Authors: Walter Mosley
They both sank to their knees in an embrace.
“I want you, princess.”
“You know we’d both get sick if we did that, Winchy.”
“I don’t care. I want you. I need to have you.”
Claudia stroked his skinny, heaving chest and purred, “You will be the father of my children. You will.”
The moan that issued from Winch’s lips would have broken the hardest of hearts. But Claudia simply disengaged from the embrace and lifted her dagger.
“Put out your arm, Winch.”
“But it hurts,” he said, looking as coy as pure evil can.
“Put out your arm now.”
She etched the sixth cross on the underside of Winch’s left forearm. Then she held the bowl below the wound while he massaged out the blood.
“Six times on one side and six on the other,” Claudia chanted. “It’s our own alchemy, father. It is the blood of our children.”
When the bowl was a quarter filled, Claudia rose, saying, “It’s time,” and the door behind her groaned again.
When Winch looked up and saw that she was gone, he laughed loudly and for a long time.
While Claudia Heart and her Special Chosen had gone to the Jacobi mine, her remaining acolytes — men and women — stayed in the commune off Haight Street in San Francisco. They were waiting for Heart’s return, but she had already decided that she was never going back. Her servants had served their purpose; they had already gotten all of her that she would give.
Bonhomme, Barber, and Briggs interviewed many of the depressed followers but found no answers. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to help. They would have done anything to find their lost love. They would have turned her in to the police just to see her again.
Now Claudia lived in the former gold mine’s cafeteria with her dog, Max. Her Chosen, originally fifteen virile young men, and Bob Halston, lived in the bunkhouse.
In the cafeteria Claudia Heart cooked up the blood biscuits for her Chosen, only twelve after Winch Fargo’s slaughtering rage.
Claudia spent chaste days gauging her ovulation.
He’d come in wearing a long trench coat, taken off one of his human victims, to cover the blood. He staggered up the stairs and shoved the bloody clothes in the bottom drawer of the dresser. Then he lay back, near death from the harsh shine of Eileen Martel’s final moments.
“She was strong,” Gray Man thought. “The strongest of them all.”
Gray Man had killed all the hard ones. Now it was just the children, the strumpet, the other two women, and some things not human. One, probably a tree, a couple of hundred miles to the south, would wait for him. He’d track down the coyote and the dog last.
And then there was that other one. The one who had somehow gotten their light leaked into his veins. The one Gray Man had divined from Phyllis Yamauchi’s dying blood. The one Gray Man had hoped would give up his masters. Chance. But he was nothing, hardly worth the notice of Death; except that he had brought the girl.
“Alacrity,” Gray Man mouthed in his bed. “I’ve got a real treat for you, child.”
He lay back in Horace LaFontaine’s old room, weakened to the point of real death. Gray Man liked the feeling of being so close to expiration. He wanted to die. He was Death. He almost let the final shade come down on him. Almost let the light out of the box.
But there was the child, Alacrity. The passion he felt for her was beyond anything he’d known, beyond anything Horace LaFontaine had ever experienced. Her life beat so strongly, completely free from human frailty, and as powerful as the moment of death when the struggle is its greatest.
Gray Man wanted her.
But first he had to rest.
He closed his eyes and descended into the depths of death without dying. He sighed deeply and an instant later, when those eyes opened again, Gray Man was gone.
Horace looked around the room, feeling weaker than he could ever remember. Even when he had been dying of cancer, he could lift a finger, moan from the pain. But now all he could do was to look out and see the room he’d died in years before.
It’s like I’m a ghost
, he thought.
Like I ain’t even here, but I never left
.
The sun went down while he lay there in darkness, remembering all the things that he’d done in his wasted life. Then he thought of all the things he hadn’t done. He’d never learned a thing on purpose, never helped a soul without helping himself. He’d never even done a single thing because it was the right thing to do. Even Death, old Gray Man, did what he thought was right. It was right, Death thought, to kill. He risked his own life to achieve his goals.
A knock came on the door.
A voice, probably the girl, Joclyn Kyle. Horace didn’t understand the words.
She must have gone
, he thought,
probably thinks I’m out prowling around like he does
.
Horace tried to lift his arm but was still too weak. He could feel Gray Man’s presence way down in his mind. He knew how drained the devil was and hoped that Gray Man would die. Even his own death would be worth that.
Horace thought of the man he killed in prison. Prescott Jones, a Brooklyn fence. Horace’s best friend, Vinnie the Cat, had gotten the contract from his girlfriend. She told Vinnie and Vinnie told Horace that a man called Beldin Starr needed Prescott Jones silenced before his trial in June. Prescott was going to testify against Starr.
The deal was worth ten thousand dollars and the best lawyer in New York to get on Horace’s appeal, which was botched by the prosecutor but also ill represented by an uncaring public defender.
Horace was on the good-conduct program. He had a lot of places he could go in the prison with his mail wagon. He was in for armed robbery and assault, but he’d never got in trouble once they locked him up.
Prescott had a job in the lower kitchen. He washed the big pots and prepped vegetables and fruits, anything that needed cutting. Usually he had a partner, Willie Josephson, but Horace found out one day that Willie was sick, or pretending to be, and Prescott was alone.
The lower kitchen was a big room with a lot of waist-high counters piled with pots and bags of raw fruits and vegetables. All Horace had to do was to put his canvas cart in a broom closet, squat down in the rear corner, and wait.
Horace, lying there in the dark of his sister’s old house, remembered squatting down on that slimy wooden floor. He could almost smell the insecticide and detergent. The aluminum counters were cold against his arm and cheek. There was a round metal knife sharpener at his feet. The sharpening steel was maybe fifteen inches long and just thick enough. The perfect weapon to crack bone efficiently.
Horace’s heart fluttered when he heard the door open. He reached for his weapon and held his breath. Somewhere in the back of his mind he railed against killing this man. But it was already too late. There was only one way out of that room.
He waited a few minutes and then rose. He couldn’t see Prescott above the pots and pans, so he went down the aisle, looking. In the fourth aisle he saw the small white man. He was squatting down as Horace had done. His back was partly turned, but Horace could still see what he was up to.
Prescott was down on one knee masturbating, making little grunting sounds.
Horace knew what was going on. Prescott had a cellmate and was too shy to be heard enjoying a little jack-off. It was a pleasure to get alone and make some noise, maybe even call out the pinup’s name.
“Oh, yeah!” Prescott moaned.
Then the knife-sharpening rod cracked his skull open.
Horace tried to stop thinking about it. He actually got out of prison and collected $2,500 from Beldin Starr. Starr said that he had used the rest for the lawyer.
Horace didn’t argue about the money. He couldn’t sleep for weeks without thinking about the sound when he cracked open Prescott’s head. He just wanted to spend a few moments with a whore without thinking about Prescott’s last orgasm.
Finally he just wanted his fix. A little brown powder, and he was all right. He was just fine.
“Mr. Redstar,” Joclyn whispered. “Mr. Redstar.”
Horace opened his eyes to see the dark young woman. It was morning, and Horace was happy that he’d awakened in his own body.
“Mr. Redstar, are you okay?”
“My name ain’t Redstar,” the dead man uttered. “Not Redstar. LaFontaine. Horace LaFontaine.”
“That was old Miss Elza’s maiden name,” Joclyn said. “LaFontaine.”
“You knew Elza?”
“She used to own this house and she rented out rooms. She rented to my uncle, but she was already real sad because her husband died and her brother disappeared. My uncle took care’a her and when she died, she left the buildin’ to him.” Joclyn reached out to touch Horace’s tear. “Were you related to her? You know Miss Brown across the street says that you look a lot like Miss Elza’s brother, but she knows that that couldn’t be because he had bad cancer and even though he disappeared, he’d have to be dead by now.”
“I am her brother, Joclyn. But I’m somebody else too.”
“Huh?”
Horace felt stronger in the morning. But the task of telling his story seemed impossible.
“Do you believe in the devil, Joclyn?”
“I don’t know. I guess I do. I mean there sure is a lotta evil, and I cain’t see where it makes no real sense.”
“The devil is in me, girl. He’s in me.” Horace lifted his right hand and tapped the fingertips against his chest. “Right in here.”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded but still looked unconvinced.
“Did you hear about what happened in the park in Berkeley yesterday?” he asked.
“You mean the killin’s?”
“Look in the bottom drawer, honey,” Horace said. “Look in the bottom drawer down there.”
Joclyn went to the dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer. She took out the bundle of clothes. Horace turned his head to watch as she unfurled the trench coat. She gasped when she saw the bloody jacket and pants, the shoes covered in dried gore. Then she looked up at him and slowly rerolled the parcel. She stood up with the armful and left without saying another word.
“Mr. Redstar. Are you awake?”
It was night again and Horace felt almost strong enough to sit up. Joclyn was sitting on the bed beside him.
“How are you?” she asked.
All day he had been dozing, coming awake at every sound, expecting the police to come. Horace thought that it would hurt Gray Man’s pride so much to be jailed that he might die, or kill himself, from the humiliation. But they hadn’t come.
“What happened?” he asked the girl.
“I burnt your clothes in the backyard. You don’t have to worry.”
“You what? Why?”
“You were just sick, Mr. Redstar. That’s all. But now you’re okay. I’ll take care of you. You don’t have to be scared. They said on the radio about them killin’s, but nobody knows what really happened. All I know is that you couldn’t have done it. You ain’t even strong enough to pick me up. You just got confused, Mr. Redstar. You just thought you did bad ’cause you was there an’ saw all that blood.” She had taken his hand in both of hers. She had dry hands, working hands.
Horace forgot about Gray Man for the first time since his resurrection. He was thinking that no one had ever loved him outside his mother and sister. He felt a tear run down to his nose. Joclyn, smiling, brushed it off with her hard fingertip.
“I ain’t gonna give you up, Mr. Redstar.”
At that moment Gray Man came awake deep down in Horace’s mind. He rose quickly to the surface, pushing Horace aside.
“Mr. Redstar?” Joclyn asked, seeing a change in his face.
Gray Man sat up and reached out for the girl.
Watch your little toy die, Horace
, Gray Man thought. He put his hand on Joclyn’s neck and smiled.
No
.
Gray Man’s smile turned to puzzlement.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Redstar?” Joclyn asked.
No
.
Gray Man tried to increase his pressure but could not. Horace tried to make him put down his hand, but that too failed.
“Are you okay?” Joclyn wanted to know.
Let her be, devil
, Horace cried.
Do you think you can order me?
I think that Joclyn’s a friend and I’ll fuck you up if you thinkin’ ’bout messin
’
around
. Horace felt his mind inhabiting the same body as Gray Man. He knew that the devil was still weak, still recovering from his fight with the old lady. He was risking his own life by trying to kill the girl.
“I have to go,” Gray Man said to Joclyn.
“But you’re sick.”
“I have to go away for a while. I have to go but I’ll come back soon.” He took his hand away from her throat and smiled. “Go on now, let me get dressed.”
When she had gone Horace let out a shout of life in the chambers of the death master’s mind.
N
ESTA VINE RETURNED TO
the Bay Area four days after the massacre in the park. She went back to her grandparents’ house and was met at the front door by a familiar-looking black woman, somewhere in her forties.
“Yes?” the small woman asked of the girl.
“Who are you?” Nesta asked.
“Renee Ferris.”
Renee Ferris, of course,
Nesta thought. Renee was from a group of her mother’s cousins who lived down near La Jolla. She hadn’t seen Renee since she was a child. And Renee would never recognize her, because Nesta had become the image in the mirror. Taller and jet black with bigger feet. Her hair had taken on a coarse straw color and her eyes were bright amber. Her face, which was once round and sad, had lengthened and thinned.
“What are you doing here?” Nesta asked Renee.
“Say what, child? Who are you?”
“Oh,” Nesta said, remembering herself. “I’m sorry, ma’am. My name is Ebony, Nesta’s friend from Back East.”
“Oh. Oh.” Mrs. Ferris looked down the stairs and then up the street. “Is Nesta here?”
“No, ma’am. The last I heard from her she was in Korea. But she said that if I ever came to Oakland, I should look up her grandma and granddad,” the tall woman said.
Renee Ferris looked unaware into her cousin’s face and said, “My auntie, Mrs. Charm, died six months ago.”