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.”