“How’d you know, Conquer?” Thomas asked.
Conquer held up one finger.
“You said the Hand didn’t work on vampires.”
“Yeah but it only works on property owners….”
“I had that thought,” Conquer nodded, and held up another finger. “But, no reflection on that microscope mirror,” he said, pointing to a microscope on the desk. “Also his ID picture didn’t match his face.”
Thomas laughed.
“You pulled that one that cop.”
“Yes I did,” Conquer chuckled.
“I didn’t even notice,” Lazzeroni said.
Conquer left one finger raised.
“The real Doctor Weems is probably layin’ out there,” he said.
“Looks like you broke up your necrophilia ring, Sergeant,” Thomas said. “I’d hang it all on that bug eatin’ blood junkie you left cuffed in the office.”
“Sheeyit, you don’t need to tell him how to frame somebody, I bet.”
It was Lazzeroni’s turn to raise a finger.
“This,” said Lazzeroni, taking out a pack of cigarettes and holding it out to them. “This was some heavy shit. Hey, I owe you two big time.”
“You don’t owe me nothing, Sergeant,” Thomas said, declining the smoke. “I’m goin’ back to L.A. tonight.”
“Well Harlem morgue’s definitely got openings. You ought to stick around, Doc,” said Conquer, wrinkling his face at Lazzeroni’s proffered Salems but taking one anyway, and a light. “Leave the West Coast suckers to all that Cali sunshine."
“We got smog for the motherfuckers to hide under,” said Thomas.
“Hey what about you, Conquer?” Lazzeroni said. “Anything the NYPD can do for you?”
Conquer grinned. He never thought he’d hear that. Not in a million years.
“Yeah, man,” Conquer said. “Keep this on the down low, dig? With all that talk about cutting municipal funds, Harlem don’t need this kinda press. Also, I got a crispy body in my office back on St. Marks needs getting rid of.”
“Anything else?”
Conquer thought for a minute.
“Maybe a new office chair.”
“Shit, I’ll give you mine.”
“I’ll pass,” said Conquer.
Conquer And The Queen of Crown Heights
Crown Heights was not John Conquer’s usual stomping ground, and the not-so secret looks the black bearded, black hatted, black-wary Lubavitchers gave him as he walked up Empire to the new 71st precinct station in his oxblood leather coat were a persistent reminder.
Harlem was his home. It was where he’d been raised, it was the place he’d pined for for a year in the Vietnam bush. Although he kept a second story private investigations office and apartment above an old hippie boutique on St. Marks Place, where the rent was as dirt cheap as the Thunderbird the winos heaved up in the streets, Harlem was where his heart was at.
It was in Harlem that they knew him as the dude you called when the hair on your arm was up.
So just what was he doing way the hell out here in Brooklyn?
Detective Lou Lazzeroni had called him up that morning and told him to drop his name at the desk at the 7-1, that somebody named Vernon Woolfolk had been booked last night for chucking a brick through the windshield of a squad car. Conquer didn’t know anybody named Vernon Woolfolk, but the dude had used his phone call to ask for him instead of a lawyer.
Brooklyn wasn’t Detective Lazzeroni’s natural habitat either. He was vice, out of the 28th Precinct. He was alright as cops went. Conquer had helped him out a couple months ago, and along the way Lazzeroni had shed his skepticism toward things that go bump in the night. That tended to happen around Conquer.
Like most P.I.’s, Conquer’s bread and butter really came from cheating husbands and runaway wives, but he’d sprung from a family steeped in Vodoun and Hoodoo traditions, had trained for a while as an Ifa Babalawo, been best friends with a Santero in his youth, inherited a substantial western occult library from his Kabbalist godfather, and had picked up a little Mnong and Thai magic from a stint in southeast Asia. If he wasn’t up on something, chances are he had a book that covered the basics. Like most who opened themselves up to that kind of thing, weird happenings tended to pop off around Conquer.
He had expected Lazzeroni had stumbled across some inexplicable something or bugaboo and had called him out of the blue again for help. It had been kind of a letdown for him to have to drag his black ass all the way to Brooklyn over a brick in a windshield. One of these days he’d have to get himself a car.
Who in the hell is Vernon Woolfolk? he wondered for the hundredth time since getting on the subway.
Well, he’d soon find out.
He left the ogling Hasidim out front and gave his name at the desk with the potato-nosed, grey haired sergeant, whose hostile, blue-eyed glare was a universal trait he suspected all desk sergeants around the world maintained as part and parcel of their profession. He gave the cop Lou Lazzeroni’s name, but he might as well have said the King of Siam had sent him for all the effect it had.
He waited a good half hour on a hard bench, picking his nails and watching an unending parade of griping citizens and handcuffed offenders chip away at the desk sergeant’s Joseph Wambaugh fantasies before a fat-bellied cop with an annoying smirk finally sauntered over.
“You John Conquer?” he murmured out the side of his mouth, like he was about to hit him with a cream pie.
“Yeah,” said Conquer, rising off the bench.
“That some kinda stage name?” the cop said, smirking.
Stage name?
“No.”
The cop looked at him skeptically.
“You don’t seem the type.”
“What?”
The cop shrugged.
“I guess it takes all kinds.”
“Man, I don’t know what you’re goin’ on about,” said Conquer. “I got a call from Detective Lazzeroni at Manhattan South sayin’ some dude was asking for me.”
“Hey whatever you say, pal.”
The cop tilted his head, turned, and went behind the desk without another word. Conquer followed him down a dingy hall.
“The city’s not pressing charges at this point. We figure no harm no foul. We just want him to leave already.”
“I thought he put a brick through the windscreen of a cop car,” Conquer said.
“It just sorta bounced off the hood,” the cop said, and sneered over his shoulder. “Not much of a pitching arm.”
“So why am I here?”
“He snatched a rookie’s handcuffs and locked his ankle to the leg of the booking desk. Says he won’t leave till John Conquer comes and gets him.”
The cop went to the squad room door and opened it, rapping his knuckles loudly on the glass.
“Oh, Verrrrrrnon!” he announced over the ringing phones and cross talk with an exaggerated flourish. “Your prince has come.”
The other cops looked up with interest from their paperwork and phones. There were a whole lot of shit-eating grins. They looked from him to the booking desk, and Conquer felt his fists ball in the pockets of his oxblood jacket.
Seated primly at the desk was a dark skinned, tall, statuesque drag queen of about forty five, in a curly black and purple wig, half-lidded, unimpressed eyes festooned with luxuriant long eye lashes and bright lavender eyeshadow. Her face was generously rouged, full lips painted with a shade of lipstick that matched her form fitting purple evening dress, downturned in an expression of distaste at her musty, cluttered surroundings. She sat upright, lean, muscled arms folded across her ample chest, legs crossed, one high heeled foot bouncing impatiently, the other chained to the desk.
“Hot socks,” Conquer muttered under his breath.
A barnyard of wolf whistles and catcalls erupted as Conquer crossed the room to stand over the dude in the purple dress, silently cursing Lou Lazzeroni.
The queen watched his approach, sizing him up as he came.
“Yeah.”
“Officers,” she said, drawing herself up in a regal attitude, “you may unlock me now.”
After a stop at the property cage to reclaim a mauve, sequined handbag, Conquer and the queen rode a tidal wave of obnoxious comments and animal hoots that bore them at last into the street, where the Hasidim where there to click their tongues in disgust and hurl the palms of their hands in their direction, as if the very sight of them were something they could grab a hold of and toss away.
Conquer turned to the queen, the latter’s prodigious eyelashes flapping like the wings of trapped butterflies against the bright noonday sun.
“Alright,” said Conquer.
He began the walk back to the subway.
“You haven’t even asked me why I asked for you!” Woolfolk called after him.
“Don’t care!” Conquer called back, though he was understandably a little curious. Not curious enough to stick around, but a little curious.
“What kind of a detective are you?” Woolfolk shouted, exasperated, as he reached the corner.
“Not the kind that does house calls,” Conquer called, lighting a cigarette as he waited for the traffic light. “You got a problem, come to my office. I’m in the book.”
“I don’t have a phone!”
“Drop a dime.”
“Your Uncle Silas is dead!”
Conquer paused, mid-inhalation. The light changed, but he didn’t cross.
He hadn’t thought about his Uncle Silas in years. He had fond memories of the man, a big, smiling guy, hilariously dry, always impeccably dressed. He always wore this striking belt buckle of Egyptian design, which he’d said was a tyet, or an Isis Knot, claimed it was a gift from his mother, and protected him.
He’d driven the sweetest ride young Conquer had ever laid eyes on too; a big black Mercury Montclair, shiny as a porter’s shoe, with a sharp, silver jet plane ornament pointing on the hood like a gun sight. Uncle Silas had driven them all over the city in that car when they’d first come to New York. He’d taken them to Coney Island, the Statue of Liberty, all the tourist spots. He’d introduced Conquer to strawberry egg creams at the Gem Spa. It had become their regular Sunday-after-church ritual, one he still enacted, even though he’d dropped the churchgoing long ago.
Uncle Silas had kept a beautiful batterie of handmade mahogany Rada drums in his apartment, precious heirlooms from their Haitian ancestors. Uncle Silas had taught him at seven to take up the sticks and beat the rhythm on the Boula.
He would sit in his uncle’s apartment as the sun sank, watching his uncle and father on the great Manman and Segon respectively, as his mother danced.
They’d moved to their own apartment when he was nine, and Conquer’s daddy had told them Uncle Silas had died of a heart attack soon after.
He had cried all night.
Conquer turned and went back to where Woolfolk was still standing in all his purple glory in front of the station house. He blew smoke.
“No shit, man. He died when I was nine.”
“That’s what your daddy told you,” Woolfolk said.
“Don’t fuck around with me, Vernon,” he said, taking another drag. “What’s this about?”
“First of all, it’s Verbena,” said Woolfolk lowly. “And I wouldn’t fuck around about this. Your uncle was a dear, sweet man.” Her haughty, painted face slipped into a look of sadness, and she splayed the fingers of one hand across her own chest. She reached out almost unconsciously with the other, and stroked the side of Conquer’s face with her long, bright fingernails. “You’re the spitting image of him.”
Conquer’s skin prickled at the queen’s touch, and he slapped her hand away.
“The fuck’s wrong with you, man?”
The distasteful, guarded look returned to Verbena’s face.
“Honey, we’d need more time than either of us got to discuss that. And don’t call me, man. Verbena Méchant is no man. And she’s no dude either, so let’s head that shit off right here.”
With that, she turned on her heel and went off down the street as if she were strutting for a row of popping flashbulbs.
Conquer was forced to jog to catch up with her.
“How’d you know my father?”
“I never had the displeasure of knowing your father. Your uncle moved up here to the city after your grandfather kicked him out of his house in New Orleans. When your grandparents died, Silas opened his home to your parents, till they got on their feet. Your daddy repaid his hospitality by disowning him after he found out what he was into.”
“What was he into?”
Verbena stopped, cocked a hip, and looked Conquer in the eye, arching one painted eyebrow.
“Boy, aren’t you supposed to be a detective?”
Verbena went click-clacking on, then crossed to Balfour Place.
A bunch of Orthodox kids shouted at them across the street;
“Feygelehs! Feygelehs!”
“I see you, boys! I see you!” Verbena hollered back, smiling and waving. “Come call on me when there’s grass in your infields! Then maybe we can play ball! But no promises!”
They broke into expressions of disgust and over-hilarious laughter. As they dispersed, one scowling kid in payots lingered, plucked a bottle from a trashcan, but Conquer caught his eye, shook his head slowly, and the kid dropped it and ran after his friends.
“Why’d you pitch a brick at a cop car?” Conquer asked.
“To get your attention, darling,” Verbena said, as if it was obvious. “Like I said, I don’t have a phone. And to show those pigs that your uncle mattered. That we matter. Three days dead and no investigation! If we were just black it’d be bad enough. You think they gave your uncle a moment’s thought? Just another dead fag.”
“What are you saying? You think something happened to him?“
They came to 25 Balfour, an old two story white house with sunburst motifs on the white iron fences and bars over two of the corner windows. The striking blue shades in those two windows had the appearance of irises. It gave the illusion the house was surprised to see you.
“Here we are,” Verbena said, rummaging through her handbag for a ring of keys. “Your uncle used to say it was the only White House a colored man would ever be the master of.”
The colors, textures, and scents that assailed Conquer when Verbena opened the door were in stark contrast to the plain white of the house’s exterior. The walls were hung with mousseline, chiffon, and crepe in every color of the rainbow, the railing of the stairs hung with violet tinsel. Little plastic pink flamingos hung in an antique brass birdcage in a corner.
An oil painting dominated the entranceway, depicting Verbena in full and idealized drag regalia, arm in arm with a woman who looked like Cecile Fatiman, the famous Vodoun mambo who had helped kick off the Haitian Revolution, all in black and purple, which Conquer knew to be inaccurate. She should have been in red, the color of the Petwo lwa. Conquer’s grandmother had told him his people had drummed at Bois Caïman the night she and Dutty Boukman had made a pact with Erzulie Dantó to deliver Haiti from the French.
There was a heavy, oily mélange of perfumes wafting through the house, patchouli and marijuana too, heavy enough to make him take one last breath of the outside hair like he was diving to the bottom of a pool before he went in.
“Honeys, Mama’s home!” Verbena called as she closed the door behind them.
“In the kitchen, Mama!” answered a lisping voice.
Verbena and Conquer waded through the deep purple shag carpeting of the brightly colored sitting room, its walls completely covered in framed photographs, through the surprisingly tasteful dining room with its rich Gabon table and silver candelabrum.
Conquer spotted a row of colorful objects arranged on top of a lavender shelf. To an untrained eye, they were just little bundles of feathers, beads, and sequins; eccentric, unidentifiable objets d’art, some vaguely figurine-l
ike in shape. Conquer recognized them as paquets, ritual bundles his grandmother had kept around the house to draw luck.
They came at last into a room more kitsch than kitchen, with prancing kitten statuettes, religious statues, and gaudily dressed black baby dolls.
There were a half a dozen young men in bathrobes and nighties lounging over coffee and tea in the kitchen, in varying degrees of extraterrestrial makeup and elaborate wigs. Overcoming a moment’s mutual shock at each other’s unexpected appearance, Conquer lowered his eyes and the queens began to primp and pose, until Verbena held up a hand.
“Relax, girls. Papa’s nephew, John. He’s straight as a Sioux chief.”
They resumed their previous lackadaisical attitudes, with a hint of disappointment.
“John, that’s Damiana, Rosemary, Ginger, Calendula, Lobelia, and Jasmine.”
They smiled or batted their lashes as indicated.
Verbena put her fists on her hips and frowned.
“Where’s Chinaberry?”
“Up in her room, Mama,” said Lobelia. “She hasn’t been out all morning.”
Verbena shook her head, turned and went back to the foyer. Conquer spared a nod to the smiling queens and hurried to catch up.
Verbena was already ascending the stair, her skirt gathered in one hand.
“Hey,” said Conquer. “What is all this?”
“This is the House of Méchant,” Verbena said, in an impressive tone, with an encompassing wave of one hand. “Your Uncle Silas and I started it five years ago.”
“Yeah but,” Conquer said, “what is this really? Some kind of société?”
Verbena paused on the stair to look down at him wordlessly.
“That shelf of paquets,” said Conquer. “And that painting downstairs of you and Mambo Fatiman….”
Verbena allowed him a painted smile.
“That’s good, kid. Maybe you’re not hopeless after all. But you better take a closer look. That’s not Cecile Fatiman. That’s Sybaretta Méchant. Our father. My love. Your uncle.” She climbed to the landing, chuckling. “Oh, he’d have liked that. He always thought he made an awful butch queen.”
Conquer paused on the stair and leaned over the railing to take in the painting again, squinting in disbelief. No doubt. Through the bizarre makeup and wig, there was Uncle Silas, staring back at him.
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