Aces & Eights

by Dale Lucas

  They watched the place for an hour, to make sure that no one lingered late, then finally left their touring car and searched the alleyways that skirted the club. They found a small cellar window that was open near the southwest corner of the building, and Timmons—the lankier of the two—shimmied through, then hurried back upstairs to let Wash inside.

  The place was too spacious and too dark to welcome them. Though they’d seen it just that morning in Papa’s company and been impressed by its class and good vibe, Wash now reflected that the same good vibe went south fast when everyone fled and the lights were out.

  So they hurried downstairs into the cavernous basement and went searching through the roomy darkness with their flash lights for a suitable spot to stow the nasty package that Papa had entrusted to them. It was Timmons who located an old man-hole in a narrow back alcove, the shaft beneath the steel cover plugged with a round cement slab at a depth of about two feet.

  “That’ll do,” Wash said, and laid out the bundle, drawing back the oilcloth to reveal its contents.

  Therein lay Papa House’s secret weapon, courtesy of the Lower East Side witch woman, Magda: a nasty-looking totem composed of two crossed human leg bones topped by a quartet of human skulls, each facing outward.

  “Which way’s west?” Wash asked, as Papa had told him to make sure the skulls faced the cardinal points.

  Timmons considered, then pointed. “That way. Plant it.”

  Wash felt a tremor of revulsion as he picked up the hideous skull-and-bone sculpture, adorned above and beneath with crow-feathers, knucklebones and rat-skulls, painted with strange red-brown letters from alphabets older than any Wash or Timmons—both of whom could barely read English—had ever seen or imagined. Just touching the vile curse engine made Wash want to retch, and the moment he’d placed it at the bottom of the little cement well, he felt the residue of its latent evil on his hands and wanted to wash them in boiling water—to scrape the skin off if need be, before it was forever absorbed into his flesh.

  They replaced the man-hole cover and stood. Wash suddenly noted that their breath plumed, as though the temperature in the basement had dropped to the frigidity of a meat locker. He and Timmons studied each other in the pale, narrow cones of light from their torches.

  “You feel that?” Timmons asked.

  Wash searched the darkness around them. It worked fast. The vast, echoing basement held the pall of a tomb, and he imagined that he already heard the whispering voices of the four skulls filling in the shadows around them, tittering in anticipation of mischief; clamoring for vengeance and ruin.

  For the first time in his life, Wash actually felt sorry for one of Papa House’s enemies. He had no idea what was in store for the Queen Bee and the people she employed here—but damned if he didn’t feel more than a little nearer the fires of hell for doing them such a nasty turn as this.

  “Fuck this,” he said to Timmons. “Let’s go.”

  They went, and their feet couldn’t carry them fast enough.

  XX

  All through Harlem that night, the baser elements of that Negro Babylon met the gravelord, Baron Samedi, face to face. Muggers in dark alleys; sneak-thieves in fine, swank houses; racketeers planting firebombs in the stores and restaurants of honest businessmen who didn’t want to pay for protection; loan sharks busy with roughing up their borrowers; drunken husbands beating their wives; philandering wives caught in the act of cheating on their husbands. The grave avenger seemed to be seen anywhere and everywhere from sundown to sunrise, and by the next morning, there was already talk on the streets of who or what the avenger might be—man or ghost or manifestation of the lwa or gangland enforcer or even a rough, ready guardian angel, particularly suited to duty in Harlem.

  By breakfast, even the white cops that patrolled the neighbor-hood were trading stories of a crazy jig in white-face and a top hat who roughed up burglars, cracked mugger skulls, and laid low gun-toting hoods with a pair of cold, black .45 automatics. These cops—Micks, wops, krauts, and all sorts in between—alternately laughed at and shuddered over such stories. Some of them were on the take too, weren’t they? How long before they were busy roughing up an informer in the night, or doing a little off-duty, in-uniform work for a patron, and this skull-faced kook came for them? Sure, they’d laugh amongst themselves—Listen to the crazy, superstitious darkies! Listen to all their crazy hoodoo talk about spooks and devils! Get a load of those nutty Negroes!

  But the white men knew fear, too. Negro gunmen and pig-stickers were bad enough. Gangs like the Harlem Knights or the West Indies found strength and courage in numbers, and that was worse. But if there was some self-styled spook Lone Ranger in town—the sort who inspired more fear in the blacks than they, the white men in blue uniforms, inspired—and if said Spook Ranger started gunning for them, the boys in blue—well, that was worse than a whole city full of nigger stick-up men.

  This spook—the one the spades called The Dread Baron, and that the white cops were now calling The Witch Doctor—

  this smoked Irish son of a bitch... he was trouble.

  Because he didn’t seem to be tied to anybody or anything; and a man without ties, without a name, was a man that nobody could control.

  Chapter 7

  Madame Marie supposed she should be concerned about Zakes’s family, or his sweetheart, or whether or not anything could have been done to prevent his sudden and untimely death. But truth be told, her primary concern centered on the rest of the staff, who would start gathering in the main dining room in moments for one of the first and last all-staff gatherings before Aces & Eights opened its doors. It had been her idea to gather them—chefs, waiters, hosts, hostesses, chorus girls, bands members, and stage hands—for a single meet-and-greet; a pep talk, a statement of purpose, and a chance to see themselves as what she hoped they would become: a family.

  And here they were, moments away from that meeting, when one of the electricians, a little, big-eared fox of a man named Zakes Mooring, had been electrocuted while hanging a light above the stage. Zapped good and proper, Zakes took a header—thirty feet, straight down—and collided with the immovable barrier of the stage itself.

  Did the electricity kill him? Or the fall? Madame Marie had no idea. All she could see or worry about at present was the mess made by Zakes’s collision with the hardwood stage floor.

  She heard rumblings out in the foyer, beyond the dining room. Someone was coming. She looked to the nearest, wide-eyed stage hand—whose name escaped her at that moment—and snapped her fingers.

  “Curtains down,” she ordered, and the young man hurried to do as he was told. Just as conversation drifted to her ears, along with the footfalls of the first arrivals, the big plum curtain fell and the stage was cut off from the dining room. That was a start, at least.

  She counted six of them: three stage hands; Walter, the stage manager; herself; Gideon. She and her second had been discussing her hopes for the place, standing on the thrust platform just before the proscenium, when they heard the hum, the grunt, and the flat, wet thud that marked the Zakes’s untimely end.

  Six of them, standing here, staring at Zakes’s corpse, head broken open like an eggshell, blood and brain matter spreading every which way.

  “This is bad,” Gideon whispered beside her.

  Marie looked to the stage hands and Walter. “Who was up there with him?”

  “Wasn’t nobody, Queen Bee!” one of the stage hands blurted. “We’s all down here, workin’ the fly rigs.”

  “Yes’m, miss. We just heard the hum and turned around, and there he went! Smack onto the stage!”

  “I saw it all, Miss Marie,” Walt added tiredly. “It’s like they say. I saw the catwalk Zakes was up on. There was nobody near him.”

  The Queen Bee sighed. “We’ve got to get this mess cleaned up and Zakes seen to, quick and quiet. You boys, go shut and lock all the stage doors except that one, stage right. Walter, guard the stage right door and make sure nobody but one of the s
ix of us gets in here, understood?”

  Walter nodded. “And Z, miss?”

  Marie looked to one of the wide-eyed stage hands. It was Beau, the kid who’d ducked hot lead in the hit two nights earlier. He’d come to the Queen Bee himself, saying that he still wanted to work for her; to be part of her crew; but street moves weren’t his thing. He needed something legitimate; something with a future. So the Queen Bee, more than sympathetic to his plight and the fact that he’d been rattled, handed him off to Walter and told him to get Beau started back stage.

  At the moment, though, Beau Farnes looked scared out of his wits. Still, the Queen Bee liked him. She decided to put him to use. “Beau? Think you can go fetch us a doctor, quick and quiet like?”

  Beau nodded. “Yes’m.”

  “Do it,” she said, and he hurried away. Then, she looked to all remaining. “The troops are gathering. I’ve got to speak with them.”

  “After this?” Gideon asked, suggesting poor, dead Zakes.

  “We’ve got enough going against us,” Marie answered. “Those people are my responsibility, Gideon. I’m not going to let Papa House, or Dolph Storms, or the cops, or even a whole pile of bodies take that away from them. We can see to this quietly, but we’ve got to keep them thinking happy thoughts, you hear me?”

  Gideon sighed and nodded. He scratched the back of his head as he examined Zakes again. “Shit.”

  Marie nodded. Shit. Indeed. Then she composed herself, turned, and stepped out through the fallen curtain to address her troops. In the dining room, a sea of smiling faces stared back at her. She’d never realized just how many people she was employing here, but now that she saw them all gathered in one room, looking back at her... it was like addressing a family reunion, never having before realized just how far and wide one’s blood had spread.

  “Good morning, children,” she said in her best school-marm fashion, and everyone laughed and greeted her, and already she felt the warmth radiating from them bringing her world back from the brink of a cold, windy abyss.

  And she had them. She could see by all their bright eyes and glowing faces that they were hearing her words; feeling them; making them part of their own individual hopes and dreams, and Marie was on the cusp of forgetting that a dead man lay bleeding just a few feet from her, on the other side of the stage curtain.

  Then there was the sound of shouted insults, breaking glass, shouts and screams, a scuffle. A young dishwasher came stumbling into the dining room, shouting at the top of his lungs.

  “Birdie cut Del! Birdie cut Del bad!”

  And then she lost them. Another scullion came stumbling out of the kitchen moments later, apron soaked with blood, a pile of bloody towels in his hands.

  “Somebody call the doc!” he screamed. “Del’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig!”

  This was bad. This was very bad.

  XX

  Dr. Dub Corveaux was enjoying a late breakfast at Pigfoot Mary’s when Beau Farnes happened by, saw Dub through the diner window, and ducked in. The kid took a seat and leaned close. Dub sat in silence, a fork-full of ham and eggs hovering before his open mouth. He wondered if the visit had something to do with his evening with Beau’s big sister last night.

  “Doc, we need you,” Beau said quietly.

  “Something wrong with your sister?” Dub asked, and ate his ham and eggs.

  “No sir,” Beau answered, looking around, trying to fight an eyeful of panic. “Something’s up over at Aces & Eights, the Queen Bee’s new place. They asked me to get somebody and I just saw you as I was passing by.”

  Dub wiped his mouth. “Shouldn’t you be in school, Beau?”

  “Doc, please—”

  “And what are you doin’ in the Queen Bee’s hive just a day after I patched you up? You lookin’ to walk down the wrong street and get rolled again?”

  “I ain’t runnin’ numbers,” Beau countered. “They got me on as a stage hand, and my supe says he’ll teach me the whole mess—lights, flies, management, even some stage tricks and such. But, look, this is important! Somebody’s hurt bad.”

  That was all Dub needed to hear; and anyway, he wasn’t the boy’s keeper. He just enjoyed prodding him a little. He owed Fralene just that much. He put money on the table beside his half-finished breakfast. “Lead the way,” he said.

  Back at the club, Beau led him in through a side entrance, walked him through the maze of corridors back stage, and the two of them were finally ushered through a guarded stage door to the stage itself. Dub’s first impression of what he saw of the club’s back alleys was one of style and substance. It’d be a nice place; maybe worth bringing Fralene around to if she seemed so inclined. But even before they’d reached their destination, Dub started to feel something strange in the air as well; something untoward and incorporeal. It was a darkness he hadn’t felt since some of his nastier days in the trenches; or his darker days on the plantation. It was evil: present, conscious, and completely malevolent. Even the veve pendant that lay under his shirt, against his chest, gave a tentative quiver—absolute proof that something in this place was wrong.

  They emerged onto the stage. The curtain was down, and Dub heard activity on the far side—a commotion in the kitchens. But then he saw the dead man on the stage; the blossom of brain matter and blood beneath him, rolled out like a shapeless carpet; and Dub felt a terrible pity for Beau, having to see something like this only a day after the mess on 128th Street.

  It put Dub in mind of the trenches. But it was clear this fella’s head hadn’t been broken by a bullet. He’d taken a tumble from the catwalks above. His melon connected with the hardwood stage floor and that was the end of it.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do for this man?” Dub asked, kneeling beside the body. “He’s dead as Jonah, Beau.”

  “You’re the doctor?” a feline voice purred, and Dub turned to see Madame Marie, the one everyone called the Queen Bee, coming his way. She had a big, pantherish fellow in a fine suit at her elbow, and Dub figured he’d be Gideon Mann, the Queen Bee’s first mate and enforcer. Dub knew them all by name and reputation, if not by sight. The Queen herself was a fine-looking woman—probably into her forties, but well taken care-of and still young of face and taut of body. Her skin was the color of café au lait with plenty of cream; her eyes two big marbles of onyx and ivory; her mouth wide, painted a deep, berry-dark red.

  Dub stood and offered his hand to her. “Dub Corveaux,

  Ms. Merriwether.”

  She looked a little puzzled. No one ever addressed her by name, he supposed; especially not a stranger. But a moment later, she realized it was just a mark of her rank and reputation, and she smiled a little and nodded greetings. “Doctor,” she said. “You’re the soldier, correct? Your office is over on 135th Street? Family in rum?”

  Dub was impressed; clearly, he, too, had a reputation. “You’re a block off. 136th Street. I own the building. But you’re spot-on with the rum. Family label. Triple distilled. My mother still owns the plantation and distillery back in Haiti.”

  Madame Marie suggested the corpse. “We thought to have you examine this poor fellow and help us see him off quietly, but there’s been a complication in young Beau’s absence.”

  Dub raised an eyebrow.

  “Fight in the kitchens,” Gideon filled him in. “Some non-sense about money owed or an old feud. Kitchen help. One man dead, one going to jail.”

  “But we still haven’t made the authorities aware of this mess.” She indicated the dead stage hand, then added, “Still, the cops should be here any moment.”

  Dub turned and studied the dead man. He wasn’t in the habit of selling his advice to gangsters—even one so lovely and compelling as Miss Maybelle Merriwether—but nonetheless, the fella was dead, and now something worse had unfolded in the kitchens, and clearly the Queen Bee wanted to keep things quiet. He supposed he couldn’t blame her; bootlegger and numbers queen or no, she probably saw what she did here as a sort of public service, and truth be told,
she was right. These people needed their jobs; and they needed those jobs from a black employer, not a white one—especially not a white one with mob ties like Harry Flood over at the Jungle Room.

  So Dub made a judgment call that he hoped he wouldn’t regret. “That fella’s dead,” he said, stabbing his hat toward the broken-headed corpse. “You got trouble in the kitchens that stirred up attention, best use that as your cover story, and let it be known that this poor sap fell out of the catwalks after the kitchen mess exploded.”

  Madame Marie arched one well-sculpted brow. “Very cagey, doctor. Is that your professional opinion?”

  “That’s my friendly advice,” he offered.

  “And what’s the bill for such friendly advice?” Gideon countered.

  Dub smiled, placing his hat on his head. “First parcel’s free, sir. But if you send Mr. Farnes here to find me in the future, the bill will be in the mail, I assure you.”

  “We’re square, then,” the Queen Bee said. “What about a token of gratitude?”

  “Not necessary,” Dub said. “Except, perhaps, special consideration if I happen to come round some evening for dinner and a show?”

  Madame Marie glanced at Gideon. He reached into his coat and produced a little card—larger than a business card, but smaller than a normal party invitation. He handed it over to Dub, and Dub read the embossed copper writing on it quickly. It was a special invitation to the Grand Opening of the club on Saturday night.

  “A special invitation,” the Queen purred. “Feel free to bring a friend.”

  Dub threw a glance at Beau. The young man’s face was still slack with puzzlement, as though everything that just unfolded had unfolded too quickly for his slow-witted young man’s mind to fathom. Dub thought of Fralene. “I just might have to do that, Miss Marie.”