The saliva caught in the back of Ruta’s throat; she was too frightened to swallow. The old furnace flared suddenly to life, filling the room with an orange light that cast macabre shadows.
Ruta scuttled behind the gauzy ruin of a curtain hanging on a forgotten clothesline and watched through the grainy fabric. She couldn’t see Mr. Hobbes, but she could still hear him.
“ ‘… Babylon the Great, the Harlot Adorned and Cast upon the Sea, the Abomination of the Earth. And this was the fifth offering as commanded by the Lord God.’ ”
Ruta’s tongue was heavy in her mouth. Disquieting things skittered at the edges of her vision, but when she turned her head, they had vanished. Her left leg had gone numb.
“ ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.’ Are you listening, Ruby?”
Ruta held fast to her stick and was silent.
The man fed something into the furnace and it flared. “ ‘And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.’ ”
The man walked the perimeter of the room as he spoke. “ ‘But the unbelieving, and the abominable, the whoremongers and idolaters shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. For only the chosen shall rise with the Beast. And the world fall to ash.’ ”
He was on the far side of the room; she could tell by his voice. Ruta’s vision blurred and her stomach roiled. With horror, she realized she could not move her legs at all. What was happening to her? She thought back to the doused handkerchief and the coffee she’d drunk, and her heart beat wildly. What had been in them? She looked again at the stick in her hand and saw that it was a bone. Ruta cried out and dropped it in revulsion. The curtain shot back. Mr. Hobbes loomed over her like a fiery god.
“Don’t be put off by my appearance, my dear. I am only beginning to manifest.”
His arms and neck had been branded with strange tattoos, symbols she didn’t understand. The symbols rippled and bulged. His flesh moved as if something slithered just underneath. The fear could only find voice in her first language, and so she whispered the prayers in Polish.
The man frowned. “Prayers? I thought you were a modern girl for a modern age.”
Backlit by the furnace, the stranger was a dark demon. The numbness had reached her arms now. Ruta’s teeth chattered. “P-please. Please. I w-won’t tell nobody.”
“But you will.” The stranger dragged Ruta by her useless arm. “I told you that you had an important destiny to fulfill, and so you shall: You, Ruby Bates, are the beginning of the end. Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on….”
When he reached the wall just behind the furnace, he felt along it with his bone-pale fingers. A hidden door opened, revealing another, secret room inside.
“Nie, nie, nie,” Ruta whispered, as if she could will the door to stay closed.
“ ‘I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.’ ”
He smiled at her, and in his eyes she saw the fire and the endless swirling black, and her bladder let go.
“The ritual begins again,” the stranger said. He pulled Ruta into the hidden room, and all she could do was scream.
PASSING STRANGER
“New York City’s famous Hotsy Totsy Club presents the Count Carruthers Orchestra and the beautiful Hotsy Totsy Girls!”
In the wings, Memphis Campbell watched as the scantily clad chorines launched into a high-energy dance number. The club was on fire tonight. Gabe’s trumpet wailed, and the Count’s fingers tore up all eighty-eight keys on the piano. Gabe played a bit from “America the Beautiful,” turning it briefly into a dirge and letting his trumpet slide into despair before picking up the beat again. The white folks in the audience didn’t get it, but smiles broke out on the faces of the black folks.
Gabe hit his last piercing note. The audience applauded as the chorines bowed and sashayed offstage laughing and talking. A curvaceous girl named Jo stroked Memphis’s cheek as she walked past. “Hey, Memphis.”
“Hey, yourself.”
Memphis’s pal Alma rolled her eyes as she adjusted the front of her costume. “You making money or making time tonight, Memphis?”
“Both, I hope.”
Jo giggled and tickled her fingers up his arm. Memphis employed the smile with Jo. “ ‘PASSING stranger!’ ” he said, putting his hand to his heart. “ ‘You do not know how longingly I look upon you/You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking (it comes to me as of a dream)/I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you…’ ”
“You write that, baby?” Jo purred.
Memphis shook his head. “That’s Walt Whitman. ‘To a Stranger.’ You ever read his poems?”
“She doesn’t read anything other than the gossip columns,” Alma said. Jo gave her a murderous glance.
“You’re missing out,” Memphis said, aiming his full-wattage smile at Jo.
“This boy lives at the library over on 135th Street. Wants to be the next Langston Hughes,” Alma informed everyone.
“That so?” Jo asked.
“I could read some poems to you sometime.”
“How ’bout Sunday?” Jo said. She licked her lips.
“Sundays always were my lucky days.”
Alma rolled her eyes again and pulled Jo back into line. “Come on, girls. We don’t have time for foolishness. We need to get changed for the moon number.”
“Bye, baby.” Jo blew Memphis a kiss and he pretended to catch it.
“Memphis!” the stage manager bellowed around the cigar clenched between his teeth. “I’m not paying you to play with the girls. Papa Charles wants you. Hop to.”
In the narrow hallway, Memphis passed Gabe and the Count, who were on their way out back.
“Hey, boss,” Gabe said, gripping Memphis’s hand. “We going to that rent party on Saturday? Plenty of flossy chicks and whiskey.”
“Whose whiskey? Don’t get some coffin varnish off someone you don’t know and put us both in the morgue.” It was a fact that disreputable bootleggers sometimes mixed the booze with kerosene or gasoline.
Gabe spread his hands wide and grinned. “Leave it to Gabe, brother.”
Memphis laughed. Other than Isaiah, Gabe had been the one constant in his life. They’d met in the fourth grade, when Gabe had gotten into trouble with the principal for selling cigarettes behind the school and Memphis had been assigned to be his buddy and set him straight. It set the tone of their friendship: Memphis was still there to get Gabe out of trouble, and Gabe was there to help Memphis get into it. The one thing Gabe was serious about was music. He was one of the hottest trumpet players in town. Word was definitely spreading about the skinny kid with the big sound. Even Duke Ellington had come to hear Gabe play. It was one of the reasons Papa Charles kept him on. Gabe was a prankster and a troublemaker, but once he started playing that horn, it was all worth it.
“Going out for a smoke. You want some mezz?” Gabe asked. His eyes were already a little red.
Memphis shook his head. “Gotta keep a clear head, Gabe.”
“Suit yourself, Grandma.”