by Dale Lucas
"I saw him," he said, "with my own two eyes. If anyone had told me about him, I wouldn't have believed them. But that night that everything went hinky at Aces and Eights, I saw that man do things no man should be capable of. He took bullets square in the chest with little more than a shrug, and he jackrabbited right up into a second-story window from street easy as a guard dog hops a low fence. I don't know what he's into—superstition's never been my area of expertise—but I'd lay good money on the fact that he's the real deal, not just some quack in Halloween make-up."
Rae Rae stared into her own coffee, which she had not touched since pouring it. "So you think I can summon something that powerful for you? And control if for you?"
"I don't think we need something as powerful as him," Flood countered. "All we need is something to make the general populace fear for the good reverend's sanity. A temporary madness, maybe. A sort of hysteria."
"It's not that simple," Rae Rae said. "If I do what you ask, there's only one way to guarantee the efficacy of the powers I invoke. We've got to plant something bad—real bad—right in the reverend's body, and let it grow their like weeds in a garden. If it takes, most likely it won't kill him…but it could get bad. Very bad. Like locked in a padded room in a hog-tied dinner jacket bad."
Flood gave only the most curt and casual of shrugs. "So long as the man's not physically harmed. He's old and frail, after all. We're not animals."
Rae Rae had to think long and hard about this proposal. All she had to do was to prep the reverend by some subterfuge, give a demon access to his weakened body, then let the demon take over. She'd seen such hexes worked before—though she'd never attempted such a thing herself. It was like watching someone slowly go crazy. Little by little, the rider wore its horse's resistance down, until finally there was nothing of the horse left at all, just a shell that the demon could puppet however it liked. And the worst of them—oh, they loved to puppet a horse! Once they were firmly planted in the saddle, there was no dislodging them.
It could work.
Best of all, they'd offered to square her with Little Al. They'd clear her debts and slide her a few hundred besides. Being flush again, with money in her pocket—that could take her a long way. Hell, she might even leave Harlem behind. She'd been thinking lately that the cold winters had just about done her in. She was ready for something new. Maybe California, with its warm Santa Ana winds and golden sunshine. Lots of folks were going west these days…
But what they asked of her… hexing a man of God. A thing like that had terrible consequences. Flood and the Queen Bee only wanted to avoid killing the man to avoid turning the general populace against them—but what about the Powers That Be? Laying black hoodoo on a good man like the Reverend Farnes was almost as bad—maybe even worse—than just killing him.
If she did the laying, wouldn't that come back to haunt her?
But squaring up with the shark and putting some bills in her pocket could help her start again. If she started again, she could make everything right, couldn't she? Eventually? Wasn't that what new starts were for?
"We need your answer," the Queen Bee pressed.
Rae Rae squared her shoulders and looked the Merriwether woman in the eye. "I'm considering it," she said.
"Don't consider too long," Flood said. "This is a delicate matter, and it needs seeing to."
"I'm taking a lot of risk upon myself if I do this," Rae Rae said. In truth, she was already imagining how far the money might go. And hadn't she been snubbed on more than one occasion by the good Reverend Farnes? Hadn't he deigned not to greet her with more than a grunt and a nod on the street? Hadn't he held out his hands and said a prayer more than once when he passed her botanica, as though her store was somehow accursed? Who was he to judge the efficacy of the powers that she held traffic with? To deem her—a hard-working, conscientious businesswoman—some sort of blight on the community?
"We all take risks," Flood countered, finishing his coffee. "If we're men—or women—of substance, then risk is our meat and mead, right? This is a simple proposition. We need a simple answer."
Rae Rae started to smart off again, to tell Flood that he could not possibly understand what the price of so cruelly employing supernatural forces could be. But then, she noticed something.
The Queen Bee's bodyguards, silent and seemingly disengaged throughout the entire conversation, were staring right at her. Their hands were planted firmly in their coat pockets. She wasn't imagining things when she thought she saw something hard and heavy stirring in one of those pockets.
Likewise, Flood's men hovered right behind her. They'd taken stations by the window, presumably to watch the street.
But from where they stood, they could easily flank her and hold her still.
And the Queen Bee's bodyguards would then have an immobilized target. Pop-pop! Two slugs, right between the eyes, or right between her breasts, and she'd be done.
She did owe the Queen Bee's shark an awful lot of money. If she turned them down, would they want her possibly telling anyone else about the offer they'd made? The terrible plan they were intent upon?
Your choice is already made, she thought. And even if you hadn't made up your own mind—which you have—they wouldn't leave you any options.
Their minds were made up when they walked in the door.
She finally sipped her coffee. It was cold now. Her hands were shaking.
"I want the money up front," Rae Rae said.
The Queen Bee reached into her own pocketbook and drew out a roll of bills—twenty tens, crisp and clean. She offered the roll in her elegant, gloved hands. "A retainer," she said.
6
The Reverend Adam Clayton Brown, Jr., convalesced in a room with three other patients at Harlem Hospital. According to the nurses, his roommates included an appendectomy, a rummy with pneumonia, and a fellow plastered in half a dozen places who had been struck by a freight truck. Beside these sorry fellows, Brown himself felt he'd gotten off easy: missing a few teeth, face bloodied, bruised and swollen, a couple ribs cracked, his right forearm in a cast. The doctors had assured him that he was lucky that he hadn't bled internally. Just a few inches one way or another, and that gunman's Florsheims might have sent him to the morgue instead of the sick ward.
Brown contemplated this as an overcast light crept in through the open windows. He thought of how close he'd come to death, and how he had a man in a Halloween costume to thank for every breath he now took. He thought of how he'd gone digging down in the muck of his own spirit for courage, to meet his end like a man, but seemed to find none at all. What he did to protect Ms. Walker had largely been done in fear, by simple reflex. The rest of the time, he was rooted, staring down the gaping barrels of those two pistols, terrified of what the next moment might bring. He did not remember ever making a conscious choice to do this or do that because it was the brave thing to do—the right thing to do—he only remembered being angry and scared.
Where was my faith, then? he wondered. Where was my determination to meet my Maker with some dignity? Why should I have been so scared, if I believe that Jesus will receive me when my days are done?
The answer frightened him so much, he could barely allow himself to give words to the thought.
It was in the midst of his struggle not to admit his own mortal terror and faithlessness that a tall, thin figure appeared in the white-framed doorway of the large hospital room: the Reverend Barnabus Farnes. Brown saw his old friend's face fall in despair, then realized what a fright he must look. Brown tried to force a smile, but it hurt.
Farnes removed his hat and strode toward Brown's frame bed. Across the room, the pneumoniac coughed violently, shuddering with the weight of all the fluid choking his lungs. To Brown's right, the fellow who'd lost his appendix muttered in his sleep.
Farnes slid an old wooden chair up beside Brown's bed and sat in it. He drew a breath. "My God, Adam… what'd they—"
"I'm sure it looks worse than if feels," Brown said, and this
time he forced himself to smile, pain or no. "Really, I don't even know why I'm here—"
"Because a couple of gun-jacks beat you within an inch of your life," Farnes said. "All for having the temerity to resist them."
"I didn't resist much," Brown said quietly.
Farnes laid one long, weathered hand over Brown's on the shaggy wool blanket where it lay. "Nor I," Farnes said, but Brown knew that probably wasn't true. "I've never stared down the barrel of a gun before. Not an experience I hope to repeat anytime soon."
Brown nodded. A shudder ran through him—involuntary, unstoppable—in answer to the image of those gaping gun-barrels. That view of the void would haunt his memory, he was sure of it.
"Are you all right?" Farnes asked. They'd been friends a long time—forty years, almost. In all that time, they had come to know one another's secret signals and wordless bluffs all too well. Sometimes, Brown thought that the two of them remained such close friends because each kept the other honest, grounded.
But that wasn't entirely true, was it? The simple fact was that Brown had always looked up to Farnes, even though they were just a hair over five years apart in age. Farnes, who was always upright, always righteous, always fair, if a little stern; Farnes, who never quailed, never held his tongue, and never backed away from a fight, verbal or otherwise. Brown had done his damnedest in his life and ministry to be as brave as he believed Barnabus Farnes to be, and often convinced himself that he succeeded.
Last night, he failed. Miserably.
"What's gotten into you?" Farnes asked. "Are those tears?"
Brown realized that his vision was tear-blurred now, even though he wore his glasses (spares, brought from home by his housekeeper; his everyday pair were now fragments of wire and glass in a gutter on Eighth Avenue). He almost hadn't noticed. "Maybe I'm just tired," he said. "The doctors tell me rest is all that'll heal me."
"Prayer might not hurt, either," Farnes said, smiling a little. If he smiled at all, it was usually only a little. For Brown, that was enough.
"Is that why you came?" Brown asked. "To pray with me?"
"I'll be happy to do so, if that's what you want," Farnes answered. "But I actually came to speak with you."
Brown stared, waiting for Farnes to continue. Farnes didn't. He simply sat there, waiting in grave silence for Brown to give him verbal leave to continue. "Go on," Brown said, curious.
Farnes inhaled. Exhaled slowly. "Did you see him?" he asked.
Brown thought of the top hat. The skull face. The barking pistols. "I did," he said. "I owe him my life."
"As do I," Farnes said, sighing. He rubbed his furrowed old brow. "I suppose we all do."
"All of us?" Brown asked. "Debbs—"
"Debbs swears he didn't have any trouble," Farnes said, "but the police told me there were two more dead gunmen up on Lenox and 140th Street. That's right on his path home."
Brown stared. "Do you really think he could have—"
"I don't know," Farnes said.
"But he's alive?" Brown asked. "He's safe?"
Farnes nodded. "Ms. Walker called him late last night." He reached into his black topcoat and drew out a small, folded card. "He sent this this morning, via runner—one of those youngsters hangs around Liberty Hall."
Brown took the card, opened it. Written in simple, ropy cursive were the words, Safe and sound. Thank you for your inquiry.
"You sent for word of him?" Brown asked.
"No," Farnes said. "I didn't. That's what shames me. After those men came for me, and I found out they'd come for you… well, Mr. Debbs just wasn't on my mind. But he should have been. Debbs knew it, too, else he wouldn't have ended his missive that way. Thanks for your inquiry. I must admit, Adam, I'm more than a little disappointed in myself."
But you were just thoughtless, Brown reflected. Not cowardly, like me.
"I can only assume the Cemetery Man did all four of us a kindness, coming to our aid. Maybe he just got to those men before they ever caught up with our Mr. Debbs."
"Who is he?" Brown asked. "This Cemetery Man?"
"I can't say," Farnes answered. "But he frightened me. "
Brown nodded. He owed the Cemetery Man a great deal as well. Was that a good thing or bad? Being in hock to a devil of that sort?
"As for my other question," Farnes added, "perhaps it's too soon to ask, but I'd be remiss if I didn't."
Brown waited. Farnes seemed to take a long time to ask it.
"Should we continue?" Farnes asked simply.
Now it was Brown's turn to be silent. All his mixed emotions—his fear, his shame, his guilt, his indignation—roiled within him. His reflex was to say, no, absolutely not. Their near-death experiences proved that they were taking a great chance, speaking out against corruption in their community without more solid backing from the community itself, or the authorities.
But could he say such a thing to his old friend? Could he be so cowardly, here and now, after he had replayed the previous night's events in his head over and over and cursed himself for a yellow-bellied fool over and over again?
"It's done, then," Farnes said. "You need say no more, Adam."
"No!" Brown suddenly hissed. "It's not over! We can't just… shrink like that! Not now!"
"Do you mean that?" Farnes asked.
Brown smiled weakly. He managed to nod, but the movement was barely perceptible. "Of course," he said. "It's the right thing to do."
But, oh God, how I wish I didn't have to do it.
Barnabus rose from his seat, now towing over Brown where he lay on his lumpy hospital bed. "This was a bad idea," Farnes said. "I shouldn't have come to you so early. You need to rest. Forgive me, Adam—"
"No," Brown said, and without thinking about it, reached up and took the Reverend Farnes's hand. "It gave me pleasure, Barney. Really, it did."
Farnes looked down on him, a smile on his lips but a terrible sorrow and pity in his eyes. Brown could not tell if that look suggested that Farnes thought he, Brown, was pitiful and contemptible—a thing to be felt sorry for—or if it bore some terrible guilt and shame—as if Farnes somehow held himself personally responsible for Brown's present state.
Brown withdrew his hand. He managed a smile of his own, but knew that his eyes probably betrayed him. "Don't trouble yourself, old friend," he said. "We'll talk later, when I'm a little further recovered."
Farnes nodded. "That we will."
Then Barney smiled again—small, but clear—put on his hat and went on his way.
7
Jebediah Debbs sat in the parlor of his cramped little apartment in a glowering three-floor walk-up north of 147th Street. He was rocking in his favorite chair, a cup of cooling chicory coffee beside him on the scuffed old end-table. This was his thinking place—this cramped, cozy room filled floor to ceiling with books and second-hand furniture, the scuffed old wooden floors padded by a fading, threadbare mock-Turkish rug. He felt cocooned when in this room, his parlor window looking down onto a filthy alleyway and the backside of the building behind his own. Here, away from the noise of the world, and the blank, expecting stares of his followers and the judgment of his so-called peers, Debbs could order the storm of suppositions that skirled through the dark corridors of his mind. He could ponder. He could decide.
Having finished his eggs and toast, his ham and sausages, and having sent Calvin, his house-boy, away with his breakfast dishes, Debbs had decided a few things.
First: he didn't need to waste his time in the Harlem Concerned Citizens Brigade any longer. Those gunmen last night proved it: the heebs and the wops from downtown didn't cotton to niggers shooting off their mouths, knew all niggers could be cowed with fear and intimidation. Observing the likes of Brown, or Farnes, or prissy Ms. Walker, what else could they think? But no more would Debbs go the peaceable route prescribed by Farnes and company. No, Debbs would take the fight to the enemy, right out into the streets if need be.
Thus, his next decision: he would not be merely concerned for Ha
rlem's welfare—he would fight for it. He would form his own committee, and it would be a vigilance committee. They would walk the streets in ordered squads, like soldiers, and they would defend the poor, cowed sheep of this Negro Babylon against the wolves that encircled and slaughtered them: the errant downtown gangsters; the soiled and compromised Irish policemen; the Uncle Tom politicos who gave black money to white extortionists for 'protection'—anyone who stood in the way of progress. Debbs and his followers would die like men before they would live any longer like domesticated animals.
And finally, his most important decision: if they were going to defend Harlem, they needed arms. After all, a well-armed citizenry was essential to the security of a free state, was it not? Some of his followers no doubt had weapons of their own—old squirrel poppers and breakaway shotguns inherited from relatives out west or down south; cheap pistols bought in the heat of passion or acquired in Saturday night dice games; knives; blackjacks.
But that wouldn't do—those were the weapons of cheap hoods and criminals. No, if Debbs and his followers would stand against the forces that conspired to keep Harlem in chains, they would have to be outfitted accordingly. They would need firepower—heavy firepower—elsewise they would be no better than a country fire watch. Debbs knew of only one person who could possibly provide him with the contraband he required, at reasonable cost, and without threat or interference.
He had often heard that the Queen Bee was a reasonable woman. Surely, she could understand the need for a troupe of proud black Ajaxes to defend themselves against the white rabble. Debbs could even frame his request as one with advantages for the Queen herself: provided that she did not threaten the street folk or interfere, Debbs could promise to defend her interests as well.
He had no intention of keeping that promise, of course. But making it might get him what he wanted.
He was proud of himself. How he had ever managed to rise so far above the fools and the sheep and the scoundrels around him, he would never know—but somehow, he'd done it. He had outsmarted them all, and now it was time to show them just who had their best interests at heart. If they would not stand up for themselves, he'd be their master, and he'd force-feed them every bitter pill necessary to flush the slave mentality out of them.