Roy’s smile hardened. “I’ll show you funny.”
With surprising quickness, he leaped up and grabbed a handful of her hair, squeezing her close to him. Theta struggled against his hold, but he had her good. He tugged hard. Electric pain shot from her scalp down her neck. Tears sprang to her eyes. It had been two years, long enough for this pain to be a shock.
The Roys of the world coming more and more.
Theta screamed as the heat roared through her, bright and hot and full of vengeance. The scream was not one of fear—it was an announcement. A warning before the charge. Roy fell back onto the floor, gasping. The fire burned brightly inside Theta; she glowed like an avenging angel. He put up a hand to block the bright heat. He was afraid, just as she had been all those times before.
“Wh-what are you?”
“Justice,” Theta said.
“Please,” Roy begged. “Please don’t.”
“Please don’t what?”
“Please don’t hurt me.”
How many times had she pleaded with him using those same words? And every time, he’d hurt her anyway. Until she’d learned not to make a sound.
“I want you to hurt, Roy. I want to see you suffer. Like you made me suffer. I want to hear you beg me to stop, you son of a bitch.”
Smoke rose from her coal-hot palms. When she pressed it to his cheek, it would hurt. It would mark him forever. She wanted that. Wanted him to wear her brand for the rest of his life. After all, she’d been wearing his on her soul all this time.
Roy was on his knees, begging. Theta took a step closer, and he shouted for help. Like she’d cried for help once upon a time, and no help came. She was done with that now. She reached for him. The door splintered open. And then she heard Memphis: “Theta! Theta, don’t do this. Please.” It was so hard to keep her mind on his words. The fire wanted out.
“Theta. We’re here. We’re all here.” Evie’s voice.
Vaguely, she was aware of them. There was Henry, looking more worried than she’d ever seen him. Evie, Sam, and Ling were beside him. Memphis took a step forward.
“You should stay back,” Theta said.
“See, I can’t seem to do that,” Memphis said.
He took another step forward.
“I could hurt you.”
“No, you won’t. You’re not Roy.”
Theta had started to cry. “I want to hurt him. I want to kill him.”
“I know that feeling,” Memphis said. “I got no right to ask you to let him go, but I’m asking anyway. For your sake, not his.”
“Get this crazy bitch offa me!” Roy screeched.
Theta turned to him, palm out. Her body was aflame. She got close enough for him to shrink back from her heat. Know what’s in your heart, she heard Miss Addie telling her. “Settle,” she whispered to herself, and, as if it had always known she was in charge, the heat abated. Theta shivered from the sudden loss. But not for long, because her friends had her in a hug like a shield. Roy jumped and ran for the door. On his way out, he pointed a finger at Theta and her friends. “This ain’t over. I’ll get you for this!”
Theta and Memphis were locked in each other’s arms. Memphis rubbed her back and Theta buried her face in his shoulder. Then she lifted her head and smiled at him. They kissed while the others looked away.
“I, uh, don’t think we’re needed anymore,” Henry said. They started down the steps.
“Hey! Where you going?” Theta called after. “I’m starving!”
Ling grinned. “Lucky for you I know a good restaurant.”
They gathered around a table in the back of the Tea House and demolished plate after plate of Mr. Chan’s best dishes.
With a satisfied groan, Sam leaned back against his chair, his hands on his protruding gut. “Ling. How would your mother feel about a Jewish son-in-law?”
Theta sat next to Memphis and watched Mr. and Mrs. Chan laughing about some private joke. They were a mixed couple, and they were happy. No one seemed to be bothering them. But they were also here in the few blocks of Chinatown. What happened when they crossed Canal Street into the rest of the city? What happened when they went out into the rest of the country?
Memphis passed Theta a bowl of rice. Their fingertips touched and she smiled.
Evie raised her cup of tea. “To Theta.”
“To Theta,” the others echoed.
“What’s the matter?” Ling asked, because Theta was crying.
“This is the first family dinner I ever had,” she said.
“The first of many,” Evie promised.
“You did it,” Memphis said. “You stood up to Roy. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
Theta nodded. She had won this round. But Roy would be back. She knew him too well.
On the way back to the Bennington, Theta stopped the taxi outside the theater on Forty-second Street, taking a long look at it. She scribbled something on the back of a sheet of paper torn from Memphis’s notebook, addressed it to Mr. Ziegfeld, and shoved it under the theater’s closed doors. The note read: Dear Flo, Thanks for everything. I quit. Theta Knight.
THIS LIFE WAS GOOD
Papa Charles sat at his polished mahogany desk in his office at the Hotsy Totsy with his ledger books in front of him. Around him were the trappings of the successful life he’d made for himself since arriving in New York at the age of sixteen with nothing more than his wits and his dreams: A photograph of Papa Charles in his Elks Club sash, shaking hands with Harlem’s elite, another of him with Harlem’s winning basketball team, the Harlem Rens. An antique globe nestled in its wooden cradle. The cigar smoldering in a marble ashtray—a gift from a famous bandleader who’d played the club. The last of the Hotsy Totsy’s revelers had stumbled out at six or seven, just as the sun made its entrance. It was eight now, and except for his bodyguard Claude on the other side of the door, Papa Charles was alone. It was good. This life was good.
Dutch Schultz and the white bootleggers were a problem, though. Seraphina had been right about that. He should have made a stand well before now. He’d thought that using Memphis’s talents would appease Owney Madden and forge an alliance. But those men only cared about money and power. They were loyal to a code of violence, nothing more. When the hour was decent, Papa Charles would go to Seraphina. That only left one other thing to make right.
Papa Charles pulled out the letter of recommendation for City College that Regina Andrews had asked him to write for Memphis. He signed his name, sealed it up in an envelope, and left it for the day’s mail.
There was a knock at the door.
Had Claude forgotten something?
“What is it?” Papa Charles called.
The door opened, and two white men in charcoal-gray suits entered so quietly they might as well have been shadows. They shut the door behind them, and even this was noiseless. Where was Claude?
“Charles King?” the smaller man said.
“Who wants to know?”