Falling Angel (9 page)

Afterward, Epiphany took the limp bird and hung it, upside down, from the branches of a nearby tree. Things began to break up about then. Several of the congregation stood whispering to the dangling rooster, heads bowed and hands clasped. Others packed up their instruments and they all slipped off into the darkness after shaking hands, first the right then the left, arm over arm around the circle. Toots, Epiphany, and two or three others walked back along the path toward Harlem Meer. No one spoke.

I tailed them through the shadows, skirting the path and keeping out of sight among the trees. By the Meer the path divided. Toots turned left. Epiphany and the others took the righthand path. I tossed a mental coin, and it came up Toots. He headed toward the Seventh Avenue exit. If he wasn’t going straight home, chances were good he’d be there before long. I planned on arriving first.

Ducking through the shrubbery, I scaled the rough stone wall and sprinted across 110th Street. When I reached the corner of St. Nicholas, I looked back and saw Epiphany in her white dress at the entrance to the park. She was alone.

I suppressed an urge to second-guess and ran for the Chevy. The streets were nearly empty, and I sped uptown on St. Nicholas, crossing Seventh and Eighth without missing a light. After turning onto Edgecomb, I followed Broadhurst along the edge of colonial Park up to 151st Street.

I parked near the corner of Macomb’s Place and walked the rest of the way through the Harlem River Houses development. These were attractive four-story buildings arranged around open courts and malls. A Depression-era project, it was a far more civilized approach to public housing than the inhuman monoliths currently in municipal favor. I found the entrance to Toots’ building on 152nd and looked for his apartment number on the row of brass mailboxes set into the brick wall.

The front door was no problem. I got it open with my penknife blade in less than a minute. Toots lived on the third floor. I climbed the stairs and checked out his lock. There was nothing I could do without my attaché case, so I sat on the steps leading up and waited.

SEVENTEEN

I didn’t have to wait long. I heard him puffing up the stairs and stubbed out my butt against the bottom of my shoe. He didn’t see me and set his bowling-ball bag down on the floor as he dug for his keys. When he had the door open, I made my move.

He was reaching for the plaid bag as I caught him from behind, grabbing his coat collar with one hand and shoving him forward into the apartment with the other. He stumbled to his knees, the bag flung rattling into the darkness like a sackful of snakes. I switched on the ceiling light and closed the door behind me.

Toots huffed to his feet, panting like an animal at bay. His right hand plunged into his coat pocket and came out holding a straight razor. I shifted my weight. “I don’t want to hurt you, old man.”

He muttered something I didn’t make out and lumbered forward, waving the razor. I caught his arm with my left hand and stepped in close, bringing my knee up hard, where it did the most good. Toots sagged and sat down with a soft grunt. I twisted his wrist a little and he dropped the razor on the carpet. I kicked it against the wall.

“Dumb, Toots.” I picked up the razor, folded it, and put it in my pocket.

Toots sat, holding his belly with both hands as if something might come loose if he let go. “What you want with me?” he moaned. “You’re no writer.”

“Getting smarter. So save the bullshit and tell me what you know about Johnny Favorite.”

“I’m hurt. I feel all busted up inside.”

“You’ll recover. Want something to sit on?”

He nodded. I dragged a red and black Moroccan leather ottoman over behind him and helped ease his bulk up off the floor. He groaned and clutched his middle.

“Listen, Toots,” I said. “I saw your little shindig in the park. Epiphany Proudfoot’s number with the chicken. What was going on?”

“Obeah,” he groaned. “Voodoo. Not every black man is a Baptist.”

“What about the Proudfoot girl? How does she fit in?”

“She’s a mambo, like her mother was before her. Powerful spirits speak through that child. She been comin’ to humfo meetin’s since she was ten. Took over as priestess at thirteen.”

“That when Evangeline Proudfoot got sick?”

“Yeah. Somethin’ like that.”

I offered Toots a smoke but he shook his head. I lit one myself and asked: “Was Johnny Favorite into voodoo?”

“He was runnin’ ‘round with the mambo, wasn’t he?”

“Did he go to meetings?”

” ‘Course he did. Lots of ‘em. He was a hunsi-bosal.”

“A what?”

“He’d been initiated, but not baptized.”

“What do they call you when you’re baptized?”

“Hunsi-kanzo.”

“That what you are, a hunsi-kanzo?”

Toots nodded. “I been baptized a long time.”

“When was the last time you saw Johnny Favorite at one of your chicken-snuffings?”

“I tol’ you, I ain’t seen him since fo’ the war.”

“What about the chicken foot? The one in the piano wearing a bowtie.”

“Means I talk too much.”

“About Johnny Favorite?”

” ‘Bout things in general.”

“Not good enough, Toots.” I blew a little smoke in his face. “Ever try to play piano with your hand in a cast?”

Toots started to rise, but sagged grimacing back onto the ottoman. “You wouldn’t do that?”

“I’ll do what I have to, Toots. I can break a finger easy as a breadstick.”

There was considerable fear in the old piano player’s eyes. I cracked the knuckles in my right hand for emphasis. “Ask me anything you want,” he said. “I been telling you the truth right along.”

“You haven’t seen Johnny Favorite in the last fifteen years?”

“No.”

“What about Evangeline Proudfoot? She ever mention seeing him?”

“Not where I could hear it. Last time she spoke of him was eight, ten years ago. I recollect it ‘cause it was the time some college professor come around wantin’ to write somethin’ in a book about Obeah. Evangeline told him white people weren’t allowed in the humfo. I said, ‘ ‘cept if they can sing,’ you know, pullin’ her leg an’ all.”

“What did she say?”

“I’m comin’ to it. She didn’t laugh but she wasn’t mad. She said, ‘Toots, if Johnny was alive he’d be one plenty powerful hungan, but that don’t mean I have to open the door to ev’ry pink pencil pusher takes a notion to pay a call.’ See, far as she was concerned, Johnny Favorite was dead and buried.”

“Toots, I’ll take a chance and believe you. How come you wear a star on your tooth like that?”

Toots grimaced. The cutout star glinted in the overhead light. “That’s so folks be sure I’m a nigger. Wouldn’t want ‘em to make no mistakes.”

“Why is it upside down?”

“Look nicer that way.”

I placed one of my Crossroads cards on top of the TV. “I’m leaving a card with my number on it. If you hear anything, give me a call.”

“Yeah, I ain’t got enough troubles awready I got to start phonin’ up mo’.”

“You never know. You might need some help next time you get a special-delivery chicken foot.”

Outside, dawn smudged the night sky like rouge on a chorus girl’s cheek. Walking to the car, I dropped Toots’ pearl-handled razor into a garbage can.

EIGHTEEN

The sun was shining when I finally hit the sack, but I managed to sleep until almost noon in spite of the bad dreams. I was haunted by nightmares more vivid than any “Late Show” horror feature. Voodoo drums throbbed as Epiphany Proudfoot cut the rooster’s throat. The dancers swayed and moaned, only this time the bleeding didn’t stop. A crimson fountain gushed from the thrashing bird, soaking everything like a tropical rain, dancers all drowning in a lake of blood. I watched Epiphany go under and ran from my hiding place, gore splashing at my heels.

Blind with panic, I ran through deserted nighttime streets. Garbage cans stacked in pyramids; rats the size of bulldogs watching from sewers. The air putrid with rot. I ran on, somehow becoming the pursuer instead of the quarry, chasing a distant figure down endless unknown avenues.

No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t catch up. The runner eluded me. When the pavement ended, the chase continued along a flotsam-strewn beach. Dead fish littered the sand. An enormous seashell, tall as a skyscraper, loomed ahead. The man ran inside. I followed him.

The interior of the shell was high and vaulted, like an opalescent cathedral. Our footsteps echoed within the twisting spiral. The passage narrowed, and I came around a final turn to find my adversary blocked by the enormous, quivering, fleshy wall of the mollusk itself. There was no way out.

I seized the man by his coat collar and spun him around, pushing him back into the slime. He was my twin. It was like looking in the mirror. He gathered me in a brother’s embrace and kissed my cheek. Lips, eyes, chin; his every feature was interchangeable with mine. I relaxed, overwhelmed by a wave of affection. Then I felt his teeth. His fraternal kiss grew savage; strangler’s hands found their way to my throat.

I struggled, and we went down together, my fingers groping for his eyes. We thrashed on the hard, nacreous floor. His grip relaxed as I gouged with my thumbs. He made no sound during the struggle. My hands sank deep into his flesh, familiar features oozing between my fingers like wet dough. His face was a shapeless pulp lacking bone or cartilage and when I pulled away my hands were mired there, like a cook caught in a suet pudding. I woke up screaming.

A hot shower settled my nerves. I was shaved, dressed, and driving uptown inside of twenty minutes. I dropped the Chevy off at my garage and walked to the out-of-town newsstand next to Times Tower. Dr. Albert Fowler’s picture was on the front page of Monday’s
Poughkeepsie New Yorker
. NOTED DOCTOR FOUND DEAD said the headline. I read all about it over breakfast at the Whelan’s drugstore in the corner of the Paramount Building.

The cause of death was listed as suicide although there was no note found. The body was discovered Monday morning by two of Dr. Fowler’s colleagues who grew worried when he didn’t show up for work or answer his phone. The newspaper had most of the details right. The woman in the framed photograph clutched to the dead man’s chest was his wife. No mention was made of the morphine or the missing ring. The contents of the dead man’s pockets were not listed, so I had no way of knowing whether he had taken the ring off himself or not.

I had a second cup of coffee and headed for my office to check the mail. There was the usual third-class junk and a letter from a man in Pennsylvania offering a ten-dollar mail-order course in cigarette ash analysis. I swept the whole batch into the wastebasket and considered my options. I had planned on driving out to Coney Island to try to locate Madame Zora, Johnny Favorite’s gypsy fortuneteller, but decided to play a long shot and go back up to Harlem first. There was a lot Epiphany Proudfoot hadn’t told me last night.

I got my attaché case out of the office safe and was buttoning my overcoat when the phone rang. It was long-distance, person-to-person collect from Cornelius Simpson. I told the operator I would accept the charges.

A man’s voice said: “The maid gave me your message. She seemed to think it was some kind of emergency.”

“Are you Spider Simpson?”

“Last time I looked I was.”

“I’d like to ask you some questions about Johnny Favorite.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Have you seen him at all in the past fifteen years for starters?”

Simpson laughed. “Last time I saw Johnny was the day after Pearl Harbor.”

“Why is that so funny?”

“It’s not funny. Nothing about Johnny was ever very funny.”

“Then how come all the laughter?”

“I always laugh when I think of how much money I lost when he walked out on me,” Simpson said. “It’s a whole lot less painful than crying. Wha’s this all about, anyway?”

“I’m doing a story for
Look
on forgotten vocalists of the forties. Johnny Favorite is at the top of the list.”

“Not my list, brother.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “If I spoke to just his fans, I wouldn’t get a very interesting story.”

“The only fans Johnny had were strangers.”

“What can you tell me about his affair with a West Indian woman named Evangeline Proudfoot?”

“Not a damn thing. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Did you know he was involved in voodoo?”

“Sticking pins in dolls? Well, it figures; Johnny was a weirdo. He was always into something strange.”

“Such as what?”

“Oh, let’s see; one time I saw him catching pigeons up on the roof of our hotel. We were out on the road someplace, I can’t remember just where, and he was up there with a big net like some kind of Looney Tunes dog catcher. I thought maybe he didn’t like the chow in the place, but later, after the show, I dropped by his room, and there he was with the damn pigeon all split open on the table, poking through the guts with a pencil.”

“What was that all about?”

“That’s what I asked him. ‘What’re you up to?’ I said. He told me some fancy word I can’t remember, and when I asked him to put it in English, he said he was predicting the future. He said it was what the priests in ancient Rome used to do.”

“Sounds like that ol’ black magic had him in its spell,” I said.

Spider Simpson laughed. “You said it, brother. If it wasn’t pigeon guts, it was some other damn thing, tea leaves, palm readers, yoga. He wore a heavy gold ring with Hebrew characters all over it. As far as I know, he wasn’t Jewish.”

“What was he?”

“Damned if I know. Rosicrucian, or some damn thing. He carried a skull in his suitcase.”

“A human skull?”

“Once upon a time it was human. He said it came from the grave of a man who murdered ten people. Claimed it gave him power.”

“Sounds like he was putting you on,” I said.

“Could be. He used to sit and stare at it for hours before a performance. If that was a put-on, it was a damn good one.”

“Did you know Margaret Krusemark?” I asked.

“Margaret who?”

“Johnny Favorite’s fiancee.”