeared.
“My my, don’t you look fine,” he said.
The beautiful woman got in the backseat beside Mingo and Jason got in beside her. She reached past him to shut the door because Jason was too befuddled to think of doing it himself, and the window slid up all by itself. The white driver glanced back just long enough for Jason to see that he looked lean and mean and was wearing dark sunglasses even though it was around midnight.
“Where we going?” Jason asked.
“That suit is used but just slightly,” Mingo said. “I didn’t know your shoe size, but we can work on that.”
As the car eased quietly onto the street, Jason noticed an old blue Hudson parked across the street from Rue’s. Even in the darkness he was able to make out Hatter’s fedora through the driver’s window.
“I think Jason’s a little stunned,” the beautiful woman said. “He just had a nasty knock on the head.”
“Didn’t fall down the stairs again, did you?” Mingo said, and he let out a soft easy laugh. “I sent Kyra in to fetch you ‘cause I figured if she couldn’t lure you out of that terrible house, then nobody could. She’s a foxy lady, isn’t she?”
“Yep,” Jason said. She was wearing a short pink skirt, and he stared at her bare leg just an inch from his.
“Kyra manages one of my clubs,” Mingo said. “This lady’s going places. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and a pretty one at that.”
“Where we going?” Jason asked.
“I got a sweet proposition for you,” Mingo said. “I thought maybe you’d like a nice easy job. How does that sound? You told me your driver’s license says you’re twenty-one. Is that true?”
“Yep.”
“Let me see it.”
Jason fished the license out of his wallet and handed it to him.
“I don’t see the name Jason anywhere here,” Mingo said. “I see the name Dennis Mitchell.”
“I hate the name Dennis so everyone calls me Jason.”
“Well, it looks right enough. I’ve seen enough fake IDs in my time I can smell ‘em twenty feet away.”
Mingo handed the fake ID back to Jason, who put it back in his wallet, right in front of his real driver’s license.
“How’d she get in there?” Jason asked. “Rue told me she changed the locks.”
Mingo laughed and said, “Jason, when you got good friends, doors of opportunity just open up for you. I got lots of good friends of all kinds and sorts, even locksmiths.”
He lit a joint and handed it to Kyra, who took a hit and handed it to Jason.
“How about a little sound, Leonard?” Mingo said.
The driver pushed a button, and soft jazz swelled quietly out of all the corners of the car.
“I seem to remember telling you to get out of that terrible house,” Mingo said. “Isn’t that exactly what I told you? I’m awfully disappointed you didn’t heed my words, and I admit at first I felt pretty mad at you, yeah, pretty damn mad, and I guarantee you something, you never ever want me mad at you. But then I cooled down and got to thinking it’s better to be friends than to be mad. Don’t you think so?”
“Yep,” Jason said.
“I’m a real good kind of friend to have,” Mingo said. “Take this reefer, for example. This is the best black African reefer money can buy, mixed with Turkish hash and just enough opium to mellow things out. Now where you going to find reefer like that unless you’ve got good friends?”
“I dunno,” Jason said.
He’d taken only three or fours hits, and already his head was beginning to rock up and down. Kyra handed the joint back to him, and after he exhaled he wasn’t even sure he could talk. The car glided along and soft jazz played and no one spoke for a while.
“Yeah, I’
m a real good kind of friend to have,” Mingo said. “I take care of my friends. As for my enemies, well, I take care of them too.” He let out a soft easy laugh.
“What kind of job?” Jason managed to say at last.
“An easy job,” Mingo said. “Pretty women, nice folks, good music, fine food. What do you think draws men to clubs? Good-looking women of course, and that’s why I hire foxy ladies like Kyra. So what draws women to clubs? Good-looking men of course, and you don’t look too bad yourself when you’re cleaned up nice. Here we are.”
Chapter Nine
The driver pulled into a crowded parking lot and stopped behind a large building. Kyra reached past Jason to open his door, and they all got out. Mingo unlocked a steel fire exit, and when they stepped in Jason saw a hallway with restrooms and a stairs and heard music and laughter coming from somewhere down the hall.
“Let’s go to my office,” Mingo said, and Jason followed him up the stairs while Kyra, to his disappointment, didn’t. Mingo unlocked his office door and switched on the light.
It wasn’t a big room, but it made a good attempt at pretending to be. There was a big desk and behind it were some big shelves stocked with plenty of liquor bottles. Mingo sat on a big chair behind his big desk and motioned Jason to sit in the little chair that faced it.
“The place downstairs is called The Way,” Mingo said. “It’s a class joint, and I own eleven other clubs every bit as classy. I’ll start you out as a doorman. Easy job, you check IDs and if things get rough you might have to play bouncer, but this is a class joint and things almost never get rough here. Just nice upscale folks out for fine food and good music and maybe a little dancing. The pay’s minimum wage to start, but if you learn how to smile real nice and make everyone happy, you can work your way up to waiter, and the tips are damn good here. You ever had single-malt scotch, Jason?”
“Yep. I drink it all the time.”
Mingo got a bottle from the shelf and poured two glasses.
“Try some of this. I swear it’s smoother than a six-hundred-dollar whore. You don’t put ice or water in this stuff, it’s too damn good for that.
“So here’s the deal. I got nice apartments on the floors above us, and on this floor I got some nice single rooms. I can give you a single room, rent comes out of your pay of course, and you get thirty percent off one meal per day, best damn food in town.
“There’s just one condition—from now on you don’t go anywhere near Rue. That’s all done and finished whether you take the job or not, understand what I’m saying? You stay far, far away from that raunchy-ass pussy from now on.”
“Why? You said she ain’t your girlfriend.”
“She isn’t. She used to be, but that’s all done and finished. I had to cut it off when I saw how junkyard crazy she is. Except in her mind it’s not over. Let me tell you something about Rue. Do you believe in witches?”
“Yep. A couple a them moved into town when I was a kid. Pretty soon the milk went sour and some people they didn’t like got sick. They was run out of town when they went after the constable. He come down with boils so bad his face looked like a toadstool.”
“Good, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I knew she was a witch from the beginning, she doesn’t even try to hide it. At first I dug her witchcraft—things were great, good luck like you wouldn’t believe. I picked up two clubs for a song ‘cause the mayor was doing some funny business with a development company, and then one of my worst enemies had a sudden stroke and hasn’t spoke a word since to this very day, and the list goes on.
“So at first things were great, but after I gave her the heave-ho the good juju turned to bad hoodoo. You ever had a real bad nightmare, Jason, like you’re buried six feet under and you’re suffocating?”
“I guess sometimes.”
“Then you wake up thrashing ‘round ‘cause you’re suffocating, and what do you see? You see her crouching over you like a panther, and she’s naked and she’s got your pecker stuffed so deep inside her it’s like to be ripped off at the root, and she’s humping away real slow and nasty, sucking all the breath and life out of you.
“Except it isn’t really Rue—it’s got Rue’s face but when it opens its mouth it’s got long sharp teeth and its tongue is long and black and pointy at the end like the head of a poisonous snake. You turn on the light and the Rue-thing leaps off the bed and scuttles off to the corner and slowly fades away, but you can feel it’s still crouched there staring at you. And then you feel all wore out like she’s got the life sucked right out of you, and old Willy-boy’s a mess down there, aching and tired like he’s been pulling a train all night. How’s that scotch?”
“Real smooth.”
The marijuana seemed to be creeping up stronger and stronger, and Jason was so stoned his arms felt like lead and the room seemed to be tilting like a ship.
Mingo topped off their glasses and said, “And then there’s the pains. You’re out doing business feeling fine, and then all of a sudden there’s a jab in your stomach just like someone’s poking a needle in a voodoo doll. Maybe the next day you’re in the middle of something important, maybe you’re having a nice talk with the mayor, and then all of a sudden there’s a sharp jab in your ass so you can’t even stand up straight. The mayor’s staring at you, and you’re bent over clutching your ass groaning. So that’s the kind of shit you’re in for, Jason, if you don’t get away from that woman. You hear what I’m saying?”
“So you’re trying to protect me, is that it?”
“No, I’m trying to protect myself. Since I gave Rue the heave-ho she’s been going through boy-toys like bonbons. There were three before you, one with bright red hair, one with long black hair, and the last one was a brunette. Now she thinks she’s got herself a blond, but she don’t ‘cause you’re all over and done with her, aren’t you?
“So here’s the strange part—every time she’s got herself a new boy-toy, her power gets stronger. Somehow she draws power from those boys, and it gets stronger and stronger, and then all of a sudden it gets so strong that I’ve got nasty pains coming out the wazoo. Then you know what happens?”
“Nope.”
“Then the boy-toy disappears. Just flat-out vanishes into thin air and nobody ever sees him again. I ask my friends to keep their eyes open, but nobody sees hide nor hair. You want to vanish into thin air like that, Jason?”
“No sir.”
“Good. Then you keep away from that raunchy-ass pussy from now on, you hear?”
“Yes sir.”
“Yesterday I knew she had herself a new boy-toy ‘cause I started getting sharp jabs in my left gonad like to send me through the ceiling. That’s why I came and paid you a visit. I figured Rue wouldn’t be home at that hour ‘cause she likes to go out and roam around at night like some kind of deadly animal.”
Mingo reached in his wallet and handed him ten dollars. “Tomorrow go to a Goodwill store and buy yourself a nice pair of used shoes with this. Then put on your nice suit and your nice shoes and show up here at 6:00 p.m. Your shift starts at 7:00, but Kyra will have to show you around and fill out your paperwork first.”
“Yes sir.”
“Tell you what, Jason, we had a nice talk but I got business to attend to. You go on downstairs and get a feel for the place, have a couple drinks on the house if you want. Kyra’s down there, maybe she’ll keep you company.”
“Yes sir.”
Jason swallowed the rest of his whisky and made his way down the stairs with some difficulty. The Way was a long room with a mahogany bar stretching most of the length. Near the entrance was a small stage with a jazz quartet playing not too loudly, the saxophone sweetly stretching some tune Jason half recognized but couldn’t name.
In front of the stage was a small area devoid of tables where a few couples were dancing slowly, but the rest of the room was packed with tables, most of them laden with bottles, beer mugs, wineglasses, ashtrays and elbows. At this late hour few customers were eating but al
l were drinking, and the air was a blue haze of swirling cigarette smoke. The clothes looked expensive and so did the people wearing them.
Jason milled around looking for Kyra but didn’t see her. The musicians and at least half the customers were black. He had never been around so many black people before and felt awkward, especially since his raspberry jacket was too tight and his raspberry pants too short and his tennis shoes so dirty. He made a point of smiling at people but nobody smiled back, though some of them seemed to sneer and a guy with weird braids grinned at his date and said, “Dig the crazy threads.”
Finally he sat on a tall stool at the bar, and a beefy black bartender with a pirate earring came over. “I want some single-malt scotch, and I don’t want no ice or water in it,” Jason said. “You can make that a double. Mingo says it’s on the house. Me and him’s good friends.”
“Lemme see some ID,” the bartender said. He scowled at the fake driver’s license for a long time but eventually brought a glass of whiskey, rather skimpy for a double Jason thought.
The saxophone had stopped, and now the piano was teasing out the tune. Jason sipped his whisky and tried to figure out what the song was—probably something he’d heard once in a movie on TV, one of those old song-and-dance movies his mother had always enjoyed.
Jason liked music. He had learned a few, though very few, guitar chords and a few, though very few, people said he sounded almost a little tiny bit like Merle Haggard when he sang, and he wondered if he could learn to play the tune on a guitar. Probably not, since he didn’t know any of the chords, but the song sounded so pretty floating like a thousand colorful kites in the strange blue sky of his marijuana haze that he began to wish he hadn’t sold his beat-up acoustic guitar. Maybe if he still had his guitar and learned a few new chords, he could make some sort of sense out of what he was feeling.
