Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2) (37 page)

“Memphis! Memphis!”

Outside Floyd’s Barbershop, Memphis turned to see Rene, one of Papa Charles’s runners, waving him down. “Memphis! Papa Charles wants you.”

“What for?” Memphis said, his heart racing a little at the thought. Papa Charles didn’t just send for people without reason.

“Didn’t say. Just said to come get you and bring you to the Hotsy Totsy. Now.”

A crow cawed from the top of the lamppost.

“What’re you squawking at me for? Why don’t you make yourself useful and tell me what Papa Charles wants?”

The crow squawked again and fell silent.

“Thanks for nothing, bird,” Memphis said, hugging himself against the cold.

At the Hotsy Totsy, Memphis entered Papa Charles’s well-appointed office, nodding at Jules and Emmanuel, Papa’s bodyguards, who sat outside his door, Tommy guns resting on their laps.

“Memphis, come in,” Papa Charles called from behind his big desk. “Have a seat, son.”

Memphis perched on the edge of the chair. He tried to lick his lips but his mouth was dry. The heavy smoke from Papa Charles’s cigar made his eyes burn. Papa Charles folded his hands on his desk and looked at Memphis.

“Memphis, I’ve known you for a long time. Knew your daddy well. Your mama, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I’ve always looked after your family, haven’t I? I made certain that Isaiah had a new baseball glove, or I sent one of my boys over to fix Octavia’s icebox when it wasn’t working?”

“Yes, sir,” Memphis said, his unease growing. Was he in some sort of trouble?

“And when you got arrested a few months ago, who got you out of jail?”

“Those cops framed me. They were dirty for Dutch Schultz and trying to send you a message,” Memphis protested. If he hadn’t been working for Papa Charles in the first place, he wouldn’t have gotten pinched, so it seemed unfair of his boss to bring it up now.

Papa Charles made a
We all know how it works
gesture. “Still,” he said, blowing out circles of smoke. “I have done you favors, yes? The time has come I need a favor from you.”

Memphis swallowed hard. “What sort of favor?”

“You know Mr. Carrington, owns the big store on One Hundred Twenty-fifth?”

Carrington’s was a department store where mostly white people shopped. Memphis had been inside once, but when one of the store detectives seemed to go everywhere Memphis did, he’d left in a hurry.

“Yes, sir. I know it,” Memphis said tightly.

“Mr. Carrington has been a good friend to us. And he needs a favor. I heard this morning that his wife has the sleeping sickness.” Papa Charles tapped his cigar against the side of a silver ashtray. “Part of my job is to look out for Harlem, for what is in our best interests. We don’t need the trouble people are having down in Chinatown. Don’t want the health department up here shutting down our businesses and restaurants and clubs. It would be very bad for all of us if this got out.”

“So why doesn’t Mr. Carrington get a doctor? He can afford one.”

“Doctors haven’t been able to cure the sleeping sickness. Mr. Carrington remembers you, remembers your work at the Miracle Mission.”
Papa Charles picked a stray thread from his spotless wool trousers. “If we do a good turn for Mr. Carrington, he’ll do a good turn for us. Like help to keep Dutch Schultz’s men from causing us trouble.”

The whole mess of the situation was dawning on Memphis. “Papa Charles, you know I don’t do that anymore. Not since my mother.”

“Memphis,” Papa Charles said on a sigh, and then he gave Memphis the sort of stare that got things done in Harlem. His words were quiet and deliberate. “You think I was born yesterday? I knew the minute Noble Bishop came into Floyd’s talking about a heavenly healing that it was you. Do you deny it?”

Memphis looked down at his hands.

“Do. You.
Deny.
It?”

“No, sir,” Memphis said, his voice nearly a whisper. “But I’ve only done it that one time,” Memphis lied. “I don’t know if I can do it again.”

“Then I guess now’s as good a time as any to find out.” Papa Charles stubbed out his cigar. “Grab your hat and come with me.”

Out in front of the Carringtons’ apartment building on 127th Street, a handful of schoolgirls skipped rope and sang a clapping song. They giggled as Memphis walked up the stoop and Papa Charles rang the bell, but Memphis was too uneasy to play along with them and they picked up their clapping song again: “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black…” they sang, and a shiver crawled up Memphis’s spine.

“Afternoon, Bessie. We’re here to see Mr. Carrington. I believe he’s expecting us,” Papa Charles said, handing over his hat.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Charles,” Bessie answered, taking their coats, too. She smiled shyly at Memphis. “Hey, Memphis.”

“Hey, Bessie,” Memphis said.

“Lord, I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said in hushed tones as she led them upstairs. “I’m scared to even change the bedsheets.”

They followed Bessie down the hall to a closed door, where she knocked gingerly. “Mr. Carrington? Mr. Charles and Mr. Campbell are here to see you, sir,” she said.

“Show them in,” came a muffled voice.

Bessie opened the door wide, stepping aside so that Memphis and Papa Charles could enter the sick woman’s room, then closed the door quickly behind her as she left.

The bedroom was still and gloomy. The drapes had been drawn. Mrs. Carrington lay in the four-poster bed with her mouth partially open. Her lips quivered just slightly, as if she were about to speak, and her fingers twitched where they lay against the covers. Under the lids, her eyes moved back and forth. A cluster of red marks showed on the pale map of her neck. Memphis tried not to stare at the marks, but he couldn’t help it.

“Thank you for coming,” Mr. Carrington said. He smelled of liquor. “Do you need anything before you, um…?”

Papa Charles placed his hands on Memphis’s shoulders. “He’ll be just fine. Won’t you, Memphis?”

“Yes, sir,” Memphis croaked, and he hoped that was true.

“Would you all kindly bow your heads?” Memphis asked Mr. Carrington and Papa Charles. It wasn’t that he wanted them to pray; he just didn’t like being watched. It made him nervous. Once the men complied, Memphis approached the bed and placed his hands lightly on Mrs. Carrington’s arm.
Whatever is good in this world, be with me now
, he thought and shut his eyes.

The connection came faster this time, the current of it traveling up Memphis’s arms. Under the warm yellow sun, the hands of ancestor spirits welcomed him. But no sooner had Memphis joined to Mrs. Carrington than he sensed that something was wrong. Every time the healing began to take hold, it was quickly undone. Something was fighting him.

His mother’s voice came to him. “Memphis, stop!”

His mother was there in the tall reeds, and she looked scared.

“Mama?” Memphis said.

The spirits of his ancestors faded into mist. Angry clouds moved across the sun. It grew colder.

“Memphis!” His mother choked and coughed. A tuft of feathers
tumbled from her lips. Her eyes were huge; her voice rasped toward a squawk. “Memphis, get out
now
!”

But it was too late. His body twitched and jerked as he was pulled under a great wave, and when he surfaced again, it was as if he were awake inside Mrs. Carrington’s dream. He was on a blue bicycle, riding through a bright green field of freshly mown grass that smelled of high summer. Mrs. Carrington’s laughter echoed in his ears. She was young and free and happy. The happiness affected Memphis like a drug. His body relaxed. It was nice here in Mrs. Carrington’s dream, and Memphis struggled to remember his purpose.

He was supposed to heal this woman. To wake her up.

As he renewed his concentration, a shrieking voice broke through.
“Who dares disturb my dream? I will make you live in nightmares.…”

The warmth vanished. Cold flooded through his veins. Memphis wanted to break the connection, but he couldn’t. Something had him, strong as an undertow. He struggled against its pull, but it was no use. The bicycle, the field, the sun—all of it went away. It was dark now, and he couldn’t move. Where was he? Far away, through a dot of light, lay a train station. One minute, the station was beautiful; the next, it was nothing more than a rotted, filthy ruin.

Memphis had been trying to heal Mrs. Carrington, and still, they were joined. He felt what she felt. Her mind desperately wanted to drift back to the happy time in the grass and the blue bicycle. Her yearning was a gnawing hunger clawing at Memphis’s guts, as if its craving would never be satisfied. But Memphis sensed, too, that the dream was draining Mrs. Carrington’s life force. In order to heal her, Memphis would first need to stop her dreaming. But how?

Wake up, Mrs. Carrington
, he thought.
There are people who want you to come back. Wake up.

A threatening growl interrupted Memphis. He lost his concentration. What was that sound? The dark sparked with flashes of green. A figure approached. She wore a long dress and a veil. Mrs. Carrington’s heartbeat sped up; so did Memphis’s. The tunnel was loud with an
awful din. The ghostly figure came closer. Memphis could sense great rage and sorrow in her, something beyond his healing.

“Who intrudes on my dreams?” the woman shrieked. And then her eyes widened with recognition and a strange joy. “So much life in you! More than all the others. You could feed these dreams for a long, long time.
Dream with me.
”

Her mouth was on his, sucking the life from him even as her kiss promised him everything he ever wanted. Flocks of hopes fluttered past Memphis’s eyes: Memphis and Theta sitting beneath a lemon tree under a warm sun, a typewriter on his lap. Isaiah laughing as a little dog jumped for a ball. Their mother hanging wash on the line, smiling over at her boys while his father smoked his pipe and read his newspaper. But when Memphis struggled against this dreaming, nightmares intruded: Soldiers blown apart. His mother wasting away to nothing on her deathbed. A fearsome wood and the man in the stovepipe hat holding out his palm, emblazoned with the eye and lightning bolt. “You. And I. Are joined.”

These terrible things turned him back toward the beautiful dreaming.

His eyes blinked open to buttery sun shining down on a grand town house. The door opened, and a butler welcomed Memphis inside. “Evening, Mr. Campbell. Take your coat, sir? Everybody is awfully excited to hear you tonight.”

The butler handed Memphis a program:
Miss A’Lelia Walker presents new poetry by Memphis John Campbell.

“Just like Langston Hughes, Mr. Campbell. You’ve made it, sir.” The butler paused outside a second door and smiled wide. “Would you like to go inside, sir?”

The last of Memphis’s resistance gave way. All he wanted was to have that door opened for him and to walk right through. “Yes. Yes, I would. Thank you.”

The second door opened into a grand parlor filled with elegant people who greeted Memphis’s arrival with applause. The applause grew, and Memphis never wanted it to stop. He was losing himself to
the room and the joy and the want. Theta blew him a kiss from the front row. The great A’Lelia Walker, patron of Harlem poets, writers, and artists, drew back a curtain, and behind it was a table holding a stack of books with Memphis’s name on the spine.

“
My
book,” Memphis murmured, a half smile on his lips.

From high atop a shelf, the crow squawked something fierce.

“Go away, bird,” Memphis said. “This is
my
night.”

When he looked toward the table again, he saw that it sat inside a long, dark tunnel.

“You don’t want to keep them waiting, do you, Mr. Campbell?” A’Lelia Walker asked. Her hand threatened to snap the curtain closed, shutting him out.

“No, ma’am,” Memphis said.

The growling was back. It was thicker now, almost a hornet’s nest buzz. The smiling audience crowded around Memphis. “
Dream with us
…” they whispered, and urged him forward toward the table of books and the hungry dark waiting behind it.

With a great flapping of feathers, the bird caromed about the room. In the mirror, Memphis saw the warm sands and his ancestors. One of those ancestors, a man with a tall staff, spoke to him in a language Memphis did not know but which resonated deep inside him, urging caution.
Look closely now
, it seemed to say.

The muscles of Memphis’s neck tensed against some unseen threat and his heartbeat doubled. He turned his head. Mrs. Carrington stood in the corner, her face pale and her mouth struggling to speak.

“Don’t. Promise,” she wheezed. “It’s. A. Trap.”

Memphis opened one of the books that carried his name, riffling through the pages.

Blank. Every single page, blank.

Look closely now.

“Where are my words?” he asked.

“Words don’t matter. Dream with us.”

But Memphis knew that words did matter.
Look closely now.

“Where are my words? Why have you taken my stories?” he asked.

As soon as he said it, the curtain to his dream slammed shut. A’Lelia Walker vanished, and the edges of her shining parlor peeled away. He was back in the long dark tunnel now, with those strange greenish lights winking on, raining down. The crow left its perch. It pecked at Memphis’s cheek. He gasped and put a hand to his wound. Blood pooled on his fingertips. Quickly, Memphis grabbed hold of Mrs. Carrington’s wrist. In his head, he heard the distant drums of his ancestors, and, acting on some primal instinct, he smeared her with his blood. Memphis cried out as a great roaring rushed through him, like a dammed ocean unleashing its power at last.