The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel

by Holly Messinger

  Whistler nodded. “The guards reported some kind of hullaballoo in here around midnight. Screaming and fighting and ‘Holy rollin’,’ he described it. He also claimed there were flashes of lightning and some black smoke, but I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “Doesn’t sound likely,” Trace agreed.

  “You don’t seem to be damaged.”

  “Not more than passing.” Mostly he felt as though part of his brain had wrenched itself loose, and was looking back on the past thirty-eight years of his life with blatant incredulity. Something had awoken in him last night, and that detached part of him was clanging to take it out and let it run.

  At the moment, however, his years of self-control were serving him in good stead.

  Whistler sipped his coffee. “Your lawyer’s here. He paid your fine. So you’re free to go.”

  “Much obliged.” Trace rolled to his feet, trying not to look too jaunty. His heel nudged the whiskey bottle on the floor, and it made a soft clink against the bench leg. He bent and swept it up.

  “What’s that there?” Whistler asked.

  Trace tilted the bottle, which appeared to be full of liquid soot, or maybe ink that had spoiled. “Specimen,” he said. “Thought my employer might be interested.”

  * * *

  TRACE RECLAIMED HIS personal effects, including the embarrassing sheaf of letters, and then a guard led him out of the jail and into the receiving area between the jail and the courthouse, where a distinguished, silver-haired man in a fine suit was waiting for him.

  “Marlin Clifford,” he said, offering Trace his hand. “Miss Fairweather hired me to take your case. There was a small fine incurred on the drunk and disorderly, which has been paid, and you are free to go. Miss Fairweather asked me to give you this.”

  The lawyer handed over one of the familiar sealed missives. “You may also be interested to know I am taking Miss Herschel’s case, at Miss Fairweather’s behest. I shall do everything in my power to prevent the case from going to trial, but if it does, you may be assured Miss Herschel will have a vigorous and thorough defense.”

  Trace thanked the man, shook his hand, and thanked him again. Then they parted ways—Marlin Clifford heading inside, and Trace exiting to the street. He blinked at the bright sunlight, gulped a dizzying lungful of fresh air. He was amazed to find the world still turning.

  He’d let the power out, and it had not destroyed him. It had not destroyed the man in the cell, either. He’d been able to control it, more or less, and he had wrestled a demon to a standstill. Not a puny pale shade of a ghost—a demon.

  He was pretty sure none of his priests or seminary teachers had ever done that.

  He looked at the bottle in his hand, and Miss Fairweather’s letter.

  She had known he could do it.

  He broke the seal of the letter.

  Mr. Tracy—

  As Mr. Clifford has no doubt informed you, he will take the Anna Herschel case. You need now to concentrate on locating the Perpetrator of which we spoke. It may interest you to know that a reporter employed by the Carondelet Citizen hanged himself in that office some months ago. The reporter’s name was Isaac Levy and prior to his death he shared a room with his brother, Daniel Levy, who is now employed by that same news office under an assumed name. Daniel Levy was previously enrolled at the B’nai El school for Torah studies on Cherry Street. I suggest you look into the Levy brothers’ involvement with these events.

  S.F.

  Trace stared at the page for a moment. He looked at the back of it. Foolish; of course there was nothing else. He felt strangely let down. She’d said he was hard to miss in the spirit world. She clearly was keeping an eye on him. She must have noticed what he’d done last night.

  But what did he want, a pat on the head? She was hiding from something—he couldn’t put his finger on what gave him that idea, but he was certain of it. She probably had better things to do than monitor his personal epiphanies.

  And maybe—the thought came to him slowly, as common sense overruled the high of victory—no matter how tempting it was to pour his news into her interested ear, perhaps it was best if he didn’t. After all, he knew nothing about the woman, except she wanted to use him.

  But he hardly knew what to do with himself this morning. He’d let the power out, and God had not smitten him. The world was not as he had known it for thirty-eight years. Because he was different.

  He didn’t know yet if it was good or bad, but he was different.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “… So I went to the lawyer Jameson said,” Boz explained, “but the shyster didn’t let me say, ‘My partner’s a white man,’ he just shut the door in my face.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Trace said, lathering soap on his shaving brush. “No sense you spendin our money on a lawyer. Was just a fine, anyway.”

  “And she paid it?”

  “Yup.” Trace glanced at Boz’s sour expression. “Why not? Was workin her job got me arrested.”

  “And you’re still workin her job, I take it?”

  Trace met his eyes in the mirror. “I wanna find this thing, Boz. When it killed Herschel it got my dander up. When it tries to shoot my partner and gets me a night in jail, I tend to take it personal.”

  “You’re awful chirked for somebody spent the night in jail.”

  Trace was spared the necessity of answering right away by the brush swirling over his jaw and neck. “You ever have a big worry on your shoulders, somethin you dreaded doin, and then when time came to do it, turned out it was no big thing? Maybe you even liked it?”

  Boz sighed. “I’m not gonna like this story, am I?”

  “There was a demon in the drunk tank,” Trace said, with as much nonchalance as he could muster. “It had hold of this poor bastard in there, and I pulled it out of him and stuck it in that bottle there. Just like Miss Fairweather said.”

  Boz eyed the dirty corked bottle with its smudged label. “There’s a demon in there.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You put it in there.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you wanna go try it again with that thing at the newspaper office.”

  Trace looked him in the eye. Nodded.

  “You told that rich witch yet? That you bottled her a demon?”

  “Nope. Came straight here. Figured it was none of her business.”

  “Well that’s somethin.” Boz was quiet for a moment, while Trace whisked away the stubble from his neck. He could see Boz struggling with himself, trying to come to grips with this new knowledge of the world. Trace knew how he felt.

  “You see the paper this morning?” Boz said at last.

  “No. Which one?”

  “Any of ’em. Most of the big ones are supposin you and Miss Anna were in it together, but the Times is sayin you were brought in for secret consults with the chief of police. Jameson gave it to me for you, along with a whole stack of letters that stink like a French whorehouse. Said there were at least five marriage proposals in there.”

  “Any of ’em rich?”

  “Oh, and there’s another piece in the Times says the Herschels were maybe not Jewish, they were good Protestant German folk, and sorta suggested the Jew undertakers came and took the bodies away to use ’em in some unholy ritual.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Trace said, fervently if inapplicably. “That oughtta start a riot.”

  “You think maybe that’s the idea?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, this thing’s been killin people one or two at a time, right? By gettin into ’em and turnin ’em on each other.”

  Trace wiped the soap off his face, looking at Boz curiously.

  “It started out small and sneaky. A babe in its cradle, an old man in his house. Then a whole family at once.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And from what you said, all those folks who was killed was down in the German quarter. I had Jameson look up the names in his city directory. All of ’em Je
ws, or workin for Jewish businesses.”

  Trace turned away from the mirror to hide his smile. However much Boz was discomfited by this demon business, his natural inclination to fix things wouldn’t allow him to let the puzzle alone. “Miss Fairweather said demons tend to keep to familiar ground.”

  “An’ the Jewish folks in this town are a tight-knit bunch. There ain’t very many of ’em, so they take care of each other. Same as the Irish and the blacks, but you don’t hear so much about the Jews stealin, or loiterin, or gettin hauled in drunk. Or hackin up their kids with axes, for that matter.”

  “So you’re thinkin such lofty and do-gooder behavior might stick in a demon’s craw?”

  “Or maybe they’re easy pickin’s. Like a snapping turtle in a barrel full o’ minnows. An’ maybe, the barrel ain’t big enough to satisfy it anymore.”

  Trace chewed that over for a minute. “You think it’s gettin stronger.”

  “Ayup.”

  “So where’s Danny Levy fit in?”

  “I ast myself the same question last night. Cuz clearly that kid wasn’t sayin everything he knew, and a man with a dead brother and a pretend name has somethin to hide. So, while you were sleepin it off in the drunk tank, I went round to the Roth Funeral Home and had a chat with their parlormaid.”

  “Huh,” Trace said. “And was she young, pretty, and colored?”

  Boz grinned. “I’d say that was a fair description of Miss Deirdre.”

  “And what did Miss Deirdre have to say, that can be repeated in polite company?”

  “That young Mr. Roth at the funeral home is good friends with Mr. Levy, and ever since Mr. Levy’s brother died the two of them have been up to some mighty bad juju.”

  * * *

  THE ROTHS’ PARLORMAID had told Boz that Mr. Levy liked to come by and study with Mr. Roth after supper, them being of the same age and attending the same school, before Mr. Levy dropped out to support himself after the death of his brother. It was only the past few months, Miss Deirdre said, that their after-supper meetings had turned sinister. The parlormaid had heard strange chanting, seen them packing and unpacking bits of clay, hair, feathers, gunpowder, and iron filings—all ingredients well known, to a girl from Mississippi, as ingredients in Black Magic. Once she had cleaned up blood off the floor. Very little, as if from a cut finger, but blood all the same.

  Miss Deirdre let Trace and Boz into the house through the kitchen, just after seven in the evening. Mr. and Mrs. Roth were out visiting friends, she said, and the young misters were alone in the back laying-out room.

  “Been there about half an hour,” Deirdre said through disapproving lips. She had big pansy-brown eyes and a voice like dark honey. “Tole me to go away and close the door, not to bring ’em coffee or nothin. Mr. Levy brought more of his photographs with him.” A grimace over the word made it sound sinister.

  Trace and Boz exchanged glances. They had already discussed what Daniel Levy might be doing with those pictures he took—whether, for instance, he might be capturing the souls of the dead, the way the Indians suspected white men of doing with their cameras. Or taking them as trophies, instead of scalps.

  Deirdre led them into the back servants’ hall and pointed to a door at the end. “It ain’t locked,” she said. “Don’t be breakin anything in there, or I’m in for it.”

  “Much obliged, Miss Deirdre.” Boz gave her a melting look.

  The girl tossed her head. “Oh, go on,” she said, but there was a gleam of pleasure in her eye.

  Trace waited until she was out of sight before laying a hand on the knob. He opened it quietly but not too slowly, the way Deirdre might if she had to enter unobtrusively. As he had hoped, the two young men were bent over their work, backs to the door. Danny Levy was reading aloud in Hebrew.

  Boz slipped into the room behind him and Trace closed the door.

  “Deidre, I told you we didn’t want any—” The Roth boy turned around and squawked in alarm. “Who are you?”

  Danny Levy twisted, a book in one hand and a smoldering twig in the other. He yelped and fell back against the table. “It’s them—they’re the ones—” He shook the smoking bundle of brush at them and proclaimed in Hebrew.

  Trace advanced on them, digging in his pocket for the red pepper. The Roth boy backed away behind Danny, his hands linked together into a lump of knuckles, which he shook at Trace.

  Trace threw the pepper at them. They flinched and Danny waved the smelly fagot menacingly.

  “Ana becho’ach,” he sang in a high, ululating voice. “G’dulat yemincha, tatir tz’rura!”

  He threw the bundle at Trace. It struck him in the chest and fell to the floor. Trace noticed that the carpet had been rolled back, and there was a circle drawn on the boards, surrounding the table where the boys worked.

  “Is it working?” the Roth boy asked frantically.

  “It can’t cross over the circle,” Danny Levy said. “Get the bowl and the candle.”

  “Are you boys trying to exorcise me?” Trace demanded.

  * * *

  ONCE TRACE GOT the boys calmed down enough to believe he wasn’t a demon—and got Boz to quit laughing like a damn coyote—Solomon Roth rang for Deirdre to bring them all coffee and they sat down to trade stories.

  Danny Levy looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “I haven’t been back to the print shop since you saw me there Wednesday. It drove me out. Or rather, Mr. Avery drove me out with a fire iron. I think it rearranged the type he was setting. That’s how it possesses people—it makes messages to them with the ink.”

  “We know,” Boz said.

  Trace related the story of the boarding-house notice with the bad message on it. Danny started shaking his head halfway through. “When you showed up here I thought you were possessed, too. It knows I’m trying to trap it. And I guess it knows you are, too. I printed those notices myself, but I promise you, that type said nothing about you shooting anybody before I ran it through the press.”

  “Which press?” Trace asked. “If it’s just in the machine, maybe we could destroy it.”

  “I thought of that, but I’ve taken apart every piece of both those presses in the last five months. I’ve purified, prayed over, replaced, done everything but burn the place down—”

  “Maybe we should do that,” Boz said.

  Danny turned as green as cheese. “I tried that, too. I went there one night when I knew Mr. Avery wouldn’t be there. I figured I could make it look like some sparks jumped out of the stove—there’s so much paper and kerosene sitting around anyway. Next thing I knew I was pouring kerosene on myself. If Sol hadn’t been standing watch I’d be dead, too.”

  “He was sick for days,” Sol said. “It got all down his clothes.”

  “And I think,” Danny said, “that’s what happened to my brother. I think he tried to stop it, and it made him kill himself.”

  “Did he say anything to you about the demon before he died?”

  Danny drew a short, hard breath. “He said he’d made a deal … to make the Carondelet Citizen the biggest paper in St. Louis.” He looked Trace in the eye. “My brother wasn’t the most righteous of fellows, Mr. Tracy. Our father said he was always looking for the quick way to do things.”

  “So how did you learn there was a demon in the shop?”

  “I went to Mr. Avery first because I needed the job, and I knew a bit about the business. My father was a bookbinder. But as soon as I set foot in the place, I knew.”

  “How?” Trace asked.

  “A feeling of evil,” Danny said bluntly.

  “Describe it to me.”

  “Cold. Stabbing into you. Like it wants to eat you and fu—er, fornicate with you at the same time. Like all the bad habits you ever had, all the wicked desires you’d never—” Danny shivered. “All these months, every time I was in there, I could feel it watching me. I don’t think it could get to me directly, because I always wore this.” He touched the star around his neck. “But it was always whispering to
me. And watching the customers. That was how it picked new victims. People who came into the office for printing, or ads.”

  “And you’re tryin to stop it,” Boz said. “That’s what the sage and the white wax is for, right? Voudou, for bindin evil spirits.”

  The boys looked sheepishly at each other. “We were running out of ideas,” Danny admitted.

  “It was Deirdre gave us the idea,” Sol said. “She’d sprinkle salt in the doorway to keep out evil. Said her grandmother swore by it.”

  “And I had an old dybbuk bowl belonged to my grandmother,” Danny added.

  “So you just took a pinch of hoodoo from everybody,” Boz said.

  “Not as much as you’d think,” Sol said earnestly. “The old Kabbalah texts contain a lot of writings about demons and how to banish them. Many of the principles are the same—making an image of the demon and then binding it in a vessel. And then Danny found that he could capture it in a photograph for a time—”

  “Is that what you were doin?” Trace said, and Danny nodded. “Show me.”

  Danny fetched a stack of prints from under the bench. They were all about the size of a hand, and the contrast wasn’t great, but Trace recognized the body of Judd Herschel as he’d seen it two days ago. There were strange white blotches, in the shape of tears or tadpoles, leaking from the face.

  “They show up white on the photograph,” Trace said, half to himself.

  “You can see them, can’t you?” Danny said. “I mean, you saw them on the body that day.”

  Trace nodded. “Do you?”

  Danny shook his head. “Only through the camera. But sometimes in the shop, I’ve seen things, at the corner of my eye. It’s getting worse, the longer I’m there. Sometimes I feel as if the platen press is waiting for me to slip, to get my hand or my head in there…” He spread out several more prints, of the pressroom. They were dark, having been taken indoors, but there was a strange cloudy white aura in all of them—around the iron joints of the job press, hovering over the longer cylinder press, clotting on the type in the cases.

  “It’s everywhere,” Boz said.

  “In all the empty spaces,” Trace agreed. “So when you capture it in the image, does it hold it for a while?”